Julia at Kennywood

Julia and I on the log ride. Julia loved the beginning of this ride but by the end, she was swearing off log rides.

Daddy and Julia ride the turtle.
Doesn't she look pert.
And she loved the whip.

Short notes

We had a piddling around day with rainy weather to keep us inside or dashing to or from the car. Best part of the day was to get Cheshire with us for a few days. Tomorrow, Maryland and Lisa!

Julia was very fidgety today -- all day and even tonight getting ready to sleep. It seemed impossible for her to be still no matter what she was doing. I know we are not do enough physical stuff for her, but we took two walks and played in two playgrounds. I am hoping the better weather will get us outside more often. The fidgety behavior is such a reminder that Julia is not like everyone else. She needs a sensory diet and she needs help to gain control.

I am reminded that we had a day like this when we were in Door County just before we saw some very visible results from the listening therapy. She is also trying very hard to connect with Cheshire and her Babja (my mother). Her conversations are bizaar sometimes but she tries so hard.

I put the new CD in tonight for 10 minutes.

Sunday evening

We have been in Jersey at my mother's house since Friday evening. We have been visiting since we arrived and will be taking tomorrow off. We can use a day to regroup, maybe go swimming, at least spend time in a playground and running around. Our DVD player that we use traveling has broken but Julia has been great traveling in the car. I hope we can replace it this week for the trip home, but I have the feeling that I can occupy her with it.

Julia is still doing the listening therapy twice a day using the same moderation CD. It has been most convenient and practical to do it while we are driving even though Annie had advised us not to do that for awhile. It has worked fine -- no ill effects at all -- so I will continue. We are supposed to introduce a second CD this week.

Julia has been a bit hyper with all the travel and doing nothing but visiting. There has not been a lot for her to do. Thank goodness we brought a few plastic bags of her toys, crayons, and of course clay. She met two little boys during brunch in Brooklyn today, and they had a great time with dinosaurs and little pets. We could use meeting a few kids like that every day.

Today, we spent the afternoon Chinatown. At first, Julia was a bit hesitant about being there, but the shops, the smells, and the food lured her in, and by the end of our visit, she did not want to leave. We managed to be there during a church parade -- the Chinese answer to the San Genareo festival, which is a regular event in Little Italy next door to Chinatown. There were dragon dancers, a Chinese band (Old guys in white hats playing strings, some sort of loud horn, and drums), a ladies' drum band, and groups of kids, families, old men, old ladies, and finally, a statue of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary). It was not clear exactly what they were celebrating but it was great fun. Also, in one of the small parks where we found swings and sliding boards, there was singers and musicians doing something that sounded like an opera in Chinese, people doing Ti Chi, men doing a formal wrestling, and lots of kids. We got a good deal of stares -- the old white midwesterners with the crazy Chinese kid. Looking at the kids playing, I can see that Julia is getting to look pretty American in her manner but not completely so. Not like the Chinese American kids there. She still has a bit of China -- a stance, a way of moving, something almost so subtle that it is hard to pin point, but I could see it. So interesting.

We had a lunch of three kinds of noodles and dumplings. Although Julia usually loves dumplings, and these were wonderful (thin skins and very fresh), she did not finish even one and gave her full concentration to the noodles. We have braised noodles, fried noodles and cold noodles with sesame sauce. Each was better than the one before. David and I realized how mediocre the Chinese food that we usually get is. And this was not a really special restaurant but it was soooo good. Ah, NYC! Nothing like it at all.

I have no idea of what went through her head. She knew it was not China which was very good. She like being there. I am so happy about that. Sometimes, no most of the time, I wish we had more explaining, more real conversation. Julia is being a bit rough on me. She can be so angry with me. and she talks about hurting me. We have our attachment work cut out for us.

I am on dial up right now and can't post pictures. I may have to wait until I am home to add any to these posts.

Pittsburgh, the review

Pittsburgh has been an interesting city for a few days. It is rock hard to get around here! Driving is insane. The city is laid out on a number of grids and general advice is "you can't there from here" -- someone actually told David this when he was asking directions. The person said that it was the stock answer for requests for directions.

Okay. Not real tourist friendly.

A good deal of the confusion comes from the fact that Pittsburgh exists on various levels and with two rivers running through it. In the best of times, driving means navigating in an around and up and down. It is also an old city and highway type roads seem to be all over the place -- in neighborhoods and down any small street, and once on a highway, the exits seem to be only more highways. This summer -- and I am not supposing that it is every summer but who knows -- there is lots and lots of road work. That means detours! Finding the right road by number to begin with is no easy task, added to that signs for 4 or 5 or 6 detours which are not in any particular order and which seem to pop up just before any turn off and it is pretty tough on the visitor. At times it did make me appreciate what a good convention city Indianapolis is.

We tend to favor parking our car and taking public transport when we travel; however, there doesn't seem to be much public transport here. Maybe a typical midwest city, although I saw a few buses. No one suggested that I try to take a bus -- unlike New Orleans where every suggested I take buses. There is also a strange cab rule here -- a visitor can hail a cab! You can only get them at hotels or a few other places -- and you have to know where those places are. I have lived in places where there are few cabs making hailing a cab impossible but not one in which cabs on the street will not pick you up because they just don't do that. How did that get to be a good idea?

All that said, Pittsburgh is starting to grow on me. It is pretty gritty -- at least the little of it that I have seen. The museums are good and interesting. I have the feeling that they do what they do well. The food, if and when you find it, is also good and varried. But none of it is easy. Maybe that is why I finally can say that I like it -- it takes work to be here. Nothing like a challenge!

Good eats for us (and we did not go to many places so this is in no way a comparative study) -- Kaya inspire from island food from all over the world. We had a calamari with chayote squash, radicchio, coconut, peanuts, and sesame-banana vinaigrette. David and I enjoyed it; Julia made it her main course. I found a very good little Italian cafe on Smallman Street called __________. Julia and I shared Dad's Fritata that had spicy sausage, onions, peppers and tomatoes in it. It came with a basket of toasted Italian bread that sent me back to Frascati. I also found a great chocolate shop for a few treats to bring home.

We did not do that grown up thing that I was hoping to do -- see Wright's Fallingwater. I have wanted to see this architectural wonder for a long time and it is about an hour outside of the city. It did not; however, seem like something that Julia would enjoy or tolerate very well. Taking her on a tour of an interesting house that just might contain many interesting things while someone talks about the interesting history of the house and its designer would well have turned into a trying and exhausting, and probably frustrating time for us. So, maybe we need to come back when she is older and try a few more restaurants.

Thursday

It is hard to write everything -- even the important things. Sometimes I am not disciplined enough to delve into the behavior, the doings, the learnings that will show me what Julia is learning and how she is developing. I favor instead easy tellings of events of our days. And then, sometimes all I can write is the events and that has to be enough. Breaking through to a place where I write what matters, what I can really learn from, and what can help Julia in the future is where I want to be.

Julia's behavior has been better on this trip than on any other. She does ask about going back to her house and every so often is not pleased that it will be almost two weeks before we are home. She is testy and stubborn at times, sometimes even sitting down on the ground or shouting "no" to make her point, but she is quickly talked down from this impulsive behavior. She is also much more concerned about how I feel. She asks if I am angry or sad, she tells me that she is happy in order to please me. This solicitous behavior alternates with a defiance towards me and a rejection of anything that I say. Tonight, we were working on two letters -- P and R -- and I was trying to have her draw the main line of the letter and then put in the half circle. She did not want to make the letters this way, and yet she seemed to know that her way of making the letters -- drawing a circle and then a line down -- just didn't look like the letters. She has done this sort of this before and at times I've gotten frustrated. Tonight, I kept at her in a calm and steady voice and manner. I told her how I knew she could do it. I told her that she had to listen and do as I say because my way would enable her to make her letters correctly. I told her how smart she was and that listening to me and following my directions would make her smarter. How much did her understand? I am not sure, but this constant patter allowed her to give in in some way and to do what I asked of her.

Julia has also been favoring David when ever he is with us. I know that she gets much more of me than of him, and she enjoys being Daddy's girl, but I feel like she does reject me whenever she can. I don't take this personally. Just maybe this is an attachment issue that we need to work on. Poor David! These last five nights, she has slept in a double bed with him while I have the other bed to myself.

And oh, she loves staying up late! That girl can keep on going way past what I remember Cheshire doing. She will almost never fall asleep anywhere but in bed and anytime but at night. This concerns me to the extent that she might be staying viligent and not allowing her self to rest anytime during the day.

We have been pretty good keeping up with her brushing and theraputic listening during this week. I will be starting her on a new CD later this week. Just 10 minutes during one of the half hour listening times. We'll see what changes it brings.

Wednesday

We spent this morning and early afternoon at the Pittsburg Kids' Museum -- a must stop for anyone stoping into this city. It is different from the Indy kids' museum but probably just as good. Lots of Mr. Rodger's stuff -- the set, his sneakers, the puppets, etc. Julia and a number of kids her age did not have any connections with Mr. Rodgers, but the fun stuff in the room, including a player piano with all sorts of percussion instruments as well as the piano was a bit hit. Lots of art stuff -- the first thing we did was visit the studio and Julia painted, make a monoprint and some paper. Her paintings (two of them) were just circles, but very controlled and designed. She did not want the brushes provided with the paints and found thicker brushes and was very careful with them. (Brush lessons seem to have sunk in!) It is hard to believe that less than a year ago, this girl was painting wild archs and mixing colors with abandon. She counted her circles (not necessarily correctly) and liked using very thick paint. Her print was a picture of herself and Daddy with clouds.


There was so much more -- water play (for which I should have brought a change of clothes), an attic with puppets and dress up, a workshop with motor parts and all sorts of ways to put stuff in the air, a motion generated music room which Julia spent a long time figuring out, a shadow space with falling letters that sat on your shadow (not at all for kids only). We spent four hours there and is we didn't have an event to go to tonight, we would have stayed longer.

Much later -- We went to Kennywood -- Pittsburgh's very own amusement park. Ummm, it has been an amusement park for over 100 years. There are landmark markers all over the place. Unfortunately, times has not been kind to the park. There are a few old wooden rollercoasters and lots of places to buy stuff to eat. Julia had a great time on all of the kiddy rides and loved when we were able to go on a few of the rides with her. Honestly, there was no way either David or I were going to fit into the Dumbo elephants. David rode with her on the bumpy turtles and the bus that goes up and down. I rode in the cars and went with Julia on the Log Flume which she decided was too scary. I have pictures to post. It was fun and we had our amusement park quota for the summer!

Tuesday is Hienz country

Maybe Carnegie is closer to the truth since the Museum of Natural History was funded and stocked by the old man himself. Julia was in heaven! And David and I were just in awe. This is an old museum with old bones that have been fixed and refurbished, but there is no way to duplicate this stuff. Most of what we saw was real which is different from lots of new dino exhibits, and the sheer number of prehistoric skeletons was more than impressive.

The dino is the picture is outside the museum and is just one of the long necked monsters that is inside. Below is Julia hugging a leg.

Julia knew so many of the dinos from their bones and was not at all intimidated by the size.
She also had no trouble using the touch screen computers with more pictures and information. She did skip the boring all info pages infavor of the pictures.
More on today, tomorrow

More Monday pictures

Julia loves pickles, in fact anything pickled as far as we can tell. So, she was very happy with the Hienz history display at the museum and loved posing on the pickly barrel and pointing to the giant cucumber pickle.
Here she is mixing pickles and loving the pickle hat -- actually the kind of hat that women picklers used.
Surveying her final product and getting ready to pack it in the big plastic jar.
And there is nothing like finding a dino dressed as George Washington. Nice to see Pittsburg acknowledging the part that dinosaurs played in the American Revolution -- a much forgotten fact.

Pictures from Monday (mostly)

Julia after 10 hours in the car. Not so bad, especially considering that our little DVD player stopped working because the power cord to the cigarette lighter was frayed. Movies usually help our traveling immensely, but with Daddy's help and playing in the back seat when I drove.

This is a really cook stingray that we saw at the zoo. It is almost the same kind that is the teacher in Finding Nemo. Okay, now I know how much I've made the transition to total mommy track! Anyway, this stingray was really interested in Julia -- seemed to almost be communicating -- shades of Harry Potter and the snake.Here you can see the stingray climbing up the glass trying to get closer to my spicy dragon. Stingrays and dragons? Julia just thought it was very exciting.
And nothing like a cold icy snowcone after petting the deer and kangaroo

Monday in Pittsburg

I tried uploading pictures and little signs talking about internal errors popped up. I have no idea whether it is my photos or blogger. I will try again tomorrow.

After a 10 hour drive yesterday, we arrived in Pittsburg, city of bridges. Something like Paris but in Pennsylvania. There are many steel bridges, one ever few blocks which span a narrow river, were built at the beginning of the last century. There are pictures of the bridges when they were "paved" in wooden planks with horse drawn carriages and ladies with parasoles walking across them. From the little that we have seens, one side of the city seems to be built into hills and across the river, the city becomes much flatter.

Julia and I went to the zoo today -- a bit hotter than I would have like but with all the museums closed (and no swimming pool at the hotel), the zoo was the place to be. Julia was pretty grumpy for a good percentage of the day. Maybe it is a new place, a new adventure, the heat, or plain grumpiness. She kept saying she didn't want to be at the zoo after the zoo had been her first choice! Very frustrating indeed! Then, she decided that she wanted to buy some animals -- toys! Throughout our time looking at the live animals, she kept reminding me that she was going to stop into one of the stores and that we would buy a toy. I am so not in favor of buying souveniers everywhere we go, and I hate the expectation. Such an American kid! In the end, I did not buy her anything and by that time she was complaining about getting into the car.

In between all the complaints and whining, she did have a good time. We saw two very tiny baby elephants, pretty close up. She pet a kangaroo and a dear (I had to wonder if they were drugged.), saw sharks, penguins, and lots of cool fish, sea lions, polar bears, and a small tiger. The zoo like that part of the city is built into the hills and there was lots of walking up and down, not quite a vertical zoo, but closer than most.

Tonight, we went to the historical museum for dinner and free run of the museum. Pretty cool place, and definitely cool to be there without a crowd. I wish we had a more patient little one in order to read some of the accompanying information with the exhibits, but I was grateful that Julia allowed us a bit more than an hour to absorb some of the museum. There was a great Hienz exhibit -- of course, this is a Hienz town! Katsup was once bottled in really lovely bottles and pickles, oh, we saw a whole history of pickles.

Ah, almost forgot. As part of dinner, there was a chocolate fountain with lots of stuff to be dipped and sprayed with the stuff. Strawberries, of course, different cookies, marshmellows, other fruit, and some cake. We don't overdo the chocolate at home by any means, but I allowed Julia to eat what she wanted to tonight. She had a great time dipping but her favorite was the plain undipped orea cookies. We did have to let her unwind for a good while, first, walking the museum and then back in our room, she played with her clay for a long time. too much sugar for that girl.

Right now, for better or worse, Julia prefers sleeping in Daddy's bed in the hotel. That means I get a really good night's sleep, but I do feel a bit guilty that David gets the night time kicks, pushes, and snuggles. Maybe tomorrow, I'll convince her to sleep in my bed.

Saturday thoughts

So often, there is a comment to a post that essentially says, 'I used to do that behavior,' 'I needed that particular comfort,' 'I still feel the need to ____ and I am normal.' I find myself thinking and feeling the same way. I like the feel of No. 2 pencils on a page for any sort of writing, I love my heavy quilt in the winter, certain music changes theway that I feel. And I really loved the way that crayons feel when they are very warm and coloring on warm paper. Julia has her own set of sensory needs and they are intensified. The longer that she has been home, the less “odd” or out of the ordinary her responses are to sensory stimulation, and the more her behavior corresponds to the “range of normal” reactions. She still needs hugs and a lap for the siren of an ambulance or a fire truck, and still needs a heavier quilt, at least at home, to feel comfortable. I wonder if this easing into the normal range of response to sensory input is changing something in her core, or if it is some basic changes in her core that pushes her behavior into the normal zone?

The new normal: I wrote a response to a post on the yahoo Attach-China board that touched upon how, as parents of kids with special needs, we must go through the mourning of the child we had dreamed of and set the new normal. By no means do I mean, that my new normal for Julia is defined by diminished expectations. I expect her to do her best and reach the highest heights of her abilities, but I do not expect to treat Julia like a child of her chronological age any time soon. I do miss the possiblity of talking to a 7 year old like Cheshre or the myriad of children who I have known at 7. I also do worry at times that we will never get to a real conversation, but concentrating on the here and now, I engage Julia is familiar conversation about lunch, her day, her pets. My worry is reciprocity and most of the time Julia doesn't ask me anything. Every so often she will ask if I am okay, or something about food, or something about the dog. It is a beginning and renews hope.

I wonder how long I will be talking to Julia as a 3-4 year old. I get an incling of loving and caring for serverely differently able people, something that I never let myself understand. I took it as a given that when I was a child, I was less loveable, less acceptable because of my differences. I see now how not necessarily true that is. I could love Julia no more if she was in any way different from what she is right now.

I love packing for travel. The winnowing down of possessions to the essentials – more winnowing when we travel by plane, but engaging enough when there will be limited space in the car for baggage. Julia's books, toys, movies, and music. How much reading should I brng for myself? Can I make myself read the whole of a philosophy book by bringing nothing else? And snacks? Do we need them? Am I bringing the exact same clothes that I wore last year? So, I don't think about this often at all. And if anyone took care to notice, they might see that all our trip pictures had me in the same outfits, changed only due to season and weather. Yes, that sweater is 20 years old! Yes, I took that shirt to China in 2006, to Vietnam in 2001, and probably to England in 1999. Either I tend to wear clasic clothes or I am dreadfully out of style.

Last day of camp

So this is not such a great photo but it's what I got and it is the last day of camp! Like every other day the last 6 weeks, Julia came home hungry and in a great mood. We didn't get any anxious phone calls or any complaints apart from an occasional word that she didn't feel well on the bus. I watched Julia try to socialize many days as we waited for the bus and by the end, some of the other kids would talk to her or answer her questions. Still, she has a long way to go to really fit in with kids. Julia has such spirit and such endurance. I admire this about her and sometimes wish I could I could borrow some of her spirit.
So, a little better picture. And doesn't she look happy.

Julia and I worked tonight. She was able to work for an hour and work through a rough patch about connecting dots. Oh, connecting the dots. I think we are into a battle of wills. I am trying to teach her this skill, and not doing such a good job. I went from trying to get her to go from a dot labeled with the alphabet to two dots that I wanted her to draw a line to connect. At some point she absolutely refused to do it, but in the nicest way possible. "It hard." "I no want do this." "No thank you." We tried on paper and then on the magna-doodle. I explained every part of the task; I demonstrated; and she did not want to do it. I got close to very frustrated and angry, but held it back and drew BIG dots to connect. She finally did it and then did it thre more times. Hopefully, we can move to labeled dots very soon.

She did do wondefully as we worked on the alphabet. We did our putnik cheers; she wrote letterw when I made signs, and I again tried to point out letters and have her make the sound. She is getting better at separating the putnik cheer and giving me the part of it that I am asking for. We also did the "an" page on starfall.com. It is the very beginning of learning to read and we got through the first page very successfully. Julia put the c, p, r, and another letter in front of the AN and made the words to match the pictures. I was surprised that it was so easy for her, and we will be doing this more often now.

I bought a CD player and found a belt with a CD pocket. We are using an old set of sony headphones that basically complies with the requirements of headphones for the listening therapy. So, we can proceed. We missed an evening and morning playing -- not that bad at all. Julia no longer resists playing her music, and actually asked about her music the evening that we did not have the equipment.

I put together a binder of printouts of alphabet sheets, direction sheets, and connect the dot sheets. Hopefully, we will be able to take time during our vacation and do some of the work. And it will be fun. I hope.

Morning report

Last evening we went to Camp to have supper with all campers and parents and watch the kids entertain us. Last session, I made a very nice pasta salad which I was sure that Julia would love and she was much more interested in the take-out pizza that other families brought. So, this time, I gave her the choice of my cooking, pizza, or chinese food. She opted for my friend rice and then said she wanted noodles and nu-nu (meat with fat -- yeah, fat). So, we ordered from the restaurant down out street and set out for camp. We also had to go to therapy, pick up Dad, go and get the blue car which was being checked out prior to vacation, and THEN go to camp.

It all worked and we enjoyed Chinese noodles with nu-nu (beef lo mein to the uninitiated) on a blanket with 250 other families and a million mosquitos. Ah, the joys of summer. After eating the kids are called up to perform with the counselors. It is a very low stress performance but Julia had no interest at all standing up and singing with the kids. So we watched for a little while and then she wanted to go home. Unfortunately, we missed some of the best performances including a rendition of "These boots are made for walking" choreographed by one of Julia's counselors. We heard all about it waiting for the bus this morning.

My most important task today is to put together a way for Julia to do her listening therapy during our vacation. My begging -- no, I really didn't because Annie is too nice to make her feel badly because we cannot continue using the official headphones -- was to no avail. We will try to use our good headphones for vacation. They might not provide optimal sound, but heck, Julia is improving visible day-by-day, I don't want to stop. Last night while we were doing her brushing, she asked about her music. "Where music?" After an initial grumbling about using headphones 'all' the time, I think she is getting use to it.

This morning I was looking for a way to preserve the basil that I cut from my plants and the cherries that we picked last Sunday. Whatever the method, it had to be quick because gettting ready for vacation is taking up the main priority. I found a Storing Basil website, there were many basil websites. Who knew? Finding out about sour cherries was not as easy -- obviously, being a sour cherry expert carries no prestiege like that of the basil addicionado. I do have a bit of pitting work ahead. It seems like something that Julia would enjoy but just not before vacation.

Bumps in the road, but WE ARE ON A ROAD!

Ah, just when things seem to be going smoothly, bumps happen!

1. We really think the listening therapy is helping Julia organize herself -- does that make sense? We had some really figity days this weekend and to my eyes Julia's behavior was very autistic-like. Then, yesterday she seemed to calm down. David even commented that she seems like another child. She seems to be inhabiting more of her body. She is also building her vocabulary like crazy -- yesterday, she was upset not angry. This morning she complained about ant bites. When I corrected her that it was the mosquitos that were biting her, she corrected me and told me, "no, it ants."

So where is the bump here? Well, the headphones that we are using belongs to our rehab center. They loaned them for 2 weeks which already was more than they like to do. I am full ready to plop down my cash and get the kit, but the headphones are on back order until the middle of next month. I was really hoping that we could be using them during this next month. We have therapy today, so I am going to beg.

2. With all this forward movement, something has to give. Right? The give point is sleep. It is taking Julia enormous amounts of time to fall asleep -- starting bedtime reading at 7:45 or so and turning out the light about 8:20, Julia is taking until 9:30-10 to get to sleep. Ach! Since either David or I lay in bed with her until she falls asleep, this really cuts into our adult time. That is, we have NO adult time.

3. Julia is becoming a more discriminating eater. She doesn't want salad every night! She asks for noodles a few times a week; she asks for Nu-nu, meat with fat on it. So, okay, she is becoming a more normal 7 year old, but how soon am I going to be longing for those days when she would eat, without question, anything that was put in front of her?

4. And there is not bump here, but yesterday when I went to pick up Julia, she told me about her day -- well, really her lunch ("no, peanut and jelly any more") and swimming -- and carefully cut in half the twisler that one of the parents had brought for the kids getting off the bus. She was also easy to get going this morning and when we were walking to the bus she saw the bus counselor, Haley, about a half block ahead of us. She called out to Haley and ran all the way to her. This is amazing behavior -- recognition, calling out, deciding to run, and staying on task until she got there and hugged Haley. I guess the bump here is that I really want her to continue with the listening therapy so that she has gotten as much as she can out of it when we start family therapy when we come back from vacation.

Cherry picking

On Sunday morning, the three of us went cherry picking. Julia was not exciting about the idea and it was really sunny and getting hot.
Still, Julia took some instruction from her Dad.
Julia got into the act, picked the sweet cherries, ate a good deal more than she put into her blue bucket, and had a good time.

Holding on

A bit of an embarrassing report -- Julia has had problems sleeping ever since her rash started. Bug bites make getting to sleep tougher and I was concerned that her sleeping was being interrupted as a result of he listening therapy. I talked to her OT therapist last week and Annie asked questions about changes. I said that covers were some concern to Julia -- Julia loves her quilt and duvet but it is much too hot for this time of year. Annie suggested going back to the quilt because the weight of it might make a difference to Julia. AND I resisted her suggestion very strongly.

The only reason I have for needing to resist so strongly is that Julia's sleeping has not been an issue for us. We have an occasional uncooperative night, but generally, Julia goes to sleep pretty quickly and normally. I think I wanted to hold on to something normal. Just that.

Thinking about it this weekend, I am rather shame-faced that I didn't just listen to Annie and change Julia's covers. I am doing that TODAY!

Listening therapy report

We have been using listening therapy for about 10 days right now and I see changes in Julia. Clearer language (not articulation, but structure), more descriptive words, easier transitions with toys, a new concentration with her desk work. Last night, after we got home from our weekend and we were all rather tired and a bit grumpy, Julia and I sat down to do some work. I didn't have much hope that we would be able to do anything, but I wanted to get us back to our working schedule.

I had put the magna-doodle on her table to work with, the same think that she was working with the night that she refused to do the work that I wanted her to do which was writing numbers. No matter how many times I made a 4, Julia would not copy it. Last night, she safe down, picked up the "pen" and made a 4 and looked at me. I had not remembered and had not put the magna-doodle there to finish that lesson at all. I praised her a good deal for (1) knowing how to write 4, and (2) for giving into me even though it was five nights later. Oh my girl!

We then worked on letters. I made the sign for random letters and she wrote the letter. We had 18 letters by the end of this exercise. She had gotten 3 wrong. She even drew a rose for R before she made the R. Then I pointed to letters and she made the sound for it. The sound of the letters has been a weak point for her and she did not get as many correct, but she was able to give me more sounds for more letters than ever before.

The down side of this new clarity seems to be much more expressive anger. Julia is angry with me! Oh, I must be so safe for her to be so angry with! The trick of giving her choices when she is angry is still working at time, but at times, I can't even think of a set of choices. I lost it this morning with her as we tried to get ready for camp and I grabbed her roughly. She responded with such indignation. "Mommy, you hurt me," "Mommy was mean to Julia," "Mommy is bad." It went on and on. This was after she had been trying to hit, punch, kick, and spit on me, AND was describing all sorts of bad things that she wanted to do to me. Okay, the bad things were not so bad but she was very descriptive.

In the past, whenever Julia perceived that someone hurt her, she would go on and on about it for days -- poor Seth, who loves Julia, bumped into her one day on the playground and I thought we would never hear the end of it. Today, I apoligized for handling her roughly and told her that I would try to be better. She then forgave me (I think) and agreed to not hit me anymore. I don't think that such a truce will last for any amount of time, but she was much more reasonable when she said it.

Yes, we are going with this listening therapy. I expect there will be more positive and more negative behavior associated with her changes, but then again, maybe being clearer about her feelings and impulses will help us when we start family therapy at the end of August.