Just One Scoop...

Just a short demonstration of why meal time with Noa can take a long long time. This video is one minute long, and as you will see, includes just two bites of food. She does better than this at school - and does better than this with pretty much everybody except me. She and I are just really having a Mommy-Noa struggle with meal time these days. When she bends her fingers back and says "stretch stretch" she is asking for her gloves and finger toys (which means putting on both gloves and a finger toy on each finger - before she will take a bite). So I'm trying to move toward doing the bite first and then getting the toys as a reward... slowly building up to two or three bites, but as you can see even getting one is a bit of routine at this point. She is very polite in this video, but we've had other incidents that include her hitting herself in the face, thrashing around on her chair and screaming as if someone set her on fire. Gosh, I'm sorry you all won't get to see that (not).

And as you can also see at the end of the video - she totally knows when she finally does the bite that it's good thing worth celebrating. So hopefully we can keep building on that. Just another meal in the life of... The Land of Noa.

Sunday in the Park with Daddy

Okay, I know it looks like this is going to play sideways, but it should re-orient when you hit play.

In any case, you should be able to get the idea of what is so lovely about this little bit of video. Noa is not only propelling the walker all by herself, she even figures out how to pick it up and turn it when she runs into the curb! And she runs into the curb quite a bit. We haven't figured out if it's her or the walker that pulls to the right, but she does seem to do better with her right side overall.

In other news - we visited Noa's school last week and got to meet with all her teachers and therapists. It's amazing what a busy day she has - Ben and I were exhausted just hanging out for the morning!! Noa seems to really be enjoying school and engaging with the activities in the classroom. They sang a song about fall and the teacher dropped play leaves on the the kids heads - and Noa did a great job of helping to pick them up and even felt around on the floor in front of her when the teacher told her there were some near her feet.

Then it was time for a visit from a thearpy dog - Hearst. The teacher told the kids that they would have a visit from their friend with four legs who says "woof woof" and Noa immediately said "Sog!" It was lucky we were there to interpret for her: Sog is what she calls her stuffed animal Dog (who is actually a horse... but that's a different story). The only bummer was that I think Noa was hoping for her Sog, rather than a real-live dog. But she took it pretty well and even reached out when someone said that the dog was wagging his tail.

Also - just FYI - I posted some more video on our YouTube "channel": http://www.youtube.com/user/sahlkina?feature=mhsn#p/a/u/0/c67gFrLa1R4
I was kind of surprised to see that our video of Noa flushing the toilet had over 500 hits, and the one of us telling her it was bathtime had over 700. Apparently this was enough to make Google thing we might get enough hits to warrent selling ad space. SO I figured I ought to put more up on the site, and if you see ads in the future - hey, living in the Land of Noa ain't cheap!

Halloween Here We Come!

When Noa lost her first front tooth a few weeks ago, we were pretty sure its partner tooth wouldn't be far behind. It was already loose, and there was pretty much nothing to stablize it on either side - in fact it seemed to be in a different position every time she opened her mouth. Still, it managed to hang on for about three weeks... until Mommy finally decided to intervene (and thanks to Aunt Pate for the suggestion of rubber gloves to get a good grip on the tiny, slippery thing).

Noa took it all well. We'd been talking about it for days. She'd open her mouth and show me the tooth - and I'd say "do you want to give it to Mommy?" and she'd sign "No. No." One night even woke us up in the middle of night and was signing "help help" and showing us the tooth - though she wouldn't let me touch it.

Finally, Monday night, she had gotten to the point where she didn't want to eat or drink at all. You know when pureed food is too much to bear, it's time for the tooth to go!

Ben and I decided that we would just have to yank the tooth (we=Mommy, of course) and that it was probably best to do it in the morning before school so she could at least get some food in her. So we woke her up and started talking about the tooth - finally we told her it was time for the tooth to go bye-bye. She signed "no, no" and "finished" - but we just assured her that it was okay for the tooth to go away, that she was a big girl and all that good stuff.

While she objected to the idea of mommy touching her mouth and taking the tooth in principle, she didn't seem to object too much once it was out. And she recovered pretty quickly: just played with the empty spot for a minute, asked for a drink and then proceeded to eat a double breakfast.

And so now, just in time for Halloween, we have Vampire-Noa!

Mark This Day!

Okay, Okay, I know I just posted an entry a few hours ago, but just before bedtime Noa did something really amazing. Drum roll please............

Today - Wednesday, Sept. 21st - at 6 1/2 years old - for the first time, Noa stood up from the floor all by herself!!!!

Why this photo? Because she was sitting on the floor and stood up to play the piano that is on the table behind her in this photo.

She was chilling out on the floor playing with her blocks, much as she is in this photo, while I was in the kitchen washing dishes when she scooched herself over to the piano reached up to play with the keys. She made this noise that she sometimes makes when she shines "more" so I asked her "more what?"

She signed and said "piano."

I asked her "do you want to stand up?"

She said "san-up" and then, before I could even get to her she started to stand up. I got there in time to spot her - just in case - but she got all the way up on her own. Yes, she did use the table to steady herself, but frankly it's not a terribly strong, stable table. She was very proud of herself, and so was I!

Bruiser

Oh what a month! September: back to school, new classroom, new teacher, new friends, new bus that shows up repeatedly at 9:15 when school starts at 9:00... in Westchester! But no, Noa doesn't look like this because she was bullied in school or on the bus. She actually just has some funky dry skin on her eye, and then lost a front tooth!

The tooth had been loose for a few days. At one point - on Sunday - she tried to pull it out but it didn't want to come. It bled a bit, but it stayed in place. A few hours later in the bath she got mad at me because the water was too hot, or too cold, or too soft, or too hard... it was too something and I couldn't figure it out so she did what she sometimes does and gave herself a little jab in the chin (I've explained to that it doesn't hurt me when she does that, but she does it nonetheless). In any case, she knocked the tooth right out!

There was a little blood, and at first she kind of freaked out. She really seemed to get the fact that she'd just lost a piece of her body that had been there just moments before (and I think she liked playing with it). But I just kept reassuring her that it was it alright - that it was supposed to happen and it meant she was a big girl and within a couple of minutes she was laughing and it was all very funny.

On Monday we went to the doctor and got some cream for the eye. But she's still kind of sporting that tough kid look. The other front tooth is wiggling up a storm and we expect it to go at any moment. Her teeth tend to hang in there a while since she doesn't eat solid food.

The other excitement Monday was a visit from Sam Morgan of the NYS Deaf-Blind Project. After YEARS of trying to get Noa in, she has finally been accepted for services! This is a huge deal for all of us - as a blind child who communicates mostly with sign, she is a bit of an odd duck. She just doesn't fit any easy definition. She seems to hear technically - but processing what she hears and/or how to speak is definitely a challenge for her. But all these things have Federal definitions (and they get funding by serving people who fit into that definition) so for odd ducks, it's a battle. ANYWAY - this gives us access to the kind of services and support that we've been longing for - and that Noa really needs: support at school to help her teachers and therapists work with her, and support at home for Noa and for us! One of the greatest challenges we face is that Noa is just plain smart - but her communication skills can't keep up with her cognitive abilities, and filling in those gaps for kids who can't see and who don't follow what they hear is really tough.

We've all seen frustrated kids who can't quite express themselves - this frustration ultimately pushes them to watch and listen to others so they can learn these things, but Noa can't do that. And honestly, the timing for this couldn't be better because she really is in a place of some intense cognitive growth and she gets very frustrated about not being able to tell me what she wants. Sometimes after spending a long time, with me listing things she might want, she just signs that she is sad - and that is really heart-breaking. I tell her that I'm sad too. She is really patient with us, and I'm looking forward to getting the help we need to get her to the next level!

Flushing Queen

FINALLY - I figured out the video thing!!!!

** I has come to my attention that this video does not work on everyone's computer (despite my nearly pulling my hair out to make it work!). Unfortunately the only real solution I can figure right now is going to YouTube.com and searching "Flushing Queen." **

Okay, this is fun. You can see that we have arm rests on the potty now - so Noa can pull herself up on to the potty by herself (no step stool needed anymore). She also likes to stand on her own, and pull up her diaper and pants - and can even zip her pants. She also likes to reach back and hold Mommy's hand she flushes the toilet. But she never flushed it herself... until now.

Imagine our surprise when - having left Noa alone for a few minutes on the potty so we could pick up some toys - we hear a resounding FLUSH. We ran into the bathroom only to find this little munchkin giggling away and rocking out to the sound of the toilet bowl re-filling. As soon as it quieted, she reached back and flushed it again. That's when I got the video camera. I suspected she wasn't finished with her new game and I was right.

I can't help but think back to the days B.N. when our pride and joy was our toilet-using cat Shekhina. People always asked us if he flushed. "Lord no!" we exclaim. "If he could flush that's all he'd do all day."

Miss Fancy Pants

Back to school and Noa is already asserting her "big-girlness"! The photo here was actually taken a few weeks ago when Grammy and Grampy were visiting - but it's such a great picture of Noa being her hip, cool self and it really shows off how big she is standing next to me.