Sensory seeking.

Right after Gabriel turned two years old, he was diagnosed with two things.  He needed speech therapy for his slow language development and occupational therapy for his sensory processing disorder. 

It was at the time that I questioned therapists and development specialists about autism. Friends, family, and specialists all reassured me that he didn't have autism.  We all know how that turned out three years later.  

Any way, when he was two years old, I remember he acted like a little animal.  I could not control him. He plowed into furniture, knocking over our dining room table and chairs repetitively.  I swear I could have cut off his arm and he wouldn't have felt it.  Gabriel ran straight into things without flinching. 

He bit other children and he had no understanding of the pain he caused. Little Gabriel cornered one child in one of the kids tubes and tried to bite this child. Andrew had to maneuver the gerbil tunnels in order to save the screaming child. Several years later we learned that child was a sensory avoider.  Not a good fit for a friendship!

Further, I will admit that I swatted his tush during this time only to get the cutest giggles and laughter. 

That impact on his body felt good. The jolt from running into furniture was a good thing for him.  I later learned that there is a lot of sensory input from the jaw. No wonder he liked to chomp on his friends! 

Our home was modified from baby proofed to sensory seeker home.  We had an indoor trampoline and the kids rode scooters and small bikes all over house.  We constantly had rice bins and play dough available for sensory seeking. We also had bean bag chairs in order to smush and roll Gabriel. 

He is 8 years old now.  His sensory seeking is still obvious in certain situations. When Gabriel watches a movie, he tends to lay upside down. He chews on things and fidgets. His dance lessons help him get his sensory seeking fulfilled. 

One thing I have to keep in mind because as the days and years roll on, I tend to forget - when he is able to meet those sensory needs, his brain organizes itself better. 

Star Wars friends party

The kids were invited to a friend's Star Wars birthday party today.  It was the perfect day to have a pool party too - the weather was great. It was hot but not too hot.

The party was well done.  The kids played with light sabers made out of pool noodles and duct tape. Adorable! They hit a balloon with them and the object of the game was to keep the balloon in the air. 

My creative children decided to play in the pool with their light sabers and balloons. They had a blast! 

There were two other cute games.  The kids wacked a cool pinata and put an ear on Yoda.  Take a look at it in the photo - it was homemade! 

There were lots of snacks, all with Star Wars themed names, and two drinks, one called Yoda Juice.  Lane was in heaven when she got to have cake and a cupcake. 

I have to share the outfit Lane picked for the pool birthday party.  Please note the winter hat and the fall plaid shoes. 

Gabriel and Brody

Brody, our German shepherd mix, turns 12 in October.  When Brody was younger, we talked about how he needed a "boy".  Then Gabriel was born in 2004 and we introduced our first boy Brody to our first human boy, Gabriel. 

Gabriel had loved Brody ever since.  The feeling mutual. 

When Gabriel was a baby, if Andrew and I got into a disagreement, Brody would stand between the two of us while I held Gabriel.  Brody wasn't about to let something happen to Gabriel. (Or me)

Brody is in his elderly years.  He is mostly deaf and still the sweetest dog ever.  Honestly, he is one of those dogs anyone would want to clone. Every day, we worry about the end of Brody's days yet we are so happy to give Brody a good life with us. 

Gabriel asked if Brody is going to die tonight.  I told him that it won't be tonight as far as I can tell but I suggested that Gabriel enjoy every day with his Brody because we never know when the last day when come. 

Gabriel showed Brody his minion game. It will be a terribly sad day when we Brody passes but I'm so grateful for the 12 years we have been given so far.  

Four days away...

I'm tired. I hurt. I hate autoimmune diseases.  For over a year, I've considered a weekend away from my kids I love my kids but my body has been reminding me that everyone needs a break from their job.  

I haven't been away from the kids overnight except for hospital stays.   If you've been in the hospital, you know it isn't a restful place.  

When the children were younger I never had the desire to be gone and I didn't want to be away. Now that they are less dependent on me, I think they would be just fine without me.  Anyone interested in a girls weekend away without kids? 

An uncle I grew up passed away suddenly last week. We made the decision for me to fly up and leave the children and my husband at home. They aren't at ages where they would act appropriately at a funeral service.  

This wasn't the kind of weekend away I was dreaming about - you know the saying, "be careful what you wish for?"  I think it applies. 

Though I missed my children terribly, it was nice to have adult conversations and grieve without worrying about my children's needs  I was able to assist my family with preparations and I felt needed.  

I absolutely hate that the reason I saw my relatives was due to a death but on a positive note, it was a blessing to spend time with them.  It was especially meaningful to spend time with my grandmother. 

I am grateful to have a husband who is capable of taking over the household tasks and the children while I was gone. I wasn't worried about their safety and I knew he would enjoy the bonding time with the kids. 

I have a deeper appreciation for my dad's side of the family. When great celebrations or tragedies occur, we always find each other.  I also noted that everyone is accepted.  No matter what is going on in someone's life or being, that person will find love among our family members.  That's an amazing bond. 

After four full days, I returned to my life as a stay at home mom. I remain heart broken over the passing of my uncle but time will heal that or at least patch it.  I am still tired and in pain, but maybe that is just something I need to learn how to manage. In any case, when I descended on the escalator, my children were holding a huge homemade "welcome home mom" sign.  I melted. I was home. 

A small crowd watched my reaction. Apparently Andrew and the children waited a while for me to arrive. A mom of seven said, "that is one of the best gifts you could ever receive."   She was right. 

Our Laney bug turned FOUR

I realize I say this all the time but... I can not believe our little princess turned four years old. I'm in awe over our little social bug.  She loves to dance, work on letters and numbers, and play with dolls. She also writes, paints, and rides a scooter when she gets a chance. 

Lane loves clothes. She loves clothing and shoes more than I thought any child was capable. Thankfully used and hand-me-downs are still exciting to her.  If the item is purple or has anything to do with princesses, she is even happier. 

Given Lane's interest in friends, Princesses, and dance, it's no surprise that she asked for a dance party with a princess. A few of Lane's girl friends and her brothers celebrated with her at the dance studio.  The owner and the teacher threw one cute party! 

The kids played with a parachute and with balloons.  They danced. They ran through an obstacle course.  

They also played a princess blindfold game. 

Lane LOVED her cake his year.  She wasn't with me when I ordered it so it was a fun surprise. 

A few months ago, our sweet friend Whitney taught our children her family tradition. They eat their birthday treats without utensils.  Alex was more than thrilled to show their dance teacher this awesome idea.  Being the amazing teacher that she is, she not only partook in Alex's no utensil eating, but she challenged him to a no utensil eating contest.  

We say good bye to our three year old Lane and hello to an even more passionate, artistic, and creative four year old Lane.  I look forward to what this coming year will bring. 

Matching kids clothing

It isn't a secret that I adore matching children's outfits.  Coordinating works for me too. I remember staring dreamily at the matching mother daughter outfits, wishing my mom would want to wear the velvet Christmas dresses with me. I don't think I ever told her about it and I'm not sure why. Maybe because I had siblings and they might not have gone along with my idea and that would have been disappointing. 

I no longer want the heavy emerald green  matching dresses but I still like to put my kids in matching things.  When we go to places like Disney, these matching clothes making it much easier to spot my children. I don't have to think about which color each child is wearing.  However, it isn't easy to find fabrics and patterns that work for boys and girls.  When I found a matching fish print for the kids, I had to get it.  The amusing part is that I didn't find the clothes on the same day or even at the same shop.  They came from four different stores, (we have three shirts and one dress) about a year apart. 

An FYI: I do allow input from the kids. They do not have to wear the coordinating or matching outfits except for photos.  Even then I usually lose if one of them has a strong opinion. Once they are older and wont wear these outfits, I will only beg for matching holiday pajamas.  

Parenting and social media

A good friend of mine recently posted a photo of her sixth grader at the orthodontist.  It was hilarious. There was some chatter about whether her beautiful daughter would be embarrassed by the photo and my friend reassured everyone that she asked permission prior to posting the photo on Facebook. 

I was so impressed by her parenting. There are always embarrassing moments that happen in families.  I can think of a ton of hilarious moments off the top of my head that I've shared at dinner parties with close friends and relatives.  However I can't bring myself to share them on my blog because I don't want to embarrass my children. Sometimes I worry that sharing our personal struggles with special needs is just that, personal. But if I don't share the ugly and the painful moments, I also don't think I am being the advocate I am meant to be in this life. 

I want to look back at my children's progress and exclaim, "look how far we've come!!" 

There are moments and memories that I sit and think about for months at a time.  I sincerely have no interest in ridiculing my dear children. I have read blogs where parents have zero regard for how their child will feel when they read their writing.  How sad for that child. 

I also don't want to paint a one sided pretty roses view of life. While we are extremely blessed, we are also struggling and also learning new things with the hands we have been dealt. I am learning how to handle it gracefully daily. Thank you for sharing this journey with us. If I ever stray from these ideals, please kindly remind me. 

Princess Lane Moments

I want to share a few recent moments shared with Lane that will turn to memories. I don't want to forget these sweet four year old moments.  

While waiting for dance class, I peeked in at Lane in her room. Lane was quiet. She seemed too quiet so I had to check 

She was brushing her Furbys fur with her doll brushes and sorting through her doll clothing, attempting to find something to fit Furby. She wore my sunglasses for that added flare. These are the "girl" moments I imagined when Lane was an infant.

 

Lane work up at 3 am and asked to watch a kids show.  She was still awake half an hour later so Daddy gave in. She quietly watched tv while Andrew slept. At 9 am, she carried a birthday gift to the couch and began coloring.  By 9:15, she was sound asleep with a marker in her hand. 

Lane passed her swimming test two years ago.  Shortly after, she developed a fear of the water.  I was very concerned that she would panic if something would happen with her and water. Drowning is a serious concern in Florida .  I wanted to get her into a refresher or maintenance class but the timing didn't work. 

Instructors offered lessons at the community pool so I signed Lane up for a two week class. She was very fearful and unhappy.  Lane was the only child who signed up for classes during her time slot, making her lessons solo lessons! Perfect!

The first two classes she cried the majority of the half hour. By the third class, she said that she having fun and she worked on kicking and putting her head under water for a short distance. I am so proud of her!  

Summer Homeschool Marches On...

We continue to work on learning activities here in our home. We usually start the week out strong and end it fairly week, completing few things on Friday. I need to figure out how to keep the momentum going through the entire week.
Lane loves to paint so it was easy to get her interested in mixing colors. She learned about an artist's palette and the color wheel by using a free printable on this site: http://www.mamamiss.com/2013/07/06/learning-monkeys-paint-palette-color-wheel/ She loved it and told me that she felt like a "real" artist.

I want Lane to work on her letter and number formation. Her writing needs quite a bit of practice despite her developed fine motor skills. I printed neat number formation sheets from this site: http://teachinglittleonesathome.blogspot.com/2013/07/printable-number-formation-practice.html She likes these pages because the different sized boxes are intriguing to her.
I found a clever math preschool idea on Pinterest. Unfortunately, there is no link for me to give credit to the original person. However, it challenged Lane and that is what I want because the basic math problems are too easy for her. I wrote numbers on squares of paper and taped the flags to pipe cleaners. She counted beads as she threaded them on the pipe cleaner.

This site: http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.com/2011/12/its-all-same-math-puzzle-game.html has twelve three-part puzzles that are free to print. I cut them out for Alex and set them out. It took him a while to complete the puzzles but he was so proud of himself when he was done. It's called "it's all the same" - a perfect name for a game that showed Alex how each of the problems came to the same resulting number.

Gabriel and I worked on ending sounds, his computer work, and geometric shapes. I printed out shapes and names and we matched them. 

Gabriel has been fascinated about creating Angry Birds. He has a huge bag full of Angry Birds he has drawn and cut out. I found a cool down Angry Bird printable. He talked about it all day. Maybe it will be successful cool down strategy for him. It can be found here: http://kbkonnected.tumblr.com/post/19926961536/dont-be-an-angry-bird-cooling-down-strategies-and

"Color-ism"

This is a tough post for me to write and I've been thinking about it for a couple years. It involves a sensitive topic and causes hurt feelings. I will preface this writing by stating that my husband and I are not racist or bigots in any way. Where these ideas came from, we don't know. I am sharing this to shed more light on the world of autism. The painful side.
My son with autism either fears or loathes people with dark skin. In other words, anyone with black skin really flips him out. It has caused many awkward situations over the last few years.
Our very good friends have five gorgeous children with dark skin and our son, at the age of five, didn't want to play with them. He told us it was because they were black. Unfortunately, everyone could hear his statement. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I was horrified. Where on G-d's green earth did he get this idea?
When I took him to the audiologist to check for auditory processing disorder, I wanted to run out of the office with him when I saw that the audiologist was African American. Instead, I silently prayed to the Autism G-ds that Gabriel would simply follow her directions. She asked him to sit in the room for testing and he freaked out. Stupid Autism G-ds rarely listen me. He screamed and yelled. I am positive he wanted to rip her eyeballs out. He yelled, "Don't touch me. You're BLACK!" The audiologist gave me a dirty look and I felt my face growing hot and red. I explained that I don't know where Gabriel gets his ideas and shrugged my shoulders. I could barely be heard over his loud screaming.
She explained that G-d made her with black skin and Gabriel was made with white skin but underneath we are all the same. Gabriel touched both of their arms and seemed content with that explanation. For a minute. Then he screamed again, "You're BLACK. Do NOT touch me." In my mind, I thought, "Gabriel why can't you understand that you aren't going to burst into flames if she tests you. Please learn some social appropriateness. Now. Right this moment." The audiologist wasn't comfortable with me putting the equipment on him and after half an hour of working with Gabriel (listening to him scream about her black skin), she asked us to leave and reschedule. It's been almost a year and I haven't bothered to reschedule.
Last summer, while on an elevator, he pointed at an African American couple and made comments about how they weren't allowed on the elevator with us. Elevators are small. They could hear every comment and forced a smile on their face. I apologized many times and they told me that it was okay. To which I told them that I didn't think his comments were okay on any level and I would take care of the situation. That was the slowest elevator ride of the my life.
When we found out that the gym teacher at the school is African American, we had to explain Gabriel's aversion. I felt like a real ass when I told the room full of teachers and staff that Gabriel doesn't like black skin. The coach at the school is awesome so it is my hope that he will get over this issue. However, somehow, Gabriel avoided many gym classes throughout the school year. I don't know if it was due to the skin color problem or due to gym class.
My dad, in his wisdom, suggested I refer to this as "color-ism." Gabriel is very sensitive to color. His issue with black is the color, it isn't some deep seeded issue dating back to slavery. It isn't from an awful joke or idea he heard in our home. He doesn't think that the other person is any less than he is, he just doesn't like the color. What this all comes down to is autism. He obsesses about things and in this case, color.
I have a red living room set not because it was my choice but because Gabriel loves the color red. He can get stuck on colors when we least expect it. He would only wear red shirts for a long time. I didn't know how I was going to get him into a uniform shirt his first year. Blue or white were not shirts he would wear. The only way he wore it was if I wore the same color every morning with him. I have to get creative in order for things to get accomplished around here.
It turns out, Gabriel doesn't like black in general. I've asked if likes black cars. No. Does he like my black bathing suit? No. He was angry when I bought a black garbage can and a black dining room table. A girl can only handle so much red in her home. He is now 8 years old and has become more accepting of the color black and I can only hope it gets better. I am hopeful.

Sunday, Water Day

We spent the afternoon at the community pool on Saturday.  Our friends were there at the same to time so that made it a lot of fun. 

Sunday arrived and we didn't know what we wanted to do.  Heading to the pool again didn't sound like too much fun but we didn't want to hang out in the house all day either 

Andrew asked me if we still had balloons from Lane's birthday party. We pulled those out and he decided to make water balloons! The kids haven't been around water balloons in a while and they loved it! 

As usual, Gabriel wanted control of the largest water balloon.  It didn't take long for it to pop! 

Andrew had his first water gun fight with Alex. They ran around the yard, spraying each other with water.  The perfect way to stay cool on a 90+ degree summer day 

We set up the slip n slide and the kids pool too. I'm always pleasantly surprised how long the kids entertain themselves with the pool and slip n slide.  

Alex has figured out how to actually slide down it.  Gabriel is close to mastering the concept while Lane still military crawls down the slip n slide.  Any way they play, they have a blast. 

Alex loves math

Alexander is 6 and continues to love math. Last week he played a math game on his DS and he wanted to earn more stars on each level. This meant that he needed to learn more math. He was adamant that I teach him more math. 

This week I printed math worksheets for him. I tried to find interesting worksheets.    Alex worked on math for a long time this morning, making it necessary for me to find more math for the rest of the week. 

I'm a little lost I'm which direction to go from here. For now I will continue strengthening his multiplication and division.  He already knows money, time, and fractions so I will need to figure out what is taught next to little mathematicians. 

He completed a book about time. In it, he had to show time on clocks by drawing the hands.  There were also story problems for him to work on.  This activity didn't last long. 

He worked on several multiplication worksheets.  His last worksheet was the 0-9 multiplication table. I love watching him figure out the answers with his fingers.  

My first flight!

On December 1, 2012, I flew a plane! The Christmas before, Andrew gave me a gift certificate to fly an airplane and it took almost a year for me to schedule it. When we arrived, I found out that I could have passengers in the plane with me. Gabriel had no interest in joining me, but Alex and Lane quickly jumped at the opportunity. 

It was a small plane, smaller than anything I had been in before. I kept a courageous front but I was shaking inside! 

I learned a lot of information about how to fly a plane. The actual pilot had a wealth of information for me. I spent the evening preparing by watching videos and learning terms and aerodynamics. 

Once we took off, the kids laughed and started getting silly. Alex wondered when snacks would be served by a flight attendant. Once the pilot turned if their ability to talk to us, they were more serious. Lane even fell asleep for a while. 

I was given control of the steering wheel and the pedals.  Holy smokes - it was exhilarating.  Words can not describe how amazing it was to fly an airplane.  I am rarely physically nervous but I was shaking!

We flew over Disney where the kids looked at landmarks they knew from a completely different perspective. 

I have an hour and a half to use toward my pilots license. I'm unsure if and when I will pursue the license. It is slightly cost prohibitive. It was an incredible experience and one I hope to conquer again. 

Friends and flowers

We live in the greater Orlando area. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I love when people come here on vacation and let us know.  Even better I when someone gives us a piece of their vacation and get together with us. There is no greater gift than the gift of time. I am grateful when someone values my friendship enough to spend time with me. Vacation time is even more valuable and precious to me. 

When a friend from junior high contacted me, we were thrilled to spend time with them. When she went back to Wisconsin with her family, she had flowers sent to us. I couldn't believe it!  We had a blast spending time with them AND we got flowers.  I can't tell you how spoiled I felt when flowers arrived at my door unexpectedly. 

Lane was positive the flowers were for her.  When I took this photo, I had to agree. 

Happy 4th, 2013

Andrew came home from his work trip to Washington DC last night.  The kids woke up wild because they were so happy he was home. 

We had a laid back day that included shopping and lunch out. There are a ton of great sales on kids clothing at stores I love - Janie and Jack, Kids R Us, and Gymboree. I had a Gymboree gift card from turning in our used clothes to thredup so it was all "free".   Crazy 8 has tshirts and shorts for under $4. I can barely find that at a consignment store and it was new.  

Lane had an especially fun time picking at lotion and body gel at Bath and Body Works.  She said that they smelled so pretty.  The cashier was smitten and shared fragrances with her just to hear her response.  

We had lunch at IKEA where the kids are for free.  You can't beat free! 

By the time we got home, Lane was asleep and Gabriel was too tired to go to the 9:15 pm fireworks.  Alex rarely disappoints us as a night owl though.  Andrew and Alex went to the fireworks amd had a great time. 

Happy Fourth of July!