Getting better all the time
Well, Zoë is showing progress all the time. Her speech is getting more expressive and she's saying things on her own, without prompting. She still doesn't talk very much, but when she does, it's in context and she's using sentences (two words, usually) that she's forming herself.
She's also catching on about not doing a poo in her pants, finally. She doesn't usually say she needs to go, but if we ask her if she needs to, she'll say no (usually she says, "All done," which is what we say when we're done on the potty). Sometimes we just take it upon ourselves to put her on the potty, based on her body language and other signs, and when we do she normally will cooperate. When we put her on the potty, she at least makes the effort to go. She's been accident-free for some time now.
We haven't even started any serious bladder training yet. We've had enough difficulty with the bowel training, so I'm going to just relax a while and go with it. I'm hoping that when she starts early intervention in a few months they'll be able to help me with that (they're aware of the difficulty of potty training speech disabled/autistic children).
Last night, she did something I didn't know she was actually capable of. She had her sister's doll, and Miranda didn't like it one bit. I told Zoë to give it back to her sister, and she actually did. I was very surprised, to say the least, and we praised her all over the place for being a good girl. This must be something she learned at pre-school (and thank heaven for pre-school).
And, miracle of miracles, she's started going to bed willingly. Her bedtime routine includes having her vitamin/iron supplements, then having her teeth brushed, and then sometimes she'll lie down on her little fold-out couch with a blanket for a while (sometimes falling asleep there), and sometimes she'll trot off to bed herself and climb in. Pretty amazing, to say the least!
She's still having the occasional tantrum when she's very bored, very tired, or very hungry, and she's still way behind in speech, of course, but all in all, there's a lot of visible (and audible) improvement.
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