December Milestones

This month, Gabe and Ari both turned 34 months, and Isabella turned 15 months.

Ariana has not been doing too much new this month. She is still commando crawling to get to where she wants to go. Her only words are "hi" and (sometimes) "mama" and "bye". When we ask her to say a word, her response is pretty much always "aba." If we really encourage her, she might say "ababa" or "abaaaaa", but no new sounds or consonants have come up. If we're feeling really optimistic, we might just convince ourselves that she's saying "book" or "ball" or any other real word that sounds like "aba", but truth be told, this isn't the case. That is simply the only consonant that she can reliably make.

Ari has been working with her talker, but things are kind of going in a different direction for her. While my initial concern with the talker was that Ari would not understand how to navigate from page to page to get to the words she wanted to say, this isn't so. She is learning how to navigate really well actually. The problem at present is that Ari chooses to navigate away from the pages that would help her communicate her wants and opts to navigate straight towards the "fun" pages that play her music and let her look at pictures. Whenever I try to bring her screen back to the "core" or homepage, she'll navigate right out of it again to her favorites. I've thought about "hiding" those buttons to restrict her usage to just communication, and I just might end up doing that, but she just enjoys playing with that so much that I don't really want to take away her favorite toy. The music is her favorite part, and it is just so reinforcing for her that it might be her sole motivation (and least the main motivation) for her to even play with the talker in the first place. It's a stumbling block for us. Communication device turns into a toy... a great toy, but defeating the point of communication nonetheless.

We have been working on a systematic desensitization for Ari's phobia of gloves, mittens, hand puppets, or any type of hand covering. This fear arose as a result of repeated traumatic episodes involving nurses and doctors wearing rubber gloves. If my memory serves me, she has never been the same about this since her hospitalization in 2008 from her seizure. So, seeing as though it's winter and she has decided to loathe/fear anyone covering their hands, I realized that something needed to be done (albeit gradually). Most recently, Ari started crying hysterically when she met a friend of mine who had pulled her sleeves over her hands, and she began to tremble and cry when she saw me remove a hot pan from the oven with oven mitts. After our first session, Ari was able to wear the oven mitts herself (happily). After her Nana worked with her again, she was able to wear her own real mittens and she loved them. Baby steps...

We made some new friends this month who are really great people. But more importantly, Ari made a new friend. Their daughter is Ari's age and also has Cerebral Palsy. She is affected in very similar ways to Ari. Like Ari, she is not independently mobile, she does not have a large expressive vocabulary, and she is more limited on one side of her body than another. Also like Ari, her receptive language (her understanding and cognition) are relatively great, and her stellar personality outshines any physical restrictions she has. I am so excited to have finally found a little friend for Ari.This is our last month before Stem Cell Therapy. I am really excited, nervous, hopeful, and feeling a good deal of the entire scope of human emotion over her upcoming procedure. Ari has hit somewhat of a plateau in achieving her major milestones as you can see from my last several milestones updates. Her mobility hasn't significantly improved since learning to belly crawl. She is able to say as many or fewer words as she was once able to (a common feature of brain injury is a "coming and going" of expressive vocabulary). She is still very restricted is her use of the right side of her body, especially her right arm and hand. She is able to weight bear minimally on this hand and lift it slowly upon our request, but it isn't functional enough to be considered a "helper hand". Ari is still drooling, and only controls it when we verbally call her attention to it by asking her to "swallow". Her appetite is still poor most of the time, due to the fact that she refuses most meats (meatballs, chicken nuggets, steak, chicken breast, etc.), because they are the hardest foods for her to chew and she doesn't enjoy the flavor. Ari's receptive language is improving consistently, as she is increasingly able to understand more and more of what we say to her. Ari is almost three years old now. One of my un-based but motherly worries is that Ari will quit trying to communicate verbally because of such a long history of repeated failures. I'm afraid that if she doesn't start talking soon (even if just a few words), that she'll start to believe that her brain/mouth is incapable of making words, and she'll give up. That Ari will start talking is one of my primary hopes for stem cell therapy. If anything comes from it at all, it is my greatest desire that she will start to say words. Although it almost hurts me to put that in writing out of my own personal fear that I will be disappointed... or rather, devastated, if it doesn't come to pass. Ari is almost three years old now. She loves people, especially other children and babies, music, toys, and playing interactive games. She is our angel, and she has not ceased to draw the admiration of whomever she comes into contact with for her happy spirit, her flirty smiles and glances, her girly personality, and her determination. Please keep her in your prayers on Monday, January 18, 2010.

Isabella, on the other hand, is growing up so fast. She is completely weaned from breastfeeding (except when she's sick). Synonymous with this, she has decided she is no longer a "mama's girl", which breaks my heart to bits. She refuses to give me kisses, and she clamours and cheers for her Daddy. I always have to steal my kisses from her, to which her reply is a defiant "NO no no no no!". She has developed quite an independent personality, and unlike her brother and sister, she doesn't like to be doted on. She wants to do her own thing for the most part, and only get help or affection when she asks for it. She has begun to want to do all kinds of things on her own, that I'm not sure I'm in favor of. For example, she has started boycotting eating breakfast because I have always spoon fed her cereal. She wants to do the spoon feeding of the cereal and the yogurt, which I have allowed, only out of necessity to get her to eat. Once my best eater, she has started getting pickier, which I guess is normal for her age *groan*. Frequently, she'll put food in her mouth, pull it back out and hold it up to examine it (seriously Isabella style right here), put it back in her mouth, and pull it out again only to throw it on the floor for Chewy. She loves feeding Chewy. Me? Not so much.

Isabella has been saying quite a few words, and contrary to my promise to keep a better record of the words she says, I'm afraid I've dropped the ball on that one again. It's the third child syndrome -- with Gabe, I had every word written on a sheet of paper until, like, 50 words. All of Isabella's little achievements get noticed late (if at all), or get noticed then forgotten. It's so sad. At least I finished her baby book :). Well, altogether, if I had to guess, I think Isabella has said about 30-40 words. She doesn't use them consistently, and sometimes she refuses to use her words as a kind of rebellion. Some words I've heard her say recently are: cheese, orgsh (orange), nana (Nana & banana), hold you, ouch (which she says whenever anyone gets too close to her uninvited -- including when I give her kisses), bed, bear, ada (all done). She jabbers and sings to herself all the time, and she loves to walk around talking about (repeatedly saying the names) of her two favorite people: "Dada" and "Nomo" (Nemo).

Bella is still just as active and agile as ever. She gets around so fast speed walking everywhere she goes and climbing whatever she can find. She likes to stand up on high (benches, bar stools, countertop) or unsteady (rocking board that the PT brings over) surfaces. She is still fantastic at making messes (way better than I'd like to admit), and she her independent streak carries into her physically active endeavors. The other day (this is January but still), she walked down the stairs with her hand held by Devyn.

Lastly, Isabella has taken an interest in blocks and puzzles. For the longest time, I thought that Isabella would simply not have the patience for these (relatively boring) tasks, due to her adventuresome personality. She has surprised me this month, when I've caught her on several occasions sitting quietly in the playroom alone, stacking blocks 4-5 high into a tower. She has started carrying blocks around with her so she can stack them up wherever she lands. She has also started putting shapes into a shape sorter and attempting shape puzzles. She is really getting the hang of the shape sorter (her favorite piece being the circle, but still!). She'll do this for up to 15 minutes! I'm so impressed with her focus -- I guess I underestimated her.

Gabe has also been growing up so fast. He is really getting the hang of holding conversations, and I'm often impressed listening to him. He has gotten more independent lately in a number of different activities. When he decides to do something on his own, he announces "That's my job!", and should we intervene, we do so at our own peril. So many things are his "job" now that they're hard to keep straight: climbing in and our of carseats, opening and closing doors, flushing toilets, pulling up or down pants, whatever. On the flip side, sometimes he'll demand my help when he's feeling lax by saying "No, you do it Mommy!". Then, if I oblige him, he might change his mind midway through or immediately after and want to redo what I already did for him. Needless to say, getting much done in my house can be an arduous process.

Along the lines of developing independence, Gabe has started branching out socially even more than before. I really feel like I've seen him mature a great deal in this regard. He has started having a preference towards certain friends over others. He tends to gravitate towards boys mostly, but still gets along well with his female friends. His interests right now are very "boy". They include such things as rough-and-tumble play, 'fighting' with swords and guns, scary things like skeletons and sharks, cars and trucks, construction vehicles, and espeically sports (football and baseball being his favorites). The other day he told me "boys play sports Mommy". I don't know how he came up with that, but I think he's developing a healthy gender identity. His best friends are definitely his male cousins, about whom he talks incessantly. Over Christmas, he got to play with three of his cousins for five days in a row, and it was little boy heaven for him. They rode trikes (Gabe is still not pedaling), played cars and guns, chased each other around, watched Diego and Peter Pan, and played games with one another. I had greatly underestimated Gabe's ability to play cooperatively with his peers, because I predominantly witness him being bossy and unwilling to share with his sisters. I was pleasantly surprised that he took turns, shared toys, held conversations, followed adult instruction, didn't require adult supervision, and cooperated during games, all the while laughing and having fun! I especially couldn't believe how he was able to grasp the concept of games (like board games!), such as Candyland, Lets Go Fishin, and others. I hadn't even thought about introducing board games yet (more than likely because Ari might have difficulty understanding it & Isabella would try to run off with the pieces), but it was really enlightening for me to see what Gabe was capable of.

Also new for Gabe is the world of pretend play. Gabe's imagination has really started taking off, and it's so fun to see. While he has long pretended to cook or talk on the phone, he is recently taken it to a fantastical realm. He loves pretending that he's his favorite characters. Lately, Peter Pan is the guy to be. He jumps off the bed, flapping his wings, singing the "You can fly" song or takes an empty paper towel roll and holds it up to his eye exclaiming "Look out Peter Pan!...Mommy, it's my telescope!" or comes over and whacks me with it saying "I'm gonna fight the injuns" (lyric from a Peter Pan song). Ari laughs at him, thinking this is just the silliest behavior she's ever seen. It's times like these (and so many others) that my heart breaks for her -- not being able to run around, singing, and playing with him. They are twins; they are supposed to have each other to play with. But I digress...

Anyway, Gabe, although bossy and whiny a lot of the time, can also be a great, empathetic, and encouraging big brother to his sisters, and a real charmer to others as well. Often, when he sees Bella attempting a challenging feat (like fitting shapes into the shape sorter), Gabe will be right there next to her, cheering her on saying, "Good job, Bella! Wow, you're smart!". These are the moments that, like any mom, my heart beams with pride :). Gabe also has been heard saying cute phrases such as "Goodness!" and "Oh dear!", which I think are so endearng (and it's nice to hear this echoed back at me, reminding me of why I try to watch my language around him).

Gabe got a 3-disc DVD series called "Meet the Sightwords" for Christmas from his Grammy, and it has been awesome! Gabe has memorized nearly every one of those 45 sight words and can recognize them in any context (i.e. of, look, he, she, word, up...). I point those words out on the back of cereal boxes or in books and he gets them without hesitation. Not only does this impress me, but it impresses him, and he feels like he is really reading. Knowing the sight words in combination with his phonics, I think, has really helped him make the connection as to what reading is. He loves it. Also for Christmas, Gabe got a computer game and console (hooks up to the TV) from Nana, and a Leapfrog Text n Learn (kind of like a pretend Blackberry) from us. Between these two, Gabe is getting really familiar with the QWERTY keyboard and where the letters & numbers are located. He is also learning mouse skills and how to use arrow and select buttons to navigate. I love it!