Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Best Friends!
















Whenever I spoke with my mom on the phone, she would always ask me if Kai had a friend.   Last school year if I asked Kai if had any friends he would smile really big and say "yeah" and sign L for Lydia and C for Connor.   The reality was that neither one could tolerate Kai.  He had some really annoying social behaviors like wiping his face on the person sitting next to him.  Especially annoying when you have excessive drool.   Putting his feet on the person next to him.  You get the picture, it is hard to have friends when you are the most annoying person in the room. LOL!   This summer we did a huge push in all therapies and added social play therapy.   What a difference it has made for him!  Last week I went and watched Kai's classroom through a two way mirror.   He sat in the circle and never once touched another child.  He listened to the story being read and get this...he raised his hand when the teacher asked a question!  I almost started crying.  When you have a child that has multiple special needs it is so heart warming to see him fit in with typical kids.  So getting to the picture above, Kai finally has a friend.   Nolan is so excited to see Kai in the morning that they walk in together every day holding hands.   If you ask Kai now, who his best friend is, he will say "Nolan" and sign the letter "N".  This time it is a true friendship!   

Thursday, October 16, 2014

School 2014



The boys have had a good start to their school year.   Bei amazed me by telling me that he was fine walking into to school the first day all by himself.   I see so much growth and maturity with him.   I not only LOVE that kid but I REALLY REALLY LIKE him.   Does that make sense?   I really like who is as a person.   He is such a good and honest person.  

Kai is repeating preschool.   He is so socially delayed that everybody felt that it would be beneficial for him to spend another year learning to play and improve his social skills.   He also has an ASL teacher assigned to him 3 mornings a week.   And he is receiving ASL instruction 4 days a week.   I recently went in to watch him at school.   I was so impressed.   He sat with the other kids, didn't put his feet on them.   He didn't wipe his drool on them as he has been known to do in the past.   He sat and listened to the teacher read a book.   When the teacher began asking the class questions, his little hand went up because he wanted to answer a question.   I am seeing growth by leaps and bounds.   His language is increasing and improving daily.  Thankfully he signs and speaks.   If I don't catch the verbal, I can follow his signs and know what he wants.   He recently started signing the question why?  Why does this blanket have cords from it?   It is an electric blanket!   Why does Dad work?   I LOVE IT!  Another sign that he recently learned is "hard".  It is so nice for him to be able to tell me when he thinks something is too hard!   He is very smart, I believe he is reading and understanding words.   He is a number crunching kiddo.   He loves his numbers.     Personality wise he is sweet and loving! 

I have been blessed beyond anything I could dream of!   

Friday, July 25, 2014

Inch Stones



In the "typical" world our children meet milestones throughout their life.   With our "atypical" kiddo's they have "inch stones".    We celebrate each and every little accomplishment as a huge victory of our child developing into who they are meant to be.   Back in March of 2014, Kai actually had a milestone, which was the fact that he went from having 4 words "mom", "dad", "Bei" and "dog" to 14 spontaneous words by the beginning of June.   Most recently I have recorded over 30 spontaneous words in a day and even some phrases!    That is a HUGE change in our world.   We basically went from a non-verbal child, to a child that is babbling and attempting to talk.    The words that he knows are ones that have been repeated often to him or labelled in a book, words like banana, yes and no.   Our inch stone moment that I have been celebrating for the past two days is that Kai is picking up incidental language.   Yesterday, we came home from grocery shopping and I was unpacking the bags when I looked in a bag and loudly blurted "OH NO!"  Kai had somehow snuck in not one, not two but THREE ORGANIC Blueberry cartons and this was on top of the two non-organic blueberry cartons I put in the cart.   Honestly, I was having more of a cow about the cost of organic blueberry's.  I can only imagine that they are $50.00 a carton!!   I refuse to look at my receipt to verify!   Anyway, Kai walked around saying "OH NO!"   I loved it!!!  Later that day he broke a ceramic bowl and I said "Uh Oh!"   Yep, he went around stating the same thing.  Today we looked at a book that was ripped up and I asked him "What happened?"   Kai then said "what happened?" clear as day!   Inch stones!  Each and every one of them moving him towards conversing in 3 to 4 word sentences!  It is exciting for me to see his development and to celebrate where he is today.    

Sunday, July 20, 2014

I'M BACK!!!!


Special Friends!


 Spending the Summer Together!


 
Having fun!!
 
 
 
You wouldn't believe the reason that I have been MIA...I couldn't get logged into my blog!!!   For some reason has me logged under Dan's gmail account instead of the one that I initially had with google.  Frustrating to say the least!   I don't have time to write a lot tonight, but I will back!
 
 


 
I know I am going to do a lot of posts about Kai and his development, so that is why there are three pictures of Bei.