New Year, New Kinder

Sheena is settling into her routine nicely for year. Early Intervention Kinder is going well so far - she has adapted to the new room and new teachers with ease. I am very excited about her starting a weekly swim program. Its a full excursion every Tuesday, where they leave kinder on a bus trip to the public pool. They have to carry their own bags into the swim centre, but they'll get oodles of support with swiming and with dressing etc which she definitely needs. I am so going to spy on her, and be very careful not to let her see me. I want to see how different she behaves at the pool when I am not around. When I go swimming with her is very clingy, but at the same time really likes it and does lots of kicking and uses the kick-board with a lot of enthusiasm.

Summer swimmers

These are the first proper swimmers Sheena has ever worn! She always used to wear swim-nappies. Speaking of which we are have a lot of success with toilet training. Sheena is consistently going wee or poo in the potty 2 or 3 times a day. We started in October, so thats good progress as far as I am concerned. She still has some accidents, but it does not seem far off that we'll be able to tick off this huge milestone.

Her other big milestone is that she has just turned 4. She had an intimate party at home with ice-cream cake, then a family dinner at nan and pop's with her big-cousin Mark down from NC to share in the occasion. This little girl LOVES a party. She pretended to be shy during Happy Birthday at the party, but then was jumping out of her seat at Happy Birthday at Nan and Pops.

Sheena is being very tricky with her little brother. Taking his toys, pushing him over, and just getting in his space every living minute. The minute they are alone together Roy cries from some antics. Supervision is really intense at the moment, but hopefully it will pass.

November News

Sheena is toilet training at the moment. It is 100% parent-led as she is not showing the usual signs of readiness, but we're keen for progress and Sheena sometimes needs a push with these things. We've had 2 successes, which is fantastic. She is very reluctant to go to the potty, but once she is there she does a fantastic job with the whole process from start to end. I have to completely help her with getting her pants up and down, but the rest she can manage very well (other than turning the taps on which is fair enough). We're taking her six times a day after each meal, but she still wears a night time nappy. I've got she early intervention and creche on board so that they keep the pattern going when she is outside the home.

She completely can not handle the heat. She went bright red from head to toes after playing in a friend's pool, then being in a hot car for 5 minutes tops. It looked like she was sun-burnt but she was just hot. I don't think she sweats properly. I worry about her at childcare in that way, but I am going to get them to give her a cool face washer to cool her down several times over the day when she goes tomorrow, because its going to be 32.

Buddy Walk

We all went to the Buddy Walk in Melbourne, which helps raise awareness to people with Down Syndrome. It was a 3km walk around Princess Park which was more of a run away towards to the playground, ask to be carried by dad, sit down and sulk, or sit in the double pram and cry. Not an easy walk. Sheena did enjoy the picnic afterwards, where she participated in the sack race even though she was 7 years off the minimum age of entry. She just walked over to the starting line, got herself into a sack and lined up with everyone else. It was pretty funny. I had to pick her up and run her over the finish line, becuase the jumping action was a bit much for a little girl. Lets just say we didn't come first (this year).

Trampolining

Sheena is reluctant to get her photo taken at the moment. Her rebelious streak - its "no-ooo", or just not facing the camera. I managed to get her face-on in this photo because she was tugging at my leg pleading to go outside for a play on the trampoline. In the second photo she is asking to go down stairs by signing stairs (we still have a safety gate at the top of the stairs). Yes, she did get her way.

Blink and you'd miss it

These are Sheena's play glasses in preparation to get her to wear proper glasses. They stayed on about 2 seconds so I was lucky to get this shot. She simply will not tollerate them on her ears.

Sheena visited her Nan and Pop today and they took her with them to their Weight Watching club. They expected her to be bashful and keen for nanna-cuddles which is how she behaves when she visits their neighbours. However, weight watching club turned into a social outing, where Sheena spoke to all the members, played about and then did a weigh-in herself and came in at 16.9 kgs. She ate morning tea in front of all the dieters and was then asked to sit between nan and pop and quietly read a book while they had their meeting. Sheena could not quite manage this, and was making all the animal sounds in her story, so her Pop took her for a walk while the meeting ran its course.

She is stretching out her mornings, and is now going down for a nap at 1.45 pm instead of 12.30pm. It is odd how it can suddenly just change. I remember the same thing happened when she went from 2 naps to 1 per day.

The Library Corner

Sheena is being good here sharing books with her little bro, but she is not too keen on sharing much with him at the moment. She regularly snatches the one block Roy is playing with, despite there being another 10 blocks within reach. She is being quite territorial most of the time. Then on another occasion, she'll decide to be gracious and take a toy over the Roy and place it in his hand. I think she does this so purposefully, because after playing with other children with disabilities in early intervention (some with more physical limitations that Sheena) she does not assume that Roy can reach out and grab a toy.

We've had big success since starting to use a nasal spray to improve Sheena's sleep apnoea. She is having only a few sleep-disturbances, and her day time naps are reducing to 1 hour on some days. She has very narrow nasal passages, so this is helping open up the airways.

We are having zero luck with the play-glasses that I bought to help Sheena get used to wearing prescription glasses. I baulk at paying $300 for glasses knowing that we can't get her to put any frames on for even 3 seconds, if at all...