Snow Fun

We've had very little snow this winter, but no complaints out of me.  The kids would like a little more, though.  We've really only had two instances where snow "almost" covered all of the grass.  During our first "big snow" the days were sunny and warm so the big boys spent a lot of time in the backyard.  This weekend is too cold for my taste so we've been inside.  I really enjoy watching kids play in the snow, though.  Here are my monkeys...

I do love how the blanket of snow on the ground and the peaceful flakes in the air take me back to my younger days when I would spend the entire winter outside.  Isn't it amazing how some small feeling can transport you instantly back in time?  For me it's the bright red cardinal on snow-covered branches and that strange feeling you get when it's so cold outside that your nostrils feel like they are freezing together.  I need to take my boys on more winter bird walks as they get older.  It is such a peaceful feeling.  Now they just want to scream and run and throw snowballs...not so peaceful:)

Happy snowy Sunday to you all, before it all melts again this week, :)

My Little Man

I love it that this little man...

calls his One-Eyed Monster the "Eyed-One Monster"
and calls Jabba the Hut "Jabba in the Hut"
and calls Angry Birds "Angly Birds"
and won't say "yes" anymore, but instead says "uh huh" or "mmm hhh"
and tells me that I can have marshmallows if I eat a good lunch
and yells "What you sayin'?" when he thinks I'm talking about him on the phone
and picks a new car every day to call "Grem" and thinks it's so funny
and can make me laugh even when he is having his best two-year-old tantrum.

I love my little man!!

Tennis

Scotte made a video of Aidan while he was at tennis last week.  Aidan is in the back on the left side of the net with his buddy, Nate (wearing a maroon fleece).  Aidan looks forward to tennis every week and we just love the whole thing.

You can see from the video how organized it is.  I love that there is no "down time" while each kid waits for a turn at the net.  Aidan is just as happy bouncing on the trampoline as he is hitting the ball.  This is just a small snippet of the 90-minute session, but it gives you a feel for how much Aidan loves it and how he is learning some tennis skills.  Right now they are mainly working on the different ways to hit the ball - I would be more technical but I am not a tennis player.  I'll let Scotte fill in the blanks some other time. :)  We have completely replaced physical therapy with tennis and Aidan is really thriving in this environment.

P.S. If you see times where it appears that Aidan has fallen on the ground, I assure you that he likes to do that on purpose, for fun.

School Update

Well, the truth is that I have been trying to write this post for the entire last 9 weeks of school.  I have begun it several times when I think things are going smoothly and then each time I have been jolted back to reality and have discontinued my writing.

Let me be clear: it is not that school is completely terrible.  It's just that I want it to be completely wonderful and it's just not.

Brendan is still doing an excellent job.  He is extremely well-behaved and he really just loves school.  His only sadness is that he only gets to go a couple days a week.

Aidan is doing quite well with all of the academic stuff.  He loves to sit at the kitchen table and do "homework" which certainly doesn't hurt anything.

Since school started they hired an additional intervention specialist and aide, so they essentially doubled the staff.  I can't complain about that either.  There is an aide in his classroom with him most of the time, but there are also 3 kids with Down syndrome in there so it is sort of necessary.

Most of the time I get a note home from school telling me that Aidan had a great day.  Sometimes he struggles with talking or making noises when he should be quiet and with touching friends.  The notes are not so fun on those days.

At the end of November or beginning of December Aidan starting to goof off with another kid in his class.  The kids' mom and I insisted that our kids be kept apart during class time and allowed to have fun at recess and lunch.  The problems both kids are having in class have escalated since then and despite out insistence it was just last week when they finally started to separate them.  Now we begin the process of "unlearning" some behaviors that have developed.  This is an example of the frustration I have felt with this school year.  I think we are all on the same page but the follow-through can be lacking.  It is much harder for Aidan to "unlearn" something than to deal with it immediately.  Perhaps they will learn their lesson on this one.

Mainly, I find that I dread the whole thing.  I'm irritated that I have to send more emails and call more meetings.  I dread opening the backpack after school and reading the note.  To be absolutely honest, this is the first "bad" experience I have had in dealing with a child with special needs in the sense that it's the first one that keeps me up a lot of nights and has me dreading many years to come. Who knew school would be the thing?  Okay, I kinda suspected it might be.  I know for certain that there are ways I can make next year better and some things that are wrong can't be changed this year.   But, you had better believe that if this crap is still going on in a few years I will be taking this to the next level or perhaps home-schooling by then.

So, there's my sob story and most likely the result of the fact that I am calling another meeting for next week.  I keep trying to look at the bright side.  Aidan is smart and is blossoming academically and socially.  He is happy at school.  Talking when he should be quiet is not really hurting anyone and he is nice to everyone.  The problems are certainly minor.  I'm sure from this post it may appear that I am over-reacting quite a bit, but I have only shared a few minor things here.  The truth is that I really like all of Aidan's school team and much of the problem might simply be related to our "newness."  I am new at this, the K teacher is new, and the intervention specialist is new in the situation we are in.  There's certainly a learning curve.  There are also a lot of people involved and it takes some work to be sure everyone is on the same page.

I hope some parent out there can tell me that it gets easier with time!!

In the news

This little guy has been the big thing in the Down syndrome community over the last few weeks but I was thinking that the grandmas in my family probably have not seen it yet. Tonight he made the evening news.  Check it out!!

The Nightly News

I first read about this little boy, Ryan, from a blog I enjoy...Noah's Dad.  Noah's Dad hit the nail on the head.  As a parent of a child with Down syndrome it is awesome to see a child with Down syndrome doing something completely normal and no one is making a big deal about it.   I instantly purge $100 just by walking through the doors of Target, but now I have another reason to love that place.  At Target, my kid will be treated just like all the others.

Ho Ho Ho

We just had an amazing Christmas break at our house!  I'm sad it's over in many ways, but it's good for the kids to get back into a routine.  They were very happy to go back to school.  Aidan asked me to go just about every day over break, and he wouldn't even take a break from school work.  He sat at our kitchen table and did "work" for at least 2 hours per day over break, even on Christmas day!  The crazy child!!  As annoyed as I was about this on Christmas, it's good for him to stay in the habit of working so I let him do it as much as he wanted.

We started our break with the boys' Christmas party at school.  Aidan managed to snag my camera and took a few photos of his own at the party - he got his teacher, Mrs. Thompson, and his two aides, Mr. Jeremy and Ms. Stephanie.  I love school parties!!  This particular party was very calm with some food and crafts.

We celebrate Christmas Eve at our house with a couple of fun activities for the kids.  We always try to decorate our gingerbread house, and it was really fun this year.  Scotte was working late so I had to do it myself this time.  If you've ever seen a snowman or gingerbread house constructed by my husband, the engineer, then you will know that they are fairly perfect.  I am not an engineer, plus I was trying my hardest to keep Liam from eating all the candy.  Soooo, this house was constructed by the children, alone, and they did a marvelous job but it is nowhere near perfect. :)  Liam ate so much candy, though, and did very little decorating.

When we visited Nana and Papa at Thanksgiving, we took the boys to visit Santa and they made some reindeer food for us to give to the reindeer on Christmas Eve.  Well, my friend, Bethany, gave us the idea of constructing a runway for the reindeer out of paper chains and sprinkling the food there.  The boys really got into that idea so we ran with it.  I don't think they have much of a concept of how big a sleigh and all the reindeer would be, because our runway was fairly pathetic, but I guess that wasn't the point.  They enjoyed doing this, though, so I think it will become part of our tradition.

Of course, after bath and stories we have to leave out cookies and milk for Santa.  Yum!!

Last year Scotte and I stayed up half the night on Christmas Eve to set up the kids' fish tank.  I was relieved to get to bed at a normal hour this year!  I wasn't counting on Brendan waking up at 3:30 in the morning, though!  The little guy was so excited to open presents.  I let him climb into bed with us at that point because I could tell he was not going to go back to sleep.  He bugged approximately every 10 minutes to find out how much longer he had to wait to go downstairs.  Finally, at 6am, I let him wake up his brothers.  Then, madness ensued!!

I think their favorite present was the Cars 2 Geo Trax set.  We haven't stopped playing with it yet!  It took Liam the ENTIRE day to open all of his presents.  He was perfectly content with whatever his brothers were opening and he truly would have been happy with one new toy.  I love 2 year olds!!

Well, I still haven't taken down our Christmas decorations or put away the new toys.  This weekend is the time!!  I guess I don't want the fun to end yet.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!!

Elliott Christmas

When I was a kid we celebrated Christmas on Christmas day.  We got up and opened presents.  Then we went and visited one set of grandparents before my other grandma came to our house to visit.  We don't live close enough to our families to do this so our kids are quite used to celebrating one holiday or birthday for several days.  We spent one weekend having Christmas with my family and then another celebrating with Scotte's family.  It is quite fun to have so much Christmas.

I am pleased to report that there were no unexpected surprises of the puking variety during this visit. :)  Scotte's brother and wife hosted us and it was an easy drive, the kids all played well together, and we left in good spirits.

The Elliott Cousins

 The kids all gave each other books for presents and Nana and Papa got quite a bit of cooking gear.  We came home with many Lego's and other fun toys.

As usual, some of the best photos were taken by Aidan.  He loves to catch people eating or drinking.

Merry Christmas to the Elliott Family.  Thanks for everything!!

Matthews Christmas

I should title this post "A Very Pukey Christmas" except we had too much fun to call it that!

When we left home to visit my parents for Christmas everyone was doing well and we were all very excited to start our first Christmas celebration of the season.  We didn't get out of Columbus until after dinner time and we  fought some traffic out of town.  Then, we were about an hour from our house (into a 2.5 hr drive) when we got stuck in non-moving traffic on the highway due to an accident.  We were stuck for awhile when Aidan started puking.  It was even less fun than it sounds because not only were we stuck on a highway with a puking child, but we were in a CAR.  Not a van.  A CAR.  And Aidan was in the middle.  Puking on his brothers.  Who couldn't move out of the way.  And did I mention we were stuck on the highway?  And we were more than an hour from either our house or my parents except the cars were not moving.  We managed to pull off the side of the road and get everything cleaned up as much as possible.  We had a few blankets which we tried to use to drape over Aidan and contain the mess until we got to our destination.  Once the traffic got moving again we made the executive decision to continue to my parents house.  I'm sure they were thrilled we were arriving, but all I wanted was fresh air and a washing machine.

When Aidan gets a stomach virus he is practically comatose and will vomit every 10-15 mins for about 12 hours straight.  He does this every time.  This is exactly what he did at my parents house.  He was sick all night and finally stopped around 5am.  My poor baby.  The next day he was a little low on energy and would not eat, but he was clearly feeling better.  We all enjoyed a great Christmas celebration!!  The kids were so excited to open their first presents of the season!

The kids liked to help me wrap the presents this year and they even managed to keep them secret.

My Dad and his gigantic bottle of Crown Royal

My Mom and her new Keurig

Of course, Aidan was feeling well enough on Saturday to take a few photos.  He takes a few here and there that make me laugh.

We had a wonderful time with my parents and it always goes too quickly.  Unfortunately, we did get my dad sick and I feel really badly about that.  Sorry, Dad!!  Maybe because the boys were all over him and my mom all weekend.

 Aidan was feeling pretty good when we left my parents house.  He was being his silly self again.

Wouldn't you know it that Brendan got sick in the car on the way home.  Luckily we were only 20 mins from home and there was no traffic.  Liam followed later that night.  It was short for all 3 boys.

Thanks for everything, Mom and Dad!!  Stay tuned for more Christmas  to come!!