Some Ultra Anya Cuteness

I have a video that I thought might be fun to share and then a handful of pictures that I've taken on my phone.

The video shows 2 clips. The first one is from tonight. We were standing in the kitchen and in comes Anya wearing my high heel boots! She had gotten them on all by herself and was walking all over the house in them! The next one is at the grocery store. Anya loves for us to blow raspberries on her neck so through the whole grocery store she would throw her head back in the cart and blow to show me that she wanted me to do it over and over again. It cracked me up!

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She loves her sister's glasses!

Ready to wrap.

She's rockin' it!

Why do I buy toys?

Another version of a picture I posted on Facebook.  Brothers are so fun:).

Celiac Disease and a Lesson Learned

In all of the business of trying to keep Anya contained I haven't had a chance to mention that she was diagnosed with Celiac Disease.  In all of the blood work that our pediatrician did she screened for Celiac because it has a higher rate of occurrance in kids with Down Syndrome.  A normal number on this test is 4.  Our GI doctor said usually if a kid comes back with a number around 20 she will do an upper endoscopy to confirm.  Anya's number was over 100!!  No further testing necessary.  She is officially gluten free.  So of course, by default, my other family members are getting a ton less gluten in their diet.  I haven't made everyone else go gluten free but I make one dinner now, not one for them and one for her.  Our pasta the other night was brown rice pasta.  No one seemed to mind.  They even like some of her gluten free snacks and will ask for them over theirs.  Now get this....Oksana goes to school Monday and has one of her best behavior days in WEEKS.  Is this a coincidence?  I just don't know.  I do know that some people speculate that a gluten free diet helps kids on the autism spectrum.  I say speculate because the evidence is weak at best.  I might be grasping at straws here....OK I know I am grasping at straws but goodness if it helps even a little bit I'm all over it.

So I asked Oksana what she thought about going gluten free.  She was SO excited!  She wants to be like Anya and her special ed teacher, who is also gluten free.  I reminded her of the things she would have to give up and so far she is fine with all of it.  I really don't know how far I'm going to go with this but it certainly can't hurt.  In fact I really wish Evan would go gluten free too.  He has always struggled with GI issues and I think this would really help him.  That is a MUCH harder sell.  Let's just say he is less than thrilled with the idea :).

After yesterday's post about our lockdown and Anya's behaviors I wanted to give a quick update.  Anya has done so much better since we tightened her restrictions again!  In fact we have had little to no problems with the things she had been doing.  She can't handle the amount of freedom we were giving her at this point.  She was doing well with the firm boundaries which is exactly why we can't take them away.  That is my huge mommy lesson learned for this week! 

It's official....

The honeymoon is over.  After my last post my friend, Ellen, asked if it was possible that our honeymoon was over.  I really didn't think so.  We never had a honeymoon with Oksana so I didn't even know what a honeymoon looked like.  Now I can easily say it is over.  When Anya first came home our house was locked up better than a high security prison!  Through the first month she showed me that she could be trusted with a little less security.  We got lax about keeping doors closed that had child proofed door handles on them.  We  got a little more comfortable keeping the gate to the basement open and allowed her the freedom to go up or down to play as she pleased.  We trusted her to be in a room without adult supervision (always in ear shot though) without fearing that she would destroy anything or hurt a sibling.  Now....

WE ARE BACK ON LOCK DOWN.

Anya has lost almost every privilege we gave her and we are back to square one.  The honeymoon is over.  She can not be trusted for 5 seconds alone.  She has taken to smacking Oksana across the face, throwing things at her brothers and hitting them, finding every single possible thing she could do to get in trouble, etc.  At first I thought I just wasn't entertaining her enough.  I've used a lot of your suggestions and it is getting worse instead of better so we are on a high level of restrictions until she can learn what her boundaries are here a little better.  This morning was a good example.  She has cups with lids but they are not spill proof.  I have let her have free access to her drinks with  no problem until recently.  Now she will find a spot to sit and dump the water all over herself, so she has lost the ability to have control of her drink.  Then when Evan let her in his room for just a moment and then told her not to do something she bit him.  We are in a ZERO TOLERANCE mode on her behaviors because when we let some of them slide just a little, because we thought she could handle it, they came out with a vengeance.  This is how we have had to handle Oksana's behaviors too.  She is what we call a "given an inch, take a marathon" kid.  Of course we wanted to give Anya a chance to show us if she really needed that level of firm discipline as well and she has proven to us that she does. 

This makes my day a lot harder but that is OK with me because first of all, I know that the hard work I put in now will make my life easier later.  Also, I know that she will be in school next year so I just need to make it through homeschooling this year and do the best I can with what I have.  It also helps that I have talked to a couple of friends who have kiddos just like her.  They both encouraged me that this will get better.  They have confirmed that what I am doing is on the right path, given me some other tips, and encouraged me to stay consistent.  So now I can start praying that relief comes sooner rather than later!