Ready ... Aim ... Fire

Our homeschool list has been talking about these books The Art of the Catapult and Backyard Ballistics for quite some time, our library finally got one of them in and life has never been the same. First they started with a popsicle stick catapult, but of course that wouldn't hold together for shooting our most ready ammunition - tons of super balls, and while shooting wads of paper was okay the big boy just had to make improvements to the system. As you can tell the little boy loves the improvements, and just in case you were wondering the mommy has enjoyed all this too!

Daddy's turn to show how it's done...


John's turn. Get the ammo...


Load the ammo...


Ready...aim...


FIRE!!!!


The library copies of the books are being returned, slowly, as copies are coming to live in our personal library along with more books from this guy, things that involve fire, potatoes and tennis balls and who knows what else. And the dog, well the dog has figure out that if the catapult is down and surrounded by boy and daddy then it's time to seek shelter.

Flicking Therapy and Balls Everywhere

John's occupational therapist is helping us help John get his fingers to be stronger and more flexible so that he can sign with more accuracy. You have to love this woman, her very first suggestion was to have him flick paper wads with each of his fingers. This was a picture from yesterdays flicking session, today we could already see improvement not to mention the squeals of excitement when the flicking paper was gotten out by dad.



As kids my sister and I LOVED super balls. We had tons. They were everywhere. So of course when I saw 144 of them on ebay for next to nothing John needed them. As you can tell he kinda likes them too :)

'N' and 'T'

The past few days John has been doing something new, something I've never seen him do before and it makes me think that we are really ready to get started with some reading practice. Honestly, because of his inability to express everything he thinks I believe he can read at least a few words already, but now the letter sounds are starting to come together for him. A couple nights ago as we were saying the Lord's Prayer with him before bed he started excitedly signing 'n' over and over again. Usually when he is signing letters it is because he sees them somewhere, there were no visible 'n's where we were at. Finally it dawned on me 'Our Father who is N heaven', I asked and sure enough that's exactly what he was saying. Today it was excited 't's, I had asked him if he was thirsty and he was signing 't', this time it was the ending sound of the word that he had picked up on. I have read, reviewed, asked about, looked at, poured over every reading program out there and haven't found one yet that looked like it would be a good fit, it's very hard to think of teaching someone to read when they can't verbalize even the sounds of most of the letters. Tonight I came across this reading program and finally I think I might have found something that will help us, if it does I'll come back here with reviews and raves and such, for now I'm printing off the first few lessons, as the whole thing is free online, and pouring over them so that we can start tomorrow afternoon. I feel like conquering reading is going to open a million doors for this kid, for any kid really, but especially for this one.

Emerging Independence

During therapy on Monday John did well enough with this walker that he got to bring it home for some extra practice. He loves it. Only thing is he likes to pick it up while he's walking with it, the therapist says that this yet another sign that he is going to walk independant of devices and help and that we probably won't even need to own one of these before he is off to another one.

Strawberry Sweet

Can you tell that the strawberries from Sam's are sweet as candy this week?

The Adventure of John

There is little that we do around here that could be called 'school' of any form, shape or size, we do however have lots of play time. Left to his own for a while to enjoy one of his favorite activities, 'cut, cut, cut' and 'glue, glue, glue' John decided to become living art for us. He was so proud of his accomplishment that he held his leg up like this until I went to get the camera because he had to have his picture taken.



This week we celebrate Mark's birthday and so today his present arrived and John got to show it to him and sign 'happy birthday' to him too! Mark's birthday isn't until Friday, but he has some hi falouting church meeting thing-a-ma-bob to go to tomorrow and NEEDED this shirt for the meeting, if you can't make out what it says let me quote it for you, "Hello My Name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die." That's got to be the perfect shirt to wear to some district churchy thing for a pastor who has absolutely no desire whatsoever to move up in the ranks of the churchocracy.



When we actually do something around here that might possibly kinda maybe look like school it's working on writing. I laminated the pages from the first book of Handwriting Without Tears and grandma sent John a nice big collection of dry erase markers for Christmas. I believe what we are doing is actually building muscle memory, as you can see on the scarecrow square, some memory is getting there.

The Way We Are

There is lots of discussion on a short-gut email list that I'm on right now about just how awful life with sbs kids are, for both the parent and the child. These are mommies who love their children with all their hearts and are just overwhelmed with the care that they require. I must admit that we've had those days when we are overwhelmed and scared and worried, but in all things we try very hard to remember what we set out to do - make every day that John has the very best that it can be, no matter how many or how few days there are, and no matter whether we are spending those days like now where he is well and at home doing great or whether we are spending those days with him sick and in the hospital. I will always remember what the pastor who cared for us while we were with John in New Orleans told us. His words of comfort and of encouragement helping us to remember that we are not going through this just for John or for us, but that we are to remember those around us wherever we are and that they need our care too, and the Word of Christ that we have to share with them. Now religion is not easily discussed or brought up on the short-gut email list, but these words from Big Bird seem appropriate ...

"So maybe when we think about it, what's really best by far, is finding out what's good about being the way we are." That is our goal for John, despite all birth defects, physical handicaps, medical fragility or whatever happens or comes along we hope to each day teach him to accept who he is and be happy inside.