Other Happenings This Past Month

Baby Girl turned 3-months-old...about a month ago!  She is super sweet and loves to smile at everyone.

This month she has learned to roll over, both ways.  And now she moves around the house a lot.  It is no longer safe to leave her on the bed or couch, and still not safe to leave her on the floor.  So we really don't know what to do with her, so any suggestions would be welcome!

Billy is the reason we cannot leave her on the floor.  If we do he immediately goes to her and bugs her. He doesn't really understand that he has to be soft with her, and he thinks hitting, kicking and stepping on is the way we show affection in this house.  So it is pretty scary to leave her on the floor for any period of time.  

She is starting to love Daddy more and will actually sleep with him, let him hold her and play with him rather then just wanting Mommy!  

Brooke and Daddy taking a nap.  He had no clue I
even took this picture.

I completely rearranged/semi-decorated Billy's/Brooke's/The guest room.  I found a cheep crib ($50 for crib and mattress) on craigslist.  It has a bunch of bite marks but Doug was able to refinish it so it looks nice now.  Mikey was so excited he wanted it to be his room too.  I let him take a nap in there one day with Billy and when I went in to check on the them I found every stuffed animal and book in Billy's bed with him.

Billy is in there somewhere!

We finally got the crib done and set up, but I am a little afraid to actually move her in there.  Billy is super excited to have a new roommate.  I am afraid he is going to learn a little too quickly that he can climb in there with her.  

Bill is so excited to see Brooke in his room

Her first nap in her new bed

Mikey also loves Brooke.  Until recently he has pretty much left her alone.  But the past few weeks he has been such a big helper to her.  He loves to hold her and I have to get to her pretty fast when he decides he wants to because he thinks he is big enough to carry her to the chair on his own.

One day he asked if he could watch a movie with her.

Mikey has also been super helpful in other areas of the house.  One day he got the vacuum out and decided to vacuum the floors.  When he was done with that he pulled all the couch cushions off and vacuumed the couches too!  Such a great helper.  He has done this  a couple of times now.

James and Mikey have been having a ton of fun together lately too.  They really play together well...most of the time!  The best part of the day for them is bed time.  I can never get the to just go to bed, they always have to have these big elaborate adventures before bed.  Sometimes they are Mario and Luigi, sometimes Ralph and Felix or Vanellope.  One night We took everything out of their room to try and get them to just sleep.  They found their old Halloween costumes (Mike Wiscowski and James P. Sullivan) and put them on.  They were playing trick-or-treet.  It was super cute!

Halloween costumes from 3 years ago!  Although they decided
to switch them this time.

They are also very good at memorizing movies!  Mikey is so good for James because he can remember the lines almost as well as James can so they can often play with each other because Doug and I are just not that good at it!

One of James' favorite things to do lately (and he thinks it needs to happen every Friday night) is camping in the backyard.  The first time they did it Doug thought they wouldn't last that long.  It wasn't really warm and it rained a little bit, but James was insistent that they stick it out.  James and Mikey set up a camp fire this time and roasted marshmallows.  There was no actual fire, but they didn't care.

Mikey and James "roasting" marshmallows

James gets pretty creative sometimes.  One morning he woke up pretty early before school.  While I was getting ready he had found some fabric in the closet and drawn himself a "bad guy" shirt.  When I was trying to get him ready for school he was insistent that he was going to wear the shirt he made himself.  Well as you can see there is no way that was going to happen.  So I also got creative and pinned his shirt to another shirt and he was able to wear his "bad guy" shirt to school.  I was pretty impressed with how interested the other kids seemed in his shirt and they were all pretty impressed with it too.  "He made that this morning?!"

James wearing his "bad guy" shirt

James' Kindergarden Graduation

Today James "graduated" Kindergarden.  This past year has been full of so many high points and low points that it really it bitter-sweet that it is ending.  Part of me is so relieved not to have to answer the question "Is today no school?" Every. Single. Morning.  I tried so hard to avoid saying "no, today is school." Finally I just gave in and deal with the meltdown so maybe we can get past it to getting dressed and eating breakfast.  I am really looking forward to not having to answer that question for awhile.
But a lot of me is sad to see this school year end.  James is an awesome little boy and I have not met anyone who does not end up completely loving this boy once they get to know him.  But the problem is that it takes time, a lot of time, to make that special connection.  I can always tell when the connection has been made, you can see the light in the persons eyes when they talk about James and the special smile that they have just for him.  So now that he has this connection with his teachers it is time to switch and start all over again.  I dread the looks of "I have never dealt with this kind of behavior before and am at a complete loss of what to do" or the questions to try and explain what he is thinking or doing.  It helps to know that they will get there eventually, but it is hard watching everyone struggle until they do.  Here are some of the people who have touched our lives this year.

Mrs. Leatherwood: I cannot say enough good things about his classroom teacher.  She is the sweetest, most loving, patient teacher I have ever met.  And she was perfect for James.  I know at first she really struggled with how to best help James, to teach him the rules and understand his communication.  I remember there were so many questions at first, how to deal with different behaviors, and a lot of times I just didn't know how to help because we hadn't found things that really worked either.  But she didn't give up.  She spent so much time researching, talking to other professionals and taking classes to learn how to best teach James.  At his IEP meeting in April she said "James has made me a better teacher all around." Love that she didn't write him off or give up on him.  At graduation she gave me a hug and said "Thank you for sharing James with me this year. I am a better person because of him. He has been such a blessing to me."  And I just thought, "me too, he makes me a better person too."

Ms. Eve: Ms. Eve is the classroom EA.  I am sure she has spent the bulk of her time helping James.  She has helped him to go to specials (Music, PE and Library) and when he just was unable to do it anymore she stayed with him in the classroom helping him with different activities.  James has drawn a lot of pictures for her this year, and she shows them to me whenever I am in the classroom.  

Ms. Lacey: This is James' speech therapist.  We could tell from the first parent teacher conference that she was going to be good for James.  She spoke the most positively about him and all the things she wanted to do with him.  She was excited for every bit of progress he made and loved to share them with me whenever I ran into her at the school.  She came up with some amazing ways to work with him a lot of which we have implemented at home because they are perfect for the way James thinks and learns.  She ate lunch with him every day to help him learn conversation skills, and got him to actually sit and eat.  

Mrs. Montoya: This was James' special ed teacher.  I believe that she really did love James and truly wanted what was best for him.  Unfortunately their personalities did not blend very well and James really did not enjoy going to her class.  One day he came home from school with a social story called "James' has fun learning in Mrs. Montoy's room"  They often used social stories to correct inappropriate behaviors.  I guess one time when she came to get him he pointed at her and yelled "No! You go to Montoya's room!"  However I think she got some good results from him.  When she left about a month before school got out, he really started to struggle more.  So even though he protested going to her class so much she really did have an impact on his education and behavior.  

Ms. Jessica: Ms. Jessica is the liaison from the district.  About a month after school started they realized they had about 4 kindergardeners that needed a lot of extra help.  So they created a special social skills class for them.  Ms. Jessica was the teacher.  She taught him appropriate behaviors like keeping his hands to himself, not throwing sand on the playground, they ate lunch together and played at recess.  I think the class was a success, but unfortunately it ended after Christmas.  

Mr. Vetterly: This is the school principal.  We really did not get off to a great start.  After the first few weeks James was in his office for hitting.  I could tell right away that he did not really understand James at all.  The next run in we had was after James was suspended for hitting Mrs. Montoya.  This ended in a big meeting were Doug finally just told him, "I don't feel that you even care about my kid." After that we were able to make much more progress toward figuring out exactly what was best for James and He was able to soften his attitude toward him and realize that James takes a lot longer to learn appropriate behavior and he made some extra effort to get to know James and make sure he was doing well in school.  

We are so grateful for all the people who touched James' life this year.  I am really hoping next year gets off to a better start and we have a head start to helping James progress since so many people already know and love him.

Happy Birthday Mikey

Mikey turned 4 on Saturday.  It was a really fun day for us, and we are pretty sure he enjoyed it too.  He had been begging for roller skates like "daddy's"  so he could skate really fast.  He didn't understand that his weren't fast because he doesn't really know how to do it, not because of the skates.  It was pretty exciting because it is the first time we have had a kid come up with something they really really want on their own, without us making any kind of suggestions.  First thing on Saturday morning he said "Did you buy me roller skates for my birthday?"  I told him we could open his presents as soon as Billy woke up.  The next thing I knew he was opening his roller skates without us.  We almost missed it.

Mikey putting on his skates

After breakfast a couple of boys came over (one James' age and one Mikey's) while their parents went to a high school graduation.  So we had a small birthday party for Mikey.  We did water balloons, and played outside, had popsicles, and lunch.  After his friends went home Mikey had a short nap then Doug took him to the skating rink to try out his new skates.  He loved it.

Once they got home from Skating we took the boys to the store to pick out a swimming pool with their birthday money.  We seem to buy a new pool every year, and always debate for a long time what kind to get.  We don't want a big one because we want to be able to take it down every time so they boys don't have access to it constantly, it has to be shallow enough for Billy, blow up ones pop, the "Snap side" pools always crack and break, and the hard plastic pools blow away.  So we went with a blow up one and I guess we will see how it goes.  Once we got home we tried to have dinner.  Mikey choose pepperoni pizza, but the boys were too excited to get the pool set up.  They swam for a few minutes, then we did cake.  Mikey insisted on having a "roller skate cake"  I tried to talk him into a Batman one, but he insisted.  I am kind of glad because it was much easier, and after James' cake I needed to do an easy one.

Overall I think he had a really fun day, and I love that there is an activity that he can go do with his Dad for some fun one-on-one time.  We love our tiny little 4-year-old!

Mikey is 4!

Recently I decided I wanted to interview the kids on their birthdays to see the change from year to year.  I started asking Mikey the questions last night while we were eating cookies and he was being so stinkin cute that Doug suggested we do video interviews.  My camera card was full right at the end so we missed just a few of the questions but he is still a really cute 4-year-old with lots to say.  Also if I did the same interview today I believe the answers would be completely different.