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Post by YoshsMom on Oct 4, 2004 20:36:55 GMT -5
Yosh is really using signs to communicate. He knows about 6 signs and is even putting 2 together. He signs "I want book" and " more book" when he wants to be read to. I am so psyched that books are the first thing he learned to ask for. Favorites are Brown Bear and Goodnight Moon.
The Catastrophic Illness fund is covering our medical expenses. We have owed about $25,000 since Yosh first came home and all of it is being paid off. Its been really hard having bill collectors breathing down our necks and its a big relief to have it taken care of.
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Post by YoshsMom on Oct 5, 2004 12:11:37 GMT -5
Thanks for all the great ideas. I'm actually feeling a little foolish right now. I used to teach behavior mod to other parents and use it in my classroom, but when it came to my own kid I acted just like any other new mom. Two special ed teachers in the house and we couldn't figure this out
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Post by YoshsMom on Oct 4, 2004 20:17:11 GMT -5
I need help keeping Yosh from pulling all our books off the shelves. We have a lot of books, so there is no way to clear the lower shelves. We have tried jamming them in really tight, but he can get them out, even when we can't. He has books of his own, but he just loves to empty the shelves. And we're getting very tired of replacing books over and over. Any ideas?
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Post by YoshsMom on Oct 5, 2004 12:32:04 GMT -5
I think Zero Tolerance is one of the stupider ideas that schools have come up with, right up there with political correctness. I've know situations where a girl giving a friend tylenol was treated the same as another selling crack. The real drug dealer had rich parents and a good lawyer and got probation. The girl with the aspirin ended up in juvenile detention. At a time when we most need our kids to trust authority enough to talk about their lives, we are making it impossible for them to ask for help.
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Post by YoshsMom on Oct 3, 2004 15:45:18 GMT -5
I just ordered hiphelpers for Yosh. He is close to walking, but mostly crawls on hands, one knee and one foot out to the side. We're hoping to bring in that foot and stabilize his side muscles to help him balance.
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Post by YoshsMom on Sept 27, 2004 17:46:55 GMT -5
We celebrated Yosh's 1st birthday with a huge family party but it was not so much for him as it was for us to celebrate having him home and healthy. We didn't do a 2nd party and will only do a 3rd if he is at a social level to interact with peers. Right now Yosh has no understanding of what a party is and presents are just another way to get paper to play with. Until he understands the concept, it doesn't make sense to me to have a party.
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Post by YoshsMom on Sept 27, 2004 17:55:24 GMT -5
Peanut butter, powdered milk and a little honey makes a great playdoh.
Equal parts applesauce and cinnamon, plus a little allspice and nutmeg make a dough which hardens when cut out with cookie cutters. They make great xmas tree ornaments and can be decorated with fabric paint. The smell is amazing.
Fingerpaint with pudding or whipped cream.
Use different kinds of paper for coloring. Sandpaper is lots of fun.
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Post by YoshsMom on Sept 25, 2004 20:37:54 GMT -5
What a fantastic thread! I've really enjoyed reading about how wonderful all your children are.
Dh and I must ask each other at least every other day how we got this lucky. Yosh has the most beautiful laugh and I love that in the middle of playing he often has the need to come over and kiss me. Every little milestone is a celebration and I get so much pleasure out of his love for learning. He's such a little charmer, too. Lately, he only waves hi to women, and also blows kisses.
We've had some tough times with medical issues, but I've learned I'm a lot stronger than I ever thought I could be.
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Post by YoshsMom on Sept 19, 2004 16:46:20 GMT -5
I know just how you feel. Just as I was getting used to the idea of ds, the dr says club feet and I freaked. Yosh's feet were badly turned in, but after several castings and 1 surgery he's just fine. One foot turns in a little, but he's cruising all over the place and he'll be walking on his own any day now. I actually think the casts were good for him. Dragging around all that extra weight made his leg and abdominal muscles very strong. Yosh is anything but floppy. The hardest part of the whole thing was managing baths.
I think Little Miss No-Name is lucky to have you for a mom.
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Post by YoshsMom on Sept 8, 2004 14:19:10 GMT -5
If Lewis is signing well and making his needs known I don't see any reason to use PECS. PECS are for kids who have no other way to communicate. Sounds like Lewis is doing great. Some therapists have one way of dealing with ds and think every child with ds is the same. One of Yosh's former ST's insisted on using oral massage even though his feeding therapist and I said it was wrong for him. Needless to say, we no longer see this therapist. Trust your instincts. If Lewis is using jargon with sentence-like patterns and is signing, then the problem isn't cognitive, its oral motor and I'm sure he'll talk when he's ready.
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Post by YoshsMom on Sept 2, 2004 19:10:07 GMT -5
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feeding
Sept 2, 2004 15:05:13 GMT -5
Post by YoshsMom on Sept 2, 2004 15:05:13 GMT -5
I went through this for the longest time with Yosh. He's just now trying new foods, but every meal used to be a battle. Yosh was extremely sensitive to teething and he also had mild reflux. It wasn't bad enough to make him spit up, but it made eating anyting other than formula uncomfortable. He is on Prevacid now and it works wonders.
Another thing that worked was changing consistency rather than texture. I thickened his food with Thick It, which is basically cornstarch. It made the jarred food thicker but still smooth. We've since moved to using breadcrumbs, which add a little texture without overwhelming him. Also, this may sound gross, but I added jarred veggies to his formula and gave it in his bottle to get him used to the taste. That was back when he was fighting every bite. Try different levels of spice, also. Sometimes making food either really bland or really hot helps.
I feed Yosh with a portable DVD player on, usually playing the Wiggles. The music distracts him enough to get a rhythm going with the food.
You have to be a bit of a detective. If she was eating different foods earlier, what changed? Everyone was telling me that Yosh's problem was behavioral and should be doing mouth massage with nuk brushes, but he was actually in pain. Once we dealt with the stomach pain, he was willing to eat.
I hope I've helped a little, good luck.
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Post by YoshsMom on Aug 31, 2004 18:55:26 GMT -5
I've been trying to register with the photo gallery so I can post some pics of Yosh, but it won't let me in. I used my same log in name and email and got no response. Can anyone help? I've got some really cute pictures and I want to show off
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Post by YoshsMom on Aug 24, 2004 18:41:51 GMT -5
There is a series called Jump Start that is very good. I forget who makes it.
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Post by YoshsMom on Aug 22, 2004 11:58:03 GMT -5
After over a year of struggling with feeding, Yosh is eating, or trying to eat, anything I give him. He's gobbling down the jarred food instead of clamping his mouth and screaming and he's taking bites of hardboiled egg and anything spread on bread. He's actually preferring food to formula. He has trouble keeping the pieces he bites off in his mouth, so he spits them out. But then he picks them up and FEEDS HIMSELF ;D ;D ;D
I don't know if it was the surgery taking pressure off his stomach, the prevacid kicking in, or just him maturing but I am so thrilled that eating is no longer a battle.
Of course, now its even more of a mess. Yosh likes to mash the food in his hands and then run his fingers through his hair. I'll have to take some pictures of my little mess and post them here. I have to go hose down the high chair now to get it ready for lunch.
BTW, I could use some recipes for veggies. Dh and I don't eat them much and that's all Yosh likes.
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