Go Tigers!!!

Daddy and Brandon had a fun time at the Black and Gold game

this afternoon. Even in the cool wet weather it was worth it to see Truman the Tiger!!

Gotcha Day!!!

April 17th was Ethan's first gotcha day. It's hard to believe that its been a whole year already. To celebrate we went to Pizza Hut.

As you can tell, he doesn't exactly understand the whole concept.

He had his horseback riding again today. It was nice so they went on a trail ride through the woods and saw a cat and some flowers along the way. He enjoys riding, but he doesn't like anyone trying to wave to him or talk to him while he's riding. I think he's concentrating so hard on staying up there on the horse that anything else distracts him. He usually looks like he's frowning while he's riding, but as soon as he gets off and you start talking to him about it, he smiles and tells you what he did and how much he likes it.

First lost tooth

Before, you can kind of see the bottom left front tooth sticking forward a bit.

During . . .

After.

Riding - week three

Ethan has done amazing at his horseback riding, especially considering the first session he spent screaming and crying. He likes it now!!!! And he even participates more, raising his hand and doing the other things they ask him to. You can tell he doesn't really want to let his hand go of the handlebar, but he does it.

Backyard Baseball

Weekend Yard Work

It was stick picking day at our house this weekend.

Don't look grandma!!!!

This is what I get for noticing a branch that was hanging and needed cut out of the tree.

I told you not to look grandma. Yes that yellow blob is Jamey up in the tree cutting out a fallen branch.

Horseback riding, take 2

It is amazing the difference in just two weeks at Ethan's second session with therapeutic horseback riding. He was pretty nervous and didn't like to let go of the handle bar, but he did great and afterwards even said that it was fun!

Derby Days

Brandon earned the opportunity to compete for the second year in a row at the district level with both his Raingutter Regatta and Pinewood Derby.

Brandon worked hard at regatta, but there were a lot of really fast boats competing.

Brandon won second place in the Pinewood Derby this year. He worked really hard with Daddy making and decorating his car.

Occupational Therapy

We had a great session at occupational therapy today. Ethan did a lot of great things. He usually doesn't like swinging, but today he sat crisscross applesauce and swung forward and backward as well as side to side. He also swung while on his tummy and did a puzzle that way also. This activity was great because he was not only doing a fine motor task (puzzle) he was practicing visual perception(puzzle and where the pieces would fit) proprioceptive and vestibular sense(how he moves in space, and where he feels his body is in space/ swinging) It also helps strengthen the muscles in his hands that are weaker by holding himself up and moving to reach the pieces he needs. I'm sure there are even more areas of development that this activity helps but that's all I figured out.

One thing that seems to help Ethan, due to some of his Sensory Processing issues is using his muscles doing heavy work. This can be anything from carrying things, chewing gum or standing while doing his work. After doing an activity using his muscles, he seems to be able to attend to other types of learning activities better. Sometimes, just giving him a piece of gum to chew can help him focus, and also help him deal with stressful situations.

First, we made the letters in the air with our finger, then drew them on the wall. We are working first on the capital letters that only have vertical and horizontal lines in them, like T L I H E. Those are easier to learn first. Letters with diagonal lines or curved lines are harder to learn when you have trouble crossing the midline (bilateral integration) like Ethan does. That means that if he's doing something on the left side of his body, he will generally use his left hand, and if on the right use his right hand, instead of using both sides together. At times, when writing or drawing, he would draw the right side of the picture with his right hand and change hands and draw the left side with his left.

We were supposed to be just doing the letters that we did in the air, but Ethan decided he needed to write his name also. To help him with the positioning both on the paper, left to right, and with each letter, we make boxes for each letter. Here, he made his own boxes then wrote each letter of his name in each box.

Gourmet chef

Ethan has become a gourmet chef. Tonight he made himself a green bean and ketchup sandwich using dinner rolls.