Christmas Time Is Here

It finally did stop snowing, but we pretty much were stuck for about 10 days in the house. Super-hero dad was able to go to work every day, although he left later than normal. The kids played outside and here are some great pictures of the piles of snow around our house, as well as Christmas Day pictures of the kids and family. Make sure you have your volume up so you can hear the song!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

The Snow Won't End

Not saying that I'm sick of the snow - it's very beautiful. But it's so hard to be stuck in the house with three kids who are getting on each other's nerves. We are running out of staples like milk, bread, fresh fruit and no chance of getting out. Super hero dad went into work today and is stopping at the pharmacy to pick up some meds and milk, but that's about all we're doing.

We made a Chex cereal snack, played Zoombinis, played Rummikub, I did laundry, watched TV, played in the snow, Holland shoveled the sidewalk and built forts for the cats. Here's a little video of Holland as he goes out on the deck and checks out the snow drifts and icicles.

Room Overhaul

On Friday, my mom came over to help me clean out Holland's room. It's just getting so out of control I cannot find the time to even attempt organizing it. I should have taken a before picture, but it's almost too embarrassing to give a permanent account of what it looked like. We got about half way finished cleaning and then I had to take my mom home because of the threat of snow.


On Saturday, we worked more but couldn't finish before the kids went to bed. I had the boys sleep together so I could vacuum and put everything away. I knew that they had the cats with them and went in to check before I went to bed. It was complete darkness when I went in, but I grabbed my camera when I saw what Holland had done. Our cats just love him to death, I'm sure. Cats love to sleep in weird positions and Holland helped Fancy find a comfy new way to sleep. Romania has a loft bed. Just enough room to play underneath and that's where Holland was sleeping. I see this down blanket hanging from the slats of the bed. I tried to pull it down, but it was weighted. Then I realized that he had hung up the cat and she was just laying in there and purring! They're both crazy. So before she decided to crawl out of her hammock, I ran to get my camera. I took the picture in total darkness, so I couldn't even tell if I was getting a picture of the cat. Here she is right before she crawled out.

Here's LuLu sleeping with Romania.

And here is more evidence that cats will sleep anywhere.

Worshipping at home

Today, not surprising, church was cancelled. A lot of things have been cancelled this week. I've only been out once or twice in the last 8 days. But despite all the inconveniences, we have the most beautiful scenery outside right now. I've never seen it snow so much here and on top of all this snow (probably 8 inches or more!) we had freezing rain fall last night. I decided since we weren't having church, we'd do our own worshipping at home. So I had the kids take baths, get their church clothes on and we sat on pillows in front of the tree reading stories about the birth of our Savior. And the cinnamon rolls weren't bad either!

We went out for a quick picture in the snow.

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful

It hasn't been this cold, this long for awhile. I'm talking the high the other day was 22. The kids went out and played on Sunday when church got cancelled. I haven't left the house in 4 days. Not that I haven't wanted to. The kids are getting antsy, and I've been doing way too much baking.

What usually happens is the snow falls, it melts and then refreezes, but it doesn't snow again. So we are left with ice rinks for roads. This time, we never got above freezing and now it's supposed to snow again tonight. Romania has had two days off from school so far this week. Well, that's not entirely true. We have still been doing school here - otherwise there would be even more chaos than there already is. We just get out old books and he does work from them. He told me in class they see how much math they can get done in 5 minutes. He told me it takes him only 2 minutes to complete the work. I told him he needs to ask for more work and he said the teacher just said to sit quietly. Yup. That's what happens in a class of 22 kids, a lot of sitting. He did three pages of math today, some writing and vocabulary and read a couple chapters from a book. I still plan to do history and maybe an art project. What I really want to do is make cookies. I have a new GF flour mix I want to test out with my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

The kids feel I'm trying to trick them when I say it's really cold outside. They can't grasp that sunshine wouldn't make it warm. So Holland has tried about 3 times to go outside without gloves and comes in crying because he's so cold. And my heating bill is going to take a beating this month. There have been about three different times I've felt like I was sweating it was so hot in the house. I thought it must be because I was working so hard. That was not the problem. The thermostat had been hiked to 90 degrees in here. Holland gets so cold and that's how he solves the problem. Super-hero has the opposite problem: I woke up to a house that was 55 degrees this morning. I told him I'd rather not feel like I was sleeping outside (although it was 17 last night, so it was actually warmer inside). To which he replied "you have a good sense of hoo-mur". I told him I didn't want humor, I wanted heat.

A Mom's Scientific Experiments

I've been doing my own scientific experiments. It happened last weekend when I (again) helped Romania clean up his room. Only this time, we cleaned it out as well. I gave him two blue metal boxes and told him whatever he could fit in there was what he could keep in his room. He picked Bionicles and Legos (good choices: nice small parts). Everything else was put in his closet with a lock on it. The results of my experiment? I've come to the conclusion that garbage multiplies. Every two or three months, I go into one of the boys' rooms and I haul out enough garbage to fill a plastic garbage bag. How does this happen? Every time we clean up I feel like I've picked up everything that could be construed as garbage. The floor is perfectly clean; boxes are stacked nicely in the closet; all clothes are put back where they belong.

So I reached a conclusion, but I haven't figured out how it happened. There is some kind of molecular force that causes garbage to seek out other garbage and bind to those molecules. My next experiment will be how to keep those molecules from binding. I need federal funding (or maybe my "redistributed wealth") to conduct these experiments.

You Call That Art??

This morning after dropping Romania at his bus stop, I got to chatting with two other moms. I usually don't stay because I want to get right to Holland's schooling. But this morning one of the moms was talking about her son getting a referral, so I was curious. She said her son had brought clay on the bus and had made a body part. An inappropriate body part. She said her son fessed right up, didn't even wait for someone to confront him and he felt really bad. But the other mom's son had been sitting nearby and she said "was considered an accomplice". Whatever that means. She has some pretty strong ideas about what is appropriate for kids. Her son got in trouble for downloading vulgar songs on his iPod and passing it around on the bus. (She thought the school over-reacted.) So I wasn't surprised when she said that making clay body parts was a form of art expression and they should be allowed to do it! I spoke right up and said, "not at that age!" I knew that I would have to work hard to instill a Christian worldview with Romania being in a public school setting. What I (naively) didn't factor in was other parents having such strong liberal views.

So Long Mr. Telemarketer

This morning during school with Holland, the phone rang. I usually keep the ringer off so we aren't disturbed and can work without him being distracted. The phone downstairs had the ringer on, so I looked at the number. It said "New Jersey". I do not know anyone in New Jersey, so I didn't bother picking it up. Holland thought that Egypt answered it upstairs, but I thought the answering machine came on. We went back to work and then to Costco. When we got home I picked up the phone to dial a number and the screen showed "line in use". Sometimes one of the three phones will get bumped and the Talk button will get pushed. I went upstairs and found the phone call from New Jersey had been left on for 4 1/2 hours! I wonder what that telemarketer did when the line wasn't disconnected!

Cat's Cradle

Did you ever play that game as a kid? I loved that game! Just a few months ago, I remember begging my sister to play that with me. And because we're so stupid, we couldn't get past about 5 or 6 turns. Then we just laughed because we're old and our kids think we're weird. For some reason Holland decided he wanted to make his room look like a giant Cat's Cradle. I didn't even get a picture because Egypt decided she needed to cut it all down because she had to rescue one of the cats (who didn't need rescuing, by the way). He had used half a roll of curling ribbon and strung it all over his room. His plan was that if his sister or brother came in in the middle of the night, he would have a light sensor set up by the door and then they would get caught in all the ribbon. What he didn't count on was his sister cutting it all to pieces.

He actually wasn't as mad as I was preparing myself for. The next day he had two old phones, more ribbon, blankets and bungee cords strung around the room. I'm not even asking what it is. I guess I should be thankful that he wants to create - but the experiments are getting pretty elaborate. When I was getting two of the kids ready for church on Sunday, he came up with blue fingers. I asked what it was and he said he was doing an experiment with water and food coloring (of course. Why did I need to ask that?) He got out baking soda and vinegar and wanted to see if the water bubbled the same color as he put into the cup. This is my fault. We used to shoot foam rockets 100 feet into the air in our driveway with vinegar and baking soda.

I think he's going to be a spy.

Happy Turkey Day!

Today we packed up food, some kids and Holland's bow and arrow (don't ask) and went to my in-law's cabin for the day. It only ended up being about 7 hours, but it was long enough. There were 18 of us there, so it was cozy. I was supposed to bring corn, peas and a dessert. I went to Martha's website and found this yummy looking chocolate ganache tart. It even had this little video that showed exactly what to do. It called for bittersweet chocolate and after googling "unsweetened" I felt confident that it was interchangeable. Let me just say it wasn't. I was supposed to pour the ganache into the prepared tart crust. When I got through heating the cream and pouring it over the chopped chocolate (12 ounces of it), it was as thick as cookie dough. I called my mom to see if I could salvage it. She told me to taste it, maybe it wasn't that bad. It was gross! There was no possible way of saving it, so I had to dump it all! I used 1 and a half boxes of those chocolate squares. I only had two left. Some little stinker found out that those little chocolate squares weren't as good as they looked. Isn't that how we all found out?

The recipe was for a chocolate pudding filling that was supposed to firm up once refrigerated. My sister called this morning and asked how the pie came out. I said I wasn't going to look until we left and if it didn't turn out, we'd stop at Fred's on the way to the cabin. :-) It didn't look like it had set and when we cut into 7 hours later, my suspicions were confirmed. How could I mess up two different chocolate recipes? Note to self: chocolate is finicky and do not attempt any more chocolate pie recipes. On the up side, my 2o year-old niece was impressed with it and was doing a splendid job of selling it to her cousins. I only came home with 1/4 pie left and there were 3 other desserts to choose from! So, all in all, I guess it was successful.

Here's a picture of the beasts on the deck of the cabin. I was hoping to get a nice shot for Christmas card pictures, but there was something wrong with each one in every picture.

Question of the Day

Do cat's eyebrows grow back? Are they even called eyebrows? Egypt has done her own types of projects lately. First, there was the stuffed bear patient who got bandaged after a haircut. Now we have a cat that has gum stuck between her eyes. Egypt really likes gum, but recently she hasn't been very good about disposing the gum.

The other day she asked me if I had seen Fancy's face. When I found the cat, there was a chunk of gum stuck right between her eyes on the top of her nose. There was no way of picking this out. So I got out the scissors. And cut. And some of her eyebrows got cut. I took a 'before' picture, but they're all blurry because she wouldn't stand still. You need like 3 hands when you're trying to take a close-up of a cat.

The Pizzeria

This morning when Romania woke up, he was coughing and had a fever. Today was our co-op and I was supposed to help teach the math games class. I had to call one of the gals in charge and tell her I wouldn't be able to come in. I hate to do that because it puts everyone in a tight situation, trying to find another mom to fill in. I wasn't feeling so great myself, so we all had a very quiet day at home. Holland also had his weekly meeting with our ES and his speech therapy. I didn't want to take Romania out so Super Hero was able to take sick leave and take Holland to his meetings.

I decided to experiment with pizza dough again for dinner. I found a blog by a woman that was diagnosed with celiac as an adult. She had tons of recipes and it sounded like she had done all my experimenting for me. I had all 4 of the flours the recipe called for and made Holland his own personal pizza. I know from experience that making a gluten-free pizza is not something that the other two kids like, so I made a second pizza dough in my bread machine. I seriously can't believe that he ate it. The recipe said the crust would be sticky before you roll it out. It wasn't. It looked like pebbles of dough. I added more water to at least get it all to stick together. Then when I rolled it out, I couldn't even pick it up. It crumbled and I had to flip it onto the baking pan without touching it. You're supposed to bake it first and then add the toppings and bake again. When it came out of the oven, it was all cracked. It did not look appetizing and didn't look like what the blogger described, but I didn't say anything. He ate it and said it tasted good. Wow. He's so brave.

Then I made two more pizzas - pepperoni for Egypt and Romania, and a pesto, mozzarella, chicken and tomato one for me. So now I'm a regular pizzeria.

A Good Day For Blogging

You know it's going to be a banner day for blogging when you walk into your room and find your 4 year-old standing wide eyed and saying, "I'm sorry." This is what I found in my bathroom after Egypt asked if I would please come to her room with her. I had a really hard time not laughing when I was scolding her. At first I thought she had cut her hair because there were scissors and chunks of blonde hair on the floor. After taking the towel off of her patient, I realized that the hair on the floor was the bear's. And if you notice the bandaids, she covered each spot that she cut with a "Cars" bandage. She even put the mirror on the floor so "Rocky" could look at herself.

This is how I spend my days: trying to make a grumpy 9 year-old do his writing; cleaning up bear hair; unclogging toilets; sweeping old food off the floor and picking up a dirty towel that was shoved under the couch and reeks of milk. It took me about a week to figure out where the smell was coming from. I thought it was one of Romania's stinky shoes. This is why I never feel like cooking dinner. Or cleaning up. Or doing laundry. It's one big hideous cycle of events. Holland has done exactly one page of math today. After his OT appointment and dropping off the shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, we came home and tried to work. He complained of just about everything. We had tried eliminating one of his meds to see if the gluten-free diet had anything to do with his behavior. He's gone back to his "old" self and is not doing good. So I spent most of the day with a crying, complaining and depressed boy. At one point I gave him a CD audiobook so he could rest on his bed. He listened to one disc and then decided building a lego destroyer ship was way better than schoolwork. Now at 4.45 p.m. he's irritated that I'm making him finish school.

Like I said. Banner day.

Community Service Project

Today was a school-wide day off for Romania. They scheduled a day so that each student could participate in a community service project. They gave lots of ideas but we ended up filling our shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. We went to Target and found so many great things. I bought plastic boxes this year. I've always done regular shoe boxes but thought this way the recipient would have something more permanent to keep his treasures in.

The kids each chose to buy for a boy or girl of a certain age group. The boys picked out things like toy cars, hard candy, an etch-a-sketch, toothbrush and toothpaste, crayons and a drawing tablet. Egypt chose things for a girl between 2 and 4. She chose a stuffed zebra, some hair clips and ties, hard candy, princess stickers, a bracelet, a pink pen and drawing pad and some playdoh. After lunch we wrapped the boxes and Romania even wrote a letter to his new friend. We included paper and an envelope addressed to him in case the child wants to write back.

Go to Samaritan's Purse and find out how you can help. Either pack your own box for donation or make a donation online to help with shipping costs.

The Budding Artist

Today while reading history to Holland, Egypt kept trying to sit on my lap. Well, her head's so big that I can't see what I'm reading (actually it's her hair. same thing). So I tried distracting her with an art project. I gave her a nice clean tablet of paper and a big bag of colored pencils. She went right to work. When I looked down, she was half way done with a picture with a lot of green in it. She said, "This is a girl who is hiding behind a bush."

"Oh, that's nice." She's always making up stories, songs and silly sentences, that I didn't think much about it. Then she said,

"It's a girl hiding behind a bush and looking at her brother on the water."

Oh, of course! It was Miriam! She drew and colored a picture of Miriam watching Moses. She said they learned about her in Sunday School "last night" (everything's 'last night' to a 4 year-old.) Holland was so impressed. She even made thank-you cards the other day for her grandparents, aunt and cousin (he played 'cats' with her, so she sent him a card) and signed her name. I didn't even know she could spell it by herself. She has said the letters before, but not in the right order.

It's amazing how fast things come together when you're not looking. By the way, Miriam is the pink blob at the top of the picture. It's hard to tell, but she's actually got a smiling face! How do you like her bush? She's finally graduated to using more than one color for a picture.

Deja Vu

So when Holland was about 2, he loved playing with my cats, Molly and Millicent. They were both very tolerant, Millicent more so. One day he was busy playing and came over to me and signed "cat, cold". I didn't really get what he meant, so I asked him to show me. He walked over to the refrigerator and pointed. I opened the door and sure enough, there was the cat.

Today I was getting lunch packed for Romania and Egypt was helping me in the kitchen. We both heard one of our new kitties meowing and couldn't find her. We walked over by the desk in the kitchen, more meowing. Walked into the school room, and could still hear the meowing. Walked back into the kitchen and noticed that the fridge door was a bit open. I opened it and out walked Fancy. Apparently when I was getting peanut butter and jam out she had walked in and then I closed the door.

I sure hope that Egypt doesn't get any ideas from this. She really doesn't need any help in the naughty department.

Rocket Man

Holland is going through another "creative" stage. Half the time I don't even know he's doing something until it's half completed. The other day he built a 'rocket' with a battery attached and a light. He was trying to launch it with a tea light candle (super hero was there, don't worry). But it was funny because he had this curling ribbon attached to it, and a wide area cleared out so if there was "a fire", nothing would get burned. Oh phew. I thought we were going to have to call the fire department. (Good thing I have a friend who's husband wouldn't report me. Right?)

He's built about three different battery operated vehicles inspired by his "Fun with Electricity" class at the co-op. Today he added an attachment to this crossbow he has. The little arrow that shoots out has foam on the tip and he stuck packing tape to it and tied curling ribbon to it. We have a colony of fruit flies that have moved in and he thought if he stuck tape to the tip, and shot it, he could catch the fruit flies and then reel it back in. I thought it was very clever. For the most part his inventions lately do not seem to be as dangerous as they once were.

I think he's matured ;-)

Today Romania had off from school. This always seems to put a crimp in my schedule with Holland and Egypt. I still need to do school with Holland and usually get distracted with something else when Romania has a day off. Today I decided we really needed to play catch-up, so I had both boys work on math, all three of them did a painting project with new 'real' watercolors and we also read "Hudson Taylor" a book Holland is doing in his co-op class.

Now they are outside raking the leaves. I sent the boys out first because our back lawn is covered in leaves and it's killing the grass. Egypt sees the fun and wants to join them. I told her she could be out there if she helps them pick up the leaves. Holland was raking, Romania and Egypt are picking up the leaves and dumping them on the other side of our fence. This of course turns out to be a dream, because it is not happening the way I envisioned it. Surprisingly, Holland is the only one actually working. I'm working in the kitchen and about every 2 minutes, I'm barking orders out the window. Romania is continually caught lounging around, then he was jumping on the trampoline, claiming he was getting the leaves off there. It would be so much easier if I just marched out there and did it myself. Sometimes it's just so frustrating trying to train them to do what's right. I brought Romania in the house and we discussed that he knew the difference between right and wrong. He knew he was doing wrong, apologized and then went right back outside and didn't work. I told Holland he could come in the house and had Romania finish the job of raking. He came in 4 times crying and calling me "the meanest mom ever!" He finally did finish. I told him it was going to be cold and dark soon and hoped he didn't have to work in that.

Here are a few of them painting the trees from our neighborhood.

It's a Sad, Historic Day

The election is over. A concession. A victory. And a sickening feeling of what lies ahead. Even after surviving two Clinton terms, this election ending feels so very different. I've been doing so much reading online about Obama's "redistribution of wealth" concept. He's basically saying if you're successful and worked hard, you're going to be taxed more because there's some other poor sap who was (too lazy, unmotivated or unlucky) not to make as much as you did. I keep thinking about Oprah and how she oozes praise for him. So, I'm wondering, Ms. Winfrey. When do you plan on giving my my share of your wealth? After all, I've been hard at work at home, teaching my kids about the value of a dollar and I'm ready to receive my fair share of your hard-earned money.

Jobs will move overseas because people will not be able to afford to have a business in the States. More people will go on welfare. And why not? The government has promised that they will be taken care of. No need to find a job - the government will give you money because it isn't "fair" that the founders of Microsoft or Google have gazillions of dollars and you have nothing. I've completely lost my motivation to earn over $150,000 dollars. I want to be taken care of. I want a bigger house, free healthcare and a pony.

I have nothing against a black man being elected POTUS. In fact it has nothing to do with that for me. What it has to do with is this: this man that was just elected our next President has a socialist view of the economy; is affiliated with Left-Wing radicals; thinks the government needs to have more involvment in your personal life (you know - teaching Kindergartners that homosexuality is a normal and acceptable family structure), and the most disgusting thing to me is his stand on abortion. This may not seem like a deal-breaker to some. But to me it is. If a candidate is Pro-Choice (or "pro-killing babies" in my mind) and she or he is a Republican, I would never vote for that person. Why? Because that one position in politics defines who that person is. It predicts how they will treat the elderly, the young, the unborn, foreigners, the disabled and any other group of people deemed 'unnecessary' to the advancement of the United States. Does that seem like a radical view? How sad that valuing life has now become abnormal.

Our Own Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds"

Ever seen that movie? It's amazing how creepy birds can be. After a few errands this morning Holland and Egypt were in the kitchen getting ready for a snack. All of a sudden, about 30 birds came swooping into our three feeders. I grabbed the camera (I mean, what else would a good blogger do?) and took a short video through the kitchen window. It's a little blurry and it was hard to get the overall picture of how many birds kept flying in. But it's amazing to me that we witnessed that. It wasn't creepy like the movie, but it was just weird and amazing and wonderful all at the same time.

I've Been Scammed!!

This just makes me so mad. With all we have going on, I'm constantly online either researching all the different ailments my kids have, finding homeschool resources or looking for ways to make some extra cash. This is what I was doing and got scammed. Snookered. Taken. I can see how elderly people can get ripped off so easily. If I wasn't going to be so busy writing a book about the big puzzles that my children are, I would get involved with keeping people from being taken.

Several months ago Holland's OT told me about 2 different grants. One was for this exercise vehicle and another was a dollar amount to help with medical bills. I didn't get either grant, but I thought there must be more and scoured online to find out. It was impossible to find anything. It's like back in high school when all the guidance counselors told me there were just hundreds of thousands of dollars to be had in scholarships. Well, I didn't live in New Jersey; my family didn't farm and I wasn't the daughter of an entomologist. (That's about how crazy they all were). I found several companies that offered CD's to help you navigate the web to find all this money. FREE MONEY! whoopie! I found one that charged shipping only. I got the CD and it wasn't any more clear than what I was already looking at. I gave up trying to figure out how access to services had anything to do with getting or writing grants.

Tonight super-hero is checking our balance online (again). We are so tight and can't figure out why. He doesn't get paid until Friday, but I had to buy food and Holland has two doctor appointments tomorrow. I'm in the kitchen cooking dinner and he starts yelling. I come in to see what in the world is going on. Turns out we have been paying for a service that I was conned into signing up for. That CD I bought? It was actually a monthly service fee for accessing the information. Are you kidding me? I thought that's what the CD was?? And to top it off, I mysteriously signed up for THREE of these! It goes back to like April. It was about $300. Three times every month. And because I didn't "cancel" (cancel WHAT?) within 7 days of receiving this valuable information, they automatically took the money out of my checking account. I cannot believe they are actually getting away with this. I found other people online who had the same thing happen to them. There's no phone number to contact them; just an email address.

Now I've got to figure out if Hardy Myers (for you non-Oregonians, he's our state's Attorney General) even cares if this is happening. I can file a complaint, but what will actually be done?
It's just unreal to me that a company can be so vague and manipulative to the consumer.

I'm so forgetful

This weekend was a whirlwind of activities. The boys both had soccer games at different times, at different locations. That meant finding all the paraphanalia that goes with soccer season; getting food in everyone and packing the cars with water, snacks, coats, chairs, etc. As I was watching Romania's game, I was chatting with another mom and mid-conversation realized that I had missed the team picture re-takes for Holland. My mind was so bogged down with the entire week of places to be, things to do that I completely forgot. I was also trying to get ready for Egypt's birthday party. It wasn't anything fancy, but at 2.45 I was still running around buying ice cream, wrapping paper and Necco wafers. So it's really not surprising that I forgot.

The birthday party was nice and so very low-key. We had my sister and her kids over and both sets of grandparents. The kids just played outside and we watched to make sure Egypt and Cutie Patootie didn't escape the backyard. I didn't get very many good pictures because the batteries in my camera died as soon as the candles were lit. I ran around the house looking for batteries with juice in them. We have reject batteries still in the box we keep the good ones. The boys just end up switching them around so I never know which ones actually work. They go from the Rokenbok, to the Wii, to remote control things, to Holland's newest pet project: his battery powered inventions. (Which reminds me I have to get a picture or a video of what he made. It's a shoe box made into a vehicle, with a pinwheel that spins, an alarm that rings all while it actually moves - forwards and backwards! I'm very impressed he could do this)

This week there's more insanity with ceramics, doctor appointments, blood draws (for me and Holland!), the homeschool co-op, meeting with my ES, speech and OT.

Happy Birthday Egypt!

Today is Egypt's birthday. She kept asking me when the people were coming over for her party. Even the boys have trouble with this. They think the party has to happen on the day of the birthday. I let her open one gift - a pink tutu skirt, kitty shirt and sweater. She was most excited about the "ballerina" skirt and ran around the house, twirling and spinning.

She is having so much fun withe the cats. Here's a quick video I took on my camera. She set up a box on a chair and is reading to the cats. It's hard to hear, but she keeps saying "something" is "destroyed".

Finally They Have Names

For some reason, I take too long to figure out names. It happened with the kids. Holland's (real) name was decided almost immediately. The grandparents emailed us pictures of him right after he was born and from the list of names we had, there was no disagreement on his name. The next two, were completely different. Romania's (real) name took me almost 3 days to come up with. Mostly because it's so unusual and Super-Hero really didn't like it. But in the end, he agreed with me. Same thing with Egypt's name. Not only did we not agree on a first name, but I complicated things by adding two middle names - those of great-grandmothers.

But here they are. Super-Hero keeps calling them "Molly 2" and Millicent 2". I've decided he doesn't get to know the real names because he won't stop calling them that. I'm so much more original than calling a cat "the second". So, kitty in the first picture is "LuLu" and kitty in the second is "Fancy". Lulu's name was easy for me to come up with. It just fit her personality. Fancy took awhile. I wanted something that wasn't too long, or weird, or comical. But in the end, it was her face, it was 'fancy'. Here they are lounging on the couch around 9 tonight. I love how they sleep and walk all over each other. When I was taking this picture, Fancy got up from her nap and walked right over to the camera and started to paw at it. Then she climbed on my shoulder and head and walked around. The whole time LuLu, just lay there looking at her sister, probably wondering why she was disturbing her nap.

Kitty Adventures

These two are so hilarious together. Holland and Super-Hero built this cat post covered with leftover carpet we had in the basement. They actually climb up and down it, wrestle and fall off it. It's funny to watch them wiggle their bums just before they pounce.

Pumpkin Party

This afternoon we were invited to our uncle's house for hot dogs, smores and picking pumpkins. My sister and her kids came too and the kids got to search for a pumpkin that had each of their names carved into it. They had such a great time running around. Here are some pictures of the pumpkin part; I'll have to make another scrapbook to fit the rest of the pictures!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Because I'm such an industrious blogger, here's another slideshow. I didn't bother taking out the duplicate pictures. It won't kill you to see them twice. Make sure you click on "full screen" (I paid for that feature, so you'd better use it!)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Welcome the Newest Members

Last night we picked up our new kitties. I was planning on giving one to Egypt for her birthday, but the kids quickly became possessive about which one belonged to them. So now they are both mine :-) They are both female and very sweet. Holland made a little box for them to sleep in and put a sign on the bathroom saying they were sleeping and not to disturb. We are having fun watching them roll around together, and play under the couch trying to grab our feet. Cats are so entertaining.

Science Guy

Today was the last day of Holland's "fun with electricity" class at the co-op. He had a great time building circuits and lighting up little bulbs. The last experiment had me holding a balloon that was popped when the teacher made an electrical connection.

When we got home he was still so excited about having the circuits he built at home that he built this circuit that lit a bulb and made a pinwheel turn. Here's a short video I took on my camera.

Everybody On Your Toes

Today was just one of those weird days that you can't do anything about. It actually started last night when I got a call from Holland's psychiatrist at 9:30! We hadn't been in for awhile and I had asked him several weeks ago about possible med changes since we started the gluten-free diet. He called to say he'd had an opening and did I want it? It meant a lot of finagling because it was right when Romania needed to be picked up at the bus hub. I said I'd take it and I would call the receptionist in the morning to check on the time.



So at 9:30 at night, I call the only person that can help me out - a mom of one of Romania's friends at school. Would it be possible to have Romania come home with you? Sure, no problem. So in the morning I called the school to make sure they knew about the transportation change and also emailed his teacher. Whew. Then I called the doctor's office to confirm the time. "The doctor is not in today." Um. Exsqueeze me? He just called me last night to offer me this time slot. She said she'd email him, but was pretty confident that I had my pages mixed up.



Two hours after calling his cell and leaving a voice mail, the doctor called me and said "oops! I got my days mixed up". Oh boy. He had no idea how involved I already was in this ordeal. This meant undoing the transportation mess I'd created, and telling Romania he couldn't go to his friend's house. I called my friend and asked if she'd still be available for tomorrow afternoon? Yes, she would. Great. I offered to flip the deal and have her son come over to our house (as a little peace offering for all the trouble I'd - I mean the doctor - had caused). So I called back the school and explained that now to confuse the school even further, I needed Romania to come home on his regular bus and to boot, why not throw his friend on there too?



The boys had a great time running around in the backyard. And they also got to play legos, Rokenbok and a little Wii Star Wars. I even got Egypt to clean her room (gasp!). I told her the friend's brother was coming when his mom picked him up and would she like to show the boy her room? Yes - she would! Okay, then you should go clean up your room so he can see it. In 10 minutes it was spotless! Of course, most of it ended up in her closet, but lately I've been cleaning the same way.

Check This Out

Since we are being bombarded with talk of the upcoming election, I thought why not add one more potato to the pot. I don't get to listen to the radio much, but Michael Savage has a great radio program that is really addressing some important points about our two stellar candidates. Since the mainstream media is controlled by those leaning towards the liberal agenda (that was tactful, right?), we don't get to hear much about what is really happening with current events. Here's a link to his website and many eye-opening articles on information you probably won't hear on Good Morning America tomorrow.
Michael Savage

No Child Models Here

Egypt's 4th birthday is coming up and I always try to do pictures to mark each birthday. Since Romania had school off today, I thought I could get a few pictures with all three of them. I do not know what I was thinking. Why did I think my kids would do what they were told in a photo session? Why did I think they wouldn't touch things, roll on their brother, make faces, laugh their heads off or walk out of the room? So any fear you had that I was going to subject my kids to the rigors of child modeling is out the window. Seriously. How do they get kids to stand still for pictures? Do they fire you if your kid doesn't stand the right way? I always thought it would be fun to get Egypt in the hanna andersson catalogs because she's got that Scandinavian look. You know, earn a few extra bucks for college or pay some bills. It ain't happenin'. I didn't even stay to see the pictures on the computer.

Oh and for my headache of a picture session I drove to a McDonald's drive through and ordered a drink and fries for me and Holland.

I Heart Electricity

We had dinner at my in-law's house on Tuesday to celebrate grampa's 79th birthday. The kids got to bed kind of late and I knew I'd be waking at least one up in the morning to get to the bus on time. It was Egypt. I barely got her dressed and was later thankful that I took the time to do this. After waving good-bye to Romania, I chatted with another mom and then headed back home. It was now that the garage door opener decided to stop working. It's been fussy lately, sometimes working, most of the time not. We can never seem to get out to Sears to buy a new battery. To make it all the more comical, I didn't have a house key on my key chain. And I had also forgotten my pager. Couldn't send an email to super-hero, couldn't even call my sister. So we did what any normal person locked out of their house would do: we went to Target.

I had to kill about an hour and a half before Sears opened. So we wandered around Target, picking up Halloween candy, kitchen scissors and tape. Finally it's 10 so we drive over to Sears. Showed the salesman the remote and he picked up a battery and handed it to me. I was able to pry open the thing before we left and put the new battery in. We get home and it's probably 10.45. More comedy: the door still wouldn't open. Holland had eaten a rice cake for breakfast and Egypt didn't even get anything before we left. The only way I was going to get in touch with super-hero was to email him from my sister's house. He answered pretty quickly and said he'd meet us at 11.30 at a store halfway between us. My sister gave my kids a few things to eat and as I was leaving asked her to reply to his message to say we were coming.

We got to the location and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Every 10 or 15 minutes I debated whether I should leave or not. If I left and missed him he would not be happy. Thirty minutes goes by. I'm thinking, 'he'd better have been in a car accident because 30 minutes is ridiculous'. The kids and I were so hungry, we opened the Halloween candy and started to eat lunch. Since Holland's diet now requires no gluten, I couldn't just run to McDonald's for something to eat. Finally at 12.15, he comes into the parking lot. He said he was waiting for my answer to make sure I was meeting him. My sister got sidetracked with her kids and doing an inventory for a new part-time job and didn't remember to reply until noon. I gave super-hero all the remote pieces and the batteries and he said he'd stop on his way home. We were locked out about 4 1/2 hours and after not having breakfast, Holland decided he wanted pancakes for lunch. So I'm exhausted from my morning of non-productivity and decide to let Holland build with Rokenbok in his room. His design turned out pretty cool. I'll have to get a picture before someone falls on it or something.

Oh yeah. We still cannot get the remote to work.

Not So Fast

We keep getting these bills from the car accident that Egypt and I were in back in February. I keep ignoring them because, well, I'm not paying them! I finally had to call the billing service to find out why it wasn't getting paid. She told me that the other insurance denied the claim. What?!? So, I dig through my paperwork and find the other person's insurance number, call and leave a message asking why they haven't paid. He calls back and says that my insurance needs to pay and then they will get reimbursed from the other insurance. He then asks if I'm still receiving treatment. Oh - I hate these questions! In the beginning I would get bugged at least once a week asking when my treatment would be done. I answered, "No, not right now." "OK. Good, then I'll go ahead and write up a report and close out your case." Ummm. Excuse me?!! I was actually able to think fast enough to realize what he was doing! I told him that I would not be closing the case until next February, a year after the accident. They are so sneaky, those insurance agents. I wouldn't be able to get anymore treatment if I had agreed with him. And if I had had kids around me, distracting me, I wouldn't even have realized that he was trying to close my case.

Yummy Pancakes!

I finally opened the pancake mix that I bought last week. The price could give milk or bread a run for their money. I figured it's about 30 cents an ounce. Which doesn't seem like a lot until you look at this piddly bag of 24 ounces and the recipe for one batch of pancakes says: "yields 6, four-inch pancakes". Wow. That's a lot. (I'm rolling my eyes). My griddle that my mom gave me (I just typed 'girdle' and had to correct that before moving on! Spellcheck is completely worthless.) has gone kaput. I can only cook one lonely pancake at a time on the stove in a skillet, but Holland was really craving pancakes. He ate 2 ricecakes for breakfast before we took Romania to the bus stop, so I figured I needed to do something more.

The brand is Pamela's and I think they are equal or even better in taste than these buttermilk pancakes I've been making lately (sorry gramma Nora!) The mix can be used for pancakes, waffles or even as a flour in any baking recipe. One of the tricks I'm learning about gluten-free cooking is that you have to spray the pan or griddle or iron that you are using before cooking. I made that mistake with the first two little pancakes I put on the pan. I usually don't spray a non-stick pan, but after scraping pancake off, I decided I'd better follow the directions.

Egypt ate three pancakes and Holland had two. He usually can barely finish one pancake, so this was great for him. I'm still trying to figure out how to fill him up. He ate constantly all morning while we were doing school. It's all healthy stuff, so not complaining, but sometimes I wish he'd just eat a pudding cup and get on with it!

Now I just need to get my hands on some black market Pamela's so we can afford to eat pancakes for dinner.

Dining Out on Gluten-Free Pizza

Tonight was the night. October 1st. This really good pizza joint would be introducing their gluten-free menu. Holland was so excited. We picked Romania up from the bus stop, got Holland changed into his soccer clothes and met super-hero dad at the restaurant. Their gluten-free pizza came in one size, so Holland got a pepperoni pizza all to himself. Here he is enjoying his first dining out experience since being diagnosed with celiac. (I even tasted it and it wasn't that bad!)

Hooray for IEP's!

Today Holland had his ceramics class at his charter school. I only signed him up for one class a week. We're already doing a homeschooling co-op and the more I'm out of the house, the less school work I get done if I'm running around every day. I tried to get there a little early so I could make copies of his work for his work sample notebook. It wasn't enough time before class to figure out the copy machine, so we just sat on a bench outside the door to his class. I overheard one of the secreteries talking to the art teacher and picked up on key names (one of them being Holland's name). I figured out that they were talking about the woman who is now involved in his IEP and works for the school district. We had talked about her coming to observe Holland during his class so she could check on his behavior goals.

She's really nice, so I didn't mind at all. We actually have an annual review IEP meeting this Friday and we were able to discuss current goals and possible goals for this year. Imagine how surprised I was when she said "I think I'll just take all his behavior goals off. Is that okay?" Uh, yeah! She said he had met all his goals from last year and didn't see any reason to add more based on my observations and what she saw today. Yahoo! And what's even better is I get to write his IEP goals for reading, writing and math. How cool is that? I have all these great notes from the Language specialist evaluation last week and I'll be able to put down 'no phonics'; 'writing to read' through shared context, drawing about the context, labeling, writing and reading back what he wrote. I also started his picture dictionary. I used bubble letters and drew a small picture above the word and every time he needed to access the word for a reading comprehension workbook, he knew exactly which word it was. I'm so excited to see his progress!

Who Cares About Oatmeal, Anyway?

Holland has been really wanting oatmeal. He used to eat it for breakfast or lunch or just a snack. But now since he can't have it, we've gotten more creative with his menu. Like this morning, for example. He was in a soccer tournament this weekend. He played two games yesterday and a game today. His lunch yesterday was a handful of almonds and chocolate chips and a juice drink. He said he wasn't that hungry, so I just let it go. When he finished the games, he did eat the rice bar I brought. He did not want the costco chicken that super-hero brought home, so he just had corn for dinner. I think he did eat another handful of almonds later on and maybe some popcorn.

This morning while I was getting the other two kids ready for church, I couldn't find anything to feed Holland. He had poured through the pantry and all he could find was gluten-free gingersnap cookies (which he ate). We are out of wheat-free cereal, out of eggs, can't have toast, forget pancakes. I was just stumped. Then I remembered I had a little bit of sherbet left for a fruit smoothie, so I made one really fast. Lunch wasn't much better. I had to make tacos (again. How many times is that now, in the last week?). He ate one and then went outside to play. Dinner was baked salmon, sticky rice and broccoli with fresh lemon. I really was in the mood for some dessert (we've stopped buying cookies, muffins, etc. We're on the South Beach diet and didn't even try!) I had returned all the gluten-free cookbooks and the boys were on the computer. So I just decided I would find a brownie recipe and make it. A couple months ago I bought two Martha Stewart cookbooks from costco: one is entirely cookies and the other is a seasonal cookbook. I found a brownie recipe, substituted my GF (gluten-free) flour mix I have already mixed up and added a few chopped pieces of Hershey's chocolate bar for a double chocolate brownie. The boys were so excited and I hadn't even told Holland it was gluten-free. I gave them eat a plate with a warm brownie and a glass of milk. He said it was even better than what I usually make, which is the boxed Hershey's brownie mix from Costco. Then I told him it was gluten-free and he couldn't believe it! I also had to tell super-hero to stop eating them and save some for Holland. He said he couldn't even tell they were different!! Wa-hooo!

Forget oatmeal. We have chocolate.

Language Evaluation

I got the report back from the Language and Learning specialist. I think it was totally worth the money, although I'm sure super-hero would disagree. She wrote some pretty interesting things about the way he processes information, how he uses language, his fine motor skills and speech.

"Motor development is typically viewed as a function of fine and/or gross muscle groups, with speech motor acts produced with fine muscle movements; and walking produced with gross motor movements. The central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) is necessary for these motor acts. Damage to the spinal cord affects the motor function at the peripheral level (limbs, trunk, etc.) but not at the cognitive, speech or language levels. However, damage to the cerebral cortex can affect not only the motor ability to physically perform an act but also the ability to consciously want to execute an act. Thinking about execution is a cognitive (cortical) function. Execution of cognitive motor acts is not only a function of the motor strips but also a function of the frontal lobe in concert with the temperal and parietal lobes. The temporal and parietal lobes provide information about the language that a person is able to put to a motor act. For example, a child sees the feet move up and down. An adult watching this movement says the child is "walking". The child learns that when the feet move up and down a certain way, that motor act is called walking. Conscious execution of motor acts is a language function."

She observed his fine motor skills when he drew pictures, played with legos and spoke words. But she said he had "overflow" of the motor acts. For example when he ate a snack he used his left hand to pick up the small pieces while his right fingers were moving in parallel ways. Also when he wrote with his right hand, his left fingers would move. The movements on the opposite sides of his body show a "shadowing" which is more typical of a young child. He has this "lateralized" movement that affects his connection of motor patterns to the space that the patterns are in. This was interesting: "His body is divided into two equal parts and his eye movements see the letters on both sides of his body but in opposite position. Likewise, he sees the letters upside down and right side up at the same time. This means that he cannot use letters for the sounds of words. But, he can feel the shape of what he sees so that if he can store an idea as a motor shape, then it has no letters, no directions, and he has a visual pattern attached to an idea that he can retrieve." When Holland was asked to write a word with his eyes closed, he was able to do it. Dr. Arwood said because he can store the idea as a motor shape and he has a visual pattern attached to an idea he can then retrieve the information.

This makes complete sense to me. Recently I started signing words to him while he was reading when he got stuck. Sometimes he would try to "sound" out the word, but most of the time he would sound out letters that weren't even in the word. When I added a sign, he would be able to retrieve the picture for it and know the word. So he is obviously using "pictures" he has in his mind to retrieve information, reorganize it and give it back. Dr. Arwood also suggested that I fingerspell in his hand for vocabulary words. That way he could feel what the word looked like.

Speech requires fine acoustic motor patterning. "He responded well to falling or rising intonation indicating that he could hear the paralinguistic tones." He also heard a distant phone ring and asked about it, which suggests that he can also attach meaning to sound patterns of everyday actions. "However, the complex fine motor movements of speech for longer phrases or sentences and for sounds that require rapid movements during production such as glides and some blends, are often problematic for Holland. This is typical of auditory processing issues. Auditory processing requires a neurological connection of acoustic with visual patterns. Holland can produce the acoustic patterns and the visual patterns but his learning system does not integrate the two types of patterns for auditory concepts." He will also run his words together when words become too complex and he lacks the sound segmentation. (She called this "cluttering").

Holland's language and cognition was evaluated and it was found that his concepts are represented in visual form. He can see single pictures and is beginning to make those pictures into short "movie" clips. But because his speech showed auditory processing difficulties, Dr. Arwood asked him an auditory question. "What do you do on a typical day?" He replied, "playing, do math, stuff like that." This reply showed no "sequence of time, time-based wording or an understanding of the time of these events. He does not use the time-based properties of language."

When he was asked to read a first-grade passage, he immediately used his mental pictures to tell the story even though he could not read 80% of the words. For example, he would say the fox wanted to eat a hen. The passage read, "He was looking for food....He wanted a nice fat chicken." "He could mentally see what the meaning of the print was even though he did not know the names of the words. This means that Holland has visual or pictured concepts mentally to which he can put some sound for speech but cannot use sound for developing the meaning of ideas."

She suggested that I have Holland draw what we've read, add the words to match the picture and label the people/objects in the picture. She also said it was important to include thought bubbles and word bubbles so he could create perceptual patterns. I asked if I should correct spelling while he was writing and she said definately. It takes an average of 40 times to spell a word correctly that was learned incorrectly. If he learns a word that is spelled wrong, it will take him so much longer to "unlearn" that and learn the correct spelling. Good advice for all those "inventive spelling" teachers out there! That's what I was taught in my teaching program. 'Let the kids sound out words and experiment with spelling.' I suppose that would work if 100% of your students were auditory learners. But I'd be willing to bet that more people are visual rather than auditory learners.

The other thing that we will be doing is making a picture dictionary. She had a paper with about 12 squares on it for writing a word and then "bubbling" it. I had been 'framing' the words before, but this was new. She actually outlined the word, like you'd see on a high-school dance poster! Then she would erase the letters, so just the outlined showed. She had an example of a whole sentence written this way. At first Holland was uncomfortable with all the lines, but when he was shown the 'bubble' sentence, he was able to read all the words! Amazing. He could see the shape of the word, rather than be stuck on what the letters represented phonemically. She also had a little box for what she called "glue words." These were all those words he got stuck on like; I, me, you, they, their, there, them...etc. She drew a small picture above the word. Like the word "go" she drew little feet so he would have a picture to connect to a concept and then be able to create meaning.

So now you'll be able to use all these great ideas if you have a more visual than auditory learner. You're welcome.

Projects For Everyone

So this year seems to be all about the projects. Holland made gliders to test differences in wing size; we made a bat house (which is for our next study in flying creatures); and today we did an art project based on "Fish is Fish" by Leo Lionni. He created a new fish/animal, did a background texture rub with crayon and then he wrote a story about his Fin-fox (body of a fish; head of a fox). He's also really enjoying his ceramics class on Mondays.

So today I needed a project. And since food has become a major focus lately, I decided we needed something we could all eat. Last night we had hamburgers and (store-bought) french fries. Holland didn't even mind that he ate his hamburger without a bun. (I even gave him some of my pop to make him feel better!) We had leftover patties today and Holland actually said that sounded good. But of course, all the french fries were gone. I found some russet potatoes in the pantry and decided I needed homemade french fries to go with my hamburger (and a tomato from my garden!) I peeled, sliced and soaked the potatoes for about 15 minutes. I cooked them for about 3 minutes, drained them, cooked the next batch and then cooked them a second time. They were soft on the inside and cripsy on the outside. Holland loved them. He was so excited that potatoes were not a forbidden food.

Little Breakthroughs

The past few days have been very hectic. Trying to figure out what to feed Holland with what's in my pantry. How to pack gluten-free food for soccer games or co-op days. I've bought many tiny bags of gluten-free snacks and a 24 oz bag of pancake mix. This puny bag of Pamela's cost me $6.89. I loved making pancakes and waffles and breakfast-y food. I've heard this is the best pancake mix (sorry Bob; no competition) but hope to be able to duplicate it if it's a success. Otherwise we're going to end up spending two or three times the normal amount on food.

It's not that he's a super-picky eater. Romania fits that bill more than Holland. He loves fruit and vegetables. He told the gastroenterologist on Monday that his favorite food was corn. Go figure. Corn. Not hot dogs. Or pizza. But corn. I'm also rediscovering the art of the smoothie. The best book is "Jamba Juice". This is the only way I can sneak plain yogurt into my kids. Their favorite smoothie so far is cranberry juice, strawberries, blueberries, plain yogurt and raspberry sherbet. That's the ticket! Putting ice cream in a smoothie. Today, Holland and Egypt and I made smoothies. They each drank about a cup and then we made popsicles with the rest. We saved them for an after-dinner treat and they all thought it was dessert! Sweet. I even told Holland I'd let him eat a smoothie popsicle for breakfast. Big smile on that one. I'm such a cool mom.

We've all been kinda pouty after Holland's diagnosis because we thought we'd barely (if ever) be able to go out to eat. (Well, I was probably more pouty than super-hero. He's probably thrilled we're not spending money on restaurant food!) Not many restaurants are gluten-free friendly. Red Robin. Nope. Spaghetti Factory. Forget it. But with all my poking around on the internet, I've found lots of bloggers blogging about gluten-free stuff. Recipes. Restaurants. This one blogger mentioned the best pizza she'd ever eaten (gluten-free!) Of course, I kept reading and it was located in Arizona. Bummer. Maybe we could visit there. I think I have relatives in Arizona, right mom? I decided to check out their website anyway. Maybe they had recipes or other links. I scrolled down on their 'locations' page and had to read the word "Oregon" twice. No.... there couldn't really be the "best gluten-free pizza ever" located in Portland?!? And guess what? It's only a few blocks from super hero's office! I'm already planning an afternoon of lunch when Romania has a Friday off. I also decided to check out other pizza joints. There's an awesome pizza place where we had our "Happy Adoption Day" celebration. Holland really liked their pizza. On the left-hand side of their website was a list and the words "gluten-free" popped out. They actually have an entire gluten-free menu coming out. Should be available on October 1st. (Do they take reservations? Because we're going!) The little blurb about the new menu showed how much they know about cooking with wheat and gluten-free flours. They have separate equipment; separate baking areas and are training the employees how to handle the food so there's no cross-contamination. They even hunted down a gluten-free mozzarella. I'm impressed. I don't even care what it costs. We are eating pizza on October 1st.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

I feel like such a flake. I haven't posted in about a week! I have too much going on. We finally got the definite diagnosis of celiac disease for Holland. With school, meetings, doctor appointments and Holland's first ceramics class, my life was just too blurry. We also had three straight nights of soccer games and practices, too.

I also took Holland to a language evaluation last week. It's crazy how God lined all these things up. I had to go to school to become an interpreter; then get tendonitis from interpreting; then go back to school and get my degree; then go to graduate school for the deaf education program. While doing my student teaching, I was paired with a teacher in Washington who became a good friend. We've stayed in contact over the years and she referred me to this language expert. It was the most amazing evaluation I've ever been to. All she had to do was listen to his speech, see the way he held his pencil, watch him draw a picture of a fox and a farmer, see that he left out vowels when he wrote to come up with methods for me to use to improve his reading and writing. I went out and bought a digital recorder a few days before so I could tape the meeting. I knew there was going to be so much information and I didn't want to miss anything. I'm so glad I did! I transferred the recording to my computer and have been listening to it and taking notes on things.

She said he has auditory processing issues. He hears perfectly, but his brain doesn't transmit the sound into meaningful information. Phonics mean nothing to him because he can't differentiate between sounds. He has pictures in his head of words that are meaningful to him. That is how he writes; if he has a meaningful context for a word, then he can remember how to write it. But movement actually makes the pictures drop off, so as soon as he tries to write something, he loses that information. It's a crazy thing. I also had concerns of FAS (fetal alcohol spectrum). I sent her an email prior to the appointment just so she'd be aware of my concerns, but not wanting to talk about them in front of Holland. She said based on his ability to recall information and the way he drew details in his pictures (big fluffy tail on the fox; big teeth, pointy ears) that she did not believe that FAS was part of his learning differences.

He also left out vowels in words which she said is a huge indicator in auditory processing disorder. Vowels are not important because the consonants give more meaning to a word. He wrote "frm" for "farm" but he was able to read back what he wrote so she knew he understood the story. She also pointed out that while he was reading, when he came to a word he didn't know, he would insert a word that made sense. So he was making logical predictions about the story. She said this would not be happening with an FAS child. It feels so good to know this because now I have some tools to help him with his perceptual patterns.

The other interesting thing she did was to 'bubble' the words on a sheet of paper with squares set up for a picture dictionary. She would write the word he needed/wanted to know and then create a bubble around the entire word. This is a bit different than what I was doing before. When I was student teaching in Washington, the teacher I was with was a very visual teacher and would 'outline' words for the kids. It would look like you were drawing squares around the letters, but it would all be connected. This really seemed to help some of the kids who, being deaf, are obviously more visual learners. They could see the shape of the word. This method didn't really seem to stick for Holland. The language evaluator told me he needed an even more precise outline of the word. She showed me a sample sentence written entirely in bubble words. The letters were not written, so Holland was just looking at the entire shape of the word. She asked him to read the sentence and he didn't even flinch! It was so amazing. A meaningful pattern was now attached to these words.

The most important thing for me to do now, is to read him a story, have him draw what we read, write sentences to match the pictures and then read back what he wrote. I asked if I should correct his spelling while he was writing. As a teacher trained fairly recently, the rage was to let the kids do "inventive spelling". Let them use their phonics skills to sound out words and write how they believed the word to be spelled. Well, since Holland has no phonics skills, it makes no sense to let him sound out words. She said it takes an average of 40 times to write a word the correct way after learning it incorrectly and know how to spell it. Teach a child the correct spelling the first time so they do not have to "unlearn" it later.

First Day of HIGHday

Thursday was the first day of our homeschooling co-op. We did this last year with Romania and Egypt while Holland was at school. It's three hours of school taught by other moms. You teach or assist two classes and then the third class you get a break and time to socialize with other moms. Romania was a little disappointed because he remembered how much fun it was last year. I reminded him that Holland was unable to participate last year and this was just how life works.

I had asked to be placed in Holland's first two classes: "fun with electricity" and a chess class. I knew Holland would like the electricity class because during the school year last year, he almost electrocuted himself when he put a paper clip into an outlet. It didn't really matter that I had told him not to do that. He simply had to find out himself what it looked like when he did. I guess sparks went flying but now he knows what that looks like and hopefully will not do it again. (When he was a little over a year old, he touched the front of our gas fireplace several times and got blisters from doing this. My helpful sister-in-law pointed out that I just should have told him not to do it. After all, that's what she did with her kids. I've known for a long time that he needs to experience something to learn it.)

The teacher did a great job. The kids all paired up and had a cell (a battery), a small bulb and a ribbon of foil for their experiments. Their first job was to find out how to make the bulb light up. The kids tried all sorts of ways and finally figured out how it worked. She handed out papers with drawings of different ways to get it to light up. The kids had to draw what worked and what didn't work. Then they had to make predictions about several drawings and actually do it to see if it worked. Holland actually got all those right. Chess class was a little more difficult because the teacher did not do a good job of seeing who knew what. I know that several kids (including Holland) had limited experience with playing chess. He assumed that all the kids knew what the pieces were called, how many moves each could make and how many points they were worth. Holland got a little confused, but he partnered with his cousin who knew quite a bit about chess and was able to tell him which moves he could do. I thought chess was a good way to use predicting skills and sequencing.

Overall it was a great first day experience. He socialized so well with his peers - maybe the IEP team should come in and see him and then they can get rid of those dumb behavior goals.

We've Got Books!

We finally were able to go pick up some books. Not all of them were in, but math and history and some writing books came in. We did the first chapter of Early Modern History. There are so many names to remember. He's not going to be able to answer all the comprehension questions and I'll have to work on narration with him. But I'm so glad that he's at least being exposed to all the subjects I chose.

I finished organizing the school room and put away old books from last year. What to do with all those books? The problem is finding a place to store them if I need to look back at them for any reason. My garage is getting smaller and smaller.

We have a busy week. Tomorrow Holland will have his biopsy. We have to be at the hospital at 6.30 am. Then Romania has a soccer game that night. On Thursday we start our homeschooling co-op and I also will have my first meeting with my Educational Specialist. This is where I have to show Holland's work and evidence that I've actually been teaching and not sitting on the couch watching Oprah.

Good-Bye Molly

Last night I made the decision to put my cat down. She was 16 years old. I got her about a year after we were married. Back in May, the vet said she had some kind of lump and we could do surgery to find out what it was, but I opted for antibiotics and some fluids. She seemed to perk up for awhile and then the end was just cleaning up cat throw-up off the floor. Holland came with me to the vet and we said good-bye. Here's the last picture of her with the kids.

This afternoon was Holland's IEP "transition" meeting. I knew I was in trouble when I heard the woman that was 'supposed' to be on my side comment to the district rep "I read his file last night and my first thought was 'why fix something that's not broken' ". She said this not knowing that I was the one she was representing. I did not know who she was (the person that I thought was going to be there, had lined up this woman in case she couldn't get back from her other committment). I'm glad I didn't introduce myself because this is the only way I would have found out (accurately) that she did not support this placement. This is the person from the charter school that Holland is now enrolled in.

So basically, the entire meeting was me making point after point of why I did not see last year's placement a good fit for this year. How I was going to make that work and how they were going to monitor progress. I wish I had never gotten involved with the school district. I did so, because I believed it was the only way to get the academic help I needed. What I got was an overzealous group of 'professionals' who are more concerned that Holland won't have enough socialization this year. He actually is getting more appropriate socialization than he had last year. Last year he was around kids with some pretty serious emotional problems. This year, he'll be taking a ceramics class, learning about electricity, learning how to play chess and playing soccer. I'd say those were pretty good socialization activities.

Again the money situation was brought up. The district rep's boss was there (never met him before; he's never shown up at any other IEP meetings) and he said it cost $37,000 to educate Holland at Heron Creek last year. Before I could stop it, the comment "I can do it cheaper" came out of my mouth. Such a sharp-tongued comment. But I guess if you're bringing up what something costs, then I should have the same opportunity to comment on that. Big-man boss did not find that funny; but I saw the district guy crack a smile. I asked if a placement at this other charter school would have been cheaper than $37,000 and he said no. I do not believe that one bit. I guarantee they don't spend half that per student at the charter. They only get $5,500 extra per child on an IEP. I bet having an aide out there would have been comprable if not less expensive. They are already servicing 3 students on IEP's - all with academic needs.

The rep even asked if my ultimate goal was to get him at Romania's charter school. I said there was no way I would be plucking him out of his current situation. I spent the whole summer wondering where he would be placed this fall and when I finally decided that the best placement was with me, I would not be making any more adjustments to his schooling right now.

I guess it's good to know before things progress much further who's really going to support me in a pinch. And it's not the woman that showed up today. I did get a very nice compliment from Holland's former program supervisor. She left before the end of last year on maternity, so I didn't see much of her at the end. She said she was proud of the way I handled myself. That it must have been difficult to advocate for my child in a room full of people that weren't in agreement with me. And that I handled it with grace.

Yep. That's my job.

School is Back in Session

Romania is on day three of school. I took him in on the first day and listened to all the announcements for the yearly activities, their goal as a school community and pleas for parents to volunteer. I stayed two of the three hours because I had Egypt with me (Holland had spent the night at my parent's house) and she was coming to the end of her 3 year-old attention span. His new teacher is nice and there are several kids he knows from his 1st grade class. It's a 2nd/3rd split and so many of the kids had the same teacher last year.

This year will be a lot easier in the driving schedule. Since I am homeschooling Holland again, I don't have to worry about his bus coming and we leave the house a few minutes after 8 to drop Romania at the bus hub. They added another stop this year, so it's a bit closer and I don't have to use so much gas to and from school. Yesterday, Holland and I finished his school work before noon and he was able to play with a neighbor boy for a couple hours in the afternoon. So far he's doing pretty good. I still don't have all of my school books I ordered over 6 weeks ago. They are still sorting them at the school and their method of inventory only allows one person on the computer at a time. So we are finishing up the last few pages of his math, and doing some reading and handwriting stuff I had left over. I've even been pretty successful keeping Egypt busy with coloring, building blocks and painting. Holland seems less stressed out, so I'm praying this year will look a lot different than it did two years ago.

Labor Day Weekend at the Lake

Make a Smilebox photobook

We had a great weekend at the Lake cabin. Romania did most of the swim activities and Holland did almost all the boat races he qualified for. Egypt entered one race and when I popped her in the water for her swim, she cried, turned around and I picked her up out of the water. She still got a ribbon, though.

I was very impressed with how well Holland did in the boat races. Last year he got so frustrated and pretty much gave up the first race and then back out of the rest. This year, he did the rowboat (he said was his favorite), the kayak, the two boy canoe race with his brother, the boy/girl canoe race and the parent/child canoe race.

Romania did all the swim stuff he qualified for. He won his swim race and did the diving competition and the slide as well.

We had terrible weather :-) It was so cold for being the end of August. And on the night of the all-lake BBQ, it poured! They had a little awards ceremony and it was sprinkling. We started dinner at 4.45 because we were all worried about getting soaked. By 5.45 it was raining so hard it looked like November! The kids had a great time, but were so tired by the end of it all. Monday is a do-nothing, get-ready-for-the-first-day-of-school day.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

I got a phone call yesterday from a place that I've been trying to have evaluate Holland since June. They are so popular that it takes months to get in. They evaluate language processing skills and help find the ways your child best learns. The kids were all quiet until the phone rang. They're like a heat-seeking missile. As soon as I got on the phone, the dam broke. If it was my sister, it would have been easy to hang up and deal with the beasts. But this was the woman trying to schedule an appointment. I interrupted my conversation 3 times to get them to stop fighting. At one point, I hid in my room (no lock, so I had to keep my foot on the door while my 3 1/2 year old cried at the door).

The woman asks me if the one having the problem is the one that will be evaluated. Oh how embarrassing. Nope. That's my middle and youngest going at it. She was very nice saying she understood what it was like. She made an interesting couple of comments. She said that I needed to draw with him. That he could not see himself in the situation. I can completely understand this, because that is exactly what he looks like. He gets "stuck" in the moment and cannot go forward or backward. I actually used to do this with my students I taught many years ago. The woman that referred me to these people was actually the teacher I student taught under. She's the one that got me started with drawing. I used it all three and a half years of my teaching, but didn't continue it once I became a mom. I kind of laughed in my head when she said I needed to draw with him. Can you just see it? "OK. Let me put you on hold while I draw for my 7 year-old the reason he shouldn't be yelling at his sister about those dominos."

I decided to give it a go for post-behavior reinforcement. I sat down with all three of them and began drawing what I was doing and what they were doing. I didn't even tell them what it was. But Romania said, "That's you on the phone and me yelling at Egypt!" Great. Now we're on the same page. I went over what everyone looked like. How Holland hid out in the other room. How Egypt and Romania kept screaming at each other. Then I crossed it all out and drew two options that Romania had. I asked him which he thought would be easier for him and he picked the "walk away and wait for mom" instead of the "sit there and let her touch my dominos".

The true test came this morning however, when I was getting ready to head to Costco with three "I can't walk in a straight line" kids. I thought why not try this before we leave? I drew me pushing the cart into Costco, with Egypt sitting in the cart and the two boys walking behind me. Then I drew several pictures of what not to do and crossed them out. Then walking through Costco, the boys pretty much stayed behind me and Egypt *gasp* did not ask ONCE to be taken out of the cart. This is a girl who has driven me out of Target because she wouldn't sit down.

After lunch I had to run a couple more errands because we'll be gone this weekend. I'm trying hard to focus on correcting behavior. I have a couple charts; the "IF-THEN" checklist and "The Blessing Chart". They've been great tools, but I wanted to add "The Brother Offended" chart, too. There's a great homeschooling bookstore very close to me and I wanted to go in quick to look around. I didn't get to stay very long because I forgot to draw a picture before we left. I'm not kidding. It was the complete opposite of Costco. Two of them were arguing over toys; then one started driving the little car around the aisles. Someone pushed, someone cried and I had to leave.

I thought maybe Costco was a fluke and they just happened to behave. But after seeing their behavior in the bookstore, I'm going to buy a couple of sketch pads. I'll leave them conveniently around the house and my van for future counter attacks.

We've Been Bumped

I cannot keep track of all the appointments we have going on. Yesterday morning, only one day after scheduling Holland's biopsy, I got a call from the doctor's office saying he had to reschedule because he'd be out of town. I have this sneaking suspicion that he's taking an extended Labor Day holiday, but who knows. The good news is, now I can go to Romania's first day of school. The bad news is I have to feed Holland wheat for another week and a half and witness major meltdowns. It's been incredible to see the change once I reintroduced wheat. He gets upset at the most minor things. He looks to be in a fog and his face looks so tired.

The other thing that has happened is the IEP team for Holland has decided that they need to have a transition meeting to talk about me pulling him out of his program. Nobody seemed to care when I was pushing for placement at the Charter school, but now that I've pulled him out of public school (gasp!) everybody has something to say. It was scheduled this week, but the district rep said that his boss couldn't make it so they had to reschedule. (BTW - this boss has never been to any of the other placement meetings when I was requesting the move to the Charter school.) So he rescheduled for next week, but that was the week of Holland's biopsy. So I called to reschedule because I didn't know how he'd feel the next day. I get a call this morning saying they can do it on Friday next week, but they are trying to coordinate 7 people. I told the district rep the only person who needs to be there is my Educational Specialist. She's the one helping with the transition. I haven't heard back if the meeting is in fact on the 5th, but I cannot imagine going into this meeting with 7 people having strong opinions about my decision to pull him. They've even invited the principal from the Charter school. Why?? She is no longer involved in this. They don't want him, why do they need to have her there?

To top off all the chaos and confusion, I have yet to receive even one of the books I ordered for Holland's school year. I know that they are in fact in the school office, but there is one person entering in all the books received and was told on Monday that I may not even have the books by the start of the school year. "What am I supposed to do? I have no books!" The secretary told me to "be creative." I'm wondering if this is worth the hassle.

We've Scheduled a Biopsy

Surprised? We were, too. Apparently my pediatrician's office jumped the gun on going gluten-free. The gastroenterologist called me on Saturday and said because of the blood test results, Holland would need a biopsy to diagnose celiac 100%. I guess you can't ask too many questions. I'm pretty thorough when it comes to finding things out. But I've been led on this wild goose chase. I thought that the blood test would be the end of the celiac question.

We're scheduled for a biopsy on September 2nd. Bummer. I have to miss Romania's first day of school. And we have to be at the hospital at the unruly hour of 6.30! Hopefully there are no other procedures that need to be done before we find the answer to this riddle.

Nebraska Law Goes Too Far

I read an article in my local paper a few days ago and was shocked at what a new law in Nebraska allows: the abandonment of children. Many states are implementing a way for mothers of newborns to not be prosecuted for abandoning their month-old babies. They can drop off a baby (usually younger than 30 days), no I.D. required, no questions asked, at a hospital or fire station. But this law was set up because a growing number of mothers were leaving their babies for dead. I guess states felt it was better to give an "out" so the baby wouldn't end up dead.

Well, this law far exceeds any common sense. Some lawmakers wanted to extend protection to "all minors". So, if you have an unruly teen, a disabled child or are just plain frustrated with parenting your three year-old, go to Nebraska and you can dump your child in the arms of the state, no questions asked. The kicker is, even if you're not the parent, you can do this. If the child is in the care of a babysitter or another caregiver, they too, can reap the benefits of this ludicrous "safe haven" law. Here's the entire article.