4/30 - Medical update, Pratt Park, & boys day

So let's catch up. I had a sleep study done about 1.5 weeks ago. Wow. It was horrible. Here is a picture that I sent Brad to say "goodnight" to the boys. This was before I got the second round of stuff hooked up to my face and nose. It was almost impossible to sleep.  I had to get there at 7:30pm and then I went to bed around 10:30pm. I slept a little worse than normal. They then woke me up at 5:50am and then I had to stay awake until 8am and then I got to take naps every two hours. That doesn't sound so bad huh? Well, let me tell you. It was horrible. I would just fall alseep and then they would come wake me up (you can't sleep longer than 15 minutes). After not sleeping all night and just my usual amount of tiredness, I was beyond exhausted.

I do not have sleep apnea which is good. However, I was right on the borderline for something called Idiopathic Hypersomnia. This means I'm sleepy all the time and my body actually needs the sleep but there is no explanation for it. Awesome huh? While I did fall alseep for all 5 naps, I did not reach REM sleep which is necessary to be classified as narcoleptic. I also just found at the end of last week that I have to do the study again. Blah. I was the only one there last time for the day study because 95% of people only need to be monitored at night. Anyway, I have to do the test next week and we are doing it without me taking my ADHD medicine. I only had one period of REM sleep before and it lasted for just 30 min which equalled about 9% of my sleep time. The average person gets about 20-25% of REM sleep. Well see what happens. I have had horrible migraines for the past month
 and it got really bad this past weekend. Even my prescription medication does not even make a dent in the pain/pressure that I feel in my head.

Here is Aiden below making bracelets for 2 little girls. He was so cute making them.

Both of the boys recently got gardening gloves. Here is Brad helping Aiden put on his gloves. I helped Eli put on his and then they went out and played in the dirt at the end of the driveway for a bit.



On Friday, Brad had the idea to pack-up dinner in the form of a picnic and go to Pratt Park. I wasn't so excited about it but that's because my head has been killing me and my ulcerative colitis has hampering me quite a bit. It was fun. I was gone taking Aiden to the bathroom and when I come back, I see Eli chasing something around a tree. I ask Brad about it and he then informs me that he told Eli he could pet a squirrel if he could catch one. Seriously!! I couldn't help laughing. Eli so wanted to catch a squirrel. He eventually asked me if he could pet the ducks and I advised him that was a bad idea.

While Eli was off chasing squirrels, Aiden asked Brad what Eli was doing. Brad then told Aiden that he could pet a squirrel if he caught one. Needless to say, it wasn't long before Eli and I heard Aiden yelling that he almost caught a squirrel.  In the picture below you can see Aiden in the far left and a squirrel in the far right.

The squirrel got smart and ran up a phone poll. Aiden waited for the squirrel to come down but that didn't happen so he and Eli went off exploring with daddy for a while.

On Saturday, Brad took the boys to the zoo in the morning. They have really been wanting to go and that is not a trip that I can do at this moment because of medical stuff. They had fun it looked like. This is the first time I haven't gone to the zoo with the boys. It was so odd. There are new white tigers at the zoo and Brad took a picture for me. You can see the white tiger laying in the background between the boys.



 The chick-fil-a cow was also at the zoo and Aiden actually stood by him. This is a first. Aiden does not like the big characters like this so I was glad to see that progress made.

Brad fed the boys lunch and then put them down for short naps. He then got them up and took them to a birthday party. It was just Aiden that was supposed to go but I thought I would be back from the dr by then and I wasn't so Brad had to take Eli with him too. It was a Lego Stars Wars themed party. Aiden is too scared to watch any kind of Star Wars stuff but he likes to look at the comic books and beginning reader books of Star Wars. All the boys had fun it seemed. Brad really got in to it (he's even wearing a mask in one of the pictures below) and was teaching the kids how to fight with their light sabers. He did a great job because in the very last picture on the bottom right, everyone is beating him up with their light sabers. It looked like a very cool party and the boys certainly had fun. 

After such a long day with the boys, Brad was a great sport and even gave them baths. He gave Eli a bath in perfect Eli fashion ... outside at the water spicket. Eli loved every second of it. Aiden wanted to come in for a more traditional bath but that's not surprising. He's starting to be able to make it through a bath without crying which is awesome. He still won't soap himself or anything but ..... baby steps forward it what our goal is and we are achieving that.

I was recuperating on Sunday from the massive amount of drugs given to me on Saturday. After the boys got home from church and had a nap, they played outside. It started to rain and Eli obviously doesn't care about that. Aiden ran inside on got his jacket and a hat (he already had boxers on) so he could still play a little. It was barely sprinkling but I'm so glad Aiden has the influence of care-free Eli in this situation. 

4/29 - Fun at home

I love to do crafty fun educational stuff at home when I have the time and energy. This is an idea that I found from Pinetrest. We call is Sight Word Parking. I call out a word and then Aiden parks a car on that spot. I made it for Aiden but then realized that Eli wanted to play on it to. I then decided to go back and add a second row. For him, he looks at the bottom characters (either a letter, number, or shape/color).

It's a great way to have spend time with the boys and have fun together.

I've also gotten a little obsessed with black lights lately. I'm planning a blacklight party and have been experimenting with different things. My main objective is to combine something the boys like (black lights) with something that Aiden doesn't care for - sensory stuff. After lots of research and a little shopping, here is one of the things we have done. I put neon paint and water in a mini spray bottle and then let the boys have fun in the bathtub. They could paint the walls or themselves. I turned on 2 backlights and they had a blast. They painted the walls, Eli painted himself, and they both painted cars in the bath tub.  

I've also colored some rice that glows and have come up with a bunch of other stuff that I'll do a post on soon. Here is something else I found: water beads. They are actually these tiny little pellet things and then they get huge when you add water to them. We've had lots of fun playing with them. Aiden actually even helped me "catch" some in he bathtub and Eli has loved pouring them from one container to another. I was very surprised Aiden would handle these because they are all slippery when they are wet. 

It was Papa's birthday last week and the boys made a card for him. They also made something for Nana but I haven't mailed it yet (sorry Nana).

Aiden had a good therapy session last week. Look at this picture below - he's leaping/jumping!!! I'm so proud of him and happy for him.

Here is Mrs. Rusty having him climb up the slide backwards!!

Little Eli. We were waiting for his doctor appointment the other day and he sat in the van with me for a few minutes. He ended up finding a pair of my sunglasses. He's too cute. On a positive note, we thought he injured his foot but it just turns out he bruised it and all the redness and swollen area was from a bunch of bug bites. This poor kid has been falling over a lot lately and he has scabs on both his knees and one elbow; oh yeah, he has bruises all over his legs too.

Eli has been such a great napper but that is starting to change slightly which doesn't surprise us; this is about the same age Aiden started to have trouble napping. He still usually takes a nap but he stays up pretty late at night. He is in his bed by 7:45pm but he often gets up and goes potty and then just rolls around in his bed for an hour or two. Here is how we found him the other night: passed out at the opposite end of his bed. He was actually laying on the book storage chest with his puppy dog blanket. 

And finally, the boys have really started to figure out how to play outside on their own. It's been great. Eli loves the water and seems to want to play in it all the time. It's great for Aiden because it's something he would never do on his own. As you can from the sequence of pictures below, they both started out in clothing. Eli quickly got pretty wet and promptly removed all of his clothing. Aiden kept getting a little wet every now and then he would rather take the wet clothes off then wear them. Eli would stand right under the facet and let Aiden turn it on. Little stinker Eli knows how to push Aiden's buttons. He's learned that he can put his whole hand over the facet and then the water sprays every where (they call is water fireworks) and usually gets Aiden wet. Eli thinks it's too funny but you can also see in the last picture on bottom right, Aiden has fun too. He runs away from the water but he is still having fun.

I love watching them play outside together and see how much fun they have. I have another update to do tomorrow on the blog. Until then ...

4/24 - therapy

Aiden's therapy has been going pretty well lately. He's in the final stretch of his occupational therapy and only has a few weeks left. He has gotten SO SO SO much stronger over the past few months. We did encounter a bit of a hiccup a few weeks ago. At first we thought he got a spider bite (even the doctor thought so) but it turned in to ring worm. Needless to say, that is spreadable so when he was at OT, Mrs. Rusty needed to cover it up. Well, Aiden doesn't like things on his body like that. He's only worn a bandaid once or twice and can't stand that. Rusty put on Coban which only sticks to itself but it still had Aiden way out of his comfort zone. He was way upset and she took him calmed him down. It took a good 25 minutes or so but she did it. After he calmed down, she let Aiden make a boo-boo on her (with chalk) and then cover it up and then she was able to put one on him. He wore it for the rest of his 10 min of therapy but he was not happy about it.

She was trying so hard to make him smile and he wanted nothing to do with it.

The next week at therapy went much better. I wasn't sure if I was up for fight that Aiden was going to put up about getting the bandage on but Rusty said to bring him. We got there and he picked out what color he wanted and had it on in 5 minutes. I was shocked. He asked me to wear one too during his therapy time. Below you can see Aiden doing part of his obstacle course.

Mrs. Rusty got some new toys and Aiden really enjoyed carrying them around and velcro-ing their arms together to let them hang.

Aiden has always been scared/tentative to jump and be air born - even if he is landing on something soft. He's finally starting to get over that. It's so exciting and fun to watch. Not only is he jumping and getting some air under his feet, but he is also willing (sometimes) to land with a crash (on a mat). I never thought I would see him voluntarily do this. I think it's something that most parents probably don't think twice about but when you have a child who refuses to do certain things, you notice it more. I even had to take a little video for Aiden so he could see how awesome it was.

He has been saving his therapy dollars (he gets one at the end of every therapy session if he earned it) and bought something out of Mrs. Rusty's store. He searched for about 15 minutes and put lots of thought into his purchase. She just got lots of new stuff and he ends up buying this old (kind of a baby) camera. It's pretty cool with all the noises and stuff but it was a little surprising to me that this was his favorite thing.

Last week at therapy Aiden ran in and said, "I need to get my bandage!" I just about fell over. What a huge change from 3 weeks ago. Below you can see him in the spandex swing. He had to pick-up these balls that light up when you hit them and put them in with him. The lights were turned out and he eventually was swinging in the dark with the light-up balls in the swing with him. He then ended his session with some fine motor skill stuff.

I've noticed lately that while I've never been concerned about Eli and his developmental skills (he's been right on time) that I need to pay closer attention to him. He still hasn't figured out what hand is his dominant hand so he switches back and forth between his left and right all the time. He has also been always been pretty strong with his hands but I've noticed recently that while he is strong, he is not very accurate. He has trouble doing the fine motor things. He can't even get most stickers off the sheet. I've started trying to work with him and .... it's different than working with Aiden. Aiden will pretty much do whatever I or Mrs. Rusty ask. He may not like it but we tell him how many to do and he'll do it. That's not how Eli works. Eli will do one and then say, "you can finish the rest mom" or "I don't like this" and just leave. Mrs. Rusty has given me some tips so hopefully I can start "talking" Eli into doing more therapy type exercises. He refuses to hold a pencil/marker/crayon correctly so I need to step up my game and work with him a little more. I've definitely taken it for granted that Aiden just does therapy so well and wants to do well with it.

4/15 - The past week

I left last weekend on Friday and drove down to Florida to attend the Alumni Gymnastics Reunion and also watch the Regional Meet which Florida hosted. It was a fast trip but fun trip. Here is a group shot of most of us. The picture is a little blurry. I'm in the bottom row, third in from the left. Quite a few of my teammates showed up which was great. It was fun visiting with them.

 I left a package at home for the boys and it was the giant floor dinosaur puzzle. Brad sent me a picture of it once Aiden put it all together.

Here is a picture that Brad sent me on Saturday night. The boys went to McDonalds for dinner and Aiden was a little distracted and was cleaning the slide!!! 

While in Florida, I stopped at Jacksonville on Friday night and stayed with my friend Sue. It's always great to see her. She sent back a few goodies for the boys. I drove back to Alabama on Sunday morning and made it home right after the boys went down for naps. When they woke up I got some massive hugs and then showed them what Mrs. Sue gave them. These are small tennis racquets (kid size I guess). The boys had a blast. Eli is actually pretty darn good. Aiden does a great job making contact as well but he gets discouraged quite easy. Eli was a champ and kept practicing and made a few pretty good hits. 


Sue also gave us a small basketball hoop. It's actually a pretty big one but it can adjust to be short. The boys enjoyed playing with that too. She even gave us a basketball which is smaller than normal. We have lots of outside stuff to keep us active outside now. :)

Sue

One of the other goodies Sue gave us was the Hallaballo game. I've been wanting to get it and she said she had it and didn't use it anymore so she passed it down to me. Aiden was having a blast doing it. You put all these discs with pictures down on the floor and turn on this machine and it tells you what to do. "Twirl to a red pad" or "hop to triangle."We played it as a family quite a few times.
 
The boys took pictures at daycare a few weeks ago. It was an old-time theme and I finally got to see the pictures that were taken. They turned out so cute. Here are just 3 of them. Eli looked so stinkin' cute in all of his pictures. I just love his fishing one below and how his little toes are curled up. Aiden liked the one of him with the gun (rather than fishing pole) and it also had a slightly-less-forced-smile than the other one too so that's the one I got of him.

The boys are doing such a good job at becoming more independent. They have toothbrush timers and know that they have to keep brushing until the go off. Here is little Eli getting ready for bed. It cracks me up that he doesn't actually like to us his light-up timer toothbrush to brush; he just wants to use the timer function on it and use another brush to clean his teeth. Aiden is NOT a fan of timer although I'm not sure why because he likes concrete rules and such.

We got 2 new games this week. I've been researching games to get and finally figured out what I wanted. One of them is called 'Hiss' and Aiden is playing it to the left. It's a fun game where you get to make snakes using colors. He is in love with this game and Brad and I have both played it at least a half dozen times in just a few days.

The other game that I got is called Sneaky Snacky Squirrel. It's a game that Eli can play and works on color matching, motor control, sharing, and taking turns. He is at a tough age because he's just starting to realize that he has to follow the rules for the games. He would rather just take the pieces of the game and mess around with them and use his other toys to store them in. He eventually defaults back to Mr. Potato Head. He LOVES that toy and has decided that he will have a Mr. Potato Head birthday party. I think that could be lots of fun. Aiden has chosen a dinosaur theme this year for his birthday. Back to Eli, here is a picture of one of his latest creation. He said this was an a "sad crazy" Mr. Potato Head." 

I've recently realized that I don't really have any short/short-sleeve PJ's for Eli. I guess Aiden just skipped a size. I recently had to get Aiden new PJ's because he outgrew (for his comfort level) his 4T jammies that are supposed to fit snuggly. Here are a pair of his new pj's which I just LOVE. 

We went to IHOP on Friday night for dinner. The boys love this place and they especially love the music that plays out by the front door. We got there and they just started dancing for a while and all the people inside were laughing. It was too funny. Once we were done eating, we let the boys dance for a while. Here is a video of their dancing skills. They crack me up. The each had their own bench which they called their stages. I have no idea where Aiden has gotten some of his dance skills. They are very unique. 

On Saturday, we went to Pratt Park (castle park) in the afternoon. The boys wanted to show daddy a new path we discovered the last time I took them there. Eli headed straight for the water of course and started throwing rocks. After we explored for a while, Eli and I headed back up towards the playground and Aiden and Brad stayed down in the new area and continued to explore. Little Aiden could walk all day exploring and be perfectly happy. One day he and Papa are gonna have a great time walking around on dad's property and Aiden will ask Papa a million questions (and Papa will have the answer to all of them probably).

Eli had fun back on the playground. We played race cars for a bit. Here is Eli working on the track (it's a finger maze) and while he did that, I ran around to the other area of the playground and then ran back. This is a great method to get the boys some exercise :) Aiden and Brad finally wandered over to the entrance but then saw some other kids playing in the canal. Aiden said he wanted to go down in the water and Brad told him that was fine but he had to take his shoes and socks off. Well, that didn't go so well. Aiden said he wanted to wear his shoes and socks in the water. It was pretty gross water so I'm glad Aiden didn't really get in.

Sunday was picture day at church. We all went to sunday school and then church. Once we got home, we had lunch and played for a bit before rest time. The boys had on cute matching outfits on sunday. They are so precious.

Eli takes a while to wake-up sometimes and he decided he would curl up and cuddle with me while he was trying to wake up. I know this won't last forever and soak up every minute of the cuddle time. Eli is turning in to such a caring little boy. If ever I ask him to pray for me, he will and it's so cute. Brad's back has been bothering him and I've prayed for it with the boys before and then Eli will just randomly asked Brad "how is your back daddy?" He has started to melt my heart with a new saying he has picked up somewhere. He'll ask for help with something and I'll help him and then he responds with "it's good to have a friend like you." It makes me smile every time.