Maggie Simpson

Sheena has been doing a very good Maggie Simpson impersonation after she wakes up in the morning: see the video.

She's doing fairly well. She's on the mend from a bad cold that she caught from me. Saturday was not a good day, when she had a fever of 39 in the morning. We're looking at her weekly routine, and we're investigating an alternative EI program that she'll be eligible for in August. Her current program is only 2 hours a week, whereas this alternative one is 12 hours a week over 2 days (sort of school hours). We're going to visit the centre this week to see if it looks suitable for Sheena. Early Intervention is far from uniform depending on where you live in the world, and which service you're tapped into, so it will be good to see what else is available for Sheena.

Drummer Girl

The big hit (quite literally) for Sheena's 2nd birthday was her drum kit. Here she is jamming with cousin Mark:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=X4KbU7SgZOQ

She had her first day in the 2 y/o + room at creche. She managed it very well, and even had a 2 hour sleep on a floor mattress.

She's learning the new routine for the toddler room, like having to go and get her own hat before going outside. Thankfully one of her favourite carers from last year is also in the room, so she's in good hands as she adjusts.

Goodbye Tears (hopefully)

The tear duct probe surgery went fairly smoothly yesterday - but we're not sure if the operation was a success. She was still tearing a bit today, but we have to wait 1-3 weeks before we'll be able to tell for certain. The doctor said that the blockage was significant.

She was far from thrilled when she woke up after her operation. She was awake 5 minutes after it was over, and its usually 15 minutes. She howled for the 10 minutes that she should have still been under - really disorientated from what she was feeling. Although they were convinced she wasn't in pain, they gave her a big dose of panadol, and that allowed her to relax.

Sheena took the hospital visit (pre-op) as an oportunity to practice her walking. The long hospital hallways were irristable, and her toddle combined with squeals of delight at her own efforts had quite a few hospital staff chuckling. Today, she walked to Nan's neighbours house - all the way from the back door, along the driveway, and along the street. Its taken over as her main means of getting around, and we're not seeing as much of the bum shuffling.

The (therapy) holidays are over

We've had quite a break from all the Early Intervention therapies over Christmas and NY. I really needed the break, and Sheena has probably liked it too, where she can play completely on her own terms without me trying to tell her to sit/stand/walk in a certain way, hold her mouth in a certain way, and basically without me in her face as the mum-meets-therapist. You never lose it altogehter, because the techniques are definitely never completely out of your mind, but lets just say, that I have been pretty easy-going about it for about 2 months However, it all starts again this month. As you can tell, I am still trying to rev up the enthusiasm for it again, but it got off to a good start yesterday. I've started Sheena with private speech pathology sessions. She had her first session with Mrs M yesterday, and we both liked her energy. Sheena was giggling at her antics quite a lot, because she was nice and animated. Our homework is practicing labeling of objects. Sheena doesn't point at things to show me what she is after or looking at, so we don't say, 'Thats the light", or "Thats the red flower", etc etc. We really just interpret what she's interested in, and tell her, but it is harder to get the connection. Otherwise, our homework is we have to teach her "the same" (common objects), and try to get her to nod or shake her head rather than doing sign language for yes and no. Mrs M thinks she is very capable of that. We're going to try to blow tissues, and to bubbles which we haven't quite mastered yet.

I am happy to have found a speechy that Sheena immediately liked, who connected well to Sheena and who only lives 5 minutes down the road. She seems really good, and seems to be quite proactive in getting rid of bad habits nice and early, and giving me solid strategies for her day to day. Hubby is going to go to the next one that he is able to make, that is how useful I found her.

Next on the therapy list is setting up Sheena's six monthly goals with her Early Intervention Special Ed teacher. Spoon feeding is going to be on the top of the list, because that is one that we think she's able to do, but is happier to have mum and dad do it instead. We also think she could learn climbing up and down stairs which will give her a bit of a go on playgrounds outside.

Otherwise, Sheena needs people to wish her good luck this week, as she is going to have tear-duct surgery on both eyes. It is a day procedure, but she'll need a general anesthetic, so that makes it a big enough deal. Sheena-pops has to fast for 6 hours before the afternoon procudure.