Being Careful What You Wish For...

One of the first things that clued us in about Olivia's condition was the way that she would so completely ignore us. She would focus on something and nothing short of a bomb would get her attention. Of course, we had her hearing checked...3 times....After that, her difficulties making sounds was another sign. In the past 4 years, J & I feel like we've been doing anything we can think of to help her to become part of the crowd and improve her ability to communicate. We are making progress but still have a way to go.

Olivia has 3 new phrases that have come on all of the sudden--probably within the past week and a half. I'm not sure I like any of them. The first two are related to her ability to 'tune us out'. Whenever I ask her questions that she doesn't want to answer, she has stopped ignoring me (I have the ability to be pretty darn annoying when I want to be and I have not been letting her get away with ignoring me--I get louder and closer and just generally obnoxious). Now she simply says "I'm not listening to you" and sticks to this phrase as her response. While irritating, it's a pretty good solution on her part. This is typically followed by the 2nd phrase, "I'm not talking to you". The second phrase is used when she can't quite find the words or just doesn't want to use them...

Finally, it brings us to the 3rd phrase--one that I should've seen coming. This phrase is used a LOT and not always appropriately. It essentially is her new default to answer to any response that is something she doesn't want to hear..."It's NOT FAIR!!!!". She even has a little of Jocelyn's drama included in it which makes it hard not to smile.

Even though her new phrases are showing off some of Olivia's fiery personality, I have to keep from smiling when I hear them because it just shows me that we are making progress toward her becoming independent and expressing herself...

Oh, yeah, and we are also going through a 'pink boot' phase. Sunday, we took the girls to get some much needed pants and shoes for fall. Olivia latched on to a pair of pink boots and hasn't taken them off since (well, she does for bath time but they go right back on after that). She's even taken naps in them and wears them to school with her shorts. We considered that this was not something that we should give in to, but the phrase 'pick your battles' always comes to mind lately. This is not one I'm fighting over...it's such a nice touch with the swimsuit, I think everyone will be wearing it soon anyway :)