Jackson was absent this afternoon, Josephine was napping and so Olivia and I sat in my room for about an hour “talking”. She sat in front of me on the bed and stared into my eyes, and I talked. I practiced some of the speech techniques that I learned from her instructors… modified slightly by mom, of course. One was getting her to clap her hands on demand, I would sit there and say “yay!”, and clap my hands. She finally started putting her hands together. Mind you, she CAN clap, it’s just getting her to do it on command that is the objective here. I think she is used to having her instructor help her with the clapping, and so that explains why she stuck both hands out toward me and then together. Then she sat in front of me and just stared into my eyes! And I started repeating “Mama”, and she mumbled a few things… oh, but she kept staring at me, and trying so hard to utter a sound. I SWEAR the gears were turning in that sweet little head of hers. But oh, what a peaceful moment to sit there with her. Just her. To have her look me in the eyes, and without words I could feel the love from her. She does not need to say “I love you Mommy”. To sit there with her gaze fixed on my eyes, and her smile so big and bright…. wow. So, I moved to trying to identify body parts, which she used to be able to do. She used to be very proud of being able to find her belly, and I was hoping to draw it out of her today, but she really was more interested in looking at my face. So, I thought that it was such a wonderful moment, I grabbed my camera, but alas the battery was dead. So, I whipped out the laptop and turned on photobooth, placed the laptop on a pillow, and all of a sudden!! Olivia couldn’t take her eyes off of the screen! She was so giddy, giggling, bouncing up and down, and waving her hands…. I can never get her to interact with the mirror in the bathroom… so what was it about photobooth/the laptop that had her so mesmerized? I think I’ll try it again, maybe it could be a breakthrough to trying to get her to utter and imitate speech sounds! I guess I’ll be taking the laptop with me when I take her to school tomorrow morning so that I may show her instructors!
[...] [Technorati] Tag results for disabilities wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt Jackson was absent this afternoon, Josephine was napping and so Olivia and I sat in my room for about an hour “talking”. She sat in front of me on the bed and stared into my eyes, and I talked. I practiced some of the speech techniques that I learned from her instructors… modified slightly by mom, of course. One was getting her to clap her hands on demand, I would sit there and say “yay!”, and clap my hands. She finally started putting her hands together. Mind you, she CAN clap, it’s just ge [...]
That was a beautiful moment, Faye. Very glad you shared it.
Oh, she is sooooo beautiful and I can hear her giggle like she did yesterday. Did you play the Puppy Song for her? I want to give that to her. I want to spend the day with her again - maybe I can think of something that I need from Ft. Stewart again!!!!
That is such a beautiful post.
faysie, that is such a sweet post…and i love the pictures! xoxo