Happy New Years!

Quiet night at Ed's house.....lasagna, cookies, sparkling cider, and wine, and no doubt we'll all be in bed by 10.

Rahsjay has been relaxed and pleasant all day, Aaron obsessed by his new ambulance, and Luke happily playing his new games on his Leapster. It's going to be hard to sit in the car all day tomorrow.

Traveling to NJ and NY

Traveling with three kids hasn’t been hell – the 3 DVD players definitely help, especially since the trip to Rich’s sis Linda’s house in NJ took 15 hours. The first day we were there Raha forgot his morning medication and threw a small tantrum when I caught him in a lie, but fortunately he followed most of the agreement we’d made following the last big blow out. Maybe he’s starting to have an awareness of the impression these tantrums leave on other people?

We made a trip into NYC yesterday to go to the Natural History Museum and Rockefeller Center. It was by far the most crowded that Rich remembers so all of the kids were pretty overwhelmed. We saw Rich’s childhood friend Don & we both love just walking around the city, but I was sorry that we didn’t walk through Central Park on such a pretty day and that the museum was crowded enough that it wasn’t much fun.

On the way to Rich’s brother Ed’s house in Moorestown, NJ, today we went to the Freedom Science Center in Jersey City. It was amazing – even with the crowds. There were great interactive exhibits that all of the kids enjoyed even though we have such a wide age range. The favorite was an exhibit on skyscrapers that included a demonstration on hurricane force wind & water that Raha had me sit through (fortunately wearing waterproof gear) and Luke had a ball building demo building in scale sizes and with computer models. The highlight for Aaron was a rice filled sandbox in the kid area and he played in it for over an hour.

Luke's present

Rich gave Luke a globe for Christmas. Luke opened it and said, "Look, it's what you've always wanted to get me!"

Happy painting

Aaron had a fine time with paint!

Christmas morning, 7 a.m.

I told the kids that they couldn't wake us up before 7. Luke apparently stood in our doorway and watched the clock because he woke me up at exactly 7:00. Rich is sleeping in a bit longer.....he played the midnight service at church (then watched a movie - yikes).

Luke said, "Look Mom! Santa ate his cookies!" Then a couple minutes later, "Why didn't Santa put his plate away and put his milk in the refrigerator?"

Mixed meaning? and opening presents

Sitting at breakfast Aaron just told me, "Apple Juice! I eat it! I bite it!"

Here are my mom's notes from opening presents on Sunday:

Luke and Papa: “I’m going to open this present.” “How do you know its yours?” “It has my name on it!” “Does Aaron have a present?” “Yes.” “How does Aaron spell his name?” “He can’t spell yet.”

Aaron opening presents: “Open it! Help me! I did it! Mine guck (truck). Beep beep beep. Hey-a guys, mine guck. A-guck-a-again (make the truck go again!).”

Aaron going around the room placing a box on each person’s head: “A momma’s hat…a papa’s hat…a mommy’s hat….a-gain (again) a-gain. Oh Oh again.”

Luke's goose egg

During Sunday school Katie brought me a very teary little boy. Luke tripped in the gym while they were playing dodge ball and hit his forehead. The goose egg was terrifying - I'm sure I'm exaggerating, but it seemed like it covered the left half of his forehead. He didn't like the ice, but the swelling did eventually go down and he hasn't complained about a headache until the evening. The bruise is pretty impressive, though.

Binkie Fairy

Emily & Austin, Aaron's speech therapists, sat us down at the dining room table and told us to get rid of the binkies -- now. We set a date (yesterday) and made a plan....Aaron and I walked around the house and put all of his binkies in a gift bag, and we talked about the "New Baby" who needs his binkies since he's a big boy. No, there isn't a new Levinson on the way - it was all just a 2 year old friendly story. Then we went outside and hung the bag on a tree and we all made a big fuss over telling the binkies goodbye and how much we'll miss them. After an hour my dad took him back outside to discover the special toy the Binkie Fairy left for him when she took his binkies. He was thoroughly unimpressed. He just kept looking around and under his bag for his binkies.

Last night was actually better than I thought it might be. We had about 10 minutes of serious crying and plaintive calls for "Mah binkie!!!" It took about 45 minutes for him to go to sleep and we had one extended waking at night. At naptime today he woke up and couldn't get back to sleep even though he was desperate for more sleep. I'm hoping that by Friday when we leave for New York the binkies will just be a memory.

Tantrums

Terrible tantrum from R tonight - exhausted and upset. This is so hard right now.

Holiday cooking, gymnastics kid

Mom, Luke, and I spent this afternoon baking quick breads......cherry & cardamom, lime/coconut/white chocolate, and cranberry/dark chocolate/pecan. Luke is rapidly becoming a proficient baker. He's also figured out that some fun tasks aren't worth the bother, telling us, "I don't want to crack the eggs because I don't want to wash my hands.

Luke has a ball goofing off at All About Kids rather than just taking his serious gymnastics lessons. Meghan takes the boys most Fridays. Maybe it helps that he only weighs 34 pounds?

A miracle!

Luke is sleeping in his OWN BED, two nights in a row! I told him at the begining of the week that it was time to stop sleeping on the floor of the multi-purpose room downstairs. He was sleeping on an exercise matt with a couple of quilts, and it was getting filthy because it was on the floor and Charlie liked to sleep with him. We talked about it a couple of times, and he told Meghan that he was ready to move back to his own bed. Last night he took the plunge, and actually made it through the night! Such a happy surprise, and he voluntarily went to sleep there again tonight.

Aaron's new thing to say is "ME DAT" for "Give me that!" I kind of like it. He also started his therapeutic play group on Wednesday and it sounds like it was a huge success - led by the developmental interventionist who he's had one-on-one sessions with prior to this time.

Raha is working his way gradually back to the nice list. We had a productive talk about negative, repetitive thoughts he's having after bad dreams, and his teacher sent an very insightful email about possible reasons for his social isolation at school. I'll attach or summarize it when I'm not falling asleep sitting upright!

Tough week

Raha is having a terrible week and dragging me along with him. I'm exhausted. He's having bad dreams about his biological dad and lots of memories around the holiday season. His foster worker says her entire caseload has Christmas-itis right now, so we're not alone, but I'm frustrated with the blow-ups and defiance. I can't figure out how much of it is genuine emotional baggage and how much is testing and manipulation.

Luke is doing his own 5 year old testing and Aaron is being a toddler.

Luke did crack us up on Sunday in children's church. Larry asked, "What is peace?" and Luke answered, "We eat them."

M&Ms

M&M is a particularly cute word when it's garbled by a 2 year old. He holds up each one and happily yells, "lellow!!!!!!" He'll repeat the correct color if he's told to say it correctly. Meghan kept asking him for one, and he kept telling her no in a tone of voice that seemed to say, "you gotta be kidding, lady!"

My family descends on us tomorrow. My grandparents are flying in from Montana for a week, and they'll rotate between our house and my parent's house. Grammy is very anxious to see the boys, so I'm glad that she'll be able to spend several days enjoying them.

Chocolate chip or ?

Aaron says "Ki - co" for "cookie," which is one oddity I'll be sorry to lose! He still says "Dye-dye" for "Bye-bye" and is very enthusiastic. Today his big update from the last post is that he said, "Me yump on Mommy!" Of course he did. Both Austin and Emily think he won't have more than another 6 months of speech therapy. I'm curious to see the results from the assessments they do in the next couple of weeks - I'm not as optimistic as they are, even though he is making progress.

Emily did say that we need to start to encourage Luke to drop some of his sweet speech habits, like "b-struction" and "I b-iscovered something" and "lellow (yellow)". I giggle each time he says one of those things, but I guess he does need to move on to more mature language. Drat.

Rahj is doing beautifully in math - he started a mainstreamed class today. I've been surprised and impressed by him when I'm working with him at home. He learns the content quickly and seems to have a genuine aptitude for math. I wonder if he's showing his really intelligence level now that he's more secure and less anxious.

Feeding Aaron

Aaron still loves cat food - I came into the office this morning and his mouth was overflowing with cat food. He eats handfuls of it. He also makes Ollie very happy by filling the bowl several times a day.

His language is really improving. He just said, "Mommy me ump! (jump)" before jumping off a chair. This morning he ran around talking about his "geen uck (green truck)" and he's making lots of conversational sounding babbles.

Literacy Moment

Just reading Luke his bedtime stories. The story had "extra" written as "X-tra" and he sat there for a couple of minutes going, "eeeeehxtra" then told me tha "X-tra" was spelled wrong because he knew the starting sound. A couple of minutes later he saw the word "cherry cobbler," and told me that the cobbler was ok but that I was saying the word "cherry" wrong, because it should start with a "c" sound. He seemed to really understand when I talked to him about sound blends. Big change in his reasoning.

Maybe I will keep being their mommy

We've taken laundry basket rides, lots of variations, with all three boys playing:

Bad weekend

Big blow up from Rahj, Luke is being sneaky-mean to Aaron, and Aaron's throwing tantrums for candy and having night terrors. Rahj is grounded and will lose flexibility for awhile, Luke is having long conversations with me about kindness, and Aaron just gets to be a toddler. I'm not sure I want to be a mommy this week.

Hill Chicken

Ah....history repeats itself. I had Luke on his bike in our neighborhood while I took Aaron for a walk in the stroller. Going down a gently sloping hill, Luke said, "On these types of bikes, a new rider gets kind of nervous." He suggested walking, but finally agreed to let me help out by holding his handlebars.

My mother used to roll her eyes at me when we went bike riding since I was so scared of going down hills.

Aaron's Bath Entertainment

finally got this loaded -- enjoy!

Sugar Fiend

This morning I came in from voting to Aaron screaming and sobbing. He was standing in the kitchen pointing at the Halloween candy bowl, demanding that for breakfast. Rich said no, and Aaron gave him a healthy tantrum.

Same story with snack. Meghan gave him a little handful of marshmallows mixed in with his healthy snacks this afternoon. He ate just the marshmallows then sobbed when she told him that he needed to eat the rest of his snack. She pulled him out of his chair, and he went to the counter and pointed and the candy bowl, yelling "can-dy!!!!" Meghan wasn't any more sympathetic than Rich, but I'm definitely blaming Aaron's sweet tooth on Rich - genetics?

Misc Luke

Driving to gymnastics today:

Luke - "Punch bug!"
Me - "How do you always see the VW bugs first?"
Luke - "It's because my eyes are so good looking."

I may have written this before - it cracks me up every time he says it, so I'll be sorry when he loses this verbal idiosyncrasy.

He's at gymnastics right now climbing on the pommel horse. All of the 5 year olds have their shirts off (in theory so they won't have t-shirts covering their faces when they do handstands, etc.), but really they just look so cute with their little bellies and ribs sticking out. Luke spent the morning riding his bike around downtown La Grange while we walked, and he was so proud of himself.

First Bike Ride! and Halloween

Of course I forgot that the video can't rotate, but here's a sideways view of Luke's first bike ride at home:

We went to Larry Carson's house after church for a picnic. He has several grandchildren who are older than Luke, so he had several bikes in his backyard for kids to use. Luke was delighted to find one with training wheels and he spent most of the afternoon riding around on the grass and down a gently sloping hill. When it was time to leave, Larry gave him the bike! Luke is SOOOOO excited. He rode lots of circles around the driveway (and even fell off of the brick wall into our little garden), then rode the mile loop around our neighborhood.

We managed to get through Halloween with only one big bowl of candy from the parties and trick-or-treating. The Hendersons had a big neighborhood party full of adults that were fun us, but the kids really wanted to trick-or-treat. We went to about 10 houses, but we'll have to start earlier next year.

Rahsjay surprised me yesterday. We were on our way to swimming lessons and Luke was trying to convince me to let him carve a pumpkin by himself with a knife. His biggest argument was, "Rahsjay got to do it when he was 4." Rahsjay immediately responded with, "But that's because my parents didn't care about me. I'm not being mean, it's just true." He's amazing sometimes - realistic and honest about his past, and optimistic about his place in the world now.

Funnies

This morning, I was feeding Zachariah rice cereal when Aaron came up and looked interested. I offered him some on the tip of my finger and he ate it. He stuck his tongue out, made a face and said "ewww." This afternoon when Zachariah was eating green beans for lunch, I offered them to Aaron. He very emphatically said no, and ran to the other side of the room. I offered several times and the response was the same.
~~Meghan (the nanny)

Sick kid

Luke has scarlet fever, which I thought sounded scary but it's just strep with an icky, itchy rash. Last night I had wiggly kid in my bed kicking me until 2:30 a.m. until I gave up and went to sleep in his bed. He was kind enough to share the strep with me, but fortunately I didn't get the rash.

When we were chosing decorations for Halloween, Luke told me that he wanted lots of scary x-rays. Took a minute to figure out - he meant skeletons!

The only issue is TV

Nice feedback from Raha's foster placement worker - he told her that he thinks this placement is working because this is the family is the one he was always meant to be with. The only thing wrong with us? We don't let him watch enough T.V.

Aaron said "belbow (elbow)" "atain (airplane)" "earring" "buhbuhbuy (broccoli)" and "my turn" today. Very chatty.

Aaron Begins Signing

Aaron began his sign language lessons today with Emily. Here she is showing him how to say, "my turn".

October 21, 2008

Aaron and Zachariah (Meghans's son) share some laughs.

Fall Pleasures

I think this is the first year I feel like I'm getting the full benefit of fall and Halloween! Rich is out of the hospital and feeling ok, so we went to Fox Hollow Farm's family celebration on Saturday with the two Williams families, and the kids had a ball climbing on the hay castle, picking pumpkins, and going on a hay ride. The other pics are from last week at the zoo, which was followed by a fabulous meal at the Vietnam Kitchen. It was Luke's first time using chopsticks, and he may have managed to eat a decent bellyfull of food.

Surprises

Rich is in the hospital, probably for a couple more days. On Tuesday he had a severe headache that wasn't improved by prescription painkillers and a decongestant. When I came home from work he wasn't making much sense and he was obviously in a lot of pain so I took him to the ER. They quickly took him to the back and gave him narcotics to relieve the intensity of the pain. After a CAT scan, chest xray, blood work, and a spinal tap, he's been diagnosed with viral meningitis.

He's in the hospital for pain management because the virus has to run its course. Viral meningitis isn't dangerous neurologically or life threatening, but it is characterized by painful headaches because the virus attacks the lining of brain. It also isn't very contagious, so his doctor thinks it is unlikely that anyone else in the family will get it. Whew. Right now he's getting 3 mg of morphine every two hours and percocet every 4 hours. He isn't nearly as stoned as I'd expect, but the pain is at least at a level that he isn't miserable. He'll be in the hospital for at least a couple more days.

Meghan has been amazing. She's here for the second night and is doing far more than I ever could expect from a friend and caregiver. Dad is coming up Friday to relieve her a bit because she's exhausted.

Boys are fine - Raha really worried initially but doing fine as long as he get regular updates and knows what to expect. Aaron asking for Daddy, and Luke asks when he's coming home. I'm with Meghan - exhausted.

Back in the blog & Aaron discovers his power

Our Internet service has been out of service for a week, following a week of crazy work schedules, so it seems like this is all terribly out of date. I'll try to get some photos from the last couple of weeks up this weekend.

Aaron has had a small explosion of vocabulary. Today when I came home he told me "elbow" while pointing at the appropriate body part, asked for a "Opsicle" from the freezer, and then proceeded to say "NO" about twenty times. This is the first day I've heard him really use the word "NO" and he seems pretty pleased with himself. He's reached the point that he will mimic words on command (Luke treats this like a party trick -- "Aaron, say ____") and we can't count or list his words anymore. At the the football game on Tuesday he said "Me go" and pointed to the parking lot when he was tired, so he's working his way into simple sentences. He is mixing up B and D sounds and regularly leaving of the first sound of words, so that's what Austin is focusing on right now.

At his 2 year check up we found out that he's fallen lower on the growth chart -- down to 5th percentile for weight and 10th percentile for height. The nurse practitioner checked, and there is an increased chance of kidney reflux in asymptomatic siblings (Luke had kidney reflux, but eventually his body matured and the valves began working correctly). We're going to test for this at Kosair on Tuesday. It's an awful test - catheter and a giant x-ray machine, but I learned my lesson with Luke and requested a mild sedative for Aaron for the pain and scare-factor. Rich is taking Aaron and I think he's the one who really needs the sedative -- he's very anxious.

Raha is doing incredibly well. After a couple of pretty serious bumps in the last month, he's been really cooperative and fun recently. The conflicts were primarily testing and arguing with me, but we've worked through those issues fairly well. His grades for the first term were: A in Language Arts, A in math, A in science, A in art, B in social studies, and B in P.E. We're really proud of him, especially since this is the first time he's had mainstream classes. He's almost done with the football season and didn't make the basketball team, so our schedule should relax a bit.

We're joining the Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church. Jenny and Mitch invited us, thinking that Raha would like their active and racially diverse youth group. He LOVES it and is enthusiastically going to their activities a couple of times a week. The adults in the church are wonderful - interesting, welcoming, and very willing to argue their way through a Sunday school class on contemporary issues. The church building itself is lovely. It's small and simple - a couple hundred years old with a giant pipe organ.

I'm presenting at the KY Math Teacher's conference on Saturday. Not prepared, overwhelmed, situation normal I guess.

Ra!ha turns 13 - Yikes!

We celebrated a week late since Rich and Luke were in NY the weekend of September 6th. Raha elected to invite his friend Anthony to go to Kart Kountry in Shepardsville, KY. The big boys spent most of the time flying around on the go karts, while we entertained the little ones with bumper boats, bubbles, and miniature golf.

Power, compost, and shoes

We have power!!!!!

Luke on making compost:

“To make pop tarts into soil you have to use a proper bin outside. It has to be outside because it would stink inside the house. You have to leave it and check on it every week. It turns into soil. Raisins, leaves, and other food turn into soil, but not mayonnaise ‘cause it would stink and attract animals. Rats and raccoons would get it. It takes about one week and then it’s plant food.”

Luke told Raha, “When I get agitated I call my mommy Mom and my daddy Dad.” Score one for an early language-rich environment.

Aaron is now rapidly picking up new words, and he's much more willing now to imitate words when asked to say them. Aaron's recent new words:

Toe
Shoes (choos!)
milk - he says this while simultaneously doing the sign for it

Progress!

There's still no power at our house, BUT the good news is that Meghan's husband Jerry came by and fixed our cable and Internet service - Yipee!!!! Our next door neighbor has power but we don't. There's a power line down in our front yard. A utility company truck just turned around in our driveway so I'm trying to be optimistic. Really this hasn't been too bad since Rich had the foresight to buy a generator several years ago. The nice part is that we've gotten to know our neighbors Mark and Tracey and their kids Fifi and Sammy. Sammy is Luke's age and they've had a wonderful, giddy, silly time every time they've come over. Hard to believe we've been neighbors for 1 1/2 years and not found each other before now.

Aaron and Raha have either a bad cold or the flu. Fever, bad coughs, and general ickiness. Aaron has thrown up a couple of times but I think it's been from coughing not upset stomach.

Luke had another great swimming lesson today - he'll put his face in the water and do four arm strokes, then lift his head for a breath and start over. He's floating on his back for several seconds but hasn't formally started learning the backstrokes. It's fun watching how enthusiastic he is about practicing along the wall while MacKenna takes turns with B.J.

Today's Update

Still no power! School is out the rest of the week for Rich and Heather. At least one more day of no school for Raha. Aaron becoming much more vocal when frustrated or wants something -- as long as he knows the word. Anthony took his truck today and Aaron very emphatically said, "mine!"

NEWS!

This is Meghan posting on behalf of Rich and Heather.

Power Outage: Huge windstorm came through the Kentuckiana area on Sunday. The family has been without power since then. Luckily, they have a generator keeping electricity flowing to essential areas. No power means no internet and that's why I'm posting. Due to the MAJOR power outage school has been out in both the Louisville metro area, Oldham County and Indiana. Schools in Indiana are calling school off for the rest of the week.

New Words: Aaron said a simple sentence today!! Luke, Aaron, Zachariah, Raha, Anthony and I walked to a local playground and while Luke was basically playing keep away from Aaron he said "my ball". He repeated a couple of times then got wise, grinned and wouldn't say it again. He will also say "yes", "please", and "thank you" quite eagerly.

Will post more later!

Swimming Boys

Luke is amazing - a total fish! He can dive to the bottom of the pool to pick up toys, and swim across it the short way independently in the little boy version of the crawl.

Aaron made it through the lesson today without a single tear. He smiled and splashed, and kicked by himself. He said the word "kick" without prompting - a new word. I think he may become a decent baby swimmer.

Popsicles

They are one of the four food groups, right? He's had 5 fruit juice popsicles today. He was yelling and yanking on the freezer for #6 right before bed.

A couple of quick notes

Raha had issues at school today - I'm really upset. He's well aware that I'm really upset.

Aaron is saying "tay too" for thank you, and a very clear "yes!" He said truck as "uck" and tractor is "ta-tor." He still hasn't discovered the pleasure of saying "no!" He's qualified for developmental intervention services, barely, so we're having an IFSP meeting on Monday to add an additional goal to his service plan so Emily can work with him on sign language and adaptive skills. He's delighted with himself when he talks!

Breakfast?

As soon as Aaron woke up he signed that he was hungry. When we came upstairs he ran to the freezer. I gave him yogurt, raisins, graham crackers, and OJ....all of which he likes. After several minutes of yelling and kicking, I finally took him out of the highchair and he ran back to the freezer. We had popsicles for breakfast.

I just asked Aaron if he wanted to play with his toys and he made the sign for play and said, "day!"

And still more words! Plus misc.

Aaron says, "Bye-bye", in the sweetest high sing song voice. At dinner he wanted my Sprite and I had some success getting him to imitate the word "soda" but it sounds like "thhhh-da."

We met Robin's new baby girl on Thursday - Luke indifferent, Raha curious about why newborns have funny looking skin and kept petting her feet, and Aaron wanted to kiss her and hold her (he didn't get to hold her). She was lovely and squishy and entirely willing to sleep while I held her.

Luke is flying to NY tomorrow afternoon with Rich to pick up a car from Barbara. We just found out that the cigarette lighter doesn't work so the DVD player can't be plugged in. I guess Rich and Luke will have lots of time to practice math facts and have silly conversations.

Raha had a big blow up at school this week but has done a nice job making amends and processing the incident. He's not thrilled with some of the consequences......which is definitely the goal. He's finishing up his first portfolio piece - a feature article for Science on Tapirs - an it looks pretty good.

"Tractor"

Aaron was playing today with one of Luke's John Deere tractors. As he was playing I kept asking him to say "tractor." It's not fully recognizable yet, but with gestures and toys to use as props you can tell he says tractor. Without props, it sounds like he's saying "dada/daddy." I also heard him say "moo" today in response to seeing a cow puppet on Baby Einstein -- which I've never heard before (though he may have said it lots of times before). :) Luke, Aaron, Zachariah and I were reading a Truck book on our new parachute (thanks Robin!) and Aaron attempted to say "truck" when asked.

More Words (from Aaron)

Aaron will now say "woof" in response to "What does a dog say?". He imitated me when I asked him to eat his cheese -- "ches". He's becoming more willing to imitate words and try new ones -- and as he becomes from proficient with them he is more willing to share them with everyone around him not just those he sees daily.

Aaron's Speech

Aaron had his latest speech lesson with Austin today. Here you can see Austin trying to get him to say the "f" in fish. He added a couple of new words to his repetoire this week, Papa and water. He's also perfecting some of the old words as well. "Uh-oh" is a favorite. He uses it in several situations, like every time he throws one of Luke's toys down the stairs or when he throws his supper across the table. (I almost got hit with a pickle tonight.) His spoken vocabulary now consists of more, done, up, dada, mama, please, go, water, papa, eye and numerous other sounds that we are unable to translate. (I may be missing a few. It's getting hard to remember them all.)

BIG boy

Raha has gained 9 pounds in the last couple of months - geez. We're talking about good food choices and appropriate portion sizes.

Luke and MacKenna's 5th Birthday

Last night we had the big party - I just talked to Jenny and her house is still in one piece. This is the first time Luke has had a big theme birthday party. Luke loves dinosaurs, so the challenge was finding a way to incorporate dinosaurs in a way that was appealing to MacKenna. We decided to use a treasure hunt theme so we could look for buried treasure, fossils, and plan 5 year old - friendly adventures. Jenny was much more inspired to plan than I was:

• a search for gems in a pasta filled treasure chest


• treasure hunt in the yard - photo clue cards leading kids through 10 stops. This was my own personal disaster - I realized after putting out all of the cards that I didn't plan well, so I had to collect all of the cards, change strategies, put all of the cards back, and not yell at anyone while I figured out how to fix my goof quickly. Each teenager took a group and they all won a prize (giant gummy dinosaurs) at the end


• treasure map on dinosaur island - blindfolded kids putting stickers on the map, kind of like pin the tail on the donkey


• egg hunt, for Easter Eggs filled with gemstone bouncy balls, candy, and miniature dinosaur skeletons


• dinner - BBQ beef, mac & cheese, dino shaped spaghettios, hot dogs, spinach salad, veggie salad, fruit salad


• a pinata - yikes!!!!


• presents....Luke could hardly wait!! He received a Magnetix dinosaur from MacKenna, a car carrier from Connor, a set of John Deere tractors from Eisa, dinosaur books and magnets from us, and a human body book from his grandma and grandpa. Robin felt bad because her kids played out in the yard with her present for Luke - like Luke wouldn't have done the same?

Robin left the party early - contractions at 8 minutes apart. Baby girl Weiss was born at home about 5 hours ago; 10 pounds 2 ounces and everyone healthy!

The party was so much fun, and the kids were running and sweaty all evening. My dad said his favorite part of the party was when Ada looked up at him in the middle of all of the activities and asked, "Can you carry people?"

All of the photos are on the album to the right.

Officially Five

We completed the legal part of Raha's placement this afternoon - Rich had to go get him from football practice because we didn't know he was supposed to be here. Raha very pragmatic about signing his part of the stack of paperwork. For the next month we are knee deep in weekly therapy sessions, weekly visits from his foster placement specialist, and then a monthly treatment team meeting. After that things should settle down a bit.

Deep Sleep

I just went downstairs to make my end of the night check on all of the boys....all three snoring and sprawled so wildly across their beds that I had to adjust little bodies and cover each of them again with their blankets. They were so beautiful and peaceful.

Football at Christian Academy

Raha started on the JV team for the first time - a plus. They lost - a minus. It made for a sore AND cranky AND tired kid tonight.

Words!!!!

When I came home, Meaghan told me that Aaron is clearly saying "UP!" He said it right away for me and 3 or 4 more times. With Austin at speech he said "Please" four times clearly, asking me for a drink of Sprite. He's saying "MO" for more and "MY" for mine.......huge progress!! He's funny because he knows how excited we are, makes sweet funny smiles after saying a word, and is totally not willing to do it on command. He just came out with "DUH" when Austin said, "Say All Done Aaron." Apparently today is the day for new words!

Had to come back to this post - just said, "GO" to start running!

Aaron's drawing

Aaron spent part of the morning on my lap while I piddled around on my computer. I gave him a handful of markers to keep his fingers away from the keyboard. It took a lot of convincing to get him to make a drawing -- shouldn't I have known that the most fascinating part of the artistic process is taking off the marker lids and putting them back on?

Dirty Rhymes

Meaghan goofed! She asked Luke what rhymes with truck and Luke came up with a good one.

Splashing, and/or crying

Luke, MacKenna, Aaron, and Nicholas started swimming lessons today. We went back to BJ, Luke's teacher for a couple of years when he was little. She teaches now at a scuba shop with a heated pool that is close to our house.

Aaron and Nicholas acted just like toddlers at their first swimming lesson....they screamed bloody murder the entire time.

Luke and MacKenna surprised me. Luke was a wreck at swimming lessons at the Oldham Co. Swim Center this summer, so I was stunned when he calmly went about all of the tasks BJ gave him. He willingly swam with his face in the water, swam independently on his back for a couple yard, and dove to the bottom to grab rings. MacKenna, who is so brave and enthusiastic playing in the wading pool, was fairly nervous and teary. She eventually tried what BJ wanted with lots of gentle encouragement.

Luke turns 5! (um, yesterday)

We had a mini-family birthday party to celebrate, and Luke loves his dinosaur and car books. The big party is next Saturday with MacKenna. The cake lady at Kroger thought I ordered a "baby cake," not a small round cake, so we had a birthday cake with a 4 inch diameter. At least all of the guys in the family like cupcakes with gooey blue icing.

Backseat Conversation...

We were in the car going to the park today with Luke sitting next to a crying Zachariah. Luke tells Zachariah, "Go to sleep, Zachariah, go to sleep." When that doesn't work Luke tells him, "I'm not mommy, but I look like her. Mommy's here, I promise." That still doesn't work -- Luke goes on to tell him that we're just going to let him cry.

I wonder if he was this in tune to him mommy instinct when Aaron was little.

~~Meghan (the nanny)

Luke's anatomy

Luke has an elaborate digestive system, that are made of tanks that are each devoted to specific foods. He's tell me, "My treat tank is empty" or "My pizza tank is getting full." The more often Luke refers to his tanks, the more complicated this system seems. Tonight on the way home from gymnastics he told me that his mac & cheese tank were empty.

I asked, "How's your broccoli tank?"

He said, "They're making one right now."

Huh? "Who's making one right now?"

"My legs make them using my muscles. That's how I was made when I was born."

This was all weird enough that I've requested a diagram of his innards. He promised one. He explained that his throat is a really long tube and that it connects to tubes like octopus legs that lead to each tank. These tanks can be replaced with new tanks depending on what he needs, and the old tanks are sent to the landfill or to be recycled.

Aaron loves Zachariah

He discovered the idea of holding Zachariah and adores kissing and hugging him -- makes Meaghan a little nervous to have Aaron squeezing that sweet baby!

This is hard work!

Luke's first attempt at Levinson - long name!

Polite grammar goof

Luke has developed a sweet grammar habit. If he wants one of us to do something for him, he starts his requests with, "May you please....."

Raha v. Squirrel

While he was waiting for his school bus this morning, Raha saw a squirrel in a nearby tree branch. The squirrel saw Raha too, and apparently didn't approve....the squirrel threw a nut and hit Raha on the top of his head. Squirrel 1, Raha 0.

Raha survives the first day of school

and seems downright perky about it! He came home STARVING the way only a teenage boy can be STARVING, was pretty nonchalant about the day, and was happy about football practice tonight. He had a mini math homework assignment that was fairly pointless, and his teacher said that his letter about Old Yeller was excellent. Not a bad start!

Raha is registered for school

We survived the process and his teachers seemed fine. Tomorrow he needs to set up his binders and get new shoes for school. Then....we just keep our fingers crossed!

Inspired by the Olympics

We were watching men's gymnastics right before Rich took these photos of Luke. Luke has been taking gymnastics with Coach Jason for a year, and he's moving from the recreational gym to the competitive gym for the first time for his class that starts on Monday. One of the funny things that Jason told me is that 4 and 5 year olds always have a hard time with back rolls and back bends because their heads are proportionally so big and heavy compared to their bodies. Looking at Luke right now while he's playing in the living room in his undies, I'm not surprised -- it looks like his head is probably the same weight as the rest of his body.

Luke and Momma at Work

Luke painted a page with watercolor using several colors and sizes of brushes. When it was dry, he cut it in small pieces, selected background paper and made circles of glue lines on the background. Then he placed all the cut paper pieces on the glue lines. The first one was so fun he did another one. He let Momma put a couple pieces in place.

The next painting should be turned sideways, but Mommy forgot. It is a huge truck, painted and then drawn with markers. Luke held two or three markers at the same time so he could make parallel lines on the truck. The driver is wearing a hat, and the motor is under his seat.
This painting is a rainbow with all the colors the paint set contained. Luke said, "There's a rainbow and the grey part is a mystery. First use yellow, then pink, then green, blue, purple, then red."

The next painting is a ship with a lot of parts in the motor and a big propeller. The cardboard he painted on had texture, so the paint pooled in the texture -- pretty neat!
This is the two sheets of paper with all the cut pieces glued on backgrounds. Luke said they had to be hung up by each other.
(Written by Momma)

Who taught him to do that!?!

OWW!

This is Aaron's new word....very appropriate!

Death, revisited

We were driving home from gymnastics and Luke heard on NPR that Solzhenitsyn died at 89 and was buried today.

Luke: Do people live to be 99?
Me: People can live to be very old.
Luke: Like 1000?
Me: No, like 100, because our bodies aren't made to live to be 1000.
Luke: What about 104?
Me: Your Great Great Grandma lived to be 103.
Luke: When did she die?
Me: Almost 20 years ago.
Luke: Oh, I really liked her. What part of you goes to heaven, again?
Me: Your soul.
Luke: So her soul went at heaven. What happened to her body?
Me: We put it in a box called a coffin and buried it, then put a special stone above it to show that we loved her.
Luke: Does dirt get in the box?
Me: No, the box keeps it out.
Luke: Can we dig up the box?
Me: Why would we do that?
Luke: So I can see her so I can remember what she looked like.

It was SOOOOO hard not to laugh through this conversation!

If only there was a soundtrack with this

Wild giggling and silly voices for at least an hour tonight!

Aaron Gets an Early Biology Lesson

On our trip back East for Doris' birthday, we really enjoyed seeing Jim's latest project. It's an impressive, huge barn-like structure designed to increase the advancement and understanding of science at the pre-school level. We were fortunate enough to have Aaron take part in one of the studies. Here, he is pictured in a "hands on" activity, learning about the male anatomy. Thank you Jim!

Aaron speech update

Good speech session tonight with Austin -- she thinks she has him attempting to say "more" as he signs it, and she was really pleased with all of the animal sounds. He also made as snake sound, but with his tongue sticking out, so she wants us to encourage him to tuck his tongue behind his teeth. She also noticed a nice variety of babbling sounds that are new. So progress, just slow progress. He was wired and really active, just running everywhere and jumping on me over and over.

I signed permission for the developmental assessment, which will be done by Emily in Austin's office. Our plan, depending on the assessment, is for Emily to work on sign language with Aaron.

What sport?

After dropping Raha off at football practice (tonight was the first night in full uniform and tackling), Luke said, "I have to practice basketball. Now there's footballs with the basket, and you have to kick it all the way in the basket." Huh?

Mr. Pitiful

Charlie and Ollie had fleas when we came back from vacation. Charlie itched a spot on his rear until it was raw, and then it became infected, and then.....the dreaded shot, collar, and twice-per-day antibiotics. After two days he's acting a little more like himself, but he's still mad about the collar. Before this evening he hid in his kennel because he felt so awful.

Aaron's favorite treat

Aaron LOVES catfood and dogfood. When I took this picture he was eating it by the handful while Rich and I were clearly not supervising closely enough. Gotta be more nutritious than oreos.

Speech updates & Raha's cell phone

Aaron has a couple of new fun sounds and words: woof! meow! and whoooo! for a firetruck. This is a huge increase in his vocabulary. In the last couple of weeks he's been much more willing to imitate sounds when we prompt him. On Monday we're signing off on a developmental assessment, with the goal of having another therapist come in to work with him on sign language. His vocabulary and comfort with signs far outpace verbal language so our goal is to have him communicate any way we can since he's so frustrated.

Aaron's new hobby is nose picking. He tried to offer me a booger (to put it in my mouth instead of his). Generous boy.

I picked up a cell phone for Raha on Friday - a first for him. I was happy with him last night when we went to the St. Joe's picnic. We were accidentally separated and he called me right away, and stayed on the phone with me until we found each other. I've been really pleased with the good judgement he's demonstrating -- tolerant of Luke ("He never stops asking questions, does he?"), willing to help, bringing me money laying loose in the house. He isn't as active as I expected and doesn't seem to have much stamina, so I hope that will develop since our family doesn't spend as much time sitting around or watching T.V. as it seems like he's used to doing. We'll see - definitely a good start.

Luke & Mckenna's math assessment

Jenny Williams invited Luke to take part in a math readiness assessment for k-2 students with McKenna on Thursday. The group doing the assessment, KY Center for Mathematics, was developing assessment protocols for young students.

Here's the conversation Luke and McKenna had on the way down to the Brown Hotel:
McK: I'm SO tired.
Luke: I'm as tired as the Earth!
McK: I'm as tired as Heaven!
Luke (singing): This old man, he played seven, he played knick-knack up to heaven.....

The assessment was pretty interesting, and I took notes during it, so this is a summary:

• count from 1 up to 32
• count from 97 (Luke not sure what to do, but at home counts to 100)
• count by 10s (didn't know)
• use fingers to show numbers
• identify the numbers the teacher showed him
• count backwards from 10
• count backwards from 15 (Luke said, "I'm not sure about that")
• read numbers from cards (did easily until 3 digit numbers, then said, "Ooo, I don't know what that one is")
• identify cards as they're put on a table and then sequence from lowest to highest, using 1-10
• identify cards as they're put on a table and then sequence from lowest to highest, using 12 - 20. This one was interesting, because he misidentified many of these, mixing up 12 and 20, 13 and 30, 14 and 40, etc. The teacher later told me that this is a very common error with young learners.
• the teacher said, "Let's try some more cards!" Luke replied, "I think I'm tired of cards."
• pick out 15 chips from a pile
• add blue and red chips mentally after seeing them briefly. He had 2 +4 = 6, then two near misses with 5 + 3 = "maybe it's 9" and 8 + 4 = 12

I'll get a copy of the assessment after it's scored, but the teacher said that he did really well. They also gave us goodie bag with a wonderful book of ideas for math activities with young kids. Fun day!

Luke eating Asparagus

Luke watching Rich cut his asparugus: Don't cut it! I can't eat that many!

Charlie's bed?

Since Luke is still sleeping on the floor, Charlie thinks he should get the pillow!

Dinosaur Watching

Today I (Rich) took Luke on a Dinosaur watch. We searched for hours and found nothing. Hot and exhausted, we decided to turn back when suddenly, in the thickest part of the forest, we came upon a giant T-Rex attacking his prey. Luckily I had my camera handy.

Wanting cookies, football, and more assessments for Aaron

Luke saw Raha eating a cookie and told me, "Look, Raha has a cookie. Mommy, I always want what the other guy has."

I took Raha over to South Oldham to get info about registration and to see the school. We went back tonight to get football gear and practice starts tomorrow. Yikes! I told him that he's not allowed to hit, be hit, or fall on the ground, and of course he looked at me like I was a total idiot. Probably not for the first time? My dad says that he had less injuries in football than basketball thanks to the protection from pads and helmet but it still scares me. I am glad for the initially welcoming coach and I hope that he really feels welcome and thrives on the team environment. I was nervous for him while we were signing up, completely out of my comfort zone with football gear and parents who were obvious sports fanatics, then had a good moment of levity when Raha told me we need to go to the sporting goods store to buy him a cup. I punted to Rich on that one.

It's definitely weird for me to be on the other side of ECE (special education) services. The assistant principal was condescending and quite sure that he should be in self contained services even though she doesn't know him at all and doesn't know how beautifully he's behaved for months. I was furious but acted polite since I'll need to work with her for the next couple of years. We have a meeting next Monday, so I'll take lots of behavioral data, references from administration, and bring his therapist and other classroom teacher. I need to learn how to be a good advocate.

Aaron's speech therapist made a referral for another assessment, this at my request for him to receive services in the home for sign language. Austin is great, Aaron loves her, and we don't want to switch to a therapist who can provide both services. When we were with Barbara and Dennis, Aaron was enamored with Barbara. She speaks fluent ASL, and he'd get so excited that he start wiggling his fingers and waving hands to talk to her. He spontaneously picked up lots of signs and is so willing to communicate, and we're so desperate to talk to him. I'm not sure that there are signs for 50 kinds of construction vehicles, but I'm sure that Aaron would be delighted to learn all of them.

Smithsonian Trip

Yesterday we made a trip into Washington D.C. to go to the Air & Space Museum and to the Natural History Museum. I think Rich was the most thrilled with A & S, and was sad to have to move at kid pace instead of adult pace...he loves airplanes and flight, and of course has a much longer attention span than our little people. I'm not sure if Aaron even noticed the airplanes - he spent most of the time there thrilled to push his stroller around and peek under the sun shade.

I asked Luke what he liked at the Air & Space Museum, and he just said, "I liked the dinosaur bones! I haven't seen dinosaur fossils in a long time. I saw a meat eater, and a huge dinosaur, the biggest dinosaur in the world, the brontosaurus. I learned that dinosaurs lived millions and millions and millions of years ago." I asked Luke how many a million is - "It's more than a thousand."

So I think that all means that the Natural HistoryMuseum was a much higher priority to Luke! It really was amazing, and Aaron loves to see the animals too. The mammal and butterfly exhibits rated lots of shreaks.

Grammar Practice

Luke after watching his new dinosaur movie: "This is my twice time!" (seceond)

More from Luke

On the train from Philadelphia to Washington D.C.: "My stomach has a tummy ache."

That trip was brutal. I think Aaron is getting his two year old molars, or else I'm just losing my mind. We're still recovering.

Levinsons playing