From one of my many special needs mailing list, many months ago I heard about Connections: The Brain Development Seminar and had a deep desire to attend in hopes I might learn something to help me unlock my children's potential. Movement to spur development seemed completely logical, but not necessarily intuitive to me. Initially, I had a date for Late August (dry erased marked) on my calendar, but when we realized our swimmers weren't going to be A meet competitors this summer (much to my relief because those long Saturday meets look exhausting) I realized I could indeed attend this seminar much sooner. To do so would give us an entire month to devote to whatever I would learn.
At long last, yesterday was a long and somewhat overwhelming day, where I tried to take in as much as my brain could absorb. While attending as "just a mom" there was another attendee who was an occupational therapist, and her enthusiasm for the materials covered helped to validate for me the legitimacy of the recommendations.
There is a lot of information given and much of it I will need to review again later to really process it all. These sorts of studies have a way of clarifying my own deficits. However, the primary activity discussed, the crawl, once the definition clarified (turned out "crawling" wasn't what I thought it was), I realized none of my children ever mastered. In fact I don't think I'd ever seen any of my children do the crawl in the manner in which the Connections program strives for. A couple of my babies certainly dragged themselves along the floor using just their arms, but then skipped to pulling up and "creeping" (what one likely thinks of when they hear the word crawling) being on hands and knees. Crawling, as defined by Connections is locomotion on the stomach using the arms and legs and is rather complicated and difficult to do.
Having been instructed to "not" instruct the kids, I asked each of my children to crawl down the hallway this evening. Most of them only thought to use their hands and arms, and only the three and one year old used their legs in some fashion, the three year old having the closest version (but not quite perfect) to the ideal Connections crawl. The one year old, didn't really follow my command, but endeavored to alternate between creeping and crawling when he saw his siblings sliding about on the floor. He hasn't crawled in months, but thought this was great fun. Hopefully, as his siblings discover the most efficient way to crawl (and they do need to figure it out themselves for the synaptic connections to form correctly) the youngest one will develop these skills as well.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Presumptive Teacher
Swim practice is now over for the summer. Now we can go to the pool to just have fun and nobody will have to sit along the sidelines watching and waiting. Yeah!
We heard there's a scholarship being offered for one lucky kid to join the winter team. I really, really, really want my oldest son to continue swimming year round because it has been so good for him. It burns energy, isn't heavily dependent upon accurately processed instructions (get in and swim...like they can hear anything with their heads under the water anyway), and he really needs something like this in his life. However, the cost for either of the two teams in our neck of the woods seemed staggeringly out of budget. So I pushed him to write an essay, and as usual had to give a LOT of guidance to help him organize his thoughts. If he wins the scholarship then there will be more swimming this year. However, if he doesn't, then we'll be free (yeah that's a way to look at it) to just swim at our leisure.
This morning, I got it into my feeble mind to make French toast. Having been notified that we had run out of eggs, a new path had to be devised. "No problem, get me the apple sauce," but then the negative notification sounded again. Racking my brain, my first thought was to use a banana to make a batter for my fried toast (so that I could soak up all the lovely sausage grease in my iron skillet). Alas, the bananas are still so green the peels won't even come away from the fruit, which was also still quite hard. Finally, I determined to utilize the last portion of our homemade grape jam to render my toast batter with. Mixing the jelly with some almond milk, pinch of salt, and a few sprinkles of cinnamon, this whole grain toast caramelized quite nicely, and tasted delicious.
After reading the children another chapter from Marilee Haynes' book, A.K.A. Genius, I noticed something peculiar on my dry erase board, which I did not write. It seems I have a deputy teacher dishing out assignments to her siblings. Home School is a way of life... even during the summer it seems.
While I had purchased A.K.A. Genius for my eldest son (in a vain attempt to lure him away from Diary of a Wimpy Kid) it turns out my daughter has been far more interested in reading this book. Not to be defeated, I endeavored to make it a family read aloud book, in hopes that my son might yet still fain a hint of interest. Indeed, he will politely listen, but has not found this story captivating enough as to cause him to want to read ahead on his own. I suppose I'll have to get the sequel for his sister, who is into this, hook, line, and sinker.
We heard there's a scholarship being offered for one lucky kid to join the winter team. I really, really, really want my oldest son to continue swimming year round because it has been so good for him. It burns energy, isn't heavily dependent upon accurately processed instructions (get in and swim...like they can hear anything with their heads under the water anyway), and he really needs something like this in his life. However, the cost for either of the two teams in our neck of the woods seemed staggeringly out of budget. So I pushed him to write an essay, and as usual had to give a LOT of guidance to help him organize his thoughts. If he wins the scholarship then there will be more swimming this year. However, if he doesn't, then we'll be free (yeah that's a way to look at it) to just swim at our leisure.
This morning, I got it into my feeble mind to make French toast. Having been notified that we had run out of eggs, a new path had to be devised. "No problem, get me the apple sauce," but then the negative notification sounded again. Racking my brain, my first thought was to use a banana to make a batter for my fried toast (so that I could soak up all the lovely sausage grease in my iron skillet). Alas, the bananas are still so green the peels won't even come away from the fruit, which was also still quite hard. Finally, I determined to utilize the last portion of our homemade grape jam to render my toast batter with. Mixing the jelly with some almond milk, pinch of salt, and a few sprinkles of cinnamon, this whole grain toast caramelized quite nicely, and tasted delicious.
After reading the children another chapter from Marilee Haynes' book, A.K.A. Genius, I noticed something peculiar on my dry erase board, which I did not write. It seems I have a deputy teacher dishing out assignments to her siblings. Home School is a way of life... even during the summer it seems. While I had purchased A.K.A. Genius for my eldest son (in a vain attempt to lure him away from Diary of a Wimpy Kid) it turns out my daughter has been far more interested in reading this book. Not to be defeated, I endeavored to make it a family read aloud book, in hopes that my son might yet still fain a hint of interest. Indeed, he will politely listen, but has not found this story captivating enough as to cause him to want to read ahead on his own. I suppose I'll have to get the sequel for his sister, who is into this, hook, line, and sinker.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Van Spider
Today was the final day of swim practice for my children. Now we can proceed with the lazy days of summer...sort of. We still plan to go swimming, but in a recreational fashion. Perhaps we'll sign up for one more round of lessons with our new favorite swim teacher during the first week of August.
What is happening in Mosul is too disturbing to discuss. I simply haven't any words for it. The best I can say is it's tragic and heartbreaking with a hefty dose of sick pit of the stomach feeling.
Lately I've been pondering my state with little ones and how much longer it will be this way. As my baby is rapidly roaring into toddlerhood, I have this notion that perhaps I should start clearing out the stash of baby things we're no longer using. For a fact, at the very least I can say I won't be needing them for the next eleven months. While we've done nothing artificially, it just seems like we're fading away from this phase of life, at least for a while.
Never before have I had such a feeling of uncertainty about how our future will look as there had always been some sort of up and coming mile-stone we were assured of reaching before us as an Army family. While, we'd like to remain as such, little seeds of uncertainty do take root when force reductions loom ahead. It makes you stop and contemplate what else the future might hold and leaves me with many a troubled moments when I try to decipher what else we would do.
See he fresh coat of paint on he wall, (Oat straw) and the cabinets having been resurfaced with the rustoleum kit, which I think looks very much like paint, and indeed it chips off very easily, so I'm not all that impressed with it so far. Too late now.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Oral cleft orthodontic implications
My eldest son was born with an incomplete, unilateral cleft lip with no initial appearance of palate involvement. However, as teeth began to erupt it was clear his gum line was somewhat disturbed by the cleft defect as well.
Honestly, aside from the initial two lip repair surgeries (one at 2 months and another to fix the botched first surgery at 2 years) the cleft has been the least of our concerns when it comes to our firstborn. While having a cleft made him a shoe in for speech therapy services, his needs weren't particularly articulation intensive. Rather his needs were more complex with deficits in comprehension and language formation. My inclination for quite a long time was that he had an Auditory Processing Disorder, however, it was much easier to diagnose him with PDD NOS (now considered to be part of the Autism Spectrum) then it was to have someone confirm my suspicion of APD. Either way, the therapy options available to us were pretty much the same, speech therapy.
Unlike other cleft affected children my son hasn't had to contend with multiple complicated surgeries. Even before his initial repair he had little trouble breastfeeding and thus has never had any ear infections (also a rare feat in the cleft affected world). Perhaps most importantly, nobody ever notices he was born with a cleft and I've never heard him once say anything about it. Most days, we never even think about it.
However, now that he's in the orthodontic phase the couple of malocluded teeth are requiring some strange and uncomfortable orthodontic applications. A month before braces were placed he had to have one tooth removed, which he tolerated very well. Then to move the largest malocluded tooth, they had to put it under traction of sorts and add "turbos" (sort of like tooth stilts) to prevent him from closing his mouth into a tight bite and leave clearance for the turning tooth. The turbos change the way he's used to resting his jaws and (as I can only imagine) make one uncomfortable with a constant strange sensation of a pencil always stuck between your teeth. Finally the day for the turbos to be removed came and we were all much happier for it.
Unfortunately, today they decided that they needed to place turbos again when they discovered that this second tooth (previously unable to decent as it was being blocked by the first malocluded tooth) is also twisted 90 degrees from who it should be oriented. Thus, he's back to having the dreaded turbos and that weird mouth sensation again. While he's lucky to have a full mouth of teeth (many cleft affected folks are missing quite a few) to work with, days like today are annoying reminders of his birth defect.
On the way home a show on Ave Maria Radio was talking about the concept of offering up your suffering for the sake of others. So I tried to explain to my son that perhaps he could devote his discomfort to the good of others. I don't think he quite grasped the concept, but he is being a trooper so far. I pray they can take those turbos off next time, as they really are quite awful, making eating more difficult than it need be.
Honestly, aside from the initial two lip repair surgeries (one at 2 months and another to fix the botched first surgery at 2 years) the cleft has been the least of our concerns when it comes to our firstborn. While having a cleft made him a shoe in for speech therapy services, his needs weren't particularly articulation intensive. Rather his needs were more complex with deficits in comprehension and language formation. My inclination for quite a long time was that he had an Auditory Processing Disorder, however, it was much easier to diagnose him with PDD NOS (now considered to be part of the Autism Spectrum) then it was to have someone confirm my suspicion of APD. Either way, the therapy options available to us were pretty much the same, speech therapy.
Unlike other cleft affected children my son hasn't had to contend with multiple complicated surgeries. Even before his initial repair he had little trouble breastfeeding and thus has never had any ear infections (also a rare feat in the cleft affected world). Perhaps most importantly, nobody ever notices he was born with a cleft and I've never heard him once say anything about it. Most days, we never even think about it.
However, now that he's in the orthodontic phase the couple of malocluded teeth are requiring some strange and uncomfortable orthodontic applications. A month before braces were placed he had to have one tooth removed, which he tolerated very well. Then to move the largest malocluded tooth, they had to put it under traction of sorts and add "turbos" (sort of like tooth stilts) to prevent him from closing his mouth into a tight bite and leave clearance for the turning tooth. The turbos change the way he's used to resting his jaws and (as I can only imagine) make one uncomfortable with a constant strange sensation of a pencil always stuck between your teeth. Finally the day for the turbos to be removed came and we were all much happier for it.
Unfortunately, today they decided that they needed to place turbos again when they discovered that this second tooth (previously unable to decent as it was being blocked by the first malocluded tooth) is also twisted 90 degrees from who it should be oriented. Thus, he's back to having the dreaded turbos and that weird mouth sensation again. While he's lucky to have a full mouth of teeth (many cleft affected folks are missing quite a few) to work with, days like today are annoying reminders of his birth defect.
On the way home a show on Ave Maria Radio was talking about the concept of offering up your suffering for the sake of others. So I tried to explain to my son that perhaps he could devote his discomfort to the good of others. I don't think he quite grasped the concept, but he is being a trooper so far. I pray they can take those turbos off next time, as they really are quite awful, making eating more difficult than it need be.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Mass of the Brown Scapular of Mt. Carmel
While we rode out the thunderstorm with nary a disturbance, the club pool power outage resulted in the cancelation of swim team practice this morning. Though I had contemplated skipping practice, the cancelation made the decision all the easier that indeed we would go to Mass this morning. Usually, we're a once-a-week attendance family, doing the bare minimum. However, were it not for my noisy rambunctious tots I would like to go more often. Since special invitations had been printed and distributed last Sunday, inviting everyone to the be inducted into the Scapular Devotion, I hoped that my crew wouldn't be too disruptive during the daily Mass (which usually doesn't draw the noisy types).
The morning departure went off without a hitch and we arrived to the church properly dressed, veiled, and even managed to snag a few of our garden roses on the way out for Mary. Perhaps I should have sat in the cry room, but opted not to since we usually don't. When the church isn't nearly as full as a standard Sunday Mass, an uncontrollable gigging toddler seems so much louder and more disruptive than usual. Aside from strapping the three year old to my back, and the one year old to my front, baring a combined total weight of 56+ pounds to my 130lb frame, most of the tricks up my sleeves were spent. Feeling quite distracted in the mind, I acquiesced when two of the children up and decided they needed to go potty (fieldtrip as I've termed it) during the Consecration (typical of them), as if those bells somehow trigger some sort of Pavlovian signal. The rational in my mind was since I'd been unable to really spiritually participate and had actually began to feel very frustrated, while some Grace would do my soul some good, going to communion in a less than desirable state could be equally as bad, so I'd go ahead and make sure nobody was going to have an accident in the pew and skip communion.
However, if I ever need reminding that this too shall pass, I need only look at my 13 year old, who now sits quietly in church, and recall that he once required all I could muster to endure Mass. One day, all the toddlers will be teenagers, and then later adults, and perhaps I'll be more like the sweet elders who were so kind as to pay me a complement for my lovely children and praised my mothering. It was especially endearing since I can all too easily begin to feel less than stellar falling prey to the thoughts of self-inflicted judgementalism. Often I worry a great deal about what others might be thinking, fearing that it's not good.
As a reward (without calling it such) we stopped into one of our favorite little shops, the Variety store, which is jammed packed with all sorts of things, that we might pick up some (cheap) water shoes for one of the girls who has outgrown her current pair. As further reinforcement for such a good morning (except the three year old) I let them pick something from the candy isle, which isn't something we always do. While I was temped to withhold a treat from said three year old, I suspect he wouldn't have the ability to connect his behavior in church with the lack of reward, as he lives so very much in the present.
Upon arriving home, just barely past 10am, and I was stunned at just how much we'd accomplished in such a short amount of time. The day was so young and we'd already had such a good start, which in and of itself was grace enough.
The morning departure went off without a hitch and we arrived to the church properly dressed, veiled, and even managed to snag a few of our garden roses on the way out for Mary. Perhaps I should have sat in the cry room, but opted not to since we usually don't. When the church isn't nearly as full as a standard Sunday Mass, an uncontrollable gigging toddler seems so much louder and more disruptive than usual. Aside from strapping the three year old to my back, and the one year old to my front, baring a combined total weight of 56+ pounds to my 130lb frame, most of the tricks up my sleeves were spent. Feeling quite distracted in the mind, I acquiesced when two of the children up and decided they needed to go potty (fieldtrip as I've termed it) during the Consecration (typical of them), as if those bells somehow trigger some sort of Pavlovian signal. The rational in my mind was since I'd been unable to really spiritually participate and had actually began to feel very frustrated, while some Grace would do my soul some good, going to communion in a less than desirable state could be equally as bad, so I'd go ahead and make sure nobody was going to have an accident in the pew and skip communion.
However, if I ever need reminding that this too shall pass, I need only look at my 13 year old, who now sits quietly in church, and recall that he once required all I could muster to endure Mass. One day, all the toddlers will be teenagers, and then later adults, and perhaps I'll be more like the sweet elders who were so kind as to pay me a complement for my lovely children and praised my mothering. It was especially endearing since I can all too easily begin to feel less than stellar falling prey to the thoughts of self-inflicted judgementalism. Often I worry a great deal about what others might be thinking, fearing that it's not good.
As a reward (without calling it such) we stopped into one of our favorite little shops, the Variety store, which is jammed packed with all sorts of things, that we might pick up some (cheap) water shoes for one of the girls who has outgrown her current pair. As further reinforcement for such a good morning (except the three year old) I let them pick something from the candy isle, which isn't something we always do. While I was temped to withhold a treat from said three year old, I suspect he wouldn't have the ability to connect his behavior in church with the lack of reward, as he lives so very much in the present.
Upon arriving home, just barely past 10am, and I was stunned at just how much we'd accomplished in such a short amount of time. The day was so young and we'd already had such a good start, which in and of itself was grace enough.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Spa treatment
My middle girl has always been interested in doing hair and she usually accompanies me to my hair appointment so she can take in the sights and sounds of my cousin's salon. Recently, I decided to adopt a pixie cut for the sake of comfort and convenience. To maintain my new "style" appointments will be more frequent, quarterly perhaps. One of the signature perks to getting a hair cut at my cousin's salon is receiving a head message with a shampoo and their message chairs.
With it being male bonding camping season, here on the home front, the lady folk have been painting toe nails, eating artisan frozen pizza, and gorging on frozen fruit smoothies during the day. What a pleasant surprise when I was presented with an appointment card (complete with a confirmation code) to the Oh La La Spa to have a special foot lotion treatment and message. They were free to everyone in the house today, so even the little people lined up to get their toesies pampered by the head beautician. While they were suppose to be cleaning their room, I had a hard time putting a stop to all this imaginative play interrupting their progress. I haven't had a foot message in ages.
Meanwhile, we started the rust-o-leum treatment for four of our kitchen cabinets. Today I finished the top coat for the bases so I could push the fridge back into place. We still have 8 doors and 5 drawers in the shed waiting to get treated. Getting this kitchen done is going to be a long drawn out process.
And it seems we have new neighbors, where as previously two of the bordering houses have been vacant. Our little dog sits on the top of the stairs peering out the little window on the front door, which allows her to glare at the neighbors and witness their every move, driving her and us insane when she goes off like crazed beast if they so much as step foot out their door. While she couldn't possibly see the new neighbor dogs, somehow she knows when they're outside in their yard.
We've had little bells hung on the back door for months hoping she'd decide to ring them to let us know she needs to go out. Today as we were listening to my oldest daughter reading The Magician's Nephew, those little bells began to ring. We couldn't believe it, she was actually ringing the bells to go out. So we let her out, not realizing there was something she wanted very much to attack outside. She's nuts! Those new dogs are about 8 times her size and she thinks she's got to make them go away. Thankfully, the new neighbor dogs aren't quite sure what to make of our ridiculous little fluff ball and they walked away from her fury.
With it being male bonding camping season, here on the home front, the lady folk have been painting toe nails, eating artisan frozen pizza, and gorging on frozen fruit smoothies during the day. What a pleasant surprise when I was presented with an appointment card (complete with a confirmation code) to the Oh La La Spa to have a special foot lotion treatment and message. They were free to everyone in the house today, so even the little people lined up to get their toesies pampered by the head beautician. While they were suppose to be cleaning their room, I had a hard time putting a stop to all this imaginative play interrupting their progress. I haven't had a foot message in ages.
Meanwhile, we started the rust-o-leum treatment for four of our kitchen cabinets. Today I finished the top coat for the bases so I could push the fridge back into place. We still have 8 doors and 5 drawers in the shed waiting to get treated. Getting this kitchen done is going to be a long drawn out process.
And it seems we have new neighbors, where as previously two of the bordering houses have been vacant. Our little dog sits on the top of the stairs peering out the little window on the front door, which allows her to glare at the neighbors and witness their every move, driving her and us insane when she goes off like crazed beast if they so much as step foot out their door. While she couldn't possibly see the new neighbor dogs, somehow she knows when they're outside in their yard.
We've had little bells hung on the back door for months hoping she'd decide to ring them to let us know she needs to go out. Today as we were listening to my oldest daughter reading The Magician's Nephew, those little bells began to ring. We couldn't believe it, she was actually ringing the bells to go out. So we let her out, not realizing there was something she wanted very much to attack outside. She's nuts! Those new dogs are about 8 times her size and she thinks she's got to make them go away. Thankfully, the new neighbor dogs aren't quite sure what to make of our ridiculous little fluff ball and they walked away from her fury.
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