A magical 90 seconds

Imagine, if you will, a play place at the mall. In it there is a small rowboat divided into two sections by a small bench to sit on. On one side of the bench, nestled in the spot where the feet would go if you were sitting on the bench, is a young girl perhaps 2 ½ or 3 years old. Ava crawled into the other side facing the bench and the girl.

Now, what would usually happen here is that the other child would make some sort of friendly advance towards Ava. She would respond by screaming and turning away as if she’d been attacked in some way and I would have to apologize to the parent and explain that Ava reacts that way to everyone. I promise. Their child had been perfectly polite – friendly even. Then Ava would run/crawl/climb away as quickly as possible while I try to explain to her that the other child was just trying to be nice.

This time was different – wonderfully different. The other little girl glanced at Ava, only briefly, and smiled and then began drumming on the bench. Ava smiled back and began drumming too. They were playing together. Both laughing. Making eye contact. When one would stop, the other would start again and more laughter and drumming ensued. At one point the other little girl stood up saying, “Up!” and Ava immediately mimicked her standing up and saying “Uh!” And then they both sat down and drummed some more.

Then two other little girls tried to climb in too and broke the magic spell. At that point things were way too crowded for Ava and she left. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than 90 seconds, but they were a magical 90 seconds.

Imagine, other parents take such things for granted.

Playdates

Our neighborhood is filled with little boys. One little boy, who lives up the street, is only six weeks older than Michael. Let’s call him Justin. I ran into Justin’s family during one of the walks I took with Michael his first summer when he was only six months old or so and I was desperately trying to stop the crying. By the time the boys were about a year old we were doing regular weekly playdates. It’s great. They’re a wonderful family and I’ve enjoyed watching the boys go from babies that played near each other to little boys who are beginning to play with each other.

At two (almost), as you all know, I felt Ava was also ready for regular playdates. And just last week through pure luck I stumbled upon a little girl right here in our neighborhood only a few months older than Ava. Let’s call her Sara. Sara even goes to Ava’s daycare and when Ava turns two in another week she’ll be moving into Sara’s class. So the girls will be together two mornings a week until Sara moves up to the next class. Sara’s mother is really nice and we set up our first playdate this past weekend. The girls seemed to have fun. They’re a little too young to really play together, but they played nicely in the same space with the same toys. We have another playdate set up for next weekend. I hope we can continue to get together with this family. They seem nice and it is such a gift for a child to have a friend that lives nearby. Hopefully I’m planting that seed.

Early Intervention Therapy

We’ve had two sessions with our Early Intervention therapist, Ms. A. now. I'm not sure how it works elsewhere, but here in Missouri, the early intervention therapist comes to your house. Other than the fact that I'm forced to clean, it is super convenient. She's coming once a week for an hour as we decided in our IFSP meeting.

Ms. A is great and I like her a lot. She’s already building a rapport with Ava and Ava is working well with her. She’s given me some new tips that work well with Ava. Ava is right at the border between one syllable utterances and two syllable utterances. We’re all trying to work with her to try to get her to make that jump up. Ms. A introduced tapping. It’s simple, but it really helps Ava hear that she needs to be producing more syllables. Nana (for banana) is two taps. Mo mi (more milk) is two taps. Right now, she can say more. She can say milk. She cannot say more milk. But if you tap, she’ll try. It usually comes out mo, mo. But at least she’s trying to imitate both words.

Another idea she had was to use an exercise ball during therapy. Children with apraxia often have more success with speech productions when they are paired with movement. So she put Ava on the ball and did Row, Row, Row Your Boat with her. The song was super slow and she rocked Ava back and forth with each word. By the end of the song Ava was trying to sing along. It was adorable.

Right now, the therapy sessions are more indirect and play based than I’d like. Therapy based on motor planning principles is all about getting lots and lots of productions, and you just can’t get as many productions in play based therapy. I’d love to see Ms. A begin to incorporate a more structured part of the therapy session at some point, but so far they’re really just getting to know each other. It will come. And if I want that to happen I’ll have to figure out a way to keep Michael occupied elsewhere. But overall, I’m pleased. It’s an excellent beginning.