Amazing Things Do Happen

Eight months ago we were a household with two cats. Peanut was mine from before we got married and Cleo was my husband's cat from before we got married. Cleo was a one-man cat. It took me years, I kid you not, to get her to let me pet her. But she adored my husband and the feeling was mutual. He had brought her home from a local animal shelter when she was tiny.

Over six months ago Cleo slipped out of the door and was lost. We searched the neighborhood, let the neighbors know she was missing, posted a few signs, and brought a flyer to the local vet's office to join a sadly crowded bulletin board of similar flyers. We knew the fact that she was people shy was not going to help a lost kitty.

The date on the flyer is the date the vet's office intended to pull it down. They will typically only leave the flyers up for six weeks or so. They called us and asked if we had found her and we asked them to please leave it up.

As days, then weeks, then months passed by we gave up hope. When Michael asked what had happened to Cleo we told him that she had accidentally slipped out the door and got lost. She couldn't find her way home, but another family found her and was taking good care of her for us. We didn't really believe it though.

Several months later we decided to get kittens. Peanut was lonely and too old to want to be involved with the kids much. The kids were starting to get interested in pets. We got the kittens from the same animal shelter my husband had brought Cleo home from all those years ago. When I took the kittens to the vet I saw the flyer and almost told them to take it down, but I didn't.

A few days ago Michael said, "I love our kittens! I hope they never, never slip out the door Mama." He hadn't forgotten Cleo.

Yesterday, out of the blue, we got a call. Someone had Cleo. Apparently she had found her way two subdivisions over. A man who we are told looks something like my husband, saw a stray kitty and slowly began to win her over. They fed her and took care of her as best they could, but they traveled a lot and weren't interested in adopting an indoor cat. They began to think that she had been an indoor pet and after several months found a home for her with a neighbor of theirs. That woman took her cat to our local vet for her annual checkup yesterday and saw our flyer. She called us and Cleo came home that day.

She's so happy to be home. We are happy to have her. Right now she's sequestered in our bedroom just getting used to being home again before we introduce her to two preschoolers who are 6 months older than she remembers and two kittens that weren't here before.

We got her back. After being missing for more than six months, we got her back. It is absolutely amazing.

Speech Sample - Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech - 23 months

This is an audio clip from a video we took on 2-12-2011. Ava is 23 months old. At this point Ava was about six weeks into receiving speech services. Ava and I were laying on the floor and she was making some observations about the striped shirt I was wearing.

In the last audio sample, four weeks prior to this one, Ava produced 10 utterances in a little under a minute. Those utterances included four different words. She used one consonant (/d/) and three vowels (/Ɛ/, /Λ/, /OƱ/).

Here is the new sample:




In this audio sample Ava's utterances are:
"brown" /baƱ/
"brown" /baƱ/
"black" /bæ/
"brown" /baƱ/
"white" /wæ/
"two" /tu/
"there" /dæ/
""black" /bæ/
"more" /mɔ/
"no, no" /noƱ noƱ/
"yeah" /jæ/
"no, mama" /noƱ mama/
"no" /noƱ/

That's 13 utterances total in just over a minute. Two of them are two-word utterances. Nine different words are used. She went from using one consonant to using seven. In the last sample she used three vowel sounds and in this one she uses six vowel sounds. In four weeks, Ava made huge strides in her speech.

The Weekly Review: Week 28

Blog Post that Gave Me an Idea:

I need to do this project for a meal plan board. Several months ago my husband and I finally felt that our family life was pulling together enough to stop planning meals five minutes before we needed to start cooking (and then often going out to dinner because we didn't have ideas/groceries). It has actually been great. Our food budget was reduced by at least a third and as long as we've actually done the meal plan and made the trip to the grocery store we always know what dinner will be. My current sophisticated method of accomplishing this task looks like this:

The meal plan board would be a beautiful upgrade.

Ava this Week:

Ava started going to school two mornings a week when she was 18 months old. She cried at drop off every time. They always tell you that after a few days, or weeks, or months it will stop. It didn't. I was told that she was fine within five minutes of me dropping her off, and I believe that. That knowledge didn't make leaving my crying child any easier. I learned to just make the transition short and quick. Lingering only prolonged things. It has been this way for over a year.

It started last week, but was perfect this week. (I hope I'm not jinxing things by saying this out loud.) Ava has been perfect at drop off. She's excited to enter her classroom. She immediately goes over to her teacher or joins the other children at their activity. I have to get her attention to give her a kiss and tell her goodbye. It is beautiful every time and I feel relief and gratitude for the change.

I really do think the combination of occupation and speech therapy is beginning to pay off. Ava is more comfortable in her classroom and more confident about her ability to communicate and participate. And that translates into less anxiety about being dropped off. It is wonderful.

The Weekly Michael:

Michael loves company. He likes to communicate and interact with other people most of the time. A few weeks ago he was constantly seeking out my company or his Daddy's company. "Come play with me" was a common refrain. Over the past couple of weeks we have started to see a shift. He's asking Ava to come play with him. When she is in the mood to join him, they disappear for 20 or 30 minutes at a time to their bedrooms or the basement playroom. I love watching their bond as playmates begin to deepen.

On the other hand, Ava is still kind of a Mama girl. Often she doesn't want to leave me. Or she'll play with Michael for a while and then wander away from him to come check in on me. And I'll hear Michael calling after her, "Ava, come play with me!"

Kitten Update:

The kittens are hitting adolescence. They are climbing curtains, tipping over laundry baskets and getting stuck in boxes. They are also still adorable and cuddly with us and each other. Black and white Sophie is amazingly tolerant with the children letting them carry her around and pet her in their rather clumsy way. Grace (all black) comes out in quiet moments and snuggles the adults making sure we get some kitten love too. They are now four and a half months old and have been with us for over half their life. Here's a picture of the two of them in a quiet moment.

Weekly Random Question:

Do you ever find yourself debating what's more important: transferring leftovers into a smaller dish so they'll take up less space in the fridge vs. the fact that doing so will create an extra dirty dish to take up space in the dishwasher?