Its been a long week. We wrapped up Nixi's Early Intervention "school", had her IEP for the coming real school year, and were still coming down off of all of the previous week's excitement.

We got a visit from my mom, Nana Cummings. It was fun. Unfortunately Safi was a little off due to an incident with a red ant getting in her shoe at school on Tuesday. 44% of people on the Autism spectrum have multiple phobias. For Safi, bugs are one. Her teacher called me to come early because they had neveer seenm her so upset. I got there and she kept asking me to wipe her...as she felt like there were bugs crawling on her. That night she woke up at midnight and again at 3am screaming that there was a bug on her face, arm, etc. As I tried to console her my haor burshed against her arm and she about jumped out of her skin. So, when Nana was here and we went to the park which was full of bugs because its getting warm out she couldnt take it. She kept asking me to make the beetles go away. She kept wiping at her arms. She was on the edge and Nixi riding a scooter ahead of her was the match that lit the fuse. She exploded and attacked Nixi. A huge meltdown with screaming and the like ensued and we eventually just left the park. She was unable to relax outside at home because she couldnt stop looking for bugs that might touch her. She was all around miserable. We worked on doing some cognitive restructing this morning about bugs. We talked about what bugs bite and what bugs dont and we made a game out of the girls pretending to be bugs as I modeled what to do if a bug is bothering you. Later, outside, we used sticks to guide a pincher bug up our driveway. Lots of exposures combined with humor and education will eventually move her past this...until next time. There will always be a next time, unfortunately. The last time we had a bug issue was the spider in the bathtub resulting in me sponge bathing her while she crouched on a step stool in the tub for nearly 3 months. She's fascinated by bugs. That's one of the many things I love about that kid. When she's afraid of something she wants to learn EVERYTHING about it. She seems to inherently know that "flooding" (tons of exposure to the feared stimuli) is what she needs to move past things. A wise soul.

Its Nixi's 3rd birthday tomorrow and the house is vibrating with excitement. I have high hopes that she will have a great day...I am realistic that it will need to be much more sedate than Safi's birthday was. It will be different but equally wonderful, just like my girls.

Ill post lots of pictures next week in my last blog entry before handing the reigns back over to the girls.

Sarah