A bit of sunshine

Cute, cute, cute!!!!!

We've had a trial of the Tobii eye gaze system since Christmas and it's now time to return it.  We are hoping to trial the Eco II eye gaze system soon and then decide which system to order after the trials.  I have to say that I LOVE the Tobii eye gaze system and am excited that Eco uses the same technology (I believe they licensed it from Tobii?) so I'm really interested to see the differences between the systems in action.

Emma does pretty good with the Tobii.  The eye gaze detection is really forgiving of her changes in neck control.  She is pretty accurate on selecting items when she wants to communicate.  We found that making the interaction a fun exercise rather than a teaching exercise greatly improved Emma's interest in using the device.  For example, asking her to tell us what color she wants to use in her art activity she ignores us.  Asking Emma to have the mouse knock over a horse and she can't get enough of using the device.  Her team agrees that she is cognitively able to understand our request to tell us the color but that she chooses not to comply because she just doesn't want to rather than she is not capable.

Emma has mostly been using the device at school but we have taken it home on several weekends.  Since Emma has off this week and we were at the end of the trial we decided to bring the device home and get another 5 days of use before the return date.  Her SLP programmed a screen with a photo of me and a photo of Emma to do some turn taking activities.  She did this right before she sent the device home so Emma had not seen it before.  When I opened it Emma immediately loved this screen!  She kept selecting my photo over and over and over and over again and looking at me each time she selected it.  It was like she was so happy to finally be able to say my name!  My heart melted......

We used this screen to play some games.  Emma liked the game where she chose who should knock over a stack of blocks.  She mostly asked me to do it, but did decide to do it herself every now and again.  Here is a video I took of her using this screen.

The video was hard to shoot while interacting with Emma in the activity and getting Emma to ignore the fact that her photo was being taken.  This child LOVES getting her photo taken and will stop all activities to ham it up for the camera.  What I like about the video is it shows that she knows how to use the device.  She is very deliberate in her choices.  She keeps her eye gaze on the square she wants to select for the appropriate amount of time mostly on her first try.  Sometimes she needs to try again and when that happens she does try again until it speaks her selection.  Her attention is still pretty short and is likely a mix of her age and that using eye gaze to communicate is fairly tiring.  Finnegan was to her right so she kept looking at her to knock them down, too - Finnegan usually knocks the blocks over when we play with them on the floor.  I have also noticed that during the device trial she started to "talk" more.  You can see this in the video at about 2:25 in, it sounds like she is saying "you" when the screen didn't pick up her eye gaze at me.  I had her too close to the screen - I moved her in to knock over the blocks and forgot to move her back - for it to detect her eyes and when I figured that out and moved her back she was able to select my photo.

I'm thrilled with the team that is working with us to give Emma a voice.  They are amazing!  And I'm thrilled with how well Emma is doing with the device after only 8 weeks.  I'm not sure what is the ideal communication method for Emma yet but I see so much potential and promise in her future.  For now that is enough.

Roses

I had a roommate in college that believed how much a rose blooms when given to you by a guy was in direct proportion to how much he loved her.  If the guy just happened to buy a rose that plopped over before even blooming it was a no-win situation for the guy.  He didn't grow it or even hand pick it - he was just handed it from the florist and how it turned out was pretty much luck.  To my roommate, though, how it bloomed was a telltale sign of their relationship and the poor guy got accolades or headaches from his purchase.  More often than not it was headache because college florists don't tend to stock the best roses and the heating in the dorms was atrocious.

I did not subscribe to her theory.  I was just thrilled when anyone thought to give me a flower!  I wasn't picky - buttercup, violet, carnation, rose.  Any flower would make me happy.  Still does.  I especially love the dandelions the girls give me in the spring because of all the joy they radiate when they present me their precious flower hand-picked just for Mommy!

Chris totally surprised me last week for Valentine's day with a dozen roses.  Two died, 10 are in full bloom (I wonder what my old roommate's theory would be about the mixed bag I received!).  They are amazingly beautiful!  I love to look at how they change and bloom even bigger each day.  It's been a 8 days and the photo above was taken today.  I have them on our mantle with the rest of our Valentine's decorations - well, except for when I took them down and outside to take this photo.  Chris commented the other day on how vibrant and happy the mantle looked.  I agree.  It's hard to take down the Valentine's display because most of it is homemade goodness from the girls.

But, alas, I will take our Valentine's down tomorrow or the next day.  We have to make room for the Easter crafts we made tonight at our church's Mardi Gras family craft and dinner event.  And we have loads of St. Patrick's Day crafts to make and add to the display.

Life is ever changing - just like my roses.  It is beautiful and precious.  And vibrant.

Proof the girls are growing up

Julia has been working so hard on reading.  She has some Level 1 "ready to read" books that she can now read!  She is so excited about this accomplishment and I am, too!  She is working so, so hard - sounding out the words and remembering her sight words that cannot be sounded out.  I don't really remember learning to read and didn't realize how much work it is to learn to read.  Julia is putting in the time and effort willingly and the fruits of her labors are paying off.  I'm so proud of her!  

Emma continues to get good reports from school.  Last week she had her PT note sent home saying that she had her BEST PT session at school ever!  She was working in the gait trainer and took a total of 8 steps without too much prompting from the PT which hasn't happened at school before.  Horray Emma!  The same day she had a message sent home that she had a "time out" at school.  I asked Emma about it and she laughed.  Stinker!  

 

Her time out was for 1 minute and it was after three warnings to attend and give her input at her turn during circle time.  Emma has a wonderful way about looking through adults to focus only on observing other children.  She does this pretty much everywhere, not only at school.  Her time out was that she was taken out of circle time for 1 minute and she couldn't see the other children for that 1 minute.  I've given my permission for the staff at school to do this after they have given Emma several warnings and on the condition that they tell me each time they use a time out.  They don't want to use time outs with Emma but have tried lots and lots of things to try and get Emma to become more of a participant and less of an observer during school activities.  She was given a 1 minute time out and once she was brought back to the circle she participated in all the activities happily.  She picked colors, numbers, responded yes/no to questions smiling the whole time.  I'm so happy she participated!  I hope she doesn't need more time outs to continue her participation ;-) but my experience has shown that Emma learns quickly and I've only ever had to do a couple of time outs at home and she changes her behavior.  She has that in common with Julia.

Julia loves to give Emma kisses and Emma loves to get them!

It is so much harder giving Emma consequences to her actions than it was/is with Julia.  But I know that we are not doing her any favors by letting her continue to skate by on certain things when she is capable and able to participate.  

Emma decided to give Julia a kiss.  An unexpected and beautiful moment!

Goal update

This year I've been holding myself to the one little word "Action."  I have to say that taking deliberate action on the my focus areas - family, photos, fitness and finances - is lowering my daily stress level.

A few things that we accomplished so far this year are:

• Family:  Implemented family game nights, movie nights, and craft nights.  Our girls are really thriving with the extra attention and activities.  We also hold informal family meetings that the girls like and Chris doesn't like.  He thinks they are silly.  I like them because everyone has to give me at least one suggestion for a dinner dish to make that week and so it means that at least 2 days/week there are no complaints at dinner.  Julia likes it because she loves to go over the family rules - with her in charge of dishing the rules out and she has a baton she uses as her microphone.  Emma loves to watch Julia talk and wield the baton and so she loves the meetings.  
• Photos:  I've enrolled in a photo class and it's quite intense.  But, I'm seeing such improvements in the photos I am taking and love that I took this class.  
• Fitness:  Most weeks I'm hitting the gym 3-5x.  Chris loves working out, but I never really liked it too much so going this frequently is new for me.  It's now become a routine and most days I actually look forward to going - something I never thought I would say!  I mix it up with classes and individual workouts and then hit the hot tub when I have a few extra minutes at the end of my workout.  I've found that the people in the classes I take are really friendly and usually there the same day/time I work out and so it's been a bit of a social outlet for me, too.
• Finances:  We've made a lot of progress on this, too.  I've been tracking our expenses and made a loose budget for this month and next to see how it goes.  I don't like budgets but since we haven't won the lottery I guess it's a necessity.  

In addition to all this, Emma has made fantastic progress in potty training and started extra physical therapy outside of school 2x/week.  Julia now knows 4 steps in Irish dancing and she can now swim without needing a float all the time.

I like taking a moment to realize all that we are doing because it can get lost in our overly-hectic life.  Is it really on February??!!! My how we started the year with a BANG!

I took this photo outside our door.  It's of the beautiful flowers Chris sent me for Valentine's day.  I'm a lucky woman!

Valentine's Wishes

Wishing everyone a bit of love today and every day!