Two firsts in one day

Today Maya had 2 firsts:

1.  First bus ride.  She loved it, as we knew she would.  When we got off the bus she was whimpering, struggling to get out of Daddy's arms, and signing "More, more, more!"  I wanted her to ride the bus (and the subway, but we haven't done that one yet) with us before school started---that way she has a frame of reference if they come up at school.  Also, I know they take the subway (and maybe busses?) for class trips, and I wanted her first ride to be with us, so I could see her little excited face :)

Her blurry, but excited, face

2.  She fed herself a peach.  Well, half a peach---I had to pry it out of her slippery, gripping fingers when I realized that she was devouring it so aggressively that she would most certainly shatter her teeth on the pit.  I gave the remainder to her in big chunks.  Self-feeding a whole piece of fruit?!  Woo hoo!

I'm still sorting through vacation pics and have a vacation story or two to share as well.  Only 2 weeks and 2 days until little Maya will be starting school, and we're trying to make the most of our time off before then :) 

If you didn't do it already, go enter the Leapfrog DVD giveaway!  Remember, to enter you have to leave comments on the blog post HERE, not on the FB page.  Good luck!

All the cool kids make (really easy, I swear) homemade yogurt

Brief disclaimer: my computer imploded.  I'm blogging from an old loaner that is working less and less as the days go by.  If I disappear briefly, keep the faith---the new laptop is arriving on Weds. 


Maya loves yogurt.  It was the first "real" (as in something grown-ups also eat) food that she ate.  We started with the Stonyfield Farms Cream Top Vanilla (yum) and then switched over to Fage whole milk greek yogurt (which is much thicker than regular yogurt) when we wanted to help her progress to thicker textures.  She still eats the Fage (plain, we add honey to it) several times a week.  It's a big favorite, but it's $8 for a 32oz container. 

Enter the homemade yogurt idea :)

I've heard of making yogurt in the crock pot, but without knowing anyone who had really tried it I was hesitant.  So when a friend took the plunge and I was able to quiz her about the results (which seemed great!) I decided to give it a shot.  Here's what I did:  (You can browse around online, but all of the recipes are basically the same)

Ingredients
Half a gallon of milk (*I read somewhere not to use ultrapasteurized milk.  My milk is just regular pasteurized and worked fine)
1/2-3/4 cup of plain yogurt (this is where the active cultures that turn your milk into yogurt will come from)
That's it :)
(Optional ingredients:  You can add vanilla or honey to sweeten the yogurt during the production process---I don't do that, and I'll explain why later.  You can also add powdered milk to up the protein content and help thicken it a bit, which I do.)

Other stuff you need
A crockpot
A strainer and/or cheesecloth if you want thick, Greek-style yogurt

Directions
1. Pour milk into the crockpot (mine is 4 qts and works well).  Set it on low for 2.5 hours.

2. Then, turn the crockpot off.  Let it sit (off and unplugged) for 3 hours.
3. Next, remove 1-2 cups of the milk and put it in a small bowl.  Add the yogurt and whisk together to combine.  (This is when I also add the powdered milk---I mix in about 2/3 of a cup.)
4.  Dump the small bowl back into the crockpot and stir to combine.
5.  Wrap a large towel around your (unplugged) crockpot and let it sit for 8 hours. (No, I'm not kidding.  This looks weird, but this is where the magic happens.)

6.  Now you have yogurt!

It tastes better than it looks, I promise.  I don't think any type of yogurt photographs well.  At least not with a cell phone camera and kitchen lighting.

7.  If you want thick, greek-style yogurt, now you strain it.  I use a strainer lined with cheesecloth (which I found at the hardware store, but my friends tell me you can also find it in the baking section of many stores).  Pour the yogurt into the cheesecloth-lined colander (inside another bowl to catch the whey that drains out) and let it sit in the fridge overnight (or until you reach your desired thickness.)

(dramtatic reenactment--there's not yogurt in here, but you get the idea)

Important! If you plan on making more yogurt, before you strain off the whey set aside 1/2-3/4 of a cup of the yogurt so that you have a starter for your next batch!


My review:
It's delicious and cheap!  I didn't let it thicken long enough to get the same consistency as Fage, but it's good anyway.  It's a little bit milder than store bought yogurt (which I prefer)---I wonder if it would get more tangy if you let it sit for longer than 8 hours (and the cultures continued to work in there).   I made full fat for Maya (which I had with honey the other night for dessert) and today I'm making a pot of skim for Dave &I (I'll update on how the skim turns out after it is strained, which will be overnight tonight).

The time commitment isn't that bad---you have to start it, be around in 2.5 hrs, and then be around 3 hours after that.  Takes a minimum amount of mental math and planning.

It's a lot of yogurt for the price of a half gallon of milk, and you get to control the thickness and quality of ingredients.

Other thoughts:
This stuff has endless possibilities . . . it's not like you're just strictly making yogurt, it's like making a creamy dairy product.  You can sweeten it with honey, fruit, or fruit purees----although I read reviews online that said it's better to do that to single servings because if you mix in all the fruit up front the yogurt loses a little bit of its thickness. 

You could keep it on the savory side by using it as a sour cream substitute.  If you let it thicken a lot, you would end up with yogurt cheese.  Although it may sound questionable, it's kind of like a cream cheese spread---for bread, crackers, bagels, etc.  I imagine you could get creative by mixing spices, chives, etc into the yogurt cheese---homemade cream cheeses?  Super fancy!

About the whey:
Allegedly the whey (which is the liquid that drains off if you decide to strain the yogurt) is a great substitute for buttermilk.   I don't think I've ever cooked anything that required buttermilk, but if you do (I've heard that pancakes and other baked good recipes often use it) then try it out.  I read that you can also freeze the whey to use it later---if you do that, I would freeze it in ice cube trays for easy measuring and defrosting later.  This blogger also says you can add the whey to smoothies for a nutritional boost.

In conclusion
Not only is making yogurt cheap, but I feel like a total badass homemaker.  It makes me want to wear a little apron skirt (well, I'd have to buy an apron skirt first---but then I would wear it) and heels in the kitchen.  I wish I had a t-shirt that says "I make my own yogurt", for real.  I think if you do it, you get serious bragging rights. 

For the therapists, from the mom

It's been over 2 years since we started therapies.  We are lucky to have a spectacular team of therapists who love Maya dearly, and I consider to be surrogate family members.  But we went through a few others before we had our perfect team, and before I forget what the beginning was like, I thought that I should write this stuff down.  So, here are my thoughts for the therapists, from the beginning.


Come on in, stranger.

Welcome to my shambles.

My sweet, beautiful, wonderful child has just been through a series of evaluations specifically designed to figure out exactly where she doesn’t quite measure up. Then I got to read about her shortcomings (quantified . . . lovely. How lucky are the parents who never get to know their child’s percentile ranking on their worst skills). I sat before a scary official who’s primary goal is to keep costs low, and I fought to get as much therapy as possible . . . I have no idea what you all will do, but figured that “more” = “better”.

And here you are.

And I can’t help but slightly resent you (Just scheduling this initial meeting was challenging enough. I don’t want this for my kid. I want to be at the park, or the zoo. Not here.) and have all of my hopes pinned on you at the same time.


Please help her.



Please help me to help her.



We’re going to spend the next few years together, for better or worse. So let me share a few thoughts right up front----

First, the basics. Timeliness. You might be of the mind that 5-10 minutes late isn’t really “late”, it’s basically on time. I am not of that mind. Here’s why. I will always have my child ready for you 5 minutes early . . . so, if you are 10 minutes late we will have spent the last 15 minutes waiting around talking about your arrival. Also realize that we have 2 other appointments today . . . I knew that we had exactly 35 minutes between our last session and your arrival, which was, sadly, not enough time to get to the playground, so instead we had to settle for a quick snack and a walk around the block. Had I known we would actually have 10 extra minutes, we would have had time for the playground. I could have talked to neighborhood mom friends, and she could have played like an average kid. But here we are, sitting in the living room and watching the clock tick and getting more sad and frustrated with each passing minute that we could have been doing anything-other-than-waiting-for-you.

If, for whatever reason, you are running late, please let me know. If you are supposed to arrive at 3:30, texting me at 3:33 is not letting me know. It’s better than nothing, but only slightly.

And for the love of all that is good, if you arrive late you better be staying late. I don’t care if you have another appointment right after us. If you arrive 5 minutes late and leave on time, I will question your devotion to my child and think that you are just trying to pass the time.

Next, involve me. You have the therapeutic knowledge, and I have the knowledge of my kid. Let’s work together. If you ask me “Hey, are you open to taping her hands? Here’s why I think it would be a good idea . . . what do you think?” I will be open-minded and work with you. If you tell me “I’m going to tape her hands”, I will feel bossed around. Remember, we currently have 5 therapists, and each of you has your own agenda (and don’t even get me started on the doctors). Please let me be the mom and make decisions for my child, even if sometimes we don’t see eye to eye. If you let me be involved in the plan, I will be much more likely to go along with your ideas, because I will trust you.

Thirdly, I will ask a lot of questions. I will learn to watch my child and make mental notes, and hit you with a list of questions. (“Why does she move her tongue like that?” “How can I get her to unclench her thumb?” “ Is there a way to position my hands to help her balance better?”) I will not expect you to know every answer, but I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me find them. A simple “Hmm. Let me talk to my colleague and get back to you on that. We’ll figure something out.” will make me indebted you---you listened to me, admitted that you’re unsure, and committed to trying to learn more about how to help my kid. I will love you for this.

Finally, above all other things . . . please love my child. Or at least pretend that you do. I am scared for her, and I feel like we’re alone. I worry about if people will understand her, or put in the effort necessary to do so. I worry about whether people on the street will look at her differently. I worry about whether she’ll have friends.

You, therapists, are her first friends. She’ll learn to expect one of you when the doorbell rings, and (hopefully) she’ll get excited when she realizes that you’re here.

You’re the first people that she gets introduced to, and I’m nervously hoping that you’ll offer her smiles and hugs and encouragement.

If you love her, her days aren’t filled with “sessions”, they’re filled with “playdates”. She will have fun and learn and grow, and I will be eternally grateful that a) you are helping her and b) she is none the wiser. I want to think “she’s so lucky to have all of these great therapists coming to shower her with attention!” and not “poor kid, never gets to play with other kids because all we get to do is therapy.”

Food fight (Mom vs. Toddler Tantrums)

Holy Screaming Tantrums

On Monday, Maya had her first ever true tantrum . . . like, the real deal. Over 20 minutes (23, to be exact), mostly filled with absolutely hysterical, high pitched screaming, giant tears . . . the whole 9.
The cause? Mango. Who would have thought that tiny, delicious, yellow pieces of fruit could cause such a breakdown.

The Background
One of my biggest goals right now is to expand Maya's food repertoire. I want her to start school with a diet that's more extensive than yogurt, meatballs, and cereal bars. She has the jaw strength and chewing ability to start trying more stuff, and I need to make it a priority to make her (wo)man up. With fruit season upon us, fruit has been goal #1.

Maya is also a much safer eater now---she's fully mastered how to use her tongue to thrust unwanted food out of her mouth, which is a mixed blessing. It's fantastic in that I don't have to be quite as panicked concerned with her possibly choking, but it's infuriating frustrating because she just spits things back at us over and over again. (And sometimes she thinks it's hilarious, too.)

So, back to the tantruming . . .
On Monday, she got into the high chair for a snack. When I presented the mango (which she had eaten, and enjoyed, earlier in the day) she starting having a fit and signing for milk. I told her "First 2 pieces of mango, then milk." Then she totally lost it.

I had already said "2 pieces, then milk." So now I was stuck. I taught middle school, I'm semi-well versed in children . . . if you say something, you have to mean it. (Sometimes I wish I could tell this to the folks I see at the playground who issue 37 "If you throw that sand again, we're leaving, Johnny!" warnings. I want to tell them "If you say that, you best be ready to hit the road. Otherwise, please don't say it. At this point Johnny, his friends, and half the parents here think you're a joke. And good luck the next time you try to issue an ultimatum, sister.")

So after 23 minutes of tears, she ate 2 pieces of mango and got her milk. She was sweat soaked, I felt terrible, but we all survived. When I tried the process again on Tuesday, there were still tears, but it only took 12 minutes and never reached the scream-like-a-banshee decibel level of Monday's showdown.

And then we took the show on the road
Without a doubt, the better the motivation (like the milk she loves so much) the more likely it is that she'll eat quickly. So this morning (and yesterday) I packed up some blueberries and we walked to the playground. My plan was simple: she needed to eat 2 blueberries before she could get out of the stroller and play at the playground. I was fully prepared to sit there for up to 40 minutes with her in the stroller, calmly saying "Do you want to go play? Ok, then you just have to eat 2 blueberries." every so often, until she either ate them or the clock ran out and we left. (I'm not sure if this seems mean. But she's got a good memory, and after a few not-getting-out trips I knew she would cave.)

After 13 minutes of sitting in boredom this morning, I changed the ultimatum---instead of "If you want to get out, you need to have 2 blueberries" it became "Do you want to leave? If not, you have to have 2 blueberries." She started to cry. I decided to take out my cell phone and start taping:




Some translations, if you're curious: At 0:29, she's saying "bye bye?!". At 0:51 I'm telling her "chew chew" because she's been getting scared of the fruit textures and forgetting to chew & swallow. At 0:54 I'm pulling her hand away because when she starts to get nervous she will take the food out of her mouth and throw it. 1:35 is signing "all done". The hand twisting at 1:38 is signing "play".

She's so smart . . . we've definitely crossed a bridge, past the brute force phase (sometimes we just had to muscle in whatever food we could) and into the logical reasoning phase.

What I've learned so far
This feeding stuff works much better if I have enough time set aside to wait her out. When we have to grab a quick snack between therapies, I need to stick to something that she won't fight. And when she is ready to fight, I have to channel my calm inner teacher and let it roll off my back, instead of getting emotionally involved.

The rest of our time at the playground . . .
. . . was super fun for us, but less so for Parker. I left him sitting outside, where he kept watching for us like a watchdog. Maya visited him a few times to cheer him up:

Hi, friend.

You think I'd crumble? You think I'd lay down and die? Oh no, not I . . .*

A full week of no updates . . . and what do I have to show for it?

This:

Those are the supporting documents that were included in my insurance appeal.  (No, I didn't include 6 packets of blank paper---those ones are just flipped face down due to identifying information).  While I've often alluded to the misery of fighting with insurance, I don't think that I've ever taken the time to really lay the battle out.  Now that our appeal has been finished and sent, I have the presence of mind for some explanation.

I have regular fights debates clarifying conversations with the kind customer service folks over at our insurance company.   Just this week, we had 2 chats:

Monday: I receive 3 denials of claims for pediatrician visits (I tend to save up receipts and then send a bunch at once).  Upon calling and talking to the rep, I explain that I don't think it's possible that we haven't met our deductible for Maya.  He says "well, remember, the amount is not based on how much the doctor bills, it's based on how much we pay out."  I fumble with receipts, sigh, and ask why her vaccinations weren't covered, since the form says "Vaccinations are only included until the patient's 19th birthday."  At this point we realize that all of the claims were processed under my name instead of Maya's, and we have the exact same exchange that I have at some point during Every Single Call to the company:

Him:  Well, ma'am, the doctors office must have made an error in filling out the forms.
Me: Actually, I fill out the forms.  And at this point, I could do them in my sleep.  Are you able to pull up an electronic copy on your computer and verify that there's not a mistake on the forms?
Him: Hold on one second (click clack clickety clack).  Hmmmm.  (click clack clickety clack) Well, ma'am it seems like everything is in order here.  I'm going to just go ahead and reprocess them for you.
Me:  Ok, great.  (eyes rolling until they nearly touch my brain)  Thanks so much for your help.

Tuesday:  While cleaning off my desk (sorting through papers for the appeal) I find an older denial for 2 pediatrician visits.  This time the reason for the denial is "The treatment was given in an inappropriate or invalid place of service"  (yes, that's a direct quote).  And the call went like this:

Me: I'm calling because I think these claims may have been processed incorrectly.
Insurance: Well, ma'am, I'm seeing that they were denied because the service was provided in an "incorrect or inappropriate location".
Me: Well, they were pediatrician appointments. In the pediatrician's office. I'm not sure where else we could have met with him.
(then we looped directly into the conversation quoted above)

Anyway, this appeal was not about these smaller denials---it's about 79 (so far) denials for Maya's feeding therapy.  Maya gets private feeding therapy twice a week, which is invaluable to the development of her muscles and coordination, and is a large part of the reason that she's not still eating jars of baby food (which she was still on until after her 2nd birthday).   To make a 3-month-long-story short, after manymanymany phone calls and re-submissions, we found out that the therapy was being denied because it was being provided by a speech-language pathologist (SLP) . . . to the company, appropriate providers of feeding therapy included pediatricians, GI surgeons, and family practicioners. 

(If I hadn't been in frustrated tears at this point of this particular phone call, I would have burst out laughing.)  For those of you not in-the-know, this is the equivalent of saying "We cover root canals, except if they're done by an oral surgeon.  If you have a root canal done by a manicurist, janitor, or high school principal, we'll totally hook you up."

So my appeal was two fold---providing ample evidence that this treatment is medically necessary and highly beneficial for Maya, and attempting to convince them that an SLP is the most highly qualified provider of this service***.  It was a 45 page appeal, including:  a letter of medical necessity from our pediatrician, a letter of medical necessity from our developmental pediatrician, a letter of medical necessity from our feeding therapist, Maya's first feeding evaluation (at 9 months), Maya's most recent feeding evaluation (at 31 months), a phone call log of all of the discussions that I've had regarding these claims, an Excel spreadsheet of the claims and their pertinent information, 2 documents from 2 different insurance companies that show that they only pay feeding therapy claims to SLPs, 2 research articles that explain why SLPs are the most qualified providers for feeding therapy and explain that their knowledge base is unique and nontransferrable to other types of providers.

Whew.

It's taken me a few months to gather the appropriate paperwork (we couldn't get a letter from the developmental ped until we had our check-up, which takes a few weeks to schedule, etc).  I didn't realize how much having this thing hanging over me was really affecting me (subconsciously) until it was gone. 

It all goes right back to that learned helplessness stuff that I've talked about before.  It's such a downer to have something that you need to do, when you're powerless to get it done.  My to-do list felt insurmountable when I had this deeply subconscious inner dialogue of "Why bother calling that doctor to schedule an appointment?  You haven't even made a dent with the insurance yet."  or "How can you take the time to respond to emails when you should start typing a call log for the appeal?"

So either I would do smaller things on my list and feel guilty about not making appeal progress, or work on the appeal and watch my apartment get messy, take-out get ordered, and a million little things amass on my daily list and fester.

It's so hard to feel powerless.

And I'm so glad that the appeal is done :)

So now the ball is in their court. 

Be sure to stay tuned for a ridiculous update about how it was denied because they are only able to process appeals that are typed in Times New Roman, or postmarked on a Saturday, or whatever.

 ***As an aside, I'm not fully convinced that it actually is their policy that SLPs are not payable---I feel like they may have just been using that as a deterrent in the system to get me to throw up my hands and give up.  They refused to provide me with the policy in writing, telling me that then I could "just commit insurance fraud."  (How?  I'm not sure.)

I realize this makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but these people have pushed me right to the edge.  During one call, at 12:27pm the person I had been speaking with said "Ma'am, I'm sorry, I suddenly can't hear you at all---you're breaking up---let me just put you on hold for a minute and then reconnect to see if that helps."  She hung up on me.  When I called back at 12:29 I got a recording: "Thank you for calling.  It is currently our lunch hour.  Please call back after 1:30pm EST.  Thank you." 

Seriously?  It's enough to make anyone go postal.

Feeding drama and a magic solution (that you can make, too)

For the past month, meals have been really hit or miss with Maya.  Her feeding issues have gotten more complex as she's gotten older, because the behavior challenges of toddlerhood (asserting herself, being dramatic*, etc) are coming into play.  When she first started feeding therapy, everyone agreed 100%--she wants to eat, she loves food and flavors, she just can't do it. 

But now, sometimes she's difficult because her mouth is tired or disorganized, and sometimes she's difficult because she's 2. 

And 2-year-olds are sometimes just difficult.

The basic background on Maya's eating stuff:  Progressing to purees/baby food was challenging.  Once she had a handle on purees, progressing to real stuff (yogurt, applesauce) was challenging, too.  (That started to really happen around 15 mos old).  Then, progressing to real food was a lot of work, because things just get lost in her mouth---her tongue had to learn to move the food to her teeth, her jaw had to learn to make her teeth chew.  (She still has to work a lot on the chewing, because her jaw muscles are weak.  And her mouth is still disorganized.)  We were on all "real" foods around 27 months.   Now, her diet is pretty limited to things that you don't have to chew too much:  milk, yogurt, applesauce, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese, waffles, pancakes, french fries/potatoes, cheese, meatballs/meatloaf, fish sticks, spinach pancakes, soft fruits, and vegetables that are steamed and mashable, etc. 

She is fully capable of eating everything that I just listed, but suddenly she was refusing to eat for me.  She would sign that she was hungry, get in the highchair, and have a meltdown.  She would clamp her lips, throw herself to the side of the highchair, cry, take food out of her mouth after I had put it in, cover her face with her arms, etc.  Misery.  It is not fun to have to fight through every meal and snack everyday.  More than once I would have to hold her arms down, pry her mouth open, and put food in. 

A few times I thought "She must not be hungry", tossed the food, and took her out of the high chair . . . but no sooner did her feet hit the floor than she would smile and sign "Eat!"

(sigh)

I realized that we weren't tapping into her logic skills at all, so I tried to tell her "One bite, and then ________  (stickers, barn, whatever)."  It worked, but only for one bite.  Doing an entire meal one bite at a time takes a longggg time.

And then came the magic solution (care of our speech therapist).  It's so simple (especially if you have any knowledge of preschool stuff, the land-of-labeling-things-with-pictures) and yet so effective:

Ta-da!!!

That's our new meal chart (chart?  I'm not sure if that's the right word.  But you get the idea).  The little pictures of the guy with the spoon say "eat" at the top.   The star is a "surprise".  

How we use it

Me: Maya, do you want to have some stickers?

Maya: (smiles and nods emphatically)

Me: Ok, then you need to take 3 bites of waffle (pointing to the 'eat' cards) 1-2-3, and then you get stickers! (pointing to the star)

Maya: (nods and opens her mouth to take a bite)

As she bites, I take the 'eat' pictures down and say "Great job!  That bite is done, so you have 2 more, 1-2, and then stickers!"

When the bites are done, she plays with the toy.  I keep feeding her, and sometimes she doesn't notice.  If she starts refusing food, I take that toy away, reload the 'eat' pictures, and start again.  If the toy loses its motivational factor, I get a new one.

No more drama. 

No more fighting.

The chart is 2 sided, so she's looking at the side she's working on, we're looking at the back.

In action-here she's taken 1 bite of waffle and has 2 left before she gets the school bus with the zebra and polar bear.  Obviously, school busses carry zebras and polar bears.

Do It Yourself
There are endless variations to this, but here's how ours is made:

-The standing-up part is the bottom cut off of a manilla file folder (which makes it easy to stand up).  There's a sentence strip glued onto it, and 5 velcro dots stuck on in a row. 

-The squares are color printed and laminated, with Velcro dots stuck on the back. (If you don't have a laminator, it's worth getting.  Like I said, I didn't make this, but I do laminate everything.  Maya's been carrying around a laminated picture of her with Santa since December.)  The icons are from Boardmaker, I think, but you can use any picture you want.  Just do a google image search, copy the picture to a word document, and print it up.

And you're done.   So easy.

Oh, and it's perfect to travel with, too.

At the diner, with one bite left until she gets her Santa picture.

The same idea of simple velcro visuals is often used to create schedules for the day (first you make your bed, then you take off pajamas, then you put on clothes, etc, etc), but I can see it working for other obnoxious challenging behaviors, too. 

For example, is tooth brushing a problem?  (It sometimes is for us)  Maybe one parent could brush while the other parent methodically removes numbers from a countdown, or a row of toothbrush pictures to show that time is almost up.  The possibilities are endless.

I'm sure this is a been-there-done-that post for a lot of folks with older kids, but I hope it helps someone else out there.  I think it's a great model to present ideas/routines to all kids---special needs or no special needs.


*Speaking of drama, did you see my story on FB from earlier this week about having a cry alone in the crib?  Yikes.

Why can't we just pick some apples like normal people?

Seriously.  We are not fruit hoarders . . . how did we end up with this many apples?

I'm going to plead ignorance.  I had no idea how many apples would fit into a bag.  Plus, last year we went to a different orchard---where you paid for a (much smaller) bag, and then got to fill it.  This place (Bishop's Orchards, which was great) weighed the bags, but we still overfilled them.  This is slightly over 2 bags of apples.  Very poor planning.   I'm hoping that applesauce freezes well, because Maya likes it.  Any other apple ideas?  Feel free to add them as a comment!

Anyway, we met my mom, sister, brother-in-law, nephew & niece at the orchard and had such a fun day!  Here are a few pictures:

                                          Emmie: Maya, I will set you free.

                                         Maya: You know how to work the straps?  I've been trying to figure it out
                                                    for months!

Cousin love (and tickles)

Complete pictures from the day are up on the blog's Facebook page (where photo memory is unlimited!).  Remember, you don't need to be a Facebook user to see our fanpage, it's public---just click on the picture at the top of this page, or google " 'Uncommon Sense Blog' Facebook".

Sudden Progress!

Right before we left my sister's house, Maya did 2 amazing things!  First, she signed "milk"---she's never done it before, and it's always amazing to see her sign something new.  I've been signing milk daily for months and months, and never even seen any indication that she cares when I sign it---then suddenly, boom!  She does it!

Annnddddd, then we decided to hand her her bottle (she gets one before naptime and one at bedtime) in the car to see if she could try to drink it on her own---and she did!  She needed a little help as the milk level dropped (we may need to switch back to smaller bottles that would be easier to tilt up), but she was able to hold her own bottle in the car.  I was a little bit giddy :)

Very slow progress:

On the opposite end of the progress spectrum, physical therapy type progress is slow going.  The great news is that Maya stands a lot more---she pulls up quickly and cruises well.  You guys get to see a lot of pictures where she looks like a stable, standing rockstar.  Like this:

However, in reality, she often looks like this:

(I like to think of this move as the "teapot" from the line "tip me over and pour me out" in the teapot song)

That's Miss Maya mid-fall, while cousin Collin thinks "What happened?  You were just standing so normally!".  She stands (and moves) with her knees locked---so the smallest wobble can send her tumbling.  She also tends to fall over when she gets excited (which is pretty darn cute, actually).  She'll be sitting on the floor and I'll say "Do you want to watch Signing Times?"---and she'll get all excited, start to laugh and wave her arms around, and topple right over :)     We're working on it. 

Zoo . . . Hair . . . CHEW . . . Where?

If I come up with a nonsensical rhyming title, then it totally makes my jumbled update-about-everything post appear cohesive, right?  Right.

1. Zoo:  We went to the Bronx Zoo the other day and had a fun time.  Well, Dave had a fun time:

Maya was so scared that she re-enacted her DMV pose:

Until Mommy came to save the day:

(Hmm, who's having more fun?  Maya or Mommy?  Or the magical glowing prairie dog?)

Fun at the petting zoo:

Miss Maya is attempting vertical movement more and more!  Here, some teetery walking holding on to only 1 hand!:

It may not be graceful looking, but who cares . . .

2.Hair: My hair continues to fall out at an alarming rate:

Ok, it's not quite that bad :)  Actually, I convinced Dave to cut my hair (with the balding patches, I've been hiding from salon folks----I don't want anyone messing with my hair, and I don't want lots of people coming to stare at it).  So we did a chop at home:

(not the most glamorous pic, but you get the idea)

3. CHEW!!!!!!!!  This is the best update by far (and if you check our Facebook page, you're already in the loop on this one).  Maya has come so far with feeding therapy that today Erica (her feeding therapist) said "No more jars (baby food)----she's an eating girl now!"  So, in theory, Maya could only be eating normal food now (with some exceptions---she can't do very hard things, like apples.  She can't manage something very complicated, like rice.  And she can't really regulate how much she gets in her mouth at a time, so we still have to feed her most pieces by hand.)   She's an eating girl!!!!!!  Real food!!! 

Here, she digs into dinner (yogurt, blueberries, some snacky stuff, and a cereal bar--not pictured).  The sushi belongs to Dave & me:

4. Where?  We're going away on Saturday and Maya has been studying up for the trip.  Here, Dave helps her to plan our week's worth of activities.  See if you can figure out where we're heading :)

Snack Trap

The other day we went out for a walk and I gave Maya some cheerios in a snack trap.  A snack trap!  I wanted to shout to passersby (seriously, did you know that was the plural of passerby?) :  "Hey!  Look at my kid!  She can eat cheerios all by herself!  So shut it!"

 (Why did anyone have to "shut it"?  I have no idea.  But in my head, I was celebrating and needlessly trash talking at the same time.)

I was so excited that I stopped to take a picture:

And then the celebration ended, as she shoved 28 cheerios into her mouth and panicked (which I also captured in a photo):

I knelt next to her (taking deep breaths) and waited as she scraped out a few with her fingers, swallowed a few whole, and managed to chew one or two.

That was the end of our (very short) time with the snack trap.  (In all seriousness, after talking with the OT and the feeding therapist, they think that she doesn't have the fine motor skills to pick up only a few pieces to eat at a time.  Most toddlers either have the motor skills to put a few in their mouth at a time, or the oral motor skills that let them compensate if they shove too much in at once.  She doesn't have either, so we need to help her by giving her a few pieces at a time.)

Tomorrow is Dave's last day of summer school, and Maya can't wait to have him home for a month :)

Maya's got the munchies

Well, ladies & gentlemen, Maya is now nearly 26 months old and we are seeing a lot of feeding progress :)  One of the crazy things about working with her is that she goes from not doing something (for months and months) to suddenly just doing it.  So for month, we work on chewing, work on chewing, and not much happens . . . but within the last month or so she's an eating champ.

Some things she's tried:  blueberries, bananas, peaches, strawberries, cereal bars (loves them!!!), cheerios, scrambled eggs (not a fan), cheese, pancakes (her daily breakfast), lasagna, cheeseburger, toast, crackers, graham cracker, goldfish, bbq beef, crab cakes, mashed potatoes, ice cream. 

And I'm probably forgetting things.

:)

I've been a little down this week, a lot going on in my head, and a lot of hair falling off of it---ba dum ching! (um, that's how google told me to spell a snare-cymbal combo---not so sure about it)   We're kind of not making a lot of progress in a lot of areas (physically, for one.  Come on, Maya, you can stand up---stop being afraid and go for it!) . . . but the feeding stuff is great.  Finally, progress :)

And here's a video clip from the park this morning (if you're a fan on Facebook, you got an early peek at the video this afternoon!  You should all join our FB page for sneak peeks and bonus chats!).  Check out Maya chowing down on Cheerios:

Success! (and a near fail)

Parker's evaluation today went fabulously :)  He was his typical adorable self, friendly (but not too friendly), obedient, and polite.  He made it into the therapy dog program and did so well that we get to skip the first half of the classes (level 1 is "Basic Obedience", level 2 is "Therapy Skills")---way to save us some cash, Parker!  We'll start the therapy skills class in September, and once he completes the 5 sessions we'll be a certified therapy dog team.  We'll volunteer one hour per month, and more details will come as I learn more about the program.

Speaking of therapy, Dave almost undid months of feeding therapy in 30 seconds the other night, by attempting to feed Maya a spoonful of blue cheese (which would have probably induced vomiting and caused mistrust of all-things-that-come-on-a-spoon):

The picture is a little hard to make out---Dave and I were eating really hot wings (yum).  He was simultaneously feeding Maya some jarred baby food, and the multitasking proved to be too difficult . . . luckily, when he dipped her baby spoon into the blue cheese we both realized it (and burst out laughing) before she got a taste.

She fed herself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This morning I was feeding Maya lunch.  We were working with blueberries, pancakes, and barbecue beef.  I was giving her little pieces of beef, putting it in her mouth, and she would chew and swallow.  I decided to give her a little piece on the tray to play with (just like we do every other day), and she shocked me by picking it up and eating it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(By the way, if you just see a big white space with a "Play" button at the bottom, click the play button.  The video should start playing.  I don't know why that happens, but whatever!)