I am going to attempt to do monthly updates again on JJ and his Apraxia progress, as well as just how he is doing. It will also help to remind me that he really is making progress:)
Sleep: Until the last 2 nights, this month JJ has slept in his own bed ALL NIGHT LONG!!!! It is the longest stretch that he has ever gone! That led to much better restful sleep for me when I didn't wake at 5 a.m. waiting for when he would come crawling into our bed. The last 2 mornings he did come crawling in at 5. However, he had to go potty both times (he is not yet nighttime trained) so if he is actually waking to potty I am good with that:)
Wednesday he had speech therapy. He had woke himself up for the day at 7 a.m. (tough on a kid who usually wakes between 9:30 and 11). He fell asleep in the car on the way there, slept while I carried him into my work, slept on the floor while I worked for an hour, slept while I took him back into the car, and finally woke up as I was taking him into his speech therapy. When he is out...he is OUT. He wasn't very on top of his game there as it takes him so long for his brain to "wake up." He takes about 2 naps a year so I guess he got this one out of the way early lol! Amazingly he was still asleep by his normal time of midnight that night - yay for me!
Speech: He is working well with his new speech language pathologist (SLP). She is pointing out more and more issues that confirm that we are dealing with Apraxia. For example, he cannot say FACE, then say SAFE. He cannot switch between the words. Everything comes out as FACE. I won't go into the long explanation of what is happening in his brain when that happens (nor do I completely understand it) but it is further confirmation that his motor cortex just needs to be making new connections. Every time his SLP points things out like that I am infinitely grateful that we got the second opinion and did not just trust what the school SLP had told us.
He also struggles with word order and usage. For so long I just wanted to understand the "message" he was trying to get across. Now that I am understanding him about 95% of the time (no one else understands him that much, just me) I am paying more close attention to his articulation and word order, etc. Sometimes I have to stop myself from doing that because it is overwhelming for me to think of everything he still has to overcome. I also have to stop and wonder if he is actually speaking clearer or if I am just learning how to "hear" him. So, I try to walk that fine line:)
Frustration Tolerance: This has been such a HUGE issue for him. However, it is much, much, MUCH less than it was. Last week I had to pick him up off the floor and carry him resisting me out of the church. However, by the time we got to the sidewalk outside he was calm enough to walk by himself home. He had wanted to stay and play and I said "no." His tantrums are much less frequent maybe 1 - 2 a week (or less) instead of 4 - 5 day:)
He also gets frustrated when I am correcting his speech (placing my finger on my lip with my bottom lip tucked into to model the /f/ placement). I would say that 90% of the time he will then correct himself rather than just say "NO! I don't have to do it!" Those percentages used to be opposite. It is the same with the /s/ placement. So, overall there is improvement:)
Eating: He is eating a lot more than he was. He is definitely growing:) However, he still won't feed himself. He is able to feed himself. And as independent as he insists on being it surprises me that he won't feed himself. But, as he is willing to actually eat the food I don't care how it gets to his mouth as long as he eats it! Last weekend Beautiful and her husband watched the kids while my husband and I got away for a night (I had an EMDR conference and my husband took the opportunity to take me out for an early birthday get away - I have a most excellent husband;). Beautiful fed JJ a bowl of Cheerios (we go through a LOT of Cheerios for JJ. He hates the honey nut ones) and he asked for more. She handed the bowl to her husband to feed JJ. Now, I adore my son in law and since he has had virtually no experience with kids except for our kids I am so thankful that he is as tolerant and wonderful with the kids that he is. Especially since JJ absolutely thinks he is the greatest thing since sliced bread. However, he is still learning about watching kids. Apparently he went and handed the bowl to JJ on the couch...and the couch got christened with milk:) Anyone in the world would assume that a 5 year old can hold a bowl of cereal and feed himself. But that just doesn't hold with JJ. Mostly, he cannot sit still long enough to eat the entire bowl so an adult holding it is just a good idea lol! My son in law felt so terrible about it. I told him that we knew better than to buy a "new" couch because we know our kids and knew this would happen. No big deal:)
School: with school he is doing very well with colors and patterns.So, I have moved into focusing on 1) letter/sound recognition, 2) fine motor skills of writing the letters, and 3) neural connections. His SLP thinks that if we can get him to see/read the words he is trying to say that he will get the differences between /s/ and /f/ better. So...I am trying:) He cracks me up though as a lot of time he gets wrapped up in "bathroom humor" with the words. I just try to roll with it...and roll my eyes;) To address #3 I pulled back out the Dianne Craft books I used with the other 5 kids and we are working on brain cross overs to build neural connections. I know it helped with some older kids. We shall see if it helps JJ:)
Humor/Inquisitive Mind: Last night he really got me. He was looking through Netflix for a movie to watch. He saw one about some dogs getting married or something and I told him that it looked like a ridiculous movie and dogs don't get married. He response, "if they can't get married how do they have babies?" My husband looked at my face, which showed my shock with my face red and my jaw dropped, and just laughed at me and left me to explain. I am a strong believer in just telling kids how it is and being real with them about many realities in life - including how babies are made...but I just don't want to explain to my 5 year old the mechanics of...procreation! It was hard enough when Faith was reading the Lot story last week and asked me how two males were able to "know each other" since we have already explained the mechanics of husbands and wives "knowing each other." Also, we obviously have had to have a lot of conversations with the older kids about the reality that while God says to wait for marriage to engage in the behavior which results in procreation, obviously people can choose to engage in that behavior and not be married (hence their conceptions). But...I have not yet discussed this with my precocious 5 year old. Sigh...So I thought I came up with a good answer when I said that God created animals differently from people. We are able to think and reason and are made in His image, and therefore God wants us to be married before we make babies so we have families to raise up the children. But, noooooo, he persistently asked, "but how do dogs make babies." At that point I totally gave up, changed the subject, and distracted him by suggesting another movie. That was the cowards way out but that is what I did! Every time these conversations come up I flashback to my step-mother having The Talk with my step-sister and I when I was younger than 10. I was horrified and mortified and very much do NOT want that to be my kids' experience (although, admittedly, it was definitely Superman's experience - poor kid!). One would think by the 6th kid I would not be so shell shocked every time the topic comes up lol!
OK, that is enough for now. What started as a post about Apraxia progress has ended on a discussion of Birds and Bees...can I bunny trail or what?!?!
No comments:
Post a Comment