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. 

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.