Harvest Card

Classic Chartruese 5x7 folded card

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Happy Thanksgiving from our family to Yours!

Hat Approval

Last night we tried on a few hats to see what would fit Elise for the upcoming winter. She actually liked the white flower hat and wore it around the house for awhile until she got too hot. As for the pink one, she gave it a thumbs down. (Ignore the cut on her forehead... Elise woke up one morning with it. We'll blame it on her plastic spider, Betty Webb, or her fingernails. As for the pizza sauce on her nose.... it was a good dinner!)

One of few words...

As many of you know, Elise is one of 'few words'- literally! There isn't much of surprise that we are noticing a delay in speech due to her prematurity and late walking. However, by 20 months of age (Elise is 22 months... but you can still adjust her back to 20.5 months) a toddler should have a 20 word vocabulary. Elise has 11 words.

Thankfully we are surrounded by such support through 'Help Me Grow'... a program that is offered in every county in Ohio. Our early intervention specialist team comes to our home once a month to check on Elise. Yesterday they also brought along a speech therapist since we were beginning to worry. This is also the same speech therapist who attends our weekly playgroup (also affiliated with Help Me Grow) so we already had established a rapport.

By the end of the appointment, we had learned quite a few things. First, Elise's vocabulary/speech level is that of a 17-18 month child. By 18 months, children should be 'copying' sounds a parent makes and should also be able to make most sounds an animal makes. Example, the cow says 'mooo..' and the cat says 'meow..'. For the most part, Elise hasn't hit that stage so it's a matter of time before she does. Seeing how she walked about 4 months later than most of her peers, we would anticipate that she will begin speech 4 months later. This means, we should be on a brink of great strides! Secondly, it's not all bad news! While Elise is 'delayed' in speech, she still has a few sounds she makes that are advanced. For instance, she says 'F', 'R' and 'S'.. typical sounds that don't develop until 3-7 years of age.

What are we doing to help her?

Modeling: when Elise points or attempts to say something, we should say 'Yes, you want a banana' or 'Yes, the oven is hot'.

Signing: we should continue to sign words to help her with communication. Also, we are introducing the sign 'Please' so if anything, she will be learning some manners and will learn you have to do something to get something.

Playgroup: we are on a wait list for a second playgroup that will be held at an indoor playground or YMCA. This playgroup will be more about gross motor skills which usually aid in developing speech (brain development).

Finally, finding out what makes Elise tick: We will try through singing, dancing, reading, etc. to see what makes Elise excited about making sounds. We have looked into joining a Kindermusik group in the winter to help bring out Elise's music side and we currently go to a weekly library storytime... both which may get her jabber and talk.

So, we are doing everything we can. It's up to Elise. The speech therapist will re-evaluate her in January (age 2), at which time the magic 5.5 week adjusted age gap disappears... She should have a 50 word vocabulary (like her peers) otherwise we will more than likely visiting with a private speech therapist.

Halloween

Halloween started out like a regular day with Elise making Mommy and Daddy toast for breakfast.








After naptime, our friends the Hebekas came over for trick-or-treating.... or maybe I should say that a transformer, bear and Cookie Monster came over with their parents. Elise must have been having so much fun with her friends that she didn't even protest wearing her monkey hat! She was just excited to be outside with a ton of kids in costumes. Daddy (and Dr. Hebeka) took the kids to all the houses while the mommies stayed home to pass out treats.








Apparently Elise was content to just run down the sidewalk and only stopped at a few houses. Then again, why stop at a house when you don't even know what candy is!! I'm sure that will be different next year!











In the end, all the exercise just made our little monkey extra tired....Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Trunk-or-Treat

Testing... 1...2...3... We had a Halloween costume dry run this past Saturday at Rehab Dynamics (Elise's old physical therapy place). Rehab Dynamics and a parents sensory group hosted 'trunk-or-treat' in their parking lot. Thirty parents decorated their cars and passed out Halloween treats to all the little kids.






We had been working to get Elise to wear her Halloween costume at home, but to no avail. Needless to say we were pleasantly surprised that she didn't protest when we put her costume on while in the parking lot. Elise made the cutest monkey even though she didn't wear her hat (which I carried around with us so people didn't think she was a dog an another animal!). Maybe Halloween will be cooler and she'll me more willing to wear her hat.




















However, Elise was more than willing to wear a bow in her hair all morning long! Trust me, this is a first!

Fort Meigs and the Applebutter Festival

Boo! Elise and I made a spooky ghost tree for our backyard. We saved some of our pop and beer cans (cleaned of course) and painted them white with black eyes. Then we hung them with pipe cleaners one evening after dinner. I tried telling her that there wasn't any more beer in them but Elise tried to see if a sip remained. No such luck.

Nana and Poppa came to visit this past weekend. Since the weather was fabulous, we visited Fort Meigs- a battlefield from the war of 1812. Elise even wore a headband for the outing. All we wanted to do was run and play in the field but Elise insisted that we stop and read each sign and discuss the significance the war had on our lives. She's such a history buff.

After all the hard work, she treated us to lunch along with a chocolate bacon sundae from Swig (yep you heard that right- yummy!).
















On Sunday, Elise, Nana and I went to the Grand Rapids Applebutter Festival. The highlight was that from the parking lot to the festival downtown, you had to ride school buses. Elise's first trip on a bus! The picture is blurry but you can see that she's ecstatic to be riding on a bus like a big girl! The fun peaked with the bus as Elise isn't much into crafts. However we did see Aunt Amy, Grandma and their friends there and they seemed to be having a lot of fun.
















After the applebutter festival, we stopped at Grahams Farm in order to buy a mum for our front porch.The mums were gigantic and beautiful... row after row of color. Elise thought they all smelled good.

Apples and Pumpkins

Today we went to MacQueens apple orchard to pick a 1/2 bushel of yummy apples- right off the tree. Elise was more than happy to help and mustered enthusiasm in spit of a runny nose and cold breeze. She was quite content running between the trees, picking up apples and dropping them into our growing bag.



































































































After apple picking, we stopped by Greg's Country market and picked out three pumpkins- one for each of us... 2 orange and one white. We did learn one lesson- if your pumpkin is too big to carry on your own it WILL make you cry. Luckily daddy is strong and can help you out.