Sheena's Days

Sheena is currently either very active, or totally exhausted. She still has two naps a day, but when she isn't having her naps, she is very busy stacking things on shelves, or climbing up on us, or making her way around the house. I leave her to her own devices a lot, because she's so busy exploring, that she's very content and happy doing that. Her favourite time with us is story time, and three books are the bare minimum. Its more, more more.

She somewhat falls apart if she doesn't get her two naps in. Her day at creche is her hardest. She only gets 1 hour sleep all-up, because there is a lot going on and all the activity keeps her awake. By the time I pick her up after work, she's well and truely had enough. However, I think the creche is good. The carers are lovely to her, and she gets to have a lot of playtime with other kids her age.

Next year, I'm going to keep her in the baby room until she's 2 1/2. My goal is for her to move up to the 2y/o plus room by August 2008. That'll give her a chance to increase her stamina, and get stronger stability on her feet. I'd like her to move up though, so she's with the older toddlers and it'll ultimately help her develop speech.

The Haircut

It was a few weeks ago now, but while Sheena's Nan was looking after her, she took her to get her hair trimmed. It was not a fun experience for anyone. Nan's next-door-neighbour has an in-house salon, so it wasn't like it was in a commercial salon, but there was quite a scene regardless. Sheena screamed, and got very distressed about the whole affair. Sensitive little soul.

DSAV Conference

We spent the weekend in Beechworth at the Victorian Down Syndrome Association Family Conference. All was good. I was a bit slack in attending all of the conference sessions, but I enjoyed the socialising aspect, and getting out of town. Hubby got a lot out of the sessions, especially early reading and learning maths. Sheena liked the creche for the kids. She impressed them with her bum shuffling prowess. She impressed me in not sobbing while we left her there, as she's not fond of good byes at the moment, but hopefully that is a passing phase.

Here she is doing one of her happy baby dances.

Cruise Control

I was reading recent posts, and realised that its only been 3 weeks since Sheena learnt to get into standing on her own. She now cruises around the furniture, and stands up like she's been doing it for months. Hubby even found her at full stretch holding onto the edge of the big table for sheer life. We can only assume that she navigated her way there via a chair, but from where we were it didn't look easy.

Sheena has succumbed to conjunctivitis. She often gets watery eyes, that resolves itself within a few hours, as she's got a blocked tear duct that causes that from time to time, but this was something different. She is now on antibiotic eye drops, which should quickly do the trick.

We've been thinking about speech lately, and we're not having a lot of progress on that front. She will repeat things like coo-wee, or ohhh-dear, nana, dada, doe-doe, but that is about it. Her 'ta', is not consistent, and if she does it, it comes out as 'agh'. We were thinking how different life would be if she did chat away. Speech apraxia can be a factor both with Down Syndrome and Infantile Spasms. Its a speech disorder that interferes with a child's ability to correctly pronounce sounds, syllables and words. It is the loss of ability to consistently position the articulators (face, tongue, lips, jaw) for the production of speech sounds and for sequencing those sounds into syllables or words. The child does not have difficulty with non-speech activities performed with the muscles such as coughing, chewing or swallowing. However, the area of the brain that tells the muscles how to move and what to do make a particular sound or series of sounds is damaged or not fully developed. This make retrieving the 'motor plan' for saying a work difficult. We shall see. To me, it seems consistent with her so far.

Dressed for Success

Here is Sheena ready to go to Playgroup. She now genuinely fits into the cardigan that her Granny made for her.

Her signing vocubulary is rocketing ahead. She now has picked up cat, pig, yes (although yes is over enthusiastic, and both arms go at once), dad, toilet, car - as well as all the others she was doing already. It is fun teaching her, as she's so into it.

She is also starting to stack blocks, which means that her releasing is improving.

So there we are for the weekly Sheena update. She is still the healthy one of the house, while I'm still sick with this virus.