Happy 13 Month Birthday Angel

Hard to believe that she is 13 months already, but people keep telling me that the calendar doesn't lie.  I'm still not convinced, but I can't find proof to back up my story so I guess I need to just concede.

Whoops!  Something tells me this is not exactly what she had intended when she climbed in there.

A quick update of what she has been up to this past month would include talking up a storm and then some.  The word count has grown at least four fold as she mimics absolutely everything and knows the names of quite a few relatively random things...boots, jacket, tray, etc.  The funniest still is her saying potty all the time.  She even pulled the potty seat out of the bathroom and brought it into the family room and sat down on it.  I'm hoping that this fascination holds for another year and I can potty train her quickly.  A girl can dream right?!?

Angel is also picking up a lot of sign language.  She doesn't like to watch Signing Time, but is in the same room as it some and watches a little bit before she gets bored.  I think the rest of it she is just picking up from us as we use it with Sweet Pea still all the time.  I'm always amazed at how easily Angel learns things!  Maybe one day I won't be, but that day certainly hasn't come yet.  Sweet Pea works so darn hard for every new word, sign, skill, etc and Angel just breezes through.  It's wonderful to watch, but a little sad at times too.

Daddy and daughters Signing Time time:

Probably the biggest news is that and as of today we think we should call her an official walker.  She has been walking a few feet for a while, but she still preferred to crawl if she really wanted to get somewhere.  Now she tries to walk far more than she crawls.  I don't know if the nice weather this week helped because I was able to put her in shorts and crawling in shorts hurts a lot more, but either way...she is really walking now.  Her stability is lacking, but she looks darn cute when she loses her balance, tries to catch herself and then falls back on her bottom.  She even says "whoa" sometimes when she does it.  Too cute...but I know that I am biased.

Oh, and she also got her two bottom molars this week and is working on at least one other tooth currently.  She looks so different with those two big molars making the back of her mouth white.  I got used to the 6 teeth that she had since she has had those since she was 8 months old.  Nothing new for almost 5 months until these new molars.  Updated 2/27/12 to include that she broke through her top 2 molars as well.  4 molars in one week...no wonder it's been a hard week.

Here are a few more photos:
We have a drama queen on our hands!  Check out this sequence...

We had to move the base to her car seat out of Daddy's car for some trips to the mulch yard and she made herself at home in it.

Long video of Angel getting her groove on with her sister:



Another long video of Angel walking, talking and then getting beat up by Kodi:

Tools for the Journey Conference

I attended an AMAZING conference today...Tools for the Journey...that was put on by Club 21, who is a wonderful non-profit organization that's focus is on inclusion...both education based and societal.  I attended this conference in 2010 and while I learned a lot, it was WAY too overwhelming hearing so much about inclusion in education and the trials and tribulations associated with it.  Sweet Pea was less than 1 years old and I was not ready to handle the education phase of this journey.

Today was NOTHING like that day in 2010.  I learned, I laughed, I teared up a couple of times but never real tears, I loved and ultimately, I embraced this next phase.  I have attended a lot of IEP trainings and have prepared for that part of the process, but the inclusion part has still eluded me to a large extent.  I learned so much today that I feel much more equipped to help setup a productive inclusive environment for Sweet Pea when she transitions to the school district in 2 months and this little girl definitely deserves that!

For those that don't know, we have been receiving early intervention services through the state run agencies called Regional Centers and on the 3rd birthday most of Sweet Pea's services transfer from the Regional Centers to our local school district.  The Regional Center will still be involved with Sweet Pea, but not to the extent that they have been since she was born.  It means that there is a new system to learn.  It also means that she will lose all of her existing therapists and center based therapy program.  However, if our IEP meeting goes as we hope it does, she will gain a spot in a preschool that is highly regarded by parents of typical children and that fills up very quickly.  She will be in a class that has a good number of typical peers in addition to a few classmates that also have IEPs.  I don't know the ratio, but there are definitely more typical peers than special needs peers in each class.  She will receive services such as speech and occupational therapy through this school as well.  All of the details of what kind and how much therapy and what days/times she attends the class will be decided at the IEP meeting that we are having on March 19th.

Anyway...back to the point of this blog post...

The conference hosted Patti McVay who is the Director of Education at the Linda Crnic Institute.  For those of you in Colorado...I am SO jealous that you have such an amazing resource in your toolkit!  I feel very fortunate and thankful that Club 21 was able to bring her out for this conference so that we could get a tiny fraction of the information and knowledge that she has to share.  Her presentation was titled "Best Practices for Student Success" and here are a few of the top things that I learned:

• Teacher ownership is important: If your child has a para educator, DON'T ask the para educator about your child's day.  Ask the teacher!  This forces the teacher to take ownership of your child.  Say hi to the para educator, but focus on the teacher.  
• Make friends with the teacher:  For too many reasons to name.  Offer to volunteer during class, after class, work on stuff at home...anything to help her and to let her know that you care.
• Related to this is that she prefers para educators to be called classroom assistants...and to act as such!  She doesn't want them to be a single or two children's shadow.
• Ask General Education teacher to share what is working during the IEP: This gets the general education teacher involved in the IEP and shifts the focus to what your child can do.
• Brainstorm with classmates to have them come up with your child's strengths so that they can be read at the IEP.  This also helps change the dynamic of the IEP.
• Always bring a friend to the IEP:  Spouse is good, but also bring a friend.  It's another set of ears and eyes that can help with note taking and can be less emotionally attached.  An idea suggested by the audience was to have that person sit across from you instead of next to you so that between the two/three of you, you can see everyone's faces and body language.
• Create a communication starter:  Could be a couple of pictures of what your child did over the weekend.  Example: Photo of child at zoo with "We went to the zoo" written under it.  This allows peers and others to start conversations with your child when they can't do it themselves...as is often a concern for our kids.
• Use visual supports:  I don't know why I fight this one so hard.  Patti had a great point...we as adults use visuals too.  My calendar!  It may not be pictures, but visuals don't have to be either.  Yes, they start as pictures, but as your child learns you can transition to writing and other types, but keep visuals as a part of their life.  It helps them focus on what is important.
• Two goals that she recommends are on most IEPs:
• Ask a peer for help before an adult
• Complete a project with a typical peer once a week
• We have to setup situations where our children can be the helpers and not always the helpees.  Example: Our children can help with a class that is a couple of years younger at times.
• She recommended this article: "Be Careful What You Wish For..."  Five Reasons to be Concerned About the Assignment of Indivdual Paraprofessionals by Michael F. Giangreco, et el.   I was already nervous about paraprofessionals being assigned to Sweet Pea and I'm happy that our preschool doesn't do that...supposedly.  We will see what reality is as we move through the process.  Para educators should be used as FACILITATORS for students.  A para educators should ask:
• What would I do with any other student?
• Can a peer do what I am doing?
• People first language: I'm horrible at asking people to use people first language (child with Down syndrome instead of Down syndrome child), but she said it in a way that I think I will even be able to use in the future.  She asked us all to think of one trait that we dislike about ourselves.  Then she asked us how we would like us if we were introduced by that.  She is a little overweight (by her own admission) and she asked how we thinks she would feel if she was introduced as "fat Patti".  That was a great way of explaining it.  We don't want our kids to be introduced and spoken about with Down syndrome being who they are.  Sweet Pea is MANY things...having Down syndrome is just one of them.

As you can see...I learned a lot!  What I wrote above is just a piece of it.  I hope that this information is useful to someone else out there.  I am so happy that I was able to attend today and I can't wait for next years conference!

Happy 1 Year Birthday Angel

Angel is 1 year old today!  Really?!?  How can that possibly be?  My sweet little baby girl is growing up so fast and I feel like I’ve forgotten so much already.  I’ve been so busy with the two girls that my blogging has taken a back seat for many months and unfortunately that is how I capture most of my memories and so I’ve missed them.  I’ll try to capture some of what Angel is doing currently, but it changes so fast that I can’t keep up.

Language:

After spending a few weeks or more likely it was a couple of months FREAKING out about her lack of speech…and I mean absolute, complete lack…we now have a motor mouth on our hands.  This little girl talks and talks and talks and I have hardly any idea what she is saying, but she is saying a lot!  She has quite a few words that I can understand and she mimics a lot of words too.  Here is a partial list of the words she says currently: hi, shoes, bye, ball, dog, outside, down, Elmo, milk, more, o (Cheerios), push, all done (which she says in the sweetest little voice that melts Mommy’s heart) and probably more that I can't think of since we haven't been writing them down. And she signs more, milk, all done, ball and potty which clearly means we have spent WAY too much time taking Sweet Pea to the potty.  And yes, Mammy and Daddy are missing from this list…eventually I’ll hear those sweet words I’m sure.

Here is a little video of her saying "all done":

And here is one of her saying "outside":



Eating:

Angel is still a champion eater although she is getting pickier with time.  She definitely prefers table foods over baby food.  Banana might be her all time favorite food right now, but that is only because she hasn’t had her cake yet.  I’m sure she will go crazy for that tonight!  Her other favorite foods are Cheerios, Goldfish, and avocado…but not guacamole.

Walking:

She has ZERO interest in walking.  She crawls super fast and she often pants like a dog as she is crawling which makes us crack up.  She can walk with a fair amount of wobble holding onto one hand.  She will sometimes take two steps by herself to get to something.  That something is most certainly not Mom, Dad, Sweet Pea or Grandma!  Oh no…we are not nearly enough motivation.  A puppet however is!  She has a nickname that starts with Silly ____ for a reason.  She also doesn’t have any interest in walking with walkers.  We stand her up at the handle and she holds onto them and walks around to the side or front of them to play with whatever is there.  Oh well…she will certainly walk when she is ready and I’m sure I’ll regret ever teaching her at all!

Here is a video of her trying to leave our house and then showing off her walker skills:

Climbing:

She is definitely a climber.  She used Sweet Pea’s lap desk the other day to climb onto the couch.  On Tuesday I left her alone at NAPA Center while I washed out a dish and I came back to find her on top of the therapy staircase (it’s only a couple steps up so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds).  She wasn’t even in the vicinity of that staircase when I left!  At Sweet Pea’s other therapy locations Angel is always climbing into the chairs.  I think she wants to participate in the therapy since she always sees her sister doing it.  She did join in at Sweet Pea’s center based therapy program last week for a short bit and it was cute to watch her sitting at the table with the other kids.  

Games/Songs:

Angel enjoys the itsy bitsy spider and twinkle twinkle, but doesn’t do the hand motions yet.  She plays peekaboo all the time.  She pretends to be bashful around people and gives them her cutest smile and then turns her head away.  Angel doesn’t really have any favorite toys…except for whatever her sister is playing with and also whatever she can carry in her mouth as she crawls around…which contributes to her looking like a dog in addition to sounding like one (maybe she is spending too much time with Kodi).

And one last video of her enjoying her penguin punching bag:

Teeth:
She still has the same 6 teeth that she had by the time she was 8 months old.  Don’t think anything is coming in soon either, but who knows.

Sleep:

She takes two naps a day on most days.  The naps can go anywhere from 20 minutes (oh how I hate those) to 2 hours (heaven!), but typically are in the area of 45 minutes.  Her ability to sleep through the night fluctuates greatly…some weeks are good…others not so much.  She seems to require crying to fall asleep and that is not a characteristic that I hope stays, especially since she shares a room with her sister. 

Angelisms:

• She has the most precious laugh. 
• She sounds like Donald Duck when she talks sometimes and other times she has the sweetest, softest voice ever and still other times she is the loudest girl in the entire world.  So many voices from one little girl.
• She loves to recline.  She tries to lay back on people all the time.  I don’t know if she learned it from Kodi or if it was all her doing, but it’s cute.
• Angel LOVES bath time!  She comes into the bathroom as soon as she hears the water running.
• Her favorite person in the world is still Sweet Pea.  She squeals with delight when she sees her sister coming toward her to play.
• I didn’t mean for this to be a pattern, but she is like Kodi in yet another way.  She runs her head into EVERYTHING.  She has no concept of where her noggin is in relation to the rest of the world.  She has had numerous bruises on her forehead and even a 3/4 inch scratch all from running into things or falling over.  She is extremely tough which shouldn’t surprise me since she had to put up with abuse from her older sister from a very, very early age.

Bottom line is that we love Angel with all our hearts and we can't imagine life without her.  This first year has been wonderful and I just know that this next year is going to be even better. 

Happy Birthday!!!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Zainy Hair

These are Happy Days

Life is good here.  The girls are both healthy and happy which is a nice change.

Angel is climbing onto everything so I'm sure the bumps and bruises are going to multiply for a while.  She doesn't just climb, she conquers!  Angel has zero interest in walking, but she sure does enjoy this new found freedom of climbing.

Sweet Pea is starting to be so much more independent!  She will often completely feed herself with her spoon or fork and not require us to even load the utensil with the food.  We used to have to load it and feed her so this is a huge step for us.

She also self entertains for a much longer period of time now.  The only issue is that she HATES when her sister tries to join her in some of her playing.  Sometimes they play great together (parallel more than together), but other times...not so much.  Little sisters sure can be pesky. :-)  (I'm a little sister so I can say that.)

And she is walking without fighting so much more!  We walked to the park on Saturday with Aunt R & Uncle R and she walked the entire way there without one complaint.  It is only 3 blocks, but for her that is HUGE!  On the way home it was a little more challenging, but I only had to use one goldfish cracker as motivation to keep walking which is unheard of.  She was asking for Signing Time about a block from the park but clearly we didn't bring a tv with us to the park so she had to walk home to watch an episode while I cooked dinner.  Silly little Signing Time addict...

On the walking and behavior front...I was able to take both kids to Trader Joe's this morning without wanting to pull my hair out after just a few minutes.  The trip took about 40 minutes in total and Sweet Pea was great during it!  Angel sat in the cart and Sweet Pea walked through the aisles with me.  She would help me pick out food to put in the cart and she only touched three items that she shouldn't have.  We used to have issues often even in the parking lot before getting into the store!  Getting through the entire shopping trip without one fit is a dream come true.  We got a little help from an employee when she gave her stickers for being so cute, but still...Sweet Pea did it!  I am so proud of her!!!!

Back to the park...both girls enjoyed the trip.  Sweet Pea showed off her climbing skills and her lack of fear of the big winding covered slide immediately.

Angel decided that going down slides on her bottom was for novices.  She much prefers this new method:

Angel was having a blast on the rocking animals with a little assistance from Auntie R.

This doesn't fit with this post, but seeing as I don't do many posts I better include it while I'm here...Completely random, but it's so strange that I have to write it...Angel has a few different toys in her crib that she has two different versions of the same basic thing (often because one was Sweet Pea's but she never played with them)...two pink my first dolls, two Tiggers, two chewy blanket things, etc.  The other day I walk into her room after a nap and find that all 6 of these items on the floor.  Not a big deal.  She tosses her toys out all the time.  Daddy says she is interrogating them and if they don't talk, they are goners.  Anyway, the toys on the floor wasn't the interesting part.  The fact that these toys were paired up...even on the floor was!  She had dropped them in such a manner that you had the 2 dolls right on top of each other, then the two Tiggers next to that and about a foot away the 2 chewy blanket things.  It was very odd.  I should have taken a picture, but didn't think of it at the time.  On Friday when I saw her manhandling her two Tiggers again I had to get a picture of that.  She has both of her poor Tiggers by the tail and is loving every minute of it.  And yes, I love it even more because of the twist on "Tiger by the Tail".

Professional Photos!!!!

Yep, you read it right...we finally had family photos taken again!  The last time this happened Sweet Pea was only about 6 months old.  So much has changed since then and I really wanted to capture our new family in a professional manner...my daily photography skills are definitely lacking!  We were very lucky to be able to work with an amazing photographer, Andrea Moore (www.mamamoorephotography.com), who wanted to build out her portfolio a bit more.  It takes a daring individual to take on the monumental task of photographing this family!  Take a look at some of the moments she was able to capture.  I tried to narrow it down to a smaller set of photos, but it was too hard so I'm sharing many of them with you here:

































































I hope you enjoyed them as much as I do!