Um, NO

The Busy Little B had OT today followed by his appointment to get his new orthotics.  He was kinda excited since the Super Kid and Miss Iz both have orthotics as well.  He picked this cool red pattern and so was bouncing all over the exam room while our orthotist, Mr. M, went to get them.  Mr. M brings them in, its time for the big reveal.......and they are not red.  Hot pink and black.  The Busy Little B looked at them and said "um, NO".  A few years ago, he would have been all for it because pink was his favorite color but then he changed his favorite to green or red and gave Miss Iz all his pink stuff (mostly, there are still a few toys he loves).

Mr. M says they discontinued the red B originally picked out but instead of contacting him to find out what pattern would be preferred, they just picked one and sent it out.  So Mr. M is re-ordering them in a camouflage this time (something B is really into right now--I'm surprised his camo tshirt isn't worn out from all the washing) and Miss Iz stared longingly at the hot pink inserts and wondered if maybe she could take them home and grow into them ;)  Mr. M is her orthotist as well and promised her that if she still loved the hot pink when it was time to get her next pair, he'd order a pair made just for her feet :)

OT Monday

Iz had OT yesterday and she was *so excited* to tell Miss J that on Sunday she ate all her vegetables and liked them!  One of the things they are working on is overcoming some of those aversions to the way things feel in her mouth so they work on different foods and different seasonings and Sunday night involved some roasted veggies, including things they've been trying raw in feeding therapy.  Roasted celery is a hit, she told Miss J that it tastes good when its cooked and its a new favorite (still can't top her number one favorite, steamed broccoli with butter).

They are also working on her core--she has low muscle tone, not bad enough for a diagnosis of whatever the medical term is for low tone, but significant enough that she had to do physical therapy and OT to work on it.  The PT ended last year but she's still working on strength with her OT.

The next step on our homeschooling journey

We have been rather isolated the last month or so as we recovered from the dramatic downturn in behavior and emotional/mental control Miss Iz took during the last months at school.  Her removal from that program has seen rapid progress and improvement but we have spent a lot of time at home and at therapy working through some of the anxiety and defiance and opposition that made a reappearance, especially when it was leading to the extreme aggression and flight we saw at school (and spilling over to home).  We haven't been complete hermits--we still went to the grocery store, appointments, etc, but once she started being able to interact with kids in the waiting room without outbursts, we tried kid gym, open swim, all leading up to the big one:  Playgroup!

Yesterday we went to our first one and she loved it!  She was anxious and nervous and she mostly kept to herself.  She did get upset at one point but she did exactly as she was supposed to--she retreated to a place away from other kids to calm down and then she and I talked through what was upsetting and the best ways to respond in the future (practicing what she should do is a big part of her strategy because once it becomes second nature, its easier to put into practice during a high anxiety or high conflict situation).  She did awesome!  She's looking forward to the next outing :)

Yahoo!

The Busy Little B had OT yesterday.  Remember how last week he agreed to clip a couple of fingernails?  And how huge this is for him since he registers nail clipping as pain and they've been working for months to desensitize him a bit so we can clip?  Yesterday at OT he decided to clip his toenails and did ALL TEN.  We had a little celebration right there in the waiting room LOL  He asked for help putting his socks on this morning--he didn't really need help, he just wanted me to look at his toes.  He was all grins and giggles when I told him how handsome his feet were with his nicely clipped nails.  I really hope this trend of him not only tolerating clipping but deciding on his own to do it continues!

Check Engine Light is finally off!

Remember last week when my check engine light went on?  It was a misfiring cylinder 6 and our first step was to use a cleaner to see if getting all the injectors and such cleaned would help.  It did a little but the cylinder was still misfiring.

MrP was home for a day and a half and he braved the cold to fix the cylinder. He checked spark plugs and wires and things and discovered some other part that involves all six cylinders wasn't working properly.  A coil?  Maybe?  I'm not a car person, I have no idea what it really was LOL  It cost 52 and change and now my van runs beautifully again so that's the important part ;)  I'd hate to know what the bill would have been if I had needed to take it to a mechanic!

The Long Day

Right now, Tuesdays are our long day. But this past Tuesday I got a break!

Took W to his swim lesson (and Miss Iz went to Kid Gym).  The swim class after ours didn't show so we stayed longer and played about in the pool and W practiced some more of his skills.  Then off home and Mr. Piper arrived!  He's been on the road and we weren't supposed to see him until next week but he had to wait for his coworkers to pass by to meet up with them (they drive the buildings, MrP is their escort driver) so we got an unexpected visit.  So after lunch, we all went to pick up the Busy Little B to go to OT.  He had a good session and worked on fine motor control (kid is opposed to silverware so we are working on getting him more comfortable with it so we can end the eating with fingers thing :p) as well as balance (he wants to ride a bike but he can't coordinate balance and movement so he's working on getting balance down first and then adding in the movement so he can pedal at the same time.  All my kids have trouble making both sides of the body work in coordination so its slow going but he'll get there!).

On Tuesdays the Super Kid also has appointments after school.  OT every week and speech every other week.  Because MrP is home, he took the Super Kid while I stayed home with the other three.  This is a nice break for me :p  Sometimes MrP will stay home and I get to go alone to wait for the Super Kid to get done and read a book in peace and quiet but I wanted to get a few things done at home so I opted to stay.

The Busy Little B sure was glad I stayed because I made his very favorite meal ever, ready to eat as soon as MrP and the Super Kid got home :D

A New OT? Oh, no!

Today was OT day for Miss Iz and her regular OT was out.  In the past, one of the OTs she's worked with in the past picked up for her regular OT but today was someone new and poor Iz just shut down when she came up and introduced herself.  She did a really nice job overcoming that anxiety, though--I reminded her how much she loves OT and asked if she could go and show the new OT  her favorite things to do and she overcame that anxiety and went back and ended up having a very nice session :)  A month ago and that would not have happened!

Shelly the tortoise

Our local zoo has a storytime every weekend and while we don't make it all the time, the kids really enjoy it when we do get over there.  They usually read a short story but the highlight of the visit is the animal they bring to introduce to the kids.  This week was a 27 year old yellow footed tortoise named Shelly :)

Guess what day it is?

OT Day!!!!

Sorry, couldn't help myself ;)

We started our day with in-home speech for W.  He has been rather quiet lately but he had a lot to tell Miss H today and toys to show her.  It was cute :p

 Once speech was over, we packed up and headed for the gym.  W went to the kid gym while I took Miss Iz to open swim at the warm pool.  Her lessons do not start again until February but she wants to practice her skills so she can hopefully graduate to level two after this set of lessons.  So we practiced floating and kicking and she showed off she can swim independently for a couple feet/strokes.  And we just played for a while.  We were in the pool for a little over an hour and I'm kinda tired now LOL.

We stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items, had a super quick lunch at home, and then off to pick up the Busy Little B at school.   My check engine light had come on so we stopped at Advance Auto Parts on the way to the rehab center to make sure it was nothing imminent.  I have a misfiring cylinder :\  Just what I needed!

OT for B went well.  He's been working hard!   

OT day again!

We had a busy day yesterday.

After the boys were off to school and breakfast was eaten, off we went to the gym.  Iz went to kid gym and W went to his parent-child swim lesson.  Only one other parent-child set showed up and they left early so W got lots of extra attention from the instructor.  We stayed an extra fifteen minutes because the kids for the next class were late.  Once they showed up, though, W and I headed out--even though it was an open swim time in the pool and we could have stayed, if his instructor is teaching a class, he thinks he should be right there, too :p

Iz had fun in the kid gym and when we picked her up she was sitting with another little girl looking at books together :)

Home for lunch then off to collect the Busy Little B from school so he could go to OT.  B got extra prizes in OT because he spotted a pair of nail clippers and voluntarily clipped one of his nails!  This may seem like no big deal but B is extremely tactile defensive in many areas and one of the worst is his nails.  Kid's brain processes the sensations of clipping as extreme pain and one of the things he has been working on in OT (unsuccessfully up until this point, I might add) is desensitizing his fingertips so nail grooming can happen.  It was a HUGE moment for him :)

After that we headed home to wait for the Super Kid and then took him straight back to the rehab center we had just left so he could have OT :p  He has always had really low strength in his hands and this has made things like tying shoes and writing rather painful as his hands tire quickly.  His handwriting has improved to the point where its actually quite nice when he starts out but as his hands begin to hurt, his writing is barely legible.  He's done OT in the past to help improve hand strength but they are working on it again.

Miss Iz and W were sure excited about school this morning!  We didn't even make it through breakfast before Iz was doing math worksheets and then they finished eating while watching a Magic Schoolbus episode about air pressure :p

This afternoon was OT.  One of Iz's goals is to be able to tolerate trying foods, particularly vegetables.  She used to eat just about everything but over the last year, the list has dwindled dramatically and she was complaining about the feel of food.  This past week she has skipped many a meal because it didn't look like it would "feel right" and she refused to eat.  So OT includes a bit of feeding therapy as well to overcome the sensory aversion.  She tried all kinds of stuff at OT today :p  Now if we could just get her to eat at home!  She helped me cook dinner (chili) and she actually ate an entire serving so progress, eh?

Later in the afternoon we had to take the Busy Little B back again to do an intake appointment/evaluation with one of the psychologists.  He's going to do a ten week social skills group with other kids his age starting next month.  B is friendly but his friendships are very surface level and he doesn't actually interact with kids very much.  Hopefully this will help!

Iz had developmental clinic today.  We are checking in every six months to a year depending on how things are going and developmental takes a look at all therapies and things to see if we are missing anything.  At the moment we are doing all we can be doing but Miss E did give me a list of homeschooling resources (she has several homeschooled kids in her practice) and did do a referral to the new neuropsychologist to see about some educational testing if Iz is old enough for it.  With both older brothers diagnosed with the same learning disabilities and Iz struggling with some of the same things they did at this age, Miss E said it can't hurt to check into it early because if we can catch it now, we can work on it earlier.

Overall a good visit :)

Today felt absurdly busy :p

We started off our day with some speech therapy for W.  At first, he just wanted to hide but by the end, he was mad we had to stop LOL

We left immediately after speech to drive cross town so W could have his swim lesson!  Miss Iz went into the kids gym and there were a LOT of kids there for her to play with.  One of the workers asked another "why are there so many kids here today!?" and the second worker just looked at her and said "Its January."  Resolution month ;)

When W and I got to swim I discovered we were at the wrong class.  I signed him up for a level one class but he is supposed to be in a level two class (same class, just divided by age) which is on Tuesday.  This is the first time the gym has used an online registration system and our swim instructor says everyone is showing up for the "wrong" classes because there were just too many glitches with the system.  She said we can go to whichever class we want but it actually works out better for us to go on Tuesdays so we don't have to rush after speech.  We did the Thursday class today and will switch to Tuesdays next week.  And this is better for Miss Iz, too, as it looks like one of the local homeschool groups meets on Thursday morning fairly regularly so maybe she can make some buddies to play with.

We did a milk run after swim and then home for lunch and then off again to pick up the Busy Little B.  He had OT after school (and he loves Miss A so going twice a week is fine by him) followed immediately by Miss Iz's appointment with her psychologist Miss J.

By the time we got home again, I was tired :p

A very busy day

We had a busy day yesterday and it felt like I was constantly trying to catch up.

We didn't make it through our homeschooling list as quickly as we normally do so Iz and I ended up doing her "research project" in the waiting room of the rehabilitation center the kids do things like PT, OT, and speech at :p  A couple times a week I pick a topic for her to search online for--we are starting young on the basics of research and reliable sources--so instead of me teaching her something, she's getting the information on her own (sort of, I still read it to her and help explain it so she can understand).  Yesterday's topic was "why things float" so we had a good discussion on density and buoyancy :)  Why, you may ask?

After the Busy Little B had OT (and we ran home for half an  hour to wait for the Super Kid to come home from school so we could go right back to the rehab center) and The Super Kid had both speech and OT, we headed for the gym for the next session of swim lessons!  They were so excited :D  Got there, got all changed, got down to the pool, waited for the teachers and other kids to show up......and nobody did.  There were adult classes in the pool and lap swim but no swim lessons.  OOPS.  Apparently I marked down January in my calendar but big kid lessons are in February.  Sorry, kids!  Baby W is the one who does lessons in January (starting tomorrow).  So my dejected kids got changed and we went home to eat and go to bed :p

Iz had OT yesterday--her OT is so pleased with how much better sessions are going since she switched to homeschooling.  It was hard for them to make any progress when she was struggling to have any type of control over her actions and emotions and self-regulation.  We still have moments of intense struggle but those moments are fewer and further between and she pulls herself together much quicker.  While the school can claim success with their program with many kids, Iz's rapid downward spiral was pretty clear to everyone but the school that the program was having the opposite effect for her.  She made better progress at her old school with the help of her outside therapies!  So we continue with the outside therapies and get her mental/emotional health and anxiety in a good place so school can become a possibility later :)

After OT, the Busy Little B had molds taken of his feet so he can be the third kid to get custom orthotics :p  He thought it was super cool--wait until the orthotics come in and he realizes they will be touching his feet--the excitement will vanish!

Homeschooling

We are finding our homeschooling "feet" and getting into a routine :)

A dear friend of mine and her mum tracked down some books and resources for us and shipped them off--Iz loved going to the post office to pick them up, unpacking them, deciding where to keep them, and most of all, reading them!  We have already read a few of them multiple times and one has made its way to the first thing we do every day (the Monster Alphabet book) as a review of what the letters are because she is still working on letter recognition.

Someone in the local homeshcool facebook page suggested the Read Aloud Revival page as a good book list resource so I followed her and have had the bonus benefits of getting both Iz and the Busy Little B into this month's reading challenge (they are so excited about it) as well as a post about keeping organized and planning out your school day.  We are using a spiral notebook to keep track daily of what we plan to do and what we actually do.  Iz loves to check off the box after we complete an activity and I have been having her fill in the titles of the books we read to practice handwriting.  We usually spend an hour or two (depending on how fast she breezes through her work.  Right now we are still in the review phase where she already knows a lot of this stuff but since I do not know exactly what they worked on in school, we started from the beginning and she's moving pretty quickly through the stuff right now.  I fully expect as things get  unfamiliar or harder we will have to up how much time we spend) on math and reading activities in the morning and try to do something hands-on in the afternoon.

Her favorite hands-on so far is baking :p  I have her measure out the ingredients and I usually give her a smaller measuring cup than what we need so she needs to measure out a couple times and then add her measurements together to ensure she has the right total.  This morning we watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy episode on the earth's crust so after we do our baking, we are going to make  our own volcano in the sink, just like Bill did on the show (side bonus, it will clean my drain and garbage disposal LOL).  There is a new dinosaur exhibit opening at the natural history museum next week so I think we need to add in some lessons on dinosaurs so we can do a field trip :p

Mornings

On A School Day:

*alarm goes off*

Kids:  zzzzzzz..*mumbling* too tired, can't get up.....


On A Non-School day:

*an hour before alarm goes off*

Kids: IT IS MORNING!! *bounces on mom* IT IS MORNING

School is back in session

The big boys went back to school on Wednesday so we are settling back into our "normal" routine.

Before break, my Busy Little B had full educational and psychological evaluations at school to update his IEP.  They identified learning disabilities (same ones as the Super Kid)--he had already been receiving extra help in those areas but now its "official" and his time is upped a bit.  His twice weekly OT sessions are helping with some executive functioning issues as he has been improving!  His OT has been doing some therapeutic listening with him as well to help desensitize him to all the noise in the classroom because he's been finding all the noise and movement in the mainstream classroom overwhelming sometimes.  Slow progress is still progress :)

OT day

The Busy Little B and the Super Kid had OT today.  During B's visit, they noticed his feet are beginning to roll inward like S and Iz.  His OT pulled in the PT and the orthotist and both agree he needs custom orthotics.  So I shot an email over to the pediatrician--he's pretty good about writing out a referral if I request it so I imagine it shouldn't take long for the rehab center to get the script and get him scheduled to have molds taken of his feet so they can make the orthotics. I have a feeling his OT is going to need to really work with him to get him to tolerate the orthotics, though!

It is the last day of Winter Break.  Our appointment schedule resets to "normal" today and tomorrow we add school back into the mix.  Time to buckle down again and return to the hectic schedule that is our normal!

W's OT "fired" him a few weeks ago.  He is just not responding to her anymore.  He's been with her the longest of all his therapists and he really loves her, he just is too comfortable with her and won't cooperate anymore.  So she referred him back to the coordinator who found a new OT to work with him but it won't be until later this month

Another day of double digits below zero!  Its so cold both Iz and W have voluntarily gotten dressed LOL  W brought me pj bottoms, a long sleeved shirt, and a hoodie to help him put on :p