Life at Indoors in January

We think it is time to get out the ball tent again.  Olivia has been playing with all of her balls again. 

All 250 of them!  The nice thing is that she keeps herself occupied playing and experimenting with them for long periods of time.  

 We are working on blue and red these days.   We are following the advice of so many who have worked with kids with Ds and presenting words early in her life.  There are words she clearly recognizes like bear, ball and Elmo.  She LOVES her cards with words and those she walks off with a happy grin so pleased that she has this wonderful prize!  A word!  She also is learning the sounds of letters.  We use the bathtub stick to the tub letters when I teach them.  She loves to hold an O or U and say the sound.  I have tried sandpaper letters with her but her hand and fingers still just go very limp and she is very uninterested.

 Olivia is working on wearing her glasses more often.

Olivia is a very happy child. (Except when she is not)

Another example of wearing her glasses in daily life.

We noted that we own the same Potty Seat as Elmo in Elmos Potty Time. We just now are watching this DVD and gearing up for the big event!  She very quickly was excited to learn that Elmo uses the Potty and immediately looked at me and excitedly signed Potty!  She now knows that even cool "people" like Elmo use the potty not just boring parents.  She has been having fun with sitting Elmo on this potty seat. She let me set her on the closed big toilet while she was fully clothed.  She has tended to be so cautious about new things that I just want to gear up slowly and get her used to the language and the various potties that we own around the house so that we don't start trying to train when she is scared of them.  I am reading up on the best methods for training a child with Down syndrome.  If anyone who has trained a child with Ds has any suggestions please pass along your experience.  I am hoping that the bravery I am seeing in Olivia in walking will carry over to potty training.  I have potty trained typical kids when I taught, but never a child with Ds.