Communication Burst and Sensory Foods

I intended on writing this post last week, but sometimes life takes over (and my need for a nap).

She is the reason I need a nap.  Looks all sweet and innocent, right?

Recently, Ellie Bear has been having a communication growth spurt.  Her signing vocabulary has exploded.  On the down side, her sensory issues are becoming progressively worse.  I am blaming a little thing call an incisor.  There is a pesky tooth popping through and causing my Chunky Chicken to gnaw on everything.  An entire board book was destroyed within seconds!  (suppose I better get a moving on scheduling the ABA eval).

Do you see the little tooth trying to poke through on the bottom?

Are you ready?  Ellie has a new word.  Yippie!!!!!  Happy dance!

"A-Vah".  Okay, I know that means nothing to most people.  What is an "A-Vah"?  Loosely translated from Bearish to English it means "A Dog".

The Sophie "A-Vah" is hiding from the bebe

How do I know this?  Well, oh wise one, my daughter consistently runs up to Sophie dog, the neighbor's dog, or the inflatable dog at the Big Bounce signing "dog" and yelling loudly "a-vah".   See, a dog.  Now, she cannot go along in life saying a-vah so our job is to say "oh yes, Ellie.  It is A DOG."  See?  Praise with subtle correction.  Is it working?  I have no idea.

Hi mama!  Like my crazy hair? 

New signs:
Berry
Mama
Cat--she only did this one once in speech therapy.  Completely unprompted and now she stubbornly refuses to replicate the sign.  I am pretty sure she is thinking "I am not a circus monkey trained to sign "cat" at your demand".

Why does Princess Ellie Bellie Bear of the Bearity Bears get to wear the tiara and I get. . . 

Hat--I am taking full responsibility for this one :)  She thinks the spaghetti strainer is a hat--yes, my fault.  I put it on my head acting goofy and now she toddles on up to me with a big grin and hands me the strainer.  Now I am not a mind reader and therefore I taught her to sign "hat".

.  . . .a strainer  and . . .

. . . an attack by the Sophie Puppy Paws?

Ellie Bear thinks I look lovely with my strainer.  Just look at how excited she is!

Then there is the head shake.  This is accompanied by the sign "all done".  She uses all done for everything.  A true toddler saying "no".  All done with food.  All done with medicine.  All done with diaper changes.  All down in the bath. . .notice a theme?

Finally, we are to implement high sensory input foods. I was supposed to start offering them to her last week, but after completing a gazillion loads of laundry and mopping up yucky curdled rice milk, I opted to hold off on introducing new foods.   Especially the spicy foods as those increase reflux.

Update: Zegerid is apparently the miracle reflux medication for us.  Only one, I shall repeat, ONE, Uno, одно́, Ein time since we started the medication.  Whoot whoot! Yippy skippy!  I am still not a huge fan of the $105 price tag, but to save my baby's esophagus and teeth. . . it is worth every penny.

Sensory foods are foods that are going to give intense oral input, i.e. sour, spicy, etc:
Lemons
Limes
Sour fruit sticks--Target has these cherry lime ones
Dried fruit--banana chips were not a big hit
Peppered Beef Jerky

Nom Nom Nom.  Beef Jerky.  Hello Sodium!

I had these big plans to capture a video of Ellie signing "Baby Signing Time" because it is just so funny. However, when prompted, she ran into the room and grabbed the remote and threw a hissy fit.  The 2nd time she signed "baby", retrieved her baby doll, and shoved it through the cat door.  Somebody just didn't want to cooperate.