BFF

Sienna had her first friend sleepover this weekend. This is her best friend, Jasmine, from her preschool. Of course, all of her friends are a best friend. The girls were so cute together. Sienna waited all day for Jasmine to come. I tried to explain to Sienna that Jasmine wouldn't be coming over until 4 or 5 but the concept was lost on her. I tried every way I could think to help her grasp the idea that it would be a while before Jasmine arrived. After a while I finally accepted that Sienna wasn't going to get this concept today and started waiting with her. So, when I found her parked infront of the window at 10:30 am looking for Jasmine's car, I plopped down next to her to look out for Jasmine's car.

Oh the joy when Jasmine finally arrived! These two girls ran around the house like wild horses for a minute. The excitement was really too much for their little bodies to handle, I think. Then they were off to Sienna's room in the blink of an eye. Within all of about 10 seconds they had touched every item in Sienna's room (Jasmine discovering and Sienna showing) and had even both been on the top bunk and back down again. It was pretty amazing, really. They both had so much fun even though Jasmine decided to go home at about 10:00. I thought she did really well making it that long. These are 4 year little girls and it takes some time to stay away from home. I'm sure she'll be back soon (considering that Sienna won't stop asking for her to come over.)

"Shane and David gave me a cow."

We watch alot of The Upside Down Show in my house. Anyone ever watch this show? It is aired on Noggin (my favorite children's network) and it's one of my favorite kids shows. The show consists of these guys named Shane and David who are brothers on the show. Like almost all preschool programs it is very interactive with the kids and they ask the kids to participate in different activities with them. What makes this show so great and different from the others is that it mostly consists of imaginary play.

As I've mentioned before, Sienna lives in an imaginary world. Her imagination is amazing. It is so intense and so real. We are constantly taking 'Abby' or someone else with us everywhere we go. Lately, she's had an entire posse following her around.

Sienna was watching The Upside Down Show this morning while I made breakfast. When everything was ready and Levi was in his chair I called the girls. Sierra came bouncing in with no worries. But Sienna was quite different. She came walking in very slowly with her head hung down and her arm stretched out behind her with her little hand closed in a fist (so I knew someone was with her). I said to her, "Sienna what is wrong?" She looked up at me with such a seriously disappointed face and said to me, "Shane and David gave me a cow." She continued to let me know that she didn't want the cow so I took the cow from her and put it into the pantry. She was satisfied with that but still very disappointed in the entire situation.

Bring on the Sun

My beautiful Sierra Rose. Where do I begin? She is such an amazing person. Sierra has this amazing 'sponge like' ability that not many people have. I give her life information and she absorbs it completely. So much so that the next time she encounters a similar situation she applies that information perfectly. She also has a tendency to be mini-mom, especially to Levi. It's so funny to be in the other room and here her say something to Levi that I do all the time~ like, "You better get it together, Levi". I use the 'get it together' speech all the time. Sierra has taught me more about myself than anyone else in my life, and she continues to do so everyday. I can see alot of myself reflected in Sierra. If I've been snippy and quick to get irritated with the kids she shows the same behavior. So when I find myself telling Sierra to have more patience with the little ones I am reminded to have more patience with all of them. I acknowledge that to Sierra and we agree to work on more patience together.

School is approaching the year's end and Sierra is get really exciting for her trip to Myrtle Beach with Papaw. Dad and Hilde are taking all of the potty trained grandkids (his & hers) to Myrtle Beach for a week. Sierra has gone twice with them before so she is really excited to get to go again. Maddie isn't going due to sport commitments and Sienna says she doesn't want to go if Mommy or Daddy aren't going. So, it looks like just Brandon and Sierra are the only one's going from Dad's side, but both of them are super excited.

As for Sienna, Levi and myself~ we're just looking forward to summer. We're excited to go to the Rec pool again. I'm just sooooo ready for some super sun!! If I close my eyes right now I can feel the warmth from a hot sun on my skin~ the way it feels like your skin is soaking it all up. Yum. It feels so good and I'm ready!

A Little Taste of Summer

Sierra, Brandon & I went to Kalahari last night. We had so much fun!! It was a little strange to only be the three of us though. Normally, I won't do one kid if they all can't go. How do you say yes to one and not all of them? I can't do it. But this time was different. Sierra worked VERY hard to sell enough Malley's Candies for the school to earn her Kalahari ticket. And Brandon received a Kalahari ticket from Grami as a birthday gift. These tickets are NOT cheap, let me say. One ticket on a non-weekend day will cost $39 per person!! Can you believe that?! I'm pretty sure that's more than a Cedar Point ticket. But anyway, you see why it wasn't really feasible for all the kids to go. But I still felt bad leaving other kids behind and thought about them the entire time.

Sierra has been to Kalahari a few times before but this was Brandon's first time going. Let me mention for those of you that don't know, Kalahari is an indoor water park and resort in Sandusky. I know that it's the largest indoor water park in Ohio and potentially the US since their recent addition. Even though I've been before this was my first time getting past the kiddie pool. I almost forgot how much fun a good water slide can be! My biggest dilemma for the day was 'how do I get any pictures'. Water and a digital camera is not a good combo. So we came up with the plan to head straight for the slides and larger activities and come back to the other things with the camera. I think the kids would have agreed to anything if it got them to the slides. Sierra and Brandon were exceptionally well behaved. I was very proud of them. We had a ton of fun. Here's a few pictures of the some of the things we did.

This is Sierra and Brandon attempting to hop across the lilly pads with the assistance of the over head rope. Not as easy as it seems, they discovered.




This is the one that I think they enjoyed the most. I never got a chance to ride it because you must have two people to ride. But they rode this one over and over and over. This was the ride that got the 'one more time'. It's called the Zip Coaster.








Here they are in line for the Zip Coaster, again.










I don't remember what this one was called but I'm calling it The Toilet Bowl. Because I think this must be what it feels like to be flushed down the toilet. It shoots you out of this tube and then swirls you around before dropping you into a hole. Notice the girl in the picture?

We didn't do this one though. The warning signs said you needed to be a STRONG swimmer and you're dropped into 6.5 ft of water. I thought that one might be a bit much for the kids. I'll do it next time!


And here's the Family Toilet Bowl. We did this one and it's pretty much the same idea as the other one except you're all getting flushed together on a raft. Please notice the raft in the picture. It's not small. It holds 4 people. It was heavy, very heavy and awkward. I didn't have the luxury to be scared about the ride because I was so exhausted from wrestling that thing up a million stairs that I would have rode it over a water fall just to stop carrying it.

It was just alot of fun. I want to say thank you to Brandon and Sierra for being the wonderful kids that they are. Thanks for a great time!

Here's a little video of the Family Toilet Bowl in action. Enjoy!

A Bus Ride and pizza too!

Today was Sienna's first field trip riding a school bus. Her preschool visited a local pizza place which involved about a 10 minute bus ride. When Sienna got to school on Monday she discovered that the kitchen play area had been turned into the 'Preschool Pizza Shop' and the kids spent all week taking orders, making pizzas and exchanging play money. They even made a HUGE pizza out of cardboard and paper with a thank you note for the pizza place which was hanging beautifully on the wall. The kids got to make their own pizzas and then toured the restaurant. They were all so excited. It was a very nice field trip.

Sienna has a great group of girls in her class. They really make me laugh. They're ALL so outgoing! I've made mention of these particular girls before, in the post about Sienna's Thanksgiving Feast. Remember how distracting my purple nail polish was to them? I made sure to have no purple nail polish today. Today they all seemed to have tattoos to show me. It must be something in the air right now. Even Sienna is rockin' one on her leg right now. I've never seen an entire group (class) of children that get along so well with one another. I really think it's credit to the teachers and type of program that they use. I am very pleased with them. Big thanks to Pine House Pizza and to the Western Reserve Preschool!

The Power of Communication

As I've mentioned before, Levi does occupational therapy every Thursday at Fisher Titus Hospital. He used to do physical therapy as well but has since mastered his physical milestones and is continuing to develop at a 'normal' rate. I was hoping that Speech would be the one therapy that Levi didn't need. However, he won't be skimping out on any therapy sessions. He needs some speech help. He says a few words~ Mama, Dada, Hi, Go and ever so occasionally Bye. Levi is 19 months old now and should be say more than this. He doesn't even say Uh-Oh. I talked to his occupational therapist about it and she agrees that Levi should start in speech therapy. However, there's a HUGE waiting list to get in Speech at FTMC. I think he is like number 27 on the list, right now.

I tried going through the Early Intervention program (which is the program we started on when Levi was 4 weeks old before being referred to FTMC for therapy at 10 months) but all they offer right now is group sessions. After going to one hour long speech group session, that felt an awful lot like an extended OT session, I couldn't bring myself to go to another one. I've been to alot of therapy sessions but that one was by far the most difficult to deal with. Some sessions are extremely difficult and tiring when Levi is in one of his moods. If he doesn't want to do it then he just won't do it. 'Just won't do it' doesn't happen at therapy. If he won't do something then the therapist and I physically hold him in the situation and make his arms and hands do the action we wanted. As you can imagine, Levi gets extremely upset about this and screams and hollers. But we tell him how wonderful he has done and I give him a hug and he settles right down and gets back to playing. On a real bad day we can have about 6 or 7 'fits' during a 30 minute OT session. However, we haven't had a real bad day in quite a while. Levi is even doing 45 minute sessions now instead of just 30. He hasn't even had a 'fit' for at least a good month now. Progress is finally starting show!!

So, we're still waiting for the speech to come through. But in the meantime, his occupational therapist gives me some good ideas to work on at home. One of the things she has suggested is teaching Levi some sign language. The thing that I am most worried about is that his lack of communication abilities will result in frustration and fits. He's already gotten upset with me a few times because I just didn't know what he wanted. So, we're trying a few words of the sign language and he is doing really well with it. He can say please, thank you, eat and more. When I walked into his room he was standing in his crib and looked right at me and said 'Mama' and then he said 'eat' with his sign language. It's really amazing to see him use the sign language without being prompted to. I know that he will talk eventually but the sign language will give him the ability to communicate with us while we wait.


Here's a little video of Levi running around this morning in his diaper. The middle of the video gets a little dark when Levi runs to the living room but it just lasts a couple of seconds. He can't stay still for long.