The Branch Ranch

I'm contemplating a new profession....tree branch farmer. It would seem that I'm a natural, because my yard is absolutely covered in large and small branches this morning.

Of course, the ice storm that came through over the last couple of days probably had more to do with the proliferation of woody stems scattered across my lawn, than anything I did. My camera has dead batteries, else I would have gotten some beautiful shots of the crystalline trees and grass before Mr. Soleil melted it all away. My dog is thrilled, you could almost see the thoughts bouncing around in his brain as he tore around the dog pen. "All these things to chew on and throw about? They fell from the sky? Yayyyy!"

The ice wasn't too bad, the roads weren't too slick, but it was enough to build a coating of ice on everything -- and it was thick enough that our maples lost a lot of big and little branches. We were awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of things hitting the roof, and at 2 in the morning when you're not fully awake yet the noise seemed like something was trying to claw through the ceiling. Blessedly, Miss K slept through it all. She is very loud, as most 2-yr-olds are, when she freaks out. As it was, she saw white all over the ground when she got up and wanted to go play in the "snow", and was most disgruntled when we told her it was ice, and she couldn't go make snow angels in it. So she stuck out her bottom lip, jammed her hat on her head and milled around the house for a while in her mittens and her green frog wellies, hoping daddy and mommy would change their minds. We persuaded her to stay indoors with the Tinkerbell movie, and then all was right with the world. (We even got the hat and mittens off of her, but the boots stayed on).

As a result of the weather, A had no school for the last two days. Normally any change in his routine would send him into a negative behavior pattern, but since we had just come off of Christmas Break he wasn't fully into the school routine again. He was getting antsy, though, and was definitely ready to go back to pre-K on Thursday. Somehow, doing the same activities at home just don't quite hit the mark.

We still went to his therapy appointments on those days, so at least he had some continuity. A is still working on fine motor skills, and we're focusing on putting pressure on writing utensils. A has gotten fork usage down pretty well, and has the basic motions to write, he just can't put enough pressure down on the pencil or crayon to make it very visible. He does much better with markers -- they don't require as much pressure, but we are discontinuing the use of those until we are getting consistent pressure with the other writing instruments. Much to his frustration. He threw a small fit for his occupational therapist on Tuesday when they were working with pencils, because he wanted the markers and she told him, "No."

But, in a terrific little section of Wednesday, he did read the first half of Dr. Seuss's "Fox in Socks" to me! By himself! We had a little trouble with the word "Knox", but we got it figured out. This is a great activity to encourage his speech development, so we're running with it. He has come so far from the animal grunts we were getting just a couple of years ago.

I also got him to spell words using the letter magnets on the fridge, I'd give him a word and make him find the letters to spell it, like "jump" or "top". We must have done this for 30 minutes before he got tired of it, so yay! Good for him! It is thrilling to see his intelligence shining through, to a point that others notice. He really is a smart little guy.

I was hoping that with all the time off for the holidays we might venture a little closer to victory in the Toilet Bowl arena, but it just isn't there yet. He did go a few times, though, and voluntarily went by himself one time, so we're still making some progress at least. The average age for potty training autistic kids is between 5 and 6, so we're right on target I suppose....A turned 5 in November. We are nearly there with Miss K, though, we go back and forth. One day she'll be dry all day, and then the next she has accident after accident....she still doesn't understand why she has to go in the potty when her big brother doesn't. *sigh* Soon. If I say that enough times, one day it has to be true, right?