Update: 25 Months

Miss B celebrated turning 25 months old by vomiting.  We plied her with gatorade, trying to get her to just take a sip, just one little sip, it's really good, just a teeny tiny sip, every hour or so, changing up the flavors (or rather, colors) in hopes of avoiding the Garcia effect, and finally, finally, just as we considered bringing her to the hospital for IV hydration, she started drinking.  For the next couple of days she wouldn't eat, so we just kept offering more gatorade.  Hey, let’s try Fierce Grape!  Because grapes are such a ferocious fruit. Then she started eating again and everything seemed to be going well, until the next day when she destroyed our home with a massive diaper explosion, coating everything in a two-mile radius with foul-smelling, liquid poo that was, I kid you not, fluorescent blue.  I looked for a Geiger counter so I could tell you exactly how radioactive was this toxic blue poo, but apparently we do not own one.  The baby books never mentioned that this would be an indispensable item for the nursery.

She recovered just in time for her year-two evaluation.  I was pleased with myself for not getting all emotional as they were testing her and asking me all the Can she do this? Can she do that? questions.  There were several things that she couldn't do that we have never even tried with her.  For instance, she has never strung a bead, or used scissors, or done anything with play-doh.  Are we actually there already?  Is it time for crafting? I guess so. I think that because she's not walking, we tend to think of her as younger than she is, but her fine motor skills are quite a bit more advanced than her gross motor skills, and we need to remember to give her new challenges in that domain.  Yesterday I bought her some pipe cleaners and rigatoni (for stringing), a box of large crayons, and a play-doh set with plastic scissors.  Not sure what to make of play-doh, B just poked it tentatively, but T and I had fun with it.  I made a snake.  Because I’m creative that way.

I'll be interested to see how they rate her language / cognitive skills.  I'd guess that language is at about 12 months.  Regarding language, the research supposedly shows that signing with kids does not delay speech and that it may even help it along, and while that may be true in general, I'm starting to wonder if it might not be true for my kid.  She was beginning to get some words, but lately she has been relying on sign almost exclusively.  I know that we should stop accepting the sign once she speaks the word, but it is really hard to ignore the sign when you are so happy to have your child communicating at all.  Still, I think it's time that we pushed her a little more to speak.  I wonder if sometimes she tries speaking, but we don’t understand her, so she reverts to sign.  Our speech therapist has started hinting about introducing a picture system for communication.  I know she's the expert and all, and she says it would just be transitional, but this seems crazy to me.  It would make sense if we thought she was non-verbal, but we don't think that.  Are we really going to have this kid using three different communication systems?  No, we are not.  It bothers me because not only does it seem obvious that this is a bad idea (at least right now), it makes me think that this therapist might be selling B short, which is so not what you want in a therapist.

Vomiting and radioactive diarrhea aside, B has been delightful lately.  I think that when we first got her diagnosis, I expected that raising her would be so much work.  I imagined that it would feel like a constant struggle, but it just doesn’t.  We laugh a lot and we poke at play-doh snakes.  We hug.  It’s fun.

Comments

[Tricia]

Blue poo? Now that's a blue's clue if I ever...

er...sorry.

So. I know Georgia is only about 15 months. But do you mean to tell me that she's supposed to b all Martha by age 2? Because, we're still working on crawling and I don't mean to be a negative nellie, but I guess I just...well...I don't know if I would have considered giving scissors to any 2 year old.

Thanks for being out there because...I'da had no idea.

And in all seriousness, it sounds like B is doing REALLY well.

[kelly]

Hi Trisomymommy! I really related to this last post. And enjoyed your sense of humor!! MY T21 daughter is 13 1/2 now and it goes by FAST! Yet, I remember THE check-ups, the milestone checks... I just wanted to reinforce how you are taking your cues from Miss B and using new info to lead to trying new things with her (such as the stringing, playdoh, scissors...). If your dr. is not really experienced w/ other young DS patients, he will be somewhat clueless and just measure her by what the average kid does, vice asking you how she has grown, skills developed, etc and noting those areas. In other words: it's not Miss B, or you! It's ever so hard to find a dr w/ a DS growth chart, much less a working knowledge. Also-IMHO you are right-on w/ not introducing ANOTHER communication mode! Maybe you could push the speech ther to work w/ what she is doing instead. I hope this may have been a bit of encouragement from a mom of 6 and a T21 mom of 13 years!!! God bless you and Miss B both, Kelly

[Tammy and Parker]

You know I encouraged adding in the PECS with Parker. It is yet another tool to get his little mind working and thinking and making those great connections and pathways in the brain that will last a learning lifetime, or so I've been reading.

And, well, if the child doesn't have a PECS at hand at the moment, they can't rely on it for communication. They will either have to sign or speak the word. PECS are very easily taken away.

If she can say the word, even if it isn't clearly but you know what the word is, I would have her say it even if she still signs it. Reinforcing the connection is a very good thing for taking the whole speech thing to higher levels.

But that is just my opinion and you can simply ignore it.....no hard feelings. Promise. :)

[SHelley]

I have never thought of dropping the sign once she can say the word - Hannah loves to sign and her speech is coming along (better than her hearing it seems - I am off to the ENT tomorrow!). I have seen PECS used very well - but I always thought it was for kids who didn't particularly respond to signing well. It sounds like B likes to sign. The reason I don't drop the sign once Hannah can say the word is that sometimes she is working on harder words etc - I want to encourage communication at all costs. Her childcare said recently that they have stopped using the signs and make her say it - I have very mixed feelings about this - I know by mainstreaming her and through EI I am trying to get her to fit in the 'regular' box but that seems a bit extreme to me - I want her to be happy and grwoing not resistent - she doesn't enjoy childcare as much at the moment and I think that is one of the reasons. I think the signs were hard for them to learn - rather than the other way round!