Almost November

I decided to take part of today and do a little prep for November. I made a thankful tree, which you will see below - try not to laugh too hard at my lack of artistic skills. Trees have never been an easy task for me to draw for some reason. Anyway, each day in November, the kids will choose a leaf in a fall color and label it with something they are thankful for. By the end of the month the tree will no longer be bare and hopefully the kids will have a little more insight to just how much they really do have just in time for December and the commercialism of Christmas. I will be sure to post pictures of the tree again at the end of the month.

I also have a unit study on Thanksgiving that I picked up at Chamblain's Bookmine. I love that place! Their website does not even begin to touch what they have in their store, which now includes two buildings. There is always a treasure to be found there. It's really a homeschooler's second best find (after the library of course!).

So, without any further rambling from me, here is our thankful tree:

Homeschooling - an educational experience for the kids AND me

All that know me know that I have mentioned before how I received little to no history education in my years in the public school system. The only history class where I learned about history was my Western Civ class during college. I have never been so lost in my entire life! Everyone else in the class had some form of history in their past. Not only did I have to try and learn all of the new info, I many times had to try and find some sort of knowledge everyone else was taught in high school to catch me up to what we were learning in high school. How I walked away with a C in that class, I have no idea. I think that my professor had mercy on me and wanted to just get me out of the class and not repeat it. LOL

Well, here I am homeschooling my children, and where elementary math and reading are a breeze to teach Jacob, history is a challenge since I don't have the background I should have. However, I am learning so much by teaching him recently that I am enjoying it as much as he is! It seriously is becoming one of my favorite subjects to teach each day. We are currently studying the discovery of America and I have learned quite a bit this week. I feel so smart! LOL

I think we are going to do a unit study next week on Indian tribes. Jacob is interested and I have developed an interest as well. Should be fun! So, off to prepare. LOL I love it when I come up with something that was not in my original plans for the year. :)

We also did our first pumpkin carving. Jacob helped me choose a face to use and then I had all of the kids help scoop out the insides. Cassie was the only one that truly seemed to enjoy it. Jacob didn't like the icky feeling (I think I need to start doing the sensory activities with him again) and Joshua wanted absolutely nothing to do with scooping it. Elena enjoyed pretending to help. Mainly she held the spoon and looked cute. :) Here are some pics of the kids with our creation.

Great therapy and Halloween prep

Today's therapy was a total success! We decided to again try putting the OT before the ST, though for most kids it seems to work better the other way around. joshua is an exception though, just as I thought a month ago when I suggested it may be the case. There was a really positive buzz around the OT area...just a feeling of happiness and excitement, though I have no idea why really. Mindy set up an obstacle course...Josh had to go up the steps, down the slide like a snake, get on the scooter board and sccot over to the tunnel, go through the tunnel, over the bridge that was three very thin boards, then while on those boards and without falling, bend down to get a puzzle piece off the floor (this was the most challenging), jump across 3 steps, up the ramp, back up the steps and put the puzzle piece in place. Whew! Then he's start all over again. It was bustling with activity today and he had some trouble concentrating which at times caused him to totally get off his path, but Mindy was patient and got him right back on track in no time.

After OT, we went to speech. Jessica let Josh pick a truck out from the storage room. He wanted a "scooper truck" and after finding one we were off to the room. Jessica had several activities planned for today. For the past few weeks, Joshua has been quite aggitated when we get in the room, but today was great. He sat on his chair with no trouble and did all of the work he was told to do. They began with a book about pumpkins and the goal was to be able to identify emotions - one of his big challenges that we have been working on outside of therapy sessions. He did fantastic! We then moved onto a 3 piece puzzle game where he would choose an outfit for the bear and tell Jessica what the bear was dressed as. Next came a card game that went over opposites. This is something they have worked on in therapy, but we have been working on at home as well. He did wonderful, getting all but one correct. I was impressed, and I think Jessica was as well. She mentioned again that she wants to re-evaluate him because he is not nearly as bad as the first therapist seemed to have decided he is, and then we can get a better idea of what to work on. She plans on doing this on about 2 weeks. I am so relieved that we will finally have a true estimation of where he is and what he really needs help on. I really love our speech therapist!

In other news, we have been preparing for Halloween. We never have really done much on Halloween, other than dressing the kids up and going to my grandparents house to let them see the kids in their costumes and then go to some of their neighbor's houses so the kids get some sort of trick-or-treat experience. Well, this year that is obviously out, so I haven't decided what we will be doing. There are plenty of activities around town, so we're bound to find something. Anyway, Elena will be Sleeping Beauty, and Cassidy is wanting to be a princess. I am going to be working on her costume the remainder of the week. Jacob can't seem to make up his mind. He wants to be a Transformer, but I am not feeling all that creative right now, so we'll see what we come up with. And my dear little Joshua informed me yesterday that he wants to be Pocahontas. LOL I'm not sure what we are going to do about that one...maybe he'll choose something else by the weekend. LOL

Sharing more pictures

Ok, I received an email from Sarah letting me know I need to share some more pics. Geez, I can't please you people! LOL Since it has been requested, and I love sharing pics of the kiddos, I thought I'd go ahead and make a second post today. :D Enjoy!

The kids and Silas with my parents:


JACOB:




JOSHUA:


Also see the post below for another. ;)

CASSIDY:




ELENA:

What's the latest?

Ok, so I was informed last nnight that I have been a slacker. LOL Not really, but it was hinted at by April that I needed to update this thing. LOL So, here is what we have been up to.

Joshua turned 5 years old on the 13th. I did slack off there and have not yet posted his birthday pic like I did with the other kids. Here it is though!



The kids attended their first Circus a couple of weekends ago. My mom got free tickets to see the Shriner's Circus, so all of us, my parents, Willie, Glenn and his grilfriend, Mel, and my grandfather all went and had a great time. The kids loved it. Joshua was very distracted by all of the flashing lights. I tried very hard to get him to notice something other than the lights...he couldn't focus on the trapeeze artists because they were too far away from us compared to the lights, but I tried anyhow. Most of the acts were that way. He did like the horses and they caught his attention because they came out to the rings directly in front of us. We had to sit off to the side a good bit, basically the end of the aufitorium, but where we were turned out to be a pretty cool spot for Joshua. We were the closest people to the act where a motorcycle was attached to a highwire. A man drove it up to where we were sitting, and below the cycle was a long swing hanging down and a young woman was sitting on it. Eventually she stood up and he did as well, and they turned the bike completely upside down. Ugh, my stomach churned watching it, but Joshua was so excited. LOL And in true Joshua form, he later informed me that it was his favorite part of the show. :)

School is going well. Jacob is way too smart sometimes. We have been finishing school pretty early these days. Right now we are going through common fairy tales. It's amazing how many of the details of some of these I totally forgot through the years. For instance, the story of Rapunzel. I honestly did not remember the witch trapping the prince into climbing the braid and then knocking him into thorns and causing him to go blind. Maybe I had the non-violent, rated G version growing up. :P Who knows? I know it has been quite interesting though.

We also have just started talking about the discovery of North and South America. I was trying really hard to hold out until Novemeber to do this, but Jacob has really been enjoying the history and geography lessons. So, we started that today. He was a bit upset about hearing how the Spaniards took over the land that the Indians had been on for so long.

I've been taking a break from science the past 2 weeks. We had such a focus on it so far, that I wanted to sort of sit it out a bit. Shame on me. But he hasn't seemed to mind it too much.

We had a field trip to an art museum since I last posted. Jacob and I will be going back again alone to really be able to focus. Joshua didn't want to be there, Jacob was grouchy and fighting with everyone including me, and the girls did ok. They have a very nice hands-on area for the kids and they really enjoyed it...It made it a bit difficult to do the other "no-touch" parts of the museum afterwards though! LOL Unfortunately, I had never been to the museum before, so I happened upon the wrong area first. I know for any future excursions now though!

This weekend was a lot of fun. Silas, the kids, and I all drove out to Downtown Disney to meet up with a couple of my August board buddies. Hard to believe, but we have been posting on a mom's board since we found out we were pregnant with our August 2004 babies. So that means it has been a year and 9 months! Wow! Anyhow, one of the moms lives all the way in England, and her family was visiting Disney World and staying in FL for 2 weeks. So, another mom from GA had her family come down to meet up on the same day and we had a really nice time! The kids did great and it was so much fun getting to actually meet some people I have been talking to for ages. And all of the kids were wonderful and they seemed to enjoy the meetup as much as we did! The mom from GA and I live so close that we are planning to get together again soon. :) Her oldest is 3 years old, and Jacob said he really enjoyed getting to ride on the train ride with her. LOL Here is a group photo from our adventure...(the men were all behind the cameras.)

Newest addition to the family

Yes, our family has expanded and we now have a rabbit living in our home. His name is Thumper, and I have to say he is one of the sweetest rabbits I have been around. He is a black and white Mini Rex with blue eyes. I was a bit nervous about this because we had two rabbits before having kids. One was sweet and the other was mean as could be. Thumper, however, was raised by a homeschooling family that includes 4 year old triplet boys and he is litter trained and leash trained. He is going to be not only the family pet, but also Jacob's 4H project.

He did not appear to have any issues with the change in environment. When Jacob and I first brought him home, we cleaned his cage while he nosed around outside in a puppy pen. Jacob learned how to clean the cage properly, helped fill it with bedding and refill the food dish and add hay. We then decided to put the cage down in the pen and see if he'd climb in. At first he wouldn't, but I then told him to go to his cage and amazingly he did it. LOL We then carried him into the house where the kids proceeded to stare at him as if he were the star attraction of the zoo. Even Elena was amazed by him.

After a few hours of him hearing us bustling about the house, we decided to let him out of the cage to explore a bit. He had a blast hiding behind the couches and then bounding between the two of them. And the kids had a blast watching him do it. Every so often, Thumper would decide to come over to someone who was being quiet and check them out. He hopped toward Elena soon after getting out of his cage and she freaked out. She couldn't figure out what this "toy" was coming after her for. She jumped back and cried. After about a half an hour though, she was fine. :)

By the end of the night, after everyone else had gone to bed, Thumper allowed me to pet him. Then yesterday he allowed everyone, including Elena, pet him. Elena tends to not notice him until he is sniffing her leg, and it upsets her a bit that he takes her by surprise, but she usually just reaches out to touch him once she notices and he bounces off. Such little teases. ;)

Here are some pics:

Josh's appointment today - homeschooling critique

I didn't mention I was going in today because I was SOOOO nervous about it. The psych had mentioned that she would like to have an appointment with me to go over the details of our homeschooling and see if I had any questions or needed any suggestions on things. I think secretly she wanted to be sure early on that this really was the right decision for Joshua. LOL

So, I went in and showed her our current lapbook on rabbits which she thought was a neat idea and very hands on for him. We then talked about the OT and ST and how the first ST evaluated him incorrectly. She couldn't believe some of the things I was told by the first therapist and she was very happy to hear we have a new one now.

I gave her a copy of our schedule and she was totally blown away by how well it was planned out. She even commented that not only was it great that I had spread things out the way I did and broke up the activities in the manner I did, but to think I had 3 other kids was really amazing. LOL

We then talked about the goals I had set and the accomodations I have been making for Josh. She said that my accomodations are wonderful and very appropraite for him, and the goals were great and right on target. She gave me a list of things from a test they give so that I could figure out where he needs to be on a more detailed level for his age, which was wonderful! She added a few things I hadn't thought about (mainly in socialization areas - like reading emotions and facial expressions) and then said my overall program I have set up was wonderful! YAY!!!

She was really happy that there was a change in routine today and yet no meltdown from Josh - this was a huge improvement! She also commented that his eye contact was fantastic today, so she can tell we have really been working on that a lot. She is planning on starting the socialization classes up again in October, so I can hardly wait to see how he improves in there.

So, as we were walking out the door, I asked her if she thought it was still a good idea that I am definitely homeschooling him and not sticking him in the system. She told me again my program is wonderful, and then added that he is getting much more at home with me than any school system would be providing him right now. I told her how nervous I was to go in and talk with her today because I was worried I wasn't doing enough. She laughed and said that there are a few people she wishes she could send to me! LOL How awesome is that?

So, now I feel validated I guess...and relieved. I am so happy to see that all of this is really for the best and not me just thinking it is, kwim? And I am so happy to have such a great psych for Joshua that really cares enough to meet with us like she did and offer honest opinions on things. Anyway, I was so excited that I had to come share real quick. LOL

Other than that, all has been going well. Elena is really keeping me on my toes now that she is walking. I can't get over how quickly she has done it. She also stands up in the middle of the floor without anything to help her get up. She has been watching the kids so much, and I think she just sort of soaks it up like a sponge, thinks about what she wants to do for a few days, and then can suddenly do it...no trial and error for her, no sir! I think I have a perfectionist on my hands.

Cassidy is a real pistol this week too. She has decided that jumping on the bed at naptime is a good way to pass the time. She will be utterly exhausted, but yet once I leave the room she is up and clearing off the bed for bouncing. Silly girl.

And Jacob is doing great. He is adding and subtracting with little trouble now. He has taken to reading the bedtime story at night to the younger kids. It's cute really. He also is still really great with the drawing. We are supposed to be getting a bunny tomorrow for his 4H project, so we have been talking about rabbits this week and learning the proper care and feeding of them. I am hoping this bunny will be a good match for our family, because he is really excited about it. Carrie told me the rabbit was raised by a homeschooling family and is "litter trained. leash trained, and kid-proof" That's some bunny, eh? LOL So hopefully this will be a better idea than I am thinking it will be at the moment. Something tell me I'm going to have this as my 5th child to care for.

We have walking!

My little baby isn't a baby anymore. Elena is now officially a toddler. {gulp}

She has been cruising for what seems like forever now, and no matter what we did we were unable to entice her to let go of anything and everything. Today however, she did it!

I usually fix all of the kids their lunch at the same time, put Elena in the highchair with her food and then pass out teh rest to the others. Today, I switched things around without even thinking about it. I gave the older kids their sandwiches, and Elena was a bit upset about it. She stood there fussing at me and looking at their food while I stood at her highchair across the room and broke up her sandwich into smaller bits. I told her that if she came over to me I'd put her into the highchair I would let her eat while I finished cutting it up. Next thing I know, the little stinker walked halfway across the living room before finally falling! Talk about a shocker!

She was so cute...the boys started laughing at her walking and so she REALLY thought she was cute and started clapping and doing her "evil" laugh and that is what finally did her in.

So, now the real fun begins. :)

What we've been up to

I thought I would give a general update on all of the kids and what they have been up to lately. I'll go from youngest to oldest. :)

Elena is doing well. She's growing like a weed and is able to share clothes with her sister now. She is getting quite the little attitude, espcially considering she still isn't walking yet. LOL She cruises everywhere, but refuses to let go to walk. She will stand in the middle of the floor and clap and dance, but no way will she take a step without gripping something with all of her might. She still has only 8 teeth, loves playing cars with her brothers and includes the sound effects, will push her way through a crowd. The funniest thing she appears to be doing now (which I really shouldn't laugh at) is sassing us. If you tell her "no, no" when she goes after something, she will sit down and bob her head from side to side and say "ya, ya, ya, ya". It's hilarious! Totally backtalking, and only 13 months old. LOL Can you imagine what she will be like as a teen? Yikes!

Cassidy is still sweet as ever. She is totally into the princess scene right now. EVERYTHING is princess this and princess that. She is showing some interest in potty training again, so we have restarted the process. Hopefully we will have success sooner than we did with Jacob! She loves playing wiht little purses and plastic bracelets and she carries her "purple baby" everywhere she goes. She is such a little mama.

Joshua is doing well with therapy. This week's speech went a little better, but he is so overly distracted in the room that it makes it hard for him to get much accomplished. OT was a little different this week because Mindy was sick and not there. So, we had a sub. She was great and Josh never missed a beat. She asked if he does ok with the beans and rice, and I told her yes and that he needed work with messier things. I also explained that we had just started the brushing and joint compression. She took out some foam puzzle pieces and some shaving cream. She called the shaving cream snow and had him roll the puzzle pieces in it and then put them together. I couldn't believe it, but he actually did it. He got upset if even the least little bit of the cream touched his hand, but he never once cried, which to me was amzing progress for only 5 days. I'm hoping to see even more progress next week.

Jacob is doing well and school is going well also. I have discovered LapBooks on the net and as soon as I saw them I knew the kids would enjoy making one. So, today Jacob and I put together our first one - Animal Habitats. I have no idea if we did it right, but I am assuming so long as he learns from doing it and retains the info, then the goal is met, right?

So, here are some pictures of our first lapbook:

Cover:


Inside:


Inside left - flaps open: Inside right - flaps open:


My printer is not currently hooked up to my computer, so Jacob had to actually draw out things we didn't have stickers for. He was not too happy about having to do school today, but once we actually started the lapbook he had a blast! He had so much fun finding the stickers, figuring out where the animals live, what the book should look like, decorating the cover, and drawing the animals. I think lapbooking will become a regular addition to our homeschooling routine.

Brushing and Joint Compression

Josh had therapy on Wednesday this past week. I screwed up a little with our typical schedule. Any day he has therapy, we do not do school until after we return home. I get the kids ready and make sure Josh dresses himself, so that in itself takes a ton of time due to his lack of cooperation with the socks and shoes. He can do it though...he did it two weeks ago with no trouble at all (other than the amount of time it took). Afterwards, we all pile in the van and I drive over to my mother's house where we all get out of the van. I get the other kids settled and Josh usually gets a few minutes to play before we take off for therapy.

Well, lo and behold, Wednesday was a mess as far as weather goes. I was running behind, so when I dropped the kids off it was a quick let everyone out of the van except Josh thing and then take off. This totally threw Josh off his routine, and boy did I pay for it the rest of the day.

We had speech first (and were 2 minutes late due to traffic being horrible). He was so incredibly whiny about 20 of the 30 minutes. Jessica had a really difficult time getting him to answer questions. Hopefully it will go much better tomorrow. {fingers crossed} In the end, he did do his work and even had a few minutes to play with the train.

We went immediately to OT. He was extremely distracted in there though. We usually are either alone in the large room or have one other smaller child doing something quiet. There were not only 2 other kids around or close to the same age, but also one little boy that was playing with trucks - his favorite thing in the world! Mindy put him in the ballpit and tossed in some beanbag animals for him to find. He couldn't concentrate. He wanted all of the blue balls out of the way because he "doesn't like the blue balls". He did eventually (after a good 8 minutes) find the beanbags and throw them in the basket like he was told to do, but it took a LOT of effort to get him to do so.

Since he was so highly distracted, Mindy had him pick two trucks and bring them into one of the smaller rooms where there were no other children bouncing and swinging. She took out some theraputty and hid 10 pegs in it for him to find and then line up on a peg board. Josh refused to actually touch the stuff. He would start to, but would then totally break into tears over it. He kept saying it felt yucky, but he wouldn't even try to feel it before assuming it would be. That's when I remembered Mindy told me last session to remind her to tell me about brushing! She couldn't believe she hadn't gone over that wiht me yet!

So she set Josh up with some beans and some little rubber fish that he needed to find and stick in the truck. While he was doing this, she explained about brushing and then demonstrated it. By this point it was time to leave, so on the way out I asked when to do this. We do his arms, hands, feet and legs every 2 hours right now. Whew! Eventually we will lessen it, but not sure when. I asked about whether or not we were supposed to end with some sort of proprioceptive type thing, and then she rememebred she forgot to tell me about the joint compressions, so I got a quick lesson in that as well. :) Josh actually enjoys it and seems to think it tickles, which I don't think is supposed to happen. I'm applying some pressure, so I will have to question that tomorrow.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better. {sigh} I feel like such a failure sometimes when we have days like Wednesday.

Elena's (late) 12 month check-up

Silly me didn't even get around to posting Elena's latest stats! I had her check-up last Thursday (when mom and dad's house was broken into). She is 25 lbs, and 31" long. She is in the 90th% for both height and weight, and head circumference is in the 75th%. So she is growing well.

Dr. V. looked through her chart and mentioned that she couldn't believe how sick my sweet girl was last month. :( She said she was "hospital material" and asked if I was told she had rotavirus. I told her Dr. B never said that but that it was likely just a bad tummy bug. Apparently the rotavirus test is the only one that never was ordered...not that it mattered since there was nothing they could do for her if that was what it indeed was. She's fairly certain that's what it was. Poor baby. :(

She is doing everything she should be doing at this age. She is very close to walking, but still a bit timid. She is so stinkin' cute I can't stand it sometimes! LOL She still has only 8 teeth, is starting to become a little clingy to mommy, sings along to Beethoven's 5th, and does this adorable little waddling crawl now when she is excited about coming to you. I just love her to pieces.

Unbeliveable!

My mom was here at my house babysitting the kids while I took Elena for her late 12 mth checkup. Right after she left, she called to tell me my father had gotten home and their house had been broken into. They broke in through the back door, and the dog never moved from the middle of the yard from what my neighbor could figure.

I went over to mom and dad's after dinner to try and wait for the crime scene police to show up and then help them clean a bit. 7 hours after their original call, and they just showed up.

Apparently several people in the neighborhood saw a black male hanging around on a girl's bike and swerving around like he was scoping out the neighborhood. This same male banged on the door next door to mom and dad's and then when she answered he said it was the wrong house. When she opened the front door (not her screen door) a black male was standing there and got real nervous and said something about being at the wrong house. He went to the side of her house and had hidden his bike behind her garbage cans!

About 10 minutes later is when the dogs went crazy, but when she looked out the window she didn't see anything, so she assumed it was an animal of some sort that the dogs were chasing.

The guy went on their back porch and tried pulling off one of the dining room screens. It is bent where he had pulled the thing, but he apparently had no luck getting it off. So, he went to the other dining room screen and slit it so that he could try unlocking the window. Then he went to the next two windows, which are the kitchen, and slit both of those screens and had no luck getting them open as well. Then he went over to the den/garage area and removed the screen completely and then I suppose used something like a credit card to unlock the window. When he climbed in through there, he simply stepped onto the deep freeze which was layered with a thick coating of dust, and he left finger and shoe marks. Of course, it had too much dust for the police to get anything off of it.

He completely bipassed the den and went into the living room where he simply went through 3 out of 6 drawers in the hutch and left them partially open. He then went to my 16 year old brother's room, and I guess he figured he was a kid by the contents of the room or something, because he only messed with the top drawer of his dresser from what we can tell.

Then he went to my 21yo brother's room. He took all of the coins from his tips except for the pennies. He also left Glenn's ATM card and some cash that was in plain sight. And to top it off, he moved some of Glenn's pants to the bed (don't know if he tried them on or what) and a shirt and then left a towel that did not belong to my family on top of them. Ick! He also stole his camcorder which Glenn is furious about.

From there he appears to have gone into my parent's room, and that is where it was the worst off. He emptied my father's chest of drawers. Don't know if he took anything or not, because they were told not to touch anything until after the crime scene crew came. He emptied my mother's purse and left the contents neatly piled on her bed. He also removed a candle from a candlestick holder and placed them nicely on the bed. He got into several drawers. Here's the really crazy thing - he only took change!

I felt so icky in the house. You could just sense how things played out during the time the guy was in there, and it was such an awful feeling. I hated it, and I know there is no way I would be able to sleep in that house if it were me.

The most eeire part about all of this is the coincidence...this is four months after my grandmother died. 4 months after my great-grandmother died is when my grandparents had their home broken into. I can't get over that.

Ugh. I don't know how much more bad news I can take. I seriously want this year to be over with. I am getting so stressed from everything that has happened this year. All of it is just piling up into one huge mess, and it seems to just keep getting bigger and bigger. I just want to go into hiding until January. :(

Current events

What a mess. The majority of my father's family lives in Southeastern Louisiana where Hurricane Katrina decided to place her wrath. My grandmother and several of dad's siblings are in Houma. They were all ok. Loss of power, shingles and a shed roof were the report from my grandmother, along with a little flooding.

We had a little scare with my Aunt Jan. She lives in New Orleans on the western side of the city. She had evacuated thank goodness, but she had headed back and no one was able to reach her. My grandmother had talked to her and at the time nobody over there had any clue New Orleans is as bad as it is thanks to the lack of power. So, after not being able to reach her for over 24 hours, we were getting a bit worried. She emailed and called mom and told her she went back to Baton Rouge. From what she has heard, her home is ok, but they have no electricity. She will go back once that is restored.

I can not imagine what these poor people there and in Mississippi are going through. One of the girls that posts on the cloth diaper board lives in a town very close to Houma, and she said it is really bad. She had evacuated and on the way home she saw such horrible sights. I can not imagine.

Our hearts and prayers are going out to all who have effects from the storm.

Hooray!

Josh had ST and OT today. Let me state again how much we LOVE our new ST. She is wonderful! The two of us had a nice little chat for the past 10 minutes of his session. I have mentioned numerous times how I felt that his speech eval was far from accurate. Jessica asked me how long ago he had the eval. I told her it has been 2 months at the most and she was shocked! She again said his sentences were fine and when she worked with him today she noted that his knowledge of how objects are used and being able to verbalize it is fine as well. These are both things Roni stated in the eval were huge weaknesses for him and that I argued but was ignored. Jessica told me she had read the chart and eval and when she met Joshua she was extremely surprised because she was really expecting him to be much worse. So, I do know what I'm talking about! Ha!

I asked her if she feels he really is a full year behind as Roni's eval placed him. She said he is behind, but she really doesn't think it is that far. Where he is behind is in the areas we already knew about and what has had me concerned - being able to answer "WH" questions being the biggest. So, she has decided we will work on getting him so he isn't as distracted as he usually is in the ST room, and then she will redo the evaluation to get a more accurate view of where he is and needs help at. I am so happy to hear that we finally have someone who is willing to listen to MY concerns and input and also seems to enjoy working with the kids. Yay for Jessica!!!

After ST we had an hour to waste. I hate when we have an hour in between sessions. It isn't enough time to go and do anything away from the clinic, and yet too much time to sit in the waiting area. So, I decided we would go upstairs one floor and go across the "Kid's Walk". This is a long bridge type hallway that connects the children's hospital and the children's clinic for pedestrians. It has a ship's steering wheel, art work, looking glasses and all sorts of things for the kids to look at as you walk the 1/4 mile hallway. Pretty cool! And Josh also was able to see the hospital's helicoptor go up, which totally made his day. :) We also ran into one of my cousin's (Carrie) MILs, so we chatted for a little bit.

After getting to the hospital we still had way too much time to waste. Luckily, on the bottom floor is an area for the kids to play in. Basically it is 3 huge steps with a column in the center of the room. Inside the column, there are some touchscreen type games. Pretty neat. It was Joshua, me, and another mom with her son. Joshua was in his own world jumping down from the top step, to the next, to the next. climbing and repeating. All of a sudden something caught his eye (I have NO idea what) and he decided to jump off the bottom step into the column. He looked just like one of those cartoon characters that jump and splat into a wall. After hitting the column with his entire body, he fell flat on his tush. After closing my mouth and realizing he was ok, I ran over to be sure he was ok. He looked stunned (I would too). Then he looked at the other mom and teared up a bit. He told her he needed to go home and get a bandaid. We both lost it then and I thought we would never stop laughing. He was absolutely fine....just shocked that however he had planned his leap in his head didn't quite work out that way. LOL He went right back to the steps and walked them from that point on. LOL

Finally it came time to head back to the clinic for OT. We got there and he was worn out. He started crying and said he didn't want to see Ms. Mindy. When she came out he completely burst into tears. She asked if he was tired and he told her yes he wanted a nap. She brought him some water and fruit snacks and he seemed to perk up a bit after that. He did some swinging and then we went over the sensory diet that I have been doing with Josh and she was happy with what I am doing currently.

After the swinging, she had him sit on a ball right in front of a mirror. She then put shaving cream on the mirror and drew shapes in it for him to trace. He was very reluctant to do the activity because of his tactile issues. Even with the towel in one hand ready to wipe his fingers, he still cried during the entire activity because he said it felt yucky. He did the same with the playdough last week at home. She told me to go ahead and push the messy stuff some, but he ust may not be ready for some of it still. She also gave us some theraputty to work with at home.

Oh! And Joshua COMPLETELY dressed himself today. Everything, including socks were put on by HIM. Yay Josh! We still have to remind him to keep watching what he is doing, and it took him half an hour to do it, but HE DID IT all by himself!!

Hooray!!!

Been a little while

School has been keeping us busy lately, which isn't a bad thing at all. :) As I mentioned, I decided to switch back to doing my own thing and following my gut and knowledge as opposed to the book, and it has made a tremendous difference.

Jacob has been doing well. Today was a little rough. He had a little stubborn streak take over during Math and he didn't bother to read the directions NOR listen as I explained them to him several times. We finally got through it and I gave him a little break before lunch. So we still have a little to do today.

Joshua has been working on the letter O this week. I start the day with Jacob doing his journal entry at the table and then I go in the boys' room and do vestibular and proprioceptive activities with Josh and Cassie. Cassie doesn't have to do this, but they are usually fun things and she wants to be involved too. LOL Occasionally Elena comes in and tries to involve herself - either by laughing, clapping, or climbing on us while we "work".

Once Josh and Cassie finish the activities, Josh is actually able to concentrate on handwriting. Jacob is usually done with his journal at this point, so he then takes his reading book and heads to my room and shuts the door so he can concentrate on his two chapters. I then focus on Josh and Cassie with their letter of the day assignments.

I decided to start with the letter O because it is the easiest letter in Joshua's name. Keep in mind, at the beginning of the school year he was unable to even coordinate himself enough to actually hold a pencil or other writing tool in his hand. Every day at the end of our handwriting session, I take my hand and help him write out his name. He knows how to spell it verbally now. He still has a LOT of work to be able to spell, but he is now attempting to actually write it out on his own, which is extremely exciting to see. Once I upload the pictures on my camera, I'll post one of his work on the dry erase board this morning. He was so proud of himself, and I am thrilled to see him making so much progress. Is it enough according to the school board and the therapists? I don't know. I know we are working hard and I see a lot of improvement, and for now that will do.

EDITED TO ADD pictures!!!
Here are the pictures of Joshua's work from Friday. I wrote the wrong date. Oops! You can see his practice O's that he did without any help. On the right side going down you can see where he wrote his name by himself, starting with the backwards J. LOL I think he is doing well especially considering prior to August 1st he could not hold a pencil, let alone actually write a letter or his name.

Our new plan

Well, I have completely nixed the unit study we were doing. I liked it a lot in the beginning, but the more we got into it, the more unhappy I became with it. So, I am doing like I did last year and doing my own thing. Let me tell you, I should have done this from the start. Things are so much better all the way around. My schedule is a little hectic, but I have had no problems with Joshua doing anything the past few days. Yeah! We were done fairly early today and there wasn't a single issue from any of the kids. We are still studying the planets for science, so Jacob is content with that.

For reading, Jacob has been reading the Junie B. Jones series. He is having a blast reading them. I thought they may be a bit above his level, but I sent him in my room to read 2 chapters today while I worked with Josh and Cassie, and he came running out all excited over something that happened in the book. We are currently reading book 2 in the first series - her kindergarten adventures. I have even gotten a few laughs from them.

So all in all, maybe this is all I needed to do to help Josh. Sounds weird, but maybe there was just too much structure to the day before. {shrug}

Well poop!

I mentioned about Silas interviewing for a promotion. It basically was between him and another guy in the office. He called a little bit ago from work to tell me that he didn't get the job. The guy that did get it is very nice, I have met him. However, Silas trained him for the position he is in right now. He is known for calling because he is hesitant about doing things and it is a known fact that he does not have as much experience building wires and such. He also carpools with the boss. To me, that was a huge conflict of interest and given that my understanding is that he and Silas both missed the same questions....well, I will stop there. Silas couldn't go into details about what the supposed reasons were for not getting the promotion, but you could tell he was disappointed. Once he gets home, I am sure that he will let me know what he was told the reasons were. I think he feels a little like me that maybe a little bit of friendship was the final decision maker.

So, back to square one. Hopefully this just means there is something bigger and better waiting for Silas right around the corner.

*UPDATE*
The boss brought both of the guys into the office and said they were extremely close. He decided to go and ask a few of the other employees their opinions, and with the way he worded the question, that is how he decided which applicant he would choose. He knew when he asked the question what the answer would be. The question he asked was which of the two applicants was the most methodical. Silas, knowing more than the other guy, tends to skip some unnecessary steps, so naturally, the three people asked had no choice but to answer that the other guy is. Never mind that he still calls Silas for help and nevermind the fact that Silas was the one that trained him. You would think that some of that would have come into play, but that would have been basing it on a "personal decision".

On the other hand, the boss claims to be trying to get Silas' current job inflated to the same position that Silas just was rejected from. Supposedly the pay would be increased to that amount as well. However, knowing how no business likes to spend more money than they absolutely have to, I doubt it will happen even remotely soon, if ever. We'll just have to hope he pulls through somehow.

Help my friend out!

A friend of mine (also named Melissa) would like to attend a concert in Vegas. Tickets are pretty expensive, and they currently have a contest going. All she has to do is be the person with the most clicks on her website. Let's help out Melissa and get her the tickets she's wanting! Just click on the link below:

http://www.bandbuilder.com/vegoose/index.php?ref_code=F66783

Thanks! I know she'll appreciate it. :)

Library Trip

Joshua now has his very own library card. He is so proud! I finally got brave enough to try bringing him to the library. I have mentioned before about his booming voice. His sensory issues cause him not to realize just how loud he speaks most of the time.

I spent the day preparing him for the trip. I explained to him that we have to be quiet when we go into a library and use our library voice, which I demonstrated several times. I then promised him that if he was good and let me get the books I was going after, I would let him pick a book and then get his very own library card, just like Jacob has. His eyes sort of lit up when I told him this, and he said ok.

So, when Silas arrived home, we got ready to leave and piled into the van. Everytime I would turn a corner he would ask, "Is that the Library?" So, when Jacob finally told him "Yes, Josh" he was extremely happy.

Both boys were patient and helped me gather the books I was looking for. Then I let them each pick a book they wanted to read. Jacob chose a book about dinosaurs and Josh found one with a bulldozer on it. We then went through the videos and they each chose one they wanted to see.

We then filled out Joshua's library card application and checked out. When he got the card, he was beaming. He was even excited to put it away in my wallet. LOL The funniest part was when we were leaving. He looked at the woman who had just checked our books out and said "I love you, I lovin' you too, bye!" She simply told him bye. LOL

Can I talk to your mom?

Ok, I am 29 years old, 30 next month. Is it wrong to be annoyed when the phone rings and I answer only to hear an older gentleman ask if he can speak to my mother? I mean, how hard is it to respond to a "Hello?" with "Hi, May I speak to the woman of the house?" Or how about, "Hi, may I speak to the homeowner?" Nope. Instead we have the conversation go something like this:

Me: "Hello?"
Caller: "Hi, can I talk to your mom?"
Me: "Umm, this is the lady of the house."
Caller: "No way! You sound so young! (insert laughter here)"

This has been going on a LOT the past few years and it is ALWAYS the same two groups that do it - the firefighter's association and the police association. Grr. Do they really think they are going to get my money this way?

It was humoorous the first few times it happened. I laughed right along with them when I'd respond that I am the lady of the house and they would chuckle at how young I sound. Hey, I didn't choose my soprano voice, it was a gift. LOL After several years of this though, I am getting annoyed by it.

I was on complete bedrest during my pregnancy with Jacob (my oldest) and my mother came over to take care of me everyday while my husband went to work. One of the guys called and when I answered he asked to speak to my mother. I had a few too many of those calls in the weeks prior to that, so that time I handed the phone to my mother who politely told the guy that he had just spoken to the lady of the house. I could hear her say "Yes, I'm her mother, but she is on bedrest and I'm here taking care of her". LOL

There have been a couple of others that I have responded to them by saying, "Yes, you can speak to her if you hang up and call HER home instead of mine" or "Well, I'm sorry, but she is in her own home 15 minutes away from mine."

Today was a little different. The firefighter's association was who the call was from. This guy made no assumptions - he simply asked if he could talk to the lady of the house. Finally, someone wanting money with a little common sense! No, this man ruined the successful request by turning around and saying, "Wow! I thought maybe I was talking to one of the teenagers or something because you sound so young!" Oh well, better luck next time, sir. :)

I guess I should be grateful that they are all local. Otherwise I guess I'd get a lot of comments about my supposed accent (which I still don't notice) as well.