09 November 2009

Monday Evening

Julia had a good day at school -- all smiles on her daily report -- and some very good work at OT and speech therapy. However, she was incredibly tired at speech, falling asleep on her hands at the table. Of course, my dear girl will not admit sleep and would not take a little nap. She shook herself awake and continued on. Some of this is drug induced but the refusal to take the nap is very much Julia and her vigilance. It is incredible that she will even sleep during the day, even it is for a few minutes. For such a long time, she would not do it at all. Admitting to needing and then taking a nap will come, but I think we have some time to wait.

She was able to listen to Annie (OT) and do a writing exercise that included circling words (the intent was to show her that she needed to leave space between words so that she could circle her own words). She was quiet and intense. In a sense, she was concentrating on an activity was was not of her choosing and was far from her usual interests. I had the feeling that she was almost following directions for the first time. Words are not expressing what I saw very well, but there was something very deliberate in what she was doing.

It felt like one of the "small step" moments.

Then in speech, she was working on sequence cards. Her therapist, Kara, had Julia describe in a full sentence (which Julia apparently knows is more than a single word or even two words) what was going on in the card. Kara wrote out the sentence, then Julia put the cards in order, the sentences in order, and Kara put "first", "next", and "last" in front of the appropriate sentences. Julia then tried to read the sentences. This took awhile but they did two sets of cards. Julia showed lots of patience.

Julia did not sleep in the car ride home. I was hoping that she would. She was grumpy with both of her therapist tonight, but did manage a few good exercises with them, including building a lizard house out of Popsicle sticks. The kid had a long busy day.

You know, I would love to get behind those eyes and into her head. What I would give to know what goes on in her head. But I only guess.

Tonight I have been working on a redo of the proposed listserv guidelines for the PTO meeting tomorrow night. Mostly, I was straightening out the proposals from last year and shifting paragraphs and fixing language. A little boring but the kind of detail that I always love. We've talked about these guidelines for two years and I am going to get them passed either tomorrow or next month.

And another check to put on my list!

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