Frazzled, But Dazzled

This past week has been a whirlwind...two new therapists came in to meet my sweet little girl and start working with her and I've been doing my best to keep up.  Thank God for Outlook calendars, and the fact that they sync so easily with the ol' CrackBerry!

Monday: this is the day we'd usually have OT in-clinic with Sakina, but she was on vacation so we hung out and played at home instead.

Tuesday: Julie time!

Wednesday: Play group in the morning and then Jill, the new DT, stopped by for our initial appointment.

Thursday: Would have been Julie time, but the poor gal had a bad day with the poopy weather and ended up cancelling.

Friday: Amy, the new in-home OT, came by for her initial visit.

And this is just the scheduled Princess-related stuff!  It doesn't include housework, job hunting, school preparation, housework or housework.

I have to say Amy is a peach.  Must be something in the name, eh?  She made it to our place about 10:30 in the morning on Friday and parked on the living room floor with her gigantic bag of toys.  She and I talked for the majority of the hour, getting paperwork out of the way and getting to know one another.  She's young and pretty, and so easy to talk to.

She tried to engage The Princess in a couple of different activities, but mostly let her highjack any toy that looked appealing.  Kudos to her for this...lots of therapists don't let the kid take charge the first time out, but this is one of the fastest ways to get on The Princess's good side.  Amy understands that she's invading The Princess's territory and that it's a good thing to let the kiddo get used to her a bit first before trying to assert any authority.

We talked about different calming/stimulating methods that can be adapted so they can be used outside of the clinic, and I appreciate her taking the time to go through these things with me.  Amy will be back in two weeks, and will have a rough sensory diet for The Princess the next time she visits.  I'm excited about this prospect, as it seems a lot of The Princess's difficulties seem to be in the sensory processing area.

With all my ranting about therapies and scheduling, I almost forgot to mention the fact that Friday was my mom's birthday.  Happy birthday, Ma!  She went out plowing with Hambone for a while and they both ended up here in the early afternoon.  Surprisingly enough, they stayed for a few hours to visit...so I took that opportunity to bake a last-minute cake for her.

Mmm...red velvet.

Hambone had to take off, so I said I'd take Mom home after dinner.  We made saganaki pizza and Dad dropped by after work to join in the festivities.  Mmm...more red velvet.

Around 9:00 or so, Mom and Pop took off and The Princess went to bed.  The Hubbs and I retired to the dungeon...I mean basement...to watch Fanboys, and loved the hell out of it.  If you have not seen this movie, pop it into your Netflix queue.  You will not be sorry!

Sleep, glorious sleep!

Yesterday we decided to hit Borders to see if we could find a couple of books Amy had recommended.  The coffee was good, but unfortunately they didn't have what I was looking for.

I'm glad to report that the library had one of them, and I'm definitely going to need my own copy.  It's one of the best resources I've found to date for parents of autistic children.  No less than twenty times since I've started reading the book, I've found myself wishing I could bust out the highlighter.  And I can't wait to try these activities with The Princess. 

Check it out: 1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

I'm currently on the waiting list for the other two, and will let you know what I think when I have a second to check them out.

One thing I've noticed the therapists have been pretty big on is texture bins.  Jill had a salt bin with toys in it, and Amy had pinto beans with craft pom poms.  Both suggested hiding toys inside a bin of something and having The Princess dig them out.

We've started doing this with puzzle pieces - I hide them and when she takes them out, she puts them back in the puzzle board.  We now have seven bins on top of the entertainment center for this kind of play, filled with all kinds of different textures:

Holiday shaped pasta (in three colors, great for sorting!) - Thanks, Nana!
Multi-color pony beads (also great for sorting)
Multi-color glass rocks - the kind you put in vases with fake flowers, etc
Pinto beans
Oatmeal
Rice
River rocks

Changing up the textures makes it more interesting for The Princess, and the bonus to this is that she actually pays attention to what she's playing with.  She plunges those little hands right into the bin and explores the contents with wild abandon.  We've just started this, but I can see it's going to be a hit.

Another new thing we started this weekend was tapping nails and turning screws on her Handy Manny's Repair Shop workbench.  We worked on tapping nails last night, and I added the screws today.  It's great fun to watch her as she figures out how the new things work.  She had tried tapping the screw at first, but quickly figured out - on her own - that they needed to be turned.

This work week is the last before I start my classes, and it's destined to be a busy one.  But I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.