Speech Therapy

Katie started Speech Therapy about a month ago. So far she's only had a one hour assessment. We knew she was getting behind and the assessment confirmed that. She's pretty much "at age" (20 months) for gestures and comprehension, but behind by about 6 months in expressive language and play structure.

They have scheduled monthly sessions (we love national health care in Canada, but this is one area that seems to lack funding). Not enough, in my opinion, so we've arranged for some additional private speech therapy once a week in our home. I found someone who actually works at our local children's treatment center (she works with Katie's "regular" monthly speech therapist) during the day and moonlights on the weekend. Therefore, they use the same techniques and can even collaborate on a plan for Katie.

I am also slated to attend training for the "Hanen Method". The Hanen programs are offered for young children with language delays. I'm trying to be very positive about the program, but everything that I have read so far seems like common sense. Getting down in front of your child, using less words, repetition, etc. All things that I have been doing for a long time now. I'm hoping they reveal some magical secrets once I'm in the course.

Katie has been saying Mama, Dada, Nana and Yeah since she was about 11 months old. She has only added the word Baby since then. I hear some other random words now and then, "bye-bye" and "up", but not consistently and not much.

It's very, very hard not to worry about her development now there is an obvious delay in speech. I know that all kids develop at different rates, but with her brain injury it's almost impossible to not read too much into it.

In other news, she's still eating like a bird. Meaning, not much or hardly at all. Sigh. I'm convinced that her reflux hasn't been an issue lately and it's just a matter of her not wanting to sit still long enough to eat big meals. I wouldn't worry about it if she had some extra chubbiness to spare, but she doesn't. She's a tiny 19-20 pounds at 20 months old!

I've noticed an interesting ("interesting" inserted in place of what I really wanted to say) correlation this month. The less Katie eats, the less I sleep. I have a wicked case of insomnia and I'm going on about 4-5 hours of sleep a night.

Hope next week is better than this one. More eating, more words and more sleep needed.

Summer Days

I can't believe summer is almost over for another year.

I'm totally envious of our blog friends who live in Arizona and California...especially in December. Our summer here has been very, VERY rainy and not very "summery" at all until August. This month has finally brought us some hot weather...over 100 degrees many days and we've been trying to cram in as much pool time as possible.

Katie is 20 months now and it's hard to keep her out of the water. She would spend her whole day playing in sprinklers and splashing around in the "big pool" if we let her. She's sporting a cute little tan, even though I slather her with SPF 60 all day long.

I just looked out the window and Chris is cleaning the pool as we speak (I write?). We have an unusually big yard (for being so close to the city center) which we love. We have a half dozen 50 year old maple and birch trees surrounding the pool. They're amazing and we love them, but what a MESS in the pool. I swear we could clean it every 2 hours through the spring, summer and fall. That job belongs to Chris, so I shouldn't really complain. So I won't.

The Ball

The Ball from Chris Lee on Vimeo.

Just a clip I did last night, cause we haven't been posting any video of Katie lately. As you can see she's walking fairly well, and really likes her pink ball.