Feeding/Speech Therapy

Today's 365 picture is actually from yesterday, this Sadie playing with her ipad during therapy.

Sadie hasn't seen Nancy for probably a month. All our therapies were sorta put on hold while we waited for surgery to be scheduled, went on vacation, and etc etc etc. So, you can imagine Nancy's surprise when last time she saw Sadie she screamed through barely an ounce of solid food, and yesterday Sadie plowed through 4+ ounces (after eating 3+ ounces just a couple of hours before!!)

After eating, they often spend time playing with the ipad; practicing reaching and touching, and working on different sounds and words. Sadie is nowhere near talking, but she is so expressive with her oohs and ahhs and yayas, that I feel like working with her now will NOT be in vain. She may not be a good talker, but I think she WANTS to do it!!

Sadie's day with Grandpa and Nana

Yesterday, Sadie and I drove all the way out to Grandpa and Nana's house. Even though it's an hour-long trek out there, I am thankful that I have family nearby to offer some support. Brian has been in Vegas all week for work and I just needed to be around some people. Plus, they love Sadie and are happy to give me a break when we get there.

Sadie hung out with Grandpa while he worked on his computer while I took a nap. I could hear her "talking" to him in his office. But the best part was when Nana got home from work. I had Sadie propped up on the couch between two pillows (sitting like a big girl) and I was sitting on one side of her. Nana came and sat on the other side, so Sadie was fully supported. She started talking to Sadie and touching her hands and Sadie started whining a little and getting fussy, so I grabbed the ipad.

I said, "do you want to read a story?" I opened up a story and Sadie and Nana went through it together and listened to all the words and touched all the monkeys in the story. Sadie at first wanted to touch the ipad, but when she wants to touch, she still has a hard time reaching her arms out. Instead, she instinctively brings them in. When we noticed she wanted it, we brought it closer to her and she immediately calmed down. Her whole body relaxed and she reached out and touched it whenever she wanted.

After the story, Sadie and Nana looked at the animals. We have this app that shows a big, bright picture of an animal and says what it is, then if you touch the screen it makes the sound of the animal. It's really neat. They played this for over an hour, while Sadie was attentive and captivated the entire time!! It's so great to see Sadie doing things like this with her grandparents!

My dad even played a little game with Sadie. He pretended he was a lion and he would make his hands do a galloping sound on the couch behind her. They'd get closer and closer until they finally "attacked" in tickling her tummy, which resulted in extreme happiness. He probably did it ten times in a row, and Sadie would start to smile as she heard his hands on the couch, like she knew what was coming...then the tickle attack would make her smile so big!! It's too bad she doesn't giggle, because I think that game would have produced awesome belly laughs that babies give!

It was so good to hang out with family yesterday. I really wish I had pictures.

ipad update - it finally came!

Sadie's ipad came last week. It's been so exciting to play with it. One of the most fun apps we downloaded was the Yes/No app. It's basically a big green square that says "YES" when you touch it, and a big red square that says "NO" when you touch it. But you can change it. So, I made a square that says "MORE FOOD" and recorded my voice saying "more food" and another square that says "ALL DONE" and recorded my voice on that one too. And we practice when she's eating orally. Of course I still decide when she gets more food and when she's all done, but I'm hoping that soon she'll be able to do it herself. I also learned that you can add pictures to the buttons on the screen. So I made one with my picture and my voice saying "mommy" then one with Brian's picture and his voice saying "daddy." We haven't used these yet, but we will soon.

We also downloaded animal noises. She likes this one when she plays with the speech therapist. Ours is a little different, but it's neat because it's also in Spanish. Brian and I are trying to learn/perfect our Spanish, but we also think it'd be neat if Sadie was bilingual. Her favorite so far is the rattle snake (Serpiente de Cascabel) because it makes a really fun noise. She also likes the gatitos (kittens) because that noise is familiar to her. It's pretty fun to watch her sometimes listen, sometimes try to look, and other times she wants to touch.

We have some other apps that we want to work more and more with, one is about shapes, another is fruits. We have another that when you touch, shapes accompanied by noises appear, so it's good instant gratification to reinforce cause and effect and hopefully get her reaching out and touching more. Unfortunately teething has been awful these last few days, so I don't have many pictures or video to show you yet, but there will be plenty to come.

For now, here's a picture of Sadie enjoying a quick podcast of Sesame Street. Enjoy!

Sadie's ipad fundraiser-GOAL!

We did it! In less than three weeks, our friends and family and perfect strangers have blessed us with $500, and this weekend we will be visiting the Apple Store to purchase Sadie an ipad.

We got donations from grandparents. We got donations from friends. We got donations from people we've never met. We even got one donation from Australia!! We got little donations. We got large donations. And we got one final donation from an anonymous person who gave us that last $35.

And for all of this we are greatful.

My heart is overwhelmed with how much people love Sadie and want everything that's best for her. I am amazed at the kindness of so many who didn't just look and pass by, but, with their hearts, gave

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We can't wait to show you videos and pictures of Sadie with her ipad and tell you stories of all her progress.

Sadie's ipad fundraiser

I read an article today (you can read it here) about ways to get your special needs child an ipad (because insurance won't pay for one) and one of the ideas was to fundraise. I had thought of this before, because of all the people who donated to my marathon to help the Children's Hospital. But it seems weird to ask for money for ourselves. The article made a good point, it said, "you are not begging for money, you are advocating for your child." And then it gave a couple of websites that help people fundraise.

I created a fundraising page for Sadie

Let me back up...a few weeks ago, Sadie got to play with an ipad at therapy. This was her first time being exposed to it, and you could tell she really liked it. (you can see a video of that here) Since then, our speech therapist has brought the ipad for Sadie to play with a couple more times. Just yesterday Nancy (the speech therapist) would touch an animal on the ipad for it to make a sound, then Sadie would touch the same one. Of course she didn't always get the right one because it's still really hard for her to control her arms/hands, but it was amazing to see my daughter actually copying!

A month or so ago we applied for an ipad through a grant provided by Babies with ipads. This blog/website is working and fundraising hard to be able to give special needs children ipads to further their learning and development. We were asked to answer a number of questions about Sadie's needs and how we felt an ipad would benefit her. We didn't win. However, it is sort of bittersweet because friends of ours (that we know from Foundation for Blind Children) did win. I think what Babies with ipads is doing is fantastic and they've already become such a great resource, that any money we happen to raise above and beyond the purchase price of the ipad, I want to donate to Babies with ipads so that they can provide another child with one.

So, if you are interested in helping Sadie buy an ipad, please consider giving. Any amount will help and will be appreciated. And of course frequent blog updates will be included with the ipad purchase!

You can click below to give, or use the widget on the right side of the blog homepage. And don't be too shy to tell your friends and to introduce them to Sadie via this blog! We love telling the world about our biggest blessing!

Sadie's ipad fundraising page

Dear Santa...Love, Sadie

Dear Santa,

I know it's barely March, but I have a special request. I want an ipad. I played with one today during therapy with Nancy and I really liked it. She showed me how if I touch it I can see a bunch of pretty colors, I liked that. It helped me use my vision. Then she showed me all the animals and I got to hear the noises they make. I liked the dog and the kitty, but I especially liked the birds. Nancy showed me a bunch of different birds and I heard how they all sound different. I wanted to touch it so badly and make the animal talk, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get my hand to do what I wanted it to. But, I know that if I had my own ipad I'd learn how to do it really quickly.

Nancy told my mom that it can also be a good communication device and we looked at a bunch of pictures of food. When I'm older, I'll be able to eat things like hamburgers and ice cream, and the ipad will help me communicate to my mom what I would like for lunch and dinner. So, you can see that it's not only to help me, but to help her. And my mommy needs all the help she can get with me, she works very hard all day to make me happy. She does a good job.

Santa, I know ipads are expensive, and I'm not sure you have the right technology in your workshop to make them, but I figure if I ask early, you'll have lots of time to save up for one. I promise I'll be a big girl and eat my food and poop everyday like Mommy and Daddy want me to. I'm sure they've already told you how good I am at sleeping in my bed all night. My mommy makes really good cookies and I will make sure she leaves some out for you on Christmas Eve when you visit our house.

Just in case you need any more convincing, here's a video of me playing with Nancy today with her ipad. You can see how much I like it!

Thank you Santa for reading my letter. I look forward to Christmas, even though it is still 9 months away. By then I won't be a baby anymore, and hopefully I'll be able to sit by myself...maybe even crawl! I can't wait to play with my new ipad!

Love, Sadie