Everyday Adventures

Anyone need their floors mopped?

2010-02-07T23:26:00.001-05:00

Bitty is your man, as long as you don't mind puddles all over the floor. We have one of those Swiffer Wet-Jets that spray and then you mop. He LOVES the spray.

He got the idea from one of his books (he likes to act out scenes from his books, not entire sequences but one little snippet repeated over and over and over). This time, it was a mopping scene.

He grabbed the mop from the closet and went to work. At first, I was happy to let him. Who am I to argue with a child who wants to mop?

But as I heard him spraying over and over, and realized he was going to use up the entire bottle of cleaning spray if I didn't put a stop to it, I told him "Good job, 'Bitty,' all done with the mop." He ignored me and kept on, leaving big puddles in his wake as he was more interested in spraying than actually mopping up.

I took the mop away.

He went ballistic.

I had to hide the mop in the garage to keep it away from him. And then stand guard by the door to the garage while he raged on about the mop and tried to forcibly move me away from the door. No attempts to redirect worked. He eventually started to settle down and I went on to other things. As soon as he figured the coast was clear, he snuck into the garage and the next thing I knew, there's that spraying sound again!

Bitty - 1, Mama - 0

I put the mop outside on the back porch. He can't open that door so I didn't have to stand guard. He went ballistic again.

After a while, seeing that I was not going to give in, he came up with Plan B.

Plan B involved throwing his sippy cup around the kitchen in an attempt to leave little drops of chocolate milk all over the floor.

Little drops that would need to be... wait for it... mopped up.

Which would force me to bring the mop back in, right?

Ah, I'm impressed with your logic, Bitty. Impressed, but not fooled ;).

Instead of going for the mop, I grabbed a paper towel and started wiping up the spilled milk. (Well, first I tried to get HIM to wipe it up but you can imagine how that went over *snort*)

Oh, he was not impressed. He grabbed my hands trying to force me to stop, shouting, "No NA-KIN, NOOOO NA-KIIIIIINN!" (no napkin).

The mop spent the night outside. As I type this, it has been brought back in but is hiding in the garage. Add this to the list of chores that must be done when Bitty is either at school or asleep (also on the list - laundry because he is forever turning the washer off mid-wash).

I know his mile-wide stubborn streak came from ME, so I guess I have no one to blame but myself... But at least that makes me a somewhat even match for his stubborn self, right? (Oh, who am I kidding?) ;).

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2nd amendment, 3rd grade style :)

2010-02-07T22:48:00.000-05:00

This past week, Cuddlebug was studying for his social studies test, which was on our form of government and the very basics of the U.S. Constitution. I take issue with some of what is in his textbook but I make a point not to contradict it (at least until after the test, lol) because I know that would just confuse him and not help him on his test.

But I couldn't help myself when we got to the question about the Bill of Rights, because while it said "Bill of Rights" it really only mentioned the rights contained in the first amendment. Important as the 1st amendment is, that's not the only one in the Bill of Rights! So I was sharing some other rights that are part of the Bill of Rights (figuring that's not contradicting the book, just adding to it, right? they can't count it wrong if he puts an answer that IS part of the Bill of Rights even if it's not one of the ones from the texbook).

Anyway, so after we went over the 1st amendment I started telling him about the others. As I was explaining what the term "right to bear arms" means, he looked at his arms (he was not wearing a shirt) and asked, "so we have the right to 'bare arms'?" He cracks me up. I said, well, yes, but that's not what it means. I explained it again, and he looked at his arms again. "Ok... but we DO have the right to 'bare arms' right?" lol. Yes, we do. It's not technically in the Constitution, but we do have the right to go sleeveless wherever and whenever we choose. ;)

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IEP's and other updates

2010-02-06T22:48:00.004-05:00

It's been a crazy week. Crazy couple of weeks really... I think I've averaged about 4 hours of sleep a night. Finally got some rest last night but my brain is still fried, so here are some random updates:

2 IEP's down, 1 to go... both Cuddlebug's and Bearhug's IEP's are done for the upcoming year. Not a whole lot of changes there. Bearhug's issues at school seem to have subsided for the time being and he is doing well although he still has the occasional blow-out at home. I think all kids probably go through things like that as they get older, but his difficulties expressing himself and sensitivity to certain situations can really exacerbate things at times. And I wonder how much is actually biochemical and perhaps not entirely in his control to begin with? We've noticed that he tends to be more likely to have outbursts when he hasn't eaten in a while, so we wondered if it is low blood-sugar or something like that affecting his behavior. When we mention that to him and offer him something to get his blood sugar up that seems to help him calm down, not sure if it's actually the food or psychological (or maybe just coincidental?) but we will ask the doctor about it at his upcoming appt (we have an appt for him scheduled w/ a specialist next month).

Bitty's IEP meeting is scheduled for next week. His teacher mentioned we will probably discuss transition to kindergarten when we meet. I'm not sure what kind of kindergarten placement will be best for him... the only options I'm aware of are (1) typical class with resource support and (2) self-contained class. The class he's in now is sort of a unique setup which includes some NT peers (a year younger than he is) and some special needs peers. It's a smaller class than the pre-k classes and has three teachers, at least one of whom is a special ed teacher. It has worked out really well for him. I think he's ready for kindergarten from an academic standpoint (he's a great reader and a fast learner) but his delays in social/communication skills are pretty significant relative to his peers (and getting more so the older he gets, despite all the progress he's making). I guess I'm rambling, and I should just quit worrying about it until we can sit down and discuss what kind of options are available...

In other news, Cuddlebug has started having some difficulty with school, not so much with the work but with being motivated to do the work. When he complained to me about school and asked why he needs to learn things, I told him part of the reason is to help him in whatever job he chooses as an adult. To which he cried, "but my WIFE's gonna do that!!" lol. I informed him that if his plan is to be a full-time dad he also needs to "learn things" in order to be able to take care of his kids. How else does he expect to be able to teach them? He wasn't impressed, but stopped arguing with me (a miracle in and of itself, haha).

Later that week, his teacher emailed to tell me he was not participating in literature circles, not that he was in trouble but to give me a heads up that he had some low grades due to that (still has a B overall in reading though). I asked him about it and realized I never should have mentioned future job as a reason for studying when he informed me that the reason he doesn't participate in literature circles is because, "I'm not going to need that for my job." Really? Um, you can start specializing when you get to college, dude. In 3rd grade, you still have to do all the subjects. Sigh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some recent Bitty-isms:

"Issa wi-uhl werm" (sounds like "worm," but it's his way of saying "it's a little warm," so cute!)

"BIG bit" when he wants more than just a "little bit" :)

"bunny miwk" his latest name for chocolate milk, so named for the rabbit on the Nesquik package.

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Christmas 2009

2010-01-31T16:19:00.012-05:00

Still catching up on pictures, lol. Here are some pictures from Christmas :).

We let the boys open one present on Christmas Eve. Bitty actually fell asleep before that so he missed that part, but he made up for it the next morning :). (that's Bearhug on the left, Cuddlebug on the right). The presents are all spread out because they sorted them into separate piles... might as well be efficient and have everything ready to go for Christmas morning, right? ;).

We had been telling Bitty for a month, "you have to wait until Christmas to open presents." He got a little confused on Christmas Eve and opened one that he wasn't supposed to, but that day we kept telling him, "tomorrow is Christmas, tomorrow you can open your presents."

So the next morning, he woke up and promptly started helping himself to the presents, lol. We forgot to tell him to wait for the rest of the family... luckily Cuddlebug and Bearhug were up too, they caught him and came running upstairs to tell us, "MOM!!! DAD!!! 'Bitty's' opening presents!!!!" So he only opened three before we got downstairs. Oops. I guess next year we'll know to be more specific... and tell him to wait for the rest of us so we can open them together :). Honestly, I was just thrilled that he cared about the festivities at all, this is the first year he has really been "tuned in" to what's going on and interested in participating.

Bitty liked to stop after each present to check it out before moving on to the next one.

Christmas for Bearhug and Cuddlebug was a regular Poke-palooza, lol.

Lining up Pokemon cards...

Cuddlebug made this dream-catcher for me at school :).

One of Bitty's presents from his grandparents was this Thomas play tent.

In case you're wondering - yes, it is big enough for 8-yr-olds to fit inside too ;).

Even Orion got into the Christmas spirit with his light-up bandana and a present from his stocking ;).

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Pack meeting

2010-01-31T16:12:00.003-05:00

Bearhug and Cuddlebug had Pack Meeting this past Wednesday. They have each completed three achievements, which means they each earned a progress bead toward their Wolf badge. We convinced Bearhug to go to Scouts that night so he could get his award.

You wouldn't know it from this picture, but it didn't exactly go well... Bearhug was so overstimulated I had to take him out, but we came back in long enough for him to get his award (and then had to take them both out). I missed Cuddlebug's award since I was out in the hallway, but he came up to help me with Bearhug's. Bitty actually managed to stay the longest in Scouts (and he is not even a Cub Scout yet) but only by a few minutes, ended up in the gym trying to keep all three of them in visual range... kind of exhausting! This was our first pack meeting, next time I'll know to take something for Bearhug to do and make arrangements ahead of time for him to go in just long enough to get his award.

Cross-posted at Everyday Photography.

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SEW & WW: Down on the farm

2010-01-20T00:18:00.001-05:00

Bitty loves farm animals. He has a birthday coming up in a couple of months so I think we're going to take him to a local petting zoo to see the animals.

More Special Exposure Wednesday here. More Wordless Wednesday here and here :).

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Day at the park

2010-01-19T06:35:00.000-05:00

Found these from a while back that I never posted.

Technically this one was taken before we actually went to the park:

These ones were taken at the park.

Cuddlebug and Bearhug (orange shirt) were coordinating to slide down at the same time :).

Bitty has always loved playing in the wood chips.

But what's even better than wood chips, is discovering a water fountain nearby with a handle in easy reach (I think it's intended for dogs to drink from, the park includes a dog park).

And that was when I knew it was time to go home... or risk not only all three boys being soaked but anyone who came by on the sidewalk getting splashed. Not to mention the potential for flooding of the vicinity because I knew they would not turn the water off voluntarily.

Needless to say, my plan to leave the park was not well-received, but fortunately Bearhug and Cuddlebug were relatively cooperative so I only had to wrestle one boy to get him into the car.

Note to self: next time scope out the park for potential pitfalls before bringing the boys! (yeah, I know, I have had to learn that one the hard way too many times).

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You did what?!

2010-01-18T20:49:00.000-05:00

Last night's conversation between me and Bearhug:

BH: Hey, Mom, you know what? yesterday I found a cockroach in our bafroom.

me: (gag) Uh... is it still there?

BH: (with a proud grin) No! I squished it.

me: Oh, good... did you flush it?

BH: (perplexed expression, apparently he hadn't thought of that) uh... no...

me: (thinking uh-oh but remaining calm) what did you do with it then?

BH: (sheepish grin) well... I squished it wif toilet paper...

(so far, so good, right?)

BH continued: and den... I wrappeditupinasock... and putitinthebasket.

(key elements spoken quickly as if he's hoping I won't actually hear those parts; the basket he's referring to is the laundry basket)

me: are you kidding me?! you did not! (hoping against hope that he's joking)

He nodded emphatically.

me: you wrapped up a dead cockroach in a sock and put it in the laundry?!

More nods, from both Bearhug and Cuddlebug. Apparently Cuddlebug was an accomplice.

me: (still trying to wrap my head around not only a cockroach in the house but now, its corpse mixed in with our clothes in the laundry. eeewwwwww!!) uh... I'm proud of you for squishing it on your own. But next time? just flush it, ok?

BH: (cheerfully) ok!

And he and Cuddlebug went back to playing. No, I didn't go look! Figured I'd get dh to do that...

So when dh came home I told him and he reacted about like I did. I asked him if he'd already done the laundry. Affirmative. Yuck. Too late.

I later asked Bearhug how he could be so sure it was a cockroach and not some other type of bug. We sometimes see spiders or other miscellaneous bugs in the summer but not much this time of year and I don't remember ever seeing a cockroach. Gross.

I did NOT ask him whose sock he used for the dirty deed. I don't want to know :/.

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Snow day, part 2

2010-01-17T10:05:00.013-05:00

Since it never got above freezing last Friday, the snow was still there on Saturday. So of course the boys ventured out for another snowball fight, all three of them this time.

Bearhug ducks but Bitty hasn't quite figured out how to piece together a sizable snowball. Cuddlebug is working on his :).

Bearhug is ready, who wants a piece of this?

Cuddlebug dropped a snowball on Bitty's head...

...and then Bearhug got him with a big snowball...

Oh, it's ON now, big brothers! You messed with the wrong Little Bitty! (lol)

Take that!

And that!

All three of them had a blast :)

Bearhug with a chunk of ice he found.

Cuddlebug shows me the big snowball he made...

...then he put it to good use, lol.

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Snow day, part 1

2010-01-17T01:12:00.008-05:00

Last Friday we had a "snow day" although technically the reason the schools were closed was due to ice on the roads; there was not that much snow. But that didn't stop Cuddlebug and Bearhug from making the most of the rare opportunity to have a snowball fight, even if it meant carefully scraping together enough snow to make a snowball :).

Bearhug and Cuddlebug (Cuddlebug has the yellow stripe on his coat)

Not much snow... you can still see the grass poking through.

Orion snuck out of the house to play in the snow too. He went back in pretty quick, it was about 18 degrees out.

Meanwhile Bitty was inside playing with his trains.

Cuddlebug came inside first, here he is warming up by the fire.

Bearhug came in a few minutes later, and the next thing I knew, he and Cuddlebug had made themselves a little "bed" in front of the fire to relax and read while they warmed up :).

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Derby day at the Depot

2010-01-16T23:43:00.006-05:00

Even though Bearhug is not attending Cub Scouts with Cuddlebug on a regular basis, he is working on his scout requirements at home and has decided that he wants to participate in the upcoming Pinewood Derby race.

So both Cuddlebug and Bearhug asked me to take them to the "Derby Day at the Depot" where they do a little tutorial at Home Depot on how to make the cars, and they also have sample design patterns and help the kids cut out the basic shape of their cars once they pick a design.

We braved the leftover ice on the roads (it wasn't bad actually, just a little left on the roads less traveled) and went to Home Depot. We are totally new to this, although dh was a Cubmaster several years ago and we've been to the Pinewood Derby before, it's been a while and we've never actually made the cars before.

Note to self: next time, bring paper and pen to take notes!

After the tutorial, the boys picked out the designs they wanted for their cars. I had to dissuade them from choosing one of the "advanced designs." Let's stick with the basics for now and we can get fancy with it next year!

Cuddlebug chose a sleek-looking race car and Bearhug chose a pickup truck (that's the Texan in him, lol). They traced their designs onto the blocks of wood from their pinewood derby kits and then the guys at Home Depot were set up with tools to cut out the cars.

Here they are watching, with safety goggles on (safety first! as Spongebob would say), as their cars are cut out and sanded down a bit. I'm glad we went because this part would have been pretty hard to do at home, we don't have that kind of saw.

Cuddlebug

Bearhug
We decided we'd better do one for Bitty too, because I knew he would not be happy if we came home with two soon-to-be race cars instead of three. So I asked Cuddlebug and Bearhug to pick out a design for him and trace it so we could have that one cut out too. By then, there was more of a crowd so we had to wait in line.

The line was right next to this long, wide, almost-empty aisle. Hmm... wonder what two hyper, overstimulated boys who have already kept it in control up to this point thought when they saw that aisle?

Seems like a good place to run laps, right? Sigh. I let them, because there would be no stopping them anyway and there was hardly anyone there (in the aisle anyway). It's the lumber aisle so it was really wide and they weren't likely to bump into anyone or anything. They wanted me to time them to see how fast they could run it, so I did.

They ran back and forth several times and actually wore themselves out (it's longer than it looks). Not being self-conscious at all, they just sprawled out on the floor to rest near where I was waiting in line.

After that, we picked up a few supplies (like lots of sandpaper!) for their cars and headed across the street to the hobby store to pick out paint colors. We couldn't find any ready-made Pokemon decals so we're going to try to make our own. Wish us luck!

I posted a picture of the cars as they are now (just cut out) over at my photo blog. I'll post updates of the progress as we go until they are complete :).

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Supposed to be stuck

2010-01-08T07:46:00.001-05:00

Bitty seems to latch on to certain phrases. We have a couple of flags hanging on the wall in our garage and he told me once, "da fwag iss stuck." I replied, "it's supposed to be stuck" (knowing he wanted me to "unstick" it by taking it down and not wanting to do that). For weeks on end after that, he commented on EVERYTHING that was "supposed to be stuck."

"Da bear iss stuck, iss suppoh-ta-bee stuck." (the bear on his blanket)

"Da circle iss stuck, iss suppoh-ta-bee stuck." (the door-stopper on the wall at the doctor's office)

"Da cat iss stuck, iss suppoh-ta-bee stuck." (the cat-shaped cookie jar that I purposely put out of his reach)

And my favorite:

"Da Mama iss stuck!" (when he was trying unsuccessfully to push me out of bed to get him some chocolate milk). My reply? "Iss supposed to be stuck!" haha

I think this is a form of language "practice," testing to see what other situations he can apply his favorite phrases to. He can usually figure out from our responses (granted sometimes exaggerated for his benefit) whether he used a particular phrase appropriately or not, and then he'll adapt his use of it in the future.

This particular phrase seems to have faded. Maybe he managed to categorize pretty much everything in his environment now on the basis of whether or not it's "supposed to be stuck" and so has moved on?

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Flat people

2010-01-07T07:44:00.000-05:00

The boys did really well at church this last Sunday, especially considering all the changes with the new year - meeting a new time, new classes with new teachers meeting in new rooms. Lots of change, usually a source of great consternation but all three of them handled it really well.

So during Primary the person was teaching about families and did a group activity where they had one child go in the hall for a minute (with an adult) while another hid a family picture somewhere. Then the first would come back in and all the kids get to help them search for it (kind of a hot/cold game I think, I wasn't actually there but dh was because he teaches one of the classes).

Bearhug was asked to be the one to go out into the hall, but when he came back in he saw the picture right away and went straight to it without needing any "guidance" from the group (it was hidden under a chair).

When asked how he found it so quickly, he responded, "I saw a flat person under the chair."

Haha, it never would have occurred to me to think of people in a picture as "flat people" but that's actually pretty accurate. Bearhug and Cuddlebug are very good at coming up with descriptions that make us think, "huh?" at first but then "why have we never thought of that?" once we realize how logical it is. I love how they think :).

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Teeth

2010-01-06T07:45:00.001-05:00

"'Bitty,' it's time to brush your teeth."

"Oh-ca whayoo iss hab teef."

He's right, orca whales have teeth. He read that in one of his animal books (he loves animal books of all kinds). I love how his mind works :).

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SEW & WW: Puppy

2010-01-06T06:01:00.002-05:00

Bitty and his buddy, "Puppy." Unfortunately, he thought it was funny to throw Puppy down the stairs, despite countless times of being told not to and having Puppy taken away for a while when he did. So now poor Puppy has lost his "voice" and no amount of "bah-reees" (batteries) can fix him, but Bitty still loves to carry him around and play with him. In fact, just the other day, he was reviewing animal cards with Puppy. I was so impressed with his pretend play and tried to get a video but wasn't fast enough.

Next time... :)

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Project 365

2010-01-05T07:58:00.000-05:00

I've decided to start up a series of 365 pictures, one a day, over at my photography blog.

I'm cross-posting the first one here since there's a story behind it :). Feel free to check out the rest and let me know what you think.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Day 1: January 1, 2010

Bitty got these Baby Einstein animal cards for Christmas and he loves them :). He carries them around wherever he goes and loves to line them up. Sometimes instead of a line, he makes a pattern like this.

When I told him, "look at all your cards!" he replied, "wookuh aww yoh puzzoos."
He typically repeats back what we say, so the fact that he changed the last word was significant.
"Did you make a puzzle?"
He nodded. "Joo make-a puzzoo."
Pretty creative if you ask me :).

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You and I

2010-01-04T19:12:00.001-05:00

It is feast or famine around here, huh? Weeks of little to no posting and now, with a few days off around the holidays, I have time to write and post pictures :).

I think I will schedule some posts to kind of space them out a bit (I do that sometimes, so if you see new posts but no comments or visits from me for a few days that is why), but I really want to get all of this down before I forget because my memory is not so great (the boys definitely get theirs from dh, not me).

I took today off from work so I could spend the boys' last day of vacation with them, but tomorrow it is back to the usual routine of school and work. I know dh is looking forward to it ;).

Anyway, so a little backdrop - I've posted a lot about echolalia and Bitty's slow progress with learning to speak by repeating what we say.

This means he speaks with his "you" and "I / me" pronouns reversed.

"Yoo-wah chwocka miwk?" means "I want chocolate milk."
"Why yoo cwy-een?" means he's upset and looking for some comforting.
And so on.

We've been trying to work on it, modeling what it should sound like but so far with no luck. Until this morning, that is.

Out of the blue, Bitty told me, "Ah nee hep!" (I need help, said in his cute southern drawl).

Not "yoo nee hep?"
Not "yoo nee-ta-put yoh undu-wea-uh on?"

He actually spoke in the first person as he held out his Thomas underwear to me. He can put them on himself, but if they're inside out from the laundry he needs help to straighten them out first, which was the case this morning.

I asked dh (who was still in bed but might have been awake enough to hear) excitedly if he heard that. He mumbled, and Bitty told me, "Da-ee's sweepee."

Yeah, I know he's sleeping :) (how sweet, not to mention observant of Bitty) But that was too cool not to share!

As with most things, it's not like he's just made the switch to speaking in the first person all the time. Just now he told me, "yoo cween-up da daw-ter sooss" which was meant to tell me that he just cleaned up his Dr. Seuss (Cat in the Hat game).

But now that he's used the term "I" instead of "you" appropriately once, I know we'll see it again sooner or later. :)

~~~~~~~
As another aside (just one of those random things I don't want to forget) he's pronouncing Dr. Seuss correctly now but first read it as, "Dr. Sauce" lol :).

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Window to Bitty's day

2010-01-03T23:39:00.001-05:00

If we ask Bitty directly, "What did you do at school today?" or "Did you have a good day at school?" we are likely to get a repeat of the question in response. "Skoo today." or "goo day skoo." (I generally assume that last one is an affirmative response, but I could be wrong).

However, he has started to give us much more detail in his own way. The "tape recorder version" as I have come to think of it, because it's kind of like having a tape recorder in the classroom and listening to it later.

Out of the blue, and talking to no one in particular, he'll talk as he plays.

"Wittle dots, 'Bitty,' dass too much gwoo. Wittle dots."
"Dih I say wun? No wunning, you nee to walk."
"Don' tuh-uch, dass foh teachers!"
"Housekeepee! Iss time foh housekeepee."
"'Bitty' yoo iss be da door hoh-der."
"You nee to caln down, 'Bitty,' iss tine to caln down."

All said in his best teacher voice. The one-liners are what I can remember, but he often goes on to relay extended conversations, activity instructions, and so on. He repeats what his teachers say to his classmates also. Months later he still says, "uh-oh, 'J' iss wet." I have no idea if it was a bathroom accident or spill or what, but poor 'J' is never going to live that one down with Bitty repeating that over and over for months on end... (sigh).

I love to just sit and listen to him. Sometimes if he pauses, I might ask him about it.

"What did you glue today?"
"You were the door-holder today? How fun!" (he loves to be the door holder)

Maybe he does the same thing at school? (repeats conversations he heard at home). Sometimes he puts on his best "Mama" voice and I hear an echo of myself.

"No scweemee, 'Bitty,' dah hurss my ears."

I told him that ONCE when he screamed right into my ear (I was holding him at the time) and now he screeches just so he can cover his ears and repeat it over and over.

I'm amazed at the level of detail he can remember. He once spent about 20 minutes repeating every detail of a group activity his class had done, including who was assigned to which groups (listing all the names and telling them which teacher to go see).

For whatever reason, he doesn't seem to repeat what the kids in his class say, just the teachers. He does pick up on what the teachers say to his classmates though, not just what they say to him. (So we know all about who's been running in the hallways or touching things that are "for teachers," lol).

What's more is that sometimes he takes it a step further, not just repeating the words but actually acting out the "scenario." For example, running a few steps and then coming to an abrupt halt as he tells himself, "I seh no wunning!"

It's great to see him not only practicing his words, but pretend-play skills too :). I am so proud of him!

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"Can he talk?"

2010-01-03T23:14:00.001-05:00

Bitty has made so much progress, and yet as he gets older the divide between his development in some areas and those of his peers seems to only widen. One of those areas is communication.

Not long ago, the boys had a friend over who asked me how old Bitty is. Well, first he asked Bitty but got no response, even with a little prompting from me (although Bitty did eventually at least look at him). So he asked me instead. "He's four," I answered. "Oh, my little sister is four too!" he said, "but she can talk. Can 'Bitty' talk?"

Hmm... define "talk"? I thought to myself, as it really is more complicated in practice than it sounds... but I just answered "yeah, he's learning to talk."

Someone else asked me recently whether Bitty understands when he answers a question by repeating it back (or more accurately, repeating back the last 2-3 words of the question). It was an honest question, the person was just trying to better understand Bitty.

There are times when it's hard to know for sure. But most of the time, yes, he does understand. I think he probably understands more than even we realize.

Cuddlebug and Bearhug sometimes complain that "'Bitty' can't talk" but they are pretty good at understanding him (and sometimes his actions leave no room for doubt as to exactly what he's trying to say, lol). Sometimes they'll even "translate" for me, explaining what they believe Bitty's various phrases or mannerisms are meant to convey.

He is slowly developing his repeated words and phrases into "scripts" and learning how to apply them in different situations rather than simply repeating them immediately or at random later times (he still does a lot of that too, it's a process). He's getting better at "correcting" us when we misunderstand him, rather than having a meltdown (unless he's too tired or overstimulated, and then look out!).

As the saying goes, "not being able to talk is not the same as not having anything to say." Bitty has so much to say, it's just up to us to listen.

More on that in my next post...

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Everyday Adventures Top Posts 2009

2010-01-02T23:30:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year!

I haven't looked at blog stats in a while until today, thought it would be fun to share some of my little blog's most popular posts from 2009 as we begin the new year:

1. Try This Tuesday: Deep Pressure
2. Try This Tuesday: Happy or Sad?
3. Our story part 2: The toddler years
4. There are some things moms can't fix
5. Dealing with aggression
6. A smidgen of progress?
7. SEW & WW: Hug
8. Bitty's trains
9. SOOC Saturday: All Three!
10. Autism at church: part 1

Thank you to everyone who reads, and to those who share your thoughts in the comments. I've made some good friends in the blogosphere, and I continue to meet new people that I look forward to getting to know better.

Wishing all of you a happy and blessed year in 2010!

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School celebrations

2009-12-31T06:52:00.000-05:00

Here are a few pictures from the boys' parties at school before the break. I did a little experimenting with Scrapblog:

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Heart

2009-12-30T02:06:00.001-05:00

CB: "It's a heart, Mom. Dat means Looove."
me: "It's beautiful, thank you!"
BH: "Yeah, we worked really hard at school to earn dat so we could give it to you."
CB: "Aren't you glad you have us?"

More than you could possibly know... I am blessed beyond measure every day to have these boys in my life. I gave them each a big hug.

"Of course, I love all of you boys more than anything!"

CB: "I wuv you too, Mom. I wuv my whole family more den anyfing too. Even more den I wuv Pokemon."

I couldn't help but smile :). "Wow, that's a lot!"

"Yeah," he agreed, "cuz I wuv Pokemon a whole bunch!"

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my babies? :)

~~~~~~~~~

Oh, and that reminds me of another ring that Cuddlebug gave me recently, at his school's party a couple of weeks ago.

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of it before Bitty wanted to play with it and I never saw it again... but it's a funny story so I'll describe it to you.

It was one of those plastic rings that comes on the top of cupcakes, and it was huge. About 1 1/2 inches of green plastic lettering saying, "Ho Ho Ho!"

Cuddlebug presented it to me with a flourish and said, "I cweaned it for you, Mom!"

"Aww, thanks, I love it!" I briefly wondered how he cleaned the frosting off with no water nearby, and decided I probably didn't want to know so I didn't ask. I put the ring on my finger and showed it to him.

Maybe he read my mind, because he was eager to share exacly how he had cleaned the ring for me.

"I wick'd it, Mom! I cweaned it wif my tongue!"

I had to laugh. Of course he did. I smiled and told him, "that's kind of gross, but you did a pretty good job."

I left it on, slobber and all, the rest of the day (until Bitty confiscated it, that is).

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SEW & WW: Christmas Eve

2009-12-30T02:00:00.005-05:00

Hot chocolate
Christmas movies (The Grinch, old-school cartoon version, and Polar Express)
Candles
A warm fire
Three happy and excited boys (minus the one meltdown when I wouldn't let a certain 4-yr-old climb to the top of the cat post, he eventually got over it)

What more could a mom want on Christmas Eve?

Click here for more Special Exposure Wednesday. For more Wordless Wednesday, click here or here.

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Baking cookies

2009-12-28T07:34:00.000-05:00

These are from about three weeks ago, I was baking Christmas cookies and the boys wanted to help out :). It was quite the group effort, as you'll see...

Little Bitty loved sitting on the counter to help :). Here he was testing the spinning speed of the bowl while I got the ingredients ready, lol.

When it was time to stir, Bitty held the bowl while Bearhug did the stirring.

They called in reinforcements... Cuddlebug helped Bitty hold the bowl while Bearhug did the stirring.

Then it was Cuddlebug's turn to stir, while Bearhug and Bitty held the bowl.

Next up, Bitty takes a turn at stirring. In a show of strength, he did double-duty both holding the bowl and stirring at the same time!

And what's more fun than stirring? Spinning the bowl, of course!

A little more flour, and a little more stirring to finish it off...

While the cookie dough was cooling in the fridge, we made the frosting. Yum :)

Then it was back to the dough, cutting out the shapes to bake. Bitty had WAY too much fun with the flour, lol :).

When the cookies were ready, everyone helped decorate. Bearhug and Cuddlebug made these two cookies especially for me (yum!) They were quite generous with the sprinkles :).

It was much messier than doing it all myself, but it was nice to have that together time. Cuddlebug and Bearhug didn't have the attention span to stay the whole time but that was ok, they were in and out and helped with whatever we had going on when they stopped by. And for the first time, they listened when I reminded them not to put the shape cutouts on top of each other when doing the cookie-cutters (because it just doesn't work that way). Bitty's new favorite thing is sitting on top of the counters (fun) so he was more than happy to stay there the whole time :). All in all, a fun time that resulted in lots of yummy cookies!

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Family pictures!

2009-12-26T20:59:00.018-05:00

The last - and only - time we've had family pictures done was five years ago, when Cuddlebug and Bearhug were three years old and I was still pregnant with Bitty (so technically he's in the pictures, you just can't actually see him):

Taking our boys to have pictures done is such an ordeal, and one that I typically embark on by myself when I can work up the nerve to attempt it. I try to go at least once a year. Sometimes I take them separately rather than all three together. Convincing dh to come along for family pictures is another challenge :).

But seeing as how Bitty will be turning five soon, I figured it was time to try and have family pictures done. I made a deal with dh that I wouldn't drag him along again for another five years (hehe). There was much complaining from Cuddlebug and Bearhug, and a near-meltdown from Bitty that involved shoe-throwing and attempted stripping (finally calmed by some Baby Einstein books and Oreos). I was worried that they might not even go into the studio when it was our turn, but as luck would have it the photographer turned out to be someone we know from church. She is familiar with the boys' sensory issues and she used to be one of Bitty's nursery teachers, and I think it really helped the boys to have someone familiar. I didn't even realize she worked there, it's not the location we usually go to but it is closer to their school than our usual one and we had scheduled the appointment for shortly after school (I was off work for the afternoon to attend their school parties and we figured it might be better to go on a weekday than to try going on a busy pre-holiday Saturday).

Despite all the stress, I think these turned out really good :). This was my Christmas present from dh and the boys :).

I really like this one of the boys together. It wasn't planned that way, she just snapped the picture when they were being silly. This is what they look like much of the time :).

This one's a little "calmer," lol. Love their expressions :). Bearhug is on the left in this one, Cuddlebug is on the right.

And she got some individual pics of the boys too:

We hadn't planned on getting any of just the two of us, but these turned out nice. The first one is my favorite :).

This one she took when Bitty and I weren't expecting it, I really like it. At the time, we were pretty much done and I was giving him a hug and telling him what a good job he did.

So now dh is off the hook for another five years, and the boys are off the hook until next year (they are growing boys, surely you didn't think I'd wait another five years for them? hehe). ;)

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For God so loved the world...

2009-12-25T00:01:00.000-05:00

(painting by Simon Dewey)

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ~John 3:16

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. ~Isaiah 9:6

If you have a few minutes to watch, this is a beautiful video with paintings of Christ's birth set to the Christmas song, O Holy Night (my personal favorite!). I love it so I wanted to share :). In case you can't see the video, I included the words below. I know it's one everyone knows, but the words are especially meaningful.

May each of you have a blessed Christmas filled with joy, peace, and love!

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth;
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world1 rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;

Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine.

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming
Here come the wise men from Orient land
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger
In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, He guardeth us from danger2
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord, O praise His name forever!
His pow'r and glory evermore proclaim!
His pow'r and glory evermore proclaim!

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Sleepover

2009-12-24T22:23:00.003-05:00

Cuddlebug and Bearhug have been having "sleepovers" by the Christmas tree every weekend since we put it up (they'd do it every day if we let them but we limited them to weekends, lol).

They had planned to sleep there tonight too but are still upstairs playing. I'm all for staying up late tonight, anything to encourage the possibility of sleeping in a little bit tomorrow (yeah, I know, not likely but a mom can hope right?).

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The Santa dilemma

2009-12-22T18:52:00.001-05:00

(Photo taken at Parents' Night Out)

Cuddlebug and Bearhug never really showed any interest in Santa Claus until they saw the Polar Express movie (I think they were 5). Even then, they were more interested in the train, but Santa had some relevance to them as the person the train was taking the children in the movie to go see.

That year, they kept asking if a train was going to stop in our front yard to go see Santa. I hated to disappoint them, but there really is no way to pull that one off. Then they asked if Santa was going to leave them a bell like he did in the movie, and *that* I could do so I got some jingle bells and red ribbon, and left one for each of them (even though Bitty was too young to care). On Christmas morning, they barely noticed the presents from Santa (they didn't really distinguish what was from him vs. everything else) but they were soo excited about those bells!

Last year, they were busy devising all kinds of plans to "prove" Santa's existence. We travelled last year for Christmas and I figured the game was up when they stumbled on the jingle bells I had hidden (not well enough apparently) in my suitcase. :/ But on Christmas morning they had either forgotten, not made the connection, or decided not to let on.

A couple of weeks ago, the topic of Santa came up again. They wanted to know if he is real.

"And tell us da TROOF!" they insisted, "because we don't fink he's real!"

They are 8 years old and in 3rd grade. They seemed to have already figured it out and I couldn't in good conscience not tell them at this point and risk them being teased for still believing in Santa at an age when many of their peers will already know he's not real (at least not in the literal sense, one could argue that the spirit of giving embodied in "Santa" is real but I digress).

So I 'fessed up. They seemed disappointed. Apparently they were very disappointed... because several times since then they have commented how much they wish he was real. :/ I told them he was based on a real person, St. Nicholas, and that seemed to cheer them up a bit.

The downside of filling them in has been trying to emphasize the importance of keeping it to themselves. Being that they have never been big fans of "pretend play" it bothers them to pretend that Santa is real when they now know that he isn't. And them being them, we knew they'd feel inclined to announce that to anyone they heard talking about Santa. So we had to explain how we don't want to spoil the experience for younger kids who believe in Santa. They didn't quite get that (how can you spoil it if he's not real anyway?) but they have fortunately not had many opportunities to set the record straight, at least that we have seen.

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Magic Marker Monday: Christmas crafts

2009-12-21T20:10:00.000-05:00

We have lots of creativity to share today, I couldn't choose just one and figured better to put them all in one post than still be sharing Christmas art two months from now (no I wouldn't actually do that. Or would I? hehe)

Bitty made this cute ornament at school as a gift for us... clearly his teachers helped with the details but the handprint that makes the snowmen is all him :)

Bitty also made this Christmas tree at school, it has since lost most of its beads because he wanted to play with it but that's ok.

Cuddlebug made this cool candle jar at school, it's made with tissue paper and the picture doesn't quite do it justice but the colors / shapes really stand out when the candle is lit.

Bearhug made this ornament for the tree, he put it up but I can't find it so he might have taken it back down to play with... good thing I took a picture of it on his desk at school ;).

Bearhug and Cuddlebug have been busy making things at home too. And what might two 8-yr-old boys who really, really want Pokemon cards for Christmas and just can't wait decide to make?

Yep, homemade Pokemon cards :). I love their attention to detail. Just like the real cards, they've included a picture of the Pokemon (some of these are their own made-up Pokemon characters too), its level, attack moves, stats, etc. and the Pokemon logo on the back :).

(click to view larger)

They also made Pokemon-themed paper ornaments for the tree. This one is Cuddlebug's. Those are dragon-type Pokemon ornaments hanging from his tree. (I'm pretty sure Bitty is responsible for the clump of ornaments hanging together below that):

And this is what is left of Bearhug's... I wasn't fast enough with the camera :(. It was a tree complete with star and hanging Pokemon ornaments, with a "Merry Christmas" sign hanging from the bottom. Apparently part of it tore and so he ripped the whole thing up except for this piece, so I asked if I could at least take a picture of that.

Consider it a Christmas greeting from our family to yours :).

For more Magic Marker Monday, visit 5 Minutes for Special Needs.

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Morning help

2009-12-21T00:41:00.001-05:00

Thought I'd share in case anyone has similar struggles.

We figured out a new strategy for helping the boys get up and moving in the morning (especially Bearhug, and I feel his pain because I am not a morning person either). Mornings have been especially hard lately with it being dark outside and cold. After trying a few other things with little or no improvement, we asked Bearhug if it would help to have warm clothes to put on in the morning. He liked the idea, so we had him pick out his clothes the night before and the next morning we put them in the dryer for a few minutes. Sure enough, he popped out of bed with no problem to put his warm clothes on and then he was good to go.

Cuddlebug wanted to try it too, and we figured Bitty might like it too, so now every morning we put three sets of clothes in the dryer in the morning and deliver warm clothes to three sleepy boys... and our morning routine goes much more smoothly now :).

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The countdown continues...

2009-12-20T04:02:00.000-05:00

The boys are all excited for Christmas and it's been so fun having Bitty into it. He is making up for lost time, singing Christmas songs (in his own way) and he keeps pulling this one present out from under the tree wanting to open it. "Opeh... 'Bitty' opeh da book. You wah opeh?" Have I already mentioned that I need to be a little more sneaky with putting things into boxes before I wrap them next year? Anyway, it's always the same present and each time we remind him, "no open til Christmas" and then after tugging at the tape a bit he'll take it back to the tree saying "no opeh tih Cwismah."

Bearhug and Cuddlebug can hardly stand the wait as they are pretty sure they are getting a lot of Pokemon cards :). They *may* be right about that, guess we'll just have to wait and see, lol ;). I admit, we are kind of milking the whole "gotta be good because it's almost Christmas" thing... it's not exactly "super-effective" (to use a Pokemon term) but we only get to use that once a year!

I remember when they used to refer to Christmas as "The 25." That was during their calendar-obsession phase (it lasted quite a while) :).

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Spell-a-pa-looza

2009-12-17T01:33:00.003-05:00

Yesterday both Bearhug and Cuddlebug handed me their spelling lists so we could work on them. Since they each seemed eager to have me quiz them, I opted to alternate having each of them spell every other word rather than go through the lists one at a time. So we got into a rhythm where I'd call out Cuddlebug's name and a word from his spelling list, he'd spell it and then I'd say Bearhug's name and one of his words, and so on. As we were going back and forth Bitty came up to me and interrupted (loudly and with a big grin on his face) "'Bitty'! Cow! C... O... W!!" So cute, he wanted to join in the spelling fun :).

As it turned out he wasn't satisfied with taking a turn every third time, so in order to keep him from shouting over his brothers I had to give him a turn every other time. Bearhug - Bitty - Cuddlebug - Bitty... lol. He was so excited about spelling his words, and you know what? He got most of them right (cow, dog, cat, pig, car, box, fox, and he was close on horse). :) Bearhug and Cuddlebug did great on their words as well, of course ;).

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What's in a name?

2009-12-17T01:29:00.002-05:00

Cuddlebug and Bearhug decided a few weeks ago to start calling me "Mom" instead of "Mama." I think some other kids may have given them a hard time about saying "Mama," who knows. They made the switch overnight... one day I was "Mama" and the next? Suddenly I was "Mom."

I was not prepared for how weird it would feel or how long it is taking to get used to, but I am slowly getting used to it. They have always called me "Mama" and now they sound so grown-up, calling me "Mom." sniff :(

Something tells me it won't be any easier when Bitty decides he's too old to say "Mama" :/

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A glimpse...

2009-12-11T23:42:00.001-05:00

Every now and then we get a brief glimpse into what Little Bitty is thinking about. The "inner Bitty," if you will. As I have mentioned before, truly spontaneous speech, unprompted and unscripted, is rare. On the other hand, there is insight to be found in speech of the prompted and/or scripted variety too, of course. I have a whole other post coming together on that ;).

So, we've been helping Bitty learn to pray, now that he is beginning to show interest and even wanting to participate in family prayers for the first time. It's very cute to listen to him, although a bit painful on the ears as he likes to shout his prayers, with ear-splitting emphasis on the last word in every phrase (think Dick Vitale on steroids and with a bullhorn, and you're at least getting close, lol).

Since we started out by helping him with what to say and letting him repeat each phrase, he quickly took to saying the whole thing on his own, with every phrase said twice, lol. Just the way he heard it, right?

The words are hard to make out, but I know that Heavenly Father understands every word :).

Somewhere along the way (because we hadn't gotten to the step of teaching him this part yet) he figured out that part of praying is expressing what you're thankful for. He hears his big brothers giving thanks for everything under the sun in their prayers (I soo love listening to them :)). Maybe he interprets it as listing things that make you happy, who knows, but the result is pretty much the same. Because the other night, that's what he started doing, all on his own. He even stopped screeching as he said:

"(mumble mumble) Cwow nie... ["Cloud 9" is the name of a game he has that he likes to play with]
(mumble mumble) Thomas...
(mumble mumble) books...
(mumble mumble) chwocka miwk...
(mumble mumble) Appoo Jacks..."

I interpreted the indecipherable mumble to be something along the lines of "I'm thankful for." He finished it off with a rousing "Ay-MEH!!!" (had to bring the screaming back to finish up strong, lol) and dh and I just looked at each other.

"Did he just list the things he is thankful for?"
"Yeah, I think he did!"

If we had asked him, "Hey Bitty, what are you thankful for?" he would not have been able to answer. The most likely response would be, "fay-thul por" (thankful for).

And yet, in the context of offering a prayer, he was able to share some of the things he is thankful for. It was a blessing to hear him.

He hasn't done that again since, but he has *sort of* toned down the shrieking when he prays, and that is a blessing too ;). I'm sure the neighbors down the street who could probably HEAR his loudness think so too, hehe.

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Getting ready for Christmas (lots of pics!)

2009-12-07T00:08:00.000-05:00

This year has been especially fun getting ready for Christmas, thought I'd share some pictures of our tree-decorating escapades...

First there was the trip to Walmart to pick up a few remaining decorations that we needed. Aside from climbing everything in sight (which I did not get pictures of, too busy trying to get them down), the boys tried on some festive headgear :). Little Bitty and Bearhug tried out some Santa hats while Cuddlebug tried on some antlers.

Then it was off to Lowe's to pick out a tree. It would have been fun to go to a tree farm to pick out a tree, but Lowe's is closer and less expensive... :). We tried to go as fast as possible, knowing that we were already at the limit of overstimulation thanks to having to stop at Walmart first, not to mention just the excitement of the whole tree-adventure.

Bearhug took a break from tree-hunting to climb the fence :/

This is what happens when I ask the boys to stand together for a picture...

And when I clarified, "umm... try standing *next to* each other... and smile!" this is what I got (lol):

At least they managed to stand next to each other long enough for a picture of all 3 together, it's rare!)

Then the boys and I waited in the car while the tree was loaded on top.

As we pulled out, Bearhug asked, "was I good in there?" We shrugged and said, "pretty good." (all three of them were pretty wired and pinging off the walls by the time we were ready to check out, but they stayed in control and no meltdowns, so we considered it a success. Bearhug said, "thanks for not yelling at me, because if you did I would've had to hit myself in the head." Uh... well, I'm glad we didn't have any need to yell then (I'm glad we didn't need to yell anyway, we don't like to but sometimes it's the only way to get their attention).

Then it was back home for decorating. I didn't actually get to take any pictures until we were almost done (and dh was busy outside putting the lights up). It was pretty chaotic for a while there, the boys couldn't wait so they kept running in and out of the house while I got the decorations out of the boxes (they were joined by our neighbor's dog at one point, our cat was unimpressed, lol). The three of them practically smothered me as I put the hooks on the ornaments... I couldn't get those hooks on fast enough! Finally we reached some ornaments that already had hooks on and I was able to snap a few pictures :).

I really love these two pictures of Bitty. In this one, he's inspecting the almost-finished tree with his hands clasped in excitement...

And here I just like his expression looking at the tree in the soft light.

And a couple of tree pictures. Of course we have a Texas longhorn ornament :)

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TTTS Awareness: What you need to know

2009-12-06T23:45:00.003-05:00

December is TTTS (Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome) Awareness month, and tomorrow is World TTTS Awareness Day. TTTS is a disease of the placenta that can affect identical twins who share one placenta. The babies themselves are healthy, the issue is with the placenta and the circulation of blood between the babies and the placenta. (More about TTTS at the bottom of the post). I have shared our experience with TTTS with our boys previously. For today I want to focus on what you can do to help.

Judy Bogdan of Club Deb interviewed Mary Slaman-Forsythe, Founder and President of the Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome Foundation. Judy emailed me and asked if I would share her interview here to help get the word out, and I am honored to do so. Her family has been touched by TTTS as well, in a heartbreaking way, as her niece lost one of her twins due to this condition.

You can listen to the interview here. It's very informative, but also very personal as Mary Slaman-Forsythe shares her own experience and how the TTTS Foundation came to be started. One of the things I really liked was suggestions on how to help inform moms who may be pregnant with multiples. As Judy mentioned, it's hard to know how to bring up TTTS for fear of scaring a pregnant mom, but Mary suggested a way to share the information in a non-threatening way by simply asking them if there is one placenta or two. That way, it will hopefully get them to follow up with their doctor to find out if they don't already know, and that is one of the most important questions to answer in assessing risk for TTTS.

Why is that so important? TTTS only occurs in identical twins with a shared, monochorionic placenta. Monochorionic means one placenta and one outer sac, and there can be either one or two inner (amniotic) sacs. Twin pregnancies can be any of the following:

Dichorionic / diamniotic (two placentas, two amniotic sacs)
Monochorionic / diamniotic (one placenta, two amniotic sacs)
Monochorionic / monoamniotic (one placenta, one amniotic sac)

Once it is determined that there is only one placenta, extra precautions can be taken to monitor the pregnancy and watch for any potential issues.

From the TTTS Foundation website, here are the 15 most important questions for parents expecting twins to get answers to:

Confirm at First Ultrasound (Hopefully by 12 Weeks)
1. Is the placenta monochorionic?
2. Are the babies the same sex?
3. Can you see the dividing membrane?
4. Is the placenta anterior or posterior?
5. Do the cords have 3 vessels or 2?
6. Are the cords fully attached to the placenta?

Ask at Weekly Ultrasounds (Starting at Week 16 to Delivery)
7. What is the largest vertical pocket of fluid for each baby?
8. Can you see the bladder of the donor baby?
9. What are the weights of the babies in grams? (every 2-3 weeks)
10. Are the dopplers normal for both babies?
11. Is the heart of the recipient baby enlarged or thickened?
12. Does the recipient baby have hydrops?
13. What is the measurement of your cervix, is it long and
closed or thinning or dilated?
14. Is the smaller baby growing at the same rate?
15. What is the fundal height?

And for those who may not be familiar with TTTS, here is an overview, also from the TTTS Foundation website:

What is TTTS?
-Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) is a disease of the placenta (or afterbirth) that affects identical twin pregnancies.

-TTTS affects identical twins (or higher multiple gestations) who share a common monochorionic placenta.

-The shared placenta contains abnormal blood vessels which connect the umbilical cord and circulations of the twins.

-The common placenta may also be shared unequally by the twins

-The events in pregnancy that lead to TTTS are all random.

-TTTS is not hereditary or genetic, nor caused by anything the parents did or did not do.

-TTTS can happen to anyone.

And from the Fetal Hope Foundation website:

TTTS or Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome is a disease of the placenta. It affects pregnancies with monochorionic (shared placenta) multiples when blood passes disproportionately from one baby to the other through connecting blood vessels within their shared placenta. One baby, the recipient twin, gets too much blood overloading his or her cardiovascular system, and may die from heart failure. The other baby, the donor twin or stuck twin, does not get enough blood and may die from severe anemia. Left untreated, mortality rates near 100%.

The cause of TTTS is attributed to unbalanced flow of blood through vascular channels that connect the circulatory systems of each twin via the common placenta. The shunting of blood through the vascular communications leads to a net flow of blood from one twin (the donor) to the other twin (the recipient). The donor twin develops oligohydramnios (low amniotic fluid) and poor fetal growth, while the recipient twin develops polyhydramnios (excess amniotic fluid), heart failure, and hydrops. If left untreated, the pregnancy may be lost due to lack of blood getting to the smaller twin, fluid overload and heart failure in the larger twin, and/or preterm (early) labor leading to miscarriage of the entire pregnancy.

Some general treatment approaches consist of using laser energy to seal off the blood vessels that shunt blood between the fetuses. Because the surgical approach is via an operative fetoscope, there is minimal risk to the mother. Laser therapy for TTTS has been shown to provide improved pregnancy outcomes compared to alternative therapies. Although all treatment options should be discussed with your fetal surgeon.

TTTS Resources:
TTTS Foundation
TTTS resource @ Twinstuff - written by a father of twins who survived TTTS
Fetal Hope Foundation
Club Deb Radio Interview - TTTS
World TTTS Awareness Day
Matthew and Steven TTTS Walk for the Babies

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WW & SEW: It's beginning to look a lot like...

2009-12-02T00:20:00.004-05:00

Christmas!

Yep, that's my Little Bitty actually showing a real interest in Christmas for the first time, woo-hoo! He even helped decorate the tree, along with his very excited and impatient big brothers :).

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Magic Marker Monday: Turkey art

2009-11-30T08:27:00.003-05:00

Little Bitty made some cute Thanksgiving art in school this year :).

Here's his little handprint:

And he made a cute turkey hat (that he didn't want to wear so this was the best picture I could get before he took it off):

Here's the hat so you can actually see it :)

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Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T05:13:00.005-05:00

There is so much to be grateful for, today and always.

A loving Father in Heaven who wants only the best for us.

Family. A husband who loves me and our boys. Three beautiful boys who bring me joy each and every day. And everyone else in our family.

Friends - both those I know in person and those I haven't actually met outside of the blogosphere but feel a closeness with regardless.

Amazing teachers and therapists for our boys. I'm thankful that our boys attend a school that is set up to help them be successful.

The comforts of home, gainful employment, Poptarts and Pokemon.

I could go on, but it's late and I really need to get some sleep before Bitty wakes up.

The weather here has been beautiful lately... finally some let up in the constant rain we had for a while and we've been able to spend our weekends outside.

Work has been crazy busy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing :).

We got some new Christmas decorations and are planning to put up lights outside our house for the first time this year. Not Griswold-style or anything, but hopefully it will look nice :).

The boys are doing well. Bearhug seems to have the rage / outbursts somewhat under control, although we are still struggling with his impulsive need to run off and hide at times. I swear my heart cannot take that!! Cuddlebug is doing great, and Bitty continues to be full of surprises :).

Cuddlebug and Bearhug have long had sleep issues, and at their latest checkup their pediatrician suggested we try melatonin. We've used it two nights in a row and it seems to be helping, so that is good.

Perhaps I should try some too?

Ok, I'm going to bed now.

I wish each of you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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Halloween 2009

2009-11-12T00:47:00.010-05:00

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers on Bearhug's behalf. We've also gotten some good suggestions... we're going to get this figured out. So far this week has been pretty good (yay!).

On a lighter note, here are some pictures and a recap from Halloween :).

I couldn't figure out how I was going to make a Salamence (Pokemon) costume, so we tried taking the boys to the Halloween store to see if they could find a costume there. No luck. I asked Cuddlebug what his second choice would be, and he named another Pokemon. Third choice? Another Pokemon. None of which are readily available as costumes.

And to add to the fun, Bearhug decided with just over a week to go that he wanted to dress up after all, as Garchomp (yep, also a Pokemon). So I headed to the craft store. I had some pictures from the internet to use as a guide of what the characters were supposed to look like, and I used the boys' clothes as a guide for the size / shape (being careful to err on the side of "too big" rather than "too small").

Here are the finished costumes, with the characters' pictures:

And the boys wearing their costumes. They were so excited to dress up as Pokemon :).

Bearhug as Garchomp:

Cuddlebug as Salamence:

And you can't dress up as Pokemon without having a Pokemon-battle, of course :)

Little Bitty was not at all interested in costumes or trick-or-treating. We did, however, discover that he loves to eat "M's" (M&M's). :)

So I took Cuddlebug and Bearhug out trick-or-treating.

Bitty stayed home with dh to hand out candy. When we made it back to our house, we found him relaxing, curled up with a blankie (they were in the garage which dh had decorated for Halloween).

Bearhug and Cuddlebug went inside to check out their stash. They sorted all the candy by type and lined them up in rows.

Bitty was curious and came over to inspect the candy too. Here all three of them are busy counting. There were 153 pieces of candy in total :).

Cuddlebug did the math the next day to figure out how many days the candy would last if each of us ate one piece each day... but we haven't exactly done that ;).

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Veterans Day

2009-11-11T22:45:00.008-05:00

A heartfelt thank you to those who have served or are serving in our military (which includes many of our family members). Freedom isn't free, and I am eternally grateful for the courage and sacrifice of our armed forces who defend freedom here and abroad.

~~~~~~~~~~~
And for my favorite veteran...

(that's my dad for those who don't recognize him, this was taken in Iraq during Desert Storm)

... here's a cool video I found online that I thought you'd enjoy :)

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Still here... and an update

2009-11-08T21:49:00.000-05:00

I feel like I've kind of gone AWOL from the blogosphere for a couple of weeks, but I wanted to say thank you for your kind words, suggestions, and encouragement in response to my last post.

Bearhug is still struggling and we have no idea why. It feels like we are in new territory here... at first I thought it was a result of sensory overload / stress but now I'm thinking it may be more than that.

Whatever it is, it has really escalated in the last few weeks. We're seeing a lot of anger, rage would be a better description really. Aside from that he seems kind of sullen, even sad. I spoke with his resource teacher and the parapros that work with her, they're seeing similar things at school. He had a pretty intense outburst at school this past week.

Sundays are the worst. Two weeks in a row he took off running at church and went missing. We found him hiding in the bathroom both times, but talk about stress! The first time I was fighting panic, not sure if he was even still in the building or not. Several people helped me look (dh was teaching a class and didn't know about all this until after Bearhug was found), and he finally turned up in the bathroom. He had his feet up so no one would see him and wasn't answering when we called out to him, but the second time someone checked, they spotted his shirt through the crack in the stall (Bearhug later said he hadn't had time to cover up the cracks with toilet paper... ugh).

The second time at least we knew to check the bathrooms and sure enough that's where he was again. Once he was found, he refused to come out and instead stayed in there screaming at the top of his lungs. We've tried to accommodate him by taking turns taking him outside for walks, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

His teacher said he has made comments about feeling worthless, and since then he has made a couple of similar comments at home. She suspected it might be the influence of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books, which he really seems to be taking way too seriously. He admitted that sometimes those books make him feel bad - and although I don't really think the books are the cause of the problem it's possible they were making it worse, so we took them away for now. They're supposed to be funny (I read the first one and actually thought it was cute... but what do I know?).

Some of his behavior seems to have an attention-seeking element to it (he'll do something he KNOWS he's not supposed to do and look around to see if anyone notices), but giving him extra attention (not rewarding the bad behavior, but going the extra mile to give him praise, etc. when he's doing good) doesn't really seem to be helping. In fact, today when I told him I was proud of him for his grades at school this week (after looking through his weekly folder), he got upset with me.

Yesterday, he really scared us when he took off running and hid in the neighborhood. It's the first time he's done anything like that before. I mean, we had to watch him like a hawk when he was younger because he would run off but it was different... he was usually intrigued by something or he just wanted to run, he wasn't necessarily trying to get away from us. Yesterday, that's precisely what he was doing, and it was dark outside and I'm not sure even now he really understands how dangerous it was to do that.

He was coming home from playing with his friends (two doors down across the street) and I asked him if he was hungry. Dh told him I had ordered pizza and asked if he wanted some. He lunged at dh and then took off running past our house. I heard him banging on the back door and went to open it, and by the time I got the door open he was nowhere to be seen. I thought he was just messing with me and went back to the front door, but dh (who was across the street) said he hadn't come back around and thought he'd gone into the house. At that point we had no idea where he was, but it was getting dark. There's a bunch of trees behind our house and I was worried he'd gone in there. Dh grabbed a flashlight and went to look for him while I stayed with Cuddlebug and Bitty. I watched for him out the door. The boys he'd been playing with helped look for him, and dh was about to round up the neighbors to help too, when they spotted him. He'd been hiding behind one of the houses nearby :(. He was clearly upset, resisting coming into the house and trying to run away again. When he came in, he ran up the stairs, hid under his blanket, and was crying, refusing to talk to us. We finally convinced him to eat dinner, and then he seemed to feel a little better, but a while later he was upset again and tried to run outside again. Luckily he wasn't trying too hard, and I was able to keep him inside without a huge blowout.

A while after that, he was complaining of nausea and dizziness and wanted all the lights out. He said he'd been "exercising" trying to get "those things in your stomach, I can't remember what they're called," (turns out he was talking about "abs") pretty much the entire time he'd been playing that day. I think he overdid it and actually made himself sick. It almost seemed like a migraine but he didn't say his head hurt other than feeling dizzy ("it feels like I'm moving but I'm not").

The only answer we could get from him - then and even today - was that he didn't like the questions we asked him. What horrifying questions did we dare to ask? The ones about "are you hungry" and "do you want some of the pizza your mom ordered?" Maybe he wasn't feeling well from overdoing it and something that simple was all it took to set him off. I don't know.

I am really at a loss here. It is heartbreaking to see him going through this and not knowing what "this" is, or how to help him. The bad days are exhausting - emotionally and physically - and the good days it feels like we are walking on eggshells trying to keep the peace. Every time he has a couple of good days in a row I start thinking maybe things are looking up only to get socked in the gut with a day like yesterday.

Someone mentioned hormones, and it sounds strange but I've done some reading and apparently pre-puberty hormone changes can have a significant impact on children with autism, as early as 7-9 yrs old. Maybe that's at least part of it, I honestly don't know. He is having mood swings like we haven't seen before.

He was cranky today... but this evening he seemed to be feeling a little better. He let me sit with him and we read some books together. It was nice :).

We have a checkup scheduled for him and Cuddlebug a week from tomorrow, maybe his doctor will have some ideas. His resource teacher has been really helpful, she is awesome. She's been working with him since Kindergarten so she knows this is not like him.

I'm open for suggestions... and if you're inclined to pray, a little extra prayer for Bearhug would be greatly appreciated.

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Sensory stuff

2009-10-26T00:05:00.000-04:00

So I just wrote a long, rambling post (in draft mode) trying to sort out my thoughts about the sensory challenges we've been having lately, mostly with Bearhug. When it comes to classic autism, his is the mildest of my three boys (with Bitty the most affected and Cuddlebug somewhere in the middle), but Bearhug's sensory challenges are the most severe of my three. He is really struggling lately - at home, school, even church. It seems to be a combination of overstimulation, various changes in the routine, difficulty focusing, and somehow just general out-of-sync-ness (to borrow the term from this book).

There are a few possible "triggers" but it's hard to tell if those are actual causes, effects, or just exacerbating what would still be there regardless. I don't think it is just one thing, it seems more like one thing after another after another... and when he's overwhelmed his ability to effectively communicate is impacted, so we're trying to piece together what clues he is able to give us. We're doing our best to help, and to be patient in the process, but I have to admit to feeling a bit at a loss.

Today was a rough day.

I was in this frustrated state of mind (and recovering from a migraine which I think is probably directly related to today's misadventures) when I read this post from Patty at Pancakes Gone Awry... if you have a child with sensory issues it's an encouraging read. I can so relate to what she describes with her son, and she's right, it does get better. Reading her post reminded me of just how far each of the boys has come so far. And not only that, if they've made that much progress up to this point, I have to believe that although we may be at a bit of a rough patch right now, more progress is yet to come and we will find a way to help them work through their current challenges.

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Magic Marker Monday: Flowers

2009-10-26T00:03:00.001-04:00

Bearhug brought this home from school. It looks like it may be of the same vase that Cuddlebug painted at school but it's interesting to see how different Bearhug's interpretation of it was :).

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Cuddlebug and Bearhug on the go

2009-10-24T12:01:00.003-04:00

Some pictures from our trip:

Cuddlebug enjoyed the view from the window of the train at the airport, while Bearhug was focused on his pizza :). We encountered lots of big escalators at the airports (we visited three that day). Cuddlebug insisted on riding the escalators, while Bearhug was terrified of them, so we compromised by letting Cuddlebug ride up and back down, and then we all took the elevator together.

We went to a pizza / game place where the boys had fun riding bumper cars (great for sensory-seekers!) and playing air hockey.

They got tired of hitting the puck back and forth and decided it was more fun to "throw" their handles at each other, lol.

My dad took us on a brief tour of the hangar where he works. The boys got a sneak-peek at the plane insides without all the seats and "trimmings."

And a visit to the park for some low-key fun. We were trying not to overdo it.

There were lots of ~~groundhogs~~ prairie dogs at the park :).

Cuddlebug buried a pack of "Smarties" candy in his volcano.

Then he was off to join Bearhug at the prairie dog field.

They walked around the entire perimeter of the field on the wall. When they got to going too fast, I told them to stop running. Cuddlebug responded, "we're not running, Mama, we're power-walking!" lol

On our way back to the car, Bearhug couldn't resist splashing in a puddle.

A little worried about overstimulation, we took the boys to pick out some Pokemon videos for some downtime.

The videos helped but it was not enough to prevent a rage of a meltdown, the likes of which I haven't seen from Bearhug in years. He stayed in control so well until one little thing set him off and it was downhill from there. No sense going into details... but it was worrisome because he's so big now I was afraid that he'd hurt himself or someone else or do some serious property damage but thankfully we all made it through ok.

After that, we pretty much stayed at the house the rest of the trip. The boys had fun playing with airplanes, and Bearhug enjoyed having Python attack the various planes, like this. He liked it when I took pictures of them like that, so I have a bunch of these with different planes. Aren't you glad I didn't post them all? hehe

And then it was time to go home.

We nearly had a repeat of Bearhug's meltdown when we found that Pizza Hut at the airport was closed during our layover (and I had told him we'd get pizza). So I assured him we'd get one when we landed at home before heading out to the car and he was able to stay in control (thank goodness because we were starting to attract stares and I was worried they wouldn't let us board the plane if he didn't calm down).

In the air we saw huge billowy clouds and blue skies, but on the ground it was back to rainy, grey skies.

As it turned out, the terminal we landed at does not have a Pizza Hut, and no other pizza would do (sigh) so we had to go on a quest for Pizza Hut before we could go find the car and go home. Of course it was the opposite direction of where we needed to go. We finally found it. That in itself was no easy feat - the airport was VERY crowded at that point, and to top it off Cuddlebug was insisting on pushing the suitcase (on rollers) for me and no matter how many times I told him you're supposed to pull it because it's easier, he was obstinate about it (and have you ever tried to push one of those things? It goes everywhere! not good in a crowded airport!). I was pulling my hair out, but we weren't really in a rush at that point and I knew they were both at their limit in terms of overstimulation, so I just took a deep breath and tried to keep the peace.

Anyway... so this one was taken on the underground train in our pizza quest.

And we had a breakthrough - Bearhug finally worked up the nerve to get on the escalator. I was really proud of him, I know how difficult it can be to overcome our fears. And he didn't just get on any escalator, he got on THIS one, which is huge and really messes with your visual sense of perspective for some reason.

All in all, it was a good trip and a relatively successful "experiment." We've been "paying" for it for the last couple of weeks because much like any vacation, the combination of overstimulation and change in the routine takes a while to work its way out of their systems. But it was great being able to go visit my parents for a long weekend and it was nice to have some one-on-one (or two) time with Cuddlebug and Bearhug, although I missed dh and Bitty while we were gone. It was also all the evidence I needed that we need to wait a long while before trying to take Bitty on a flight ;).

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Social story: Airplane ride

2009-10-23T23:02:00.008-04:00

I made this for the boys before our trip, thought it might be helpful to share.

New experiences, however fun or exciting, can be really stressful for Cuddlebug and Bearhug so the goal of this was to walk through what to expect step-by-step. With flying, I knew there would be a lot of steps involved and wanted to help them transition as smoothly as possible from one area to the next as we went through the process of getting checked in, going through security, finding our gate, waiting, boarding, etc. The fewer surprises the better :).

I put the pages together in powerpoint and then printed them out with each slide taking up half a page. Then I cut the pages and stapled the edges to make little booklets. They didn't actually spend a whole lot of time looking at the booklets but having thought through all the steps helped me to be prepared to talk them through everything as we moved from one step to the next.

If anyone wants the .ppt file so you can adapt it for your own family just send me a note or leave a comment, I'd be happy to share it.

UPDATE:
The .ppt file has been uploaded to google docs, you can view and download it here:
Airplane Ride Social Story

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Alex Barton Update

2009-10-23T07:55:00.003-04:00

As you may remember, Alex Barton was the little boy whose teacher had him "voted out" of his kindergarten class by his peers. He is now an honor student at another school that is obviously doing a much better job of meeting his educational needs.

I saw this on Fox & Friends yesterday, I am really glad to see that he is doing well. And he was cracking me up doing "thumbs up" and big grins (to the cameraman?) while his mom was talking :). What a cutie!

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We're in luck! Thomas clothes in bigger sizes

2009-10-16T23:07:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to share this for anyone else who may be in a similar predicament, as well as for my own reference so I don't lose it :).

~~~~~~

I'm pretty sure I have commented before about how Bitty will only wear clothes with Thomas on them. And how we have up until now been unable to find Thomas clothes larger than size 5 (and those are hard enough to come by). His 4T's are getting small, and his size 5's won't be far behind. Just a matter of time...

Well, it looks like we'll be able to delay the inevitable for a few more years, and hopefully by then he will have broadened out his "acceptable clothing" list to include non-Thomas attire.

I found a site called Totally Thomas that carries Thomas shirts up to size Youth Large (12-14). Granted, there's not much selection that big, but there are a couple... and there's a decent selection up to child size 7.

AND there's more... they also carry Thomas underwear up to size 8. How cool is that? I've never seen anything above toddler sizes at the store.

Amazing how something so seemingly mundane has really made my day, but I know ya'll know where I'm coming from! ;)

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Where in the world have we been?

2009-10-14T07:50:00.004-04:00

Ok, I guess it hasn't really been that long but it feels like a long time! Here's a hint:

Yep, I took Cuddlebug and Bearhug for their first plane ride... we went to visit my parents for the long weekend. Dh and Bitty stayed home. We aren't quite ready to put Bitty on a plane yet (we don't want to end up on the news for getting kicked off a plane). Maybe when he's 8... we'll see.

Overall, the boys did great, I'm really proud of them! More to come soon, and I'll hopefully get time to catch up on all of your blogs this weekend :).

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SEW & WW: Like Uncle, Like Nephew

2009-10-07T00:01:00.001-04:00

When we were kids, my younger brother used to go running to look at airplanes whenever he heard one flying overhead, which was pretty often because we lived on an Air Force Base. If we were inside, he ran for the window :).

That memory came to mind this past weekend when the boys and I were in the garage (with the door open) and we heard an airplane flying by. Bitty perked right up and went running outside to catch a glimpse of the plane:

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