Braska Bear

Mommy reporting: This pic is from 3/20/11… Braska was 4.  She wore braids a lot back then.  Now, not so much.  Not because I don’t want to do them, because she is just plain not able to leave them alone. She gets in a zone, touching them, moving them, feeling the texture.  Seriously interrupts everything she’s doing.  It’s hard to watch, quite honestly.  It’s like this often with her hair, especially the last 9 months or so, and it’s getting worse.  It’s a sensory thing, clearly, but I just can’t figure out what tactile need isn’t getting met in order to be obsessed with her hair, especially braids.  So we cut her hair much shorter, going with a regular ponytail, which has often been the preferred way since it’s out of her face and out of sight.  But she got to the point she wouldn’t leave it alone either.  So we cut her hair again, in the attempt to be able to have nothing in it (the ponytail holder got to be the obsessions for a wh...

Yesterday it was 83. Today it was 54 this morning and dropping all day. With rain. KiKi was excited about wearing her raincoat and boots. I don't like the rain. But I don't like to wear my hood. When Mommy picked me up from school, I got wet AND I was yelling at her about my hood and taking it down over and over.  I got wet. So there's no picture. Mommy says I can't get mad when I won't leave my hood up but I don't like it. I just told her to stop the rain.

Today while KiKi was napping, I got the iPod to myself. Mommy put on my therapy music, clipped it on my shorts, and said I could go look in the mirror. What? I can walk around with my music? That’s GREAT!! Mommy thought I was pretty funny. I did all kinds of silly things, like tapping on my nose in the mirror and talking with my chin on there. It felt funny and made me giggle. Mommy said it was good clean sensory fun. I listened to lots of music for a long time. I went and asked Mommy to put on some more songs over and over. Someday I’ll figure out how to work that thing myself. (If you wanna know how I'm doing with my drinking (no tube still!), Mommy's gonna write about it on her page .)

(For those of you who skim, there’s a video at the bottom with some speech fun, if you’re into that kind of thing. ) Yesterday we did some fun things that also made me work hard with my hands. First we got our stuff together that we would need.  And we got excited! Then we counted a little and put the squares on the pan.  They were a little sticky. Then we put the squares in the oven.  After the squares had turned into to cookies in the oven, we came back and got ready to put frosting on them.  Mommy didn’t want us messy, so we did frosting with naked body. KiKi started first.  She put her fingers in the cup Mommy gave us that had frosting in it, then she put it on her cookie. Like paint.  She did a pretty good job.  And she even licked her finger and said it was “YUMMY!” KiKi showed me how to do it.  “Stick your finger in the frosting, Braska.” ”Well, this is not fu...