Freedom

A few photos--of the less significant aspects of "Easter"

Is that Elton John in his Easter best?!

S sittin' pretty.
Ok, we've got these eggs, now what?

Ohhhh...now we get it.

Hey, Mom just ate my goodie!

At a friend's house for dinner, R & S scooped up more eggs.

R WUZ HERE

In the last month, R has become proficient at leaving his mark around the house--he enjoys making a mess wherever he can...

...especially on himself.

Reshelving the DVDs is a nightly routine for us.

Why do I bother folding the laundry and putting it away?

He especially seems to love emptying laundry baskets...

Fortunately he has also very recently discovered the joy of putting things INTO baskets, boxes etc--and he always gives himself a round of applause when the item he has just chucked in the general direction of its container actually makes it into the bin.

Let the therapy begin!

In October 2008 I took S to a pediatric neurologist because of our concerns over her delayed communication skills--she has always met or exceeded the age-appropriate milestones for talking or number of words a child should have. However, there are several things that are not what they should be--such as the fact that she doesn't answer questions with a "yes" or "no", rather she repeats what you asked her. She rarely initiates a request for anything, and when she does, it is also in the form of a question you would ask her--for example, if she was thirsty she would come to me (occasionally) and say, "Do you want something to drink?" All day long she can and does repeat songs, Bible verses, lines from story books and responses we have taught her, but there is almost no spontaneous interaction. All that to say, the physician tentatively diagnosed her with Asperger's syndrome, which, simplistically defined, is like a form of high-functioning autism in the area of social interaction. S also has weak core muscle strength and weak fine motor strength. Thus, we have now begun speech therapy and occupational therapy. All of the therapy is play-based, so that it is as enjoyable as possible for the kids. Some of the things the speech therapist has us working on are imaginary play, and emphasizing concepts like verbs ("Look, S, the dog is running,") and prepositions ("Can you put the box under the table?) The occupational therapist spends half an hour working on fine motor strength skills (like pinching or pulling apart playdough) and half an hour working on core muscle strength--the swing S is on below is helping her hold herself up and also grip the ropes.

So far, we really like the therapists, and I'm also thankful to be an occupational therapist with at least some knowledge of what the OT is doing and why (even though my area of specialization wasn't pediatrics.) You don't think God had that planned out ahead of time, do you?? (wink, wink) We'll let you know how things progress!

What are YOU doing October 27?

Well, it is official. I am due with our 3rd child October 27, although if my experience with going past the due date is any indicator it will be more like sometime in November ;) S and R are 21 months apart, and R and ? will be 20 months apart. I am 9 weeks pregnant: in the ultrasound we could see baby's heartbeat and arms, and baby wiggling around...amazing!

Birthday Boy

We've had lots of company visiting us during the last 3 weeks, thus the lack of posts lately, but here are some good pics to catch up. We celebrated R's first birthday, and also took the birthday boy to the Folsom City Zoo.

Here he is chasing the chickens that run free about the grounds.

3 Bears (shouldn't they be in a cage?!)
The peacocks were in all their glory

This is R "kissing" the bunny, which then turned into trying to eat the bunny.

For the big 01, we had a fire truck cake in honor of firefighter Uncle Nate (who was visiting from Ohio.)

He dug in with great gusto!

And was cramming the next bite in before he had finished chewing the first one.

No explanation needed.

Did you get enough sugar yet?

"Hey, bring back the cake!"

Wanna Hear A Dirty Joke?

Hey there, wanna hear a dirty joke?

A boy...
...fell in a mud puddle.

And then he fell down again...and again and again :)

Wanna hear another dirty joke?

I let the kids go outside after several days of rain and they were ecstatic. S has always loved animals and their "sounds," so there wasn't anything unusual about her running around saying "tweet, tweet" like a bird...until she ran up to me cuddling an actual bird. Unfortunately, this bird wasn't doing much tweeting.

Rest in peace, Tweet Tweet. (And I'm going to try not to think about S snuggling that nasty thing.)