This Week's Super Moments

Here are this week's super moments

1) I'll start with this one because it is most recent. Zoey went to the doctor today and had no problems. She was a little bit of a handful in the exam room while we were waiting for the doctor, but considering we were sitting in there for 20 minutes, I'm ok with that. She talked to him and did what he said. She answered his questions. Much different experience than her 3 year check up where she refused to acknowledge him and just cried.

2) Zoey transitioned wonderfully today from speech directly to daycare thanks to the use of her visual schedule. I had shown her the schedule first thing in the morning (she asks for it before she even gets out of bed) and as soon as we got in the car after speech, she said "now we go to Kiwis".

3) Zoey appears to have made a friend at daycare. For the past couple of weeks when I dropped her off another little girl would come up and say hi to Zoey, but Zoey kind of clung to my side. I mentioned this girl to Scott and he said he had seen Zoey with her. On Monday when Scott picked Zoey up from daycare, she told him about playing dolls with this girl and she was able to tell us her name (which is Rahena and personally not an easy name for me to remember). Today when I dropped Zoey off, she asked where Rahena was and when Rehena saw Zoey she yelled "Zoey" and they immediately began playing with each other under the tree house. It made my heart melt. Zoey has been doing well with her peers at Jam, but I kind of feel that to some extent that interaction is more forced, so I am glad to see she made a connection on her own.

4) The other day when I was driving Zoey home from speech, she was in the back of the car "reading" a book. One of the characters was telling the teacher she was mad because it was her turn and her friends wouldn't let her play. I was happy that Zoey recognized the emotion and then did the appropriate thing of having the character tell the teacher. One of my big goals with Zo right now is feeling identification and expression. At times there seems to be a disconnect. For instance, at speech sometimes when she is given something she will hold it to her face and in a crying voice say "thank you, thank you". The therapists ask her if she is sad and she says no she is happy, but her face and behavior is sad. Same sort of thing today when I picked her up. She was sitting with all the other kids in the tree house for story time and saw me when I walked in the door. She starts crying and yelling "mommy, mommy". I asked her if she was sad and she said no she was happy. So anyhow, I was happy to hear her correctly label a feeling.

5) All in all I think that Zoey is becoming more social. Not too long ago, like maybe two or three months, she would hide and refuse to interact with people she didn't know or hadn't seen for awhile, even her grandparents. She would say "no" when they tried to talk to her. Lately she has been the exact opposite. She says hello to everyone she sees. She orders her own food when we go out to eat. She's just miss chatty (now we need to work on the appropriateness of those interactions, but for now I'm happy she isn't so withdrawn). This weekend we had a picnic with Scott's family. Without really any hesitation, Zoey was talking to and interacting with Scott's aunt. I think Aunt Phyl got more Zoey time that day then she has in total in Zoey's 3.5 years. Zoey also played with her grandpa, who normally she would hide from (I think she was always a little scared because he is so tall). She talked to her great grandma and wanted to make sure that Grammie was included in the game we were playing. She even helped push Grammie's wheelchair (now Grammie wasn't as big a fan of that. LOL). It was just a great day and a good reminder of how far Zoey has come socially.

This Week's Super Moments

I keep thinking that I haven't been writing on this blog enough, but when I think about it I realize that is actually a good thing because it means I am not needing to vent. LOL! So if all I write for a while is Super Moment posts then that is fine by me.

I belong to a Facebook group for parents of special needs children and Tuesdays there is always a place to post the triumphs for the week. I always laugh when I read some of the posts on there because to a parent without a special needs child some of the things that are posted can seem like such a small, trivial event. However, I laugh because I can totally relate. That's kind of what these posts are about. The people who read this blog (and I think there are like five) may not understand why the things I post are important, but it's important to me to acknowledge what others may view as small, because to us they are big.

1) Zoey ate a hamburger. We were out to dinner with Scott's dad for our birthdays and Zoey insisted that she get a hamburger for dinner. This is not something that she normally eats and will actively refuse when we try to get her to eat it. So we tried to steer her towards her normal of grilled cheese or pizza (mainly to avoid a fit when the waitress brought the food and Zoey realized it wasn't grilled cheese or pizza). However, she wanted a hamburger, so we let her order it. when it came she didn't throw a fit, but she did her normal dissection and just ate the bun and left the burger sitting there. However, at the end of the meal, she grabbed her hamburger, without any prompting from us, and took a bite. She said "yummy" and then proceeded to eat the rest of it (it was slider sized). Now do I feel comfortable adding hamburger into her repertoire of foods she will eat? No! But for that one night she was willing to step outside her box and try something new.

2) The other day when I picked Zoey up from daycare, she was telling me about her name on the craft she did and the letters in her name. So I asked her how she spells her name and she was able to tell me. At first I thought it was just that she was reading them off of her paper, but I asked her later when she didn't have anything to look at and she was still able to tell me the letters in her name. Now we just need to add the last name in there. (I'm always pushing for the next thing). 

She never cooperates when I try to video things, so this is the best I got

3) We took a trip to King's Island on Sunday and despite the fact that Zoey got maybe 5 hours of sleep the night before, she was amazing. She didn't have any meltdowns or even really cry. She was good when we told her we were moving to a different ride and when we were ready to leave the park.

 Zoey on the Viking Fury Ride

 

Feeling Like I'm the Bad Guy

This weekend bedtime has gone so well, but tonight was a different story. Refusal, tears, screaming, full blown tantrum. I try to give Zoey choices (i.e. Mommy can sing goodnight or mommy can just leave). Most of the time it works and she asks me to sing and that's the end of it. Nights like tonight it doesn't. She asks me to sing but then tells for me to stop, and she's stuck on repeat. So I end up having to walk out of the room with her still screaming. Scott stays and eventually she calms down and asks me to come back in to sing and I do. Then she is so apologetic about her behavior and sobs " I'm sorry mommy" over and over again. I feel like such a bad parent in those moments for breaking her heart. But it's all or nothing sometimes with her. If I don't give a natural consequence, she stays stuck. I just wish I didn't feel like I am always the bad guy. 

Thankfully Most Nights End Like This

This Week's Super Moments

A couple of good things happened this week.

1) Zoey allowed me to do her hair 3 days in a row with absolutely no fighting or crying. They were even pretty time intensive hair styles.

2) Zoey continues to do well in speech group and is interacting really well with the other children there.  I think she is making good progress towards her goals.

3) Today at the park, Zoey told me "I want to play with that girl" and with prompting she asked her to play (sadly the other girl didn't respond). She also joined in with a group of two other girls who were playing.

4) Zoey's pronunciation is really improving. She is doing a great job with the ending K sound.

5) We instituted a visual schedule this week and Zoey has really taken to it. She is also showing good retention of what is on her schedule.

Building a Visual Schedule

Visual scheduling is a pretty big thing in the ASD treatment community. I know that I have recommended it for many of the clients I see for evals in PA. So it was no surprise to me that it was part of the recommendations we received when Zoey was first diagnosed. What did surprise me is how long it took me to get around to making it and how much I struggled with figuring out how to use it.

For the most part Zoey does fairly well with transitions, except for when we are transitioning to a task that she really doesn't want (i.e. bedtime). However, even with those transitions she is hit or miss. Sometimes she transitions just fine and other times there is a meltdown. When she does have a meltdown, they don't last too long, but they can still be emotionally exhausting for everyone. So I'm hopeful that the visual scheduling will help.

I just wasn't really sure how detailed or structured I wanted to make her schedule, so I consulted a FB group I belong to and got some feedback from parents who currently use a visual schedule for their kids. Today was the day that the schedule was created. I did some Google searches for clip art for the various daily tasks Zoey has to do. I also used some real pictures from my photos for some of the important family members in her life (i.e. aunt, grandparents), just so we could include visits with them in the schedule. I also had to do a separate picture for Zoey's group speech and her individual speech. This is an area where we have been having meltdowns. On Mondays she does group and then immediately does individual, but on Wednesdays she does group but doesn't have individual. Zoey gets very upset when we get in the elevator to leave because she thinks we are supposed to see Leslie again. Then there are off days like today, where we had to reschedule individual, so we went in on our off day and then didn't have group. That lead to a major meltdown. I'm hoping that these visual cues will help her understand what is happening and know what to expect.

So after I found all my pictures, I printed them off, laminated them, and then added a magnet to the back of each one. I took an old magnetic board we had and made a simple schedule for right now. I figure there will be some trial and error in terms of what works and what doesn't. We just used the schedule for the first time and used it to transition to bedtime. While Zoey was watching her evening wind down show, I showed the schedule to her and reviewed it. Then I just left it where she could see it. When her show was over I asked her what was next on her schedule and we smoothly transitioned through the whole bedtime routine. Not a single tear was shed. Zoey made a modification to the way I had her schedule set up. I had bought three colored square magnets (2.5" x 2.5") and I wasn't really sure what I was going to use them for. Well, Zoey saw them and decided that the task we were currently on went on them, so I rolled with it and used it to mark the task we were currently doing and then when we finished that task, we moved the next task to the pink square. Now I'm thinking that I will use that and then also use the small squares to help with transitions outside of the home since they will be more portable than the bigger magnet board. I think I'll try that tomorrow for when we go to speech and run errand afterwards.

Zoey's schedule for tonight

All her extra pictures

Zoey's schedule at the end of bedtime

Squares I will take out with us tomorrow