October 2009
7 posts
a book reading marathon just transpired...
i just had one of those miracle moments of parenthood. yowza.
it has been just about 9 weeks since the first speech therapy appointment where i saw my kid sit still for an entire book for the first time. that was huge for all of us, and we’ve made a point of keeping up the momentum since then. it seems that therapy consumes most of our awake time in one form or another, so moments like...
dream a little dream
i’ve spent almost the entire weekend trying to rack my brain for something to write about, and then i suddenly remembered wednesday morning. it’s amazing how quickly we forget. but i digress… wednesday morning was a rare morning because the husbot and i had a few mutual minutes of downtime together before the chaos of the day begins.
he was making scrambled eggs, and i was...
SPD parenting fail
some parents fret when they can’t find the beloved teddy bear or blanket. no, no. not me. i managed to lose the ‘brush and squish’ brush.
as we do it in intervals every couple of hours, i know it’s here somewhere. it can’t have gone far. in fact, it should be right here in this room as i type, damnit.
but alas, it was nowhere to be found for pre-bed...
heaven sent: weighted blanket
so… quick back story. the kidbot has always been this strange combination of being an AWESOME sleeper, and a HORRIBLE sleeper - both at the same time.
my kid is famous for once putting himself down for a nap when his grandpa was babysitting. he just grabbed his blanket and went to his room. he has never cried at bedtime. he, to this day, has been known to take luxurious 3 hour naps in...
on the topic of tubes & adenoids
it was at his 4-year check up earlier this summer that i finally managed to extract two things from a pediatrician:
1) a referral to an ENT, based on my theory that the kid couldn’t hear well 2) a referral to the OHSU Childhood Development & Rehabilitation Center for his delays.
the second got us to an utterly passive speech therapist who at least gave us a one-on-one referral that...
the listening program (TLP); aka voodoo
someone, somewhere just spit coffee on their keyboard from that title. i’m ok with that. as far as i can tell it is a type of therapy that parents either love or found to be a very expensive waste of time. truth be told, we are a week and a half in, and while i find the whole thing to be complete and utter voodoo - voodoo doesn’t exist without a little magic.
here’s the...
bad blogger, no cookie
it’s been 2 weeks since my last post. i totally suck. my only explanation is that i fell into a black hole at work, and have just been able to find the energy to feel human, much less inspired to write.
the good news is that work is going exceedingly well. in the past couple of weeks, my little company launched the first two apps that you see on this screen:
(we actually built...
September 2009
15 posts
the art of articulation
one of the things that totally sucks about having a kid with a speech delay is his inability to tell you what’s going on his head. whether it’s that he isn’t feeling good or whether it is what happened at school today, he generally isn’t good at answering any when, where, why or how questions.
i was actually laughing with a co-worker this week that since we started the...
a plateau of sorts.
after two weeks of astonishing progress with the kidbot, this week was, well… meh.
we had tantrums. we had a whole day of a little boy with horns and a forked tail. it is undeniable that the kidbot was a handful, and both the husbot and i were tired. it was also the first week that he was back in ESD after a summer break. i’m sure that the introduction of new kids, a new routine,...
like mama, like son
‘
this is how the kidbot watches tv.
ok, so not always - but at least a couple of times a week and has for quite some time. now, i’ve had other people comment that it’s odd, quirky behaviour, and i always chuckled. you see, i watched tv this way when i was little too. now, i recognize that this is one of his coping mechanisms for getting vestibular stimulation.
sometimes you...
open mouth. insert foot.
so today i was at a client meeting. this is what i do. i meet with clients. i am usually pretty okay at it.
today was sucktastically different.
you see, in a completely and utterly benign matter, my client asked “so what school does the kidbot go to?” to which i responded…
“well, he’s not in a formal preschool, he’s in a daycare… except for classes twice weekly through the school district,...
the new schedule
while i am not one of the millions who sent a kindergartner off to school for the first time last week, i am the mama of a boy who will have a new, very rigorous schedule.
we just found out when the kidbot’s ESD classes through the school district will be, and they start tomorrow. additionally, we have just sorted out our therapy schedule.
the kidbot’s weeks, from here on out:
...
weekend routine
my husband works both friday and saturday nights - oftentimes not getting home till 3 or 4. thus, since the kidbot was born, my primary weekend morning activity has been trying to distract the kidbot and avoid meltdown so that the husbot can get just a little bit of sleep.
at the beginning of the summer, i realized that getting out of the house was the only fail-safe way to do this, so we...
two steps forward... one step back.
as much as i would love to do nothing but celebrate the kidbot’s progress here, i think it’s important to track a little bit of everything.
today we had a bona fide, not at home, potty accident.
now, the kidbot’s been potty trained for as long as i can remember. certainly more than a year, if not much, much longer… today’s potty accident happened in the car, at...
a follow up post...
i awoke to find a “stickies” note on my laptop from my husband. i suppose this happens when you use tumblr and are too lazy to hook up discus comments. here’s what he shared:
btw, when i picked bobo up from school yesterday (thursday), he was sitting in a room full of madness and mayhem with his backpack on, amidst the other kids, reading a book. when i came in and said,...
"no mama, not right now."
my kid said this to me today.
parents of most four year olds don’t really get excited when their kids say things like “no mama, not right now.” in fact, i’d imagine that most parents dislike it. they just see similar statements as their kid being difficult.
but not me. i’m proud of him.
you see, up until his fourth birthday my kid had two full (more than 3 word)...
the importance of naming things.
for many, many years now, i’ve been obsessed with naming.
for instance - i am a girl named james married to a man named jaimie. i wrote my english thesis on william blake and how in the book of urizen he argued that naming, classification and the fundamental structure of human language would forever keep us from the knowing the divine. also, my obsession with naming and classification is...
seeking the elusive sensory limit
today we had our first “real” appointment with the OT. last week (when we learned the brushing protocol) was merely an evaluation visit. the appointment confirmed the fact that i very much like our therapist, and the hour was good for more than a few belly laughs. this is not the type of therapy we pay her for, but is side benefit and is much cheaper than seeing a therapist to work...
traumatic birth coming back around for more trauma
so part of the parenting experience, whether you’ve got a healthy child or not, is a healthy dose of parental guilt. you spend an awful lot of time wondering if you are doing the right thing. whether you should have done this, or whether that was the wrong choice. you are wondering if your parents, your peers, your siblings and those other people on the playground or in the supermarket...
brown bear, brown bear
my husband and i were both english majors.
we have so many books in our house that we have vowed never to move again simply so that we don’t have to move them or the numerous, heavy book shelves we own to house them.
i have tried for nearly three years to get my son to sit still for an entire book. (even a very small board book).
above all of our other various parenting challenges,...
the wilbarger protocol (aka brush & squish)
(lego pig pictured for perspective; please forgive my need to vacuum)
on tuesday (the first day someone said for certain “you’re son has sensory issues”) his occupational therapist (OT) decided to put us on the the wilbarger protocol.
so every hour and a half of the kidbot’s waking moments, we have been doing a 5-10 minute “brush & squish” session. the...
my kid has SPD (in media res)
this blog is beginning in the middle of a story that began to unfold a few years ago.
as time goes i hope to fill in some of the back story, but until then, i want to track the progress my kid has made since we first had a name for his issues and started to get help. (real help, after a few fits and starts).
it is september of 09 now, and travis (often referred to as the kidbot) turned four in...