Day 3.

So, before I fall asleep on the couch again, I think I'll write now. :)  First I just want to thank everyone who has read my 2 posts so far... I wasn't sure if I should do this or not, I didn't want to be an annoying oversharer or have the blog just be my way of whining or venting... I really want it to be an honest representation of how everyday feels... And from the comments I've been getting -- thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are all so supportive! xoxo
Well, today started off with a change of bed sheets... we'll leave it at that. As I talked about before, we have a visual schedule for her... and the first thing she does when she comes downstairs after showering is look at it. I was kind of holding my breath this am- the last few weekends Vic has been rather indecisive about eating her breakfast. She'll ask for cereal - reeces puffs - and will get the spoon and milk out when I ask her, then when I pour her cereal and she sits at the table, she's started crying - "no cereal, yes, cereal, no cereal", and again with my lightening quick reflexes, she had managed to dump it a few times.... then she would yell a bit and hold her ears and then the next hour would kind of unravel. I haven't been able to figure out why. So, this am, I watched and waited and kind of ignored her as she sat down to eat. Maybe she was just hungry, or was just in a good mood, but she ate her cereal without incident. :)  Phew. She laughed and looked at me a few times, I swear she is thinking back to the other times -she can play me very well. Oh, I forgot, this am, when she was getting ready for the day - she was singing 'old mcdonald'. I haven't hear her sing that in a very long time. She would sing a few lines and then I would ask her what animal was in the barn - we did pig, goat, horse and cow. :)  She can do a mean goat sound. :) 
With today being Sunday, the next thing she did was recite 'The Lord's Prayer'. In no way is this next part meant to offend anyone - this is not a religious blog, I am not here to impart my beliefs on anyone, I just want to share an antecdote about this morning... I could again write pages and pages on my feelings regarding my daughter's and my family's religious happenings and our spirituality... maybe someday I will. But for now I will share about this morning. I have been working on getting Vicki to recite the Our Father since September. I home school her for her religious education. I think that, especially for Vicki, this prayer is difficult. There are a lot of words that you can't attach a visual representation to. And sometimes a word by itself has no meaning to Vicki. I had started out this process and found a great coloring book of The Lord's prayer online. I printed one in color and one in black and white. There were some very basic pictures to go with the words (for example - there was a picture of praying hands on the front cover which said 'The Lord's Prayer'. On the next page was a picture of a little girl in braids kneeling and praying, then next page had a picture of the blue/green Earth, the next had a happy cartoon boy eating a sandwich and an apple, the next page had a little girl hugging her mommy and finally, there was a cross with different colored flowers on it.) For the first few weeks, we worked on coloring the black and white pages... She copyed the colors exactly... Then I laminated the colored one (ps... I LOVE my laminator, love, love, love it!!!). I would point to the words as we repeated the prayer together and then we would talk about each picture... (For example, 'what is the boy doing?  He is eating a sandwich and an apple... 'Is the boy happy or sad? He is happy. What is the girl doing? She is hugging her mommy. How many blue flowers are there? etc... )  We would go through the prayer book a few times. Anyway... Vicki is really starting to get it. And this morning she was amazing! It brought tears to my eyes listening to her recite it. She said it really slow and clear (she sometimes talks really fast - like her mommy  - and kind of garbled... ) But today was phenomonal. I had to prompt her verbally in a few of the sections that are really difficult for her, but it was very minimal prompting. I was so proud. And stupid me just couldn't let it go and end on a high note this morning. Nope. I had to grab the video camera. I was so impressed that I wanted to hear her on tape.... So I asked her to do it again. I turned the video camera on and she picked up her book and held it in front of her and said cheese. (Insert smile here, do ya think I take too many pictures??) Vicki does tend to think of the video camera as a still camera. And she wouldn't put the book down. And when I asked her to recite it again, she started yelling. She kept saying, 'no lord's prayer.' And I could have kicked myself. After 20 minutes or so, we settled down. She did recite the prayer again, but she was not happy about it, and no, I did not video it. Here's hoping I didn't screw it up for next week...
We went to our county's fine arts festival this afternoon. Both Vicki and Joey has pieces of artwork displayed this year. (And, how I felt for my little Ally, the one who loves art more than anything and is really good at it. And wants to be an art teacher when she grows up... Had to explain to her that it takes time to give everyone a chance to shine. And that we are always so proud of her artwork too and how we really have an art gallery on our hallway walls at home of Ally's beautiful pieces. She took it pretty well, although when we saw the art teacher and she asked if Ally had artwork on display, I could see her stop for a moment and her eyes clouded over. After the art teacher walked by, Ally said she had a belly ache. Poor little thing. )  Anyway... we hadn't been to this festival for a few years. The last time we did, I remember it being very stressful and quite the disaster. Vicki doesn't know where she's at, it's loud, and there are so many people around. AND, she can't touch the really cool looking breakable things... It was tantrum city last time. But I was so proud of Vicki this time! She walked into the building skipping and holding daddy's hand. As long as we kept moving and didn't stay at one display for too long, she did okay. She stood by her art piece and said hi to her art teacher. We even stayed at the festival for almost an hour! Success!!! Woo hoo! I didn't say she was super happy that we were there for an hour, but then again, neither was Ally. :P 
We decided that since it was such a nice day, we would drive to a park in Fredericksburg. Anytime we are by the water, we are all happy. We had mud, and sand, and sticks and seashells and Vicki's favorite activity - tree climbing! There are a lot of cute little trees that you can kind of climb and walk on. Thank goodness daddy was there with us. I do not like heights, even if it's just 3-4 feet off the ground. And I am super paranoid about someone falling. Ally, decked out in her skirt and cowgirl boots wanted to go first. She made it out pretty far on the tree limb and Vicki wanted to join her. Even as I type this, hours later, I can feel my anxiety levels increasing! Vicki actually did a really good job. She loves sitting in trees much to mommy's dismay. But I still get worried that she will try and push Ally off the branch or that she will throw her head back and start silly laughing... that's when things tank and go south pretty quick. I call them her silly moments, although they are usually frightfully silly to me... I never know what Vicki will do. But today, in the tree with her sister, she did good. She managed to sit down on the branch and the only issue we had was trying to get her to come down from the tree. :) After we finished our walk, Vic was tired and enjoyed sitting at a picinic table feeling the nice breeze on her face. That is, until Ally came up and spread her seashells out to look at with me. Ally was showing me her favorites and counting them and naming them. And then, again, swoop - I missed it and Vicki swiped the seashells onto the ground in one quick motion. After calming Ally down and recovering 28 out of the 36 seashells, and telling Ally that the 8 lost ones probably had flaws and cracks in them... I had Vicki apologize to Ally. And again, Ally asked me, 'why did Vicki knock all of my seashells down?'  Besides the seashell sweep, all in all a good trip to the park and Joey and daddy got to play some football too...
Tonight at bedtime, Vicki was very happy. I have been working on recall of events with her for the past few months. It started out with having her tell me what she ate for the day, since food is a very big reinforcer for her and she loves her food. Then she began reciting the things that were on her visual schedule, it's like I could see her visualing her strips of activities. She even adds some descriptors now and then. It's been an amazing way to connect with her. And of late, I've been asking her what her favorite activity of the day was - and tonight she smiled and said, 'trees, climbing, sitting'. I'm so very glad you enjoyed that Vicki! And even moreso, I am so very glad that you told me you enjoyed that!!!!