Back from a hiatus

Finally back after a self imposed hiatus.  Lots of things have been going on, some good, some not so good that forced me to take a break from the whole Facebook for Kit Cat Our Miracle and the blog.  I had to re-evaluate why I was doing this whole thing.  I realized that I needed to get back to what I was trying to do in the beginning and just have it be a place to record Cat's progress.  By early August of this year, I was trying to get more likes and have contests, in order to get more likes.  That was not the original purpose of this diary of a sorts. So, now I am just going to post when I feel like and not care who is commenting, how many likes we have gotten and how many people have viewed it.

Cat has started another year at her school. This year she is doing all day pre-kindergarten four days a week. The morning session she is in a typical classroom with all typical peers with no aide or special education teacher. She has done really well in this situation and loves circle time. Although she is not initiating play with her peers, her peers will engage her and she will join them in play.  The afternoon session she is in a special education setting with typical peer models but with an aide and a special education teacher. It is more structured and they work on her IEP goals which are primarily focused on communication, socialization and adaptive/self help skills. She loves the afternoon sessions too. It was a rough start at first because she was used to nap time in the afternoon, but now that she has adjusted she is doing great.

Cat is still doing her horseback riding lessons with a therapeutic bent.  She will compete in her second special needs horse show competition next month.  She is also doing  PT, OT and speech at her school while doing outside speech therapy at our local children's hospital.  As always, we use Play Project to interact with her and its her main therapy that she gets at home.  It has become a way of life, so it has become natural to just do it with her everyday.

Finally, we are half ass attempting to toilet train her.  I don't think she gets the concept completely but maybe I don't give her enough credit as she is very smart.  But some things are harder for her, and this is one of those things.  We have two years to get her trained before kindergarten, so I think it will happen this coming year for sure.

Overall, Cat is doing great. She can now answer yes/no questions, she can tell people her name when asked and she is stringing 2-3 words together. She may not be considered fully verbal but she is getting there slowly.  Her severe apraxia makes getting the words out difficult, but we think with the extra speech she will overcome that giant hurdle with time.  Cat plays with toys in an appropriate manner and has taken an interest in the various holidays and loves to spend time with her grandparents and uncles in addition to us.  She is still obsessed with Minnie Mouse, but we have added horses, Doc McStuffins, My Little Pony, and Power Puff Girls to the mix.

Well, that is all for now. I can't believe my little miracle will be four years old next month! She has changed so much and is truly my little hero and light of my life.