Elmo Live!

So we spent our "officially-becoming-zoya's-parents-anniversary" going to see Sesame Street Live and then going to an adaptive ice skating show! Such a fun day and Zoya had a blast!!! She really enjoyed Elmo and all the other characters.  I thought it was the cutest thing ever when she asked where Sid was. The only two shows with fictional characters that Zoya watches are Sesame Street and Sid the Science Kid....so I guess in her smart little mind she thought Sid should be there too because he is a fictional TV character LOL. She was dancing and smiling and clapping and then toward the end she just sat on my lap mesmerized and so calm! At one point she looked up at me and smiled and brushed her chubby little palm across my face, almost like she was saying thanks. Our seats were perfect because they were on the end so she could just stand and watch (although she would have run up to the stage if I let her!). They were also off to the left of the stage so we weren't in the middle where most of the kids were and where all the chaos and crying was! LOL. This was truly the first time she seemed like a big kid to me! She seemed so grown up paying such attention to the show and truly enjoying it!  I kept telling her all morning we were going to "Elmo's House" to try and help her understand that we were going somewhere to see Elmo in person! Too funny!

During intermission she just about chased the balloon guy down and sweet talked us into buying her an Elmo balloon! I was pleasantly surprised with how well Zoya did. If we would have taken Zoya to this show last summer, or fall even, she would have freaked out with all the loud noise, flashing lights, singing, and all the other sensory input. When she was newly home she even struggled in the auditorium at church when the band played. We are so thankful for her awesome occupational therapist and all of her knowledge about sensory processing problems. I would recommend to anyone adopting a child from an orphanage to have a great OT in place who is knowledgeable about sensory processing disorder, as many kids from orphanages struggle with lack of sensory input during their orphanage years.  She is truly a different kid because her brain is now able to process sensory input appropriately!

Zoya's First Super Bowl! and sneaking in some football therapy!

Believe it or not we turned the Steelers going to the Super Bowl into a chance for some hard work and therapy!  I've been researching visual perception and crossing midline (google "crossing midline" and you'll get a ton of results) a lot lately and think Zoya really needs some practice with crossing her midline. She tends to use her right arm for things on her right side and left arm/hand to reach things on her left side and rarely crosses over her body to reach for something unless I help her by gently holding down her other hand.  She can easily cross midline, but is not doing it a whole lot yet unprompted.  We are also going to start working more on using two hands together! Crossing midline is really important for many reasons and it is said to help make new connection pathways in the brain, thus making processing and learning easier. Your brain has to "cross midline" for many things....if you think about reading your eyes read from left to right, you have to move your tongue from one side of your mouth to the other for chewing and moving food.

So with that in mind, one idea I had was to put some doodle paper (that I got for $1.99 a roll) up on the wall (with a "Go Steelers" message) hoping Zoya would draw from left to right with big sweeping movements of the marker and/or crayon. She mostly drew toward the right hand side of her body since that is the hand she was drawing with and the hand she seems to be dominant with.  With a little help and modeling, Zoya was crossing over her midline to draw big long lines from left to right and right to left. It definitely does not come naturally to her, but hopefully with some practice she will feel more comfortable crossing midline and her brain will start to make that connection. We used markers first, then paint dotters, then crayons, then we finished up working on fine motor skills by putting stickers on the paper.

Even though I started this activity to work on crossing midline, it ended up being a really great way to have Zoya practice holding the markers and crayons the correct way using a three-finger (sometimes 4-finger) grip instead of a whole fist grip. This is something Zoya has struggled with. I was very surprised to see Zoya start to hold her crayons and markers in such a "big girl" way! I think because she was drawing vertically, her wrist was in a nice position and helped her to hold her crayons and markers using a little bit of a better grasp. I think drawing vertically probably helps strengthen arm and shoulder strength as well...so although I didn't plan the activity for these reasons, I really saw the benefits when I saw Zoya holding her crayons and markers so nicely! The crayons you see her using in the picture are triangle crayons from her Grandpa and Grandma, which help to promote a proper hold on the crayon. She does really well with these crayons and in one of the pictures you will see her awesome 3-finger grasp...I didn't even realize she was doing this until I took the picture and looked at the picture! Since this was the first time I noticed her holding her crayon so nicely, I'm curious to see if she continues using such a nice grasp if we color on a flat surface in a coloring book or something.

Overall this was a fun therapy activity (except Zoya thought several times she could draw on ANY wall-good thing I'm quick)...oh and she surprised me by having enough hand strength to take the cap off the marker and draw on her face. I left the markers out thinking it'd be safe since I underestimated her hand strenth LOL. Thank goodness for washable markers and baby wipes!

Reeeeeeach....

This is fun! (Even though in the beginning she wasn't thinking it was going to be fun!)

Smiling at her Dora sticker

Woohooo...big girl TRIPOD grasp all by herself!

Check it out!

And the real Super Bowl Fun......

She is signing "more" because I kept running into her and Daddy and she thought it was funny!

We practiced the raised arm "Go Steelers" while Daddy was at work and showed it off when he got home!

Watching the game with her whole body....wonder who she gets this from?

Zoya was saying, "Come on Roethlisberger, put your glasses on so you can see who you're throwing the ball to!" 

Working on a post about Zoya's new 16-year-old dirty looks and pout! I just have to get a picture of this! She is somethin' else! Love her to pieces :)



Bucket Therapy! Part 2-Sensory Integration

So I just love this bucket! I think I'm going to write a book called Bucket Therapy...haha....seriously though there are so many cool things you can do with a big bucket like this! I have been working on coloring rice for Zoya to play with. It is more fun than just plain white rice:) Here is some blue rice I made and the typical way to play with rice using a cookie sheet.  (Note: I have a hard time not freaking out about rice being everywhere because every time we play with rice no matter how careful we are I find rice all around for weeks and weeks but I'm slowly overcoming my aversion to it and just sucking it up). Sorry about the pictures....our camera broke and we had to send it away to get fixed so this is a really bad camera that only works every third shot! She loved using the car in the rice and I thought it was good work for finger isolation.

But that way is so messy and really she is only using her hands to feel the rice. So I looked at the big purple bucket and thought I could put the rice in there and let her reach into it to play with it, but then I thought why not put her in the bucket WITH the rice! I started her with her pants and shoes on and her shirt off to ease her into it. Zoya has demonstrated some tactile defensiveness, but not so much that it interferes with anything on a daily basis.  She wasn't sure what to think at first but once I started taking her hands and putting them in the rice she seemed okay. She didn't like me pouring the rice over her bare back though! She didn't protest much, she just didn't look too thrilled. So to ease her into it, I had her touch the rice and play with it for a few seconds, then I would spin her, which she loves. This really helped her tolerate playing with the rice better! After about 10 minutes in the rice bucket I took off her shoes and socks and she would not put her feet in the rice. Once I spun her around again she had no problem putting her feet in...too funny. She refused to stand in it at first but after some more spins she was standing bare-foot in the rice with no problems! I think the proprioceptive input of the spinning helped her tolerate the rice better. After another 10 minutes I took her pants off and she had just her diaper on and was actually enjoying it! After about 30 minutes in the bucket I had to pry her out with Daddy's help making sure rice didn't fly everywhere! Let me just say, a little more rice got in the diaper than I anticipated! I didn't think ahead on that one ;)

Step 1: Put baby in the bucket and pour rice on her :)

I think Zoya is praying here: "Dear God please get me out of this awful situation I'm in!"

Eeeww, eeewww, eewwww, I can't believe they're making me do this!

Maybe it's not so bad?

Hi Mom, am I done yet?

Wait, this might be fun!

OK, I might be having fun but I am NOT putting my feet in this stuff!

Oooo that feels kinda neat!

Scoop, scoop, scoop...(Have I really been playing for 15 minutes already?)

I love this stuff!

Make sure you have a good clean up committee:)

And if you're interested in making pretty rice.....I used neon food coloring and vinegar. I'm sure there are measurements to use, but I just eyeballed it.  I used a large Tupperware container and poured some vinegar in, then whatever color I was using.  I let it soak infor five minutes and then drained the extra liquid.  I let it dry on wax paper.  In the end I ended up mixing all the colored rice together and it looks like ice cream sprinkles!