B-B-B-B Bunny

Here is more of a lighter post. Just some updated pictures and progress that is being made in the Penner home.

Jason thought it would be fun to put Lucy back in her "Gotcha Day" attire to see if it still fits. I think it is actually a little loose now versus the day we first met her. She is stretching out.
 

 There have been a few bunnies that come to visit our backyard recently. One morning Lucy spotted this little bunny. She ran to me and said "unny". (Yes, we will talk speech therapy later in this post.) At first I didn't understand what she was saying and when this happens I tell her to show me. She took me to the back door and showed me.

"Unny"

GREAT NEWS!: I think I can officially say Lucy is potty trained. Of course today she had two accidents, which is so unlike her, but for the most part she is wearing undies. We even bought new undies at the store to celebrate. :) This progress alone makes this mama ecstatic!

Now for speech therapy talk: Well, we had quite a hard time getting a regular routine started with speech therapists between bad weather and juggling multiple schedules. I feel like we are finally getting somewhere. Right now we have a speech pathologist coming twice a month working with Lucy and we also have a speech teacher coming once a week. Thankfully, at this point they come to our house for therapy. That will change this fall when Lucy will start going to ECSE (early childhood special education) classes in Mountain Lake. It is hard for me to think I will be sending off a 3 year old to school, but I am realizing more and more how far behind Lucy is in speaking and I know this will be the best for her. People ask me if she is talking or if she has any "words" yet. I don't always know how to answer that question. As the speech teacher said today, "she really imitates a lot of words, doesn't she." Yes, any word you say to her, she will try her best at repeating. It just does not sound like the words we say. She is missing beginning sounds, as in bunny. So, the teacher gives me an activity or focus for the week to work on with Lucy. This week we are working on "B", "P", and "M" sounds. We are also teaching her some sign language. I've been told that if a child sees an action done with a word, somehow the brain can correlate the two and they speak better because of it. So we have worked on "help me" and "want" along with some of the sign language we taught her when we first met her. I understand a lot of what Lucy is saying, but if a stranger off the street would hear her, they would have no clue. We are also working on colors which seems to be a little more difficult for her. She shows a lot of perseverance during speech lessons. It takes a looooooong time before she accepts help from anyone. I see a lot of independence in her. Today she made an Easter craft during speech and she peeled the backs of stickers for about 10 minutes.

cutting with scissors. eeek!

The finished product

I so appreciate every idea that these teachers bring to each session. I am not the best at thinking of activities to do with my kids to help with their vocabulary. I guess it has never been an issue with my other kids. :) I am learning so much about language development thanks to these ladies.

Ian has been involved with a 4H Lego Robotics team that was meeting every Monday evening since September or October (I can't remember). At the end of February they had their first Robotics tournament. It was a full Saturday with several different schools, home school groups, and other 4H groups competing with the robot each team designed. Now, I was thinking this was not going to be at all interesting. In fact, I brought my book to read just in case. Well, guess what.....it was so interesting I read only a couple pages in my book. I was impressed with the whole thing. The group was judged on several different categories including design of the robot, how well the team worked together on projects, a presentation they had to give on how robots can help senior citizens, among other things. I was impressed with the judges, most of whom were engineers or teachers. They asked the kids questions to make them think through the building of the robot. In fact, Ian's team received 1st place in the design of the robot. The judges were impressed with the design this group thought of. They had never seen a robot built like theirs before. I could go on and on about the day. I came away from it very impressed with the whole thing and excited that Ian was involved with such an experience. One that he can use in the future.

Ian's group in the green cheer on a team member while they run the robot through it's tasks.

Isabelle wanted to take a picture of all the family members wearing purple. So, here we are!