It Was An Innocent Idea - Honest

I decided to recreate the success of the shaving cream in the water table day. Except this time I thought it would be fun to bring the water table up to the increasingly complete deck. I just thought the kids would enjoy the change of scenery and I knew I would love to sit on my swing while watching them instead of perched in a lawn chair in the yard down below batting away gnats. Also, for another change of pace, I decided to try cool whip (or some generic brand that was cheaper) instead of shaving cream.

First, let me say that the children did have a wonderful time. From their perspective, an hour flew by in absolute bliss as they flung first cool whip, and then water all over most of the deck. However... I don't think I completely understood how difficult it would be to remove cool whip from the wood after it had been sitting there a while. I innocently assumed that it would spray away easily with the hose. It took a bit more effort than that. Let's just say that my husband wasn't delighted with the experiment when he heard about it that evening.

As much fun as the children had with the activity, I found it interesting that they were much less bold without a friend over to model playing in it with her hands. They mostly used spoons and other various kitchen implements to play in the cool whip. They also ran over to the hose to rinse their hands and bodies off frequently. Baby steps I suppose. I need to invite friends over for these sensory activities more often.

Speedy Progress Right Off a Cliff

So Ava continues to do well with her feeding hierarchy. She's pretty much just accepted that she has to take a bite of the food she doesn't like in order to receive more of the food she wants.

Her technique so far has been to pop that food in her mouth and let it sit front and center on her tongue as if I had put something horrendously nasty in there. She grabs her milk and swallows it down as if it were a pill-tasting it as little as possible. In the name of substantial progress, I was letting the fact that she was treating perfectly yummy food like dirt go.

Well, yesterday morning, in the middle of our weekly OT session I had set her plate up with small pieces of sausage. They were the size of large blueberries. A bowl of cheerios to use as a reward had been set to the side. She asked for cheerios. I told her she'd need to eat a small bite of sausage first and I stepped away from the table to grab a knife. Usually I cut a tiny sliver off the larger piece of sausage for her to try.

Well, when my back was turned she popped the entire piece of sausage in her mouth and tried to swallow it whole by gulping several large gulps of milk. I turned around to see her choking back up all the milk and finally (thankfully) the piece of sausage too right back into her lap.

I calmed her down, cleaned her up, and told her I was proud of her for trying such a big piece. I then tried to explain that we can't swallow such big pieces without chewing them first. I'm pretty sure she didn't really get it.

So now we're working on teaching her to put food in the side of her mouth and to chew it up in an exaggerated way. We're teaching the technique with foods she likes first. Once she's really good at it, I'll have to insist she actually chew the things she doesn't like before swallowing them and getting a reward.

I'm pretty sure that this next step forward is going to be a big struggle.

Is it that I don't remember?

I had the privilege of holding a three week old little girl last night. As she snuggled in my arms I watched all of the fleeting facial expressions and listened to the grunts and snuffles and sighs. It was so sweet.

I don't remember my babies being so expressive so young. To be honest I don't remember them being so expressive even much older. Is it that I just don't remember? Is it that I was too sleep-deprived and stressed to notice? Or does the apraxia start to show so early if you know what to watch for? Do the problems with motor-planning show up even as tiny infants? Apraxia is neurological in origin. Presumably it is there from birth. How does it impact their infancy and our introduction to motherhood?