January 17

I have a nasty cough that has been mightily interfering with sleep. I don’t understand why it gets worse at night. I understand it getting worse when I am horizontal, but why also as the hours get later? Sarah is sick too, though it is mild so far. Carl seems to have gotten over his version of whatever we have quite quickly, thank goodness. Amy had an ear infection a week ago but is well. I seem to have it the worst, sometimes coughing uncontrollably. When I’m not coughing though I can feel as if I am totally well, just tired. It is an odd mix. I am getting one heck of an abdominal workout.

Sarah’s nights were better until she got sick, and that included time off from eggs and time with eggs reintroduced. 

Sarah zipped her coat all by herself on Wednesday. I know she has occasionally done this in the past but it isn’t something she can do regularly. I think seeing  the OT helps me remember to ask her to do more fine motor things by herself and to give her the time and encouragement to do practice. It is also exciting to watch the OT do certain activities and to know enough now to understand what she is doing and why (such as tipping Sarah slowly from side to side while having her pick up a beanbag so that her reach crosses her midline; this helps with all sorts of brain coordination and balance).

I did the ATEC online autism evaluation checklist again. The last time I did it was a year ago. I try not to overthink my answers and certainly there is some subjectivity based on how much I deem something to be a problem. Disclaimers given, her score was a 25. A year ago it was 35. This seems to be quite amazing to drop 10 points. Even if I adjust for the places where my answer could easily have been different, that still would be a drop in 7 or 8 points. Wow. That means she is in the most mild end of the autism spectrum. I know that being on the spectrum is not the only thing to define Sarah’s delays and challenges, but still. Still. I’ll take this and run with it.

I hope you are all well.