A summary of last 6 weeks

I have not been able to sit on my blog last 6 weeks as 1st the Mumbai attacks took hold of my emotions and I was literally grieving and the depression took toll on my own personal work.My husband and relatives turned up and we had a lot of catching up.I asked all of them about how they felt had Prisha progressed in the time they had not seen her.The answers were encouraging.Her comprehension is great and things don't need to be repeated to her.She comes across as a normal kid.
Since she was the centre of attraction everybody wanted to teach her what they were good at.My husband's sister tried to tell stories and did some maths, my co-sister did a bit of her artwork and igniting her creative mind, my husband tried to pamper her and her grand parents gave in to her fancies. I took a back seat and after a month I am realising she has regressed in speech.She needs me to break down sentences which she echoed earlier without much ado.Yesterday in her speech therapy class she was shivering while answering as she was not confident and also since she is weak from her stomach infection.
But I would like to high light the things she has done in the past 1 month.She is aware that singing is not something she is confident about , yet she breaks into " we shall overcome", " God's love", "lakdi ki kathi"- a hindi song and does sing " Raghupathi Raghav Raja Ram" - Lord Ram's song.It is satisfying to hear her normal voice.When i teach her to say something new she juts out her lower jaw as she finds it convenient . I correct her immediately.
She does play school .I think all girls love it.She does become Manisha ma'am, her class teacher, and her grand pa is the student. there is attendance, colouring class, singing class, English class etc and he needs to be very attentive and has to follow or she gives him a dressing down.During the attendance she calls out her grandmom's name but is normally marked absent as she feels she does not cooperate .It is something to really experience and she does want me to go away as she feels I will correct her and she can't be her real self. We took a short holiday and she enjoyed the stay in a resort. she modelled for photographs and had her speech practice where ever we went.My sister's daughter has down's and so has problem with speech. I tried to do my bit of work to encourage speech and Prisha was most cooperative. The moment I left she would then take over and tell Kitu to copy her. She copies the same style. When she plays teacher , I know how her teacher talks, when she does speech therapy with Kitu , I feels it is a mirror image of me talking.With Kitu and a friend's daughter who is 9 ( with a bad job of CI) their voice quality is something I am always concerned about.I tried to sing ( aa...) in different pitches and with a little work and encouragement I was able to achieve it, much to my delight.I have worked it with Prisha from the beginning and so Prisha's intonation and voice modulation is great. I have taught the tricks to their mums, hope they carry it further. In the speech therapy class their is a boy 8 years old, bright guys but his voice is flat. I taught the trick to the mum and after a month she told me that after much encouragement from both of us, he was for the 1st time trying to sing along a cartoon theme song! Yipee!!!!I was thrilled. The kids may not turn singers but why deprive them of another part of speech!