May 22, 2013

• May 22, 2013

  Hello...

  I'm taking a break today, not that I've done a lot much lately anyway, but because I'm too tired from lack of sleep and utterly unmotivated to pack.  I'm still recovering from being sick.  Going on for more than a month now.

  I wanted to share some of Ayla's small improvements and updates.

  Last week's:

  - She started singing all the songs she's learning in school.  
    The list of songs she's been singing: 
        - Feelings by Signing Time - I can't find a better version - Ayla tries signing as well
        - America, the Beautiful
        - You're a Grand Old Flag
        - Zippity Doo Dah
        - [Our city's name] has the best schools - Yeah right!  I roll my eyes at this.  It's like brainwashing.
        - God Bless America

  - She has been able to answer questions very well since last week.  Every day when I pick her up at the bus stop I ask her "Did you have fun at school today?  What did you do?" and she'll tell me what she made at school during arts and crafts accurately.  They are going through the alphabet and doing each letter for a few days.  Last week it was the letter W.  Sometimes she would tell me "I made a dolphin" but it was actually a whale (that looked like a dolphin).  And other times she'll say "I made a W," "I made a yo-yo," etc.  Just the fact that she's actually answering me is such a progress.  I've been waiting to have conversations with my child even before she was born!  That was one developmental milestone that I always looked forward to.  Alas, it is coming along albeit slowly.

  - Our dog Soonie tripped and fell while walking so Ayla went over to her and said "어디 아야 했어?  여기 아퍼?" (Where are you hurt?  Does it hurt here?)

  - She was still (even this week) having nightmares about going to school and constantly saying "no go" whenever she could.  It was the first thing she says in the morning when she wakes up, when she wakes up in the middle of the night, before going to sleep, throughout the day even after she came back from school!  She tells me everything that she does at school in an indirect way, by telling me everything she doesn't want to do.  "No go to library, no play with blocks, no play with kitchen, no read books, no use glue" and she because she loves riding the school bus she says "Only school bus, no class?" in a question format to receive confirmation from me.  This is also true when she says "no go."  It is always in a question format in order to get confirmation.  She does very well while at school because she knows she has no power there so she participates and goes along with everything.  She is probably their best and most compliant student.  But as soon as she's home she's constantly fighting to go.  And she's always repeating "mommy pick you up at the bus stop" and wanting me to repeat it because it keeps her mind at ease.

  - She started prescription allergy medicine...on top of all the medicines she's been taking.    One more month of seasonal tree pollen allergies to go for both Ayla and me.

  - When I told her I had to take a shower she said "Mommy is dirty again" - LOL  

  - While playing with the phone I heard her say "Oh wait a second, I'm talking on the phone right now" and "Oopsie!" 

  - Usually whenever she was asked unexpected questions she was not able to answer them.  Like if I'm not wearing any socks and I would ask her "where are mommy's socks?" she wouldn't be able to answer "no socks."  Last week when she was playing with the therapist with toy cookies with numbers on the back and the therapist asked her "where is number 12?" when there was no number 12 cookie and she answered "I can't find it."  This is a huge improvement.  It took her a while to answer that but the fact that she answered it was a breakthrough.

  - She has a tendency to grab and snatch objects when she wants them instead of asking them and our therapist normally says "don't snatch" and last week Ayla preemptively scripted "don't snatch" when the therapist held back an object she wanted.

   

  This week's:

  - She was unable to give a total when asked "how many [fill in the blank] are there?" questions and instead would start counting 1, 2, 3, etc.  This Monday when asked "how many cookies are in the cookie jar?" she actually answered with a total count of the cookies instead of counting!

  - While playing with her Little People school bus and characters she said "You wanna go in the bus?  Then stop screaming!" and "Ah uh!  Don't sit there!" - re-enacting what she saw or was said to her.

  - During the winter we would give her heated milk but since the weather has been getting warmer she's been specifically asking me for 'cold' milk but today she surprised me by telling me specifically that she wanted "warm milk."  

  - She sneezed this morning and everything in front of her got wet from her sneeze so she asked me to wipe it but I only wiped her mouth and didn't realize other things were wet until she said "it's still wet."  I was surprised that she was able to say that.

   

  It seems like every day she is surprising us with her speech improvements.  It may not seem like much compared to NT kids but I appreciate these small improvements so much.

  I wanted to share some articles related to Autism:

  I thought this article was interesting for future babies who might have ASD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xehrNxliIM&list=PLA95AC58852197711

  This is for fellow special needs moms (previously posted on Mother's Day on my FB):
  1.http://special-ism.com/a-letter-to-the-moms-of-kids-with-special-isms/
  2.http://adiaryofamom.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/dear-you/ 
  3.http://nationalautismassociation.org/another-child-with-autism-drowns-before-you-judge-know-the-research/ - "In 2009, a study done by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that mothers of children with autism showed physiological markers for chronic stress comparable to that of soldiers in combat." 

  And this last link is for those questioning and criticizing the parents of the Autistic kids that were found dead last week after they had wandered away from safety: http://nationalautismassociation.org/the-wrong-questions-are-being-asked-about-mikaela-lynch/

  Wandering and elopement are serious and common problems with Autism families.  Fortunately Ayla only runs and she doesn't wander much.  Her wandering is fairly controllable.
  If you happen to help search efforts for autistic kids who have wandered off please make sure to check bodies of water first because autistic kids are often attracted to water but they do not know how to swim.

   

  For picture updates please go to my Instagram - http://instagram.com/yjk76
  One thing I ask is that if you request to follow me and your IG is not public then please allow me to follow you too.  In other words, please publicize your photos to me since I am doing the same.  As you can see my pictures are not public and I like to keep it that way.  Thanks!

  • 6:43 pm
  • Comments Off