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.