Homeschool!

As of today, we are officially homeschoolers :D We planned on starting last week, then Hurricane Isaac headed our way so we decided to wait. Yesterday, well, it just wasn't happening :p So today it was! We did school after breakfast today, but we'll be doing it after lunch instead so I can work out in the mornings.

I'm using the Abeka K4 curriculum for Ethan, but I can already see I will be tweaking it a bit ;) He was so excited about starting school today! Week 1 is very light in what we do (no math or writing), and he was rather disappointed. "What's next? What do we do next, Mommy? I want to write!" LOL So I pulled out his dry erase board and dry erase crayons and let him write to his heart's content ;) I have some workbooks (Abeka 3-yr-old level) for Gabriel to do when wants. Today he played until I pulled out the dry erase, then he "wrote" with Ethan :)

Here's what our schedule looks (will look) like:
Lunch
Potty
Brushing (Wilbarger protocol)
Warm-Ups (from Brain Gym; his former OT did them with him and I'm glad I wrote it down!)
Bible/prayer (taught by Jesse)
Phonics
Numbers
Writing
Art/Music/PE/Sensory activities

I'm excited that Ethan's so excited! I hope he stays enthusiastic :) I know there will be rough days, but I've planned on homeschooling since before we had kids so I'm glad it's finally here!!!

Been a Little While...

I have such good intentions of keeping this updated... When I can get a laptop, it'll be easier. Blogging from my phone just takes longer than I have the patience for most days :p The typing I do is usually posting at www.gentlechristianmothers.com/community but the site is on summer vacation right now ;)

Ethan's continuing to progress with his occupational therapy :) We don't know how much longer he'll have it. The department it's under is in danger of being shut down due to budget cuts :( If it ends up a casualty of politics, there is only one other place that takes Medicaid for OT in this area. And I don't know if it would be worth it... Guess if/when that time comes, we'll make a decision.

His behavioral therapy has been a bit different. The social worker has been doing home visits. She wanted to see him in a setting he'd be more comfortable. It's worked out to be a very good change! She's gotten a lot of new insight and even got to see a meltdown including most of the lead-up. We'll be starting a new therapy this week called Circle of Security. Friday will be our intro meeting about it. I looked around their website some and was happy with what I've seen so far. It meshes really well with our style of parenting, and addresses some issues that haven't been resolved with what we've done so far.

And it couldn't have come at a better time! The last week with Ethan has been the worst we've had for a while :( He and Jesse are on another spiral of feeding off each other's negativity. It's awful to be around... Especially for someone like me who is so in tune with their emotions. Today and Monday were pretty bad. It's really hard to keep myself from absorbing the intensity of those emotions and letting them pull me down too. Let me just say that I have empathic tendencies, and anyone who has them knows what struggles I'm facing in the midst of all this anger and turmoil... I had to partially restrain him today which I haven't had to do in a while. But last night he fell asleep on the couch with his head in my lap... And this morning he and I rough-housed for a long time. It hasn't all been negative :)

On to Gabriel! He is so expressive and cracks me up when he gets going :) He's started throwing toys to get attention. It's not something we can ignore :( We're trying to figure out an appropriate consequence that works for the situation. He went through a short period of hitting himself in the head when he got frustrated, and wanting attention for it. Thankfully that's getting better! It's so hard not to respond when he does it, but that's the only way the behavior will stop. He's 2.5 and acting in very age-appropriate ways ;)

Ethan's birthday and party are this month :) He wants Clifford for his theme. I have a neat cake idea, just hope it turns out like I'm hoping!

I made Ethan a weighted pillow a few weeks ago. It's to put on his lap while sitting to help him sit still. He asks for it when he feels he needs it and has done really well with it so far! I'll try to get a post up specifically about the pillow...

And in other news... The boys' homeschool curriculum came in :) I'm pretty nervous but definitely excited too! Abeka K4 for Ethan (manuscript), and a few of their toddler workbooks for Gabriel. We also got the Abeka bible curriculum. We are mostly happy with it but will be adding some extra lessons as well.

Hmmm... I'm exhausted, so that's all for now! I'll try to be better about posting on this blog :p

From My Husband

My hubby wrote this Mother's Day night and I wanted to share it with y'all...

http://15words.blogspot.com/2012/05/to-all-whose-mothers-day-is-hard.html

Blessings

Something that I think about from time to time... And the past few days have been one of those times...

I feel we are so blessed with how things ended up with the boys!

1. I was 32 when I had Ethan, my first. If I had been much younger, his challenges would have been SOOO much harder to deal with! My wonderful Savior knew what He was doing by me not getting pregnant before that! True, we waited until we were a bit older, but it also took 27 months of trying for me to get pregnant...

2. If we had had another child before Ethan, his differences and challenges would've stood out so much more. I can't imagine what we would have thought about him...

3. If Ethan wasn't our first, the child(ren) before him would've been practically neglected :( He was so high needs from birth that he took all of our time and energy. We had nothing left.

4. We wouldn't have appreciated Gabriel's calm demeanor nearly as much without dealing with Ethan's anxiety, etc first. It's the flip side of 2.

5. If we had an easier child first, we never would have looked for alternate discipline strategies. There would've been no need. This search is what led us to grace-based discipline. And that has influenced so much in our lives...

There are days (weeks, sometimes) that Ethan really gets under my skin. They don't happen nearly as often, but they still do. This morning I had to get up early for Ethan's OT appointment. Gabriel got up when I did, but Ethan stayed asleep. Gabriel played contentedly while I got ready. It was so nice not to have to hear Ethan's whining and complaining. Not that he's like that all the time, but, well, let's just say he's not a morning person ;)

I try not to let Ethan's behavior get to me. But I'm human... And he can be really challenging... When I start getting resentful toward him, I remember that God gave me THIS child for a reason! And He will help me through the challenging times!

It's not Ethan's fault he's challenging any more than Gabriel can take credit for being fairly easy. Our job as parents is to accept them and love them. No matter what their difficulties are. We have a responsibility to disciple them - to train them in the way they should go. Lovingly. What is the importance of love? What does this look like?

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of  prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed  the poor,  and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind  and  is not jealous; love does not brag and  is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong  suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails..." 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a

Thanking God tonight for my two precious little blessings...

An Update... Finally!

1. Homeschool, here... we... come! We ordered the Abeka K4 curriculum for Ethan, and a few of the 3's workbooks for Gabriel. We also bought the preschool bible set (stories and pictures). It won't be shipped till June but we aren't starting until August. Jesse wants to start the bible when it gets here, so we'll probably do that :)

I'm excited and nervous! We decided to go with a traditional curriculum for the first few years to make sure the boys get a good foundation in language and math. I don't know if we'll stick with Abeka but right now it's a good fit for us :)

Even though Ethan will be 5 in July, we don't feel he's mature enough for a regular kindergarten curriculum. He's smart, but he lags behind his peer group in social skills and overall maturity. So K4 it is :) We wanted to give him something manageable this year that shouldn't challenge him much. We want him to get his feet wet in regards to the idea of school, to learn some of the structure and routine, before diving in to a challenging K5 curriculum.

2. Ethan had his retest for occupational therapy the past few weeks. It was split into two sessions, with a break for Easter in the middle. I haven't gotten the results yet but hope to have them at his appointment Monday. I've seen growth here at home with his motor skills and sensory issues, and I hope that's reflected in his test results!

3. We are still doing behavioral therapy every week. But the emphasis has shifted from doing things with Ethan to just Jesse and me meeting with the social worker. The next phase in the parent-child interaction therapy we were doing involved some things that went against our parenting beliefs. So instead we're working with specific issues and concerns when we meet.

The biggie right now is that although Ethan's overall anxiety has decreased, he is getting more and more rigid in his routines :( For example, at every meal, there is a growing "script" he says:
"Can you make this again?" (waits for my reply)
"Thank you" (waits for my reply)
"Does it have salt and pepper in it?" (waits for my reply)
"How did you make this?" (waits for my reply)
If anything interrupts his "script," he gets extremely agitated! If I'm not home, he has to have Jesse text me the first two items.
He is making more and more routines, and if things don't go EXACTLY in the "right" order, a meltdown ensues...

In the past, as his anxiety has increased, his rigidity and OCD-type behaviors have also increased. But this time, his anxiety hasn't increased. In fact, it's decreased. Which makes me even more concerned.

We discussed this with his social worker today. She is going to talk to the psychiatrist about it in the next couple weeks and let us know what she says (she only is there 1 day a week). In the meantime, the next appointment will be a home visit with the social worker. She'll teach Ethan (and us) some relaxation techniques to help Ethan cope better. She specifically mentioned deep breathing, guided imagery, and muscle tensing/relaxation.

Eventually I'll share some of the things we learned in the parts of PCIT we did, and how they worked :)

3. So... I mentioned a while back that we had made the switch to grace-based parenting. The boys are responding so well to it! Especially Ethan :) I want to do a post just on how GBD looks in our home, but that will take some time and a good bit of mental energy to put together. The ladies at www.gentlechristianmothers.com have been a Godsend in helping us through this transition! If you want to get an idea of what GBD is, you can look around there. www.aolff.org also has some great resources. I don't agree with her 100% theologically, but her parenting articles are awesome!

4. It's been a rough year... Lots of sickness and health problems, car issues, really tough financial spots, etc. But our awesome God and Savior has brought us through them! We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and it is no longer the headlight of an oncoming train ;) Jesse's work-from-home job has picked back up after a few months of very little work. He's also laying the groundwork for his personal business. Right now this means he's working 12-15 hour days, 7 days a week. But this is only for the short term! We're all looking forward to him having a fairly normal schedule soon :)

Hmmm... I guess that's the major stuff... I'll try to update more often, but with the way things have gone, I don't get much time to blog! Most posts are from my phone so they take forever :p Right now Jesse and Gabriel are taking a much-needed nap so I grabbed my chance to get on the computer ;)

The Boys' Allergy Testing

I blogged about it on my health blog. I know some of you don't follow it but may be interested in what happened today.

http://cmlhealth.blogspot.com/2012/03/allergy-tests-are-not-for-weak.html

I'm still trying to process the emotions. I'll probably post here about them when I'm ready...

Allergy Testing

The boys have an appointment with a pediatric allergist later this month. Their pedi set it up at my request to do food allergy testing.

I don't know what kind of testing they're going to do. I'm putting together a list of questions to call and ask about what to expect. They are sending me a packet to fill out. I don't know if there will be some info in there that answers my questions but I'm hoping!

If anyone knows of a question I should ask, please leave it in the comments!