OT, Pointing and a Big Sister's Advice

Walking to OT.

Today was Mae's second OT session at the new place, which also happens to be where Sadie has been attending OT for the past five months.

Sadie has been doing so well that this week she's going down to one session a week, a change that her therapist thinks is due in large part to her love of cooking and the fact that learning to cook has been great for her fine motor skills.

Mae arrived at the hospital and was incredibly excited.  She had been thrilled to ride in the carrier and was in a great mood.

She actually pointed and said "look" in an excited voice, as the hospital came in to view, which is huge for us (pointing isn't easy for Mae and actually saying look and pointing... I don't even have words to describe what an achievement that is!).

As a reward, and because we were running a few minutes early, I took her up on the over the street walkway and we looked down the way at the capital building and watched the flags blow in the wind and the cars drive by under our feet before heading to the waiting room.

It's not a smile, but that, my friends, is pointing.

When we got to the waiting room she excitedly raced back into the hallway that leads to the gym area and tried to wait outside the ID activated door to sneak in on her own.  I finally distracted her with the water fountain and we waited for the therapist away from the bustling waiting room.

Once we were in therapy gym, however, it was a struggle.  Mae's still testing what she can get away with in therapy and we also discovered that she's seriously terrified to even be in the room with one of the swings that they have (it's a large board swing and it happens to be identical to a swing that she ran into at her other therapy place, roughly a year ago).

Her therapists are both great, and once she gets used to things I'm sure it will be fine since OT, but today was tough.  She only wanted to go on the slide and any suggestions to bounce on a ball or play with putty were met with tears.  She settled down and was happy by the end, but the first half was rough on everybody.

When I got home Sadie was more than happy to offer her expert advice in this conversation:

And walking home.

Sadie:  "So can I go with Maggie to therapy tomorrow?"
Me:  "No... I don't think that's a good idea.  It's really early.  And... Maggie had a tough time at therapy today."
Sadie:  "She did?"
Me:  "Yeah.  She cried a lot."
Sadie:  "Well. Did you guys do some of what she wanted to do?"
Me:  "We did.  But we couldn't do that the whole time.  She had to do some of her work."
Sadie:  "Well.  Did you let her go down the slide?"
Me:  "Many, many times."

I found myself smiling by the end of the conversation because Sadie's voice as she asked if we did "some of what she wanted to do" mirrored mine when I have to ask the kids if they're playing nicely together.

And I smiled even wider to hear how protective she is of her little sister, since it was very clear in her tone how much she wanted to help.

Now to get some sleep before a busy day tomorrow that starts bright and early!