Buttered Bread
Just now Zoë came out of the kitchen carrying three things. A slice of bread, an open tub of butter blend (spread), and a very large (and thankfully dull) kitchen knife. She was clearly trying to butter the bread but not having much luck (and with a knife like that I can see why). Naturally, I took the knife away and got a proper butter knife and helped her butter her bread.
The eating of buttered bread is a relatively new development. Next step, I think I might try putting some cinnamon sugar on for her as a special treat.
Dog, arf, arf!
Yesterday, Zoë played, "I'm a dog" off and on most of the day. She has a little pram toy (several plastic toys strung on an elastic band that you put over a pram for a baby to play with) that she figured out how to use as a necklace, but she seems to think it's a collar (I think she worked out that dogs have collars from watching Wallace and Gromit). So when she puts it on and crawls around on all fours, she's a dog, and she also says, "Dog," and "Arf, arf." It's actually pretty cute to watch.
Yesterday when she was a dog she went over to the cat's bowl and started to fiddle with things. I told her to leave the cat's food alone. She sat back on her haunches and looked at me and said rather indignantly, "Dog!" It was very obvious that she was saying, "But I'm a dog! Dogs eat from bowls on the floor!"
I informed her that cats don't like it when dogs eat their food. She still seemed a little put out by it, but went off to be a dog somewhere else.
Today she's being a dog again. I put on Wallace and Gromit and she came over with the "collar" and said, "Dog! Arf, arf!" When she went to the cat bowls I said, "Leave the catfood alone. Cats don't want dogs to eat their food." She did look at me with a disgruntled expression, but she left the dishes alone and came back to watch some more Wallace and Gromit.
So, well, it's been clear for a long time that she has no problem with imaginary play (one of the signs of autism is that the child thinks and plays very literally and is unable to conceptualize things imaginatively). In fact, since her only problems appear to be speech (which is always improving) and social (which is also improving), I'm thinking that she's probably not autistic, but just speech delayed. She does have some characteristics that might be autistic, such as being an extremely fussy eater, but really, any kid can be a fussy eater, so I'm not putting too much stock into that one.
Her speech/comprehension and social level are around what you might expect in a normal two-year-old now, and there's been no sign of her "losing" previously learned language (which sometimes happens with speech delayed children). When her speech improves more, she will hopefully be able to understand more complex social behaviors such as, "Don't pick your nose in public," or "Don't stand so close to people," and "That's not yours, so you can't just go over and take it." Right now she acts on impulse, mostly because she doesn't seem to understand that her behavior is socially improper, and she can't understand complex explanations. She is getting better at sharing and simple interaction with other children though, so that's progress.
Anyway, by the time she's in prep (the grade before first), she'll be six and will have had three years of speech therapy and two years of early intervention, with three years of pre-school for the social interaction. With any luck and a couple of prayers, she will hopefully be able to fit in with peers without extraordinary difficulties.
Sing a song!
Yesterday, I was helping Zoë wash her hands and I was singing a little song to her (a mambo, actually). I stopped and she grinned and said, "Sing a song." So I did sing some more.
Last night she understood a new simple command, too. Her dad was in the kitchen and he gave her a package of nappies and said, "Take the nappies to Mama." Zoë wasn't entirely sure what he meant, but he motioned toward the family room, and she came around the corner and saw me holding my hand out and figured it out. I thanked her and told her she was a good helper. She ran back to the kitchen all smiles and her dad praised her and told her she was a good girl, and she said, "There you go." That, you see, means that somone has been given something, and she was basically saying, "I'm a good girl because I gave the nappies to Mama."
Unfortunately, she also burned her finger last night. She was helping Daddy cook (she kept telling him to "stir") and when the food was done he turned off the burner and moved the pan off the heat. Apparently, Zoë stuck her finger on the hot burner. Ouch!
Every kid does it, I know (Andrew grabbed hold of a hot soldering iron when he was a little boy!), but it's still pretty awful when it happens. We got her to hold the burned finger under running water and she cooperated, and then she actually cooperated further by sitting with her finger on an ice pack for some time. She normally hates having ice on her, but I'm guessing she realized that it felt better to have her burned finger on the cold pack.
Today she's got a blister on her index finger. It's not the biggest blister I've ever seen, and it's not raised up, but if it pops too soon, it's going to be difficult to manage, as it's near her first finger joint.
Oh, well. She certainly won't touch the stove again.
Holidays
Zoë's doing well. SHe seems a little bored with it being school holidays. She managed to unwrap the ribbons on the handle of my wedding bouquet (something that took me about an hour and a half to get right when I put the bouquet together in 1999). She also unwrapped and opened someone's engagement present (it's a present, it's to be OPENED!) and has generally been meddlesome and restless.
We did go out yesterday, though, and she seems happier today. She was a little rambunctious at the shopping center, had a bit of a tantrum when I wouldn't let her go and take some other child's toy, but the tantrum wasn't actually that bad. It was mostly crying, rather than screaming and she actually let me hold her without headbutting me or kicking. She squirmed a good deal and tried to get down, but she wasn't unrestrainable and she didn't shriek or anything, so it was all right.
She did get a little rude in the hair cutting place. Andrew got his hair cut first and took the kids for a walk while I got mine done. He came back shortly before I was finished and Zoë went for a bit of an explore around the shop, including opening cupboards! Finally she climbed up into one of the chairs and one of th other hairstylists combed her hair for her. Zoë quite enjoyed that. She enjoyed the chocolate eggs by the cash register more, though, I think.
We also have a new game. Apparently, it's called "Tasty Tasty". It involved me saying "yum yum yum" and making eating noises and motions on her ears, after which I say, "Mmmm, tasty!"
The first couple of times I did it, she reached up somewhat cautiously to feel her ear, to make sure it was still there. Once she decided it was just a game and I wasn't really eating her ear, she decided she liked it. Now she comes to me now and then and says, "Tasty Tasty!" to me, wanting me to give her a cuddle and have a nibble of her ears. Earlier she even said, "Tasty, tasty, nice girl!" because sometimes when we play I say "Tasty girl!"
At the moment, she's crying and won't be consoled. "Sleeping Beauty" was on before (Miranda chose it) and they were watching. In the middle of one scene, the DVD just froze, which it does sometimes if a DVD has a scratch or is smudged or dirty. I tell them over and over not to handle the DVDs for this very reason, and before I put it in I did wipe the fingerprints off of it, but I must have missed a bit.
Anyway, the DVD froze and I had to take it out and clean it again. Zoë was very unhappy about this. She ran out of the room when it froze, and when I put it back in and started it again, she got even more upset. She did NOT want to see it started again (I'd forward to the scene where it left off, but I don't have the DVD remote just at the moment). So she's just crying and doing her best to avoid looking at the television now. She went to the potty and then was going to play in the bathroom for a while (I didn't let her), and now she's in the kitchen crying and poking around in the fridge and generally complaining. My guess is that when the DVD reaches the same scene again she'll come back and watch some more.
Oh, one other language breakthrough. She actually asked, "What's this?" Andrew was unpacking some groceries he brought home and she was quite taken by the bottle of liquid dish detergent (you have to admit, a lot of those bottles are very pretty, with jeweltone colors). So she just asked her dad, "What's this?" I believe it's the first time she has ever asked that.
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