Tony's graduation pictures - Enjoy!

Wilbarger Deep Pressure Brushing Protocol

We agreed in the meeting to do the brushing of Liam and Dusya more often, really on every session we have with them. Here are instructions from their OT therapist:

 - Hold the brush horizontally and apply deep pressure so bristles are completely flat against the skin. The child should not feel bristles or brushing. They should feel constant firm pressure.

- Brush the arms, back, and legs. Scrub palms of hands and soles of feet.

- Use long, firm, slow strokes for brushing.

- Never brush the stomach, chest, head, neck or face.

- Follow brushing with joint compressiono, 10x to fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles. These joints can be compressed simultaneously be getting onto all fours and bouncing on a bed, couch, etc.

- Repeat brushing every 2 hours while child is awake.

- Brushing can also be done over the clothes.

Reminders about playroom logistics

In the group meeting, we also talked about the playroom logistics and rules:

- Bring your purse upstairs and you can leave it in the closet.
- We talked about leaving the 2-hour sessions 10 minutes early to have time to: a) clean up the room, b) write notes about the session, and c) have a snack.  The kids can get a little break, too, and leave the room.
- Please, do not bring food in the playroom. We don't want to tempt Duch or Liam to want to eat food they cannot eat.
- Please, do not use your cell phones during the play sessions with the kids. We don't want to send the message that we are not present when we are with them.
- Don't use the facepaint to paint on paper; use it only for the face because it is special paint non-allergenic.
- Please clean the carpet ASAP if paint falls on the carpet.
- There will be two notebooks downstairs (one for Liam and one for Duch) for everybody to write a few sentences about the session (eye contact, language, games).
- We will start therapeutic listening pretty soon. Antonio will show you more about the headphones we will be using. It is 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in teh afternoon.

Thanks!

Summary of our group meeting

Thanks to everybody who came to our group meeting!! It was a really good meeting!

I. First, we went through the goals that Megan left, which are posted on the playroom doors now. Here are some comments about the techniques Megan taught us:

1. pauses and non-verbal gestures instead of asking the kids many questions


Different people have had different results with this technique, but in general everybody feels that Liam is using more spontaneous language, so that is fantastic!!

I reminded people what Megan told me in an email (here are her words):
"I think it's really important to ANIMATEDLY and EXCITEDLY wait for Liam to say something...even if it's one word that is GREAT because remember you are working on SPONTANEOUS communication with him. Also, share with the girls the assumptions they are making when they say Liam is "frustrated." Although this could be the case, we don't know for sure and, even if he is frustrated does that mean that we simply give up our goal or stop challenging him? Of course we don't want Liam to be frustrated but our role is to be his coach and encourage him especially through the goals that are challenging for him!"

We agreed to just use more dramatic and animated non-verbal gestures and to just wait for them to talk to us. This is perphaps the hardest goal we have ever had with Liam, so it is natural that he has some difficulty, but he can do it! :) He is doing it! :)

2. joining Duchis from the distance with a drawing of her zoo/circus/farm

Everybody felt that this technique is working great. Duchis is voluntarily leaving her Little People stuff to go to each of us, so that is FANTASTIC! Keep doing it, and when she comes to you welcome her excitingly and build on the game or introduce a new game.

3. choosing a prompt from the list of materials we have and keep reintroducing it in different ways throughout the session.

Everbody also felt that having an idea in mind before entering the playroom is being helpful. Liam and Duch seem more and  more open to play new things. Here are some games we discussed:
 
- Firefighters
- Guessing games (things in your hads, or things in a box, or cards)
- Paper planes, with Liam in particular
- Kid's camera - photographer games
- Peekaboo, with Liam in particular
- Simon says, with Duch in particular
- Doll house, both kids are being so much more creative with that!
- Blocks, same thing, they are so much more interested in blocks!
 
4. building on the hugging and kissing with Liam.
 
- create different types of kisses (shark kiss, monkey kiss)
- make crazy funny faces
- make crazy funny movements with your body
- create songs about hugs/tickles/kisses (my song is "Where is the tickle, where is the tickle ...?" with the music of "twinkle twinkle little star")
- vehicle rides, animal rides
- the idea is to become a toy for Liam
 
5. building the connection with the kids, show them how to be a friend
 
When in the room, be very appreciative of everything Liam and Duchis do and say.  Model to them how fun, loving, and nice is to have friends. Think that one day, when they do not need a playroom anymore, they will have friends of their age, so we need to teach them how to be with friends. Celebrate them and appreciate them a lot.
 

6. Duchis crying

We all commented how Duchis seems to be crying more. It could be the homeopathy, but in any case we need to be CONSISTENT.

- If Duchis cries and screams, we do NOTHING and just tell her: "You can cry, but I don't know what you want, so I will do nothing" or "If you cry, I don't understand what you want"
- If Duchis cries and speaks at the same time, be VERY SLOW and tell her: "I see what you want, but it is still hard to understand with all the crying. Can you tell me with your normal voice?" Don't give her what she wants quickly, TAKE YOUR TIME.
- When her voice changes and she tells you what she wants, then MOVE FAST and congratulate her and give her what she wants.

We also talk about what to do when she asks for things outside of the playroom. We agreed to start drawing stuff for her and to tell her that we will play with what is in teh room and that you can draw all these wonderful things for her. When offering an ALTERNATIVE or a DRAWING, be excited, like this is the best alternative ever.

Let's try all these things until our next meeting in about 3 weeks.
THANKS!

Mom and Duchis playing firefighters

Here are some pictures of me playing firefighters with Duchis. She had to rescue her stuffed friends (Elmo, Barney, the little Einsteins) from the shelves or from the top of the door. We also pretended to be in a fire truck with the chairs and the little fire truck. She was very interested! Everytime my hat will fall down, she will pick it up and put it on me! She also wanted me to wear her tiny yellow boots. I know Shelby tried this game with Liam and he did not want to wear the hat, but he did climb the ladder and jumped to her. Enjoy the pictures and keep thinking about more firefighting adventures!

Thinking about Tony's graduation and Liam and Duchis' future graduation

You know, when I first thought about Tony's graduation from pre-K next Friday, I was sad to think that only one of my kids will be in the graduation that day and my other two kids will stay at home. BUT then, my mom told me to think that my kids are all different individuals; not because they are triplets they are meant to have the same experiences. Tony gets to experience a graduation from "Great Beginnings" and that night will be a day to CELEBRATE my wonderful, sweet, unique Tony. Then, in a few years, we will have a graduation for Duchis and Liam from their SonRise program, and that day we will definitely CELEBRATE having run a SonRise program for them with the help of all of you who come to teach them how fun it is to HAVE FRIENDS. Each kid will have their graduations at their own time :)

Speaking about my beautiful kids, look at these pictures from our last excursion to the beach! Liam was the star of the trip!

Cleaning up tip from Megan

One thing we saw Megan doing when playing with Liam is that when Liam moved to a new toy, Megan will bring the second toy down and then she would tell him "since we are not playing with the numbers anymore, I will put them up and you can ask me if you want to play with them again." He did not complain and let her put away the previous toy. This way, Liam's room was always pretty empty with just one toy on the floor. This helped Liam to stay focused, since he did not have several "stations" of toys on the floor to jump from one to the other. Plus, when he wanted something from teh shelf, he had to ask away, which gave him another chance to use his beautiful voice!  With Duchis this method could be harder, but we could still try it with stuff that she is not very attached to.

GREEN LIGHTS from Duch and Liam

I was reading Megan's outreach notes and I liked this reminder:

"It's very important for you to remember your timing with when to introduce something. Add when there are green lights,

1)Looking at you
2) Looking at what you're doing
3) Looking at the shelf
4) Touching you
5) Verbalizing.

When any of those happen THEN try something!"