The Birthday party + Social Story

Ok so this year Beebs has been invited to 1 play date and exactly 0 birthday parties. Last year she was a little socialite as far as parties go. I mean we even had to turn a couple down because we were getting too busy. As I'm writing this it just dawned on me that I threw a big birthday bash for Beebs in the beginning of the kindergarden school year. It was kind of the most awesome Bubble Guppies party ever! This year we settled on Disneyland passes. So ok lesson learned. Maybe thats how how kindergarden friends and parents got to see Sadie as a regular little girl and not as the girl your scared to ask about. Who am I kidding maybe it was because the parents got to see me look semi put together instead of the loch ness monster look I have going on every morning at drop off. 

Regardless when Sadie comes home now from first grade and asks why she missed so and so's party on Saturday and why did I lose the invitation, my heart aches a little bit. I'm kind of grateful that she could not imagine not being invited to said party. It of course is always an oversight on my part. I can just imagine what parents think if their kiddo did want to invite Sadie. "How would we include her if she can't walk? I don't want to be responsible for that kind of situation, will her walker make tire marks on my carpet?(well I would think about that ok)" I don't hate parents that think of these things before they don't invite my daughter, I get it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. So this is why when a mom came up to me last week and said "Kylie really wants Sadie to come to her sleep over birthday party next week. Do you think we could work something out?" I almost tackled her with a huge grateful hug! Don't worry I kept my cool. "Yes, Sadie will be so excited"(while I'm squealing inside). We worked it out where I am going to go and help and then take Sadie home late when everyone is going to bed. 

Sadie is soooo thrilled. The party is tonight! Of course we have been practicing all week on saying goodbye. I have been going over and over with her about how we are not spending the night and that the sleeping part is super boring anyways. I hope pray we can avoid a tantrum. Sadie's starting to get to that age where the other children shrink away when she starts to throw her fits. There are still some of those social separations that are getting more obvious as she gets older. ((((Deep Breath))) It's going to be fun.

Here is the social story we have been working on:

Kylie's party is going to be so much fun!

If I get really excited I can just laugh or giggle 

I don't want to crawl away from my friends when we are having fun.

My mom will be there if I need a squeeze

At nine o'clock it will be time for me to go home and my friends will go to sleep

I won't cry because I had so much fun at the party 

I can say "Goodbye Kylie thank you for inviting me!"

That will show my friends I am a big girl and then I can invite Kylie to my house for a playdate soon!

Hitting social story

Beebsism: Sadie hits. A lot. It's her first reaction to being frustrated, tired, angry. Sometimes she will just hitcha out of the blue for no reason. 
Our Solution: We came up with this social story and token system. I am determined to put this behavior on extinction!!! So we read this social story several times during the day. 

Then we introduce this token system:

These are the choices I laminated and she gets to velcro her choice onto the page.

If she hits she does not get her reward and we delete an app on the iPad. I take a dry erase marker and make an X over an app box and delete the app right in front of her. We haven't really used a negative consiquence in a token system yet, so here's hopin'. Her ABA team totally helped me with this. We agreed that I should start with apps that aren't her favorites and work our way up. She can always earn an app back by "choosing an app" as her reward and since it is in the "iCloud" I don't have to purchase it all over again:) 

BTW: that funny arrow sign on the rewards means "airplay". When you press that on the iPad, the video your watching will automatically show up on your TV (if you have the apple tv box). Sadie gets a big kick out of this, so we incorporated it.

Gray Baby Elephant

Sometimes I think I can get away with the normal things that everyday moms can get away with. Sometimes I can and sometimes I realize it's never worth trying! So Sadie has grown out of her cute pink car seat and according to her age, weight and height is ready for a booster seat. According to her trunk weakness and compulsive behavior I am not ready for Sadie to be in a booster seat. This means spend 300$ on a 5 point harness that will last her 7 more lbs. or invest in a special needs car seat retailed at an ungodly amount. Luckily I researched a program that helps families obtain special needs car seats and I have been working for the last 3 months on getting one for Sadie. Yesterday I got the call that the seat was finally in and I had just enough time to pick up Sadie from school, make the hours drive to pick up the seat and make it home for ABA therapy. Bro and I picked up Sadie and just started driving. Like any other mom I didn't want to hear the whining and whaling about how long the drive was going to be, so I didn't say anything and surprisingly they didn't ask. Bro fell asleep and Sadie watched a movie and all was well. We ended up in a small office where two very nice ladies then wheeled out a big gray car seat. What came next was Veruca Salt times 96. Sadie screamed "IT'S NOT PIIIINK!!!!!! I WANT PINK!!!" Tears welled from her eyes. " I- do -not -like- NEW- CAR -SEATS!!!!" She wouldn't stop screaming. As I frantically started to fill out paper work, the small office seemed to shrink smaller as we now had every staff members attention. They offered her stuffed animals, fruit loops, gold. Ok maybe not gold, I was a tad bit frazzled at this point. Nothing could console her. I realized then I made a huge mistake. WHAT WAS I THINKING! Sadie cannot handle big changes without preparation and I had offered none! I usually have a social story with pictures or  I have talked about the new event for like a week. Major Mom fail! A thousand silent car rides were not worth this. I often have wondered how it looks to others when I'm explaining away my childs very terrible behavior. Here these people were giving us a practically free expensive car seat and my daughter was appearing to be the hugest brat on the face of the earth. I can't express how much it bothers me when people only see this and not the very sweet side of Sadie. That was the longest 35 minutes of my life. I knew she would get over it, and I have certainly learned my lesson. I was however happy to send this email to the nice lady handling our case:

Dear Liz,

 I Just wanted to thank you for working so hard on getting us the car seat. It fits her perfectly! I also want to thank you for graciously enduring my daughters tantrum yesterday. I think you will be happy to hear that this morning Sadie was overly thrilled to announce to her kindergarten class that she got a brand new car seat and it is the color of a baby elephant!

Sincerely,
Nicki Smith

app for social stories

So Sadie survived 100 day! Yeah! Her teacher let me know she started to get really upset but they read her the social story again and before they got through it she was all smiles again! Sadie's ABA case manager and I have been scouring iTunes for an app to catalog Sadie's social stories. How nice would it be to be able to have them on the iPad and on my iPhone where ever we go. We finally found an app called notability. This week it's only 99 cents! So this app is awesome for social stories! Here is why:

1. you can type in your social story right on your iPad then add pictures from google or draw your own!
2. If Sadies therapist writes one, she can write it in the app on her iPad, then email it to me. It will be in a notability file so I just open it up and wal la it downloads into my collection of social stories!
3. You can record your self or your child reading the story
4. you can title it and organize it in a table of contents sort of thing.

So the only bummer is that it doesn't transfer to my iPhone. If anyone has found anything better please comment or email me!

100 years old

So today is Sadie's 100th day of school and she was supposed to dress up like a 100 year old. When I went to pick her up yesterday I asked her if she was excited to dress up. Her aid gave me the "don't talk about it look" Sadie immediately told me how she did not want to look like a hundred years old but teacher had come up with the "most wonderful idea" and said she could wear her cute yellow scarf.  Which told me she had a hard time with the idea and her teacher saved it. (She does have the best teacher in the world by the way). So it was decided she will not dress up like an old lady but her yellow scarf would be sufficient. This morning I tried talking her into baby powder in her hair but she was not having it! When in the bath she said "Don't let me take a very long bath today, I don't want to get wrinkly!" This coming from a girl who would live in the bathtub if I let her. I don't know why she is so uncomfortable with it. She loves halloween as long as there is no make up and changing of hair color. This November I dyed my hair dark brown and all Sadie could say every five minutes was "why did you do that to your hair mommy?"She will ask me every time I do her hair if I like her hair color the way it is. Like I have this special power to change hair color and she's scared I will do it to her. Now that I think about it, I bet gray hair was brought up in class and that is what triggered this response. 

Beebsism:Sadie has a difficult time with change in her daily routine (sometimes). She also gets upset about random things she is uncomfortable with, by upset I mean scream and hit.

Our Solution:Luckily we caught that Sadie might  have a hard time with the "hundred year old thing" but I can't stop the other kids from dressing up. Furthermore her aids will be gone for 3 days to attend ABA training so there will be substitutes. This combo makes for a difficult day for Sadie and I hate that! Social stories work really well for Sadie. It's something she can read to give her the appropriate behavior to deal with a situation. I wrote this one last night:

I also put an immediate award (an i pad ap she wants) if she can make it through the day without hitting. I usually don't do this on a daily basis, but for a day I know will be hard I implement a reward for the appropriate behavior. We went over it a few times before school and then I left it there with the teacher and aids. Now lets all just cross our fingers and hope this works!!! Any suggestions? What do you do to prevent meltdowns?

Sadie is sporting Granny Chic today. How more granny can you get then a walker and glasses? Just don't tell her that:)