A Late Birthday Present!

Grace got a surprise in the mail yesterday!  When she finally fell asleep for nap a delivery man came and delivered a package for her which ended up being a birthday present from a friend in California!!

How beautiful!  Grace was so excited to see a present waiting for her after nap time, and this specific blanket is the material that she just loves, so it worked out perfectly.  And it's big enough to be tucked onto her bed, so this is a great Winter blanket.  Thank you so much Angie!!

And then I've also been working on Grace's Halloween costume.  I've got the vest done so far but have to take the sides in since they are way too big.

Cute, yes?  I bought her a black sweater and sweat pants which is what she'll wear under this.  If I have enough material I'm going to make ears, a tail, and leg warmers that will go from the top of her shoes to her knees.  And maybe for her arms as well if there's enough fabric.

Cute cute!

Amanda

Primary Practice

Grace had a tough time at the primary practice today.  Darnit.  Tomorrow is the program and we're going to do the best we can but if it doesn't work out, that's ok :)  I'm going to be sitting up there with her and will have snacks, treats, little toys and stickers to hopefully occupy her through the whole program.  But here's what I'm expecting.  I'm expecting Grace to do the best she can and if she can't handle it, I want her to be able to tell me and then we can be all done!  I'm not going to force her to get through the whole thing.  

I made something for Grace...

This is to help everyone that sees my Facebook understand her a little bit more.  

She was a good girl today.  After her nap she and I laid on the floor cuddling with each other.  She'd say, "Put your arm on me!"  We cuddled for probably 10 minutes and it was such a blessing.  She kept kissing me over and over and over and then she'd say, "Look at me, Mom."  When I looked right in her eyes she'd say, "I love you so much, Mom."

It was a very sweet time.  I will cherish it forever!

Amanda

Busy Fun Day

Poor Scotty.  That's the first thing I'll say :)  He got to go to the doctor and have his manhood taken away!  Uh oh for him!!  We were just so tired of him harassing the cat that it was most definitely time.

There's our little buddy.  Excuse the mess on the crib.  It's in the midst of being organized and put away!  This nesting thing is crazy...clean, then it's not good enough so I try to reorganize and then yank everything out again and then it goes there when I realize I can't sleep in my bed because there's so much stuff on it!  Anyways.  There's our little guy.  He's tired of the cone and has tried to act like his normal self but really can't yet!  He'll be in the cage for 10 days so that Odin doesn't tear any stitches our or make Scotty move in a way that the stitches tear.

Here's our girly this morning for breakfast...

Look at that silly face!!  Frosted Flakes, oh yeah :)  This little girl decided we should wake up at 7 am.  She woke up crying from a nightmare (I'm assuming) so we were already kind of acting weird at 9 am when we ate breakfast.  Some more of our girly...

Off to the library!!!  She was so excited because they have computers for the kids to play with, and she especially likes the touch screen computers.  I think this is such a cute picture :)

 And there's our girly playing with the computer.  She has a Dora game on there that she likes to play (tries to play but these games are a bit advanced for her).  She wandered, watched kids, played with the reclining chairs, played with the toys, watched kids play computer games, went back to playing her game, and back and forth for about 40 minutes while I looked at some books about Sensory Processing/Integration Disorder (for Grace) and also some books that will be used as examples of good parenting books to read for my workshop.

 This is later in the evening.  Way later.  About 8 pm when I should have her in bed but we're having such a great time in her playroom.  She read books, played with Odin, jumped on her trampoline, colored and talked with me over and over and over :)  I organized her toys some more in her closet so that we can see everything and I can FINALLY be happy about how it looks.  She is SO TIRED.

 See?  This is how she acts when she's tired!!  What a silly girl!  She makes me so happy.

And here she is after one of her rounds on the trampoline.  Gosh I love her.

All in all, a good day.  Poor Scotty, but we had a nice day.  Now comes tomorrow.

Amanda

Busy Lives

I can't believe how fast these days are flying by.  I have always wanted to set up days with Grace where we have a schedule of "preschool time" at home, but there are so many things going on that morning to evening comes so fast!  For example...

Today I figured Grace would be at therapy from 10-1 and during that time I had a doctor's appointment at 10:20.  I figured I'd get the checkup done and then come home to do an hour or so of homework and then go get Grace, give her lunch, have her nap while I go to school and then when I got home, we'd have dinner together and then some preschool time.  BUT.  (I know.  Right off the bat I see that there wasn't even time for preschool stuff even without the extra things that have gone on today).  Anyways.

Grace got up at 7:30 am and I had a tough night so I slept in until 9 am while she watched cartoons.  I dropped Grace off at therapy and then headed to my doctor appointment, which is where everything went crazy.  I shared with the doctor about the pains that I've been having the past few days (and nights) and after being checked...let's just say I had to be monitored.  While being monitored they saw contractions that were coming on every 1-2 minutes so I had to stay even longer so that they could give me a shot in my hip to stop the contractions...time is ticking by and I'm still being monitored.  All of a sudden 1 pm was here and I had to rush to get Grace and then get back to the doctor because they wanted to do an ultrasound.  So hurray to pick up Grace, rush her home and feed her (and me), and then see if my friend could come earlier to watch Grace so I could go back at 2:15 pm for the ultrasound.  Thankfully my friend ROCKS!  She came over at 2 and I packed my backpack to jet to the appointment and then to class at 3:15 pm.  Well.......

I waited for an hour for my ultrasound.  No one knew why I was there and so they had to get ahold of the nurse that had worked with me in the morning so that they could figure out what was going on.  And then they were already squeezing me in, so that made it harder.  Bye bye class.  In I went to my ultrasound and all the measurements of heart rate, breathing movements and the cord looked great.  And then the ultrasound tech gave me 2 "prescriptions" for free Dairy Queen sundaes!!  It's because I was so patient (waiting for an hour for my appointment).  By the time I got out of there, there was no reason to head to class so I headed home.  Grace was a very good girl for my friend, and she loved having her little boy friend there to play with.  After my friend and her son headed out I put Grace to bed and tried to do homework, but ended up falling asleep.  5:30 pm came rushing up!  AH!  She slept in so late!!  I woke Grace and we headed to Dairy Queen for our two free large Sundaes and then I figured I should take her to the movies as well!!

We got home at 8:30 pm and thankfully, girly went right to sleep!

What a busy day.  Shew.  Most of our days seem to fill up with so much "stuff" that there isn't time for "sit down preschool" time.  Someday our lives will slow down!!  For the most part, I like it being busy.  And once this little boy comes, it's going to get even crazier.  So I'm going to enjoy this time I have with JUST Grace, and who cares if we aren't doing preschool work at home.  We are bonding other ways and that's what counts!!

Goodnight world.

Amanda

A Healthy Day

So we've been having a "reboot" of sorts so that we can be more healthy.  This morning we had a cucumber, pear, leek and celery juice this morning.  Grace didn't like it as much as the juice yesterday so I put some strawberry kiwi juice concentrate in it and she finished it.  Thankfully, again, she's been able to have bowel movements!!  Without medication!!

Today we had Tuna Sandwiches for lunch and then a "Mean Green" soup.  A leek, some garlic, kale, zucchini, celery, broccoli and vegetable stock!  After it cooked I ground it up in the Vitamix because I didn't think I'd be able to eat cooked leaf greens so doing this made it edible.  I added a teaspoon of parmesan cheese to our bowls and a little sprig of parsley and it was great!  Grace ate it as well, which is wonderful.  For our drink we had a raspberry, blueberry, mango, strawberry, banana, yogurt, milk and spinach smoothie.  SUPER HEALTHY ARE WE!!

Of course, after this healthy dinner, we made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  Not for us!  It's for a few neighbors that have helped us out with activities, babysitting and just because they are my friends!!  Well, I'll save a few for us :)  Brad is at the cabin for a while so Grace and I get to have them all to ourselves!

And a random picture of Elaine!!

Then end :)

Amanda

The 3 Hour Chunk of Testing

I really disliked this meeting.  On so many different levels.  And because it's going to get me all worked up to talk about it, I'm just going to go through rather quickly and describe the meeting.  We were actually asked to go back with Grace because we could "keep her attention" for whatever they do back there, so I was glad for that seeing as we were not invited and actually, not wanted, the previous meeting.  Tiny HOT office.  Not good for starters, plus I'm already on edge because I'm not trusting the whole situation and what's going on, what's being asked, how Grace is being treated, or anything else you can possibly think of.  And seeing that these meetings are going to really make or break Grace's future is something that really sits heavy on my shoulders as well.  Anyways.  

So we get started, and right off the bat I see that I'm going to dislike this woman.  When a child is tested, you have to do it a specific way so that you are "leading" the child to the appropriate response.  And when a child gets a question wrong, you count out a specific amount of wrong questions in a row and then you stop giving the test because at that point, it's beyond their development level.  So, just those little tid-bits.  And if you are wondering what I mean by "leading," here are some examples of what the woman did to give Grace the answer to something she obviously didn't know:

1. When you are asking "which one is right" out of a number of pictures and you hover over one for too long, you are giving the idea that this is the correct one.  So, when the woman is asking "which girl is wearing a rain jacket that doesn't need to be?" as she's pointing at the correct picture, of course Grace chooses that one.  The woman marked that as a right answer (after having asked the question repeatedly with numerous wrong answers from Grace).
2. When you are pointing at pictures that Grace has to choose just one from and you end with the appropriate answer, Grace is going to choose that one because it's the last thing you said (the lady has Grace pegged on this, and we all know it's true as well.  It's echolalia...repeating the last thing you said).
3. When you want Grace to point to the animal that meows and then she repeatedly points random animals (meaning she should have gotten a score of 0), you should be done.  But then when you go so far as to ask about each animal's noise (4 animals) and you END with the cat, of COURSE she's going to tell you that the cat meows.  That doesn't mean you give her that answer as correct because it wasn't!
4. When you are working with Grace with blocks and she's supposed to replicate what you have done (2 white blocks on bottom, 2 red blocks on top) and she's tried over and over and OVER and has failed each time, it's definitely leading if you put the 2 white blocks on the bottom, and then 1 red one on top, and then say, "Ok, put the other red one here (in the correct spot)" and then give her the point as if she had gotten it correct!  Seriously?!

I could go on and on, but I'll move on.  There were some definite things that Grace was doing that we did NOT believe she was really understanding.  Whether is the luck of the point (she was being asked to point at certain pictures) or things like that, it didn't matter to this woman.  If we said, "There's no way she understands what you want.  She's just pointing," she would blow us off as if we had no idea what she was talking about.  And then there's all the times where, with questions like, "Grace, please point to the cat furthest away from the dog" and she would just randomly start pointing at all the animals and happen to point at the cat first, the woman would give her the point for it.  But it's plainly obvious that she doesn't comprehend what she's being asked, it's just that she wants to point at all the animals because she's bored and not listening!!!  Or there's the questions like..."Grace, the bird is eating the worm.  What does the squirrel eat?" And she just happens to point at the right one.  But when I'm looking at her face and seeing that she's checked out, and that she's just randomly pointing, that's when I know we aren't reading correct results, but that of a bored child.  

Oh, the worst thing?  This woman would tell Grace, "Ok, Grace.  Just two more pictures and then you can have some tape."  The tape was a "reward" of sorts because we told the woman we didn't want her giving Grace candy for answers.  I mean, we want you to see how she is without bribery, so why do you think we'd allow that?  That's for dogs when you are training them, not for children that are being tested for developmental issues.  See them how they really are.  So, anyways...

15 pictures later and this woman is obviously starting to get frustrated.  I should have just said, "Well, you did say 'two more pictures' about 13 pictures ago, so she was expecting her tape."  But I really don't want to jeopardize Grace's chances with this woman.  Who knows.  She could go back and change answers!  So I didn't say anything.  Most of the whole meeting I had to bite my lip because I was SO SO SO frustrated!  

Oh, and then the icing on the cake?  When I make these appointments, the confirmation call comes in like this, "Hi, we are calling to confirm your appointment with Dr. ...... at said time."  So, we're assuming we're seeing the real "Dr. ....."  The first meeting?  Another psychologist that is working towards her doctorate degree and is overseen by said doctor.  This past meeting we were pretty sure she was the woman we were supposed to be seeing...up until the point that she said, "Well, when you show these to Dr. ...... make sure that you..."  WHAT?!!  We still haven't seen the real deal?  So then that brings up another question...

Can you really gauge a child off of paper alone?  No matter what the results say?  

Here's my thinking.  If you want to gauge a child's behaviors/development or lack thereof, personality, etc, then you need to be involved with that child the entire time.  You can't just look at sheets and sheets and sheets (seriously, there's about 10 booklets of tests that have about 200 questions each) of paper and then be able to come up with a response as to how the child is doing if you've never even met the child!!  Grace is like a performer.  Get her around new people and she'll do whatever you want her to do.  That's not the real Grace that we see at home...throwing at least 10 fits a day, hitting, pushing, yelling, playing in her diaper...etc.  

Well, I said I'd just write a little but now here I have gone writing a lecture.  We have another meeting with this same woman because there are more tests that have to be done.  She said Grace probably wouldn't be able to do them so I'm going to stick her to it.  No forcing the questions.  If she answers wrong or doesn't answer at all, that's it.  I wish I could read up on their specific protocol that is in the manual for these tests so that I knew the specific guidelines to questioning, but I'm pretty sure that how she did it was wrong, and if the actual doctor says that Grace scored really high (we want a low score) and doesn't qualify for any more help, then I'm going to remember everything that I've written here and make sure that this doctor knows about all of it.  I have learned some things in my days at college and the leading that she did was so irresponsible and would make all the testing void.

Grr...now I need to relax.  Time for some pickles.  I love Grace!  And obviously, I'm going to fight to be sure she gets everything she needs.

Amanda

Grace's Niece...and More.

Grace's super cute niece got her Halloween pictures taken today, so of course we had to keep a memento of them!

Super cute!!!  And then here she is in her watermelon shirt :)

Grace LOVES seeing pictures of Elaine, and constantly says, "Where's my baby E-yane?"  I always tell her she's in California but that she'll be here for Christmas.  She brings up Elaine every day and is always asking about her.

On to other news...here's mama's body with little Levi in it...

SO BIG!!!!  Sometimes, it's not itchy at all.  But other times...holy cow!!!  It's like my skin is stretching and growing every time I breathe!

And then... dum dum daaaaaaaa....here's our girly!

 She put those boots on all by herself!  Good job, Grace!

Time to eat, that's for sure.  She ate the ENTIRE sandwich.  Normally, she eats just 1/2 a sandwich, but I guess she was super hungry or something.

Almost the Weekend

Thankfully, it's almost the weekend.  But that doesn't mean much for mama this semester of school.  I have a 20 page report due Tuesday of next week, lesson plans for a practicum class due tomorrow, and 10 research articles to break down and write a report about.  Shew!  This semester is really kicking my rear, but thankfully, I've still got all A's (knock on wood).  But this isn't about me!!

Grace has been doing well.  We have the first hour of behavioral testing on Wednesday and I was fuming because I didn't get to go back there, and so I have no idea what was asked, what they did, or what Grace said.  We take her back tomorrow for a 3 hour chunk of time from 1-4 so we'll see how she does without having a nap and just having gotten out of school.  I'm worried about these results because if they say she's fine, then we don't get more supports and she won't qualify for an aide in her class.  But I will be appealing the results if she says "she's fine."  How can you really begin to understand a child that is 5 years old when you've met with them for only 5 hours cumulatively over two days?!  I'm really hoping I don't have to go that route but am willing to because I can see us losing her more and more to the behavioral issues.  She's a sweetie still, don't get me wrong.  But the fits, the hitting, the pushing, the tantrums, throwing herself on the floor...it's getting worse and I don't want to lose my sweet girl to these issues.  

Today she had therapy, and it was a tough day.  She spent 10 minutes throwing a fit because she didn't want to put her pants on after having her diaper changed, and then she threw another one because she didn't want to transition from OT to Speech therapy.  Poor guys.  They say these fits happen at least once every time we have therapy, so I'm going to have them documenting this.  I had a meeting with her teacher as well who said there's at least one breakdown every class period and so I'm going to have her document this as well.

 A picture of Grace with her ribbon from gymnastics on Wednesday!!  Go girly!!

And then the mess of a preschool room.  I'm way overhauling and organizing.  It's really not that bad. All the boxes hold either a particular set of toys or art supplies, and they will all be labeled and then put in her closet in her room since I've designated that her toy closet.  That's where I'll get everything out to rotate weekly.  Then in the closet in here, I'm hoping to put every single book she owns in the same area, instead of 4-5 different places like it is now.  I want her and her Home Intervention therapists to be able to actually see what there is to use!  Also, I'm going to try to figure out how to hang her shirts lower so she can pick which one she wants to wear.  So we'll see how all this goes.  This will seriously be an easy cleanup once all the boxes are labeled.  That's just the main thing taking over the room!

Grace is a super awesome girl.  I love her so much, and am so grateful she's my girly.  I know she's going to be a great big sister to baby Levi, HER baby, and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life and then eternity with her!  (Of course I feel this way about Daddy, too!)

Amanda

Our Sweet Girl

Fun stuff!

 A new gymnastics biketard!!!  I read on the wall that this is what it's called :)  She asked for one every week for two months, so she finally got one.  They hang on the wall at gymnastics so it's hard for her to NOT see it!

 And the Halloween Witch came!  What did she get?

A super cute animal!!  I have no idea what it is...but she REALLY likes it.  Today we delivered treats to friends and Grace's little friend came with us :)

 We are busy busy making treats!!

 And of course a lot of the treats were being eaten.  Grace had fun having marshmallows, candy corn/pumpkins, popcorn and chocolate chips for breakfast!  Silly girl :)  But really, who could say no to that face?

There's her little buddy!!  

It was so cold outside, and by the time we were done delivering, Grace had purple lips, a red nose, and yucky snot.  Oh, and I can't forget the shivvvvvvvvering!!

A good day :)  I love my girly.

Amanda

Doing Well

All is well here.  I see I missed two days.  I can't wait until I'm out of school so I can update daily...but then I'll have two little ones.  I don't know what I'm going to do once Levi comes...if I'm going to have him share Grace's blog or make his own.  This really was specifically about Grace and her achievements, struggles and life in general, and I wouldn't want to take over with Levi things so I'll probably start another one for him :)

Grace is having home therapy right now and I'm supposed to be doing homework but they are so close to being done that there's no sense to start an assignment to just have to stop.  After therapy we will be going to a Parents as Teachers event and we'll get to have pizza for dinner!  And then to Broulims to check out their case lot sales, and then home we go.  Early bedtime for Grace since she didn't nap and then hours and hours of homework for me.  

We were supposed to go to Utah on Monday so that we could go to the doctor on Tuesday, but I was having a particularly tough day and got to Pocatello before I thought, "Forget this.  A 4 hour drive for a 20 minute appointment!"  So I turned around and headed home.  Canceled the appointment once I got home and then whined about it the rest of the day because I couldn't believe that I'd skip an appointment for her just because of the inconvenience.  Now we have to wait until April to see this doctor again.  Ug.  Do I regret it?  Um.....it's really hard to say yes.  It was just a tough day for me mentally and I couldn't see us driving there for that.  I would, in all truthfulness, say no.  I don't regret it.  But did I miss the chance for a change in our schedule?  Yes.  Would Grace have loved going to the Ronald McDonald house playroom?  Yes.  But what's done is done.  April will be better because then we can make it an extended visit and go to the zoo (sometimes the Ronald house gives away free tickets) and do more outdoor stuff.

This is a song that her Home Therapist just sang while they washed hands.  

The tune is "Are You Sleeping, Brother John?"  AWESOME way to help with washing hands.

Top and bottom 

Top and bottom

In Between 

In Between

In between the fingers

In between the fingers

Make them clean

Make them clean!

Amanda

Missed a Week

Darnit...I missed a whole week.  Sheesh time flies and now that I'm in 4 classes, it's gotten even harder to find time to blog.  These are my hard 400 level almost graduated classes and they have so much reading I'm surprised I'm not reading a novel a night!  I know I know, no excuses.  I'm finding myself with less to write just because Grace is doing so well, and there aren't any huge milestones that we're trying to reach.  I would say that she's hit a rut in the road that has made it hard to progress, so we're riding the rut for now and just happy with how things are.  Here's what's been going on!

The Halloween Witch!

 Day One of the Halloween witch.  She got Grace these awesome pajamas, but they ended up being too small, so she swapped them out on day 2 with Rainbow Pony pajamas!  Of course there's no picture yet...

Grace opening her gift from the Halloween Witch!

 Day 4 from the Halloween Witch...she gave Grace money for pumpkins and we got FOUR HUGE PUMPKINS!!!!

 Choo choo!!

 You know you have a good Daddy when he squeezes himself into a train because you ask him to go with you :)  "Daddy, wide the t-wain with me!"

 "Hm..is this a good one?"

Now on to the next day :)

Day 4!  Halloween stickers :)  

 SHE LOVES STICKERS!!!!

Day 5...HIKE!  So, I was thinking about having something malleable for Grace to get from the Halloween Witch every day, but instead, the Halloween Witch gives us ideas of fun things to do on certain days, like the pumpkin patch and the hike!  Awesome because it gets us out and we have so much fun!!

Such a beautiful day and it was a wonderful trip.  Grace did a GREAT job walking all by herself on the trail, and that's even with rocks embedded in the trail, roots popping up, inclines/declines.  We got to see horses, lots of other dogs, and threw rocks in the stream!!  Thank you Daddy for taking us!

And here's something AWESOME!!!!!!!  Grace putting the silverware away all by herself.  She matched the silverware together in the right slots, didn't stop until she was done and didn't get distracted at all.  It was wonderful to see and I'm so proud of her, and Daddy was so excited to hear about Grace doing such a great job!  He had been outside working on the doghouse because Scotty hasn't been sharing the bed and so Odin has been sleeping outside in the way too cold temperature.

All in all, a great week!  There was no school this week because of Potato Harvest and so it was a lot of us trying to find fun things to do :)  Monday we head out to Utah for a doctor appointment on Tuesday, and then school starts again on Wednesday for Grace!

Aamnda