Therapy: Speech

    One type of speech that is fun, is singing. My friend's mom, Nina, has come over a couple times to do Music Therapy with Emma. I need to invite her over again soon though. Since her daughter doesn't have any kids of her own yet, I think Nina has "adopted" Emma as her own grandchild and often asks me to share pictures and videos with her so she can put them on her Facebook page for her friends to see. It's been a while since her last Music Therapy though- about four months!

   Another type of speech is reading. I have been slacking on that though, and then feel like a bad mom when I choose to put her to bed ten minutes early so I can watch my shows on Hulu or just go to bed sooner myself. I recently returned a bunch of books to the library that I hadn't read to her during the three weeks I was able to borrow them. But she has a whole shelf in the closet packed with books that she has been given, or ones I have bought for her myself that I have never read to her yet! I need to get back in that reading groove. My mom has a subscription of monthly baby "magazines" (only about ten pages) for Emma called Hello by Highlights, but each one has a different theme and those are all really cute, with durable pages. We're behind on reading those too!
   This book photo below is old, from July too? But super cute with that big smile! I had two pictures of her with the Madeline and the Cats of Rome book, but I deleted them while clearing out my phone the other day. I'll have to purposely plan to make a blog post all about reading to motivate me. Although expanding Emma's mind and future vocabulary should be motivation enough! Right? ;)
   The two books we read last week were Loved to Bits by Teresa Heapy and Katie Cleminson, and one about a mommy and baby bear at bedtime and the baby bear couldn't go to sleep until he got his goodnight kisses. No pictures were taken during those readings.

   As for actual Speech Therapy, no, Emma cannot talk and we have no idea when she will or if she will be mostly non-verbal? Nobody has talked to us about that or made any guesses, but right now she is quiet most of the time and when she does "talk", it's just various baby sounds, which are nice to hear. Her speech therapy has to do with mouth muscles and learning to swallow so we can give her baby food. It is something we have been working on since April when she passed her swallow study at the hospital, but a few weeks ago Christine (the therapist) got a little more stern, in a very friendly way, telling us how it is really important for Emma to practice eating more than two times a week while she is there. So she told us to start feeding her twice a day for thirty minutes in her high chair. We are doing pretty good with it. Sometimes we have a lot on the schedule with doctor appointments or other outings and we can only feed her once. Emma really didn't seem to like it the first couple of times I tried with her, which made Michael think maybe it had more to do with the flavor. I don't think she likes mangos and that was one of the flavors of the orange baby food in the photos (a banana, mango, carrot mix). So we started sticking to one flavor at a time - bananas, pears, apples. We're saving the sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving! ;)
    She does put her hands up a lot to block her mouth, or turn her head, or grab the spoon with her strong little muscles and try to throw it. She did throw her bowl of bananas one night, which was my fault for stepping away to send a text, knowing very well that this girl loves to throw things. The bowl fell to the ground and pureed bananas splattered on the blinds behind her. She laughed. I did not. But overall, especially when we are playful about it, she will tolerate a few small spoonfuls and actually seems to swallow some of it. A lot does end up on her bib though, and she is requiring a few more baths and body wipe-downs now, like any other baby learning to eat, I guess.

   The pizza photo is an inside joke because when Christine was telling me about keeping a food diary, she sent an example sheet and under "food given" it gave the example of "a slice of pizza"! But I guess that chart was specifically for older kids? Emma definitely did not eat any of the pizza on the plate, but she was curious enough to stick her fingers around in the cheese and the marinara sauce. 

    In the previous post, talking about physical therapy and occupational therapy, I mentioned that all three of these therapies sometimes intertwine. Here are a few pictures from a session (in September?) when Christine had Emma play and squish and pull apart Play-Doh for the first time, as well as doing some stacking of cups followed by knocking them down, which Emma loved. Other things that Christine used to do before we really got into feeding and drinking water more often is read books to her and blow bubbles.

   Christine also does a lot of cheek stretches with her (having her index finger in a hook shape and pressing against Emma's cheek while sliding her finger from near Emma's ear to her mouth) and lip stretches (pushing her upper lip down and her lower lip up, often at the same time, to create a mouth closing motion). We do this when we put the spoon in her mouth to get her to close her lips around the spoon. This is hard for Emma because of the shape of her jaw/mouth. Her back teeth will be closed and touching, but the front eight teeth separate in the mouth, so it is hard for her to close her lips. She always sleeps with her mouth open. Her lips can be closed since she has done "kissy lips" in the past, but even now when she gives kisses she has her mouth open and just leans her body forward and her head back. I notice that Christine will put her finger under Emma's chin to get her to swallow, but she said it takes Emma a few tries or she has to have a lot of water, baby food, or saliva in the back of her mouth before she will swallow.

   Christine has been with Emma since February and we had gotten so comfortable with her that we would even sometimes give hugs before she left. I have sent her texts many times during the week with pictures or questions regarding feedings. Today was Christine's last shift with Emma since her boss said she had to be rezoned and now we are just under a mile beyond that boarder. I joked and said I could walk Emma a mile down to the corner that she covers and we could do therapy on the sidewalk! But next week we start with the new girl, Erica. I told Christine that when Grace (Emma's first physical therapist) had her last session in March, I took a few pictures of her holding Emma, so Christine definitely wanted to do the same thing.

   *In the bottom left photo it looks like Emma was about to give her a kiss! Emma always puts her hand on our chin before giving the kiss so she can push our face away -and laugh- right after.
    I also made sure to give Christine one of our 2019 Christmas cards before she left. (Yes, we got them taken, ordered and delivered early, just like last year! I like taking my time, hand addressing them and adding festive stickers and washi tape to the envelopes before the rush of the season.) And since Christine isn't moving away, hopefully she will still be able to make visits every once in a while. :)