November 2012 Updates: I’m Hahgoot, hear me roar! (sometimes it’s a meltdown, sometimes it’s in a game...)

Following Carly’s concerns, we had some blood tests done on Hahgoot to see if there is a medical issue we might have missed that might cause her mood swings (mineral deficiency of a sort etc). This was her first ever blood tests (she went with Barak, who needed tests himself) and coped extremely well. The experience was interesting for her and she played out the event on her sister while they played “Doctor” (right). The results came back normal, as I thought they would.

As we were approaching the end of term, end of the year, and the imminent trip abroad, Hahgoot’s behaviour was slowly deteriorating, especially in the afternoon and evening. She was also getting harder to wake up in the morning. She was getting a lot more spontaneous meltdowns, involving a lot of crying, with no major or specific trigger. This was all expected, but still exhausting for all of us. Top: deep pressure (hugging and pressing) helped Left: throwing the girls into the off cuts sack helped too

Both girls had a great time inside and outside the foam off cuts sack

I found a fantastic website that had Social Stories in Hebrew in a large range of topics and made Hahgoot little workbooks. Each story was followed up by a series of questions.

Both Alma and Barak did their best to co- operate and tolerate Hahgoot’s mood swings. Although we tried to reduce the stress on her, we didn’t let her off the hook in social situations. Right: Barak especially is good at practicing eye contact with Hahgoot, as he also finds this hard to do but acknowledges how important it is for her.

Hahgoot started working on a “flight book” of her own. I used texts from Carol Gray’s excellent Social Stories book and Hahgoot started to add illustrations. We discussed the texts and she will continue on the plane to add drawings as events unfold. Clearly, she enjoyed this task very much.

We kept working from Deborah Plummer’s Green book, focusing on “Change”. Here Hahgoot had to write all the conflicting emotions related to the concept, in two languages. Working on grey area thinking is very important with her.

Hahgoot found some time to write letters, to Emma (left) and grandpa Ido (right). Seems like both of them were into big paper...

Hahgoot had her little “Xmas cards factory” over a couple of nights. This year we added little chocolates into each card.

She made big cards to send by post all over the city and small cards to hand to friends at school and to neighbours in the Strata.

As there was a sudden heatwave, I kept the cards with the chocolates in the fridge until we got to the post office... Lotem’s Hanukah stickers arrived right on time for the card making session (we added choc coins).

This series is about fairies travelling in “fruit land”

Hahgoot’s work is always filled with aliens, magical creatures and her friends or family.

Hahgoot enjoyed making little scenes with the emoticon stickers Drawing inspired by the “Simon and the chalk land” series. Here is a girl drawing a pool that really appears on a hot day (a reaction to a chapter, where Simon draws snow flakes on a hot day. Hahgoot wanted to offer a better solution to the plot).

In our next presentation: Enough with Hahgoot – time to see what Alma was up to this month! A pastoral scene – and an innovative hairdo!