Oh, For goodness sake...

I was just making a comment on a friends blog (Good Luck JP!) and I realized it's been a while since I updated. Here I am trying to upload some pics. I've been trying to post a bio pic and it just keeps freezing up. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I'll try uploading photos to my post this time.

I just have to say, that I'm sorry that karatemommy had a rough time, but I'm glad she's back. It means I have friends at home. And Doreen is coming home early next week! I'm so excited. It's been so lonely to be out of the Villa and my best friends gone. My kids aren't even tan!

As a tangent to explain...All summer long, in the Villa, my kids were outside playing with their friends. They got *really* tan in the summer and I did too. Last weekend we went to Bear Lake and they weren't even as dark as my sister's kids! I was shocked. Mine are usually darker, but my sis just moved into a neighborhood where the kids run from yard to yard on their cul-de-sac and mine now live on a street with college students living on all sides of us. It's too hot to be outside unless there is real motivation and playing with siblings just isn't it.

So..to something totally different, a couple of weeks ago, B was being tested by her Speech Pthologists for her regualr eval and they asked her to identify one of four pictures on a page. They were objects that she knows the signs for and has repeated them back to me numerous times. She wouldn't do it. We waited for a long time and she just wouldn't do it. I chalked it up to age-appropriate beligerence and didn't worry. But her vision therapist has asked me to start working with her on some abstract shapes so that she can identify them and then we can test her acuity. Once again, she has never done it for me. Meanwhile, back at the ranch of the CommD feeding clinic, another speech path gave her a "voice box" which talks for her after she pushes a button. It has pictures of objects she likes and she pushes them when she wants what it shows on the pictures (for example, a button has a pic of some crackers and it says, "I want a snack." She has a couple of "favorites" (see previous example) and she won't touch the other buttons.

When the vision therapist came back to test my progress at getting B to obey, I started putting everything together and asked her if that could all be connectd. She was very convinced that it was and that B proobably has a vision processing problem and possibly (I think probably) a language processing problem as well. We won't know the extent of it or what exactly it affects for years. I asked pne of her speech teachers today if we were dealing with it appropriately, and she said that the only way processing problems are treated is by repetition, but it almost certainly would improve with what we are doing. Oh fun, I can't wait to see how this manifests as she gets older. How do we tell people who spend large amounts of time with her (primary teachers, for example) in a way that they can understand? I don't even think I can understand it to my own satisfaction. I guess we just keep doing what we are doing.

So this first pic if my beautiful B in june. The second one is the birthday one that I promised to post. It's me in my "birthyda outfit" from omi and the cute purse/knitting bag that she got for me. (of course, my appendage, aka Rapunzel, is with me).

Enjoy!