Wynter

Lately most of my posts have been about Oliver, and I think that gives the impression that home life is all about Oliver too, but it's not.  At the very beginning of even thinking about Autism as a diagnosis I read a lot about siblings as well.  It became clear that siblings who develop typically (i.e. do not have Autism) often feel left out, or neglected in a way, and I knew from the beginning that I did not want Wynter to ever feel like that.  In some ways Oliver does get more attention just from the simple fact that he has therapy and doctor appointments that are centered on him, but at home I try to ensure that Wynter is included in my interactions with Oliver when appropriate and receives some one on one attention from me daily.

Wynter is 18 months, almost 19 months, and the next 5 months are going to pass so quickly!  I can't believe that she'll be 2 years old so soon, in a way it feels like just yesterday that she was a tiny newborn.  Things are going pretty smoothly with her, and that leaves me with not much to say.  When things are going well it seems as if there's nothing to talk about, and isn't that a sad predicament?  For the most part her development is progressing as it should be, we're just a tad concerned about her speech and she's been evaluated by Early Intervention for that.  We're waiting to hear the results.

Yesterday she signed "water", and she already signs "please".  It's so cute to watch her catch on to signing like that!  I know that technically you can begin to teach signs as early as 6 months, but neither of my kids were happy with me trying to physically help them make the sign.  Wynter's current age seems to be the perfect time for her to learn signs as she can copy my movements on her own and she catches on pretty quickly.

***

I got pulled away from this post by children, and during the time away I received a phone call from Early Intervention regarding the results of Wynter's evaluations.  According to AzEIP Wynter is only mildly delayed in speech, but not enough to receive services (they require a 50% delay to qualify).  She's doing fantastically in all other areas, and our AzEIP representative said that she's "off the charts" in cognitive ability.  That means she's very smart, and that sets her up for awesome learning capability.

I've learned a lot about teaching speech to children through Oliver's therapy sessions and so I'll do my best to use those with Wynter on my own.  If she doesn't progress (which I believe she already is) we can resubmit a referral in 6 months for another evaluation.  I would like to be able to increase her expressive language on my own enough that we no longer feel that she's behind at all.

She might also be getting ready for potty training.  She hates when her diaper is wet and will try taking it off (sometimes she's successful), so we need to teach her the word "potty" and show her how to sit on the baby potty that we have.  I think she's also almost ready for toddler bed.  She's growing up way too fast for me!