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Nicole turned 6 on May 6th.  It was a Tuesday.  The day before we made cupcakes together:

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Ila and Nicole started taking a dance class on Mondays:

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We met with the pediatric neuropsychologist (Dr. Julien Smith) to receive the results of her evaluation last Tuesday (4/22).  Dr. Smith said that she would send the full report sometime in the next two weeks, so what I’m sharing here is from my memory and may not be complete.  I literally did not even write anything down.

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We started noticing that Nicole was different than our other kids in more significant wayswhen she was two.  I remember as her third birthday was approaching, Zach and I were trying to determine whether her “weirdness” was on the normal spectrum or whether it was disordered in some way.  We went back and forth a lot with Zach tending to put her on the disordered side and me wondering if it was possible that she was in the range of normal.  You can get help from Law Offices of Ronald A. Ramos for truck accidents who will take care of all the formalities to obtain legal help from government. If you got into an accident and are injured, you can contact a reliable lawyer who can help you get car accident injury claims to cover for the injuries and treatments. Utica injury attorneys has said that in case of accidents injured people should get legal help as soon as possible to claim compensation. Accidents are inevitable especially when it comes to auto accidents in such cases you can consult lawyers for auto accident injuries in Ventura as they can help you in claiming the damages for the loss sustained. An experienced car accident lawyer houston can also help you in claiming compensation for the injury and damages caused. With the help of such experienced attorneys, you will be able to claim compensation if you are being hurt in a truck accident or injured in some other accidents. People can also obtain injury attorneys serving in NY  from here!

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I just love how expressive Nicole is.  Check out this myriad of emotions and expressions.  She was telling me she’s concerned because she doesn’t know who she’s going to marry yet and she wouldn’t consider any of the boys in her class because “all the boys are bad.”

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This is a picture of Nicole the other day before school.  I have a love/hate relationship with her sense of style.  I love it when it works out, but sometimes it’s a delicate balance between looking fun and colorful and looking like she should ride the short bus to school.  I talked her into the denim shorts that morning.  She’s generally opposed to denim (she has refused to wear jeans for years). After getting dressed we went upstairs where I started making breakfast and she sat down at a Xylophone and started banging on it while singing “I’m still like Nicole, I’m still like Nicole!”  I don’t know if she felt her identity was challenged by the denim or if she was just proud of her outfit that morning, but somehow the song seemed to be related to her outfit.  Also, the song went on and on and consisted entirely of that one line repeated over and over until her father yelled from the other room that it was too early to be banging on a Xylophone.

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I have had a really hard time finding time to write lately, so my annual post about Nicole is a little late this year.  Here is what I wrote about her last year. 

Nicole has grown up a lot over the last year.  She started preschool at the beginning of November.  She really likes it and is learning so much!  She can now spell and write her name and has developed a new interest in letters and letter sounds. 

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I liked this little picture that Nicole was given in primary on Sunday, so I used it as a centerpiece for Nicole’s monkey birthday:Nicole started off her birthday with a batch of apple-spice pancakes:

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This year Nicole had a small party on the Saturday before her birthday (May 4th).  We only invited one girl (a friend from Nicole’s preschool class).  Nicole wanted a monkey theme. 

We started with Monkey coloring pages and then made sock monkey bracelets.We made a monkey snack:Nicole opened a gift from her friend:They played in the playroom and outside then sang the birthday song and had cupcakes:And we sent home monkey gift bags:

Can you start a list at #573?  Oh well, it doesn’t matter.

I have about 100 things that I should be doing right now, but instead, I’m writing this little insignificant story.

We were walking home from Nicole’s bus and she was talking about something (I can’t even remember what—it might have been about how she likes to splash in puddles in her boots) but she stopped mid-sentence to exclaim that she had found a rock for Nicole.  When we got to our house she ran off towards our truck while I helped Ila and Thomas come in the house.  Apparently, her rock needed a special leaf to go with it.After lunch she proclaimed:  “The rock needs to take a bath with the leaf.”  The she proceeded to bathe the rock and leaf in the bathroom sink.  I could hear her saying things like:  “the rock is so happy to have a bath so it can be nice and clean”  and  “now the rock and the leaf need a bubble bath.”  An hour later, she is still bathing her rock and her leaf.

It’s not a particularly unique or interesting story, but I love all the silly little moments in my day where my girls show their personalities and get excited about their goofy ideas.

Now back to those 100 things I have to do.

Charlotte is in first grade this year and loves school.  She has become a very good reader this year and can now read small chapter books independently with good fluency.  Unfortunately, I struggle to find books that she is very interested in reading.  After a trip to the library, Isaac will read in his bed for hours, but Charlotte usually needs to be reminded to read a book.  She does enjoy reading books to her little sisters, especially Ila, but she chooses books that are well below her reading level to read to her.

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Nicole cut her own hair last week:

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I took Nicole in for a well-check on Wednesday.  I haven’t been really vigilant about well-checks for my older children since they’re yearly and they usually don’t gets shots with them anymore.  In a way I’m kind of glad I didn’t take her earlier, because our concern for her has been building and we wanted to talk to the doctor about getting a recommendation for a child psychologist who might be able to do some testing. 

Name:  Nicole Kate Cochran

Age:  4 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, and 5 days

Weight: 31.8 lbs          15th percentile

Length:   37 1/4 inches       5th percentile

Since Last year’s well check :  +3.9 lbs, + 3 inches

After detailing my concerns, the doctor took some blood to test for hormone levels (like Thyroid) and chromosomal disorders.  The main thing she said she was looking for on the chromosomal level is Turner’s syndrome.  We decided to wait for the results before determining if we want to try to get in with a child psychologist.Nicole was very mad during the blood draw.  She screamed and fought and had to be held down.  After filling 3 vials, she had a few minutes to calm down before getting three shots in her thighs (immunizations).  After I buckled her in the car to go home, she said “I had a fun time at the Doctor’s office.”  She was sad a few days later when those purple band aids fell off.

Nicole has been attempting to be more independent in the kitchen.  She has been trying to get her own food, but she does it her own way:Her finished product:Remember how I mentioned that she makes her own toast exactly wrong just about everyday? Lately she tries to eat oranges the way most people eat apples:And I caught her eating a banana, corn-on-the-cob style:

After bedtime on the night before Nicole’s birthday, Isaac and Charlotte helped me decorate the living room and kitchen with purple streamers, balloons, banners, drawings, and other such things. 

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It’s hard to believe that Nicole is turning 4.  Four just seems so much more mature to me than three. Charlotte keeps saying that when Nicole turns 4 she’ll stop being a little girl and start being a big girl. 

Click here to see what I wrote about her when she turned 3. 

It’s always interesting to see how much my children change in a year.  Last year I wrote about her yelling everything she says.  This year she has started to learn about using a quieter voice, but it’s still hard sometimes to get her to lower her volume (especially at church).  She went through a phase of yelling Ila’s name that I’m glad to say ended a while ago (here’s something that I wrote about it).

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In December, I wrote about Nicole being evaluated through the school district for special services.  One of the main areas of concern is her difficulty answering questions.

Here is a video of a Q and A session with Nicole in October:

And for comparison, here is a Q and A session with Nicole from yesterday:

As you can see, she is improving.  In the first video she repeated the questions that I asked without answering them.  In the second video she answered my questions.  Some of her answers were wrong and it’s unclear if all of her wrong answers were just because she’s being silly or if she doesn’t completely understand the questions.  Like when I asked her where her eyes were and she said “my eyes is orange.”  I wonder if she just hears one word that she understands and responds to that, like she knew I was asking about eyes, but did she understand that I wanted a location, not a color?  Also, I’m fairly certain that she does know that she is a girl (or “grill” as she says it). 

She has a long way to go to get to completely normal interactions, but she’s making progress.  She still says things that make no sense, like last night she kept saying that she was scared that someone would turn into a bird.  I cannot figure out where she would get the idea of someone turning into a bird.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile.  As many of you know, we’ve taken Nicole in for some testing through the school district.

Nicole is an energetic, friendly, creative little girl.  She speaks clearly with good articulation and good sentence structure.  She likes things that most little girls her age seem to like and she plays well independently.  Of all our children, she is the most outgoing and friendly.  It can be a little unnerving how easily she allows unfamiliar adults to pick her up and hug her.  Many of our friends were surprised to hear that we suspected that something was not completely normal about her.

The tricky part is clearly defining our concern.  Zach and I discussed for months whether we thought that maybe she has an issue/disability or is within the range of normal.  Luckily for us, the school district is required by law to provide free testing for any 3 year old whose parents request it (there is testing for younger children through early intervention as well).

Her problems seem to lie primarily in the area of language comprehension.  I say seems to, because it is hard to know what someone else comprehends.  This problem is most clearly demonstrated in a question/answer situation.  She does not respond to most questions in a typical way.  It’s almost as if she doesn’t understand questions or that she doesn’t understand that a question requires an answer.  She does not answer even the most basic questions like “what is your name” or “how old are you.”  When you ask her a question she often repeats part or all of the question or gives you a confused look and doesn’t respond at all.  This problem was very clear in the testing situation because asking questions was their primary means of trying to evaluate what she knows.  By the end of the first screening test, my concern had increased because I could see that if something didn’t change, she would have a lot of difficulty in a school setting.  The official testing placed her at a 28 month level for comprehension which is more than a year behind her age.

She also has difficulty following verbal instructions.  In a group setting if a request is made of the group, she will wait until the other kids respond and watch how they respond before responding in a like manner.  She does not seem to understand unfamiliar requests without some sort of visual que.  I say unfamiliar because there are some routine requests that she can do on her own such as put on her shoes or sit in her seat.  An unfamiliar request can be as simple as “point to the purple block” or “stack the blocks.”  I observed her in a group where she was asked to circle a snowman.  She knows what a snowman is and she can draw a circle, but she didn’t respond to the directive until she looked over and saw a peer circling a snowman.

For a long time, we had a hard time getting her to understand discipline.  She would cry when we raised our voices at any of the children as if we were yelling at her, yet she would smile and laugh or just look confused if we scolded her.  It was as if we were speaking a different language, she often seemed to be trying to interpret our tone or facial expression more than our words.  We finally had a break-through in discipline when we spanked her.  She soon learned that if we said the word spank, then she needed to stop what she was doing.

I’ve also noticed that when she gets emotional, she seems to lose the ability to comprehend.  She would understand and respond appropriately if I asked her to go get dressed, but if I yelled at her to get dressed she would seem flustered and confused and just cry.

Sometimes she’s just odd.  The other night we had some people over for family night.  In the group were some adults that she was a little familiar with and some adults that I don’t think she had ever met or interacted with before.  She climbed on each guest’s lap, but only stayed for 2 seconds before moving on to the next adult.  Then she hugged each guest’s knees.  After hugging knees, she went around the room and felt their hands and announced whether they had warm hands or cold hands.  Then she started stroking their shoes.  She made no distinction between the adult she had spent some time with and the adults that she had never met.

Her social interactions with other children primarily consist of parallel play or copying what they do.  She will play a cooperative game with Charlotte, but generally Charlotte directs the game and tells Nicole what role to play and what to do.  

The results of her testing are that she qualifies for services under the classification of communication disorder and she will start 45 minute therapy sessions once a week at the school in January.  I will be interested to see how she responds to these sessions.

I am finally getting around to blogging about Nicole’s Birthday, but better late than never, right?

We started things off with a special breakfast of sausage, heart shaped eggs, and birthday juice.  (I almost never buy juice for the kids because of the sugar content, so the juice was extra special—it was Nicole’s favorite part of breakfast)

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Name:  Nicole Kate Cochran

Age:  3 years, 3 days

Weight: 27.9lbs          5th percentile

Length:   34 1/4 inches       5th percentile

Since Last year’s well check :  +3.9 lbs, + 1 1/2 inches