Visual Schedule Time!

Rocket Boy is definitely a visual learner, so a visual schedule seemed like a no-brainer. I have searched high and low for a schedule and cards that would work for us but could not turn up anything. I found a card builder as well, but for some reason it didn't want to load any of my clip art. So, I made my own.

I created a table in Word - 3x5 with 0.5in top and bottom borders. This gave us pretty good size squares to work in. Then I found clip art for each activity through Word or a quick Google search. I have started with 30 different activities but I am sure I will need more at some point. 

I printed them and cut them all out. Then I cut pieces of poster board for the back of each to make them a bit more sturdy. I had a crinkled bit of poster board in the craft closet I couldn't use for much else, so it finally went to good use. 

Then I got down to "laminating" - aka, covering everything in packing tape. I am sure this would go a LOT faster with actual laminating material, but for now my tape method works just fine. Then I cut a bit of magnet tape for the back of each since I got a magnetic board to post them on. You could also do velcro and a different type of board for the back. 

After a long while, I got all of them "laminated" and applied all the magnets. I think they turned out pretty sturdy and they stuck to the board really well. 

I added a ribbon to the back of the board since I want him to be able to move the board from upstairs to downstairs to see throughout the day. I also added some lines in permenet marker to denote some "reading lines" - he is in the pre-reading stage and I want to help him get comfortable reading left to right. 

I already see a couple more things we need, mainly some multiples of a few activities (like two "brush teeth" and another "watch TV" since we have a couple of viewing times each day). I will most likely wait to make more until I have at least half a page worth to print. 

In case anyone wants a starting list, these are the activities we used: Get Dressed, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Errands, School, Set Table, Clean Up, Watch TV, Bath, Stickers, Brush Teeth, Bed Time, Play Dough, Coloring, Story, Mommy Time, Daddy Time, Grocery, Target, Church, Doctor, Quiet Time, Visit Friends, Park, Dance Party, Puzzles, Library, Movie Night, and Special Activity.

Special Activity will be used for one-time events - like going to a festival or the pumpkin patch. I just put some festive pennants on that one. We actually have a square just for shopping  at Target - it is his favorite place. Every family will have slightly different activities, so customize this to your needs. 

I also made sure to choose pictures that would really resonate with Rocket Boy and not cause issues. For instance, most of the boys shown look like him (blond hair, small boy) and in the "errands" spot the car picture actually looks like our vehicle. I know my son and I know that if the pictures were not close to reality he would fixate on that. A good way to avoid all that is to take photos but I honestly like clip art better. 

I will be adding a folder pocket to the bottom to hold "done" items and the activities he can choose from each day. The extra magnets will be kept in the bottom of our calender, which already has a great little pocket. 

Hopefully this will really help with transitions and changes in schedule which are especially hard for Rocket Boy. Do you have a visual schedule for your kids? How did you make yours? Let me know in the comments!

School District Evaluation

The start of our journey with Rocket Boy was a high ASQ:SE score. He scored a 170 (not including the extra points from areas I marked as concerning) and the cutoff for "normal" is 70. This confirmed for me that the issues we were having was not all in my head. The public health nurse who helped us with the screening suggested contacting our school district as a good place to start since Rocket Boy was past the age for the Early Intervention programs.

And so, we contacted our school district. Initially we were told it could be two months before we would be seen, even with the high ASQ:SE score on file. I decided to send the evaluation team a document outlining some the behaviors we were seeing at home and socially, hoping that it would speed up the process. It did, and they fit us in just a week after that email went out.

Today was the evaluation. Rocket Boy did super, as I knew he would. He is very smart, but of course I think that since I am his mama. When it comes to cognative skills and learning ability, RB is ahead of the curve. Today just confirmed that again for me. We won't know the actual scores for a few more weeks but their initial tally today showed that he is advanced. Since I tested within "gifted" range as a child, this wasn't a huge surprise to me - but it doesn't stop me from feeling proud!

However, given my concerns and his ASQ:SE score, they want to observe him at preschool. They will not be looking so much for educational delays or issues but more for social abilities. They want to see him among his peers and trying to "attend" (pay attention) to tasks. They agree that while he may be able to sit still for three hours right now, his immediate meltdowns after school time is over shows just how much effort that takes for him.

They were able to give me the names of some Occupational Therapists and Child Psychologists in town who we can contact for private evaluation. His social/emotional issues will not receive help from the school if they don't interfere with learning, therefore we will most likely need private evaluation to get any therapies or help.

Step One of this journey is completed, or at least mostly completed. I will sleep a little better tonight just knowing we put one foot in front of the other today.

DIY Cold Brew Coffee

As most parents will admit, coffee is a god we worship with a love/hate relationship. I went years without coffee but the moment I had kids coffee wormed its way back into my life. 

I am a lover of iced coffee. Hot coffee just doesn't do it for me; I find it pretty bitter. Plus hot drinks suck in the summer. 

For a long while I would make a pot of hot coffee and then cool it and keep it in the fridge but it was still bitter. So then I started buying iced coffee in the dairy section of the store. Expensive and has a bunch of ingredients I would rather avoid. 

Then I found out you can cold brew your own. This solves several issues - for starters you can pick any flavor you like and are not limited by what is in the dairy section. You also control the ingredients and strength. Oh, and it's way cheaper. 

So here is how I make mine:

Obtain a large glass container - I like my giant Ball canning jar. I got it at Target and it holds over six cups. 

Get your coffee - I buy pre-ground. Word to the wise, do NOT buy a coffee with any artificial or "fun" flavors. It tastes awful with this method. 

In my case, it is about a 1:5 or 1:6 ratio of coffee:water. I put in a cup of coffee and fill my jar to the top with COLD water - about five or six cups. 

Let sit in the fridge over night. 8-16 hours. 

In the morning, place a small sieve over a large bowl and put a coffee filter in it as well for good measure. Slowly drain the coffee and throw out the grounds. Put the coffee back in your  jar and return it to fridge. 

Add coffee to a glass and flavor to your liking. I love some vanilla almond milk in mine, over ice.

I have seen some instructions use a sort of coffee "tea bag" - making a bag out of the filters and putting the grounds inside it. Personally, I don't see the point in messing with all that, but if you try it and have a good method post it in the comments! 

Fine Motor Work...For Mommy Too

Confession - I love Target. Like, a lot. 

It's my happy place, what can I say? 

Around the major holidays Target carries great little craft kits - and many of them don't need any glue or extra supplies. The best part - most of them are under $5. Score! 

So we grabbed a couple of kits last weekend, but didn't get around to doing them all. The one he was looking forward to the most was this little guy below.

Now I am a HUGE lover of owls - seriously my house looks like an aviary - so I was excited he picked this one over the fox. I also saw a great opportunity for some fine motor work. You see, you have to remove all these little tiny glitter foam circles from the sticky pads, then put them on the little circle outlines in the correct color-coded areas. So you get fine motor work, color practice, and hopefully a little quiet time for everyone too.

Or not.

The circles didn't come off the foam pad very well and Rocket Boy was getting too frustrated trying to peel the thin paper off the back of each circle. So I got to sit on the floor next to him and take the paper off each one and line them up for him.

While I didn't get to finish putting away dishes, I did get to have some time with Rocket Boy and talk about how the little circles were all waiting in line to be put on the picture and couldn't jump out of line. We also talked a lot about glitter because he takes after me and loves glitter.

While he doesn't always do well with back and forth conversation, he does always love a good sticker session - especially with glitter.

Calm Down Tools

On a recent trip to Minnesota we found a great calming aid for Rocket Boy - a water/oil sculpture. You know, the kind that drip slowly and most people use as paper weights? This little thing came in especially handy during a level 10 meltdown later that night.

After seeing how much he loved them I had to hunt for more. Amazon turned up a few neat ones so we now have a little collection. Hopefully I can find some large ones eventually. I plan to make a calming glitter jar as well. 

What tools work as calming aids for your kids when a meltdown is on the horizon?

Woo Woo Woo (Or, Our Time at the Grocery)

Woo Woo Woo

"Okay honey, that's a cool noise. Can you think of another cool noise to make?"

Woo Woo Woo

Woo Woo Woo

"Hey bud, did you hear mommy?"

Woo Woo Woo

"Why don't we sing a song? The Wheels on the Bus go round and round..."

Woo Woo Woo

(Continue this thread for about 35 minutes through the store...without stopping.)
 

I know he was overstimulated. I know he was just trying to cope. I eventually gave up trying to redirect and just got the shopping done, amid a sea of "stink-eye" from my fellow shoppers.

Once upon a time when I didn't have children of my own I probably would have been one of the stink-eye givers in this situation. I didn't understand that kids were not robots, and they don't have a mute button. I didn't understand that children (and people in general) can have sensory overload. I wish I could go back and smack myself. Really.

R.I.P Glasses

The weekend was wonderful and relaxing even with the rivalry game this weekend. For college football fans out there, if you live in a "divided house" you know my pain. Rocket Dad loves Alabama...and I am a lifelong Florida fan. When they play each other we sit on opposite sides of the room and just try not to be too obnoxious to each other. 

Florida lost. Cue shame and plenty of ragging from the hubs. Sigh.

This weekend Rocket Baby also broke my glasses. My only pair of glasses...with no back up contacts. So today I got to wait 45 minutes in the eye glasses shop with Rocket Boy and Baby. At the end of all that..."No, we can't fix them here. The new frames will be here in a week." So...I am rocking the Harry Potter tape on my glasses for a week or so and dealing with uncomfortable pressure points. 

Surprisingly, RB did pretty well in the store for that long. We did hear, "waiting is hard" about 300 times, but that is one of his new phrases. Once he gets a phrase stuck in his head it is like a broken record in the right situations - and waiting is one of those times. Apparently, Daniel Tiger taught him this one. 

Thanks Daniel. 

A Start In the Right Direction

Thursday morning we had an appointment with our family doctor for Rocket Boy. He needed a well-visit, having missed several due to moving cross country and insurance issues. Rocket Boy has gained two pounds since the start of summer - which is amazing to me as his eating is getting pickier by the day. All of his normal developmental stuff checks off, apart from being wobbly in balancing (though if he had stopped trying to hop on his one foot that would have made it easier).

When we started to get into behaviors and social/emotional aspects, that is where my concerns came up. You see, RB has been giving me pause since babyhood - little things like not making consistent eye contact, not responding to his name, and not being "cuddly". He has usually preferred to play on his own and wasn't super social as a baby.

Then he had language development on an odd curve and a habit of using made-up words (without seeming to realize they were made up). For instance, just after a year old he stopped saying "mama" and then began to use the word "Gig-ga" to call for me. It took us ages to figure out this phrase was his word for "mama"...and even though it was constantly corrected and we (the adults) never used it, he continued to call me that until after his third birthday. Then one day, it was just "mom". (Needless to say I was relived to have a normal name again). He continues to make up words and use them in conversation with no apparent knowledge that the word isn't meaningful to the rest of us. 

Lately he has added what I can only call "stimming" actions to his repertoire of behaviors - running a consistant route through the living space on tip-toes for mild excitement/anxiety to a "knee spin" when he is really wound up tight. If I try to stop these activities he goes totally wild - throwing his body around and kicking and crying. His preferred method of "play" is aggresively physical and he can't seem to help himself - head butting like a bull and rolling on people. He is overly touchy to his peer's faces instead of using a standard "hello" to start a conversation or play interaction.

I could go on (and I did in a three page write up for his doctor), but suffice to say that his collection of behaviors has gotten to the point of being very troubling. Our doctor agreed that an evaluation is needed and the "big A's" were mentioned - Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD. I can't say I was surprised at her suspicions, but it puts a new light on things to hear it from someone else.

We have an evaluation through the school district in a little over a week, though from what I understand they are more concerned with learning behaviors vs. the whole picture - and so far in preschool he is doing well (only 5 class days in, so we are hoping it continues). This focus on learning difficulties has me looking for an independent evaluation as well - something I need to speak with my insurance about (yay, insurance calls). I have a feeling that whatever is going on with our little Rocket, it is not going to hamper schooling for some time - but home and social life are turning into a situation that this Rocket Mama needs help with.

But for now, Rocket Boy is sleeping soundly upstairs and we have a fun weekend planned. If the mosquitos will finally die down we will venture to the park tomorrow to let off some energy. Fall crafts are waiting on the table and church this Sunday is at a historic church set in the middle of an adorable park. My project for the weekend is to look for solutions for a visual schedule for Rocket Boy - routines help him so much, but I need a schedule I can change quickly when needed vs. the hand drawn lists I have done in the past.

Have a beautiful Fall weekend everyone!

Rocket Boy!

Out Into the Interwebs - An Introduction

Hello Blogosphere, Interwebs, and Others -

I won't spend too long on a huge introduction, hopefully we can get to know each other through many more posts. For now I will say that I am a mother - a mother to two boys, but one of whom will be the "subject" here. We shall call him "Rocket Boy" or RB for short.

Rocket Boy started out life in the normal fashion...wonderful birth, wonderful breastfeeding relationship, pretty wonderful babyhood. He is now three and a bit. Rocket Boy is truly an amazing little guy but lately we have been getting more and more worried about RB. And mama has been getting more and more worn out and frazzled.

The title of this blog and Rocket Boy's name come from the feeling I have about my little guy. Sometimes I get the feeling that Rocket Boy is "on another planet" - I can't reach him, and he can't reach me. Other days he is very present and we are on the same planet. As I write and work through all this (more to come on what "all this" is), that feeling is what I come back too. I come back to it each and every day and it keeps me up most nights.

Starting tomorrow we are going to work towards finding solutions - solutions to get me to his planet or bring him closer to mine. Maybe somehow we can meet in the middle.