Bubble Truck

A very cool surprise at church tonight - the bubble truck came to visit!

Luke wants to know

Right after brushing his teeth, Luke asked me, "Why can we get half of 50, but not half of 5?" Such a wonderful question that we had to figure it out, so I put 5 kleenex on the couch and he quickly found that you can, in fact, get half of 5 by tearing a kleenex in half. We talked a bit about even and odd numbers and he seemed to think that these terms were sensible. I wish he could verbalize more how he thinks about numbers - he tells me he just sees answers in his head.

After dinner he announced (totally out of any related context), "Raha is the only person with brown skin in our family." Raha responded with, "Luke." I started laughing, which of course, made Luke cry. I think he was crying because I simultaneously corrected him for playing with a big stick in the house. We did have a talk about all the ways that each person in the house is different than everyone else.

Now I'm editing this post - bedtime reading, and he asks, "What are the 7 seas?" Actually a good question.....Mom tried to help him find the answer on a globe, and we couldn't figure it out. Thanks to Wikipedia, we now know that there are lots of answers to that question. The most common contemporary answer, they say, is the N. Atlantic, S. Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, N. Pacific, South Pacific, and the Arctic Ocean. In Medieval times, it was the 7 seas in between Africa, Europe, and Asia. Who knew?

More Aaron, more Raha

Rich and I are both managing to upset ourselves about Aaron. I've looked online, and Aaron does have some of the behaviors typical of kiddos with sensory disorders, but I know enough about special ed to know how much I don't know about specific disorders. He also is getting even pickier about food, and he seems like his tummy is really touchy. He threw up a bit after dinner, but nothing worse (yet?).

Raha managed to get upset with Rich and keep it together. He was appropriately humble when I talked to him about it later. I just found out that he's been accepted into the Student Citizen Academy - a two week training with the police department this summer followed by bi-weekly training throughout the school year. He's so excited about the program, so it will be fun to tell him tomorrow that he's accepted!

Aaron's still not eating

He hasn't gained weight now in two months. He hasn't gotten any taller in the last month. Ahna, his nutritionist, wants to have him assessed for sensory processing disorders. I'm incredibly frustrated.

Gallopalooza

Luke breezed through his first public gymnastics yesterday at Gallopalooza with his gymnastics team. When I asked him later he said he didn't get nervous and he didn't look like he was nervous - more just concentrating to make sure he did what he was supposed to do. The show was a short demonstration of the boys' competitive gymnastics program, with the boys showing a variety of tumbling skills and some of the boys on the mushroom (kind of a mini-version of the pommell horse). Luke was the youngest and one of the most inexperienced, so I was pleased to see him so confident and serious about his cartwheels and walking on his hands. I'll post a couple of pics after Mom emails them.

It was a cool event for both kids, because it was held at Churchhill Downs. It was Raha's first trip to the Downs and he was really excited about seeing the track, the gymnastics, and the horses. Fiberglass horses, that is. Every year Lousiville invites artists to paint fiberglass horses. They are whimsical and Kentucky themed, so the boys really got a kick out of reading the names and seeing the wild ways the horses were painted.

More strategies for avoiding sleep....

Disembowel Elmo through a tiny hole in his chin. Amazing how much stuffing Elmo had.

Luke chit chat

Tonight at dinner Raha was asking for food in jest, and Luke started to lecture him about portion sizes. When I told him to stop, he said, "I'm not being a parent. I'm just being a LITTLE bit bossy."

After church last week he sighed dramatically and asked, "Mommy, why do I just adore Toby?" Toby is a cool boy who's a couple of years older than him.

After church today I really blew it with him. I was giving him a hard time about climbing over Aaron instead of getting in his side of the van. He told me, "Mom, you're ruining my day!" It was so mature sounding and so histrionic that I burst out laughing.....which made him burst into tears. He's a very tender soul. He also burst into tears when he knocked over his milk at dinner, so I think he's a little over tired.

Aaron's new trick to avoid sleeping:

Stripping.

Luke's project

Ok, so really Luke and Rich's project. After months of asking for one, Luke has his very own compost bin. Rich build it out of wood stacked like lincoln logs, lined with chicken wire, and on a bed of gravel - all great ideas from a kid at Home Depot who is a fan of composting. Fortunately we have a ton of leaves to add into the pile, and Luke takes out the kitchen compost every day. It gives me the giggles that Luke loves this so passionately. This morning he was asking me questions about seeds, and very seriously told me, "We should be farmers, Mom."

Chit-Chat

This morning when we came up the stairs, Aaron said, "Cat. Mika. Meow! Two cat, one....two." I asked him if he knew Ollie's name, and he said, "Don't know." When I told him he said, "Ollie, meow!"

He 's also started to refer to himself as "me" this week instead of "Aaron."

Swimming lessons

Diane took wonderful pictures of the boys at swimming lessons last week. Raha has graduated from lessons, and now moves on to the summer swim team (with Luke).

Pet Food

I realized the other day that I can't remember the last time I had to fish out cat food or dog food from Aaron's mouth.

Kid updates and spring vacation

I was surprised it's been so long since I've posted. We're half way through spring break....nothing in particular on our agenda this week other than seeing family, spring cleaning, and a chance to recover from work for a few days. My Aunt Diane was in Kentucky for two weeks and it was the first time she'd seen Luke in 3 years or met Raha or Aaron. Luke had an adventure with her at the horse park and she and mom painted my kitchen an (accidentally bright) gold color. Now Rich's mom is in town for the rest of week.

A tough part of the week has been Raha. He had a huge tantrum on Tuesday. After a great weekend, he was really cranky and tired on Monday. Because of rudeness he lost TV time on Tuesday and blew up. He stormed out of the house - the plan is for him to get out of the house if he's going to lose his temper - but then came back in, broke the doggie gate to his room, broke a window, then went back outside to knock over the garbage cans and trash the mailbox. Eventually he walked it off in the neighborhood and his therapist and case worker came out to the house for an emergency session. Major consequences for the behavior of course, and it's alarming that he's tried out property destruction, which is a new behavior. It's really frustrating because he's gone 3 months without a tantrum and I didn't think he's up the ante like this.

Aaron's been very high maintenance. Barbara was worried tonight about how fussy he was and wondered if he was sick again. He was sobbing from his crib about "owie knee!" I took a bandaid downstairs and he told me the bandaid would help him feel better. Then he decided that he'd rather have the bandaid on his finger, and promptly went to sleep. Nope, not sick.

Luke, fortunately, is delightful. Someone needs to be! We're working much more systematically on reading, thanks to Diane's advice - a combination of Dulce sight words, word families, writing personal stories, and reading simple books. He's thrilled that he has two little books he can read all by himself, "Monkey Flies a Kite," and "Dinah Dinosaur."