Rock On Pre School Grad!

While Noa didn't care so much for all the talking in the graduation ceremony, but she totally dug the after party - rocking out and visiting everyone, walking, walking, walking and laughing when the big boys started popping balloons.

More Graduation Day Fun!

Well I haven't been able to post any of my video from today, but while I'm figuring that out here's a few more graduation day photos.

I do have a video (including the ear-busting sounds) of Noa doing her giant scream, but until I get that up, enjoy this (silent) photo of her screaming. The other two photos show the solution to screaming, Noa's terrific sign language teacher Maddie. She came up to Noa when their was a break in the action and as you can see, Noa is really paying attention. She calmed right down, and since Maddie also really gets Noa, she gave her a blue scarf so she could do her "Our Lady of Graduation Day" routine.

Class of 2010!

Check it out: Noa walked to her seat in her pre-school graduation today! Seriously, that in and of itself is remarkable and something that - on November 17, 2006, when Noa started at JGB - I never would have predicted. When we started at JGB Noa was 18 mos old and couldn't sit up by herself yet and I think she had two signs: finished and swing. PLUS she managed to wear that blue sash for the whole ceremony!

15 kids graduated in Noa's class, and as wonderful as the morning was everyone was pretty broken up by the fact that this would be the last graduation for the pre-school which is shuttering for good next week. Interestingly, ABC usually covers the graduation as a feel-good story but they weren't there this year. Can't help but be annoyed that they didn't show up when the kids really needed them to get the word out for them. They just liked it as a feel good story.

ANYWAY - I was very honored to be one of two parents to speak on behalf of the parents, though because it was all so emotional it was also difficult.

Noa made her presense know throughout by screaming her brains out whenever the clapping and/or singing stopped. But other than that she did great - they all did great! It was pretty remarkable that they could get any 15 toddlers to hold still that long!

Thanks to great uncle Vani for the dress Noa is wearing - he brought if for her from Hawaii a few months ago and it was the perfect graduation gown. After the ceremony there was food and jumping around and balloon popping and all vareity of great kid things.

The JGB has been a huge part of Noa's journey. We're really going to miss it and and all the people there so much. While I can be glad that Noa got through the program all the way until graduation, I can't help but think about the kids who now have to find other programs at

this late date.

Our Lady of the Big Girl Potty

Thanks to her own innate modesty, I am able to post this photo of Noa demonstrating her skills on the big girl potty.
As usual I have gone a long time between posts and so find myself posting a whole series of photos and videos on one day (5 today, which might be a record).
It's be very busy in the Land of Noa - but we finally seem to have cleared things with the Board of Ed in terms of Noa's placement for the fall, and have an IEP in place which on the advice of my lawyer (Ben) I will not talk about except to say that it is truly mind-boggling how much paper can be generated and how many people must be met to discuss one 5-year-old child. No wonder she thinks she's the center of the universe!
We've also been busy with the bus company that transports Noa to and from school every day. I'm sure Ben would also suggest that I not blog about that -- although I will say that we've had days where it seems to take them nearly two hours to get her from Central Park West and 65th to 30th and First Ave (the district does have rules about how long you can keep a kid on the bus: 1 hour and 15 minutes). So that's been another fun summer game.
And lastly, there is Medicaid. We're trying - once again to get Noa on straight Medicaid while similtaneously desputing charges with her current Medicaid HMO which - as you may recall - decided that Noa didn't need physical therapy because it clearly wasn't working (after 9 or 10 sessions she wasn't walking, so must be a lost cause). The way it works in NY is that once you're on Medicaid they want you to join one of their HMO's that manages your care. Straight Medicaid is for those who can't be served under those HMO's.
Couple of funny (not funny) things in this:
1 - We selected this particular HMO because it was the only one that covered the place where she gets PT. Even now, we couldn't use their rejection of her as a reason to be on straight Medicaid because on paper, they say they cover that program even though they actually have no allowance for people with a permanent disability... which is why we went on Medicaid in the first place.
2 - I discovered (quite by accident) that our HMO does have "case managers" for people with chronic or complicated medical conditions. I called and talked to one and she told me that they just give advice and her advice was to continue with our dispute - that we had to prove that the PT was "restorative" because there is no allowance for disability. I still have no idea what that woman's job really is - though she was nice enough and told me that she hears these stories all the times from parents of disabled kids.
ANYWAY - the other posts are much more fun than this run down of what we did with our summer vacation. Hope you're all enjoying yours!

Too Much Fun

Okay, here is one just for fun. The two dancing flowers in front are, yes, singing "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher. A gift from a friend of the family a few years ago that Noa continues to enjoy - if you hit the flowers, they start singing again. The animal noises come from buttons on the book she playing with. As you will see, she also continues with the blanket theme. We have two Tinkerbell blankets and they are her clear favorites: the texture, the color, the size, it just seems to work for her.

This also includes one of her other favorite activities: books!

Now don't get too excited, she's not reading them (though many include brialle so she can get used to touching the words). She likes to create a breeze with the pages. But we sneak in feeling the letters here and there. We also have some blocks with brialle letters on them (thanks Amy Saltz) that she likes to throw - she'll feel the letters a few times, then throw the block. Again, we're just sneaking it in.

FUNNY STORY: so Melissa is on the elevator with Noa last week at school, and Noa is playing with her electric toothbrushes (which she loves). She finishes with them and hands them to Noa and says "Thank You." This Dad on the elevator turns to his kid and says "why can't you be nice like that?"

and a one-a and a two-a...

As I've mentioned before, Noa has started trying to copy sounds and words. Sometimes, if she is feeling confident she'll skip using the sign completely (though right now book and drink sound an awful lot alike which can be the cause of some serious heartbreak).

Here we have Noa counting with me to 10 - and then doing some great playing. The video includes a lot of her favorite stuff. Anyway, we've been using counting to 10 for transitions for a long time with Noa so she's been listing to these numbers for a long time. Counting is helpful for kids with all kinds of special needs but has been particularly helpful in our case because Noa can't see the cues that might let her know that something is about to finish (like mommy packing things up, or that we're getting close to the chair where she's going to sit). It gives her ome time to get herself prepared for what is coming next.

As you will hear, the numbers can get pretty creative. Numbers with hard sounds, like three, eight and ten tend to be easier than numbers like five and seven that include sounds that are softer or smoother. I think she just likes the way it feels to say two. But the interesting thing that we don't quite know is whether her difficulty with some sounds is a difficult in hearing the difference between the sounds, in making the sounds, or some of both. I suspect some of both, though more and more I think she has trouble telling the difference between sounds when she hears them and sometimes gets more from the tone and intention of a sentence than she does from a singular word.

Signs of the Time

Okay, its always a bit of a mess format-wise when I try to upload more than two photos in a single post, so we'll see how this works.

The point of all these photos being that Noa is signing up a storm and hungry for new words every day.

In this post we have blow kiss, proud, smart, dance and funny.