Summer Program has started!

 

FIRST WEEK OF SUMMER

 

New foods - Ashley is a picky eater so any new food she at least tries or eats is a huge deal! She ate pineapple and grilled chicken breast on Sunday night!! The next morning she ate part of my English muffin with peanut butter and cinnamon! She is also now eating a protein bar!!!


Helping in Kitchen - Ashley now likes to make her Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich at lunch! I have to monitor how much jelly she squeezes out or she would use entire bottle!


Outdoor Play - We cleared out our backyard of weeds and all bushes that attracted bees so we could enjoy it more this summer. We have gotten to play outdoors a few mornings this week and joined her in dirt play, sidewalk chalk, ball rolling, bubbles, tearing leaves, and she even wanted to use the broom after I swept the patio! She loves being outdoors!


New Sounds - Ashley had her first private swim lesson for the summer. Both the instructor & I were hearing "nah" for no after she would ask Ashley to jump or put her head under water. She can say sounds so quietly sometimes its hard to hear.


Evening Chase - Part of our nightly routine is playing chase in our house so the kids can get all their extra energy out. Our floor plan gives us a "track" around the staircase which is perfect! Both kids & our dog love Jeremy and I to run with them around and around and around! Ashley always wants to ride on daddy's shoulders too which is a lot cheaper than doing therapeutic riding. Jeremy takes a lot of hair pulling and endures back pain with all her movement but he enjoys seeing her so happy! We all have a lot of fun and it was hard to capture on camera because Ashley is a "blue blur"!

   FIRST SESSIONS

 

Sunday, May 31st    Haley and Miranda had their first Sessions with Ashley! They both said time flew by fast and they had so much fun being able to connect with Ashley even if short periods of eye contact or green lights! When you are "joining" Ashley, then you are always busy whether rocking, rolling balls, spinning small spinners, or looking at Disney character pictures!


Monday, June 8th  Wendy and Tracy had their first sessions with Ashley. However, she got mosquito bites the night before and she is very sensitive to bug bites. She was not her normal self this day because the bites were bothering her so much. Wendy & Tracy were both amazing being patient and understanding!

Here are some great pictures of Miranda, Wendy, Haley, and Tracy interacting with Ashley!

Ashley has always be very creative and has a great imagination! However, she doesn't let you join
her and runs off if you interrupt or say anything to pull her out of her own world. We are hoping that will all change with this program and she will play WITH us instead of parallel play by herself. Rapunzel was playing in her kitchen cutting fruit just like Ashley has been doing these past few weeks! It was too cute not to capture!

 

NEW GAMES IN PLAYROOM

SOUNDS
She still loves going to her Playroom and sometimes she doesn't want to leave! It is so quiet and calming in there. We had to put a white noise machine outside the door so that Ashley cannot hear Noah crying downstairs from terrible twos (which really bothers her). Some days she will repeat a sound randomly throughout entire day and now we "join" her by saying it back. She thinks it is so funny!!!! She will smile and make great eye contact! I try change up sound every now and then but she is not copying (yet!). Wednesday her sound was "puh puss" and Thursday (today) it was "bot".

CARDS
Ashley loves most Disney characters and some tv cartoon characters. Right now she is really into Tinker Bell and Nemo characters so I got Google images of all these characters and printed them out into 3x3 cards.

On Tuesday, I introduced "Nemo cards" and used Velcro to put them to a poster so Ashley would need my help getting them off. The goal was to get eye contact and she was very engaged wanting ALL the pictures! I also had a "cheat sheet" for me with all the names. After she got all the cards, she then decided she only wanted my large cheat sheet and the 3x3 image of Dentist fish tank.....I never know what she is going to like.  :)  She helped me line up the discarded images on the window and then let me name all the characters on the "cheat sheet". Then she moved onto wanting to roll balls, spin the spinners, jump, spin balls, and play with sensory toys. Her two pictures stayed in corner exactly how she left them (not allowed to touch) and she would go back to look at them at different times.

On Wednesday, I introduced "Disney Fairy Cards" using same poster with Velcro. I had images of each fairy on 3x3 and then some images with ALL fairies. They each got to fly around my head and by my eyes before they arrived to Ashley's hand. She only liked the group pictures with the entire gang together! One image had the original 5 fairies and then Ashley put Vidia next to it because she was missing! The game is working great with eye contact and its highly motivating for her! On down the road, maybe we can build on Tinker Bell game to identify colors and use Jake the Pirate treasure coins to count!