Saturday, January 15, 2011

Just random stuff...

So Charlie is aiming for full head control. She's still a long way away, but she has more now than I ever imagined she would have. When her head flops back, she can pull it all the way back up. Unfortunately, when it flops forward, she cannot bring it up even a little bit. She's working on it though! And I can tell she's intentionally working on it too. It's not just at random times it falls backwards and she catches it and pulls it up. She will do it over and over for like 15 minutes, just practicing. It's like a Charlie workout. She's very motivated I think! Also, when it flops down and to the side, if she's slightly reclined (like when she's in her car seat) she can pull it over and back up. And she does that intentionally too. The night we went to see the zoo lights, she kept flinging it forward in the car. I was worried about her airway getting cut off, so I tried to get Adrian to reach over and lift it back up for her, but he was like an inch too far away because of the side of his car seat. So I would try to reach back when we'd come to a stop light (bad, I know!) and pull it up for her, but she'd have brought it back up herself already! She did this like 6 times before I stopped trying to do it for her (I was always about 10 seconds too late anyway).

So I'm super proud of her. She likes to flop her head down so she can let her drool run out, but in certain positions she can't get it back up, so it will be awesome if she figures it out. I think it will mean less suctioning. She's entirely aware of how the secretion-making/drooling/choking/suctioning thing works. I know if she had better head control she would use that to her advantage so she wouldn't need suctioned as much.

Speaking of how smart my kid is, I bought her some flash cards. For learning her letters and numbers. Seems crazy right? Well I ask you this....is there any harm? I know she might never be able to tell me if she's learned anything. The only way we'd know is if she miraculously learned to talk or sign, or we found a communication device/system we could get her to use consistently. But darn it I'm gonna teach her anyway! She loves the flash cards so far. For the alphabet set, each one is printed with a black letter and a colorful picture. I've been flipping thorough them telling her the name of each letter, the sound it makes, and how it relates to the picture. She smiles and squeals, but also has periods of extreme concentration. She just stares at those little cards for minutes at a time sometimes. Like I said, I don't know IF she'll learn, or if she's even CAPABLE of learning. But I'm gonna give her the chance. She'll either learn like a regular kid and will help extinguish boredom as she gets older, or she won't learn and she'll just like looking at funny pictures for a few minutes everyday. Whatever.

Here's a funny pic of her. If this were a lolcats pic, the caption would read: "Did you say it's Christmas!? Oh boy!"


Adrian wanted to share his sucker and rather than hold it for her, he propped it up against her face. What a good big brother. Of course, it wasn't so much fun later when I had to pull the lollipop off her face and hair. LOL


I got Charlie one of those neat little shelves with the bins in it. It is perfect for her room. I didn't want a bookshelf AND a toy box, so this works perfectly for us. Adrian is now asking for one and his birthday is next week, so we'll see...


I finally got Adrian's whole "school area" set up (can you tell I'm on a roll here?). He's doing excellent and a bit above grade level at this point, even though we only do any "formal" schooling about 2 hours a week. What we DO do is quality work I think. He's been resisting reading lately and I didn't understand because he doesn't struggle with it much. Last night he informed me that his phonics books are "boring". Well, I can't argue with him there. We found some books from "Seedling Publications" at the library that are a bit more interesting. He already read one ON HIS OWN (I normally have to bribe him to read) and he proudly read the whole thing for me, only missing a few words (he thought "pillows" was "balls"?). I'm hoping these books are interesting enough to keep his attention. He's itching to read chapter books on his own, though he's quite a way away from that. Anyway, I'm very proud of him!

4 comments:

Cat said...

Don't feel bad about Adrian being bored by the phonics books. Missa has declared hers to be boring and "stupidly lame" to where she refuses to read them. So I've decided to give her some time with the rest of the books in our language arts program instead that follow the I Can Read It books that she's doing. Tomorrow she's going to start with reading real books instead, and I have a feeling she will be MUCH happier.

Debbie said...

The alphabet flashcards sound great! Amelia LOVES when I sing the "ABC" song. She goes crazy. I have some ABC books that she loves too....but flashcards are a really good idea. I might have to steal that. Sounds like Charlie is doing great with the head control and managing her secretions. Amazing! Hope the new books work for Adrian! I'm exhausted just reading about all the hard work you're doing over there! Hope you get a nice break for yourself now and then.

Shauna said...

Cat, I'm thinking of just getting "real" books that are just a little hard for him and filling in the words he hasn't learned to sound out yet. He'll learn them all eventually anyway. We always read together so it's not like it will be any extra work or anything. We have a bunch of those step into reading books. I'll have to dig through them to see what level they are at.

Kat - Ruthie-dos.blogspot.com said...

I think it's great that you continue to treat her much as any other kid as much as you can. I agree, stimulating her with flash cards can only help... if she learns, great, otherwise, it's just another way that she can think... hey, I get school time, too!