Uncle Brian the Missionary

Well it has been almost 2 months since my little brother Brian left on his mission to Brazil. He is doing great! I am so thankful to my in-laws for taking Brian into their home for the past 3 years. It was hard to ask them if they wouldn't mind adopting a 15 year old boy, and they so willingly agreed to do it. I know it wasn't always easy, but they loved Brian as their own son & brother. Thanks Jeff, Heidi and Tate. Hopefully Brian wasn't too much of a pain! Thank you Robert and Nanette. You are the greatest parents ever! We love you Brian! Thanks for being a great uncle to Mason, Tanner, and Gemma. They miss you so much!

RANDOM

My sister Emily tagged me along time ago, and has been bugging me ever since to post 5 random things about me, so here you go.

1. I have had 6 operations in my 29 years of life. Four of those operations were for my dysfunctional ears. The other 2 we wont talk about.

2. I used to have 3 piercings in my right ear. Luckily there are no pictures to prove it. Shhhhhh! Don't tell my kids.

3. Because of Alice and Wonderland my favorite flower is the pansy.

4. I kissed more boys before the age of 8 then I did through out the rest of my life. What can I say. I was the only girl in the neighborhood.

5. I do not eat dairy unless it is ice cream or melted cheese. I will seriously throw up if I eat something with sour cream or mayo in it.

There it is. Go TAG yourself.

LOOKING FOR ANOTHER KID

Mason wrote me this nice letter after I got upset with him today.

Translation: Dear Mom I have left. I want to be alone. PS Find another kid to love.
Mason is doing so much better with his writing. He is spacing his words apart and not leaving out as many letters as he used to. We just need to work on capital and lower case letters. I LOVE THIS BOY!!!

I've got a floater!

The boys are on their 5th day of swimming class and it's not going so well. The 1st night they started in the baby pool which they thought was great! After the 1st night they moved to the big pool. The instructor still can't get the boys to go under water. There are 3 instructors for this group of 12 kids. 2 instructors each have 5 kids while the 3rd girl gets Mason & Tanner. All the other kids are learning how to swim and my boys are sitting on the steps blowing bubbles in the water. Last night Mason made a big scene by standing on the edge of the pool just screaming because he was afraid to jump to the instructor. He wouldn't have even gone under water because it was the shallow end. Needless to say he did not get his promised reward for being a good swimmer. He got home all upset and ran into the bathroom and started splashing water all over his face trying to show us that he could go under the water. It's a little too late buddy. Mason said, "I guess I'm just a dead fish that's never going to learn how to swim!" I think we might need to find a private instructor. On a good note, I guess, Tanner qualified for the preschool program. They didn't diagnose him with anything. They just told me to research autism spectrum disorders, because he has a lot of those symptoms. I think that Tanner will be a lot like Mason. There both really smart it's just figuring out how they learn so that we can be better teachers. Happy summer!!!

My little blue man

So I ordered this off of ebay last week. It's called a body sock. Mason used something similar to this in occupational therapy at the school, and I thought that Tanner might benefit from using it. He seems to like it. Tanner goes in this Friday for a complete evaluation with the school system. If he qualifies then we wont have to pay for preschool and he will get additional help depending on his strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of whether or not we have to pay for preschool he is going. I'm just looking for some help with how to handle my son. It has been a frustrating couple of years. I just want to understand what is going on with Tanner and why he does all the things he does, so that I can help him to have a normal happy childhood. I love this boy so much!!!

Some of you have asked what the heck is that blue thing your kid is in. Here is what one website has to say about it. Body Sox (tm) will help children with sensory processing disorders to work on "position in space" skills. They must kinesthetically feel what their bodies are doing and how they are coordinating their body movements. Watching themselves in a mirror, or creating shadows, will help them develop this proprioceptive sense , which is often dysfunctional in children with sensory integration dysfunction / sensory processing disorders .

The last critically therapeutic activity the "body sock" provides is heavy work/deep pressure input that is both calming and organizing. Through all of these movement activities in the lycra "body sock", they will have comfortable, resistive material to push against and have pushing against them. This will benefit both children (or adults) with tactile defensiveness as well as the sensory seeking kids (you know them...the movers, shakers, crashers, endless "energizer bunnies"!)

We were having such a good day.

Gemma was having a good day and then around 5:30 tonight I was carrying Gemma from the kitchen into the family room when I slipped on the tile floor sending Gemma face down into the floor. Immediately blood started coming out of her nose and mouth and she had a big goose egg on her forehead. I lost all control and just started crying. I know that's not good because it just upsets the kid more to see mommy crying, but I couldn't pull it together. I called my sister-in-law who lives down the street to see if she could come over to help me get a hold of myself. With me crying and Gemma crying in the background the only thing that she understood me saying was come over, and she did. Thanks Staci!!!!! After I called Staci I called Rob and told him to come home because we needed to take Gemma to urgent care. I don't think he really understood me either, but he also closed down shop in a hurry and came home. So what do you think. I thought for sure she broke her nose and lost half of her teeth. It was so sad.

Well Gemma was such a good girl at the doctors office. She actually slept through most of her exam. She didn't have a nap today and after all that she went through she was so tired. The doctor said that the nose looks straight and she has all of her teeth. She is just going to have a really big bump on her forehead, a swollen nose, and a puffy lip for awhile. Gemma told the doctor my mommy dropped me. It made me feel so good. The doctor was very kind and gave me a hug, and let me know that Gemma was going to be fine. Good thing we got family pictures out of the way last week!!!

I'm throwing this picture in for fun. Rob made me this plate shelf display case for me for mother's day. I've been wanting something to display my cute plates and mugs, and this is perfect! It's going to look great on my kitchen wall. Thanks honey for a wonderful mother's day!!

Happy Glazy Day's!

We have been counting down the day's. We arrived at Krispy Kreme this morning at 5:15. We only had to wait for 45 minutes to get our donuts. We walked out of there with 3 dozen donuts, a couple of free t-shirts, and a frisbee. Never leave me again sweet Krispy Kreme!