Family Life

 Things are really hopping around here - teehee.  Sorry. That was lame.  The five year old told me to take a picture of him jumping.  So I did. He was jumping off the stairs.  This is actually pretty noteworthy because he's getting braver every day.  He will finally very timidly walk down the stairs without sitting down.  He nervously says "I'm brave" over and over all the way down.

So jumping off the bottom stair is a really big thing for him.  He's done so many things that are new for him in the last couple weeks.  He asked me the other day, "What does introduce mean?" - He has never asked the definition of a word before.  For those of you who don't know, he has autism.  He was only diagnosed last Spring, and it's still hard to comprehend the full meaning of the diagnosis.  I think every day it gets more noticable.  That's why I like to make special note of the progress we're seeing too.  He also came up to me after throwing a fit and said, "I was upset because __ took my Legos away."  Normally it's just a meltdown with no explanation, and we have to guess at what's wrong, so this is a HUGE improvement.

Of course he cracks us up on a regular basis too.  A few days ago he came up to my room, where I was reading on the loveseat next to our bed, where he often comes in the middle of the night to sleep.  (I think the best thing we ever did was to get that loveseat because now instead of waking us and wanting in bed with us, he just climbs onto the loveseat which is piled up with pillows and soft blankets, and we never even know he's there until morning.)

Anyway, it was mid-afternoon and I had just put the two year old down for a nap. The five year old never takes naps. But that day he came upstairs and said, "Can you please get off my 'nuther bed?  Sleep in your own bed."  So I moved into my bed so he could have the loveseat. I figured I'd be a good example and hopefully he'd take a nap.  After I moved, he climbed up and snuggled in with his minion, which I hadn't noticed before, and triumphantly exclaims, "There's room for you, Minion!"  Ugh. I got kicked out for a minion. Lol.  Guess I know where I rank.  Not to mention the fact that the Minion couldn't sleep on the loveseat - or so he told me a few (a very few) minutes later, so they both had to climb into the big bed with me.  My life is never boring - ha.

 I finished the puzzle. I've already taken it apart and I'm trying to figure out which one I'll do next. It always takes me a few days in between puzzles to decide which one to do.  I really don't like the sorting stage, so it takes awhile to get up the ambition to start a new one.

The five year old came and got me to show me the "castle" he had made.  I had to laugh about Woody being stuck in it.  I hear a lot about castles since Christmas when the nine year old got the Lego castle set.

 We have been closely watching the Broncos lately too. The two year old yells "Touchdown!" with his arms up ... sometimes even just at random times - ha.  He's actually really into football and will put on a toy helmet (that is way to big for him), grab his brother's football and throw it to one of us, then make a lap around the room and come back for a hand-off and start the whole process over again. It's hilarious, but he does have an amazing ability to throw accurately.  I think he's going to be our athlete.  He never stops running. In the morning he gets dressed, then pretends to be a bucking bull - for longer than I could continue it.  He wears me out just watching him.

Speaking of the two year old, I was busy in the school room right next to the bathroom while I was running his bath one day. I came in to turn off the water and nearly had a heart attack at how much water was in the tub. He was pretty thrilled to be in so much water. I snapped a quick picture, then let about half of it out.  He takes a bath every morning and usually stays in there for more than half an hour.  I asked him one day if he was ready to get out and he told me, "No, I'm just swimmin'."

Since he started taking a bath every morning, the five year old has been motivated to take one every evening.   They don't bathe together. The five year old is constantly telling me, "we have to wait our turn." And in his mind, when it's time for his bath, it's not his brother's turn - and vice versa.  I'm just glad he wants to get in.  He was terrified of bathing for a long time, and he's just getting comfortable with the idea again. He has been initiating it too, telling me as soon as dinner is over that he needs to take a bath.  Big steps. :)

My latest project ... opening a pizzeria.  Ha. Not.

But I got an idea to use pizza boxes to store items and worksheets related to each letter of the alphabet so I can easily pull down a box for the 2 and 5 year old to work on letters.  It's a work in progress and I'll do a separate blog post on it when I get further along in the project.

 We're stuck on movie related toys lately (and Legos, which are always popular). A couple days ago the five year old decided to make his minion wear Woody's hat.  It was funny, but actually turned into a great motor skills game as he tried to balance the hat on the minion's head.

Bristle blocks are the two year old's current favorite.  He brought me this creation tonight and told me it was a mixer.

And this is a dumper. :)  He made both on his own... as you could probably tell. :)

We've also gotten back into the habit of a family game after dinner.  It's usually dominoes or Rack-o. The nine year old was pretty smug about his domino skills because he's won every time we've played... until tonight ;)  He and I usually play chess at the library two days a week too. We have 45 minutes to burn between dropping off the five year old for preschool and the nine year old's swim lessons.  It doesn't make sense to leave town for such a short time, so we go to the library and often play chess (along with checking out a big stack of books).  He's getting pretty good at it.

We nearly had a disaster a couple weeks ago.  My husband twisted his ankle (he missed the bottom step in the middle of the night).  It swelled up pretty bad and stayed that way for about a week.  Unfortunately he was on his way to work, and ended up being on his feet for 22 hours with no time to prop it up.

These pictures were taken two days later. It looked even worse after that. The whole foot turned purple - as in the shade around his ankle in this picture. He was in quite a bit of pain - mostly from the swelling all week. Thankfully, it's quite a bit better now. He's walking normally again, which is definitely an answer to prayer.