Schedule? What Schedule?

So I wrote out a schedule for this week that involved cleaning and activities for the kids. Unfortunately, I haven't been following it like I should! I did windex the door windows and mop the kitchen Monday, but was unable to mop the rest of the house because my mop broke! I was supposed to dust today, but that didn't happen. Lilly spent the night with my mom yesterday and Sam is spending the night today. I went over this morning to exchange the kids and ending up staying until after lunch. Wouldn't you know it, 4 minutes away from my moms and Ben throws up all over himself and his car seat. I had to turn right around so I could get him out of it. It was really bad and needed to be washed before he could use it again. So, Lilly and Ben took a nap while I waited for it to get washed. That took up my whole afternoon plus I had to take something to Shaun at the firehouse. We didn't end up getting home until after 6pm!!! We have a play date tomorrow, but hopefully I will get things accomplished while they nap in the afternoon. It is taking me a while to get into a rhythm for cleaning the house, shopping, taking care of the kids, and spending quality time with them. I am going to try and stick to the schedule I made for myself as closely as I can. We will see what happens! I also want to start going to the gym, but I have to figure that part out still!

Having fun swimming at Nonn'i's. Trying to walk!

In other news, I upholstered a wooden stool to use with my makeup table. The stool I have been using for years is finally toast. I had this great wooden kidney shaped stool that has been floating around in my dining room. My mom gave it to me years ago and I have been trying to find a use for it (besides decoration). I am really happy with the results. I have never upholstered anything before, but my mom showed me how and helped me figure it out. It really makes me want to complete even more projects! I am going to have to start a list of projects I want to do. Speaking of projects, Shaun finally completed a few around our house! We have an awesome coat tree, but there really isn't enough space by our front door and we need more hooks! So, I bought two hook racks and Shaun installed them in our entry way. One high and one low so the kids can hang up their own coats! He also put up a shelf in the bathroom (been waiting years for that one), installed a tv wall mount in the boys room, and took down Lilly's crib and put up her toddler bed. Yea for getting stuff down around the house! Hopefully, we can keep up the pace.

Picture of the stool before I upholstered it. I forgot to take a picture before I glued on the paddling!

After!

 

It's so comfortable now and really cute!

 

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Language, Language, Language!!!

No, this post isn't about dirty language (even though my husband needs to be reminded about cleaning that up every once in a while), it's about Sam's use of language. This has always been one of his struggles. He has an advanced vocabulary, but struggles to use language appropriately. It is a struggle for him to use original language and he often has trouble with conversational language. What this means is that a lot of what he says are phrases that he has heard before. Sometimes they fit the situation and sometimes they don't. He repeats a lot of lines from shows he has watched. This has been a big struggle for us. When he does this we always tell him to use his own original thoughts and to stop repeating. He becomes obsessed with certain shows and begins to repeat whole episodes verbatim. He hasn't repeated whole episodes in a while, just lines from the shows, but I can't tell you how unnerving it is for your child to sit and repeat the dialogue of a show he saw once. When he starts to do this we have to ban that show at our house. First it was Little Einstein's then Max and Ruby, and now DocMcstuffin. I am always torn about whether he should even watch TV, but he really enjoys it and I limit it to a couple of shows a day. His language has been showing a lot of improvements, but vacation has totally thrown him off. His attention has been poor and his language has been out of whack. He has been repeating lines from DocMcstuffin all night and he hasn't seen that show in days. There are times when it doesn't seem like he has any issues and then, Bam!!! Its totally obvious that he isn't a typical 4 year old. I still savor and am elated by every normal conversation we have, and I wonder if that will ever change.

 

We were trying a homeopathic medication called Respen-a, but stopped it to try an ADHD medication. You have to have a prescription for Respen-a and can only get it through certain compounding pharmacies, and it's kind of expensive, especially since most insurance companies don't cover it. We did see improvements in his language and social skills when he was on it. It is supposed to help with the symptoms of autism i.e. social skills, language, and repetitive behavior. Its just a patch that he wears in the middle of his back. I plan on having Shaun call and refill it tomorrow, especially after his struggles today. I'm not sure if we will continue with the attention meds or not. They seemed to make him a little emotional when they started to wear off and I'm not 100% sure if I saw a significant improvement in his attention. I want to see what his teacher thinks when school starts. Well, here is hoping for a better day tomorrow!

Fun feeding the ducks at the park before we were driven off by an angry gang of geese

One bite for the ducks, one bite for me!

Ben loved watching the ducks!

 

 

 

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Vacation take two!

We are on our second vacation of the summer… I know! Two vacations in one summer, crazy! Our parents have been asking us to go for years and we decided to go ahead and do both trips while we still have two incomes coming in (I still get paid until the end of the summer). This one is going well so far, except for the fact that the DVD player in Shaun's truck stopped working! The kids didn't watch any movies yesterday and managed to entertain themselves. Two full days of driving is a lot for kids and a DVD once in a while can sure help break up the boredom. Luckily, I brought crayons and coloring books, their Leapfrog Tag readers, stickers, and felt boards. Today has been a little more stressful, but they are holding their own. I hope to get to relax a little more on this trip. We are spending a week on the beach with my parents. They rented a beach house and we plan on only doing a couple of activities besides the beach! I will update once we are there and settled.

Lilly's princess felt board

Blurry picture of my happy little guy!

Sam's felt board. Great purchase from Michaels!

 

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