IEP Meeting, Jaws, Special Needs Christmas Party and Broken Glasses

Sometimes being the youngest child in a family comes with its challenges such as no one taking you seriously.  However, he has learned how to non verbally defend his territory and let his wishes be known and that is by biting.  Unfortunately, when it comes to his siblings he has put aside his happy-go-lucky laid back attitude aside and goes for blood if they do anything he does not approve of.  We have nick named him 'Jaws' since he now bites to defend his stuff or lets everyone know he does not like what you are doing.  Here is an example of is defense on Sarah's back: 

This picture was taken a few days after he bit Sarah's back, but you can definitely see the bruised bite marks in her back.  She must have been really ticking Noah off because he usually doesn't bite hard enough to leave a bruise, but this time he did.   Maybe she learned her lesson.  We tried to teach Noah to stop, but as soon as he is out of Time Out everyone becomes fair game again.  I am hoping he outgrows this phase soon!!  Thankfully he doesn't bite in nursery, just his siblings--which a lot of times I have to admit, they deserve it.  Does that make me a horrible Mom for saying that?!

 

This past week Josh came home from school with a baggy which he excitedly showed me.  Now I HATE teeth--anything to do with losing a tooth just grosses me out.  However, I had to get really excited because Josh pulled his own tooth out during school.  He bit into an apple and his tooth felt weird.  He then messed with it and got it to come out.  When Aaron came home he tried the same tooth on the other side and found it was quite loose, too.  It didn't take much pulling to get the other one out, either.  Josh put them out for the Tooth Fairy, but she must have been on vacation because she didn't come--oops.  He left them out for another night and luckily she came that night.  Phew.  Josh got a double whammy payment.  I think the Tooth Fairy is glad that most times kids only lose teeth one at a time. 

We had Josh's IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting a few weeks ago.  I am excited to say that Josh might be graduating out of Speech Therapy services if he masters his 'g' and 'k' sounds by the end of the school year.  YAY!!!  I am excited for Josh.  He has been working hard so this is great news!  He will still be receiving Occupational Therapy Services to help with his fine motor skills (such as writing, tying shoes, typing, etc.), but that's ok.  He is doing great.  Last month we did have parent teacher conferences and we found out that Josh, Daniel and Matthew are doing pretty well.  You just never know what you will hear at those meetings, but I was pleasantly surprised and proud of my kids.

Speaking of last month (I really have been bad at keeping on top of things lately) Aaron came into some Jazz basketball tickets.  However there were only two tickets so instead of trying to choose who went he talked to Josh and Daniel and they decided to flip a coin to decide who was going to go.  Daniel won the coin toss and had a fun evening with Dad at the basketball game.  Josh who was upset he had to stay home we had a mother son night.  We put the other kids to bed early and spent the rest of the evening baking things.  Josh loves to cook.  It was fun spending some one on one time with him--with five crazy and noisy kids I don't get that much one on one time with my kids so it was nice.  I think Josh had fun, too.

Not too long ago I got a call from the school.  I HATE getting calls from the school--you never know if it is a recorded message, a sick kid or some other problem.  Anyway, it was Daniel's teacher.  She had called to let me know that Daniel had left his packed lunch at home and that he was quite upset about it.  I looked around and of course saw his lunchbox sitting on the counter.  I sighed and told his teacher I would bring it right away.  Now this is a little frustrating because every morning I sound like a broken record by saying, "Put your lunch in your backpack!" numerous times.  I guess the kids have learned to tune me out so Daniel forgot to bring his lunch to school.  I couldn't get mad at him because when I walked into the school I found him sitting by the office with red rimmed eyes from crying because he was upset about it.  He was glad to see me and I am glad to say that since then he hasn't forgotten his lunch again--poor kid.

Speaking of getting calls from school I got one this last Monday, however, I wasn't home so I got two messages to listen to when I got home from running errands.  I pushed play on the answering machine to hear a pitiful Josh saying that he broke his glasses.  Then the next message he told me again that he broke his glasses, but that he was SORRY.  When Josh got home he showed me what used to be his glasses.  All I can say is RIP glasses--he couldn't even find the other half of his glasses either:

He told me that after lunch he slipped and fell and his glasses broke.  He burst into tears--I guess I am scary to tell these things to.  Anyway he didn't get hurt so that's good.  Thankfully we had the foresight to purchase insurance for the glasses so it was only $25 to replace them.  The only bad thing is that they will take a week to get them in.  In the meantime he will be squinting away to try to see what he needs to see at school.  Are you starting to see why I HATE getting calls from school?!

 

In moving in to this neighborhood we live by some good people.  Matthew, aka Mr. Friendly, got to know everyone during the summer.  Anytime anyone was outside he went over to talk to them.  That's how he got to find out that our across the street neighbor was a train engineer.  Matthew is OBSESSED with trains to put it lightly.  Ever since our neighbor found out about Matthew's intense fascination with trains he has given him a few things.  He gave him a Union Pacific train 2013 train calendar.  Wow I don't think I had ever seen Matthew so excited!  He had to take the calendar to school to show his bus drivers, teachers, other students and even the janitor (who Matthew knows by name).  He shows anyone that comes to our house, too.  The poor calendar is for 2013, but it already looks worn out by how many times Matthew has flipped through the pages.  The other day our neighbor gave Matthew a train ball cap and a train winter hat.  Matthew has been excited.  He has to wear at least one hat any time we go anywhere to, "Just let people know that I cheer for Union Pacific Trains" to quote Matthew.  He is a funny kid, but we are thankful for our neighbor's awesomeness!

 

We tried to have a fun weekend this last one.  There was a special needs kids Christmas party up on base.  They had all kinds of fun stuff to do and we were more relaxed, too, since every family there had a child with some sort of disability.  That meant that if Matthew had a complete meltdown while we were there I don't think anyone would think anything about it.  When we first got there they had some therapy dogs you could pet.  I had to include this picture since it shows Daniel actually touching the dog.  He is so afraid of dogs that he won't get near them let alone pet one.  We actually talked him in to petting it even if he got as far away from its teeth as possible.

 



They had the Special Olympics people set up activities for the kids to do.  There was a basketball area that everyone got to try.

 There were quite a few people there so Sarah and Noah stayed by our sides for the first while because they were too overwhelmed to try anything.

We finally talked Sarah into trying some things along with Daniel and Matthew.  It was baseball and, boy, you had to watch out because Sarah didn't.  She would swing as soon as she had the ball in front of her whether someone was right next to her or not.  I just about got hit by her bat more than a few times!

 

The helper lady almost got hit a few times, too.

 They then had an ornament making activity center.  It was pretty crazy trying to help all five kids at once, but we got through it.  What's a few more gray hairs when Aaron and I have so many already?!

 Of course we had to stop and see Santa.  Santa was trying to talk to Sarah, but she only had eyes for the candy canes and as soon as he let to pick one she jumped off his lap.

 Everyone waited patiently for a turn.  Josh wouldn't stop saying things that he wanted.  Wow some of the things we hadn't heard about before either.  It will be interesting to see what Santa will actually bring!  When it was Matthew's turn he asked Santa point blank why he didn't bring him a train set last year.  Santa didn't quite know what to say.

 After the party we took the kids swimming.  We had three free passes and another coupon that expired at the end of the year that we had to use or lose.  We finally decided to use it.  However, when we went to the pool the water was freezing.  The kids had fun, but after about 2 hours everyone was too cold to swim anymore.  During the time we were there, Matthew, Josh and Daniel attempted jumping off the diving board and swimming to the side of the pool.  They did great.  However, when it was time to walk from the pool to the parking lot we about froze our booties off.  It was cold and snowing and we were wet with flip flops on.  Brrrrrrr!!  When we got home and started getting kids ready for bed Aaron was changing and noticed he had hives all over where his swimming suit touched his skin.  They were HUGE quarter size hives, too.  Poor guy.  He hurried and jumped into the shower, but he continued to be itchy for the next couple of days even after taking Benadryl and Loratidine.  It was really weird and we still haven't figured out what caused the hives.

  For scouts last week they worked on a requirement for the boys to make and present an Family Home Evening lesson.  Josh taught our FHE on Monday.  He taught us about the nativity and then had us act it out.  He did awesome. Baby Jesus (Noah) was a little uncooperative, but that's to be expected.  Do you like the shepherds with their hoods on.  Sarah was the angel and wore a feather boa wrapped down around her arms for her wings.

 Baby Jesus loved being put in the mock manger, though.  It is just an empty diaper box, but he LOVED it.

 He loved being in it so much that he screamed when we attempted to take him out.  Good thing he didn't bite anyone.

 Noah is a funny boy.  Every night when I check on him before I go to bed he has lined up his toys on the edge of his bed before he goes to sleep.  How anyone can sleep like that I don't know.  I end up taking them all off his bed because the last thing I need is to be suddenly awakened by a crashing toy off his bed in the middle of the night.

 We had chili last night for dinner.  In Noah's case it was finger dippin' good instead of finger lickin' good.  He made a huge mess, but he seemed to enjoy it.  He had a shower after he smeared it all over his clothes and body.  Who needs a spoon to eat anyway?

As for my stitches I ended up taking my own out which proved to be harder than I thought it would since I am SO RIGHT handed.  I am going to have one awesome scar is all I can say.