Thanksgiving

Well, Thanksgiving was kind of a bust this year.  Dalin was so sick.  We did make it up to Dan's mom's house and had a great feast, but Dalin ate nothing and then we ended up going to the ER because he broke out in red spots.  They were all over his chest, back, and face.  He looked pretty scary.  The doctor said it was due to a viral infection and that the spots were one of the side effects.  So basically there was nothing we could really do for him but wait out the sickness.  He also had bronchitis which was fun.  Poor thing.  Luckily no one else has been sick other than I've had a minor cold the last couple of days.  Dalin was down and out for 5 days solid.  He ate nothing, I had to force drink into him, and all he did was lay around, watch T.V., and sleep.  Whatever virus it was it really gave him a run for his money.  The good thing is he was out of school for the break.  The bad news is it ruined his holiday.  He wasn't very happy about heading home without visiting other family members, but we didn't want to pass this nasty bug around.

Dan's Birthday

Going back a few weeks, we didn't forget about Dan's big 35 this year.  I wasn't going to make a cake because I know it's not Dan's favorite and with work and Thanksgiving coming up I was feeling pretty busy.  But Braden absolutely insisted he must have a cake.  So then I thought I'd just make a simple sheet cake and frost it and be done.  But Braden still wouldn't have it.  He felt Dan needed to choose his cake and I would need to make it.  What have I gotten myself into with cakes at birthdays?  I kept giving Dan the wide eyed, take a hint, I'm too overwhelmed to make a cake look but of course he's a man and didn't get my hints.  As Braden kept pestering Dan to make a choice on a cake he nonchalantly said, as he headed upstairs to have a lie down, that he needed a tiger fish cake. Oh did Braden run with that one.  I was stuck.  Braden would have a melt down if Dan did not get his chosen cake so that's what I did.  Here is Dan's tiger fish cake.  Not the tiger fish he was referring to.  He's thinking of the monster ones with huge sharp teeth that are as long as 6 feet.  The one I did was the type you'd keep in a fish tank at home.  So take that Dan....he didn't even notice or really care.  But Braden was sure excited about the cake, so it was worth it. 

These are a few of my favorite things....

What I love about fall:

1. beautiful colors

2. pumpkins

3. crisp mornings followed by warm afternoons

4. apple cider and eggnog

5. the sounds of crunching leaves

6. sweet smells of fall

7. soup on a cold evening

8. hot chocolate with marshmallows

9.  sleeping with my window open

10. driving with the windows down

Braden and I love leaves in the fall.  Each year we go out and rake all our leaves into a huge pile and play for hours.  After a while the other two trickle out when they realize we're having so much fun.  Enjoy the pics :)

Chopped

Before...

After..

I was getting sick of my long hair.  I really like my new do.

Vision Therapy and Glasses

A few weeks ago I noticed that as I read with Dalin he would often skip words, flip words, get lost, and sometimes even skip whole sections.  I worked with him and would have him place his finger on the page and follow along so he wouldn't get lost and would have him go back and re-read where he messed up but felt a little concerned.  So I talked to his teacher who said she noticed the same thing at school.  She said they had an aide who worked with kids that had these kinds of these happening, but suggested I get his eyes checked first.  I was also told at Braden's Kindergarten screening that we may want to have his eyes checked too.  No surprise since both Dan and I are blind as bats.  Poor genes there, unfortunately.  So off we went to visit the eye doctor.  After checking Dalin's eyes and doing several little tests on him the doctor said Dalin had Binocular Vision Impairment, meaning his eyes have a hard time coming to focus on the same point within a foot or closer to his face.  He suggested a doctor in Roosevelt who did vision therapy.  So we made an appointment in Roosevelt and headed down there the next day.  After several more extensive tests it was concluded that the previous diagnosis was wrong and that Dalin actually has Gross Eye Motor Impairment.  His eyes don't work together.  They each do their own thing.  So while one eye is looking at a point the other eye is off doing something else.  The doctor showed me and it kind of freaked me out.  How have I not noticed this before!  No wonder he loses his place when he reads and skips words.  When your eyes aren't looking at the same thing it would really hard to do much of anything.  The doctor was impressed that Dalin could read on grade level and the good news is it can be fully corrected with vision therapy.  So now Dalin has to go to vision therapy once a week until the problem is corrected.  He has vision therapy homework to do at home and the doctor said we can expect to see a drastic improvement in several areas.  His reading speed should improve, his reading comprehension should drastically increase, his eye hand coordination will improve, and his ability to focus on something for longer periods of should improve (In other words, he probably doesn't have ADD, which we have looked into).  The doctor also said that Dalin's headaches could be attributed to this problem and once corrected they should go away.  All in all it has been a very positive experience and I hope that we can help Dalin improve his life.  His teacher, Mrs. Luck, has been fantastic to work with and she said that she has another student doing vision therapy and has seen a huge improvement in him.  I'm excited to see Dalin's progress.  He was VERY bummed, however that he doesn't get to wear glasses.  We're talking in tears because of it.

Braden on the other hand was found to have an astigmatism.  So he gets to wear glasses since this is the only way to improve or correct this condition.  He did not want to wear glasses and was pretty bummed about it.  But once he got to choose them and put them on he felt a little better about it.  He looks all grown up with them on and so far has been very responsible with them.  It's taken a week or so for him to get used to them and not take them off every two minutes.  He chose Nike glasses that are green and here he is sportin' his new look.

Pooptacular!

Somehow I managed to get a bee in my bonnet who told me I was sick and tired of changed nasty, smelly, poopy diapers.  So I came up with this glorious plan to potty-train Landon. I have been working with him for a while now on pulling his own pants on and off so he could do it himself and he knows all the required "potty talk".

 It started off like this:

Me: "Landon do you want to be a big boy and go potty in the big potty?"
Landon: "No!  I want to be a baby."
Me: "Landon, do you want to be big like Dalin and Braden and use the big boy potty?"
Landon: "No! I'm a baby."

Not a good start and definitely a bad omen.  But when I get an idea in my head I tend to get stubborn.  Me?  Stubborn?  Imagine that.  The first mistake I made was trying to do it when Braden was there.  He bossed and demanded and tried to put himself in the middle of everything and got mad when I asked him to go play by himself for a little while.  He had Landon throwing fits and was loud and obnoxious as I was trying to explain things to Landon and just plain wanted the whole thing to be about him and not Landon.  That frustrated me and made me less patient with Landon.  So lesson learned.  Landon's potty training did not go as smoothly as the other two.  He understood the concept of going in the toilet and would go every time I put him on it, but the problem was he didn't want to be put on it.....ever.  So of course, a battle ensued.  Now, he doesn't fight me about everything like dear little Braden but he does get very whiny and dramatic about things he doesn't want to do and becomes what I refer to as the floppy fish.  When he's like that it's hard to even pick him pick him up because he throws his hands up and his head back and lets his legs go limp.  I'm sure every parent out there has dealt with the floppy fish.  The first week or so he did pretty good IF I made him sit on the potty.  He would not go on his own.  If I didn't make him go on time he would pee his pants.  We had a lot of accidents.  Then there's the poop.  Apparently potty training to Landon did  not include bowel movements.  Have you ever had to change poopy underwear over and over.  Let me tell you it's not fun.  He would go hide somewhere every time he had to poop.  If I ever saw him off in a corner somewhere I would rush him to the toilet where we would end up with poop everywhere.  I finally started putting him in the cold bath which consisted of me standing him in the bath and splashing cold water on him  to get the soap off after he had an accident which of course he didn't like.  Then he found a diaper in the diaper bag of a baby I was watching and took his pants off and brought me the diaper and asked me to put it on.  When I told him he didn't wear diapers anymore he started to cry with that truly broken heart cry and just kept saying "I don't want to wear underwear". It was right after he pooped all over himself at Walmart that I first considered putting him back in diapers.  But I didn't want him to go backwards and I definitely didn't want to keep changing diapers.  I was up all night one night thinking it over and trying to come up with a better plan.  I just kept thinking to myself, "What am I doing wrong?  How does Landon think?  What am I doing wrong?"  I finally came to the conclusion that Landon is the most linguistically gifted of the three of my kids and he understands things pretty well for a 2-and-a-half-year-old.  Most of the time I can avoid a tantrum if I make sure that I explain things to him.  I decided this was no different.  So the next morning I had a one-on-one conversation with him.  I simply said "Landon, if you need to go potty then you need to come and tell me.  If you pee or poop your pants then we're going to wash it off with cold water before we put on dry pants.  If you come and tell me then we don't have to have a cold bath"  Well, let's just say this little tactic did the trick and we now have a fully independent potty trained child.  He will come and tell me when he has to go and I help him get there. It's wonderful to not have to worry about diapers any more.  At night I've trained him to knock on his door if he needs help.  He has a little potty in his room that he can go in at night or nap time and it works perfectly.  I have figured out the Landon system and now I can finally say, or rather yell from the rooftops "NO MORE DIAPERS!"