In and out of the cocoon

Ivelina has been home three months, and, we are partly out of our cocooning stage. We still do not want others giving Ivelina food and water. We still are not leaving her in the care of others. She is still not completely attached to us. But, we are taking her almost everywhere we go. She is pretty accustomed to most public places now: grocery store, library, park, bank, gas station, Walmart, Staples, etc. We have even taken her to a new church we have been visiting.

These past two weeks have been doozies!  Ivelina has two awesome days where she seems almost "normal" followed by two totally weird days where I can't figure her out! Jeremy described her as a book we've been given with the first few chapters ripped out. We have sort of figured out a few things that trigger weird or regressive behavior in her, but sometimes she leaves us completely stumped. It's on these days that we retreat back into our cocoon, stay a little closer to home, limit the number of toys she has, and limit the number of people she's around.It's two steps out of the cocoon and one step back in.

On a brighter note: Ivelina is learning!!  Yay! Her English has taken off, and she is having a few more good school days than bad. Her counting is improving, and she has almost learned all of the ABC song. We try to make learning as fun, interactive, and multi-sensory as possible. Here are a few shots from the week when Ivelina learned letter H. The week after that was a review week for us.

We have been using BINGO stamp markers for everything, including counting!

A few Letter of the Week activities we completed while learning letter H.

We have also started learning about my favorite season: Fall!!  I could not get her to hold her head down, and every time I gave her instructions, the photo just got worse!

Taty was out of town for three days, so I made some plain "Welcome Home Taty" posters, and Ivelina practiced her letter recognition and her coloring skills as she decorated them. She was truly happy to welcome him back home after his trip.

So far, we have learned letters A (apple), E (elephant), H (hippo), Z (zebra), and F (fish) + we have had a review week. This all culminated in a trip to the zoo!  It was a blast! 

Here's the video Jeremy made from our day:

Thanks for reading,
-Shelly