There's been so much going on at the start of the school year, that I haven't been able to sit down to blog. It's been some good stuff though. I think many of you keep up through Facebook, or see us regularly, so please forgive me if some of this is re-runs. Alexa fell off a play structure and broke her fibula on August 7th. She was completely non-weight bearing for about 6 weeks, which meant a wheelchair. Her gracious and well-appointed teacher had a wheelchair just the right size, so we used that. I finally asked for some helped through the county Developmental Disabilities office, and we got some respite care for four hours a day five days a week for the last 3.5 weeks before school started. Respite was provided by a wonderful Spanish-speaking woman from Mexico who I worked on improving my Spanish with while she worked on improving her English. She became a good friend, so I must remember that good things can come from rough times. About a week after school started Alexa was allowed to walk on her cast boot, and two weeks after that, she was allowed to slowly stop using it. It took a few weeks and a visit to the PT to get her to walk without limping, and sometimes she still does, but she's running and jumping again. The ortho she saw for the injury referred her up to a pediatric ortho in Portland to make sure she had the right braces, and amazingly, he thinks the braces she has now are more than she needs, so when she outgrows these, she'll get some orthotics to hold up her arch,. I'm pretty excited about that. No more trying to fit those bloody braces into her shoes.
The behavior issues are still present, but I'm doing better at dealing with them. I read a fantastic book called
No Fighting, No Biting, No Screaming: How to make Behaving Positively Possible for People with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilites. I recommended it to everyone I know who works with people with disabilities. I particularly appreciate the way Elven suggests taking ownership of the problem. His big premise is that if service users (his word for the person with a disability) can behave well, they will, so if they are having a meltdown, you, or the situation is demanding too much of them. So many of his ideas are contrary to the way I was raised, but as the author points out, if typical child rearing methods were working, I wouldn't need his book, and need it I did, desperately. Thank you all for your kind and encouraging comments.
We got an iPad for Alexa just before school started, mainly to provide more space for her rapidly growing reading vocabulary. Furthermore, I decided it was time to sort her words into categories by type, so now she has folders for nouns, verbs, prepositions, pronouns, and som other specialty noun categories such as numbers, animals and foods. She adapted to it quickly which is amazing, above she is doing a read-a-long story with Curious George. She's getting so sweet about sharing and interacting with her monkeys. She sits them next to her bowl while she eats, and here she made sure George could see the story clearly.
Sorry to be jumping topic to topic, but here's a picture summary. Alexa was Curious George for the third year in a row, though this year the costume was a little short. Next year we'll have to think of something new. That Jack-O-Lantern was carved by her teacher! They send one home with each kid in her class each year, and I've always known how much work it must be to carve 14-15 pumpkins, but this year I was volunteering on Halloween, so I participated in the chaos! Wow. Take a bunch of kids who don't much like touching the insides of pumpkins, and it's a big job! The trees outside my window this week make me feel rich. Incredible color. Alexa's doing a great job riding her bike, I'm thinking maybe we can start trying to go off the training wheels sometime this year.
Here's Alexa vacuuming, an activity that she adores beyond all explanation. We don't discourage it!
I've been sick for about three weeks now, and I've taken two days off this week to try and recover, I'm feeling better today finally, but still a bit of crud in the lungs. Alexa had it for a couple weeks too. About a week after school started, she got the runny nose, and I think she's had at least two separate colds since then.
There's so much more to tell, but I have't the time just now, my pumpkin pies are almost done!
