12/27/19 - Life update

I'm so grateful to have kept this blog for so many years. It's a treasure for us during such a busy season. I love all the pictures and books that I made from it. It's funny that we went from Brad being gone so much to him being here and that's when I finally stopped updating the blog. He was here so there was no need to continue in my eyes. My mom had moved in and she didn't need to stay updated either. My health wasn't great and we were thankfully able to change that. The boys also had therapy appointments all the time and it made life exhausting. I've also found that as they get older, I'm much busier but in a different way. Physically driving them from one place to another and waiting; I've done lots of waiting. We've been thoroughly blessed to have so much family time over the last 5-6 years. It's equaled out all the gone time that we had those first 4-5 years.

The purpose of this blog and the future direction remains a question for me. We are still homeschooling and feel blessed to do so. I do love looking back at all my old books (blog posts that I turned into books) so maybe I'll start it up again.

1/1/2016 - What happened to the blog?

As you can see, life has gotten the better of me and I haven't been able to manage all the things I want. I let the blog go for a while. I'm not sure what 2016 will bring but we enjoyed Brad being home for the holidays. We've had very little family time over the last 2.5 years and were very thankful to be together this year. I have been homeschooling the boys since August and the Lord is using this experience to change me on many levels.

Therapy at home

This is the original swing I bought from Walmart for son. I've ended up doing double duty with it. There is spandex tied in a knot to two huge caribeener clips on the right. I have giant clips (like clothespins) on the rail so it won't wander over into the space of the spinning pod on the left. The pod on the left is what we bought at Ikea but since both of my boys are on opposite ends of the sensory spectrum, it works great for us. My older one who needs to front to back rocking motion can swing back and forth like a regular swing on the spandex or stretch the spandex out and lay long-ways and then use the green strap to help get himself up. My younger son can use the Ikea pod and twist himself up all crazy and then let it go and unwind. My younger one can then switch over the the fabric and practice trying to swing in regular swing by leaning front/back and learning to pump his legs.

I also have these wonderful drawing sheets that I bought at Target last year. I laminate almost everything and these types of drawing sheets are no different. Rather than writing on the actual paper though, we clip up the picture on the top of the chalk board and my son either uses small pieces of chalk and draws on the chalkboard or sometimes he'll request a sheet of paper. Here he has used a piece of construction paper and also used pink chalk to write with.

I get so busy with things that I needed a way to try and make sure my son was doing enough therapy during the week to help make lasting changes. Doing therapy once a week for 45 minutes isn't enough for a true change I wanted to make sure you can do his "homework" from his therapist. I bought this wipe off chart at the Dollar Tree and it says 'Job Chart' on the top of it with blanks on the left and the days of the week at column headings. Based on recommendations from his therapist, he has a list of 6 things he can do and he chooses 4 a day (he has do everything at least twice a week and we don't do therapy on sundays). Supermans (on his belly, arms and legs straight out) and sit-ups are to help strengthen his core which is really week. He's now up to 10 sit-ups but we started with 5. 1 paper is actually a variety of things he can do. I have papers that have the big circles on them and you use bingo markers to color in the circles. I have cutting papers (some I printed from things I found on-line) and some are from this great book that his therapist showed me from Kumon titled, "My Book of Easy Crafts." I ordered it on Amazon for less than $8 and it has 40 different activities in it. They all require cutting and most also require folding or gluing. The really neat thing is that they all involve some type of action as well. For example, my boys just cut out these frogs (there were 2 on a page) and then you need to make a few folds to turn them into frogs that jump when you push your finger down on the back of the paper. There's a cat that when you pull its head up and feet down, the hands clap. My kids have yet to throw one away (which I don't mind since they actually still play with them). A paper activity can also be practice writing letters in boxes as well.

Lacing, putty, hammer, or pinch can include a variety of activities. I have lacing cards that I found at the Dollar Tree. Another lacing activity I started was taking cardboard marking and then cutting small slits every 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch around a piece (this one is a rectangle but we have squares, circles, triangles, and crosses of different shapes) and then he gets to pick a color string (I use embroidery string) and he has to make sure every slot has string in it. It is very challenging for him because he has to stabilize the piece of cardboard with one hand and he has to really use his fingers to pull the string into the slot. In this picture I put purple tape in the center of the cardboard to give it more stability but now I either put tape all around the cardboard (except where the slits are) or do not do it all depending on how long I want it to last. I have putty which I purchased for about $8 on-line and I hide treasures (small buttons and beds) and he has to find a certain number of treasures (usually 10-15) and recently we started keeping track of how long it takes him to find those items. He now is starting to compete with his 'records' which he finds fun. It works out great for me because I don't have to encourage him to find 3, 4, or 5 more because he's excited to do it and is trying to beat his time. I found this little hammer at walmart for $5. It fits in his hand and is a little heavy put it's great for him to use. My husband put a few pretty sturdy nails in a piece of wood and we make a mark on the nail and he has to sink that part down into the wood and then he's done. Pinching activities include having a large bin of clothespins of different colors and then doing various games with him (using index cards that have numbers on them and putting the correct number around the index card, seeing how many he can pin on his shirt at one time, or making a paper path by letting him slightly overlap two colors of paper and then putting a clothespin on to keep the paper together and he does that for 10-12 feet and loves to see his color path).

Slow rolly poly is a move that I need to take some pictures of to be able to post. Essentially he starts off in a crab position with his bottom off the ground. He then has to flip over to a bear (just on hands and feet) and then back to crab without letting any body parts touch except his feet and hands. We call the entire movement rolly poly but after he started to get the hang of it he wanted to go really fast and cheat so then we had to break it back down that he has to do crab, bear, crab, bear, etc. He goes down the living room one direction and then has to come back facing the same way so he works rotating his trunk both directions.

Thumb touches fingers is just what is sounds like. He has a very hard with the mobility in his fingers (just look at the picture of him holding the cardboard lacing and how his fingers are all tight and contracted) so this was very challenging for him at first. He just has to touch each finger to the tip of the thumb but he has round his fingers out.