delayedtoddler

Cheap thrills is my own little section where I just talk about inexpensive things to do with your child whether they have special needs or not.  Today B and I did something that was cheap and fun.  We went outside and drew with sidewalk chalk.  I like the sidewalk chalk for her because it is nice and big and easy for her to get her chubby little fist around.  I was able to ask her some choice questions to initiate conversation.  “Would you like green or pink chalk?”  She would draw something (OK scribble), and I would draw a shape and tell her what it was.  She’d then tell me she was making the shape too, and scribble some more.  When I offered to write her name, she pointed to it and said, “Me!”  B also had some fun bossing me around, “Mama, on bum!” which as you can guess is something she hears a lot in a day because she’s a little dare devil and likes to stand on chairs.  “B sit on bum,” is a constant phrase around here and works a lot better than “sit down!”  I think it’s because it’s the word “bum” and it’s funny and your bum is what toots, so that’s funny too.  What can I say, she’s a funny kid.  We had fun being outside together and it was one of the few times all day she wasn’t saying her new favourite word, “No!” (and for some reason, she says this very loudly, often in a scream, even when she’s happy!).

So, price of a box of sidewalk chalk, less than $2–and the bonus is we now have twice as much because so many pieces got broken!  Just a word to the wise, you will never fit them all back in the box they came in once you take one out!  If I can figure out how to transfer pictures from my phone to my computer, I’ll post a couple of our artwork later.

Reading over my previous entries, I’ve realized that I haven’t really explained why we were concerned with B’s development.  I have mentioned that she missed or was late hitting many milestones.  The first one was sitting up, then came crawling, standing and walking–so we had some motor delays for sure.  We also had speech delays and occasions where B would seem to “lose” language.  She’d have a word that she’d use once or twice and then we’d never hear it again.  There were also behaviour problems which I came to call “meltdowns” where for apparently no reason, B would just start kicking and screaming.  This was upsetting because she was and still is a happy little girl.  For her to freak out and start screaming, it was really unsettling, not to mention embarrassing .

When she was a baby, B was not interested in too much–my sister-in-law best described it when she said it was like B was in a bubble and didn’t want anything to do with anyone outside of that bubble.  She had no interest in being read to, she would not sit still for anything.  She did love to cuddle and still does.  She eventually started to come out of that bubble and started to interact with other people.

Through it all, the one thing that has kept B’s interest is her big sister G.  G’s name was one of B’s first words–she still can’t say it quite right, but everyone knows that she is calling her sister.  She loves to do what G is doing and loves to play with her.  They even play pretend games together (which is supposed to be something that kids like B don’t do).   Of course, B also likes to hit her sister and pull her hair.  We’re not sure if this is an anger thing or an attention seeking thing.  Either way, it is not appropriate behaviour and we’re working on correcting this still.

Some people thought I was over-reacting in my insistence that there was something not quite right with my little girl, but I knew there was something there, so I kept pushing.  Our family doctor agreed with me and we kept an eye on her development and he eventually referred her to a pedeatrician to check for autism.  The first time I heard about possible autism was at our first appointment with the pedeatrician.  He also agreed there was something there, so we were referred to the Child and Family department at one of the area hospitals.  This is where we met with the child life team (psychologist, psychiatrist and OT) and they agreed there were problems as well.  We were signed up for the More than Words program and Occupational Therapy for starters.  They did not give a diagnosis, but suggested that we were looking at mild autism or a general development delay.  If you follow my blog, you know how the last appointment with that psychologist went.  We’re now heading back to our pedeatrician for our three month follow-up (regular appointment) and we’ll see where it goes from there.

We still do not have a diagnosis, but we do have a very happy little girl who has far fewer meltdowns.  She doesn’t act like other kids her age and doesn’t do all the things they do, but she is gaining ground every day.  She’s quite a little person.  We’ve gotten to the point where we can have a conversation together and we’re able to sit down each day for some time reading or working together at drawing or playing with playdough.   I have not given up on getting B diagnosed.  I’m a Mama Bear, and I will keep being her advocate and making sure that she gets the help that she needs.