Viva Las Vegas!

We had a really great time in Las Vegas with Grandma. We got to see the sites...we went to see the volcano erupt at the Mirage, we saw the Pirate Show at Treasure Island, we went to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay, we went to Circus Circus to ride the Canyon Blaster roller coaster. We even managed to take care of Grandma's condo biz while we were there, which was the reason for our trip. We ate and ate and ate and ate! We went to buffets, restaurants, it felt like we ate the whole time we were there. We also got pay per view in the room and watched The Four Christmases. It was really good. I even managed to play $2 in a slot machine ;) I actually planned to play $20 either at blackjack or slots, but I got tired the evening I was going to gamble and decided to just hang out in my pj's.

Well, here are the pics. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week and had a wonderful Valentines. I look forward to catching up on my blogs to see what everyone has been up to.

G5 Weekend Report

Rain, rain is here again. We are pretty happy though, because we need it badly! It sure didn't slow us down from indoor activities. Friday afternoon we had a bowling birthday party we attended. It was so much fun!! Javi had only been bowling once before, but he did fantastic. Guess all that Wii bowling is paying off!!



STRIKE!! On the very first frame!!


Kay was my arm jewelry the entire party and Ethan slept in the stroller all the way until it was time to have pizza and cake. He did manage to get to bowl in the game after eating. He bowled one frame right before we left. He hit one pin and was thrilled ;) To bad I couldn't get any pics because I was helping him bowl.

Mom and Dad had a movie night after the kiddos went to bed. It was nice to relax and listen to the rain while we watched our movie.

Saturday, we had another bday party to go to. This time it was at Playtown, which is an indoor play place. We had a really good time and got to meet some new friends. Javi made friends with a boy named Ethan, who is a celeb in the Autism Community. His team won an award for money raised for the San Diego Autism Walk Now. They were like two peas in a pod. I made friends with his mom, Lisa. We plan to get them together to play again really soon.



Our Ethan had a great time too! The big boys included him in there dramatic game of Sonic the Hedgehog, where they each decided to be a different character. Ethan also had fun playing on this motorcycle. He even put some gas in at the play gas station.



Sunday was a lazy day for the kids, but mommy spent a good portion of it cleaning after we made breakfast. The kids played and watched Boomerang Network. Kay helped mommy dust the living room. It was too cute!





We had a pillow fight, which Ethan enjoyed immensely!


Then mommy got a much needed break to go see a movie with a friend. We got to see "He's just not that in to you". OMG, what a cute movie, but definitely a chick flick!! Good thing it was just us girls ;) Can't wait to see it again.

Hope you all had a great weekend too.

Sickies Strikes Again and Megameltdowns

My pretty princess and my little middle angel are sick, once again. It started on Friday and has been getting better and then worse all weekend. Yesterday, we finally went to the doc. Kay has an ear infection, or the start of one, so she's on the pink stuff again. She loves it and always signs for more after she takes her dose. Thank goodness she doesn't mind taking meds!! She may be on them for another few years at least, possibly for the rest of her life. ACK! Being sick hasn't slowed her down one bit! No rest for the wicked. We did cancel therapy today.

We had her mid year progress review of the IFSP through the Regional Center. She has made partial progress on all of her goals, so we are happy. They plan to continue all of her services and we have also added the class for me Hannen's It Takes Two to Talk which I will be going to in about an hour. I am really looking forward to the class. Thank goodness daddy will be able to help out with the kids while I go to school ;) Weird to say that again!! Thanks daddy!!

Ethan stayed home from school today. I had sent him yesterday, but his teacher said he was so run down all day that he didn't really participate. I thought it best to keep him home to relax today so he could recoup a little.

Javi is already experiencing the effects of his dad being gone (six months in the CHP academy). These changes are really hard on him (and the rest of us). He had a MAJOR meltdown after school today. He is finally calm now after, breathing exercise, a run around the block and some alone time in his room, but we have gotten NO homework completed, despite trying to work on it for almost an hour...before the melt down really kicked in. He has done the same page twice over and answered all but 2 questions wrong out of 25. UGH!! It's going to be a tough adjustment. Poor baby!! Combine that will us also having more trouble with the school and the bus driver!!! I am sooooooo ready for a glass of vino. It's about time for the mama lion to pounce again. I wrote a long winded post in his comm log today, basically asking for extra patience and understanding during this transitional time for him.

Well, that's all for now. Just another fabulous day in the life...you know you envy me!!! LOL

Rent-a-Wreck

Need a demolition crew? Call Kaylee.  Fast and efficient. She managed this job in just under 10 minutes while I was cooking dinner. 

Funny how the spilled orzo formed a 5.

...and then there were SIX!!!

Santa's hour glass is slowly winding down!  Hope you are getting close to finishing your shopping.  I finished my shopping for the kids today.  Hooray!!  Now just need to pick up some gift cards and we are set!  Yesterday we read the Night Before Christmas and the Christmas Mouse for our 12 days activity.

Tonight we are working on the prep for our tamale party tomorrow.  We loosely celebrate some Mexican holiday traditions, like Tamales for Christmas and Menudo for New Years, which is by the way, a hang over cure!  Tamales are typically made by the family and eaten on February 2nd, which marks the end of the holiday season, but for some reason, in California, it's become a tradition to have them around Christmas.

For those of you that do not know, a Tamale is a meat, cheese, fruit or veggies all enclosed in "masa" which is a corn meal dough and then wrapped up in a corn husk and steamed.  It's eaten by unwrapping it from the corn husk and eating the cooked "masa" and whatever is incased inside.  Yummy!

To lift your holiday spirits here's a musical interlude from the boys and also became part of our 12 days activity, which was watching Christmas movies ;)

G5 Weekend Report

Ok, so I know I missed last weekend's report, but I'm trying to make it a regular habit. Mama Skates sets a good example ;)

Ethan and Kaylee's sickies are still lingering, so we didn't do much with the kiddos.  Ethan is battling it the most and is still home sick with me.  Let's see...

Friday, we did our 12 days, even though I know it was really 13 days 'til Christmas, I wanted to make sure Javi got to participate before going to Dad's for the weekend.  We "elfed" the kids with Elf Yourself.com as you can see from the previous post.  We had left over pizza and watched movies until we passed out.  We also finished up our holiday cards and mailed them out.  So, look for them in the mail this week!

Saturday, Kaylee and I headed out  to the mall. It was a mad house, just as I thought it would be.  Thank goodness I had a yummy Starbucks coffee to enjoy while battling the crowd.  We went on a three hour shopping sprint.  We did get a lot of stuff, but we have to return some of it sometime this week.  I purchased a Apple Airport Base Station 802.11 N for Mark, but he decided we should wait on such a big purchase with Christmas and Ethan's birthday coming up.  We donated at the Epilepsy Foundation's stand at the mall and got a shopping bag, gingerbread house and two cookies to decorate.  Dr. Neuro's admin was working the stand, so we finally got to meet her in person.  We actually have an appointment tomorrow.  Saturday night was ladies night for Mommy. I made some yummy spinach balls and took a bottle of wine over to my friend Carrie's.  We had a lot of fun.

Sunday I picked up some McD's breakfast for the whole family and some much needed McCafe's coffee.  We enjoyed our 'hashfries' as Ethan  calls them.  Yummy!  The best part of the breakfast, besides the coffee.  Then it was a mad dash to the supermarket to pick up some ingredients for the cake I made for the neighborhood holiday party.  A gift from Tiffany's which I thought would also be holiday neutral ;0)  

Sunday night, I walked over to the neighbor's house with cake and a bottle of wine in hand (Mark decided he would prefer to stay home).  It was a great turn out.  It was probably the best turn out ever as far as the holiday neighborhood parties go.  They had a lot of delicious food including a full ham dinner.  Yum!  I hadn't really eaten a whole lot that day just to prepare for it.  I ended up just having a little nibble of each thing. There was some goat cheese pizza with sun dried tomatoes and really delish artichoke jalapeno dip, just to name a couple of my favs.  Everyone was afraid to cut in to my cake.  They said it was too pretty to eat, which of course it was no big deal.  Nothing in comparison to a Sharon original ;)  I knew I could count on my neighbor, Jon, who always boasts about my cakes, to hack in to it.  I made a cake for his daughter's bday a couple years ago and I always take cake to all the hood parties.  He ended up having two slices!  It was half gone by the time I left.  Thanks I'm sure to Sharon's wonderful BC frosting recipe.  Mmmmm....I love that frosting and I hate frosting!!  What I can't figure out though is how you get the butter cream cakes so darn smooth!!  I will have to pick the expert's brain about that ;)

This AM I wasn't feeling to hot, due I'm sure to the three glasses of wine I had at the party.  I am becoming a little bit of a wino this holiday season.  I really enjoy wine.  They had such a huge selection last night, that I felt like I was at a tasting, which is why I ended up having a few glasses.  

 

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Thanksgiving Art Project

Today we made some napkin rings for thanksgiving.  They are little feather head dresses.  Next week when the kids are off, I thought we would make the counterpart napkin rings, the pilgrim hats.  

They came out cute and the kids kinda had fun making them.  

Ethan doesn't like to get his hands dirty, so I helped him paint his.

Javi in deep concentration mode while he paints.

    

Javi couldn't wait to mix the paint after we were finished.

Ethan practiced his cutting skills.

The finished product.  Little head dresses!

Wonderful Wednesday

I love Wednesdays!  Now that we have our little angel, Jamie here to help out.  I am trying to get her some more hours using Javi's respite hours.  We have never tapped in to his hours, so we thought that we should start using them up.  Jamie is so awesome, I just love having her around to help with the kiddos.  I can actually make time to do our fun things like our Wednesday cooking days with little stress.  

Today, we are making Gingerbread men.  We are chilling the dough in the fridge, then we are going to roll it out and make the men.  Then on to baking and decorating.  I will post some pics of the boys creations to Flickr later (Click on the Flickr badge on the right column to view). 

My new keyboard should be on it's way to us, so I will have my laptop (cracktop, going through withdrawl) up and running again soon.  Right now, I am using hubby's slave top, but it is chained to my hubby's office, cuz I don't want to run the risk of another mishaps.  It's safer in here.   

It's so much easier to blog typing on a real keyboard.  Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone, but I do go cross eyed typing on it and it does take longer since I am using two thumbs instead of all ten fingers and thumbs.  Plus, of course it is a lot slower than my laptop. It sure does a lot for a little handheld though!  I don't know what I would do with out it.

Starting on a new web project that should keep me pretty busy. May have less night time blogging time to comment, but I will still be reading and keeping up of course.

Javi school update: 

Tomorrow his teacher from last year will be doing her observation, so we are hoping for some good info there.  Our plan is still to change Javi's class, since we have not felt a solid connection with the school/class/teacher.  Just feel that it's a mismatch for Javi.  We are just waiting to see what the observations will show.  We are pretty sure that NSH is a good fit for Javi, but we are just waiting on the observations before making any moves.

Prayer Request:

Please pray for my mom this month.  She has been getting treatment for her anemia.  She will be spending every Monday in the hospital for the month of November getting iron infused blood cocktail transfusions.  We hope that this will help her feel better.  We are still waiting on results of her test to see what is causing the problem.  Please pray for her.  We can't live with out her, so we need her to be healthy and vibrant :)

Well, that's all for now.  Hope everyone is having a great hump day!

Knotts Camp Spooky and Halloween Photos

We had a great Halloween. We went to Knott's Berry Farm with the kids on Thursday. We were shocked we were still able to make it. My mom had gotten out of the hospital that morning and we went straight to Knott's. She couldn't bare Javi's disappointment, so she trucked on and we went for a few hours. It was the perfect amount of time there, since it wasn't crowded at all. It was decorated for the night time event "Haunt" so it still felt like we were there for Halloween. We had bought tickets over the summer time and they expired on Halloween, so we thought we'd at least go for a little while, rather than waste the tickets. We had a great time. My mom got to ride a few rides with the kids too, but she mostly let me take Javi on rides. Ethan wasn't that interested in riding that day. We did get to ride the two different trains they have, which Ethan was thrilled about. The park closed early to the regular patrons, so they could get ready for the night time event. We stayed until it closed until 5:30, then we had dinner at the chicken restaurant there, which is one of our favs.

We had family over for Halloween.  We had Javi's Nana, Aitona (Javi's Grandparents), Acho and Brianne (Javi's dad and stepmom), and Javi's Aunt and cousin Analia.  We are still very close to them and celebrate many of our holidays and birthdays together.  

We served chili with a topping bar, corn bread, hot apple cider and cocoa at the party. We have had the fam over every year for the last three years. The kids, including Javi's cousin Analia (flamenco dancer), go trick or treating with the fam while I stay behind and pass out candy.  

The aftermath, empty Chili crockpot and the empty topping bar which included two kinds of Cheez-it's, Fritos, shredded cheese, green onion, and sour cream.

Hot beverage bar with Javi and Ethan's pumpkins.

It was fun. I always get way in to Halloween. It was nice to have the fam over too. The chili was demolished, so I assume everyone enjoyed it. I made a crock pot full and there was nothing left.

We decorated with foyer as a zombie meat market. I got the inspiration from our trip to Sea Scare. I was the zombie butcher. I actually forgot to take a pic of the set up, but we had our dinning room table as a gurney with a "body" which consisted of blankets covered by a "hospital green" sheet, with just a foot hanging out. I had my butcher block all set up with a hand, and a head that we affectionately called "Bob". The boys and I also made "brains" out of macaroni and a corn syrup, food coloring, water and cornstarch. I kept eating pieces of it to gross the kids out. I gave them a choice between candy and brains. Had a couple takers on brains :) We called it the "Whole Body Foods Market" our slogan "Fresh Flesh for your Family".  

Wish I had gotten a pic of the set up, but you get the idea.

Prayers Answered

I can totally say we have had a prayer answered, yes Mark a prayer ;-P

Jamie is our new helper on Wednesday's. We hired her to come regularly after using her to watch Kay during Javi's IEP. She is a total angel. She is fantastic with our kids and a wonderful helper and just a fantastic person in general. We are so lucky to have her. Yay! I will finally get some time in to volunteer in Ethan's class and work on other projects I haven't had the time to commit to. Dare I say, I may even squeeze in some time to myself once in a while?!



Ethan had his Halloween party and parade on Wednesday. I must say, it was nice to be able to give him my full attention that day. He looked adorable in his costume.



All of his friends were absolutely adorable too. We had such a great time.

Javi didn't get to dress up for school, but he tried on his costume and looked very handsome in it.

We were finally able to carve our pumpkins too.  They had been sitting in our fridge all month.  Jamie scraped them for me, since that is the part I hate.  Sensory issue?  No, I think it's just gross and it smells funny.  Ok, so maybe it is a sensory thing ;)

Three cheers for Jamie!  She is awesome.  So wonderful to have help available.  Makes me wonder why I waited so long to have someone help out.

So, if anyone is looking for respite in SD, Jamie is your woman.  But can't have her on Wednesday ;)

Sum it up...

Javi update on the school front...

Contacted Javi's teacher from last year, just at random to say hi. As it turns out, the ASD Program Specialist contacted her yesterday to ask if she would be the ASD consultant to observe Javi. We are thrilled with this, since she would know Javi the best in a school setting since she had him for two years in a row.

Also, just as I was formulating a response to her email....the Education Consultant I had requested through the Regional Center contacted us. Got him up to speed on the situation and now he'll be scheduling an observation too and attending the second IEP meeting.

Still feel that it may be a mismatched class setting for him. Javi gets really agitated when you ask him questions about school. He did tell me that the kids are teasing him and copying him during recess and lunch. He said "Yep, I'm still playing alone." Poor baby :( Breaks my heart to keep sending him when I know he is not happy.

Ethan has his Halloween parade and party tomorrow. We are making homemade popcorn balls to pass out to kids in class. The boys LOVED making popcorn on the stove tonight. They couldn't believe that you could actually make popcorn with out a microwave :) It really tastes a lot better than in the microwave. Javi said "Wow Mom, this tastes like the movie popcorn, but better." We just put a teeny bit of salt, no butter. Javi, Ethan and Daddy shoveled handfuls of it in their mouths. I'll probably have to make more popcorn before I can make the balls.

Kaylee had PT today. Ms. Bonnie, her regular PT is back, YAY!! She was happy with the progress that Kaylee has made while she was gone (a month). She did say we will determine whether or not her regular tennies will be enough support for her or if she will need orthotics. She is still pronating her feet. She said it's a tough call because Kaylee is not technically walking yet. She mostly side steps when she cruises. She did agree that it would be a good idea to look in to a pediatric posterior walkers since the doc said that the Topamax may inhibit her ability to build muscle tone at this dose. Since she already has low tone, it makes it tough. We are going to see if we can possibly check out a walker from the CP Library to see how well she does with it before we order one. Heh...maybe we can convince my grandma walkers are cool if Kaylee has one :)

Well, that's all for now. Have to get to making popcorn balls :)

Cooking with kiddies

We made chocolate peanut butter cookies with kisses on top.  It was fun.  Javi did a perfect job cracking the eggs again and Ethan just loves using my Kitchen Aid mixer.  He knows exactly how to use it too.  He raises the bowl and starts it off slow just like I taught him.

Yay!  I finally got a good pic of Javi too!!

BTW...the kids had their school pics already, Ethan's was today and Javi's was last Thursday, so family, you will finally get some new portraits of the kids.  I'm going to take Kaylee to get her 1 year portraits done (now that she is almost 14 mo, better late than never).

G5 Progress Report

Just wanted to give a brief update on how we are doing three weeks in to our new school/therapy year.

Kaylee has in-home early intervention therapy on Monday's and Thursday's. They work on pre-language, play skills and also reinforces the homework we receive at our OT and PT apppointments. She has Physical Therapy on Tuesday's. They work on strengthening her entire body since she has low tone through out her body. She has Occupational Therapy on Friday's. They work on her fine motor, mostly visual motor, such as feeding and putting toys in and out of buckets and such. 

Our schedule is pretty full, but we do get a break on Wednesday's which works out well. It's right in the middle of the week, so we can do girl things like shopping and playing. We have floor time to reinforce all the things that we have worked on in therapy for at least an hour a day. Many of the things Kaylee works on in therapy, she does on her own. She is a very motivated little girl.

Ethan is doing great! He is really doing well in his new inclusion program. He is in a class of 14 students, including him. There are four girls and ten boys. Ethan knows all the names of his classmates and even made a book about them. Ethan is learning to write his name. He is great at spelling it, we are still working on the correct formation of the letters, but he is really making progress. He has really come along with gripping crayons and pencils and he loves to do art in class. I met with Ms. Danielle last week for a conference and she said she just loves him and he is a pleasure to have in class. Ethan does need a little extra time to process language, so she gives him an opportunity to come to his own conclusions about things, which is a great reinforcement when we begin RDI for the boys.

Ethan is learning phonics at home and is doing quite well. We work on phonics about three times a week and we work on writing almost every day. He and Daddy color together almost every day too. Last night they watched "The Upside Down Show" on Noggin and did "Action Fingers" just like Shane and David. It was pretty cute.

Javi is doing awesome in his new program. We had a rocky start and we were really unsure of placement at first, but he is working things out. He is really getting adjusted to his new routine. He really has a busy schedule at school. He does a lot of work independently and is expected to do many tasks unprompted. He gets off the bus on his own and goes directly to the playground, then lines up with his mainstream class. He does inclusion in the morning for the first 15-20 minutes of school, which means he gets to go to a mainstream third grade class. Then he goes to his NSH class where they have a very busy schedule with a mix of different activities. He plays and eats lunch with kids in his mainstream class. He also does art rotation and will soon do computer and library time with the mainstream classes. 

I was exhausted just hearing about the schedule at Back to School Night, so I can only imagine how he feels doing it. He comes home in a good mood every day, so I take it he is enjoying it. He has made some new friends too, so we are happy everything is working out so well for him now.

We had a sleep over with Noah this weekend, where Javi got ready for bed with out any prompting at all. He went and got his PJ's, kid pull up, and brushed his teeth with out any verbal cues. Typically, Javi will try to get ready on his own, but will typically need refocusing, such as a reminder of where his PJ's are, brushing teeth or where to find his "underjams". Yesterday, he also worked through his homework independently with very little help.  

Javi has behavior modification on Wednesday evenings. This is really therapy for me, since she mostly works with me, making suggestions and tracking progress.  We met with our new behavior specialist last week, and she was great.  We really did not work well with our last consultant, so we are happy to have some fresh ideas with our new consultant.

We are very proud of all the kids and all the progress they have made.  It's really amazing to see them adjusting so well to so many changes.  Mom and Dad are still having trouble adjusting to such a full schedule!!

Ethan's Photo Gallery

My little sneak thief, Ethan decided to play iSpy with my iPhone camera. Let's see what he spies with his little eye...

Hmmm...think he left some evidence.  I know those little piggies!

He spies Kaylee playing in her toy basket.

He spies mommy's sink.  Good thing he's short, otherwise, you would spy my silhouette in the shower!

He spies Kitty doing her morning yoga.

And finally the front door.  

It was a good thing I took a quick shower.  My little camera man let quick crawl Kaylee out of the coral when he left the bedroom door open to snap pictures.  I caught her making her way for the stairs and Ethan was screaming "Mommy, mommy!!  Kay's going downstairs!!!"  He was chastising Kaylee saying she was a bad girl for going out of the room and trying to go downstairs with out mommy.  Ha! Nice try kiddo!  Time for the kiddie coral to make it's way up stairs.  We used to have a stair gate at the top (still have one on the bottom), but it's too hard for Ethan and Javi to open, since their fine motor skills are not the greatest.  Obviously, we don't want them trying to crawl over a gate at the top of the stairs, like they do with the one on the bottom.  Thankfully, we are really not using the kiddie coral downstairs, so it would work much better in our master bath.  It's either that, or skip my morning shower, which I don't think anyone would appreciate, especially, Mark!

Soups On!

Today was another one of our cooking days.  I try to do a little "cooking class" with the boys at least once a week.  It really helps their sensory issues, builds self esteem, sense of teamwork and following instructions.  Best of all, it gives me a little extra fun time with my growing boys who will some day leave mama's nest.  At least I will feel better knowing they will always know their way around a kitchen, so they will never starve!  

We made Chocolate Marble Banana Bread.  It was Javi's job to read the first four ingredients. As you can see, with the little pics, the last four ingredients were for Ethan's part, since he is just learning to read.  They did an amazing job taking turns pouring in the different ingredients, mixing, and really following the recipe.  Each of them got to crack an egg (of course we cracked in to a separate bowl, just in case the shell fell in).  Javi managed to crack the egg perfectly this time with our little tap tap crack song.  NO SHELLS IN THE BOWL!!

Ethan had a really good time mashing the bananas.  Here he is mashing away.  The ever illusive Javi managed to sneak out of the picture just as daddy was snapping it!

Here's the finished product.  Javi wouldn't try them because he said they smelled funny, which is unlike Javi.  He's not real big on sweets, which is fine with me.  He prefers hard candy if he does have a sweet tooth.

Of course, my little sweetie, Ethan, could barely wait until they came out of the oven!  He would have eaten the whole pan if I let him!  It was so cute to see them patiently staring at the oven like it was a TV set, watching the muffins go from goo to bread.

Then we worked on the next cooking project, Chicken Gumbo.  By this time, Javi was totally bored with cooking and was on to the next activity, but my "lil chef" Ethan was there to lend a helping hand.  I was teaching him all about the different ways to chop and what each was called.  He learned julianne, dicing and mincing.  I even let him do a few hand over hand chops.  He learned how to clean celery, how onions have layers, and how the outsides of onions feel kind of like paper.  He also learned the hard way that onions give off a gas that turns the moisture in your eye in to sulphuric acid and that's why your eyes burn when you chop onions.  Just a trick, if you run water or boil water near where you are chopping, it will lessen the effects of the onion because the gas will be attracted to the moisture.  I think I learned that trick from reading the book "Like Water for Chocolate", one of my favorite books, besides the Harry Potter series.  

Ethan learned all about making a roux, and how important it is to stir it, which was his favorite part (I had the heat off when he stirred).  He just seemed to, if you will pardon the pun, eat up every piece of info I gave him.  I think we have the next Food Network Star in training here :)  I guess I was a regular "Lady and Sons" today!!  Which by the way is one of my fav's on Food Network and where I got the idea to make gumbo today.

My inspiration for making the chicken gumbo was due in part to my neighbor, Andi being in the hospital.  Her kids spent the night last night while her hubby took her to the ER.  They ended up admitting her due to a ruptured appendix.  Ouch!  

I knew she would need some good ole comfort food while she was on the mend, so we made this dish because it freezes very well.  I hope she gets well and comes home really soon!!  Until then, we'll make sure her kids and hubby are fed and cared for.  We sure enjoyed having it for dinner too!  I made enough to feed a small army.  

Who knows, maybe the boys and I will make a cookbook with all our little recipes :)

 

Sickies x 2

The little ones came down with summer colds.  Ethan is worse than Kaylee.  Both are extremely grumpy  this morning.  Ethan stayed home from school and Kaylee stayed home from therapy.  Kaylee also has some teeth coming in, so she hasn't been happy for the last few days.  They have each been on a crying jag all morning.  Time to break out the ear plugs!  We are in for a fun weekend!

Festival of Sail 2008 Pics

We had a great time at the Festival of Sail in downtown San Diego. The highlight of our trip was taking the ferry across the San Diego Bay from Coronado. Here are some pics from our day at the festival. Please click on the badge below to view the whole album.

www.flickr.com alphastatedotnet's Festival of Sail 2008 photoset

My Magic Wand

Well, today is one of those days where I am thankful to have my wonderful yummy vanilla iced coffees. Kaylee has therapy in a bit, her first OT session. We will also get the results of her OT eval. Ethan had to be in school at the usual time today and picked up at the usual time of 1PM. We have therapy across town from 11:30-12:30 and Javi gets out of school at 12:55. Time to do my magic and be in three places at once!!

*POOF*

My original plan was to pick up Ethan early at 11:00, then jet to Kaylee's appointment across town, then jet across town again. I realized quickly that wasn't going to work after my conversation with Javi's aide. She said we were going to have to figure something else out for Javi because it was just too overwhelming for him to wait at the curb. I had blogged the traffic congestion in my other post at Javi's school. The curb waiting is just not working out for him. Javi had a meltdown, which I could see from the other side of parking lot, being powerless to stop it. He really wants to dart to my car once he sees me, but they have such a procedure for pick up, he has to wait 15-20 minutes for me to get to the front of the loop. Mind you, I have been leaving 20-30 minutes before school dismissal at 2:35 and not actually being able to pick him up until 2:50. I have tried parking and walking in, arriving 30 minutes early, arriving only 20 min early to see if a little later would make any difference. So far, the only right way to do it is to arrive 30 minutes early and park 4-5 blocks away from the school and huff it in with the kids. For Kay and Ethan, that is there nap time, so they are not to happy to be awakened from their car slumber to be moved to a stroller. Either way it's difficult. I either have two screaming kids or one melting down.

The aide was just too overwhelmed by Javi's meltdown, so she said, "Well, this just isn't working for Javi. It's too much for him to wait at the curb. We are going to have to try something else tomorrow. Why don't you try getting here earlier?" I said, "I am already leaving 20-30 minutes before school dismissal. How much earlier should I get here?". She said, "Well, I realize that you have two little ones, but I think you are going to have to park and pick him up in the office from now on because this is too much for him.". She went on to say that I needed to plan ahead and write in the log who would be picking him up and where to meet. Well, so far, I have been the only one picking him up in the afternoon, so I am not sure what prompted that.

It irritated me a little that she seemed so flustered by Javi's behavior, being that she is an aide in his class. It really makes me question whether or not she can handle Javi's needs while staying supportive and calm. It is after all, only the first week and he has had a couple of questionable entries in the comm log that comes home with him. We are going to really evaluate the situation over the next couple weeks to figure out if this is the right placement for him.

Heh, ok, back to my plan for today. Since I realize I can't be all those places, I enlisted the help of Javi's dad. We are going to meet at the park after he picks Javi up from school, so we can chit chat and let the kids play after a long week of school. Hey, kids need time to decompress too. Since I can't be there to go to Kay's OT appointment, pick up Ethan and arrive 30 minutes early to pick Javi up, that was our only real solution. Thank goodness this is Kaylee's only session at 11:30, after that, it gets moved to 9:30.

Happy Friday!!

Kids' First Day

Kaylee had a great work out at PT. Ms. Bonnie gave us the results of her eval. She was in the 16th percentile for stationary play skills (sitting, kneeling, rotating her trunk, etc) which translates to a typical 9 month old skill level. She was in the 5th percentile for mobility which translates to a 7 month old skill level. Nothing all that surprising.

She was happy that she had made progress since we last saw her. She wants to keep an eye on the position of her feet when she walks to see if she needs orthopedics. She wants to wait until she is walking to really make a judgement call. We have some exercises to work on until we see her next week. Kaylee did very well for her first day, and it was during her regular nap time!! I am so proud of her. She only got a 30 minute power nap before our appointment, so she did really well considering her naps are usually two hours.

Kaylee also hit another milestone today! She clapped for the very first time.

Ethan had a great day. In his teacher, Ms. Danielle's words "Ethan had a FANTASTIC day!! He did so well. He had no trouble adjusting to the new class, new friends and new routine. I just LOVE him and I am so happy he is in my class!!" If that doesn't make a mother feel good, I don't know what would!! Guess I'm doing something right. Ok, so Ethan gets most of the credit. He is just naturally a wonderful little boy.

Javi had a great day too. There were some complications with his drop off and pick up, since the traffic at Javi's school is a complete nightmare. There is only one way in and out of the neighborhood where his school is. To complicate the traffic even more, his school is on the top of a really steep hill, so most people drive their kids to and from school. They actually have a 10 page hand book for pedestrian and auto traffic, complete with different maps and procedures for the morning and afternoon. All I could think of was Mr. Mom! You are doing it wrong!! It's north to drop off, south to pick up a-hole!!! I actually walked the wrong way too, although I had another mom say, ah you are doing fine for the first day :) I ended up parking my car three blocks from the school and walking in because the pick up loop wasn't moving. I had to drag the sleepy little ones out of the car and huff it in. It took me a total of 45 minutes to pick him up from school. I think it may be easier for him to take the bus! Fortunately, we are eligible for the bus, since it's about two miles from our house.

Javi said "It was such a long day, Mom." He was pretty hungry after school, so we decided to call Nana to meet us at Jack In the Box for a snack. It was Javi's cousin, Analia's first day of preschool, so she came along too. We wanted to celebrate their success today with a little treat. She and Ethan had a good time playing together while we were there. They are so cute together. He says Analia is his girlfriend. Well, they aren't blood related, so that's ok ;) She is from Javi's dad's side of the family.

It was a good day over all for everyone. I am happy that we had a smooth transition in to our new programs :)

Posted a couple new flickr pics too.

Back to School for Everyone!

Well, tomorrow is back to school for everyone, including Kaylee! Tomorrow will be Kaylee's first PT session and Friday will be her first OT session.

We went to our orientation at Ethan's preschool today. We got to meet with his new teacher, Ms. Danielle. She is lovely. I have heard so many great things about her. I know I have mentioned it before, but Ethan will be starting at a new school in the integrated program, which is a mainstreamed preschool where there are half typical peers and the other half are kids with high-functioning Autism. Their classroom is set up so cute and the teacher seems like she is really well organized. She really put a lot of effort in to all the letterhead, forms and take home folders. You can definitely tell that she has experience with teaching this program. We decorated Ethan's cubby bucket pictured below. He chose the Scooby Doo theme and I decorated it. We just happened to find the "eye" stickers in the halloween section at the craft store and it reminded me of the Scooby Doo intro.



Javi is also starting a new program and a new school. He will be in NSH (Non-Severely Handicapped), so he will no longer be in the ASD Categorical Program (ASD only class). This is an exciting year for Javi. He will be expected to be more independent, as there is only one assistant teacher and a teacher. There will be no scheduled individual mainstreaming, they will mainstream for certain activities as a whole class, which the expectation is he will gain more independent skill. I am hoping that he will enjoy his new school. He is getting to be such a big boy! So independent!

Fall is almost here! My favorite time of year!