Silly Wonderful You
A Story From Our Community
One of my favorite books to read Allie is Silly Wonderful YOU!
The book tells the tale of life after having a little girl…a little girl who as she grew was so loud, messy, fun, loving, and a teeny bit whiny. I love reading this book to Allie – but when she was my teeny tiny, quiet, calm baby it made me wonder whether Allie would ever be like her.
Well our Allie is 5 now and she is all these things and so much more. Allie is in Junior Kindergarten. With the help of her awesome Educational Assistant she is learning her letters and numbers. She knows all her colors and thankfully loves to match – her outfits are always very coordinated. I think her favorite subject is gym. She loves to balance on the painted lines and plays Red light, Green light with her friends. Yes, she has lots friends. We love it when she comes home from school and she tells us all about who behaved and who was not listening.
She has the most wonderful imagination – during this lockdown Mike and I have been doctors, patients, pirates, bandits and hairdressers. It’s never a dull day at the Hoszko’s. Lockdown limits her therapy but quite honestly it has been a nice break – the OPWSA Challenges kept us active throughout the winter and Allie still makes us go out for fresh air to “stay healthy”.
She is very smart. She knows that she has a “special tummy”. She knows that we all have to make healthy choices for snacks and meals and “No SUGAR”. These are things that she picked up on her own. We don’t stress about food (anymore). We make healthy choices for both ourselves and Allie. Of course we have our pizza and pasta days.
The big question - Has hyperphagia set in? We imagined a day where a switch would go off and Allie would start food seeking. Allie doesn’t over eat, she leaves food on her plate and definitely has foods she won’t eat no matter how I try to disguise them. While Allie isn’t a food seeker, she is very interested in what’s for breakfast and when her next snack is coming. She has food anxiety. We use schedules and timers to help her with this high anxiety. I’m to going to lie – telling your kid she can’t eat right now is a tough one.
Allie does face challenges with mobility and balance but we work with her everyday to make her “big and strong” and she accepts any challenge. She recently learned to ride her scooter and she beams with pride at her “Super Speed”. Allie brings so much joy to our family. She is very loving and caring. She gives the best hugs and makes us laugh with her mischievous sense of humor. She plays hide and seek, she laughs with delight when we chase her around the house and giggles when she escapes. We order so much from Amazon these days – she thinks we ordered her - but we know where she came from as the book ends “Since there was you, I know now that dreams really do come true.” Allie is our dream come true! We are truly blessed.
