Danceteria

Charlotte had another dance recital this weekend.  Again, it was pretty spectacular.  At the first dance recital, Happy impressed the teacher, Miss Amy, with her maturity and ability to sit still and be a respectful audience member.  Even though she was not yet 2 years old, Miss Amy said Happy should join in the class next session.  Happy participated in the class a few times, but then either lost interest or decided that she would rather have mom or dad all to herself while Charlotte was in dance class. Or maybe that good behavior was a fluke as you can see she did not demonstrate the same maturity at this recital. In fact, Mike had to remove her from the auditorium and miss Charlotte's solo - so the pressure was really on me to execute my videography skills.  

They started by playing "Dance and Freeze"  which is self-explanatory.  Then they demonstrated their ballet chops by showing us releve and "something smooth" of their choosing.  They also had solos. But, I am not able to merge that clip with the others because it is has copyrighted music.  So, it can be enjoyed separately, here:

On the way home Charlotte reminded me to sign her up for another dance class.  This is so fun!

Take a Bow

I signed Charlotte up for a creative movement/ballet class.  We took one last year that was parent and child. It was OK, but the teacher was a mess. We'll leave it at that. This time I signed her up for a class taught by our neighbor, Miss Amy, who has basically taught ballet to every girl in St Paul, including our neighbor and my cousin Hannah!  On the first day of this class, the teacher said grown ups don't get to watch until the last day.   Every Saturday, Charlotte would wake up and ask if it was ballet. When I said yes and she'd say, "yeah!"  But, as the it got closer to the time to leave, she would start saying she was tired, which is her way of saying she doesn't want to do something.  When we pulled into the parking lot she'd say she didn't want to go to ballet and I'd tell her we were just going to check it out.  Charlotte would go in, but she would burst into tears during the class and the teacher had to leave the door open a crack so another mom and I could sit on the floor in the hall and the girls could see us. A couple weeks ago, the last day of class finally came and all the grown ups were so excited!  Charlotte wore her special "ballerina" dress.  We sat on the floor in a big round room and the dancers were in the middle.  First, Miss Amy led them through some standard ballet drills - first position, second position, etc.  Then some other moves that were all in French. It was so fun, all the girls were smiling.  Then, the teacher announced that each girl would have a solo and show us how they could go different speeds, and in different directions.  Each girl chose a different piece of music.  The first girl ran around in a circle for about three minutes.  Miss Amy would say, "Oooh, do you think she'll change directions?  Maybe she'll show us an arebesque.  No?" Then she said, "3-2-1, take a bow!" I was tearing up and I knew I was going to cry during Charlotte's.  Charlotte's turn came and she ran around in a circle as fast as she could for three minutes. She did switch it up and run sideways for a while.  She was panting she was working so hard.  And she was beaming.  It was my happiest moment of being a mom.  I thought I was taking a video, but I wasn't so I had to just replay it in my mind all weekend.  Mike took this little video and made a loop so you can kind of get the idea.

Basically, all the solos were 3 minutes of running around in a circle.  When it came to the turn of the other girl who always cried, Miss Amy said she wanted to tell everyone what her dance was about.  She said, "Angry!"  Then she proceeded to run in a circle for 3 minutes with the biggest smile on her face.  Well, one girl actually did a whole bunch a actual ballet moves.  I was like, whoa, she must have an older sister to practice with or something.

Then they had a "ballet challenge" where Miss Amy had them demonstrate their pas de chats (cat steps).

Charlotte is taking another session of ballet now.  She has gained so much confidence.  At the playground, she tries things she would never do before.  Now at ballet she just  marches right in.  Miss Amy said Happy could join too.  The last class is going to be AWESOME!

Charlotte's Latest Artwork

I found these in her sketchbook when I was cleaning up this afternoon. We leave her  alone and let her draw, so it's been awhile since I've looked at her original drawings.

There are a series of these where Chatlotte circles the person (likely a princess) and then narrates a story about the character she drew going from place to place. So on the opposite page is the path the character took on her journey.

'Tis the Season

Charlotte is very excited about all things Christmas.  Not just the presents, but everything (of course presents are discussed too).  But it has been fun to see completely wrap her head around the fact that this is a very special time of the year, just like I remembered it.

We had this paper advent calendar growing up that we reused year after year and I always liked getting up in the morning to open up the next day's window.  So I told Emily about that and last year she got this awesome felt advent calendar with 24 pockets and each day you take a new felt "ornament" out and put it on the felt tree.  And Charlotte comes down stairs and sees the calendar and the first thing she'll say to me is "Daddy it's day 11!" and she'll wait for me or Emily to come over to work the calendar with her.  It's a pretty nice way to start the day.  Or on mornings we all forget, it's a great way to start our post work/school afternoon together.

She loves the tree.  Emily brought the kids' table in their bedroom downstairs and put it next to the Christmas tree.  Charlotte is allowed to have her breakfast and snack there, and she'll just sit there looking at her tree and her Christmas stocking, eating.  Sometimes Happy joins her, sometimes she wants to sit in her high chair.

She loves Christmas music.  We have been listening to KOOL 108's Christmas music so much that Charltotte thinks it's a CD and not a radio station because we have heard each song they play at least ten 8712098123 times.   She makes up her own songs as kids do her age, and they are Christmas songs fused with some nonsense about Frozen.  But today she walked past me singing "and then we go KOOL 108 Christmas music time" and she did in the same tune KOOL 108 uses to announce itself.

She loves Christmas books. And Charlotte's personal librarian Suze has done a great job of keeping connected to Haps and Charlotte even though she can't be here with us this time.  She sent Charlotte some stickers, one sheet which is still untouched and a regular decoration at the dinner table.  And Charlotte used the other stickers to make holiday cards for decorations.  And then all on her own she made a card for Suze, but wants to me to add a message to Suze from Charlotte before I send it off.  We haven't found a good time to that because whenever I ask, Charlotte is busy coloring.

Anyway, two days ago Suze sent some Christmas books for Happy and Charlotte and immediately they were a HUGE hit.  Here they are when they first got them.  Note the homemade ribbon Charlotte is sporting.  She asked Emily to make that for her.

And the last few nights Charlotte has created her own agnostic manger to sleep in.  She always gets her stocking, which she treats like a doll, to sleep with, as well as the 'Twas the Night Before Christmas book from Suze (that poem was also a big part of our Christmas as a kid).  Then she gets her Rody bouncy horse we bought for her for physical therapy that she never once used in any physical way.  Only Rody isn't Rody anymore.  He's Rudolph.  And when I tuck the girls in I have to give Rudolph a kiss and then Charlotte makes sure he kisses me back.  And by that I mean she acts like the green reindeer that looks like a pony is licking me like a dog.  "Look Daddy.  Rudolph is kissing you like Pancho!"

So Rody didn't make the shot in the picture below, but there is Charlotte is in her manger.  Every night she lets the cat and book have half her bed.  Note the cat stocking has a matching homespun bow that Emily made at Charlotte's request.  Also, Charlotte is trying to make the exact same face that the cat is.  She came pretty close.  She has a bizarre knack to pretty much match any character's facial expression in a book.

Meanwhile Happy could care less couldn't care less could care less couldn't care less doesn't care about Christmas (sorry, it's an old Linguistics joke).  She's all like, "y'all do you're thing and I'll do mine and if we cross paths, that's cool.  I love you guys and all but I got stuff to do.  Speaking of which, I'm off to find a container, any container, full of stuff that I can dump on the floor.  This time make it super challenging so I REALLY have to earn it this time."

Well that reminds me.  There is one thing she loves about Christmas.  Pulling ornaments off the tree.  She's trying to train us to deal with it and we're trying to train her to stop doing it.

So far it's a stalemate in that regards.

Graduates

Charlotte graduated from Occupational Therapy (OT) at the end of November with little fanfare which is a good thing and Happy is wrapping up her time with Minneapolis Public School birth to three special education team.

We told Charlotte at the beginning of November that she only had to go to OT three more times and she was super excited.  She had a lot of fun at OT but she said she was excited to be with her friends at Edgecumbe Montessori all day.  While in OT she was showing up at school around 9:30 am once a week rather than her usual 7:30 a.m. where I think she liked being there before everyone but one kid rather than just being dropped in a full classroom in full swing.  I think we all can relate and appreciate easing into things.

But the OT really helped her get control of her sensory issues and fears.  At the end of October we were at Fireroast, Charlotte's favorite and my favorite coffee shop, eating outside when some two ton trucks rolled down 38th street on separate occasions and Charlotte didn't even notice.

And then at school, her teacher at Montessori did little nothing to hide her skepticism of Charlotte's need for OT and freely reminded me time and time again of all the times that Charlotte would hear loud noises and not react.  So clearly, in the teacher's eyes, Charlotte was just playing us for the fool and playing up her fears around us.  Rather than argue my alternate theory,  I just let her teachers think that because it really isn't a battle worth having.

But I think about all the kids I used to work with who would hold their speech together all day at school and then go home and stutter like crazy in front of mom and dad.  Or all kids who behave in school and come home and throw temper tantrums.  It's kind of like if I went to the beach and walked around shirtless, I would be trying like crazy to keep my belly sucked in.  That's a lot of work over the course of the day.  And when I got home, I would put on some pajama pants an old t-shirt and let my belly relax and go wherever it wants.  Kids do the same thing.  They have to perform at school and when they get home they just can't hold it all together anymore because it is so much work.  That's why the OT was so important for Charlotte so she didn't have to work so hard to keep her sensory self together.

Before OT, she'd suppress her out-of-whack sensory system to try to act like all the other kids.  Only it wasn't working as well as she hoped.  Over the summer she had daily to weekly behaviors with other kids and her teachers.  Pushing past kids.  Refusing to transition or follow directions.  Regular old three year old meltdowns, but way more than usual for her.  The teachers held her accountable as they should and we did too.  But... we never saw those behaviors at home.  I think Charlotte was overstimulated at school with light and noise and tried to hide her outbursts (because no other kid was freaking out about noise), but the energy and anxiety was pent up and had to come come out, only it came out sideways.  So she pushed kids, cried, yelled, refused to share.... like any other three year old at his or her worst, only the source was sensory based.  In the end it doesn't matter, but I do find it telling that all of these behaviors went away as Charlotte got better and better at tuning out irrelevant environmental noises.

And part of all this is to give a shout out to all the PTs, OTs, and my fellow SLPs, and the select teachers who can see the child holistically and not just focus on the one thing they are paid to work on, be it learning walk, read, or improve language skills.  Charlotte's PTs and OTs were able to connect the dots in ways that Charlotte's teachers at Edgecumbe, as great as they are, are not specifically trained to do.

Regarding Happy, her walking and talking coming along.  She has this super funny way of walking where her arms are like noodles that just hang down and flop around while her legs and tummy do all the work.  I am not sure if that is an issue or not and she is actually starting to use her upper body more.  Her PT will come out soon to check up on her.  But she is as happy as can be, climbing and walking and following Charlotte around or just doing her own thing.

Happy certainly has a mind with a heart of its own.  Charlotte and she are similar in that they are both very aware of what they can and cannot do and will do the hard things only when they are good and ready.  But they approach that line so differently.  Charlotte approaches with trepidation and meditation and then reflection, and Happy is more straight up defiant.  She knows exactly what the PT wants her to do and she just walks away from her as if to say, "Nope.  Not going to do that.  End of story" and acts like the PT doesn't exist.  But then.... that night there is Happy all by herself practicing independently whatever activity or exercise it is the PT wanted her to do earlier in the day (usually it's squats of some kind).  And at her age that's all we want, is for her to do the exercises.  The defiance, well, that's a streak I'm proud to say both my girls have, even if it manifests itself differently.  Charlotte is more of a "No thank you" about it all while Haps is more like "No and I don't care about you."

It's like my friend said about having two kids: one is pizza and the other is tacos.  They're totally different and you love them both the same.

Along those lines, Happy's language development is interesting.  She is finally willing to imitate and attempt sounds.  She'd imitate every nonspeech sound you can think of and laugh and smile the whole time.  But the second you did something as simple as an "m" for "more" she would just ignore that and do her own thing.  But now she is feeling better at taking risks with her speech and has tried to say Charlotte's name in imitation few times as well as a slew of other easier words all the time.  She probably has about ten words so a language boon should happen in about six months.  If not, well someone else can speech therapize her because that's going to be my role.  But she is finally interested in talking, just like her PT and special ed teacher told us: once she gets walking down she will be more interested in trying out speech.

So things are progressing.  Charlotte is eager to take responsibility for her learning and digested every second of OT, and Haps is eager to take responsibility for herself and doing things on her terms.

Tacos and pizza.  I love them both.

Overheard Exhibit R

"Look at my poop Daddy; it's a popsicle,"

While visually accurate, this was perhaps the worst metaphor ever.

Overheard, Exhibit Q

We were out for a walk along River Road yesterday and passed a couple walking their Long-Haired Collie.  Charlotte pointed and said, "Look, that doggie looks like a lion."

Introverts Unite

I love this picture only because each adult does not want to be in the picture.  The close observer will note that there is third adult in the picture, propping up Happy and using her own child as  screen.  Of course I too was more than happy to be on the other side of the camera/phone.

I asked the question, "Who likes popsicles?" before taking the picture.  Even though Emily didn't raise her hand, all others were  accurate in their responses.

Hotel Parker Nawrocki

"Look Daddy, I made my baby sleep on some containers."

In related news, Calvin has been sleeping on the couch that is den and his legs hang over the edge.  Emily and I are clearly doing a great job of teaching Charlotte how to be hospitable hosts.

World Traveler

"Look Daddy.  I painted Africa." 

Therapy Upates

1. Charlotte has graduated from Physical Therapy but will be reassessed in six months.  She still has exercises to do each night to help her along but the physical therapist was extremely pleased with how Charlotte has progressed.  She said Charlotte will always be a bit behind in her gross motor skills but that fact that Charlotte has progressed as far as she has is amazing.  Good job Charlotte .  She worked hard in therapy and did her nightly exercises with us with minimal complaint (usually she asked to do them).  So the credit truly does go to her.

2. Now Charlotte is beginning Occupational Therapy, beginning tomorrow.  I am anticipating a short course, but have been in the business of kids long enough to know that such predictions are often proven wrong.   We are going to get some help for some issues she has with sensory integration.  About four months ago I began thinking, "If Charlotte were a kid I was seeing at my old job, I wold have referred her parents to an Occupational Therapist for a sensory integration assessment."  At that exact same time, Charlotte's physical therapist told Emily we may want to have Charlotte assessed by an Occupational Therapist for sensory integration issues because Charlotte was freaking out about environmental sounds most kids her age no longer worry about.

Also, Charlotte is pretty intolerant of any moisture and dirt on her.  So she will do some activities in Occupational Therapy to desensitize her reactions to this.  And then I need help on how to help Charlotte cope with her disdain for environmental noises like thunder and trucks.  I think we hit rock bottom a few months ago, in terms of how much it was bothering her and she is starting to self-regulate a little better.  But it is still bugging her to the point that it is impacting her quality of life.

And I need to know when to intervene and when to let her sort it out on her own.  The Occupational Therapist will help give us effective, clinically-based strategies.  My instinct is to let Charlotte learn to figure it out on her own, but few weeks ago there I was, at dinner time, feeding Charlotte like a baby so she could cover her ears without interruption because she heard distant thunder once over a 30 minute period.  That is no way for her or I to live.  There are obviously better solutions out there and Charlotte, like most kids, will be more receptive to learning about and using these better solutions if they come from an adult teacher/helper, rather than from a parent.

 3. Happy will be assessed by the Minneapolis Birth to Three Team (special ed) for low muscle tone.  She is not yet standing alone and the pediatrician identified low muscle tone at Happy's 12 month wellness check.  So she has low muscle tone like her sister, just not as bad.  I know she won't qualify for services and we received excellent recommendations from Charlotte's physical therapist on things to do at home (hence the crawling around on the air mattress video) to help the motor development.  But I wouldn't mind the birth to three team taking a comprehensive look at Happy and giving us their feedback and recommendations.  She is behind in feeding, talking, and gross motor.  I'm not at all concerned at this point but I'd rather have her on the radar than not, and would like to hear what recommendations they have.  A team of experts looking at your kid's development never hurts.

My hunch is Happy is going to be standing on her own and walking in the next one to three months.  In terms of speech and language, her language seems okay because she is using sign and is good, not great, with receptive language.  I think her speech motor skills need a little more time to develop before she gets more words.  So far she says, "Hi" and "night night" and maybe "Mama" and "Dada."  About two weeks ago at lunch stared right at me, held up a banana and said, "Yu....      me" (yummy, which I often say to her).  It took so much effort that I can see why she is not talking more at this point.  Meanwhile, her disposition, self-regulation, patience, social skills, and play skills are pretty awesome.

Vacation Slideshow And All Its Details

As a family, we were at the Parker Compound in Hancock, Wisconsin.  Below are some pictures from our trip.  A few tips for the slideshow and my captions.  If you want the autoplay to stop, simply hit the pause button (of course), but as a heads up, the pause button comes and goes depending on where you place your mouse/cursor.

Secondly, if you want the captions feature off, click on the the little word bubble in the bottom left corner (again its presence or absence will depend on where you cursor is).

Finally, you can also watch the slideshow on Picassa. Click on the colorful Picassa rainbow circle at the bottom right of the slideshow AND THEN click on the hypertext that says "2014-7-21."  Clicking on that will take you to the Picassa site, which has a slideshow option that is much cleaner and easier to look at.  If I were, say, a grandparent, these extra steps may be worth the hassle since I don't get to see these kids much.  Sorry I cannot put the link in directly but I have to write this post in HTML mode and it has been too long since I shared a link posting this way and I have forgotten how to do it. I really wish this weren't so clunky, but for some reason Google, who owns both Blogger and Picassa, has chosen to make interfacing between Blogger and Picassa difficult. I think they want to steer everyone on Blogger to Google Plus, but that is just a guess.

Anyway, the trip itself was awesome.  Everyone had a lot of fun and I am sure it is fun for Emily to see her kids grow up with their (second) cousins making memories in the exact same place Emily did, with her own cousins, who are now moms with her.  I know I enjoyed watching my kids enjoy themselves.

Charlotte's Penguin

Charlotte drew a penguin this morning from scratch.

Planting A Rainbow

Yesterday Charlotte was drawing on the sidewalk and asked me to draw a flower.

When I was done, she looked at my attempt (on the left) and said, "Now I'm going to plant a rainbow!"  She is borrowing the phrase from a book she likes called Planting A Rainbow about growing a flower garden.

She drew the rest of the flowers you see.  I think she did a pretty good job.

Pretty soon she'll have to hang out with Zander when she wants to draw because she is about to eclipse my skill set.

Summer Loving

Charlotte loves many things, including eating outside whenever possible.  She prefers the front yard and my suspicion is because it means the girls from across the street or next door may come out to see us.  Charlotte is too shy to seek them out herself but social enough to want to see the kids on the block. In the meantime, this is a pretty typical breakfast scene for Charlotte on a non-school day.

Charlotte also loves our pets, especially Pancho.  But she has become very attached to all three over the years.  Yesterday she said  "Pancho is a good boy.  He's my best friend.  Take a picture of me and my doggy."  So I did.

And now that she claims Pancho is her doggie, she can start picking up his poop and pay for his vet bills.  That reminds me, we're out of heart worm medicine for July.  To the vet!

Charlotte's To Do List

I was driving Charlotte and Happy to school/daycare yesterday and Charlotte asked what I was going to do during the day while she was at school.  There is always a list of a thousand things to do and it is a productive day if I get two of them done.  Rather than bore Charlotte with that list I asked what she thought I should do with my day.  Here were her suggestions:

1. Play with Pancho outside.

2. Take Pancho for a walk.

3. Listen to music and dance with Pancho.

4. Read books to Pancho.

5. Draw a picture of Pancho and color it.
6. Take a nap with Pancho.
7. Take Pancho to a park and take a nap outside with Pancho.

8. Play with stamps.

The zen of summer.  That is a list I can get behind.  Frog and Toad and Treebeard would all approve.

Cheers!

Sometimes, as a parent, you just look at your kid and think, "how can this person be so incredible!?"  Last night we were eating outside on the deck, as Charlotte is very fond of dining al fresco.  Mike had not sat down yet and Charlotte said, "let's wait Mommy."  She's so conscientious. Once Mike sat down and it was OK to start eating, I raised my glass toward Mike and said, "to us!" which is our standard toast that we always make.  Charlotte, said, "No. THREE us!"  She makes my heart sing!  So, now we will clink our glasses and say "three us!" and when Happy can raise a glass we'll say "four us!"

Big Box for Charlotte

I order diapers and baby food on the internet so we have a constant stream of boxes in various sizes.  A couple weeks ago we got a good sized box Charlotte decided to make it into her "house."  She asked Mike to color it with her and they made a window and drew a bed and books on the inside.  Charlotte played with the box nearly every night.  She even set up some doll house furniture in there. And since, the box continues to evolve.  It was a home for her pony, Rody.  It was a place for her babies to sleep.  It was a receptacle for a bunch of her toys and stuff that needed to go upstairs.  Now it's warm and Charlotte just wants to color with sidewalk chalk and eat her snack outside.

Rody wearing a funny hat.

The other day she was back to decorating her house and drew all of these people on it.  They are amazing.  I love how they are all smiling.

Left to right: Happy, Mommy, Daddy, Charlotte.

Overheard Exhibit P

Charlotte has an ongoing monologue in the backseat of the car, which I don't always tune into.  But she really wanted me to hear what she had to say about her cousin Hannah on the way to school today.  Obviously it is not verbatim since I can't recall exactly what she said, and she kept going on and on and on, as is her wont.  But this is a pretty accurate representation of HannahJam 2014.

"Hannah is in Texas.  She's my friend and my cousin.  She's both at the same time. Hannah loves me and I love her.  Hannah made me a bracelet for Christmas because she loves me and I wear it because I love her.  We were playing and running in Texas and she is a really good runner. She's fast like this (insert hand motion and sound effects). I'm a good runner too but Hannah is a really good jumper and I'm not a good jumper.  I'm too little to be a good jumper like Hannah.  I do little hurdles in the living room and Hannah does big hurdles and some of the big kids fall over on the hurdles but Hannah does not."

So, clearly Charlotte's ability to compare and contrast is emerging appropriately.

And then when we were driving home, again Charlotte started up with Hannah.  It took awhile for me to figure out what she was talking about because, for me, she was talking about such an obscure memory: an errand, but with family.  This time Charlotte wanted to talk about when Charlotte, Beth, and I went to pick up Hannah after track practice over Spring Break.

And then it hit me, both times Charlotte was talking about Hannah was when we went by the Minnehaha Academy track, which clearly made her think of Hannah.  So if Charlotte does get pushed into running and people want to think it was her daddy pressuring her into the sport, remember this post: Charlotte is looking up to Hannah the Track Star as a role model, not her Has Been/Never Was Dad.

And for the record, Calvin and Sophia DO get equal play in Charlotte's monologues.  I just haven't happened to have free time to post them on the same day they occur, and then whatever was said is lost in my cluttered brain, or, more accurately, it never stuck.

Nawrockis Got Talent

On Monday, Happy crawled for the first time. She has been working on this for a week or two and finally figured out what to do with her arms.  And legs.  She looks just like baby Mike in the thumbnail for this video. 

In other news, Charlotte is still making guitars out of Bristle blocks and singing unrecognizable songs.