Update and Incredible day

Megan's sleeping has been off/on since the last update.  She will start doing better and then something happens.  We have been pretty good about identifying the source and getting her back on track quickly.  She had good days at school last week - she was there almost 4 full days and handled it well.

Today - she had an 11 doctor appointment that would require her to be picked up from school by 10 due to the location of the appointment.  She was up last night and slept in so instead of sending her to school for an hour or so I kept her home and boy am I glad I did.

Megan hasn't been using her talker to say much lately.  She will request an item if we require her to before she gets it (laptop, ipad, etc) but has only been using it otherwise very infrequently until the past week or so.  She has started commenting on conversations and activities.  She will say 1 word that is completely appropriate to the situation/discussion and then just go about what she is doing. This has happened 2 or 3 times total until this  morning when it happened 4 times.

Megan and Sam were in the living room together while I was getting stuff together for the appointment.  She had been pushing buttons on her talker and Sam was telling me she was talking to him but I couldn't hear what she was saying so I just told him to talk back to her.  About a minute later they were on the other side of the room and Sam said "Megan, you just a little girl?" and she crossed the room and said "yes" on the talker.  There is so much about this that was thrilling.  First she never says "yes" or "no" on the talker she just shakes her head or uses her approximation for those words; second she answered a question - SHE  ANSWERED A QUESTION and one from her brother at that; she crossed the room to use her talker (this is not new but a big deal considering I wasn't in the room).

I couldn't get my phone in my hand fast enough to call Will to tell him what had just happened.

A little while later Sam and I were searching all over the place looking for Megan's "P" that she chews on.  We searched for several minutes before locating it and when we found it Sam said "we found it!" and Megan said "find" on her talker.  I didn't even know she knew that word.

She began asking for the iPad a little bit later.  She searched around the house in all of my hiding spots first and then determined that it must have been up on the mantel where Will puts it sometimes.  She kept pointing and asking for it and told her it wasn't up there.  She must have thought I was using the moment to get her to use her talker so she said "have" and pointed at the mantel and then said "iPad".  It wasn't there - I had already put it in my doctor's visit backpack but let me tell you that it was only moments before it was in her hands - such good asking deserves reward.

During her doctor's visit I was explaining her device and answering questions about how she does with it, etc.  I had it with us.  This is the first time I have taken it to an appointment because it is a lot to carry but she was doing so well with it this morning I wanted to have it for her in case she wanted it.  For most of the visit it sat in the floor across the room from where she was playing.  It was sitting there when I explained to the doctor how Megan tends to use it.  I held Megan in my lap for the doctor to examine her and Megan wanted to get down and play with the toys and I kept telling her she had to stay in my lap.  The moment I told her she could get down she climbed down, went across the room to the talker and said "down".  The doctor was impressed.

I am thrilled that she is talking to us more with it and I am overjoyed that she is using it to comment on things and not just ask for things (how the therapists always use it).  I love that she wanted to make sure I understood that she had wanted to get down, even after the fact.

New shoes, amazing stability, verbalizing, talker, colors, etc

It appears that Megan's feet/leg/walking issues could've been due to her shoes being too small and hurting her feet.  When she got new shoes last Monday she immediately started doing better.  It took her a few days to work back up to her normal self.  Then on Wednesday night her other pair of new shoes (ones with laces) finally arrived.  They were 1/2 size bigger than they were supposed to be.  We decided to try them on her and see how she did with them and what a fun test it proved to be.  She wouldn't sit down - she was standing still for long periods of time and was walking perfectly.  At one point she even almost ran to get me when I had the iPad.  She walked up the stairs alternating feet with each step.  It was a really fun night.

She now has even more stability barefoot.  Tonight she was standing still for quite a while and wasn't over pronated at all.

She has continued to verbalize a lot.  Thanks to removing her iron supplement she is back to getting enough sleep and she is so happy.  A few days ago I told Sam to go brush his teeth and then Will told Megan to go upstairs for her bath and she went to her talker and said "need, toothbrush".  It was incredible.  I have only modeled that once or twice and a long time ago.  She also told me "want nap" the other day when she was really tired.  It is so great to watch her communicate more each day.

Today at school she correctly identified several colors and pictures for her teacher.