Laney the girlie-girl

Lane's is normally very curly with almost perfect ringlets on some days. I love the way her blonde hair is light and bouncy. She, however, wants long, straight Rapunzel hair.  She asked me to straighten her hair for the first time today and I obliged. 

My little wiggle worm sat perfectly still while I ran the hot straightener over her hair   She loved it.  I think it makes her look older and that wasn't easy for me. I'm at ease with her being young and carefree for a long time. 

On occasion she also asks to have her nails painted. She had Princess nail polish that stays on for a matter of hours. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not. I don't want my four year old walking around with make up on but I also don't want to paint little nails often.  They are pretty cute little ties though. 

Homemade fruit rollups

I wanted to make homemade fruit rollups for a while. The store bought version are full of dyes and sugar. There is a fruit leather I like but they are expensive and tough to find. 

I was inspired to make it when I heard someone else talk about it. I looked up recipes and there are a couple versions. I don't own a dehydrator so I stuck to oven versions.  

Lane and I pulled out the frozen berries to thaw. We put the berries in the food processor with 3 tablespoons honey. We then spread the fruit on parchment paper on cookie sheets. The fruit has to be spread thin or it doesn't work well.  Lesson learned for next time. 

We cooked the fruit for 6-8 hours at 170 degrees. 

Gabriel and I thoroughly enjoyed the blackberry and raspberry strawberry fruit rollups. I will definitely make these again! 

Letter Mm

I continued teaching Lane about the letter M. We created a mouse out of a letter M, a pom pom, eyes, yarn, and paper. I saw the picture idea online and we made it happen.  Lane also stamped lower and upper case m's on her creation. 

Lane also learned about magnetism. I put a tray together with metal and nonmetal items. I also had a large magnet from the dollar store to show her magnetism in action. She understood the concept quickly. 

First day of 2013-14

Alex and Gabriel began their second grade year of school. After half days last year, we decided that a good solid year of second grade was needed.  We are referring to this as his do over year. 

The boys did well getting ready for school after being off their routine all summer. As we got closer to the school their nerves got the best of  them.  Gabriel started babbling about his hatred for Mario.  Alex stood straight ahead staring. 

We walked them to their classrooms. Alex started crying and clung to Andrew.  Gabriel panicked and ran out of the classroom to get me twice. I thought I would get a phone call and my heart sank whenever the phone rang.  

However, the school didn't call and much to my surprise, Gabriel had a great day.  He completed all of his work for the first time! Alex told me that he loves school and he can't wait to go back.  Wow! I'm so proud and a little hopeful for a good second day. 

Lane had her first day of homeschool preschool. We had a fun day working on the letter "m". We made a monkey puppet, wrote the letter Mm, colored a monkey by written color, made an M collage, circled M words, and worked on fine motor skills by tracing Miss Muffet's path.  

Lane went through her work much faster than I thought she would today. I thought what I prepared would last through the week and not one day. We will talk about magnetism and make a mouse with the letter M. I think I will have to find some more Mm ideas. 

Later in the day we started homemade fruit roll-ups. I wanted to make them for a while and finally took the time to make them. I'm crossing my fingers that the blackberry raspberry and strawberry concoctions turn out edible. 

Meet Howie

The boys used to dress up a lot when they were younger. We had dog, firefighter, Barney, tiger costumes and more. They spent afternoons changing outfits and playing creatively.  I thought they had outgrown the costume stage but I still have my fairy, princess, ladybug Lane who loves to wear costumes. 

The other afternoon the boys came down with a black angry bird mask, a hat, and Mickey Mouse hands.  I was introduced to Howie. Howie also wore green water shoes that are two sizes too small. 

Howie went upstairs and soon I had fairy princesses running around the house. 

I'm not entirely sure how they got the tutus and small Princess gowns on but they managed.  A funny note: the wings are hanging from their necks rather than their shoulders. 

Haircuts are painful sometimes...

letter to SmartStyle today:    

I took my son to the SmartStyle salon in the St. Cloud, FL, location today. He sat down for his haircut and had a meltdown. He is 8 years old and has autism. He was anxious about his haircut and needed a few minutes to calm down. In the process, he grabbed the scissors to give himself a haircut but the scissors were removed from his hands without incident. The stylist was calm and willing to give him time to calm down. He finally sat quietly and said that he was ready for his haircut. It was at the moment that the stylist told me that she was willing to cut his hair but her boss, Virginia Lebron, would not allow her to finish his haircut. I explained that my son has autism and Ms. Labron looked at me and just shrugged while continuing to work on another client's hair. I mentioned that she was refusing service to someone with a disability.
Autism is a neurological disorder. Here is a web site for more information about what our family deals with on a daily basis. http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism
Professionally, the least Ms. Lebron could have done was speak to me about why she was denying my son service at the salon. As an ethical person, she could have done more than shrug her shoulders.
My son was diagnosed with autism over three years ago and I have not cried so hard in public in a long time. I was embarrassed and hurt for my son who thought that he was naughty. If I thought he wasn't capable of handling the haircut after he calmed down, I would have walked out with him. He cried in the front entrance of the salon and begged for the stylist to cut his hair while his brother finished his haircut with another stylist. He has been disturbed by this incident the rest of the day.
Our family is still recovering from this experience. We are considering what do next. We want you to be aware of this incident so you can correct any policies and/or train employees so this doesn't occur in the future with other children, particularly those with disabilities.

Pontoon in Naples

We went to Naples to spend time with my aunt, uncle, cousins last weekend.  It's an easy four hour drive to their home and we had such a nice time. It was the first time my uncle met my children so that was really neat to transform from married adult to mother of three since the last time I saw him. 

There's something about being around the extended family you grew up with - I was instantly comfortable around them and felt surrounded by love even when my children were having complete meltdowns. My children shared the good and the bad with everyone but we were invited back so maybe it wasn't quite as bad as it felt as the parent. 

We went on a pontoon boat. We saw Eminem's home complete with a huge water slide. Amazing.  We went to an island where boaters line up and hang out for the day.  We floated on noodles, ate yummy treats, fished, and more. It was a wonderful day.  One of the boys even caught a little hammerhead shark.  

Gabriel and Alex had their moments.  Alex had a tough time transitioning when we arrived at the boat. He screamed and cried about not wanting to wear the life jacket.  Later he didn't even notice it was on.  Luckily Andrew was able to take him for a walk and he was able to pull himself together.  

Gabriel had a moment when he thought he stepped on blue. We still don't know what he meant but that but floating with a noodle seemed to calm him down. 

The boys were allowed to play captain on the way home.  They need some practice because we were all over the place. 

Lane took a five minute nap on the way back. I was surprised she didn't nap longer after her big adventure. 

We had so much fun.  We were invited back and hope they mean it because we will be knocking on their door again as soon as possible.