That's What Solana Said - November

11/7

Solana hurt her hand during recess. She hurt her fingernail and pulled it back a little or something. She told the tale pretty dramatically. "It was like totally horrifying!"

That's What Chloe Said - November

Current Favorite Book: Horns to Toes and In Between

Previous Favorites Include: Pat The Bunny, Moo Baa La La La

Working on Eating

We've been working with Chloe on using a spoon and fork for months now. She's very interested in the idea of feeding herself but she just can't seem to get the dip-and-scoop motion to work for her. She'll take her spoon and tap it furiously into her food but just can't scoop any food onto it. Months. Every single day I put a spoon into her hand and we work on it. For three meals a day. It's becoming tiresome. But on the bright side, she can put the spoon in her mouth. She gets angry if I try to take the spoon away from her and sometimes she won't let me guide her hand to do the scoop so we sometimes use two spoons (or forks). I'll get the food onto one utensil and hand it to her. As she puts it into her mouth I'll sneak the other utensil from her other hand.

Chloe's Occupational Therapist made these nifty bent spoons and forks. They're supposed to help her get the food into her mouth easier by requiring less of a wrist bend to point it toward her mouth. Getting it into her mouth isn't the problem, though...

The bent spoons can only be used with one hand, and we're not sure whether Chloe is a righty or a lefty, so we have some of each. (Solana's a strong lefty so we're suspicious that Chloe will be, too. Well, I'm suspicious...Dave's pleased.) The bent spoons seem to make feeding time even more difficult and frustrating for Chloe, though, because she likes switching back and forth. They were briefly interesting but didn't help so we've given up on them.

All of this self-feeding business has really put a cramp in Chloe's food consumption. We spend so much time and energy trying to eat that it creates a bit of tension for her and she's acting out a bit. She'll refuse to eat unless certain conditions are met. And with her limited communication skills it takes a bit of work to figure out her conditions. The other day I couldn't figure out what she wanted. Do you want to hold this fork? Do you want to try and scoop? Can I just feed you? How about another spoon? Do you want a drink? She refused all my suggestions and began wailing and flailing at the table. I was at a loss. Then Solana offered to feed Chloe. I resigned to another seat and Solana moved over to the Mommy chair.

Chloe opened wide and happily took a bite. And another. And another. Little sister ate it up...literally.

In the meantime, Solana was taking bites to demonstrate proper eating technique for Chloe and finished her own food in record time.

Big sister asked me if I was jealous. "A little," I admitted. But I was also thrilled.

"Teeeez" (Cheese)

Today was the third time Solana took over the reigns. She wasn't quite as successful as the first couple of times but still did better than I.

It's nice to have a little helper around. I'm thankful for my Solana. I am hopeful for my Chloe.

Solana the First Grader

I met with Solana's first grade teacher last week for the Parent-Teacher conference. I don't have a sitter so I brought the girls. The teacher said it would be fine. She showed me some of Solana's work and asked Solana to get a book, bring it over, and read it to me. It was kind of funny. I didn't know what to say. She looked at me like I was supposed to be amazed and thrilled. But Solana regularly reads books from the library that are more difficult than that. "That was great, mija. Thank you." Then she explained to me that Solana can easily read books that the students should be able to read at the end of first grade. I wasn't terribly surprised. As much reading as we do together at home she definitely has lots of experience with books. Not to mention the fact that she's pretty brilliant, in general. The teacher really didn't have much to say. She didn't "gush" about Solana like I expected but I get the feeling she's just not the gushing type. She did say that Solana's doing great.

-I asked if she pays attention, follows instructions, gets along with the other students.

-Yes. Yes. Yes.

-Is there anything in particular we need to be working on at home?

-Just do what you're doing.

-I noticed that Solana doesn't form some of her letters correctly (pencil strokes aren't perfectly sequential or she starts the letter at the bottom, etc.) and sometimes writes numbers backwards...

-Yes, but that's normal. She'll get there. Working on that at home is fine.

It was weird to leave a meeting without an IFSP, recommendations for exercises or skill building, diagrams, special areas of concern, etc. Solana's so easy. Sometimes I forget how lucky we are to have her. And just look at that face! Don't you just want to pinch her cheeks and give her a big kiss right on her forehead?

Headband Hairstyle

This is how you keep a headband in place! Instructions here.

Soft Lenses a Bust

We put the soft lenses in on Friday. I had to check Chloe's eyes at least every 15 minutes because they wouldn't stay in place. And, by "check her eyes," I mean pry her eyes open to get a really good look because the soft lenses are really hard to see on her eyeball. Then stick my finger in her eyes to move the lenses back up from underneath her bottom eyelid (where they seemed determined to be.) Chloe is usually pretty good about eye drops, insertion, and removal of lenses. I don't usually get resistance. By the end of day one she was kicking and screaming. And I can't blame her. After the first hour Dave was ready to give up. "You can't keep this up. It's ridiculous. We just need to go back to the hard lenses." But I was determined. I had already called the Vision Center to complain and they asked me to keep with these lenses for at least 2 days. Checking them now wouldn't do any good because her eyes need to adjust to them.

By the end of day 1 her left lens popped out 4 times.

1. Found after a hands/knees search of the bedroom, hallway, living room, dining room.

2. I saw it pop out on its own as Chloe ate breakfast.

3. I found it in the dishwasher. Don't ask.

4. We went out for Solana's end of the year pizza party. I checked her eyes and gave her drops about a million times during the party and 10 minutes before we left. One was missing when we got home.

That was it. Forget it. We're going back to hard lenses. We're waiting right now for the backup pair to come back from getting cleaned...

Soft Lenses Begin Tomorrow

Fingers crossed! I've been feeling waffley about switching Chloe to soft lenses. If you recall, we were having a horrible time with Chloe's hard lenses popping out and I'd spent about 5 hours on my hands and knees searching for contacts the week prior to October 6th. We found a few but completely lost three. We met with the doctor and vision center on Oct 6th and decided to switch her from gas permeable (hard) lenses back to soft.

The vision center went to work finding a company that would give us free lenses until we found the correct fit for Chloe. But I decided to keep Chloe in her hard lenses until they were lost. No reason to just throw them away. After all, the purpose in switching is to avoid wasting money. So an entire 5 weeks pass and Chloe pops out a lens a total of 4 times. That's it. Four times in 5 weeks! And we found the missing lens in about 2-4 minutes each time (Solana was so proud because she found it twice.) Isn't that the way it always goes, though? As soon as you decided to make a change from something completely awful that awful thing becomes not so bad. I began to second guess myself. Was I being overly dramatic? Was I crying in front of Chloe's therapists because I don't have enough patience? No. That's just the way it goes.

Well, Chloe finally lost a contact today. Whew! I thought that was NEVER gonna happen. Funny story. It happened at Old Navy: Solana and I are walking around looking at the floor because we're sure we can find it. (Delusuional?) The manager asks us if we're finding everything ok. I'm embarrassed and start nodding my head but Solana is anxious to tell everyone in the store that her baby sister lost a contact. The next thing I know, half the Old Navy team is walking around with their heads down. We finally give up and the Manager, very sympathetic to my plight because she has two middle school boys in contacts, takes my number just in case. We pay and leave. Half an hour later I get a call from the manager. The introduces herself on the phone and I think, "NO WAY!!! She found it!" But no. "Is this Cyndi? Hi. You left your wallet on the counter when you paid." Doh! So it was a blessing that Chloe lost her contact in the store because otherwise I wouldn't have left my phone number with the manager?

ANYWAY. We'll put the soft lenses in tomorrow. Wish us luck! The insertion and removal of soft lenses is a totally different process than we're used to. We were really good at the hard lenses. Let's hope this transition is an easy one. And that the lenses STAY PUT!