5 months

Nate 5 months 5 days:



Levi 5 months 6 days:



Lucy 5 and a half months:


Here are the boys side by side:

IEP

Nate's annual IEP meeting was yesterday at school. This is a very important meeting to determine Nate's placement for the next year. My hopes were that Nate would get some "typical peer" exposure. My expectations were that the school was going to propose Nate stay in his current placement.

Nate's area of need now is social development, but how is he going to get that if he's the highest functioning in his class and only around children who don't speak or speak atypically? In addition, I've seen Nate start to bring home some negative behaviors. I know he isn't perfect, but I do think if he's going to pick things up from his peers, they would hopefully be "normal kid" things.

After reading over Nate's recent assessments and the proposed goals for him in this next year as a group, the district representative made their offer of placement. I was beyond thrilled; it was exactly what I would have asked for if I had been able to create a "perfect plan" for Nate! Starting in May, Nate will do his normal day at school (first half in non-severe Special Day Class, second half in IBI), but he will leave IBI for one hour to go into the regular preschool, Preschool Connections. An IBI staffer will go with Nate (and possibly one or two other children), but that staffer will help with all the kids in the class and won't be velcroed to Nate. So that person won't be his aide; however, he/she will know Nate's goals and areas of need. After a month or two with this setup, we will probably increase the time Nate is in the regular preschool. Then, by late September/October, he will be in the regular preschool full-time, with probably an hour a day in IBI to work specifically on Nate's goals and kind of as a daily check-in. I'm super excited!

The goals for the next year include maintaining appropriate physical proximity when engaged in conversation or play (i.e., respect personal space); greeting others once and waiting for a response (not repeating the greeting over and over); maintaining a reciprocal conversation (asking questions and waiting for answers); accepting not getting his own way or not getting to be first for an activity; sustaining attention to complete a 10-minute, non-preferred task; skipping; raising his hand and waiting to be called on; cutting better with scissors; and drawing more simple shapes.

Nate will go for the extended school year (school through July) and will have August off, like last year. I signed him up to take the bus in the mornings starting at the end of June!

All in all, it was a wonderful meeting, and I left smiling!

Gluten-free getting easier

Some cool news: Kix, Rice Chex, (and possibly some other General Mills cereals) have been reformulated and are now GFCFSF! If you look at the old Kix ingredients, you can see they had gluten (whole grain oats), but they don't anymore. Jon called the manufacturer and also confirmed the cereals are made in a dedicated facility, which means nothing else with gluten is made there. This means more things are available for GFCFSF dieters at the regular grocery store, and they cost less than the specialty cereals we usually have to buy.

Language development

I've been fascinated with the children's language development lately. It's so cute to watch Lucy as she soaks in tons of knowledge each day. She just got over a stage where she knew she wanted to create possessives when speaking, but she couldn't get it quite right. Instead of "Lucy's cup," she would say, "Lucy cups." Instead of "Nate's room," it was "Nate rooms." She just started getting it right in the last week or two. She also used both "it" and the object in a sentence: "Where is it, cup?" or today: "Cami bonked it head."

Nate is speaking very well. It's fun to watch him make "correct mistakes." That is, he has internalized a certain "rule" for language, but he doesn't know all the weird exceptions to the rule in English. For example, the other day he wanted me to put the deck of cards down so he could deal, but he wanted me to do it like Daddy did: "No Mama, don't do it softly. Do it hardly."

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Would love these hair clips for Lucy. Her hair is getting crazier and crazier.

Injured Lucy

Poor Lucy has had a tough couple of days. Not only does she have a cold, but she also got hit in the eye last night (with a plastic colander while we were dancing in the kitchen), and she got a splinter somehow today. That splinter required about 10 minutes of screaming to get out! (I waited 'til Jon got home for that one.)

Pre-colander injury


Using the "boo-boo bunny"


Silly girl playing with glasses today

"And Mom and Dad can hardly wait..."

This has been spring break week, so Nate has been home from school all week. The mornings have been soooo much nicer not having to rush to get everyone out of the house by 8:10. However, Nate and Lucy aren't used to so much uninterrupted time together. There was a lot of bickering going on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It got better yesterday, and things are pleasant today. It doesn't help that I feel very hormonal! Ha!

The title from this post is from a Christmas song. My dad used to sing this line all the time as a "joke" when we were kids. "And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again..." Real funny, Daddy. Real funny. :)

Here are two aprons I made in the past few days to donate for our church's women's luncheon/raffle thing.

Chubby boy

Levi is turning into our chubbiest baby, I think.




I brought out the Bumbo for the first time for Levi today. Of course, the other kids had to have a turn, too. :)

Lucy's birthday

Ahhh, our Lucy. I have so much I could say about this rambunctious, opinionated, spunky girl of ours. She is smart and very verbal--but usually only at home. When we are out and about, she is quite serious and doesn't like talking in front of people. I'm finding it a parenting challenge to get her to greet people when they say hi to her. (My opinion: even a shy child should learn to say hello.) But when we're home, she talks up a storm in full sentences. Her favorite person in the world is her daddy. Lately, she has been afraid of random things (e.g., the garbage truck, a texturey koosh ball I showed her in the store, the turtle bracelet Mimi sent for her birthday). Sometimes, when she sees something that worries her or when she's about to go down a "scary" slide at the park, she murmurs in a little froggy sounding voice, "Daddy..." even when he's nowhere around. She also sometimes says, "That scaried me." Lucy is all about doing things by herself, except when she knows I want her to do it by herself. (Example: she wants to get in and out of the car and carseat by herself, but she doesn't want to walk up the stairs in the house by herself. Also, I set up the toddler bed in her room, but she vehemently refuses to sleep in it because she knows I want her to.) She eats anything and everything; if we're at a party or church function, we always know where to find Lucy: by the food. She's a girl after my own heart!

Here are a few pictures and video from the small party at the park on Saturday.

Happy birthday video:


The cake was a Namaste spice cake mix that is gluten-, casein-, and soy-free, so Nate could have it. I also made this frosting and only frosted 2/3 of the cake since Nate couldn't have that part. That frosting was good!

Finding the time

Several people have asked recently how I find the time to sew when I have three kids. Thankfully, all three children take an afternoon nap at the same time (though Nate has been staying awake lately in his room), so I get at least an hour there. Then, I stay up late at night. I don't stay up often, but if it means finishing a project, I guess I get that late-night crafting adrenaline. I've decided sewing is my "outlet," just like reading or taking walks or knitting or cooking might be for others. And then I read this post, which hits the nail on the head: when I sew, I get to finish something!

Fashion statement

Today Lucy wanted not only Jon's shoes but also his socks. It's a great look. (If only the socks were rainbow, too.)




Speaking of Lucy, her 2nd birthday came and went yesterday, and I didn't post! I'll post after our little family party tomorrow.

Unrelated but I wanted to document it somewhere: Levi fits well in the BumGenius one-size diapers now (using 2 newborn inserts), and the medium Fuzzi Bunz actually fit fine too. Cool!

First aquarium visit

The aquarium was fun! Nate really enjoyed it, though I think his favorite parts weren't the animals themselves but getting to lead the way and call out, "Mama, look!" Lucy was fine as long as she had a snack (but that's how she always is!), and Levi was a happy kid as usual. In about 2 hours, we got to see all the exhibits, even outside, though we rushed past some things. I loved the jellyfish!

Aquarium

We're going to the Aquarium of the Pacific tomorrow evening for the first time (here's the special event info). I told Nate about it last week, and he has been mentioning it several times a day since then. I hope the kids love it!

Nate's neuro appointment today

The appointment today went very well! I went in with expectations on the low side since I'm not extremely impressed with this doctor's view of biomedical treatments or with how much she talks (a ton). (This isn't the actual neurologist but the nurse practitioner, Teri, who follows all of the neurologist's original diagnosis patients.) She spent some time talking with us and observing Nate. Although she didn't officially redo the CARS test (bummer), she did have some great things to say about Nate.

• She thinks he would be OK placed in a "regular" preschool.


• She says she can just "hear" autism when a child with autism speaks--something in the inflection, the stilted meter, the way the child speaks; she can't hear it in Nate. She used the words "best I've ever heard" about Nate's language.


• When I asked specifically if it would be beneficial for us to have an updated CARS test on Nate, she said no. Then she said, "If I did the test again on him now, there is a high likelihood he would not place on the autism spectrum at all. Perhaps I could find some tiny thing here or there to put him on the spectrum, but I really don't think so." This was awesome! So although we didn't get a new CARS number, we essentially got the neurologist nurse practitioner to say that Nate probably wouldn't qualify for a diagnosis.

The subject of one-to-one aides also came up, when I said I thought maybe the school could place Nate in a "regular" preschool class this next year with an aide. Teri gave us her opinion of aides in general (a negative one), which was good to hear. Perhaps I don't want an aide for Nate. Teri's opinion was that parents use aides as a crutch in order not to let their children possibly fail or flounder on their own; in addition, aides aren't properly trained.

All in all, the NP was very impressed with Nate and his progress. She also had some nice things to say to/about us as parents and how we interact with him. I left the appointment feeling energized, excited, and proud of our awesome little boy!

Pics and dates

We've had a normal but busy week around here! Here are some cute pictures.







Some upcoming dates I'm sure I'll blog about:

March 27: Nate going to the neurologist for a follow-up and updated CARS test
April 2: Lucy's 2nd birthday
April 16: Nate's IEP with the school district
May 1: Nate's 4th birthday AND Mimi is visiting for the weekend

New bed, no pressure

We got a toddler bed (from Craigslist) for Lucy last week, and I took apart her crib bumper to turn it into a comforter/blanket. I made the pillow with the leftover chenille. So far, Lucy has only taken one nap in the big girl bed and has wanted her crib, which is still set up in her room awaiting Levi in a couple of months, the rest of the time. No pressure--I figure if she thinks the bed is her idea, she's more likely to transition well. She's the type who will resist doing something just because she knows we want her to, so I'm acting ambivalent about it now since it really doesn't matter at this point anyway. (Levi is still in the bassinet in our room.) If she's still choosing her crib in another couple of weeks, I will begin choosing the bed for her.





And speaking of Levi, here is our little business man:

Kids

Nate at 3 and a half months


Levi at 3 and a half months


At first I was just going to put pictures of the boys, but here's Lucy too! I don't have many of her around 3.5 months because that's when we were moving...