Unringing the Bell

Baby Doll

"Just a minute baby, I have to take this call on my cell."

(Because that's what people say, "I have to take this call ON MY CELL.")

When my sister was here for T-giving, she brought one of my niece's old dolls down (along with a bunch of other stuff) for Georgia. This doll, look...personally, I find it annoying and creepy. I was THIS close to not even showing it to Georgia because in the past dolls have not been particularly interesting to her unless they had buttons on them which you could push, and well...I am mean like that. This one has a button, too, but it's a little more interactive than some because her mouth and eyes move...and you should see G's face when that thing comes to life! And, well, I am glad I showed it to Georgia after all--how could I resist, really?--because she LOVES that thing.

When the doll is out of reach she looks at me and says and signs "baby" in the cutest little voice as if to say, "Can you get my baby, please?" She hugs and kisses her, laughs when she laughs. If we prompt her she will brush her hair and feed her a bottle, and the other day Alex found Cheerios in the baby's mouth.

Of course, there is now also a bite mark in the baby's cheek that wasn't there before (the girl chews EVERYTHING! Though, in her defense, her canine teeth ARE finally coming in).

I am looking around at even more talkative babies now (lord help me) because this doll, while she talks, doesn't really say all that much. I was also considering getting her one of those Our Generation Dolls from Target because they have all those accesories. But honestly, she's not THAT into imaginative play JUST yet. And all those tiny pieces? They would be EVERYWHERE and IN HER MOUTH in an instant. They do have a baby doll that comes with a stroller and high chair and crib and playpen, but then I keep thinking about how we HAVE A stroller and high chair and playpen in REAL life. She can pretend play with them, right? Or is that totally lame? I mean, it's not like we have tons of space for that kind of thing.

Or do we?

Christmas shopping is bringing out all sorts of emotions in me. I really enjoy getting things for the kids. But with Georgia, I find that I am running out of options. New options anyway. She is progressing for sure. No doubt. But S-L-O-W-L-Y. And we want to push the playing to more imaginative and imitation-based play, but we're still in a lot of ways at banging and throwing and exploring for the most part.

Anyway, if anyone has a recommendation for a great interactive or talky doll. Let me know. 'k? Thanks!

Dream

I had a really vivid dream last night that I was in some old concert hall, only, I wasn't going because I loved the band, I was going because my NEPHEW loved the band. It made me feel old. And then, after the concert, the owner came out and told everyone we could take whatever mementos (band posters and autographs, etc...) we wanted off the walls because they were closing down. I walked away with a dusty old hat on my head from some band I pretended to know. (See, I usta' be able to hang, but I never was one of those people who kept all the bands and music and musicians straight. I was more the sort who knew whether or not I liked a band--or moreso a song--and let others guide me based on what they knew I liked.)

Anyway, then we (don't remember who all 'we' was, but it seemed to be a cast of characters of all my past boyfriends (who all happened to be musicians) and Alex (a musician in his own right)), piled into this car and drove off. Next thing I know we're driving on this dock on the water. We're heading straight for a group of nuns who are chanting "Alms for the poor?" over and over, and we head up over this ramp and I think we are going to hit the nuns, but instead the ramp drops off into the water.

I wake up with cold legs.

Checking In Briefly

Boy am I behind on here. I still have to post picture from Rainey's first birthday, we had Georgia's IEP (and I have a lot to talk about regarding that), Rainer uses tickle fingers and tries to say "tickle tickle", we had a Thanksgiving feast and Georgia finally learned how to drink from a straw and she pooped on the potty!

So much to say, tell you, ponder, but alas....time is so scarce these days.

For now I will leave you with this picture of Rainer taken moments ago. He is quite the little climber and he REALLY wanted to get at this card his Grammie sent him. We're in trouble, folks. Big trouble.

Testing, Testing 1-2-3

We have Georgia's first IEP meeting a week from today. It seems like just days ago we were more or less ignoring the inevitability of that future meeting and now it is only days away. I am not too very nervous about it. Alex and I are fairly level-headed and I am pretty sure I know what is going to be said. Granted, I am keeping open to the possibility of being thrown a for a loop if something other than what I think is going to happen happens, but we'll just wait and see I guess.

Leading up to this meeting there have been lots of other meetings. Evaluations and tests, people asking Georgia to put pennies in piggy banks and jump with two feet off the ground. We are doing some age equivalency testing so that we have a "baseline" to compare Georgia as she grows up, but there is a large part of me who simply does not give these tests any weight whatsoever. The psychologist doing the testing has been great, she honestly seems to want to give Georgia the benefit of the doubt when she is able and she has put in a lot of effort and energy into testing her as fairly as possible.

Despite the tests not holding a ton of weight with me, it still hits you when they start applying numbers to your child. Especially when those numbers symbolize how many months behind she is in relation to typically developing children. It's not that I am completely surprised by these numbers, seeing where our own Rainer is these days in relation to where Georgia was at that age--or is at this age in some cases--is eye-opening.

Since the testing techniques were explained to me I am not surprised to learn that Georgia tests highest in cognitive/emotional, expressive/receptive language. But before the testing was explained, I thought for sure G would test highest in gross motor.. I know that Georgia "gets" it--much of the time--but, I guess because Georgia has been walking for a year now I sort of assumed that she was strongest with gross motor, followed by fine motor, and than speech and language. She is exactly the opposite though...fine motor is the constant in that equation.

I won't list numbers here because I get an unsavory feeling when I imagine people comparing my child to their own, but they seem, in my opinion, to fall squarely in the mid-range if that makes any sense. I asked the psychologist if there is any way to figure out where Georgia lies in terms of people with DS (because look, I'll admit, I am curious), but the only standardization that the testing takes into consideration is vs. typical children. It makes sense, they have to quantify somehow, but I do wonder. I think it is a valid question. Where does she fall? Or, rather, what are her strengths, on the DS spectrum?

All of this means very little in the overall scheme of things though. It doesn't necessarily pre-determine the rest of her childhood or life, it doesn't mean that her biggest weakness will always be gross motor or that her strength will always be cognition. I've always believed that there are so many "kinds" of intelligence--artistic, athletic, musicality, emotional, etc....--and I already know that Georgia is a bright girl with her own way of doing things. She doesn't always do things the "right" way, but she usually figures out "her" way and not to put to broad a brush to it, if you invent your own way in this world, that's kind of ingenious. 

And so we chug along. Here is an interesting article.

Been Busy

There was the falling down the stairs incident. Then I got the world heavy-weight-champion of all flus. Then, when I miraculously turned the corner on Thursday afternoon after barely being able to get out of bed due to exhaustion and soreness from the fall and the flu (Alex had to take off from work to help with the kids and told me I had a sort of stunned expression on my face all last week), we drove up to New Hampshire so we could go to my SIL's wedding. It was a whirlwind of a week. Lots of bed and of course, the good bip in the middle when we got to spend a few hours in between twenty-four of them on the road with family and see the kids' Tia Nikki get married to her lifelong love.

Word to the wise: hotel suites when you have children are the bomb-diggity.

My hunks.

All dressed up and actually someplace to be!

 

Georgia hangs with Tia Nikki before the ceremony begins.

 

Rainer flirts.

 

He's a dapper little grump.

 

I'm hoping someone got a good shot of Georgia actually standing up in her cute dress. I didn't bring my good camera because it's a bohemoth and I knew I wouldn't be able to schlep it around with the kids, but I am bummed I didn't bring it and won't do that again.

Also, fun Georgia tidbit: Lately, G has taken to asking "a Dad?" (Where's Dad?) every time he leaves the room and when he is at work she will often go to the back door going "a Dad? a Dad? a Dad?" I will say "Daddy's at work," and then she signs work only to ask again five minutes later "a Dad?" She loves that old coot.

Seems he can't even get a few minutes alone in the bathroom before she is looking for him!

Accidents Happen

Well, that was a way to start the week!

I woke up with a chest cold which has me coughing like crazy and then, then! Georgia and I fell down the stairs this morning!

I really don't know how it happened. I think I overstepped where the stairs are narrow (because they turn), but I tried to grab onto the landing and also grasp onto Georgia harder and missed being able to hold on for fear of dropping her. Somehow I was able to pull her to me and I did a one eighty and went down the stairs head first on my back. And my knee, and my toe, and my neck, and my elbows....apparently there were few places that didn't get banged up. As the day goes on I am discovering more places that are sore and bruised.

We landed at the bottom with Georgia on top of me. I was actually saved from hitting my head on the solid plaster wall by a box of wipes at the base of the stairs. There is a big head mark in the box. And when we landed? A mirror fell off the wall and landed on us! Thank goodness it didn't break! (We will not be putting the mirror back in that location.)

It took us a minute to be able to get up. I was wedged into the lower stair landing between diaper boxes and stuff and Georgia was on top of me. She was shaken up (as was I), but only cried a little bit. It was scary though because she had a pretty immediate bruise on her forehead and eye and she got a bloody nose. I don't even know what she hit? I called Alex who came right home, but since he is an hour away it took awhile. I was pretty shaken up and crying. Called my dad who helped me calm down. I wasn't sure if I should call 911 for G since she hit her head, but it was pretty clear right away that she was okay and I kept a watch on her pupils (thanks to my dad for reminding me what to do and calming me down!!) I called her pedi about an hour later when they opened, but by then Alex had just come in and she was none the worse for wear other than the bruise. She also seems to have cut her nose and a bruise has developed on her hip as well. But she was in a good mood all day and dancing around. The doctor seemed to think we didn't need to bring her in, which I agreed with--especially because Georgia has a major fear of the doc's office. But of course we have done the AAI x-ray yet and that had me worried. We JUST SPOKE on the phone on Friday about it, the doctor and I! She'll be getting it in a couple weeks. But yeah, G is pretty much fine.

Not so me, sadly. I am pretty banged up. I think, in an effort to keep her as safe as possible, I fell in a crazy way I wouldn't have otherwise. I banged up my knee and my toe and my other shin, and I also hurt my neck and lower back. As the day goes on I am in more pain and tomorrow I expect I will be pretty stiff. I also have this stupid chest cold. So....not fun. To say the least.

The thing I am most struck by is how it hit me emotionally. I felt (and still do feel) guilty that I fell with my daughter in my arms. I hate that she got hurt and am just so thankful that it wasn't worse. At the risk of sounding wacky-woo-woo, I actually had a vision of this happening yesterday. I know I have thought these things before and NOT fallen or whatever, but the premonition I had was of falling WITH Georgia.That and, falling like that when you have no family around? When your husband has to take time off work to come help and he's an hour away? It always seems to hit home that I miss my family. We have friends, we're making more everyday, but wow....it's lonely down here sometimes!

Anyway. She's okay which is the important thing. But it's so scary how quickly an accident can happen. We have been talking about what we can do to make our stairs safer since we moved in and now we know it's a priority. Not sure WHAT we will do just yet, but we have to do something.

So yeah. Klutzy me. Hug your kids tight and watch where you are stepping.

xo

Choo-Choo!

Life is busy. I have a lot to talk about. But sadly, no time to do it. Good things, and unfortunately, not so good things. I have a permanent headache and a million things to do. I've had to be out every night this week and it is not over yet. We are traveling next week. I am attempting to make it to a funeral service in CT mid-week and then we head to New Hampshire for a wedding next weekend.

I'd am stressed out, I won't (can't) lie, but I feel very fortunate. For there is life in the midst of all this running about!

Until then, here's a picture of Rainer enjoying one of his birthday treats. (I would still like to post about that big day!)