Coming Out of Her Shell

An update from the Mommie:

Yay! My baby has come so far and in such a short period of time.

For those that don't know, we were very concerned about R's development. So, around this time last year, the State's Early Intervention program came to evaluate her to see where she fit on their development curve. We were hesitant at first but with all of the brain development issues during pregnancy and then after, we finally came around to the idea that we needed to do this. Anyway, they came out and found that she qualified for services but just barely. In order to qualify, you have to have a 30% deficiency in three areas, and she barely met this requirement.

Anyway, they thought she needed four different services and based on her needs, they would come to the house for two hours a week of services. Well, the cost to do such a thing was prohibitive, so instead, we chose to put her in daycare 3 days a week, for 10 hours a day. She started on a Friday and started walking that weekend! At 19 months, she was more than behind but with one day of daycare, she was already spreading her wings. Wow! Who could have asked for better confirmation that we made the right choice than that?

We kept her in daycare until June and took her out for the summer so she could work on socialization and have a "break" with her brother. We had a fantastic summer, as you could probably tell from the pictures. As a follow-up though, the State came back this week to re-evaluate her and they were just floored with her progress. While she is still having problems with her feet, her other development is right on track if not a little ahead. Hooray! We kind of knew this but wanted to get their opinion, as sometimes parents can be biased and frankly, we are comparing her to where she was and don't really have a handle on what her peers are doing.

So, just this week, we have had several things change.
1) Random no longer says "help you", she says "help me", ahuge cognitive leap
2) She is also starting to say things like "I love you too" as opposed to "love you". She is now getting that construction of responses.
3) When she is pleased with something, she will say "perfect". While we think this is cute, it is so not in line with our Type A personalities, so it makes me laugh. :)
4) She has also started putting together puzzles. While not as good at them as Gamble, I am confident that she is ahead of the curve when it comes to her peers on this one. Here is what the puzzle(s) looks like, not easy. One is the alphabet and the other is numbers. I am using it for both teaching how to do puzzles but how to recognize her numbers and letters. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00170V0CO/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00004R8LZ&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1RPS4QEP6AEWDXJ276X2
5) I am just so proud. I just sat down with her and started writing letters and numbers on her Doodle Pro (http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Doodle-Pro-Basic-Red/dp/B001AQ8XF2) and she did phenomenally. I mean, really. On the alphabet, she recognized about 10 of the 26 letters and we haven't really done that before. And with her numbers, she recognized almost all from 1-10 and therefore recognized the numbers themselves from 10-20 but was just introduced what it meant. She caught on pretty quickly but I suspect that, unlike Gamble, she will need to review it a couple more times before she gets it. We then worked on 20-30 and that was particularly helpful because she was confusing 2's for 5's. The number 25 was "perfect" for explaining that one. :)

Needless to say, Random is coming along better than we could have all imagined. She has known all of her body parts for about ten months now, including her heart and other things that aren't visible. She can almost count to 20 by herself, she knows and has known all of her colors (including black, brown, grey and white) and she knows most of her shapes. I would give her an A plus for knowing and doing all of this. Go baby!

Random is coming along in her speech very nicely. The clarity in her words is one of the areas that puts her ahead of the curve. She is very clear with most of what she says and is becoming very descriptive if we don't understand her right away. Occasionally, she will moan a little instead of talking but once reminded to use her words, she is eager to do so.

Random is still a people-pleaser. She is very eager and happy to do what is asked. Sometimes she doesn't go right away but if given the choice to do it herself, she is a happy camper. She is turning into a little Howard Hughes though. She loves to wash her hands in the bathroom and "Nannum do it." She loves to play with water but more importantly, she loves the independence to do it herself.

We are starting her in ballet next week. She just loves music and dancing and let me tell you, the girl has rhythm and she can shrug her shoulders to the music like I never could. I am excited to see how she does!

Most of all, Random is still very sweet, huggable and funny. She is still very much attached to me and will choose me over almost anything else. This frustrates the boys but I will enjoy it as long as I can. :) She starts school next week, so I am sure that her development will grow significantly more in the coming weeks and well, she will have her time away from Mommie.

Well, there is my update! Hope you have enjoyed!