Day Three: The Expected

Well, today there was a lot of crying. They had told me to expect it but I've gotta tell ya, I'm really not used to having a child crying, screaming in a public place and not being able to remove them from the situation until they calm down. The educators here are so good about it though. They just pretend like it's not even happening and go about what there doing making an encouraging comment every now an then. They definitely have a gift! Thank God for them because I think I'd be losing my mind!

So before I get into too big of a pity party I'm going to try to do what I did yesterday and state some positives before I state our hurdles to overcome (see, my positivity by not stating them as negatives :) I'm really trying here!

Laila......went......on.....the .....POTTY!!!! That was something I definitely did not expect. It also happen during probably the biggest fit she threw today which I'm sure God gave me as a little extra pick me up right at that moment because it was a pretty big scream fest. She's still not a big fan of the potty and I'm not sure what it is about it. We haven't come up with the exact position to have her in yet and it almost seems like it hurts her bony little bottom at first but once we can get her to relax and stop trying to scrunch her body up into a ball she can usually sit for a few minutes without crying.

At the end of the day today I think the instructor counted 22 good steps she took to get to the door. Now of course she's got two people helping her (which by the way I think we all deserve back massages!!) and she's holding on to the back of a chair but if you would've seen how much of a limp noodle she was at earlier times in the day and the past few days you would know how great that is.

We are trying different positions for her to be able to sit by herself during circle time and everything we try she find a way to cheat at it. If we put something in front of her to hold herself up on, she just lays her head on it. Today we tried something next to her on each side but then she just kept throwing herself back. She can be quite the lazy bum when she wants to be and I'm hoping that this will get better as the weeks go on and she gains a little more confidence in herself. Right now she seems to only care to do things when she is showing off for someone and otherwise she could really care less. It's hard for me not to grab on to that and let her be but I know she can do these things and I have to be her voice of reason while she's discouraging herself. BTW, thank you all for being my voice of reason so far too. I've really been able to feel the prayers and so much appreciate the texts, calls and comments. I can even tell as I'm writing this that God is helping. Just ask Jack how great my attitude was when I called him when I got out today. It's probably a good thing I took a little time before writing this :) There's nothing in particular that went wrong today, I think it's just day three, I didn't get a lot of sleep and I don't like seeing my kid be the one who doesn't listen and is the crier of the class :(

*Added in* In talking with Jenni tonight I had remembered something else we did today that needs highlighted which proves again that it's a good thing I'm documenting this because I'm so darn forgetful!! Anyway, in her individual time with her instructor today she was going to work on four point (all fours like a doggie) kneeling but she was excited about it and kept sitting up on her knees so we ended up working on sitting on her feet and then using her strength to then sit up tall on her knees. Not sure of that makes sense in words but bascially she was on her knees bringing her bottom up and down off of her feet. It isa very good thing for her to work on those muscles for all sorts of things. Just wanted to add that in bvecause it was one thing we did that was new today :) She also scooted on her back all the way through a long pop up tunnel (with help). One of her friends in class went in ahead of her and she was doing good scooting because she was trying to catch up with her to tickle her feet :)

So, I don't have the program I normally post my blog from on this laptop and I can't get the pictures to move around so I'll explain them down at the bottom here. I took a picture Laila in her laying exercise today. She has a lot of problems with having a straight body so they are trying to get her body used to that position because things like rolling require her to keep a straight arm and leg and normally when she is laying on the floor her legs are in "froggie" position and her hands are at an "L" up by her ears. Most of the time it takes quite a bit of stretching to get her to straighten out. Hopefully this helps! Our friends Jenni & Erin arrived to visit us yesterday from Minnesota and we couldn't resist the picture of the girls outside of the Dollar Tree last night with the beautiful Michigan sky! We also had a few visitors here at RMH that Laila was not super excited about but we tried a little anyway. Every Wednesday volunteers bring their trained dogs into the house to visit. We are thankful for opportunities like this for Laila to get used to dogs because hopefully when Laila turns five we will be applying for a dog from Canine Companions.

Well, I hear vomiting going on in where Laila is sleeping, guess I'll go clean that up.......tomorrow is another day...........