Shake it, Shake it, Shake it

Adel's six month re-evaluation is rounding the bend. We got approved for services right before Sukkos and started therapy right after Yom Tov was over. That means that right around Pesach time we will have our six month re-evaluation. Half a year. Wow. And it's been even longer since the whole ordeal began at the end of the summer- we've been searching for a diagnosis for Adel for seven months already.
The date for the eval was estimated to be March 30, but that's Pesach, so we will do it either before or after. They will decide which services to keep, which to change, etc.

Here's a look at the therapies one by one... what Adel's been up to and what lies in store.

Occupational Therapy:
Mary Beth brought the tunnel again! She swung Adi a little and also tried to have her crawl through. It's a fun piece of equipment!



Occupational therapy will remain at 2 times a week, 30 minutes a session. We agreed that since occupational and physical therapies are similar in the way they work on Adel, she is in essence receiving 4 of the same type of therapy a week. So it stays two.

Physical Therapy:
Randi wants us to go get Adi's legs/hips checked by an orthopedist because of the length discrepancy. We are working on weight bearing while standing:

and one of Adel's legs turns outwards and doesn't straighten. Probably because it's longer. So we will check that out. I hope the orthopedist won't become our good long-time friend like the neurologist and geneticist are. Just one friendly visit is fine with me!

Adel is also beginning to develop a much more intense stranger anxiety than before (although Randi isn't a stranger, she's not Mama.) So she just cries through most of the session. She mostly does it in physical therapy- more than during others- because it's the most intense workout for her.

She has some great days with Randi, and some wailing fests. One thing for sure- I can NOT allow Adel to see me even once during the lesson, or else she will promptly announce that the session is over and now it's time for Mama to hold her. So I must choose a room to camp out in for 30 minutes, and prepare some (quiet) housework to do!

Speech Therapy:
I don't have any recent pictures of that, so this will be a text-only update. The teacher is so happy the way Adel is using objects functionally, like a hairbrush. And she extends this use to different types of hair brushes... and she says "Aaah ahhh baby" (minus the word"baby") to different dolls, even those she hasn't seen before.
She is still tight in her jaw/lips/mouth so we hope to loosen that. Chavi is suggesting that we increase Adel's speech therapy sessions to three or four times a week. we shall see if that gets approved.

Special Instruction:
This is the reason for the title of this post. The special ed teacher is great with chants and little songs that repeat... this way Adel remembers what she needs to so much better. Here Adel is demonstrating her knowledge of where her mouth is. The tag word and action for that is, "Moily ahhhhhh." Moil is mouth in Yiddish, and they say aaaaaaaaah while clapping the hand over the mouth.


Other chants include, "Wheels go round and round," "Doggy, woof woof!" "Nezele (nose) beep beep!" and while they shake something, like a bucket full of plastic shapes, they say,
"Shake it, shake it, shake it,
Shake it if you can,
Shake it like a milkshake,
And do the best you can!"

Well, right on cue, things are about to get shake it shake it shake it-ed. The special ed teacher will IY"H be working with Adel until Pesach- just a few more sessions- and then she is going on maternity leave. We will have a substitute... for the. whole. SUMMER.
I feel like we got into a good routine. It was difficult at first, because she allows no one to go into the room, and we have to be very quiet wherever we are, or else Adel gets distracted. But it means she is serious about the work- and she is!
Another minor annoyance is the fact that her husband helps her bring up the ginormous amount of toys, and 30 minutes later he comes back to help her take it down. That's an extra person to have to open the door for and to close the door after. (We live on the 2nd floor, but our apartment door is on the first floor. To get to the door, we have to go down and up the stairs.) We also have to supervise the cat when people go in and out because he likes to go out and will follow them.

It's no big deal now that we got used to it. But I am afraid that after several months of (a possibly) easier therapy session, I might want to keep the substitute. But I know I want Aviva to come back.
I don't look forward to the change, and I hope it works out well for everyone.
We put in a request to increase Adel's special instruction to five times a week (from two.) It still hasn't been addressed due to a giant roll of red tape that the office has to use up already. But when it does get taken care of, Aviva said she won't be able to do all five of those sessions. So maybe we could keep Aviva (when she comes back) and the new therapist (if we like her.) That would be nice!

I want to get her a thank you present before she goes away. Should it be something she can use for therapy, or something more personal? I feel that I don't know her so well and it's not my place to get something personal. She does have some tattered therapy items that would be nice to replace with new ones, but I don't know if a gift like that is appropriate.

Sometimes therapists forget toys here, and the kids get to play with them for a day or two. Once one of them forgot this huge Ball Party by Tomy. The kids had an AWESOME time with it. I wanted to buy it for them, but quickly discovered that they are $100 a pop... Uhhhm, no ball party in our near future.