Noa's August Adventures

​Noa had a great August break. She especially enjoyed finding new ways to express her independence and coming up with ideas for new ways to “walk with music.” She was also (mostly) flexible when plans had to change.

INDEPENDENT NOA
Noa has gotten very good at toileting independently at home. This includes putting on gloves before wiping after a BM, flushing and closing the toilet. One day, in a startling move, Noa decided completely on her own to get up from the floor (using her walker) and make her way to the bathroom and use the T before coming downstairs for dinner. She did this completely on her own!
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The next day she told me that after finishing braille she wanted to go to the bathroom by herself and then return to her room to clean up her blocks. She got a bit turned around when she came out of the bathroom and ended up in Mom and Dad’s bedroom. But the next day we worked on the best way to turn the walker around and she was very happy.
Noa also expressed an interest nail care and has gotten particularly good at filing her nails.

​WATER IN, WATER OUT
Noa greatly increased her water intake over break (in part because she seems to have gotten over wanting only super hot water). While we were glad to have her hydrating herself, she tending to drink too much water near bedtime and thus had a few accidents. We will work on reducing her late in the day intake. 

Noa shows off her many bells

​WALKING WITH MUSIC
Noa spent a lot of time perfecting her ability to “walk with music.” This included twelve bells attached to various barrettes (which ultimately had to be anchored with back up barrettes so that one could jump without the bells slipping out of her hair). She also insisted on big bells on her shoes, and a variety of rattles in her pockets.

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Noa asked for new shapes and was very excited to discover her new shapes were also rattles!

To keep the rattles in her pockets, she would only agree to wear shorts with deep pockets. At night she would wear shorts with zippered pockets to keep the rattles in place… until one day she realized that she could ask for shorts with zippered pockets during the day. 

We were impressed with the fact that she thought asking for the zipper pants herself - yet  another great step forward in expressing herself and self-advocating.

GREAT WOLF LODGE
​Noa had a wonderful time at Great Wolf Lodge. She was very glad that Christian was there and we had most of our meals with him and his family. She was especially excited to hug friends and tell them that she loves them.

Noa liked jumping up and down in the wave pool, but really enjoyed the pool called “Crooked Creek” in which you float around a circle in an innertube. The water was shallow enough that she could stand up in the innertube (which had handles) and walk around the circle independently. She also loved sitting in the innertube and floating, and liked to finish up by having Mom spin her around in the inner tube.
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Noa did great staying the hotel, she understood that things would be a little different, was patient with and interested in the new setting and agreeable when we had to get out of the water, though she didn’t like waiting for the elevator.

​FRIENDS and such…
​Noa enjoyed seeing the dentist (Dr. D), a home visit from her agency nurse, and spending time with handful of family friends over break. She also made a number of new friends going election-time canvassing with Dad.

THE USUAL
Noa enjoyed a lot of her usual activities over break: braille, reading with Mom, walking with Dad, morning yoga with Mom, swings, horseback riding, shopping, treadmill, cleaning up her room, hugs with doggy and having zuzzy time (she is now turning them on and off by herself which is new). She may mention a new stuffed toy she likes named “Bo” after a friend’s son. Because Bo pushed her in the swing, she’ll sometimes call him “Bo-turn-turn” or she’ll just spell his name.

THE CHALLENGES

FOOD – we continue to struggle with conversations around food, though after weeks of very vocal dissatisfaction with breakfast we finally figured out that what Noa wanted was eggs WITHOUT cheese and potatoes (rather than eggs with MORE cheese and potatoes). Still, she tends to act out when she doesn’t like something or wants more of something. She bent several spoons in frustration over break and also tends to make sounds and talk about colors or shapes when we try to talk to her about what she wants.
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THE TALK – Noa doesn’t like when Mom and Dad talk to each other. Especially during mealtime. We try to include her in conversations, but when it’s clear we’re having an exchange with each other (even a short one) she’ll often bite her hand or act out in some way. We have talked about the fact that everyone can talk to each other, but this continues to be a challenge.

COUNTING DOWN – In an effort to shorten the amount of time we spend on meals (Noa can happily spend two hours at the table), we started doing countdowns from 30 minutes to being finished with a meal. The problem is that Noa gets so invested in the countdown that she completely stops eating and just wants to talk about how many minutes are left until we get to 1 minute and then she suddenly eats and drinks… so that didn’t quite work the way we’d hoped and now this tendency has started to bleed into other activities, including horseback riding, where it's a bit problematic because it gets in way of her following directions.

All in all, a great break though Noa is also very happy to return to school.