Money Hungry

A week ago Thursday, Joy's day had an unusual little glitch.

It involved one of Joy's fine-motor practice tasks, putting coins into her mission-bank from church. The bank is a globe-shaped receptacle to help kids save their coins for denominational projects (we've helped dig wells in Haiti, and support an orphanage in Benin). For Joy to practice dropping the coins in the slot, an adult gets the small stash of quarters out from the base of the bank and gives them back to her to drop in.

In general, she's gotten very good at it. But a week ago Thursday, she tried a new innovation. With one of the quarters, instead of putting it in the bank, she put it into her mouth.

I bet you can guess where it went from there. Her babysitter said that the look on her face as it went down the hatch was priceless! She was so not expecting to consume that coin.

We've not been particularly worried, having seen no particular ill effects. We did call the doctor, and they pretty much told us to watch for the quarter's exit -- and we probably don't need to worry as long as we don't see any signs of discomfort, lack of appetite, coughing, etc. She's continued to eat well, and doesn't seem distressed.

I guess we maybe should've been addressing Joy's constipation issue before this happened? It makes it... how shall I say... challenging to determine whether she's successfully gotten this thing out of her system or not. We have not yet observed its passage, four... erm... movements later. It's possible that we missed it. I guess if it doesn't show up soon, we'll have to call the doc again.

Poor kid, coins and cherry bombs. I'm amazed that she still enjoys food at all.

Hard to Handle

Remember back a couple of months ago, when I posted about the door handles on our cars?

The handle on the Honda Fit, Joy could easily manage. You just hook your fingers or thumb under the handle and exert moderate pressure upward. Piece o' cake.


The one on the CR-V, she was not able to operate. You have to choose the correct half of the handle, wrap your hand all the way around, and pull outward with significant pressure. Didn't come easily.


So we worked on it bit by bit.

First, I wrapped Joy's fingers around the handle for her, and then put my fingers on top and opened the door hand-over-hand.

Then, when she got the hang of grabbing the handle, I pulled on her wrist (so she had to get her grip tight enough to keep hold through the pull).

Then, I moved the pull-help back to her elbow.

Then, I started asking her to make the pull, and only helped a little.

On Thursday, Joy began opening the door on her own.

This process took several months, practicing at least every other day, sometimes every day, sometimes more than once a day. But the resulting increment of independence is a beautiful thing.

(Barbara/TherExtras, here's lookin' at you!)

Stacked

Bristle-blocks work best (they stay together better) and it helps to stack on an alligator-toy that makes noises when pressure is applied. Joy does not crack a smile as she stacks these things. She's doing it under a certain amount of protest.

But she's DOING it. With very little help.

P.S. Night-time sleep has been pretty good lately too. (Did I just jinx it?)