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!