5/15 - A Lawn Maze & Both boys at Therapy

We are living up the last few days of our grass mazes right now. Here are pictures that were taken almost 2 weeks ago so you can imagine how high/good the grass and mazes are right now. The boys (and I) have had so much fun running around in them. We plan to mow it all down tomorrow and then let it grow again over the next 2 weeks and then make more mazes for Aiden's birthday party.

After some outdoor time in the maze, we came inside and did some sensory painting. I mixed shaving cream with some tempera paint. I got out cookie trays for the boys to play on and then I found some cars to play with as well. At first they just played with the cars and making paths on the cookie sheet for them. After a bit, I added the colored shaving cream. Aiden did play which was great although he did not get any shaving cream on his hands. Eli had fun and didn't mind getting "dirty" as long as he could rinse them off and then dry them off. They had a great time. I'm determined to eventually have Aiden touch the shaving cream but we will work up to that I guess.

We were grateful to have the opportunity for Eli to go to Aiden's therapy last week. Eli has never been to Aiden's therapy here in Alabama and I really wanted him to see what it was like. They were both super excited for about 1.5 weeks leading up to the day. It was so important to them that I woke-up at 5:30am (eastern time) to drive 6.5 hr and met Brad straight at the location of therapy in Montgomery. There was no way I was going to miss this (and potentially cancel the appointment if I wasn't back in time). 

We got there and right away, Eli just wanted to run around and play. He quickly learned that is not how things work at therapy. Mrs. Rusty set up an obstacle course for them. I took it for granted that Eli has not experienced some things like a ball pit. Part of the obstacle course was standing in a ball pit and Eli was quite scared that he was just going to drown in all the balls. 

Eli got tired of doing the obstacle course and wanted to "play." I wasn't sure what he meant by that but I feel like I have watched Mrs. Rusty enough to know I could figure out how to make whatever he wanted to "play" with as part of something to do with therapy. We did lots of different things. He really liked the reacher thing (see directly below this text, top row). He grabbed those crabs and put them up on the platform and then put them down and then back up. He kept switching between his right and left hand. I was surprised he had the strength to do it but he was more accurate with his left hand than his right hand. 

Overall, Eli had a blast. He definitely learned that therapy is not doing just fun things and that he has to do things he doesn't like to. I think this helps because Eli realizes Aiden doesn't get to go and play all during his therapy time. 

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 ...

4/15 - 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. 

4/15 - Easter

So I need to catch up with the blog. I guess that's nothing new. OK. To make this easier, I'm going to do a few posts. Let's start with Easter. I missed church on Easter morning. I was so tired and just couldn't function. I was sad but we had been running hard on our vacation and I just needed the rest. The picture to the right is Eli enjoying a few pieces of some candy. Man that smile is awesome.







Here is Aiden putting together the Easter puzzle. The pieces were hidden in eggs around the house and then it fit together by re-creating/tell the story of Jesus and His death. I had a little guide that the Easter Bunny left to go along with it. It was fun and a great way to put the focus on God rather than candy :)

The afternoon was beautiful so we went outside to play with their new toy the Easter Bunny left: A Stomp Rocket. You step on this little red/pink air bladder. It's connected to a stand which holds the rocket. The harder you jump, the further the rocket goes. Sounds like fun huh? It is. It's a great way to be outside and get some exercise and have fun.

Eli running away from his rocket

Here is Aiden using the stomp rocket. He got it right away and loves it. They did a great job taking turns. You can see Brad sitting in the hammock and the boys moved their chairs over by him. They would run over and sit down for the 10 seconds that it took for the other one to put their rocket on and launch it. These things go pretty high. Even Brad and I were having fun. Eli had a little bit of a rough time at the beginning. He wouldn't step on it hard enough so the rocket would just barely pop off the base and then fall and hit him. Because of this, he got in the habit of stepping on the air bladder and then turning and running (so he wouldn't get hit) and then turn around but by then, the rocket already landed so he didn't get to see it. It was pretty comical to watch actually.

I finally realized you can actually tilt the rocket in a direction and then stomp on it so once Aiden saw that, he was all over the place. He is aiming straight at the house right now. It was good for him to experiment with it and I think its a great way to teach kids about angles and trajectory. Eli liked doing is this way better because he knew it wouldn't hit him.

It is well documented that Eli loves to be naked (naked = with underwear in our house). He also loves to either take naps naked or changes into his jammies. I think Eli probably got naked for naps and then never put clothes on after that. After some fun of playing in the yard, it started to sprinkle. It was weird because it didn't even really look cloudy. We watched the rain for a bit and then we got the great idea to go out and play in the rain. 

 
Eli was on board for that right away. He ran out there and was dancing away. Brad and I were out there as well with no shoes on just dancing. Aiden got ready by putting his jacket on so his arms wouldn't get wet and rain boots, and then came out to join us. They were having so much fun dancing around. You could tell Aiden didn't really want to come out but that we were all having such a good time that he wanted to be able to come out and have a good time.

Eli even tried catching rain in his mouth to drink. Aiden tried it but got water in his eyes and got a little upset. He handled it well though and stayed out there and still danced with us for a while. 

This is one of my favorite pictures to the right. It really demonstrates how life is experienced (and enjoyed) through the life of someone with a sensory processing disorder and one without. It significantly alters the way Aiden experiences life and how much and/or if he is able to enjoy things. 

 

This is a video and it will only work if you are viewing the blog through Blogger (not as a Facebook note). It's the boys dancing in the rain.

And after all that dancing, God created a wonderful (and brief) rainbow for us to enjoy. He is so amazing and great to us. It was a great Easter.

1/18 - Baths, Papa, & bowling

Here is a bath time collage from last week. Aiden struggled to even get in the tub last week and then once he was in, he really didn't want to get wet. You can see from the first two picture that he wasn't so excited about the shower. He finally let me run the water on his back. He started to calm down and enjoy it actually. He then wanted to play with the different settings on the shower head. It was interesting to watch him assess the different settings and see what he liked. I was surprised that he actually liked some of the "bullet" ones since they were high pressure. It took a bit of convincing, but he finally washed an arm and a leg with a washcloth. He actually gripped onto the washcloth pretty good to and put enough pressure on his skin to possibly get dirt off. That's an improvement.

And then there is Eli. He has no problem with the bath, or water, or soap, or bubbles. It's pretty refreshing. Come to think of it, maybe I should start bathing him second so I leave bath time in a good mood rather than stressed with fighting Aiden. Eli was playing with this little penguin in the bath tub. It has a rotor on it and can swim by itself. We were playing with it in the bath tub for the first time in a long time and he was having a great time. His great time got even better when he realized the rotor kicked back some water and when he put it in front of his private parts, it felt .... different. I was dying laughing because he started smiling and kept doing it. Oh boys!! 

I got out some animal flashcards the other day and asked the boys how many of the cards they could find actual animals to represent (not real ones of course). They had fun hunting around the house for various toys to try and find matches.

We have been having a challenging time trying to keep clothes on Eli. That boy just loves to be naked!!
It can be freezing outside, and pretty chilly inside and he'll still want to me a "naked boy." Brad re-did his prize chart last week to reward him more. The boys get stickers for their prize charts and every 4 or 5 stickers usually earns them a prize. That has worked great with Aiden. Eli has a hard time using the chart as a motivation tool because the gratification is not instant enough. He gets all upset when he doesn't get a prize and doesn't even care to put a sticker up even though he earned one. Brad re-did his prize chart so that he gets a prize every other time and that is working out better. It's at least motivated him enough to get himself dressed in the morning for the past week without too many tears shed. It kills me though that when Eli does get to pick a prize, he always picks candy. I've had the same candy in there (chewy gummy lifesavers) for a few months and he only gets one piece. There are unopened lego men, Chuggington trains, eraser puzzles, and other things Eli loves but he only has eyes for the candy. I'm debating taking the candy out as a choice but we'll see. Below is Eli sporting his "naked boy" self along with his goggles. He cracks me up.

We got to Skype with Nana the other day and the boys enjoyed that. Eli was trying to show her his puppies. They both showed her their legos and how they could build things and then knock them down.

Eli is actually getting strong enough fingers to push the legos all the way down and build himself little towers. He definitely loves building them up kinda high and then making sure almost every lego is off the base by the time he is done. Eli is a little more reserved with his lego knock-down. I actually think he doesn't like the mess it makes which doesn't surprise me. I think I've finally come up with a way to store/sort our legos (for now) and am thankful for Aiden's OCD to help me keep them organized! :)

Saturday was a beautiful day and we decided to head to a new park. We went to Blount Cultural Park in Montgomery. It was very pretty and there were lots of bike/walking paths to take. We will be going back and taking our bikes next time we go. Eli was being rather lazy and we had to take the stroller for him or we would get stuck carrying him the whole time. We took a few balls with us and played catch and fetch. Yes, I said fetch!! I did lots of the fetching since Eli is lazy.

On Saturday afternoon, we ended up staying home and playing in the backyard. Brad and I got out the frisbees, balls, and a nerf football. We had lots of fun. Brad and I got to play catch, Aiden practiced hitting the ball off the tee, and Eli was just roaming around. Pouncer sat at the window and watched us for a long time. I eventually got out bubbles and the boys both had fun playing with those and the automatic bubble maker. To top off an already fun backyard afternoon, I found our walkie-talkies. The boys have never seen or used them before but we got Papa some for Christmas for his farm and Aiden has been talking about walkie-talkies ever since. Brad and I got them a few years ago when we were driving from Maryland to Florida and we didn't want to have to use our cell phone to call when we had something quick we want to tell the other person (we were driving separate vehicles). Anyway, it took some practice for the boys but they eventually got the hang of it. It was hard for Aiden to push the button and hold it in order to talk but he eventually got it.

On Monday, we were blessed by Papa showing up. Papa and I went to get the boys early on Monday. They were just finishing up playing on the Big Green Bus. They were anxious to show Papa their skills and then come home and play with him. Here they are after just getting home. It took Eli only a matter of minutes to strip down to his undies! Aiden insisted on Papa having a lizard on his head for the picture. I think Eli is going to be swimmer just so he doesn't have to wear clothes and it's acceptable for him to wear his goggles all the time. :)

After seeing Eli sporting around his pool look in briefs and goggles, Aiden wanted to show Papa how he can swim "by himself." In his world, that means he wears this froggy vest and can still float.

As usual, Aiden had therapy on Tuesday. He struggled a bit in the beginning but Mrs. Rusty knows how to get him to do stuff. He helped her hang a swing up, get on the swing and ride, find crabs and put them on the rope, and then played did a few minutes of sensory work. He is trying so hard to make all of his muscles work together to be able to swing. He (much to my surprise) put a blind fold on for the first time and crawled around on a giant wobble board on his belly while he felt for crabs on the floor. He then got his fingers nice and strong by clipping the crabs to the rope. He ended the session by having to find little plastic rabbits in a bag of grits and then finding the hidden treasure in a pile of shaving cream. It was the end of the session and he was tired and started going downhill. He wouldn't touch the shaving cream so Mrs. Rusty modified the original goal to try and make it easier. It was aggravating for me to watch so I'm not even going to try and type the whole thing out so here is the readers digest version: he used the rabbits he just found in the grits to "help" look through the shaving cream; he found a treasure; he wouldn't wipe the treasure off with a towel so we took it to the sink; he wouldn't wash it off either. 

I've gotten the boys early from daycare this week so they can hang out with Papa. We went to Big Lots the other day and Christmas stuff was 75% off. I had just been up really late the night before looking on Pinterest and finding lots of ideas of stuff I wanted to do. I got out the tent that Nana gave Aiden a few years ago. We made Eli's bed into a fort with sheets and then .... bought them each a set of LED christmas lights to hand on their beds. They were so excited. We got home, put up the lights, and the boys then played for the next couple of hours. The boys can plug the lights in whenever they want but they always have to be unplugged after we say prayers at bedtime. 

Tuesday night our water heater pilot light went out on us so the boys ended up getting no bath because we had no hot/warm water. So, Wednesday night was bath night. Aiden didn't want to get a shower which is no surprise. I got him to cheer up some and he even had fun. I let him play with the shower head and changing the way the water comes out and then put the plug in the bathtub so that he could in the water. I was trying to let him enjoy the experience and let him play for about 15 minutes or so. I finally told him we had to clean him and then everything went downhill very fast. I tried all my tricks of empowering him ("Aiden, what kind of wash cloth do you want to use?" "I'll wash one arm and you can wash the other. Do you want me to do your right or left?") and nothing was working for getting him onboard for a bath. He wanted to earn a sticker so bad by cleaning himself but he just wouldn't actually do anything. So.... he cried for 5-10 minutes while I soaped him, washed his hair, and rinsed him off. Bath time took much longer than usual. I was trying to be patient and work with him but I think he was too tired because of having no nap and just couldn't emotionally handle it. The boys didn't get in to bed until about 8:00pm this night because Aiden's bath was so long and dramatic and I was completely wiped out.

On Thursday morning, Papa went with me to my brain MRI. I'm so thankful it was approved through the insurance company so fast and then I was able to get it pretty fast as well. I got the referral last Thursday afternoon and had the MRI the next Thursday morning!! It was a MRI with contrast so I was slightly nervous my body would freak out again with a foreign substance being injected into me so I was thankful my dad came with me. The tech said the radiologist would have the report done by today but I probably won't hear anything until Tuesday since Monday is a holiday (Martin Luther King Jr). I spent the whole time in the MRI in prayer. I don't want them to find a tumor on my pituitary gland but at the same time, I would like for the MRI to help the doctors figure out what is wrong. On Thursday afternoon, we picked up the boys from daycare and then went to base to meet Brad to go bowling. Eli has never been bowling and Aiden has only been bowling once. Brad and I haven't bowled in a year or two and my dad said he hadn't bowled in many, many years.

The boys had a blast. Aiden eagerly awaited his turn ... every time. Eli had a good time putting the ball up on the ramp and then slapping it down. In Eli fashion, he even head-butted the ball down the ramp a few times. He got lots of excited out of watching his ball go down and hit pins. The bottom right of the collage is one of the first times he bowled. After his ball hit 2 or 3 pins down, he raised his arms up and started jumping all over the place. It was too funny. He was a big cheerleader for all of us. Aiden was having a bit of a hard time. We used the ramp and bumpers for both of them but Aiden had a bad ball at the beginning and it just went off to the left quite a bit and snuck into the gutter right before the pins but after the bumper. I brought some legos with us which was good. The boys were a little impatient because they just wanted it to be their turn the whole time. My dad did awesome. He busted out of the gates with 2 strikes!! It was fun for all of us.

Here is the score board at the end of the first round. The man behind the counter entered in the names if you are wondering why Eli and Papa's names are spelled different.

I had to get a shot of the boys at the end. They had lots of fun and we will definitely be going back.

Brad and I actually went out on a date last night for the second time in just 7 months. We went to dinner and then walked around the dollar store for a bit. I needed to get some supplies for a project I am working on so we thought we would multi task. Brad has class today and we were both pretty tired so we were back home by 8:30pm. It was nice to get out without the boys though. It was a great visit with my dad and the boys really enjoyed seeing him. It has rained all week so I've come up with some new games that I'll post about soon. Have a good weekend.