S'mores

Meghan made s'mores with the boys today. Luke said, "These are so good that I just HAVE to have another one!" I think Aaron agreed!

Accidental Swim

Yesterday we took Aaron, Luke, Jack, Raha, and my student Anthony back to Big Rock since it was such a success the week before. The three little boys were playing in water about 18 inches deep while Rich, Melinda, and I waded beside them. Melinda said, "Look at Aaron!" and he was floating face down, waving his arms and legs like he was swimming. It took a second for me to register that he was in danger of drowning because he looked so calm and deliberate, but of course he started crying in panic as soon as I scooped him out of the water. He hadn't swallowed water and wasn't choking, so I think the primary damage was to our sense of well being. I can't believe that happened without my noticing when I was only a couple of steps away.

Luke's First Bike Ride

Today we received a "tag-a-long" (don't know the official name for it) from Chuck, a friend of Heather's, so Luke can now go on tandem bike rides with Dad. We went on on our first ride today, but had to stop early because Luke's "legs were getting so tired."

July 4

Today's highlights:

• Raha and I ran the Firecracker 5K this morning in the rain. I ran 21:26, a 1:10 PR that earned 3rd place for women. We're lucky we make it -- the start time was moved back 30 minutes!

• Luke, Aaron, and Raha played at the Puzzle Dome this morning. Raha refined his putt putt golf game (even a hole in one). I'm not sure if Luke was playing golf or hockey....and Aaron took the flags apart and shoved the fabric down the holes.

• There were giant dinosaur inflatables for jumping. Aaron and Luke bounced each other senseless.


• Rich took Raha and Luke to see Wall-E. High marks from all. Luke was heart-broken that he couldn't buy a Wall-E toy on the way home.


• Raha and Luke made extra-choco chocolate chip cookies (despite shakes at lunch and ice cream with Rich....4 guys in the house, all with a giant sweet tooth), and the kitchen survived.

• And they actually did celebrate the 4th a bit, with sparklers and one fancy firework.

Death & Grammar

Luke describing the movie Batman: "Batman pushed the really bad guy out of the high window and he went to dead!!"

New words, maybe??

Tonight in the car Aaron pointed at my eye and said, "Ah!" then pointed at my ear and said, "Eh!" These seem like meaningful approximations to me. Rich and I have both noticed more deliberate uses of "Mama" and "Dada." Last week with Austin he waved goodbye for the first time, and he's doing that regularly with prompting, and tonight when I took his pacifier out of his mouth he bunched up his fingers and tapped his lips. I'm counting that as an invented sign for binkie.

As of today, his signs are: bye bye, binkie, more, eat, drink, please, up, throw, all done, book/read (with help) and help (with help)
His words are: Mama, Dada, Uh-oh, eye (maybe), ear (maybe), whee (maybe)

In his speech service plan our goal is 50 words/signs by December. I think we're doing better at prompting and rewarding Aaron for making sounds and Austin is definitely helping, I think primarily by modelling ways to interact that are most likely to elicit speech. We're supposed to be doing Beckman exercises to stimulate the muscles in and around his mouth, but Aaron has been resistant then I forgot to do them today. We're also giving him a vibrating teether to chew on and press on his lips, which is also stimulating the muscles in his mouth. Fortunately he likes the teether!

How to get to heaven

I had Luke and McKenna in the car on the way to swimming when they started talking about relatives who had died. McKenna told him that you go to heaven when you die. Luke asked if your body went to heaven, and I responded, "Just your soul." So McKenna asked, "Just your head not your body?" I tried to explain, but apparently was unsuccessful, because Luke said,"Oh, your SKIN goes but the rest of you stays here."