The Sweetest Sound

Lyla said her first complete and functional sentence today.

She grabbed her cup off the table, tried taking a drink from it (and yes I was watching her every move), it was empty.

Now here's where she usually drops the empty cup on the floor and goes to find another cup, and repeat until she finds water.

Today she kept the cup in her hand, walked over to me and handed me her cup, and looked at the cup, and then at me and said,

"I....want....water."

I immediately replied, "You want water? Of course you can have water! Let's go get some water!!"

She followed me to go fill her cup, and got distracted half way there by a toy camera, so I back tracked, trying to get her attention again, hoping she might say it again, but, she had already given me her want/need and just stood there waiting for me to fill her cup. Once her thirst was quenched, she dropped her cup as she remembered there were small pumpkins by the window to count and line up!

I text my mom and my sisters and Andy of course! I had to tell some one! Andy called later and I told him the whole scene as written out above, and of course I started to get all choked up. I mean, who wouldn't?!

I remember the excitement when Owen said his first sentence, it was something like "I see a turkey!" It was probably 2 years ago, and Noah, he said his first sentence a little less than a year ago, and I think it was, "I want more crackers." All were exciting, but this, this VERBAL communication is so amazing, I just can't believe she said it on her own!

I will never stop asking her how her day at school was, I will never stop asking her what she wants for lunch,  and everything inbetween, because one day, she WILL answer me back, I just know it.

Fall is in the Air...

I love this time of year! Sweaters, cozy blankets, warming my hands on my coffee mug and all the apples and pumpkins! It's mid-October so fall is really here, and our new routine of school buses and packing lunches is just a normal thing.

Seeing the littles blossoming is also exciting this time of year. Emmalee can write her numbers and letters so well now! She's doing MATH! She loves going to school so much! Lyla is doing new things as well! She's started to identify here nose, eyes and mouth! To me this is huge...just a few months ago she wouldn't or couldn't do that at all! She's also identifying pictures of monkeys! She sees a monkey and says "munchie! ooh ooh ahh ahh!" It's adorable and exciting because it's unprompted. She's copying us a lot more and mimicking a lot more words lately. I'll be meeting with her therapy team soon, and I'm really looking forward to that!

Owen & Noah are growing and changing at home. They're getting along better and play so well usually. (Right now they're in the other room screaming their faces off at each other...but you know...baby steps.) Owen's potty training, and doing really well...he's half way there! Noah's becoming more understandable when he's talking...we just have to remind him to use his "snake" sounds and slow down when he's talking.

Routine Changes

So we're almost a full month into school for both Lyla & Emmalee. We've got our routine down, and then....we decide to add the autism program to Lyla's IEP. Stepping Stones offers therapy for students on the spectrum, there are two types they offer, ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) and SCERTS (Social Communication Emotional Regulation Transactional Support) (click to see more about each). After reading up on both, we felt that the SCERTS approach would fit Lyla's need best, of course we went back and forth because how are we supposed to know what will work?? We just have to try, so if after several months no progress is being made, we'll try the alternative approach. I've got faith that this will help her grow. I mean, already, with just daily interaction in a classroom setting with kids on or off the spectrum, and small group speech and the routine of getting on and off the bus, she's already changing, for the better!

So what does this mean for Lyla's routine? Well it's changed, AGAIN, but for good! When we got the diagnosis of ASD the doctor who we met with recommended Lyla work up to 25+ hours of intense therapy. Starting off she was going to school for 2.5 hours each morning. (12.5 hours total/week) We've added before and after class clinical hours. Monday through Thursday she goes in an hour early to work with one of the specialists from her team (speech/special ed/TA) and 3 days a week she stays an hour late. So that brings her up to being at school for 19.5 hours a week! My little 3 year old! She's doing great with it so far, it's been a week of doing this new schedule, and she's excited to get on the bus every morning, even at an hour earlier than we had gotten used to! On top of all this she's also getting speech and OT (occupational therapy) in the classroom in a small group setting. And today we're having a PT (physical therapy) evaluation done to see if she qualifies for any services in that area as well.

At home we've noticed more eye contact. She's babbling more, and using single words functionally, such as "more, all done, want, uh-oh, thank you, hi, bye," and "oh no!" She's also interacting with Emmalee, Owen & Noah more than ever. Small little things like this add up, and we are in awe of all of them!