Jodi Speaks Her Mind

Busy goings on at our house 1/30/2008

Here are a few of the latest happenings:

Adelina greeted Sophie and I after our swim class in a super hero costume complete with the words “Power Girl” across her chest. Steve took pictures with the iSight camera and hopefully will blog about it since it was his fun time with her.

Sophie is loving her new world of communication and now has about 30-40 signs she uses and another 35-40 on top of those that she understands. She is learning new things every day and continues to enjoy life with a big smile most days. The exception would be when she hurts herself, which seems to be way more often than is typical. We need to work on this. Some of it is poor balance and some is just stubbornness on her part as she insists on engaging in activities we have clearly forbidden or cautioned her against (like smothering the cat until he scratches or bites or climbing on the tricycle to reach some object that was placed out of her reach). She is resourceful, I’ll grant her that. I try to keep a close eye on her, but she is fast as well as sneaky! She now has enough language to warrant the occasional time out and even a rare smack on the hand. I’m assuming this is a stage of toddlerhood she will grow out of. She also learned how to shake her head for “no” and so we are in something that approximates the “terrible twos” on that front.

I mentioned swim class, and Sophie is making excellent progress. Unfortunately, we will be taking a break while she gets started in pre-school and then for her surgery, but she has made friends with the water and that was a big part of the purpose for the class.

Our pool is making progress and they estimate it could be done the end of this week, but I think it more likely it will be completed some time next week. It doesn’t matter since we won’t swim until the weather gets warmer, but we are so excited to enjoy our new “yard” and the grill we’ll soon be getting. They put the acrylic lace on the deck today, so it is all coming together. We are quite excited!

Adelina seems to be settling in well at her new school now, and I have to give her huge credit for the great job she now does getting herself ready every day. I help out with several aspects, but she now wakes up by her alarm clock (a sonic boom alarm clock that she has set on vibrate mode - which basically means it shakes the bed until you turn it off). She loves her clock and the independence it affords her. She actually gets up earlier than she has to so that she can have some computer time while the house is quiet. She plays on the starfall site or at Webkinz World, where she is the proud parent of Brownie, the horse.

Sophie starts pre-school next week and I’m very excited for her.  Her teacher seems excellent and the class is TC, which stands for Total Communication, which means that all means of communicating are accepted, used, and encouraged.  In short, signing is used freely and abundantly, but so is speech, and any attempts at communication made by a child are received, expanded on , and taken to the next level.  It is the same type of pre-school environment Adelina first started in, and it is really good for a child with very little language because whatever they do have will be used to its fullest.  She is a very happy kid and is bonding well, so I think the timing is good and expect she will thoroughly enjoy her first schooling experiences.

Sophie has also begun Physical Therapy (PT) and Speech/Language Therapy (well, it starts tomorrow), but the latter will definitely have a focus on the Language portion for now (through her limited sign).  We went to the audiologist today and once again placed her in the sound booth and she didn’t respond or react to any of the sounds presented, despite them being presented as loud as 90, 95, and 100 decibels.  Needless to say, the assisting audiologist and I had earplugs in so we didn’t damage our own hearing in the process!

That’s all I have time for today.  We really are working on getting more pictures uploaded.  Steve actually uploaded a few albums last week, so you can go take a look by following the link at the top of the homepage to the photo gallery.  We will try to get more uploaded soon, including the fabulous pictures of our very own POWER GIRL!