Grace Update

Grace has been attending school for 2 months now. So I thought it would be a good time to do an update post on her. She attends a school called the ARC of Chester County. It is school for kids who have significant physical and mental disabilities, so it is the perfect place for her. She rides in a van (which you can see here in this post) with between 3 - 5 other kids. She goes to school Monday through Thursday from 9:00 - 1:45pm, but with the van ride she is picked up at 8:00am and dropped back off at 2:30ish.

We are really pleased with the difference we see in Grace. We have noticed that she seems more aware of what is going on around her, she will come up and look at you to get your attention or come over and put her hand in yours (which is especially sweet to see with Daddy). She said 'mama' the other day and John came running to get us to make sure we heard her. She was talking to her shoes but still we gave her credit for using her voice :)

The other day, the boys and I were doing Easter coloring pages (that I downloaded from this blog, which I am obsessed with!). And just for fun, I put Grace in her highchair and gave her a coloring page and crayon. Well, 3 months ago she wouldn't even hold the crayon. But this time, she started making dots and then rubbed the crayon back and forth on the page. It was so amazing to see her 'coloring' on her paper. I gave her a couple different crayons and she used each one on the page.

Grace will also allow you to hold her hand while she is walking. What I mean by this is that before she would hold onto you for support when she was learning to walk but once she could on her own, she did not want you to hold or touch her hands in any way. But now at school, they take the kids by the hand and lead them to lunch or gym class or to and from the van. So now, when you say 'come here Grace' or 'let's go this way' and take her hand, she will allow it and follow along. This is a HUGE improvement!

And she is becoming more and more inquisitive. She is exploring her environment more and showing likes / dislikes. Just the other day, we needed to get into the car to go get Luke from preschool and I was running behind schedule (I think it is because we live SO close to school that I never leave enough time to load everybody up and get to the school on time) (or at least that's my story...). I heard her playing in the playroom when John and I were doing his homework. But when I walked in to get her I could not find her.

Until I looked

Under the train table

So that is where I found her. Under the train table, eating a power ranger. And since I had to take pictures of her, we were really late for Luke's pick up.