The Weekly Review: Week 50

Blog Post of the Week

I have to post two this week. Linda at All and Sundry put together a pictorial tribute to Leap Day that was amazing. I loved it. It was completely composed of pictures of her family. They are clearly better with a camera than I am.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Julia's most recent post. Julia writes long rambling posts that I enjoy in their entirety. The part of this post that made me laugh out loud and then save so that I could read it to my husband is about 2/3 of the way down. It is an exchange between herself, her older son, and her young daughter in the car discussing the family pets. Caroline would like a dog. Patrick loves the current feline family pets. You have to read the exchange to appreciate exactly how funny it was is a slightly twisted yet thoroughly enjoyable way.

Weekly Gentle Reminder

I am excited that many of you are choosing to subscribe to my blog posts in a feed reader or by email. I take it as a compliment that you are interested. I just wanted to remind you that you will not begin receiving the email updates until you confirm your interest by clicking on the link in the email that is automatically generated and sent to you.

Online SLP Resource of the Week

Learning Fundamentals has some online speech stimuli. You choose a consonant, consonant cluster, or vowel and they give you a series of pictures with a variety of audio prompts (word, word with target exaggerated, word with target separated from rest of word, phrase, and sentence). The autoplay of all of the audio prompts in sequence is a little annoying, but you can cut that off by simply clicking on the one you want to interrupt the auto play. The word selection can only be fine-tuned so much and includes many higher level words, but it is online and free so I'm not complaining.

Weekly Now What?

Many moons ago, when Ava was first diagnosed I tried NutriiVeda (read about it here or here). At least at that time, you had to sign up to receive it through an autoship program. We stopped using it months ago. I kept meaning to call and cancel the autoship - really I did. I finally called yesterday. Now what on earth am I supposed to do with this (and the one more on the way)?

Ava this Week

Third birthday. Wonderful girl. Family. Celebration. Happiness.

Weekly Michael

My years of parenting experience come to a grand total of 4.25. In that time I have found that my enjoyment of parenting with each individual child waxes and wanes a bit. I think that is natural. As part of growing and becoming more independent children go through... "difficult stages".

Michael is coming out of a difficult stage and I am thoroughly enjoying him right now. He's polite, thoughtful and demonstrating a wonderful mastery of appropriate 4 year old manners. He's usually sweet with his sister. He's also cuddly lately. He wants affection and positive attention and is asking for it appropriately so it is so easy to give it to him. I am getting hugs and snuggles. I'm getting sweet comments and smiles. And his eyes are gorgeous. He's earnest and oh so eager to share the many thoughts in his head. His imagination is exploding exponentially and his play is a wonder to watch.

I suppose that's just my overly wordy way of trying to say that I'm enjoying being his mom so much right now. (Not that I don't always, but you know...)

Weekly Bittersweet

We said goodbye to our early intervention therapists this week. The children didn't really realize that they were saying goodbye in a way that is different from the usual "see you next week." I did though. Those last hugs brought tears to my eyes. Such good people. Such important and valued jobs. May they continue to make a difference in the young lives of so many more children and families.

Ava's (and Michael's) Weekly Home Therapy Notes

I'm working through the dynamics of changing from individual therapy with Ava to group therapy with both Ava and Michael. I regret losing the intensity I could achieve working with Ava alone, but Michael needs some speech time too and Ava's needs are less critical than they used to be. I'm toying with different ideas though. Every other night individual? 30 nightly minutes together? 15 minutes each? Hmm... I'll get it worked out eventually.

Stream of Consciousness

Topic: Ava
Occasion: Third Birthday

My daughter turned three today. When you're pregnant, it feels all-encompassing. It is difficult to imagine the baby you'll soon be holding, much less the little girl she will become. It is difficult to believe that in a few short years, you'll hardly remember the pregnancy part of things.

Ava is such a wonderful part of our lives. She's the first person to wake up in our home. Through much effort, we've convinced her to stay in her room until a decent hour. When she does come to join us she's happy and cheerful and bubbling over with thoughts to share. She greets every part of her day with enthusiasm and often brings a smile to the face of others.

She's also a fascinating study in contradictions. She'll bound halfway across a room to reclaim a toy she wasn't playing with from her brother because she thinks it is "hers." And yet, most of the time she shares with her brother unthinkingly and with a truly generous spirit. He is never far from her thoughts. At the end of her speech sessions, her SLP gives her a treat and she asks for an extra to bring to her brother. Immediately after telling someone her favorite color she volunteers her brother's favorite. When discussing her birthday party she wants to be reassured that Michael will be there.

After her brother, her family members are close to her heart. She loves to name all the members of her immediate and extended family. Her favorite book is a small photo book with pictures of all her family members. She loves to hear stories about when she was a baby or about when her Daddy or I were babies.

If I ask her for a hug, she'll drop whatever she's doing and wrap herself around me completely. She really does give the best hugs. A hug from my daughter will instantly lift my spirits. A hug from me is the first thing she wants when she is hurt or scared. If I sit in my glider, she'll hop up on my lap and ask to rock with me. She loves to be held, tickled and snuggled and I dread the day when she'll decide she's too old for all that.

I miss the baby, but I adore the little girl who is appearing before me. She loves pink and purple. She has distinct opinions about what she'll wear. She'll put a jacket on only under duress. She still prefers to run around the house half-naked, but loves to wear play shoes. She'll appear before me at random moments asking if she's gotten them on the right feet. She'll let me fix her hair and asks to comb or brush mine. She begs to hear books and songs at naptime and bedtime and is starting to sing songs and tell stories herself. She'll reappear several times after going to bed just so she can be tucked in tight another time or two.

She's not fond of her bike, but she loves to run. She's fast too. She runs with all the speed her little body can conjure. She runs so fast that I worry when she happens to head downhill. When she stops, she'll come to me and place my hand over her heart so that I can feel how strong it is. She begs to race and loves to race Michael on his bike.

She loves to draw, paint, glue, and cut. She loves to play in water. If I give her some toys and let her fill the bathroom sink with water she'll disappear happily for an hour. She likes fast music. She knows how to put the electronic piano in demo mode. She'll slide open the piano, choose a fast song and dance or run to the beat.

There's so much more to say. All of these thoughts are just the ones that swirl to the top of my mind most easily. They are one tiny snapshot of who she is right now. She's my little girl. The privilege of getting to watch her grow and change over the next year is her gift to me.

Card Set Activity: Speech Caterpillar

This idea is super simple. I cut out 8 circles that were 3.75 inches in diameter each. That made the circles just big enough for my free printable speech cards. Then add a slightly bigger head with antennae, eyes and a mouth and laminate (or stick together with contact paper) and you have a speech caterpillar. It is inexpensive, easy to make, travels well, and makes artic drill a little more interesting.

You place a card on each body segment and then one prize per child (treat, sticker, token, etc.) on the last segment. They get the prize when they reach the last word on the caterpillar. You can easily modify difficulty. One child might simply imitate the word while another might say it three times in a row. A third child might use it with a carrier phrase and a fourth child might be using it in a sentence.

It rolls up easily for storage and or transport. You could keep it in a pencil box along with several card decks. You could also make a train, snake, racetrack, chain of boats, etc and keep them rolled up in the same box and then the children can choose the one they want to use that day.

If you liked this activity idea you might also be interested in top-bottom puzzles, or this activity and game list.