What's Another Trip to Springfield?

So Lily will be starting occupational therapy. We weren't surprised. Based on Amy's evaluation, Lily is about a year behind in what's called "visual motor" skills. She can hold the pencil properly, but she can't take the pencil from one side of the paper to the other without moving the pencil, the paper, or her body.  From my research: "Visual motor skills refer to the ability to coordinate vision with the movements of the body." And "Visual motor skills are the skills a child uses to pair together activities that use the eyes and the hands. These skills are often referred to as hand-eye coordination and apply to more than just writing and sports."

She had a hard time following Amy's pencil moving around with just her eyes, and she couldn't follow the pencil all the way to her nose ... it's not her acuity - ironically she had her vision screened at school the same day she had her OT evaluation and her vision came back fine. She also showed some signs of sensory issues based on what Amy knows about her, and what we answered on an evaluation. (I feel like I can talk more about this once I've talked to Amy again) One of our responses, plus the fact that Lily tried to climb up what she thought was a ladder without anyone's permission, led Amy to wonder about what she referred to as "personal safety awareness." We've noticed this more than ever this weekend. She climbs all over the furniture, and was climbing on top of the playhouse outside on Saturday. Totally strange - and really happening more and more. So we'll work on that, plus some ways to help her cope with things that seem to send her off the deep end, like socks and tags.
Her therapy will be weekly on Mondays. She would start tomorrow, but she's not been well this weekend, so we'll probably keep her home. Imogene will love that. So, on the weeks that IBS has speech (every other week), we'll have Lily's OT Monday, Imogene Speech Tuesday, Imogene OT Wednesday, Imogene PT Thursday. The therapy center is closed Friday, or I'm sure I'd find reason to be there then too :)

Imogene amazes us every day. She's picking up new words (her 'sounds' for words that we understand) and can point to about 15 - 20 different animals in books. Her love for dogs may be expanding into other animals! We go get her foot brace on Wednesday.