Last week of school!

The kids were off on Monday so only four days of school in the last week.  Hard to believe tomorrow is their last day!

Both the Busy Little B and Iz had really good OT sessions on Tuesday.  They both worked hard and their OTs are pushing them out of their comfort zone to work on more and more difficult (to them) stuff.  B also had speech.  Since he's only been going to the rehab for speech for a short time, they are still doing further evaluations with him and developing his treatment plan.  His old SLP was working on his conversational skills as well as articulation and that was helping but the rehab center wants to go a bit further and help him with organizing his thoughts and coordinating speech so things go a bit smoother for him.  So often he has so much to say and just can't figure out how to get it out!  They've done wonders for  him through OT so I'm excited to see what speech comes up with :)

W had speech this morning--he got mad at me and then refused to speak to his speech therapist.  He did lots of humming and grunting and much of it sounded like words and she understand most of what he tried to say. We were joking that he has a future as a ventriloquist LOL

Three Day Weekend

We have a three day weekend for Memorial Day and the Super Kid and Busy Little B are grumpy over it because they don't want to miss school :p  Next Friday is their last day and they don't think they should have to give up any of their days of school because there are so few left LOL  Not that long ago, they didn't want to go, now they are sad they can't.  Silly kids

obsessive behaviors

My Busy Little B has been having a hard week.  The rigidity in his thought patterns has been getting worse and he's been fixating on things a lot lately.  Small deviations in "normal" are overwhelming.  He had to take a mental health day from school Friday because he just couldn't handle multiple things being "wrong"--he spent a lot of time rocking back and forth, pacing, doing repetitive movements/actions trying to deal with the changes in his world.  Once school is out, we have to wean him off his trileptal to get an unmedicated EEG and I am not looking forward to it AT ALL.  Starting the trileptal years ago really helped with the fixations and obsessiveness.  The increase in the behaviors now is coming on after a recent growth spurt--neuro did not increase his trileptal to match the growth.  *sigh*  The next few months are going to need a lot of patience on everyone's part!

Today was just not a good appointment day for the Busy Little B.  He had another OT and while he's worked with her before, he doesn't mesh well with her.  She does great with Iz and the Super Kid but chances are always high B will just shut down on her.  She challenges his rigid ideas of how things need to go, he overloads, he shuts down.  She ended their session early and I did some deep pressure and massage to help calm down his system and he attempted speech therapy but they also ended early because he just couldn't pull himself out.  The SLP was very nice and understanding and told him that it was okay because we all get overloaded sometimes and need to take a break and they'd try again next week (he looks forward to speech all week and was so excited to go today :( ).  Next week he will begin working with Miss A's replacement so no more musical chairs with OTs and I'm hoping that will help.  Consistency is good for B!  I just hope the new OT can form a bond with him so he's less likely to get overwhelmed!

Miss Iz did really well in OT.  Miss J said she did an awesome job taking turns with other kids in the therapy room and they worked on things that challenge her and she worked hard and stayed calm when frustrated :)

The Super Kid was supposed to have OT as well but they had to reschedule because there wasn't an OT available.  He'll be seeing the same OT as B starting next week so it will be good we don't have to cancel and reschedule all the time!

Registration for summer swim lessons opened up so I got the kids all signed up.  One thing I was looking forward to was being able to get a better-for-us time slot and well, that didn't happen.  The better time slot is during B's ESY (extended school year) :|  So we had to stay at the same evening time *sigh*  At least in summer bedtime is a bit later so its not such a rush :p  Each of the three big kids is signed up for two sessions but poor W only gets one.  They aren't doing parent-child lessons over the summer and he can't enroll in the preschool lesson until he's three.  So he can't do session one.  But session two starts a couple days after his third birthday :)  My baby is growing up!  He'll be going in the pool for lessons without me :p  Miss Iz thinks I should put my suit on anyway and be in the water swimming so I'll be right there, just in case.  She's worried the swim instructor will have too many kids to keep an eye on :p

Happy Mother's Day!

We are in the home stretch

of the Busy Little B's OT and it scares me :p

He is up for recertification so they are updating his goals and she thinks by the time the next recert comes up in three months, he will have met all his goals and be ready for discharge.  He has made so much progress since we switched OT to the rehab center and that is fantastic but I am also so nervous that stopping OT will also stop progress and possibly cause a regression.  Is it bad I'm  hoping he can't quite hit those goals in three months so we can go longer?  It is just so good for him I don't want to give it up!

The Super Kid is Awesome

He signed up for the Orchestra contest for the school district and his time slot was this morning.  He prepared a piece to play solo and performed in front of the judge this morning.  The judges are professional musicians and they give the performers feedback on how they can improve and what they do really well.  The Super Kid has pretty bad anxiety so this was so so hard for him but he powered through and did it!  I am so proud of him!  The judge told him to work on timing (he plays violin) and gave him an example of what she meant that made sense to him (she said a sentence with really odd spacing/pauses and told him playing music with the wrong timing is very similar to having the wrong pauses in a sentence--it sounds off and smoother playing sounds better).  He was so excited at how well he did and how nice the judge was :)

We stopped to buy dog food on the way.  Usually I am not a fan of shopping with all four because they tend to be hyper and want things and its stressful but today?  I think my children have been replaced or something.  They listened, they behaved, they were polite, they were calm.  Is it just finally "clicking"? :p

Finally saw the OT again

We've been putting off W's OT appointment for weeks now.  First it was the stomach bug so we postponed a week.  Then it was the walking Nyquil Ad so we postponed another week (the OT has a little itty bitty baby at home so she and I both are cautious about exposing Miss K to the germs--I don't want her carrying them home to the little one!).  Then Miss K had something come up with her own kiddos and we had to postpone another week :p  So today, the stars aligned finally and she came =)

W started out so cooperative and was talking up a storm then he got all shy and just wanted to sit on my lap and hide his face.  Then the switch flipped and he was back to being Mr. Chatty and wanted to play all the games.  Overall, it was a good session for him :)

W and Miss Iz ran errands with me today--we spread our grocery shopping out over three stores, a feat I do not normally attempt all in one day but they did really well with all of the in and out and walking about.  We even got complements from several people at a couple of stores about how sweet and smart and polite the kids were!

Miss Iz and I have been working on her "th" blends during school--she really wants to be able to say thirteen (it sounds like fourteen when she says it and it throws her counting off because as she's rattling off numbers, she skips fourteen because she just said it).  So we've been practicing correct tongue positioning and such and when she's focused, she does really well.  Today she practiced up a storm!  She wore one of her Star Wars teachers and told people "May the Fourth Be With You!"  She was adorable :)

Speech on the wrong day!

Over the weekend, W's SLP texted asking to switch days so we had speech today instead of tomorrow.  He was really chatty today and really paid attention (some days he is just all over the place).  They played Barnyard Bingo and he had a blast.  They just filled all the "cards" up and he practiced say the colors and names of the animals and then they put the animal discs back in the barn.  She also had a little portable kitchen and he absolutely loved that--the kid loves kitchens and cooking and food.  I wish they still sold that set because it would be awesome to have (its really old, though).

Miss Iz was on fire this morning when it came to school work!  She did everything on her list plus extra and did really really well on everything.  She is still insistent she can't read because she doesn't know every word ever but she is reading the simpler words and sounding out the harder ones.  When she's focused, she reads a bunch of stuff without realizing it and forgets to ask for help LOL

We are enjoying the spring weather--the last few days have been in the sixties (and 85 on Monday!) so we are spending lots of time outside and at the park :)

Can we get another Poor B?  Yet another OT today (at least they didn't cancel?) but it was another speech therapist as well!  Looking ahead at the schedule, his speech therapist keeps changing as well.  I wish they'd get some more consistency :p  Its not all bad--one reason we moved his speech to the rehab center is because they do have so many SLPs and the other place only had one so scheduling is hard over there and at the rehab center there are choices if someone leaves/calls off.  But it does work better if he has multiple sessions with the same person and develops a rapport.  Hopefully it settles down soon.  On the positive side, he took it all in stride and was cheerful and cooperative yesterday. Much better than the silence of a few weeks ago.

Miss Iz also has OT and she was a little wild :p  Miss J had to redirect a lot but when Iz focused, she did really well.  They were working on body awareness as she's been a bit clumsy lately and keeps running into things and falling.  A problem all of my seekers have!  Funnily enough, when the Super Kid came back later, he also worked with Miss J and she had him do some of the same activities as Iz because he needs to work on body awareness as well :p

The Super Kid also worked more on his letter/number reversals.  She did some vision work with him as well (she's trained in visual processing disorder, something his old OT a few years ago thought he might have.  He does fairly well in most areas but those reversals have plagued him for years).  No one has ever been able to find a reason for the reversals (he has a reading learning disability but not dyslexia).  He was diagnosed with Dyspraxia many many years ago so its possibly related to that--the coordination issues between brain and actions appear to effect many systems so maybe?  We may never find out!  But he keeps working on them and he does have fewer reversals than years ago so maybe someday he'll have learned to compensate for all of them (although when I'm really tired, I revert back to reversing certain letters and numbers so I guess its never completely compensated for in my case ;) )