HEADING into the HOLIDAYS

 FINALLY, I have someone to help me with all our Christmas Trees! Yes, Trees. Currently we are up to 8 and 1/2.

Grace is really into decorating Christmas trees. When I got her own tree out of storage, she came running and headed right for the decorations. I let her put them all on, with just a few redirection..She really seems to get involved with them. She helped me put Chris' up in his office too. She tried to bring a big box of ornaments for it without me telling her to. She is really listening to commands and understanding most of what we want her to do, Most times she listens better than her sister.

The other day Gracie was imitating her therapist, Nina, and I came in and said Hi to her and she imitated Me and said HI and waved at the same time. I have a witness! Nina confirmed it!

SHE REALLY IS ONE OF A KIND!

A week without power and water.

this is how Last week ended and...

then this was how this weekend ended. I guess there are alot of clean, empty fridges out there.

I am starting to not like Halloween.
Last year there was snow and no power for 3 days. This year there was wind and rain and no power for 5 days.

In all honesty, we weren't as bad off as other people even though we didn't have power from monday nite to this past Saturday. We had a warm place to stay at least. The picture below was the view outside Gracie's room. A tree fell and was caught by two other trees. It could have been much worse.

 Most of the week was spent in our bedroom as we had a propane fireplace. Grace was so good through out the entire week. She took all the change like a champ! No tantrums. When she did get cranky we brought out the ipad and she played till it was time to go to bed. She did a whole lot better than the rest of us, especially Tasha!

Great Grades.

My little sorceress got grade grades for the first quarter at school! She even brought up her math with a knockout punch quiz and test A and A-!! You go girl!

Waiting out the storm.

While Hurricane Sandy blows outside I am going to take the time to write about trick or treat weekend. What's up with these Halloween Storms anyway? Last year it snowed. This year it's the mother of all storms?
Anyway. I took Gracie to Bounce U on Friday with TSS Nina and she loved it. It took her just one time, being a little afraid , to go down the big slide and then she was hooked! She tried everything!
The problem was I wore her out for the day. She didn't have a nap and we went around the neighborhood for trick or treating that night. She didn't get too far. After the 3rd house, she kind of had a meltdown. It was my fault. She did much better up at Pappy Angelo's trick or treat on Sunday though.

TRICK  OR TREATING WITH COUSIN SAVANNAH

 At Pappy's she actually grabbed her bucket when it was time to go and headed out without any complaint and then she didn't even need her blanky while we were going door to door!!
While we were at Pap's Grace found a toy cat he had that made noises and she mimicked a MEOW!
She is imitating alot more actions and she is comprehending when you tell her to do things.

Halloween festivities.

Even though Hellertown's council is trying to take Halloween out of the Halloween parade, we decided to carry on with our HALLOWEEN TRADITIONS this year.
Grace had a great weekend. We went to a pumpkin patch on Saturday and she was super. She and I waited for Dad , Joy and Savannah to get out of the corn maze for about an hour and she had a good time. She put beads on a bracelet all by herself; she petted the goats and wanted to touch the chickens; and she got a pony ride. When we ran out of activities we sat and did stickers!

If she was great on Saturday, she was awesome on Sunday at the Halloween Parade. She came out of her shell and sat on the curb with Chris and other kids! She even went to pick up the candy when Chris told her to! She decided she liked a little orange spider ring so much she walked over to get another one. She liked the bands and didn't really mind the fire trucks.

She had her cousin Savannah with her so I think that helped. Savannah loves Gracie and loves to be with Gracie and Gracie loves her back. 

Waiting.

We took Gracie to an open house at Equi-Librium in Stroudsburg today. They use horses to help kids and adults with special needs.
They had just started demos with their riders when we got there. Once Grace saw what was going on, I knew she wanted to ride, but we couldn't because of the demos. I was waiting for a meltdown but it never came she allowed me to redirect her for a while . Then finally they resumed the ride and luckily they took her first. She just loves it. She was giving me the sign for walk that she learned at Advent. Then at the end of the ride, she gave the sign for more. So I talked Chris into another ride and she put her helmet on and waited for 7-10 minutes , quietly !!!!!!!!!! Who is this little girl?!? She was awesome!!!

Forward.

 Since we started ABA therapy on August 27, Gracie has made so many advancements. I am going to try to wrtie down some of them for posterity.
-She now communicates with some signs. She signs "more" and adds signs for what she wants to do.
She made up her own sign for "around"- she signs for bounce- jump- shoes- open- swing- . Plus she makes complex signs by using "more" with her other signs. She is getting good at telling us what she wants.
She points. This may not seem like a big thing but for autistic kids , it is huge.
She listens and waits for READY< SET< GO.
She goes down the GIANT SLIDE all by herself.
Her eye contact is wonderful. She is attending to projects for 15-20 minutes at times.
She is starting to mimic things that people do.
She is making a wide array of sounds. Uh, nah, mah, ng, nyah, mm, and is starting to apporoximate sounds with syllables.
She actually said MOM with the m on the end, twice.

This week, I was writing out a project that Joy and I did. She came over to the table and tried to take my pencil so I got her paper and crayons. I looked over and she was drawing semi-straight lines down the paper. I almost fell over. I had to get the phone and make a video of it and sent it out to her therapists. Again, this may not seem like a  big deal but for Grace it is huge. She normally makes circle scribbles but she sat down and made those deliberate motions ALL BY HERSELF.

 She is feeding herself. She really likes vanilla bean yogurt. She still has a texture problem but she is much more open to experimenting. She stuck her tongue out to LICK A COOKIE yesterday!!!!!
Grace has had great therapists since we started therapies. Now she has 4 great ladies that work with her during the week. 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon and the consultants that they work with. Each of these ladies ;Rachelle, Norma, Nina, Megin, Heather, and Melissa; they all have amazing patience and truly love to help Grace to learn. We are very grateful to have them to help Gracie on her long road.  I appreciate them EVERY day.

Making cookies with mom and Miss Nina

Back on her swing with Miss Megin

All this play is hard work.

Snuggling with mom.

Stickerification*

This is how we start,

 Its' almost like a makeover.
She is so serious as she puts the stickers on. But each time she puts them on my nose, she laughs!
Whenever I need to keep her awake, we get the stickers out. Or if she feels the  creative urge, I guess.

* Stickerification- n. - the act of rendering something more beauteous by apply stickers in a strategic formation.

Stickerfied- adj. - having been subjected to the art of stickerfication- willfully
or otherwise.

THe Stickerer.

The Stickee.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

Dinner difficulties .

Dinner out at Buca's in Allentown didn't go as planned tonite. I am writing this in tha car while the rest of the family is finishing up. We were doing so well, too. I had fed Grace and she was playing with her car and her stickers when they came out with cake, candles and clapping. Well, it was too much for our girl and she freaked! Chris had to take her out. He tried to bring her back in but it didn't work so, here we are.

Poor baby. She looks happy here.

People give you nasty looks. It's like China again. You must be a REALLY bad parent. 

Next time you see a child going balistic. Don't judge. They might be austic. Don't judge even if they aren't. We all have bad days.

God's Grace

From a review about Max Lucado's new book, "Grace" -
I was struck how it reminded me of my Grace -my special Grace from God-

"God’s "Grace "has a drenching about it. A wildness about it. A white-water, riptide,
turn-you-upside-downness about it. Grace comes after you. Grace rewires you. From insecure to God secure. From regret riddled to better-because-of-it. From afraid to die to ready to fly."

CH CH CH Changes...

It's only been three weeks into Gracie's new ABA therapy and already we see such a change in her. She is receptive to all her therapists. She is ready to go when they come in and it is usually easy to engage her in their activities.

3 hours in the morning then 3 hours in the afternoon with an hour each of speech on Mondays and Thursdays.

Poor little peanut, she has a full time job! 

By the end of the day she is Sooooo tired. Then my job kicks in and I have to keep her awake until bedtime.

But she is learning!!!

The other night she sat on my lap, gave me a huge smile and full eye contact and said

"Hi Ma Ma"

twice.

She gave the sign for shoes and puts her shoes on by herself.

Today, I told her to go get her shoes and she went, got them and brought them to me!

She is consistently signing "more" in appropriate places.

She made her own sign to communicate "around".

She is eating yogurt with chunks of peach and blueberries in them.

She is starting to identify colors.

She says "nite nite"  when we go to bed.

Gracie with our neighbor McKenzie- wearing Kenzie's boots

It is amazing to see her opening up like a flower. 

Sure, we have a long road ahead of us but I feel like we are finally on the right path.

New "school" year for everybody.

Joy Lin started Middle School this week (sort of)  and Gracie started a whole new set of therapies. She still goes to preschool one day and does her equine therapy but she has started a new intensive therapy known as ABA( Applied Behavioral Analysis ). Most of the definitions of ABA I found were a little confusing but I think this one explains it in the simplest way.

"Applied" means practice, rather than research or philosophy. "Behavior analysis" may be read as "learning theory," that is, understanding what leads to (or doesn't lead to) new skills. (This is a simplification: ABA is just as much about maintaining and using skills as about learning.) It may seem odd to use the word "behavior" when talking about learning to talk, play, and live as a complex social animal, but to a behaviorist all these can be taught, so long as there are intact brain functions to learn and practice the skills. That is the essence of the recovery hypothesis--for many children, the excesses and deficits of autism result largely from a learning 'blockage,' which can be overcome by intensive teaching.

Typically developing children learn without our intervention--the world around them provides the right conditions to learn language, play, and social skills. Children with autism learn much, much less easily from the environment. They  have the potential to learn learn, but it takes a very structured environment, one where conditions are optimized for acquiring the same skills that typical children learn "naturally." ABA is all about how to set up the environment to enable our kids to learn.

It is an intense program of one to one therapies with 4 therapists also known as TSS or Therapeutic Support Staff.
These ladies are so great. We have one three hour session during the morning and another in the afternoon. That's ALOT compared to what Gracie has been getting. It's going to be a huge change but I think she can handle it. I really think she is ready for it. She seems to be seeking engagement with people. She is open to new things. And she is starting to think of new ways to get into trouble!!
She had her yearly checkup at CHOP last week and everything was good there. Her cleft repair is just great. The professionals she went to see all said we were on the right track with this line of therapy and didn't think that it would be too much for her. So I feel better about our new course. She has gotten great therapy up to this time but I just think that we should take advantage of her new adventurous disposition  and capitalize on it. She will be eligible for kindergarten next year !!!! But i don't know if we will be ready for that but by the time she does go, I know she will be ready.

First Day of Middle School!

New school year, new hair cut!

I read another mom's letter to their child as part of their school year tradition and I thought it was a great idea so I wrote one for Joy.

Dear Joy Lin!

Tomorrow is a BIG day. Your first day of 5th GRADE!!

It's so hard to believe that you are 10 and a MIDDLE SCHOOLER. We remember the first day of kindergarten, when you smiled and went off on the bus to a new adventure, without a look back! Did you know that I followed you to school that day? I don't remember if I told you. But I just had to make sure you got there ok! You knew what you were doing, you always did!

Now tomorrow you get your own locker. With a locker combination and you get a CHOICE of lunch ! Your running with the big guys now.

I know you aren't in the same class as your BFF this year. That's ok. You will see her and Emma. This is an opportunity to make some new friends to go with your old ones. 

The most important thing for you to do is be yourself!! From the time your feet touch the ground in the USA you have charmed everyone with your laugh and your smile and your willingness to talk to ANYONE. Don't let go of that now that you are getting  older, Be yourself and people will want to be with you!

I think that God puts people in our lives as gifts to us. The children in your class this year, your new teacher, they are all God’s gifts to you.

Just remember to treat everyone as if they are a gift from God and they will see that you are one of His greatest gifts too. We always said God sent you to us for a reason. That reason was that He knew we needed your uniqueness- the thing that makes you YOU. Your Joy. 

So Be Yourself. Be kind. Be brave and enjoy your new friends.

We love you more than anything else in this world.

Moving ALong.

I can't believe that school starts in 11 days. The summer went flying by. Joy Lin will be starting 5th grade on the 27th and it looks like Gracie will be starting a new "school" too. She will be staying at the preschool at Advent but she will also be starting behavioral therapy which will one on one therapy, Monday through Friday. I am so relieved to finally be getting into this program. Gracie is becoming much more open to new things and people and engaging in new activities willingly that I think she will be very receptive to this new therapy.

She said MaMa last week. She has said nite nite several times. She is starting to make an MM sound for more.
She has a long way to go but she has come such a long way! Our journey will take us on a new path soon and we'll have more exciting things to report.

10 years old!

It's hard to believe it but my little girl is turning 10 tomorrow. Seems like yesterday we just moved into the new house and got her referral and headed to China to bring her home.  She is so excited about her birthday that she volunteered to go to bed early tonite. She is so into holidays and birthdays( even if they aren't hers!)

She is growing into an amazing young ....girl. ( Lady is not a term I would apply yet.) We love her dearly. The only regret I have is that we weren't able to share her first 13 months with her. But we get to share the rest of her life with her! I named her Joy for a reason!