How's Maddie Doing?

Maddie is in a good place these days!  

She seems happier and her frustrations seem to have eased.

I've been listening to audiobooks while doing housework lately (you have to have SOMETHING to make the task bearable!) and I recently "read" Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages for Kids.

I've been trying to pinpoint Maddie's love language and I'm pretty sure it's quality time.

Any time she comes and asks to play, instead of telling her "just a minute, let me finish this one thing" I try to stop what I'm doing and play.

I can tell a HUGE difference in her willingness to cooperate or "obey right away" as we tell her!

Of course some days are better than others. Last Sunday at church, she escaped and ran outside!!

Thank goodness, there were adults around to corral her back inside.

Unfortunately, she wasn't at all grateful.  

This mommy was though!!

On the potty training front, she will go to the potty when I tell her it's time, but she doesn't realize herself when she needs to go and she still doesn't feel when her diaper is wet.  

She will sometimes tell me when she has stink but not always.  

It's still a work in progress!

Our other main issue is sleep.  

We have established that bedtime is 8:30.

Although she is not ready to go to sleep until usually 9:30 or 10:00, she goes back to her room to play or read books and entertain herself until she's ready to fall asleep.  

So far, she's not quite capable of handling this time on her own, so there's a lot of calling for mommy and daddy.  

She has anxieties of being left alone, (plus if her love language is quality time, being alone is pretty awful) so we are very slowly easing into this and she will often require Kyle or me back in her room to fall asleep. 

As soon as she wakes up (anywhere between midnight and 2am) she comes to our room and sleeps the rest of the night in our bed.  

Our potty and sleep issues are just part of the Sensory Processing journey that we have to let be.

Her speech continues to improve, which is fantastic.  

One of our favorite apps that we use is Articulation Station.

I like that you can record her pronunciation and take it into our speech therapist!

Fine Motor is another issue we are working hard to improve.  

At preschool they work on writing their names.  

Here's her latest work!!  

I bought her these writing claws  and sent them to preschool.  

She's doing so good! 

So that about sums up how she's been doing lately!  

A lot of you were wondering about how she did with the storms last night.  

As soon as we got into the shelter, she was saying, "too loud!"

We had these earmuffs  to put on her, and she was fine after that point.  

Our neighbors had a little dachshund in the shelter with us and that was the perfect distraction for her!!

We are loving life and looking forward to her ballet recital this afternoon!