Vacation or Therapy?

I always worry when Hailey has a break in therapy or a change in our schedule.  I don't know why, but I'm always worried she will regress or not progress in areas.  Vacation was fun for all of us, but by just having fun and being with family Hailey had LOADS of therapy!

Last year we had issues with Hailey having sensory issues at Disney.  She didn't like the shows when the rooms would get dark.  She didn't like loud music.  This year, she watched the shows, danced and threw her hands in the air and she giggled.

Hailey LOVES music.  No matter where she is, if she hears music, she has to move.  Disney was no different (there is a LOT of music).   Here are two examples, one in a stroller and one on the loose.  The night one (it was about 10 p.m.), she couldn't decide if she wanted to dance or run, so she did both :-)

Hailey did a LOT of walking at Disney...on different surfaces:  grass, sand, in the water, up inclines, down inclines and up stairs.  She followed big cousins, she followed little cousins.  She is almost running.  She has the fastest walk of any little kids I've ever seen (especially if she thinks she has something she's not supposed to have or if she thinks you are chasing her).  The "run" is accompanied with the funniest giggle you have ever heard!


I was amazed at how verbal Hailey was at Disney.  She imitated sounds and tried to say more words than ever.  I don't know if it was all the extra people, the excitement of being somewhere else.  Who knows and I don't care...it was awesome!!!  She has continued that at home and has been increasing both verbal and signed vocabulary.  Her communication followed suit.  She started requesting more items and did much better at getting her point across...both positively and negatively.  I think all of us got a few doses of her "no, no, no".  She found out quickly that signing "cookie please" to her aunt would lead her straight to a cookie display where she requested the same from the cashier.  She also learned how to be sneaky.  When the cookie was given to Hailey before dinner, she quickly shoved all of it into her mouth as mom approached.  Such a character!!!

Cookie?  What cookie?

Hailey wanted to spend a lot of time with Aunt Staci that week....I wonder how many cookies she ate :-)

She also signed with strangers.  One morning she started signing cookie to the woman sitting beside her on the bus to a park.  The woman asked Hailey why she was asking for a cookie so early in the morning.  My sister-in-law was surprised that the woman knew what Hailey was signing.  The woman chatted with Hailey and asked her aunt questions.  As we were getting off of the bus, she told me that she was a special education teacher for children ages 3-6.  She was impressed with Hailey's social, verbal and signing skills.  As I said yesterday, she added signs too.  She came up with new signs for 8 family members and kept using all her old signs.

Vacation turned out to be a huge boost of speech therapy mixed in with bursts of physical therapy.  I do think, however, we were all tired by the end of the week with "What's that" and "Who's that"?  She insisted on high-fiving and waving to as many as she could.  There are a lot of strangers at Disney and apparently, our social butterfly thought she needed to meet them all!

Can't wait to see how she reacts when we go back!!!