On A Roll

Ruby is on some crazy streak(s) these days! Her speech is improving all of the time, allowing her to string together broken sentences spontaneously. (When playing by herself, I heard her say, "You hurt? Doctor. No, happy now. OK, bye-bye.", and when she's playing with me she will say combinations of, "Come, sit here, Mommy. No books, puzzles, please.") And her maturity in some situations is blowing me away. She is walking into the grocery store with me more often now (as opposed to riding in the cart so I can contain her), and she is doing many things independently.

Yesterday was the Kindergarten Sneak Peak, and Ruby rocked it. We talked it up a lot at home, reminding her that while it was her same school, this was for 'big kids'. When she and I arrived, she held my hand as I'd asked her to, and waited in line for our table assignment. Once we arrived at our table, Ruby immediately sat down, in control of herself, and started to color with the supplies laid out for her. The teacher in charge of that table told me that I was to go with the adults, leaving Ruby there to wait for the rest of her table before walking to the Kindergarten classroom. I was hesitant, but Ruby stayed seated, coloring and listening for instructions. She was very controlled and obedient!

Ruby is also starting to progress with her fine motor skills, which is huge because that is so vital for handwriting. She holds her crayon or pencil correctly almost every time without assistance now, and she is getting better on trying to stay in the lines with her scribbles. When she was born, we focused on physical therapy immediately, to get Ruby to a place where she could sit, and crawl, and walk, because she had to be able to physically keep up with peers. And then we moved to speech because talking is important for early socializing. Occupational therapy for fine motor skills, while important, always took a back seat to the other two. So while we've always worked to strengthen her fingers through signing, play-doh, etc, the percentage of time spent on OT is way less.

In the last month or so, I've really hit this harder at home: we practice on the upright chalkboard a lot (that makes it a little easier), and we trace highlighted letters and numbers often. Ruby is really good at tracing her name (or anything) if it's highlighted on her paper first. Last week I broke down my verbal cues for her writing a capital "R" in a different way and all of the sudden she was making "R" on the chalk board. Then her teacher sent this home yesterday.

So exciting that she wrote this all on her own!