OT visit

We saw Kira's OT today. It was a great visit and I can't believe we only have 3 more. I'm just going to bullet point, so I won't forget anything.

-I mentioned the suggestion we rec'd from the clinic OT re: pushing golf tees into styrofoam to work on hand strength. She thought it was a good idea and also suggested using playdoh.

-She also suggested hiding small things in balls of playdoh (small pegboard pegs, buttons, etc) and then letting Kira try to dig them out. Jackson played with it while we were working on other stuff and L varied the activity by asking him to do it with his eyes closed. It's an activity that works on both hand strength and cognitive/memory skills - pretty cool.

-We've been working with putting things like crayons, q-tips, etc into a shampoo bottle - to help Kira practice the hand positioning she'll need for writing. L wants to take it further by having Kira pour the items back out in a more controlled fashion and use her opposing hand to catch and then pull the item out, rather than just pouring everything back out onto the floor. She suggested working on this in the bathtub by putting counting bears and water into the bottle and letting Kira pour it back out - catching the bears as they come out.

-She suggested getting some flat stringing beads - or making some out of heavy cardboard or thick foam (I have a salt dough recipe that I think I'm going to try - I'll post if it works). Kira totally gets stringing the bead onto the needle and that she needs to pull the needle through, but she always ends up pulling the needle and the string coming out of the other side of the bead and not the bead itself. L thinks if we have totally different beads she might get past that. She pointed out that stringing beads is a three step process that is similar to the skill set Kira will need for buttoning.

-We need to keep encouraging Kira to do activities with her left hand. I swear she came out of the womb right-handed, she always leads with her right hand and stabilizes things with her left. L wants to make sure that her left hand is doing as well as her right.

I think that's about it. We discussed the clinic and a little bit more about our upcoming transition. Overall, a really enjoyable hour!

Faith

We ended up on some mailing list that resulted in a catalog of children's Halloween costumes arriving yesterday. Jackson is sitting on the couch with his dad circling the ones he's interested in. Every so often he comes in here to ask me, "Mom, do you think you can make this one?"

Here he is last year. He was Glutterman - a superhero of his own creation.

100 and 22

Ok, this really is my 100th post! And 22 is the final tally on the number of wasp stings Jackson ended up with yesterday. Yes, really, 22 wasp stings.


While I was outside hanging out the laundry, Jackson and Kira were playing in the yard. They started trekking through a flower bed area that has tall ground cover grassy stuff. All of a sudden, Jackson started screaming "OWW OWW OWW", I turned around and he was in a cloud of wasps. I ran over to him, knocked the one off that was still on him, grabbed him and Kira and ran into the house. I can't believe Kira didn't get stung; she was only about a yard away from him.


I started slapping baking soda and water all over him and gave him a dose of ibuprofen. I had to call the dr to find out what dosage of benadryl to give him. All the while, I am freaking out internally. What if he had been allergic? 22 stings!!


Final tally:
17 stings on his leg
2 on his back
1 on his arm
1 on his hand
1 on his face


Poor baby! He kept saying, "I wish I didn't walk through there!" I asked him if his leg felt like fire and he said, "I don't know what fire feels like." Good point.


I was amazed at how he handled, though. It had to have hurt like hell, but he quit crying after about 10 minutes. He hung out in a benadryl induced haze and watched tv all day. I think the only time the stings bothered him was when Kira would pat them while trying to mother him.

Needless to say, they aren't going back into the backyard until we bomb the holy living out of it.

stuff

I'm tearing up every time I see my Ted post, so I need to get something else up here. How 'bout some random?

- Things that crack me up: The little password thingies that Google puts up when you comment on someone's blog. I swear I'm going to make up definitions for them some day. Also, the suggestions blogger's spellcheck gives me. What? couponing, scrumbled, and whatcha aren't real words?

- Jackson and I were reading a book involving monkeys, you know, monkeying around. I told him it was time for him to rest and that I wanted him to lay down, be quiet, and he said, "and not start personing around?" - he kills me, that one.

- My friend, Michele (Hey Michele!!!), very thoughtfully reserved Amanda Soule's new book for me when she was going through the new books at work (She's a librarian) - I've been enjoying it so much and can't wait to get started on some of the projects.

- This has been such a strange month for us. Lots of ups and downs. But mostly, this month has shown me how very blessed we are with dear friends who love us and who are there for us no matter what.

- And, Dancing with the Stars starts on Sept 21! I can't wait!! (Hey Michele!!)

See, random, don't say I didn't warn you.

RIP Sweet Ted

We had to say good-bye to our sweet Big T on Monday night. He was a good friend and we will miss him terribly.

Ted 7/4/96 - 8/17/09

(Ted - please tell Rocco we miss him, too.)

quote

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Big week

So much has happened this week, it's hard to know where to start. Today, we welcomed Jackson and Kira's brand new baby cousin. I'm not sure if his parents want his name all over the blogosphere, so we'll just call him "Bandit" - Jackson's suggestion for his name when he was still in utero.

He's beautiful and very courteously arrived on a day that worked out nicely for everyone. Kira was FASCINATED with him. She sat and looked at him forever and even shoved Jackson out of the way when he tried to get a look. She was saying, "Baby! Baby!" Then she started cataloguing him for everyone, "Baby hat. Baby eyes. Toes" - she'd look up at us every other word to make sure that we were noticing that yes, the baby did have a hat, eyes, and toes. Then she asked Bandit, "Baby? Eat? Bites?" and "Baby bath?" - I think she wanted to make sure that he had everything he needed. When the nurse came to check his blood sugar, she started pointing out all of his assets to her, too. I hope that they end up the best of buds and give the big kids a run for their money.

Other big news this week - Jackson is reading! Really reading. He's been pointing words out to me forever, but I assumed that he was sight reading. We were at the library Tuesday night and I saw a set of Bob Books. I told Jackson that we could check them out and start working on reading, if he wanted to. He was so excited that he wanted to sit down and look at them right then. And then he read the first three books, just like that. Sounded out words, everything. There are 12 books in the set, he read 11 of them when we got home that night. Crazy. While we were waiting to go in to see the baby, he read to his grandparents and to a random gentleman also waiting. He made sure to hold the book so that Mr. Random could see it, too. That kid cracks me up.

On Thursday we went with friends to the Modern Art Museum in Ft Worth. They were hosting a kids film festival and we went to see The Velveteen Rabbit. It was a version I hadn't seen before and we all really enjoyed it. The cultural district in Ft Worth is really lovely and there is a gorgeous swath of lawn between the Kimbell and Amon Carter Museums. We had a lovely picnic and then all of the kids played in the fountain in front of the Kimbell. Very cool. I wish I would have remembered my camera. At one point, Kira was sitting on the edge of the pool, kicking her legs in the water and munching on an apple. She was so cute, just enjoying a beautiful summer day.

Also this week: Kira's first visit to the Down syndrome clinic went really well. I hit Kroger's super doubles on Saturday. And we enjoyed visits with 3 different aunts. Busy week and weekend - I think we'll have a take it easy day tomorrow.

I hope y'all had good weekends, too!