Life with Ella and Emerson

This is a blog dedicated to my beautiful daughters, Ella and Emerson. Emerson was diagnosed with a rare, genetic disorder called Williams Syndrome when she was 5 months old.

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Location: Wisconsin, United States

Friday, April 24, 2009

Slacker Blogger

Sorry I've been such a slacker with blogging. I've gotten some recent friendly pressure to post another update so here it is.

Emerson seems to be doing well at school. I just got off the phone with her teacher and she said "Emerson is such a doll, but boy, can she be stubborn." Yep, sounds about right. She can protest quite loudly when she doesn't want to do something or we don't give here what she wants. She has a minor meltdown, we usually walk away, and then within 1 minute she will come over, take my hand and say, "Hi, sweetie".

Emerson's language development continues to be slow, but steady. She is putting more words together and her vocabulary is crazy. One of her favorite things to do is to name as many items in a category that she can. For example, if I say "bugs" she will rattle off "spider, ants, butterfly, caterpillar, bee, etc..." The other day, her teacher sent home a note that said they were working on sea animals, the teacher held up an animal and said, "seal". Emerson corrected her and said, "no, walrus". Emerson is also great at naming her letters, shapes, and numbers. These things are all concrete, but anything abstract including simple questions, forget it. She often doesn't answer people when they ask her for her name, age, how is she. She struggles with things that aren't a physical entity.

Emerson is now getting into trouble daily. I just checked on her and she was coloring on the wall. Yesterday, she crawled onto the table, sat down and helped herself to some pineapple. When I caught her, she said, "Yum, mommy. Pineapple good." She loves to drink out of the dog bowl, ick.

On to Ella...who will be five in about a week. She is just growing up so fast. She is sensitive, kind, and loving. I really think she is starting to pick up on the fact that their is something different about her sister, but hasn't asked me yet. I know we need to have a conversation with her, it just hasn't happened. She is protective of her. The other day a friend of Ella's was drilling Emerson about animals. For example, say "elephant", say "horse". Seemed harmless to me, but Ella put her arm around Emerson and told her friend, "My sister knows how to do that, stop asking her." Wow!

So that's the quick and dirty. The girls, myself, and my mom are leaving for Florida for a week tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the warm weather and spending time my mom. I'll try to post some pics when we get back.

FYI- The pictures are of the girls with their Aunties and future Uncle Paul. Emmy loves Paul and even though she hadn't seen him since X-mas, walked right up to him and said, "hey, Paul".

2 Comments:

Anonymous Johanna said...

Yeah, I think it's time to talk to Ella...your instincts are right. Kids can be so cruel. Ella knows this and instinctively protected Emerson. Kids can say "You sister talks funny" or something and Ella has to be ready with an answer. It's mean, but it happens.As a special ed teacher I have to speak to the general ed kids all the time about being "mean" to my litle ones. GRRRRRR!!!!

5:49 PM  
Blogger Teresa and Shawn said...

Thank you for the update! I don't know if I will ever get over the shock of seeing Clare staring at me from Emerson's face!!

Jamie is 6 and we have told him some bare facts - like Clare has Williams syndrome, it sometimes takes her a little longer to learn things than it takes other kids so that's why she goes to a special school, she has boo-boos on her heart, that kind of stuff. He takes it all in stride (for the most part), but has started to get frustrated with her and say things like, "other 4-year olds can do that." I just keep gently reminding him that Clare isn't always like other 4-year olds and that's okay! We wouldn't want everyone to be the same! I am sure we have lots of such conversations in our future.

5:59 PM  

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