Outreach Schedule with Megan (Thursday January 6 to Saturday January 8)

January 6, 2010, Thursday

9:00-11:30 Megan and Liam Play
11:30-12:00 Q&A session
12:00-1:00 LUNCH
1:00-2:00 Megan and Liam Play
2:00-2:30 Observe and Feedback to Ashley
2:30-3:00 Observe and Feedback to Shelby
3:00-3:30 Observe and Feedback to Jessie
3:30-4:00 Q&A

January 7, 2010, Friday

9:00-11:30 Megan and Dusya Play
11:30-12:00 Q&A session
12:00-1:00 LUNCH
1:00-2:00 Megan and Dusya Play
2:00-2:30 Observe and Feedback to Volunteer 1
2:30-3:00 Observe and Feedback to Volunteer 2
3:00-3:30 Observe and Feedback to Volunteer 3
3:30-4:00 Discuss Program goals for meeting and Q&A

January 8, 2011, Saturday

9:00-12:00- GROUP MEETING

Highlights of our programs as the year ends

Hi ladies, As the year ends, we have several things in mind:

1) Megan is coming!!!! She will be in our house on Thursday, Jan 6th, Friday, Jan 7th, and Saturday, Jan 8th. The group meeting will be on Saturday Jan 8th. Please save those days and particularly the group meeting day because this is very important training we will get from Megan. Details of the agenda to come.

2) We are starting new exercises for Liam to get rid of his tip-toeing and decrease his touch-sensitivity and we need all of  you to learn them. Please scroll down in this blog and go to the previous page of "older postings" because there are 9 videos of Liam and Yulene, his new OT for reflex integration. Each video goes from 2 to 5 minutes. They are short and easy. Please watch them several times and do these exercises with Liam every time you see him, even if you only come once a week to play with him. Consistency and persistance are the key to get rid of the tip-toeing.

3) Tony is going back to school on Jan 4th, so that is really huge for us. Running 3 programs in the last 5 months has not been easy logistically. We have been blessed to be able to help him in his development and we think he is ready to enter the school system. As all of you know, in the last 5 months, we have worked with him on several fronts:
- Evaluation at Brain Balance to know his strengths and weaknesses
- Gluten-freen, Casein-free, Soy-free, Sugar-free diet + great supplements to strengthten his body and inmune system
- Sequencial homepathy to detox his body and strenghten his inmune system
- NAET to get rid of allergies and strenghten his inmune system
- Speech to improve his language
- Occupational therapy to balance his sensory system and nervous system
- Physical therapy to strenghten his body
- Quiropractor to help straighten his shorter leg and balance his nervous system
- Orthopedic doctor to confirm the shorter leg is growing fine
- Reflex integration to get rid of primite reflexes
- Integrative listening to improve brain processing
- Many many hours of one-on-one SonRise play to give him undivided attention and improve his socialization skills.
- Many hours with his brother and sister to understand them better and see that they are improving and interacting with him more and more.
- Many excursions to his favorite places (e.g. NASA!) to develop his interests.
- Lots and lots of love so that he knows he is perfect, super smart, super sweet, and we all root for him
Of course, after all this, we are exhausted :) The result? A happy, calmer, more attentive kid, who has improved in all fronts! Thank you to all of you who have helped us in these last 5 months with Tony's program. Please keep sending him all positive and loving energy. We will continue working on him when he goes back to school.
To end, here are some pictures of Christmas' Eve!

Video Liam & Yulene 9/9 (Pressure Joints and Hair)

This is the last of nine videos of Liam with Yulene. Please take a look at the videos several times and start practicing this exercises with Liam in all your sessions. Being consistent and persistent, we will be able to help him to stop toe-walking and to decrease his touch-sensitivity.

Video Liam & Yulene 8/9 (Eight in the back Part II)

Video Liam & Yulene 7/9 (Jump & Squat Part II)

Video Liam & Yulene 6/9 (Jump & Squat Part I)

Video Liam & Yulene 5/9 (Eight in the back Part I)

Video Liam & Yulene 4/9 (Pressure ears and hair)

Video Liam & Yulene 3/9 (Toe rotation)

Video Liam & Yulene 2/9 (Foot stretching)

Video Liam & Yulene 1/9 (Spinning)

This is the first in a series of 9 videos I am posting about the new exercises we need to do for Liam to eliminate his toe-walking. I will post the 9 of them and then I will describe what Yulene, his reflex-integration OT, wants us to do at home.

Mark your calendars - Megan is coming back!

Megan and I are in the process of deciding on dates for her outreach. For now, we have talked about January 6th, 7th, and the morning of the 8th. She would dedicate one day for one kid, the other day for the other kid, and the 8th for the group meeting with all members of the team. We will be scheduling also times for her to observe some of the members of the team and give specific feedback. Finally, we will have lots of time for questions and answers, so start thinking of questions for her. Megan's visits are always great and is free training for our team members. The more time you attend, the more you learn about SonRise.

Last conversation with Megan - Dec 3rd

Here are my notes from my last consultation with Megan:
Liam

1. We said that there are days when Liam looks overwhelmed sensory wise. His sound sensitivity is high. He does not tolerate clothes. In those situations, Megan wants us to “give Liam more control” and lots of time in the playroom with us following his lead. I am convinced Liam will feel better with his senses very soon becuase we are moving to a new phase in the homeopathy at the end of December.
2. When Liam does not look overwhelmed, we can still challenge him. For example, he is LOVING the game of drawing on the whiteboard and writing sentences about the drawing. He talks like crazy and makes requests and is very engaged and his attention is completely in the game. I have pictures below of him with this whiteboard. He has played with several of you already.

3. Liam is asking “GIVE ME …” a lot, which is great. Keep celebrating and using also the other sentences in the other signs on his wall. Also, if there is a time you don’t understand him and he is saying “GIVE ME” but the rest is unclear, you can use sentences like “Liam, let’s slow down, I am not sure what you are saying”, “Let’s try again”, “Hold on”, “Could you speak a little slower?”. That way her realizes we are really trying to understand his sentence.

Dusya

1. Teach pronouns. She already knows several, but is confusing them sometimes. Megan told me to put signs on the wall with pronouns. When you talk, make two sentences, one without a pronoun and one with a pronoun. For example:

“The puppets are going to school” – “they are going to school”
“Zoe is hungry” – “She is hungry”
“Santa loves cookies” – “He loves cookies”

2. Megan things the throwing things from closets/shelfs could be an “ism”; she likes to create piles. I told her that it is all around the house and it takes time to clean. She says to put some boundaries to it in the playroom and more boundaries outside of the playroom. She says she should not contradict her with “No no no” and “yes yes yes yes” because that creates a power struggle. She says that if she complains or cries when cleaning up the messes, or when preventing the messes, we should say: “I hear you, but we don’t have a choice.”

3. When we cannot help Duchis immediately (specially outside of the playroom when were are busy with the other two kids), and she needs to wait, we should congratulate her and tell her “thank you so much for waiting”, “it is so important to learn to wait.”

Christmas in the playroom

Duch is having a great time with Christmas activities. Just today Ashley and the puppets wrote Santa Claus letters, Kenia acted out the Gingerbread man story, Catherine and her built a Christmas House, and Cari and her made cookies with the gluten-free play-do Cari brought. What an amazing day for Duch! Keep thinking Christmas, she loves it and she is interacting, talking, and learning like crazy!

BTW, I am pretty proud of my Nativity this year. Check out the 3 houses Duchis has built in her playroom, which are now part of the Nativity.