Sorta Sorting

Okay, so the story of this video goes all the way back to Thanksgiving when we met with Sandy, the woman who has been assessing Noa's vision in terms of her Cortical Vision Impairment and helping us do the kinds of work at home that will help Noa use what vision she has as best she can. As many of you know, we've been working mainly with a light box, but at my parent house we started out our session just using the white table top and actually Noa did great just with that. Better in fact. She'd been getting kind of antsy at the light box.

BUT the big breakthrough was actually mine. I'd been working with Noa on identifying colors, but I was never sure if we were getting anywhere. Working with Sandy, I very quickly discovered my mistake: apparently we learn to match colors before we learn to identify them. SO asking Noa to pick up a red block, or a yellow block, is too much of a challenge. When Sandy gave Noa a colored block and asked her to find the bowl it went into - suddenly it was clear, she knew what to do!

Thanks to my Mom who on the spot insisted that we take the table with us. Noa has been enjoying it.

Of course the fun thing in this video is that she following my directions, but I'm not not being really clear. I do have other video where she gets it right, but this sort of interests me more because it really shows her trying to figure out what I'm asking, and demostrates how specific I have to be in talking to her.

Noa seems to understand what we say more clearly now. For example, the other day, I asked her to take off her shirt and after asking a few times (without any physical cues) she did it. On the other hand, she continues to have problems figuring out how to express herself when she wants to say "no." She'll scream ear-piercingly loudly and then smack herself in the head.

The loud screaming has also come into play with some discomfort she seems to have in her leg... or maybe its her feet... or her bowels. Honestly, its impossible to tell what is bothering her but it is very upsetting and she screams bloody-murder. She did this all the way home from music yesterday and I got numerous comments from friendly people about my lack of mothering skills. That was fun. We have a doctors apt. next week and hopefully we'll learn something. It's very upsetting to see Noa in such distress and not have any idea what is going on.

Slap Happy

Noa's cousin Elektra is in town (oh yeah, her parents too) and they've been having a great time playing with each other. They are both into drums and funny noises so they have a lot in common. It's great when Noa has a chance to just play with other kids - she really likes it and there are not tons of kids who have the patience for her. Noa just reaches over to touch Elektra sometimes, and she is cool with that. A lot of kids pull away. Anyway, there isn't much to say about this video - I think it speaks for itself.

Enjoy.

Walker Fever

More fun with family. After a few more rounds of slapping the table, Noa was ready to show off her walker skills. As you can see, she really is doing all the work herself - we stay close but we don't have to spot her hands-on-the-walker like we used to. We actually stood by herself for a long few seconds yesterday, but ofcourse didn't have a video camera. The great thing was that she was really trying to find her balance and didn't just turn into a plank and fall over like she used to. Sometimes she stands on her own when I'm putting on her coat, or she is pulling up her pants, only she doesn't really realize she is doing it. So I think she is getting close - her body is starting to find this upright thing to be somewhat natural.

In other - though similar news - just sharing some of the hard truth of the Land of Noa, I went to the doctor last week (after weeks of pain in my shoulder, that is frankly not unusual but it has escalated to the point where I knew Alieve wasn't going to do it any more). The doctor believes I have "Thorasic Outlet Syndrome" (I'll have some tests next week to confirm that). This is a condition in which those muscle between your arm socket and your neck become compressed, potentially cutting off nerves and arteries. In fact when he lifted my arm above my head, it completely cut off my pulse and my hand started to go numb immediately. He gave me a couple of meds (one for pain, one for the nerve which I can only take at night as it's quite trippy) and perscribed PT.

THE NEXT DAY, because my stomach had been acting funny, I went to my GP. I had actually already googled enough to suspect I had an ulcer and as it turns out I was right. Probably from all those Alieve (he did yet another test to see if it was the Alieve or something else). And then of course had to change all the med's that the other doctor had given me because they were all aggrevating the ulcer.

SO, getting Noa walking would be grand, just grand. I actually think the stress on my shoulder on neck is less about the carrying, and more about the way she sometimes pulls on me when she is walking while holding my hands. But I'm sure it's a combination of both. You have to get in some pretty crummy positions to lug her around and she's closing in on 38 or 40 pounds at this point.

And the Trouble Begins...

Okay, so I'm posting a series of three videos again - this time to demonstrate not only Noa's choice of "toys," but the variety as well! Recently Noa has started to really enjoy scooting around on the wood floor and exploring whatever she happens to find: the wall, a corner, a door hinge (which is a little terrifying), a rolling stool. This is very new behavior and she really takes a lot of time with each new object and tries to figure out everything she can. She especially seems to like big things she can move.

There are a couple of nice bonus moments in this clip: one in which I tell her to put my shoe down, and she does (of course when it gets in her way later, she just throws it), and right after that she does one of her new signs: "thank you." While Noa continues to try to make new sounds verbally, she also continues to learn new signs and enjoys using both of them. She tends to make verbal sounds when she is echoing something we've asked her to say, rather than thinking of them herself (though she likes to sing e-o-e-o on her own). When she wants to tell us something she tends to sign.

Later Noa figured out how to spin the seat on the stool, and make a great clanking noise with base of the stool that sits on the wheels.

Notice the big box and the shoe rack in the background... they figure into the next two clips.

Boxing Day

This is a short clip. She actually spent a lot of time with the box, but most of it was sitting inside the box and hitting it and then laughing... which makes some great noise, doesn't make for great video. As always, the box is the most interesting part of any toy (the box was actually for her new big-girl car seat for the trip down to DC for Thanksgiving)

shoe me, shoe me, show me how you do that trick...

Finally, Noa goes for my shoe rack which, by the time this clip was taken, she had already pulled away from the wall and into the middle of the room. She has already taken all the shoes and tossed them out (you can see some of them in the foreground).

Tink Takes Manhattan

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Noa made a big splash the annual Halloween Parade in our building but actually walking the whole thing in her walker! Noa's favorite part was when we were right in the heart of it all, with all the other kids around her. Everyone in our building pretty much knows Noa so she got lots of cheers and compliments (she makes a pretty cute Tinkerbell). One of the kids in the building would come by every once in a while and straighten out her wings for her. It was probably the longest walk she's done yet --her own NY Marathon Weekend, I guess. You may have noticed that we have a handy rolling stool that we got so that we didn't break our backs trying to spot her in the walker.

Last year we tried Trick or Treating, but Noa didn't like having to stand at various doors and doesn't eat candy, so instead we decided to give out candy this year thinking that might be more to her taste. Although all our candy was gone by the time she finished dinner, she did enjoy all the kids coming to the door and everybody said hello to her.

Then we went to a Halloween Party down the hall from us: these folks do terrific party every year and usually Noa doesn't go for it too much, but this year she had a great time. She played with the toys that were there on the floor - then she found a chair and sat in it fanning herself (with a fan she'd made in school) and playing with some blocks until finally she said she had to potty... I picked her up and he immediately wet herself (I think she must have been trying to hold it, but I was grateful that I managed to get her off the couch in time). All-in-all, the most fun Halloween ever.