Where the Sunny Don't Shine

Sunny is still in pullups. Sunny loves her pullups. Sunny really really loves to pull them down, and kick them as far into the air and as far across two rooms as she can. This morning, the game began, and as always, one of us runs up to her yelling SUNNNYYYY--- YOU"RE NAKED!!!! and Sunny laughs. Christine came running in to do the usual as stated above, and little Sunny sat down on the floor, pulled her pullup pant gently up under her arm and tenderly hugged it while whispering and stroking it. For crying out loud, she was trying to convince us her pullup was her FRIEND!! We could not stop laughing.....which only makes the thing likely to be a long-term fun habit:))

-- mom

Here is an absolutely hysterical Facebook group for families of autistic children - a definite must read!!

You Know You Have an Autistic Child When.......

Welcome to the family, Tigger!

At any given time of day, you will find us siblings or mom carrying around a well-loved stuffed Barney, a Pluto dog, and a dragon Sunny named Johann (the rocking horse was Winnipeg, the dragon Johann...).

These are Sunny's favorite lovies, and she prefers that we 'babysit' them 24/7. It has gotten to the point where we jump in horror at the sight of a Barney alone, or a Pluto left on the counter.
The worst sign of (our?!) separation anxiety is when one of us will start to head out to the mail box, only to jerk back at the door and surreptitiously tuck a stuffed animal behind the bananas. Sometimes, we catch ourselves only too late...

As of yesterday, a new member was added to the lovies; a plushy, stuffed Tigger with the requisite open-and-close mouth. This one quickly became a part of the family, far more so the than the larger, plushy-er Pluto we are still encouraging Sunny to initiate (for 'big-and-small' potential).

Full recognition of a stuffed animal becoming a lovey occurs when it is thrust into our arms, while Sunny runs off to pursue greater endeavors. like the bubbles...:)

~C.a.e.l.i

Bubbles above, bubbles below...bubbles everywhere we go!

At this moment, Sunny is sitting in her bubble-and-ball-filled bath, having a great time. She loves watching the bubbles float down like rain--yes, I said float down like rain. You see, the current trend during bath time is to have the nifty new 'bubble gun' send out rapid streams of bubbles, to float down lazily onto her outstretched arms, creating a kind of bubble 'sleeve'. Oh yes, and the soap reservoir for said toy holds about half a cup of soap. And Sunny likes long baths. So every few minutes, the current bubble gun operator calls,
"Refill!"
4 minutes pass: "Refill!"
3 minutes, 30 seconds pass (no break this time): "Refill!"
I think I just heard it again...

Luckily, we have at least 3 large bottles of bubbles, and numerous small ones, due to Sunny's impulsive purchases, the latest of which was yesterday. Last week, the little toddler (or is she more of a kindergartner at 5??) attempted to cajole us into buying a small blue water bottle, because of the striking similarity the to blue bubble bottle (say that three times fast!) she had just scored.
And so the spring is filled with bubbles in the bath, bubbles in the living room, bubbles blown through the open window late at night...not by Sunny of course. oh, now and then she takes the wand and blows a few (she is quite good at it now!) but more often than not she likes to eat the contents on the wand. So, we siblings will continue to perfect our bubbles, all summer long...

~C.a.e.l.i

Almost had a broken toe situation with the little Ice Cream Cookie Monster here! Sunny was scavenging around in the freezer a couple days ago looking for ice cream (she's getting quite tall, apparently...) and before anyone could make it to her to help, she tugged on the bag containing 2 lbs of solid ground beef....and it landed squarely on her chubby foot. We couldn't tell right away if it was bruised, fractured, or broken, but it was definitely hurting her. So, we wrapped it up temporarily with tape and a sock (!), which of course she had to yank off again...and again... But, she was still walking on it, so we decided to wait and see how it was doing the next morning.

Next morning: blue and purple, swollen at the base, and a limping toddler. We took her down to the doctor's office, discovered the doctor was not in and that they couldn't do anything for it anyway, but the nurse recommended we take her to the ER. So we took her down for X-Rays - she wasn't letting us wrap it in ANYTHING, and if it was broken, we were going to have to get some kind of boot for her that she couldn't remove or it would never heal! Tape can only do so much, and it does even less when the toddler doesn't want it there. :-/


She was quite confused about the whole situation once we got there, but she seemed to notice that it was all the foot's doing. Nonverbal --> Verbal toddler occured when the nurse put the blood pressure cuff on her arm, and Sunny found out that trying to yank her arm away form the cuff only made it tighten. She took one look at the cuff and started yelling "ESCAPE! ESCAAAAPE!" all through until it was removed! She's verbal after all! OK, so maybe that doesn't count, but it totally fit the situation. It was an expression! Now that I think about it, her emotional verbalizations tend to come out exceptionally coherent....?



So, as it turns out, the toe wasn't actually broken, but it's incredibly bruised halfway up the arch of her foot, and she's still limping a little on it. :( Luckily, we already had foam squares covering the living room floor which are visibly a lot more comfortable for her than the hardwood floor in the dining room. Now it'll be just about a week to heal, instead of 6-8! And, alas, the freezer is ALWAYS locked now, so she has to bring one of us over to open it for her. Highly recommend installing the child proof refrigerator locks, because if it wasn't for the foam packaging on that meat that fell out, she would be in a cast right now, howling every time it got itchy.~

Sunny and BALLET!!

Yep, I can already see it coming....seven identical ballerina outfits for summer, complete with tutus and slippers. Her two new ballet DVDs and ballet costume came in only...last week?...and she's ALREADY copying the dance steps and wearing the outfit! She prefers to wear the ballet costume while doing the tap dance, though...

There's one instructional vide with tiny little kids in tiny little outfits, and another children's DVD with Swan Lake (which she really likes, I think it has something to do with all the straight lines of dancers doing the exact same thing - i think she's a little disappointed that we havn't followed suit yet, though :-/). I'm really surprised she took to it so fast, considering it usually takes her longer to warm up to a new idea - but I suppose learning to use the bathroom isn't as much fun as dancing...

Yesterday she unveiled a new interesting, albeit peculiar, spelling skill: "Peg The Hen" is actually spelled P T H - e h e - g e n; in other words,
Peg The Hen - Peg The Hen - Peg The Hen. I know. Cryptic. My thoughts precisely. And I have no idea how she learned that, but she was very careful about it.

Well, I'll be back with more updates tomorrow...particularly her new idea about the jelly bean bowl replacing the breakfast bowl... :)

Sunny tsunamis and the watery ball pit

Tonight, we stumbled upon a cheap idea for bath time inspiration! Sunny Rose gets iffy about the bath if we cannot creatively entice her. Voila! I have two bags of completely sealed ball pit balls. 200 total. lots of bath bubbles. Tonight, she has not stopped squealing and shrieking with laughter over how the balls move and make noises and bounce in the water when she makes Sunny tsunamis.........our spontaneous inspiration of a watery ball pit was an instant hit. Cost was 12.99 for a bag of 100 balls, of which I already own two......and they get nice and clean as a bonus. I wonder that this could be a hit with just about any child! Perhaps even young babies who can sit up......what a sensory experience for them!