Wisconsin, Circa ~1983

My mother-in-law gave me these photos of Joe last weekend. They were taken on a trip to Wisconsin in roughly 1983 (taking my best guess there). Wasn't he a cutie?!

The time has come....school time, that is. The elementary school begins the 2007-2008 school year on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Nathaniel won't be starting until September 11th, due to a new pre-school teacher being hired yet again. Apparently within the next two weeks, we're going to get a call from said teacher to set up an "orientation" where I can take Nate in to meet and get acquainted with the new teacher. As much as it irritates and annoys me that he won't be starting with the rest of the school, it's nice that he'll be able to meet the new teacher before the first day of class.

In preparation for Nate's return to school, I pulled out his IEP for this year and started to review it. Whenever I read one of the IEP's, it tends to suck the life out of me. Seeing all the goals written there in black and white really makes you face how different he is than his peers and how much work this little guy has ahead of him. I look at his goals and think that maybe we've set them too high but then I look over his IEP from last year and remember thinking the same exact thing. And yet he reached and/or exceeded almost all the goals set before him on that one. Not only did he reach and/or exceed the goals put before him, but the teachers and therapists taught him so much more above and beyond. When we first put him in pre-school in May of 2006, he was barely speaking 1 or 2 works consistently. Although he still needs constant prompting, he now uses 4-5 word sentences consistently. Most recently, I've taught him "ask nicely" which will get me a "Can I have iced water please?" or "Can I have letters please?"

I've also been working with him on his scissor use. He has a very difficult time holding the scissors correctly and cutting. He tends to turn them sideways so I have to tell him repeatedly to turn his wrist so that his thumb if facing up. The problem with this menial task is that Nathaniel has absolutely no interest in it at all. I've tried making it fun but it doesn't really help much. He has improved since the beginning of the summer but it's VERY slow going.

We've also seen some of his sensory issues improve over the summer. For those of you who don't know, Nate has some sensory issues with textures. At the beginning of the year, you could NOT get him to touch or play with Playdoh. This summer, he requests to play with it often. He has a George Foreman Grill made for Playdoh and he loves it. He likes the sizzling sounds it makes and loves making "fries" with one of the attachments it comes with.

I've also brought out the fingerpaints a few times. Whenever I ask him if he wants to do it, he says "no" so I've changed my approach. I TELL him we're going to get out the fingerpaints and that, along with his sisters, they're going to draw some pictures. Thankfully, the girls love it so it encourages Nate to do it longer. A few weeks ago when we pulled it out, he amazingly did it for about 5-6 minutes. He didn't even ask for something to wipe his hands on for several minutes. Here are some pics of the kids fingerpainting!

One of the last things that the therapists/teachers were working on was the concept of in/on and under/over, etc. He really didn't have the hang of it before he left at the end of the year but a few weeks ago, I noticed that he seemed to have a pretty good grasp on some of it. We had been in Concord and as we were waiting to turn onto the highway, he said "under the bridge" and sure enough, we were under a bridge. Since then, he's also said stuff like "sand in the truck" so it's nice to know he's finally caught on to this.

His goals for this upcoming year are a continuation of what he's already been working on:

• Tripod grasp when holding a writing utensil - you have to constantly remind him to hold it the right way
• Gradually increasing his time of play with Playdoh and fingerpainting
• Scissor use - being able to cut a 5" line within 1/2"
• Putting on/Taking off outdoor clothing with minimal help
• Writing the uppercase letters
• Participating in non-preferred activities for 4 minutes with minimal prompting
• Better eye contact during story time (7 minutes where he pays attention to the book/teacher)
• Yes/No questions (asking him 10 yes/no questions and him getting 1/2 right)
• Increase his MLU to 2-5 words with 80% accuracy
• Getting him to use pronounds, prepositions and verbs
• Potty training

It's such a daunting list when you spell it out like that but I'm so hopeful that he'll do as well this year as he did last year. Some of the goals listed above, he's already working towards and I'm elated to say that he's completely potty trained!! After the first week, it really clicked with him and he's had VERY few accidents since then. We put him in a pullup at night but 99% of the time, he's dry when he wakes up. This past weekend, he even started showing some independence in going to the potty, only needing help with wiping and pulling up his pants.

So as it stands, we have 15 days and counting until school starts!!

The Ocean Revisited

I love seeing Nate's growth over the years in these shots. I really wanted to do something like this with the twins too, but alas, they wouldn't cooperate and sit on the wall for photos. Oh well, maybe next year. Anyway, if you click on the photo, you can enlarge it to see it better.

Some photos from our trip to Maine this past week. Everyone had a blast and the kids loved the beach!

Maddie NOT loving the ocean!

Joe and Nate walking out into the ocean for the first time.
Nate catching some air!
A favorite of mine.
Splashing is his favorite thing to do.
Looking for shells and rocks.
Maddie's favorite part - chasing the sea gulls.
The kids and daddy building sand castles.

The working together to fill a bucket!

Madison
Lexi's in the blue.
Lexi hanging out in daddy's chair.
The girls making sand castles.
Lexi
Maddie was showing daddy her tower after a day at the beach.
1.....2.....3....they're out!
Waiting for the Wells Trolley.
Lexi on the trolley.

Everyone pointing at the ocean at Ogunquit beach (except Lexi, who chose to pick her nose instead).

The ONLY photo of all 3 of them together on the break wall. The girls hated being up there.

Love this one of Nate.
Nate with his first seashell! He was saying "shell" here!
The girls standing in front of the break wall.
Maddie posing for the camera.
The girls hugging.
And a kissy!
Love this one too!

Our Goings On of Late...

I can't believe that the summer of '07 is on it's way out already. It seems like it just arrived and we're now already into August. We took the kids to Kittery and York (in Maine) on Saturday. It was a hot 90+ degrees and everyone else was apparently thinking the same: the beach. All the parking lots were full so we ended up skipping it and just visiting some friends. Never fear though - we'll be heading back at the end of the month for a few days so the kids will definitely get some beach time, weather permitting. We were up there all day and didn't take one single photo. Odd for us, huh? I promise there'll be beach photos at the end of the month.

In the meantime...on Sunday after getting home from shopping, Lexi managed to get stung by a yellow jacket. Joe found a nest underneath the deck - it was the size of a softball. Lexi was screaming bloody murder saying "bee....hurt" in between sobs. But I couldn't make out where she'd been stung. I finally got her to pull her head out of my shoulder when I saw the sting. In the corner of her right eye. Here are some quick pics I took while she was eating lunch, just after she'd been stung.

She was showing me where the "bee" stung her.

The little red dot to the left of her eye is the actual sting.
You can see how puffy her eye was here.

Side shot.

And our other big excitement for Sunday. The girls started sleeping in their big girl beds! The transition went VERY well. They played around for about an hour and after all seemed quiet, we crept into the room and snapped these 2 photos. Maddie's in the bed on the left, Lexi sleeping with her head at the opposite end of the bed on the right.

And last but not least...today I worked with Nathaniel on coloring inside the lines. Previously when we've tried this, it has not gone so well. This time, I'm happy to say, was a huge success. The top shapes I made and colored in to show him. The bottom ones, I drew but HE colored in. The circle has lines because he was going to make it into a sun. :) So he did great!!