Recovering Noah

Santa brought us the motherload this year. I think he surveyed our family over the past 12 months and said.... "Hey. Now there's a family who has 3 kids in OT, 2 in PT, and 3 in Speech Therapy. Come on elves, let's get to work!" Each kid got one toy and one educational board game. But the real presents were the toys that could be doubled as therapy use: A mini-trampoline with a stabilizer bar (also helpful for mama to work off that crockpot full of cream cheese rotel ) A see-saw A mini skate board ramp to work on walking up an incline Two pedal cars and a rockerboard for balance and trunk stability Insurance pays for ONE 30-minute therapy session for 30 weeks - so from mid-July till the end of December - we have to pay out of pocket or do without. And... cough cough.. it's $185 an hour PER therapy. So Santa got smart this year, hit the sales, visited a flea market, used the services of a great friend who is a fabulous carpenter, and used some coupons (yes, even...

Eli actually commented that he doesn't have any pictures of just "me and Mommy" - compared to the thousands of pictures we have of me and Noah when Noah was little. (The first born, you know. The others all got shafted.) So, yesterday we broke out the camera... Noah was easy - although I had no idea there was ketchup smeared all over one side of his face. Figures - since he had his head poked in the fridge when I grabbed him for the photo. Nandi was easy, too. And, as you can partially see, is still gearing up for a future career as a nudist. And then there's Eli. Eyes shut tight on purpose: Picture #1 Eyes shut tight on purpose: Picture #2 Eyes shut tight on purpose: Picture #3 Wait till Mommy bends her head down... wait... wait a minute... open eyes! Bingo.

Ahhh, another craft stolen from some creative parent's blog. Are you sick of them yet? This turned out to be a great one. I had originally planned on saving it until tomorrow night, but then I thought.... "Hmmmm... do I really want to get the kids all hyped up on icing and candy when I really need them in bed by 8:30??" So we did it this afternoon. Here's what you do: Take one box of sugar ice cream cones - you know, the triangle ones Add 3 tubs of white icing + green food coloring One foil Santa A cookie sheet or cake pan or whatever you have laying around And Assorted candies. We used mini M&M's, Jujubes, and Gum Drops (Oh, and I'm thinking about adding those miniature Rudolph's that CVS has on clearance) Spread 2 tubs of icing on the bottom of the cookie sheet. Give an ice cream cone to each kid and let 'em go crazy. My kids had a blast. Well, Noah decided he was just going to eat all of his decorations. And by the end of it, Nandi looked a bit...

Isn't that snowman the cutest? Who would've ever thought it was made of grated up Ivory Soap, some warm water, and 1/2 a roll of toilet paper. See, Eli and Nandi are fascinated with Frosty the Snowman... courtesy of the inundation of Christmas cartoons that have been coming on since the day after Thanksgiving. And Eli just can't understand why it doesn't snow in Texas. I can tell him why. Because Texas is God's Country and God knows that mama can't live anywhere where it dips below 75 degrees on a regular basis. It's a fact. So, anyway, I came across a post about Faux Snow on a blog and thought it would be perfect for the kids. Plus it promised to have a lot of sensory input for our kiddoes with SID and required all three to work on their fine motor skills by tearing up the TP into small pieces. You know what? I never thought about how hard it is to tear up toilet paper if you have weak motor skills... which probably explains why I'm still wiping b...

We were driving Nandi to preschool yesterday and Eli piped up in the back... "Mom, did you know that my Dinosaur, Little Tikes, has what Noah and Nandi have?" (Yes, his dinosaur is named Little Tikes... because, you know, that's what it says right there on his leg.) "Really? Your dinosaur has cerebral palsy?" "Yeah, it can't talk." Pause. "Eli, honey. Noah can't talk because he has autism." Silence. "Oh. Well Little Tikes has autism. He can't talk. His batteries are running down and he doesn't roar anymore." Fair enough. "Sweetie, you know that Nandi doesn't have autism, right?" "Yeah, I know." "Then how is your dinosaur like Nandi?" "It has an attidude." Smart kid.

My friend Shara is participating in BooMama's Online Christmas Tour of Homes . I wasn't going to participate because I'm not the best decorator and some of those people have some fierce decorations going on. My fragile ego couldn't handle it. But then I realized that this is the only time of year that my house is clean - and if I had the guts to post pictures of my hideously messy bedroom for the whole world to see, then why not post pictures of my house in a rare state of cleanliness . So, look out BooMama , here comes Recovering Noah's house. I know you're jealous - not everyone can possess the style and class that we do.... First of all, our Christmas tree. Purchased a few years ago at the one store that ALL luxurious people shop at: Walmart . And what better way to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas than to deck out your tree in Mardi Gras beads. Literally. Mardi Gras beads. Delicately placed next to glow-in-the-dark planets. Yes. That's Satu...

These are some pics of the homemade reindeer headband-thingamajigs-Saturday-bordedom-buster-craft thingy that I made for the kids... Say THAT 7 times fast. Ha! I totally stole the idea off a blog I read last winter and have waited all year for the trees to die just so that I could snag some dead twigs off my parents' land. The headbands are just pieces of velcroed felt with scrap ribbon hot glued on top. Sigh. I am so in love with my hot glue gun. It's the only type of gun I truly advocate for... Anyway, glue some pockets on the inside of the headbands, stick some twigs in, and - voila! - instant reindeer. We've decided that Nandini's reindeer name is Fliesty the Red-Nosed Reindeer. (She's got red lipstick smeared on her nose for full effect.) It's a combo of Flighty and Feisty put together. Kinda like Bennifer and Brangelina - because, you know, we're so cool and hip that way. Eli decided that he wanted to be in charge of picking his own reindeer name....

Do any of you have any info on Expressive-Receptive Language Disorder? We received Eli's neuropsych report back and, in addition to a few other things, this is one of the disorders that he's been diagnosed with. Apparently it's not normal for a child to be able to remember every minute detail of something that happened when he was two or be able to use the words impeccable, delectable , or persevere correctly in a sentence but NOT be able to find the words to describe a purple circle or know the opposite for the word stop or no . I guess that would be considered a bit odd. Asperger's was ruled out - yeah! Although they were quick to point out that there were many similarities and that they could easily give him the diagnosis if he needed it. Uh, thanks, but no thanks. Also, one of the things that disappointed me is that they gave Eli an IQ test. Well, if you have a language disorder or a learning disability, how can you test accurately? Eli scored in the low IQ ran...

Take one T-Rex dinosaur Add one Oviraptor (egg-stealing) dinosaur Add one nest of T-rex dinosaur eggs (technically, T-Rex didn't lay eggs in a nest, but it's okay) Finally, add one pair of dice Roll the dice and have 5-year old count the number it landed on. Add that number of eggs to T-Rex's nest. Have 5 year old roll the dice and subtract said number from T-Rex's nest. (Oviraptor steals them) T-Rex realizes that some of her eggs are missing T-Rex - being the fiercest dinosaur in the whole word - attacks and kills oviraptor and reclaims her stolen eggs. Count how many eggs are now in T-Rex's nest. It should be the original number she started with. Roll dice, rinse, and repeat. We also have similar games for a 4 year old- dog lover who is learning to count. And a 7 year old who likes to steal pillows from everyone's room.