3 months ago today, little Louise joined our family.
It's hard to even remember what she was like in those first few weeks.
I have vague memories of a little girl who didn't want anything to do with the other kids or Indian staff and was scared of baby dolls. A little girl who would only look at us out of the corners of her eyes and who was constantly grinding her teeth and biting her nails. A little girl who threw at least 30 tantrums a day.
When Louise arrived at our home, she knew next to nothing. She had zero communication. She didn't even respond to a normal "come" gesture. She didn't play with toys correctly. She wouldn't play with other children. She didn't engage in imaginary play at all. She couldn't match colors. She couldn't complete a simple iPad game of matching identical objects.
The only thing she seemed to have done before was color and knew how to hold a crayon and scribble. Besides going to the hospital, she had probably never even left her room at the orphanage before.
Louise has really blossomed in the past 3 months and I am so blessed to have a front row seat to all God is doing in this special girl's life!
Academically, Louise has made incredible progress! She gets an hour of 1:1 school time with me every morning and an hour with Nikki every afternoon, in addition to now attending preschool!
She is matching colors and doing puzzles with ease, figuring out every iPad game we throw at her, and drawing circles, lines, and numbers 1-3 (well, 2 is still a work in progress...).
Louise got her cochlear implant switched on a little over a month ago so a lot of our school time has now shifted towards helping her learn to hear. The volume is still very low and right now we are just working on differentiating between environmental sounds and speech, and using her voice to get something she wants. She is doing well and is starting to make a lot of new sounds!
Her communication in general is really coming along. We have finally gotten past the phase of refusing to use signs and she is now consistently using a handful of signs in the proper context like water, eat, and sorry for when she's naughty (which may be her most used sign! :P) and also answers yes and no. Even when she doesn't know a sign, she is getting much better at using gestures to get her point across. She has also picked up on some signs she hasn't quite figured out the meaning of and will frequently go around the house doing the "I love you" and "3" signs at everything!
Louise is one of the most expressive kids I know and if you don't know what she's saying with her hands, you can probably figure it out by her face ;)
Louise is also by far the biggest troublemaker in our house and has quite the naughty streak! She has thrown the speech processor of her CI off the balcony twice and one day when she was really upset with us, locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the faucet on the wall. When we finally broke down the door, we found her sleeping in the bathtub!
Theo is her best friend and she is always getting him to unknowingly join along in her trouble-making! They can also be really sweet though and Louise runs up to greet him with a smile every day when he gets home from school :)
Louise definitely keeps a smile on all of our faces and I can't remember what our home was like without our hilarious, sassy, little princess around!
I look at little Louise now and I can't believe the change we've seen and how God has worked in her these past few months.
It's amazing what a little love can do.
Louise still needs both general and school sponsors! Please consider coming alongside us to give this special girl all that she needs to grow and help keep her in school by visiting her sponsorship page: http://schindia.com/children/louise/
Thank you for being a part of Louise's amazing story.
Thank you for sharing what an incredible journey!
ReplyDeleteReading your story made me feel warm. I'm so proud of Louise for her progress.
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