snow day

This morning, we woke up to several inches of wet & heavy snow so we weren't going anywhere. Here's some highlights of our MLK holiday 2010:

Riley got his first "tats":














While J was blowing the driveway, we made "Riley's Mountain" with our neighbor, Gracie:














After lunch, we relaxed with one of the Leap Frog DVDs he got from G'ma Berg for Christmas:













Attempted a nap (which he does sporadically), but after 45 min of tearing up his room, I decided it was a lost cause.

Riley loves the Goodnight Moon puzzle he received from one of J's patients. It has 35 pieces and glows in the dark. He puts it together at least 2-4 x per day. We're missing a piece however, so he always says "uh oh" and I say "I know, it's missing" to which he say "min-ning" in a sad sort of way:














Besides the Leap Frog DVDs and puzzle above, his other favorite Christmas gift was the Fisher Price Laptop that we bought him. It has a phonics game that he has pretty much mastered where they show a letter (upper or lower case) and play the sound of it. He then has to find it on the keyboard in order to capture it.


So that was the highlights of our snow day fun. I managed to get a little business done too -- I started the process of refinancing our home and getting the condo taxes filed. So it was both fun and productive.

Did I mention I have 10 weeks until my due date?? :-)

Shelby

30 days of potty training (and counting)

They say that if you start potty training too early, you'll just be doing it longer. We are a living testament to this truth.

Now, we didn't know if Riley was ready or not, but we did give it our best shot. We went cold-turkey -- no diapers, just undies and trainers. Our boy feels wet and dirty each time he has an accident, so if he doesn't like it he'll be motivated to keep that from happening next time. However, if he's not able to sense his need to go ahead of time, communicate to us that he needs to go, all the while possessing the muscle control to keep from going until situated on the potty -- well, motivation alone may not be enough to complete the training process.

We could just put him back in diapers and revisit this again in May when he turns three. We don't see any problem with that, especially with Kendall arriving in the next 10 weeks or so. Also, I found out it's against the law in Massachusetts to deny a child entry into preschool for not being potty trained. So the pressure's off there too.

After talking about it, we decided to keep doing what we've been doing (See previous PT post here), but allow ourselves the flexibility to put him in diapers overnight as well as when we're out of the house when it would be a royal pain to deal with messy pants. This is what we did when we went snowshoeing last Saturday. The facilities were entirely inadequate for potty training and it was a relief to give ourselves the diaper option and not have to worry about it for a few hours.

So... Riley continues to practice the lifestyle of sitting on the potty at regular intervals, but we're not having to clean up messes from the carpet or wash his sheets 3x per week anymore. Seems to be a workable solution in the interim until all the major life changes of the next several months have passed and he's developmentally further along.

Several lessons we've learned from this experience are:

1) This is a milestone that each child reaches in their own time. It's not a contest. It's not a sign of high intelligence or good parenting skills if a child happens to achieve it on the early side. Kids excel at some things and lag behind in others, just like parents. Right now, Riley is more into the alphabet and spelling words than potty training. Fine by us.

2) A child is truly potty trained when they can sense the urge to go and either communicate the need for help to the potty or get to the potty and hold their bladder & bowel muscles until seated. Putting a child at regular intervals has the parent trained, but not the child. This is the parent directing the process, so the child really isn't trained yet. (It's good practice, however!)

3) If someone tells you that their method works for all kids, regardless of temperament, personality or developmental maturity -- they're trying to Sell You Something. My laid-back, under-no-peer-pressure son is quite content to keep the status quo for now, despite our making him feel uncomfortable in his soiled undies and reminding him how to avoid it next time.

4) Lastly, no child gets on the bus in diapers (or so I've heard).

Rest assured, this is the final potty training update from our family... until it's done, of course!

In other news... we registered Riley for preschool starting in July. My baby boy is growing up! He'll be attending a preschool here in town that's run by a Christian who infuses prayer, Bible stories and Christian principles into the educational process. Early Intervention had great things to say about this school as well as other parents I've met here in town. When I took the tour back in 2008, I was very impressed with their program. So we're pretty excited to see Riley take advantage of the learning opportunities that he'll have there.

Shelby

silence is (not) golden in our house

(be forewarned...this is a long one...we're covering a lot of ground here)

Many of you may remember that the day after Riley was born, the nurse discovered that he had a localized seizure in his right arm. He was immediately transferred down to Children's Hospital where he remained in the hospital for the next 12 days. After putting him on anti-seizure medication and running various tests, it was determined that Riley suffered a stroke in utero due to a blood clot in the left frontal lobe of his brain. We were told that due to the "plasticity" of his newborn brain, it often learns to compensate for an injury. We were further encouraged by the fact that he had no additional seizures and was weaned off his meds within 3 months. So the prognosis was good due to the fact that the stroke happened at such an early age.

Because of the time he spent at Children's, he has been going in for a checkup with his neurologist every six months and they watch for any signs of developmental delays. At 18 months they began to suspect an expressive language delay and recommended that we have Early Intervention assist in some in-home therapy. So for the past year Riley has been getting services from EI to help him with his speech.

At first, we wondered if he was just unmotivated to talk. Riley communicated so well in gestures and sounds that he may not have seen the need use words. We had to stop anticipating what he wanted to see if he would ask for things. Also, he's a contented kid -- maybe he didn't feel the need to have his present circumstances "changed". Since boys are thought to talk "later" than girls, we weren't sure if this was something to be concerned about or not.

After six months of working with EI, we were seeing that he was more motivated and willing to communicate in either signs or speech, tho' still saying only a handful of words. We began to wonder if there was something else going on that was making speech difficult for him. At 27 mos, EI did a full evaluation and determined that developmentally he was tracking along with his peers in all areas except expressive language, which was at an 18 mos level. His receptive language is fine -- he understood us and could follow simple and multi-step commands that he was given, so there were no concerns there.

It seemed that Riley's ability to form certain sounds and consonant - vowel (C-V) combinations was limited. For example, he could say the "b" sound and the "e" sound clearly, but when he tried to say "bee", it came out as "beh". The C-V combo "me" gave him the same trouble. However, "tea" and "knee" sounded fine. He might attempt to say a simple two word or two syllable combo, but it was often not intelligible. Once, he spontaneously said "eggs please" and it came out "eh pwa". If it's more than two words or syllables, he won't even bother trying. And in a few cases, he won't say words that he used to say. "Water" used to come out sounding like "daughter", but now he won't say it at all. So there's inconsistency in what he can say and when he will say it.

Using signs did seem to help him with his speech. After saying "more, more" and using his sign (which helped me to distinguish between it and "mama"), he dropped the sign altogether and now just uses his words. He did the same thing with the only two-word combo he has used consistently or spontaneously -- "all done". Just this past week, he said "me" and "bee" clearly for the first time while our EI specialist was working with him. That was an exciting moment after seeing him struggle with those c-v sounds for the past year.

But as we have a long way to go before he catches up with his peers, we felt that it may be time to have him undergo a full speech & language evaluation by a Speech Language Pathologist. The backlog for an appt at Children's was almost 4 months, so his eval is scheduled for April 27th. I'm anxious to know if they can diagnose what the problem is. Our suspicion is that he may have verbal dyspraxia ("dys" = difficult, "praxis" = planned movement), which is a speech disorder in which one has difficulty in controlling the muscles that are needed for speaking properly. It's also known as apraxia of speech. The brain knows what it wants to say, but can't seem to organize the oral muscles needed to put the sounds together to make words.

One of our resources describes the act of speech like this:

1) First, there's an intention to communicate.
2) Next, an idea forms, outlining what the speaker wants to say.
3) The words for the desired message are put in the correct order, using the correct grammar. Each of the words are comprised of a specific sequence of sounds and syllables that must be ordered together.
4) All of this information is translated into a series of highly coordinated motor movements of the lips, tongue, jaw, and soft palate. The brain must tell the muscles of these “articulators” the exact order and timing of movements so that the words in the message are properly articulated.
5) Finally, the muscles must work properly with enough strength and muscle tone to perform the movements needed for speech.

A child with verbal dyspraxia has difficulty programming and planning these complex speech movements. It is not uncommon for stroke victims to suffer from apraxia. Add to the fact that motor aspects of speech production originate in the left frontal lobe area of the brain (the area where Riley suffered his stroke) and you can see why we suspect dyspraxia as the source of his expressive language problems.

We're sharing this with you -- our blog community -- just to let you know about something that has been very much on our minds and hearts, but had yet to be shared on the blog in much detail. With Kendall's arrival in March and Riley's transition to preschool in July, there is a tremendous amount of change going on in our son's life in the next 3-6 months. Those of you who pray, we would ask for your prayers as we seek guidance from EI and the SLP at Children's in order to help our son communicate more effectively.

If you managed to read through the entire blog... thanks. I know it was a long one, but one I feel much better having written. It's a lot like journaling and I hope to use it to look back and see how God took care of our family as we await to see what lies ahead for us.

Shelby

odds and ends

We generally write blog entries with specific events in mind. That leaves us with all kinds of stuff that doesn't get on here...unless we have a miscellaneous post like this one. This will probably be another long one. So here we go.

Plays well with others...

Young kids play alone together for the most part, so it's a sign that they are growing up when they start to play together. We're starting to see this and here are some examples:

Riley plays with Claudia on Thanksgiving














Riley and Zippy doing some carpentry














Running with the girls

Attachments

Riley hasn't ever shown any attachments to things. Toys, stuffed animals, etc. haven't been necessary fixtures in his life. That's been changing a bit lately as he's taken to carting around the "Blankie" that Shelby's best friend Kathy gave him. This picture just slays me with cuteness.

We have a little Linus running around the house



















Bike Riding

Riley and I have done a lot of bike riding this year and he has gotten to ride his balance bike most times before getting towed around behind Daddy's bike at Lynn Woods Reservation. We did a little of this last year, but our season ended with cold weather during November. This year we were able to make it all the way into December. Here's our last ride:

Last Ride of 2009

Music

Riley loves music of all kinds (and always has.) He once sat and watched Susan Boyle's video over and over saying, "More, more!" every time it ended. In particular though he loves listening to the Foo Fighters in the car with Daddy. Here's a clip that features his favorite:

But Honestly... (the fast part.)

Have we mentioned that our boy has taken to singing lately? He's started doing it in the back seat and when he's playing with toys. Very cute.

Christmas Pictures

With the holiday rapidly approaching we needed to get a good picture for a Christmas card. Riley was partially cooperative (part of the time he melted down) but he did give us some great pictures. One is featured on the blog banner. Here are some others:

He loves standing on something tall and raising his hands up high, "Big boy!"















Post meltdown rest with Mama and Kendall














Christmas card picture that came post-meltdown














Legos

Legos are a toy that Riley has played with on and off for a while. It's only been recently that he's really taken to building things with them though and he can sit quietly with them for an hour or more. Here he is with the Lego Man admiring his work:

Builder of towers



















Booster Seat

Just before Christmas we transitioned Riley from the high chair to a booster seat. Now he sits at the table just like Mom and Dad. It's cool, but we need some kind of mat for him as he loves to dump his food on the table. He also likes to use the table to clean his hands off on.

Looking bigger and bigger














Favorite Christmas toys

Christmas was good to Riley this year. With so many people eager to give him gifts, he had quite the haul. He really loves everything, but here are some of his biggest faves:

Stamps. From the dollar store. You have got to love this about kids.














Trampoline. Now he can jump and jump to his heart's delight (and Daddy's.)

This brings me back to the jumper that he loved back in the early days. I loved that too.

The other big fave has been the Leap Frog DVD set my Mom got him. He can't get enough of the alphabet and word building!

The Mall Playground

Heading into the colder part of the year means that Mama needs to find places to bring her boy so that he can run, play and burn off some of his youthful energy. He loves the playgrounds that mall operators have started putting in all the shopping malls now. Shelby likes it too as it's a fairly comfortable, and enclosed, space. Perfect for a pregnant mom and her energetic boy. Riley has gotten very daring lately which means that Mama doesn't rest as much since he needs a spotter. He loves to climb.

He seems fearless














So he needs a spotter














He loves getting up on top of things and then raising his arms up high















Sliding down backwards and lounging on the slide is fun















Apparently so is sticking his head upside down in the boat or the car. Who knows?















Lights

Lastly, Riley has never lost his love of turning lights on and off over and over. What has changed is how he accesses the lights. He now puts all kinds of things together to help him climb up to them...

He doesn't just stack legos...















I remember when Riley was young people telling me that with each step he would be more fun. With the exception of potty training I'd say that's been true. These are good times.

I love my boy.


Jonathan

adventures in potty training

Potty training. The two words that filled my heart with dread. I really don’t mind the diapers and things are a lot easier when my kid keeps his potty on his bum everywhere we go. I’m happy to wait until Riley tells me he’s interested, as he shows no interest at this point.

A couple of months ago, I realized that we probably shouldn't put it off much longer. With Kendall due in March, my mobility decreasing by the week and Riley’s transition to preschool coming in July, getting him day-trained became a priority.

I checked out a few different methods and figured that I’d give one of the faster, more intense, “Cold Turkey” ones a try before taking the more gradual approach of using trainers or diapers.

I had heard good things about The Official 3-Day Method. I bought the materials and J and I selected the weekend of Dec 19^th for Potty Training Boot Camp. In a nutshell, this method starts with the child helping to “throw away” the remaining diapers and putting on regular underwear. The inevitable accidents serve to give parents the way of learning to read their child’s body cues and teach the children to be aware of their need to eliminate and to communicate/respond to the need right away. The parent keeps a close eye on their child all day long, reminding them to tell them when they need to go and whisking them away to the toilet at the first sign of needing to potty. So accidents are necessary in order to increase awareness of their body cues.

I wasn’t convinced that this method would work for Riley since the thing that made Riley such an angel baby (his laid-back, easy-going, adaptable nature) is the very thing that will frustrate me when I want him to mature and change. I could see him being a child that would adapt to having wet or dirty underwear and not be motivated to use the potty by any means – candy, stickers, excessive praise etc.

Riley's bedroom before and after Dec 19th:

Without boring you with the sordid details, suffice it to say that after 3 days, my concerns were fully realized. Riley did manage to get pee in the potty several times and get a sense of what that felt like. But starting on Day 2, he would show the sign of having to go, be brought to the potty and after a few minutes would say he’s done with nothing in the potty. Then he’d go in his pants within a few minutes. So it became clear by day 3 that he was exercising his ability to control the situation and do what HE wants, not what we want.

As I was talking to my mom about this, she mentioned that she just remembered putting my brothers and me on the potty until we put something in there. Since we are determined not to give Riley (or ourselves) the “out” of having diapers anymore, we needed to find a way to keep him uncomfortable in his accidents, without making a mess all over our house.

We were able to see that Riley was eliminating approximately every 90 minutes, so we had enough info to determine what his “potty frequency” might be. We switched to using training pants (underwear with extra padding in the crotch) with plastic pants over them to help contain the accidents. He gets the feeling of being wet or dirty without us getting the Spotbot out every day.

So we started putting him on the potty first thing in the morning, after meals, before/after naps & before bedtime. In between we put him on every 60 min or so with a several ounces of water, which serves the dual purpose of inciting him to pee as well as giving him something for future elimination. We also moved his potty chairs** to the two most comfortable rooms in the house -- the living room (his playroom) and his bedroom. He seemed to be more agreeable to using them when we moved them from the bathroom. I put a waterproof mat under each potty just in case. As long as he learns what he needs to learn, then I'm willing to keep them there until then.

It’s amazing how much less stressful potty training became after that. We put him on the potty about 12x each day and he has 1-2 accidents per day. We've found that eliminating the TV distraction seems to get him doing his business within a minute or two, so the above pic was actually taken before we changed our tactics. While we continue to remind him to tell us if he needs to go (he has hand signals as well as words he can use), he has yet to actually tell us ahead of time. So while he may be “in training” for months, he’s getting used to the idea of doing it in the potty.

He doesn’t seem to hate having his pants wet or dirty yet and I question whether or not he’s able to sense ahead of time that he needs to go. The more I read on the subject, the more I realize that this happens in every child’s unique timing. There’s neurological, biological and personality factors at work that influence timing (among other factors). I read the average age of boys is over 3 yrs old before they’re trained, so I shouldn’t feel too disappointed if he doesn’t catch on until then. He’s not influenced by peers, parents, candy or other rewards. He’ll do it when he can and he wants to.

Sort of like the idea of predestination, we’re creating an environment for him where he will eventually conclude that it’s better to keep his pants dry. He’ll think it’s his decision, but we know we had a lot to do with it!

Shelby


** We didn't get anything fancy, just a couple of basic potty chairs that were inexpensive.

This is our downstairs potty which we picked up at Target:

We got the upstairs potty on Amazon. It's also our travel potty:

This is his cushioned, collapsible potty seat insert for when we're out and about. It fits nicely into his diaper bag:

party time!!

I wasn't too surprised when J informed me about a week ago that he had planning a birthday party for today. He knew this was a big birthday for me and I really wanted to enjoy it with my friends. Not an easy thing when my special day lands in the midst of holiday travel season.

Nonetheless, with the help of Lisa and Oil (men do really need women's help to pull these things off, don't they?), J put on a lovely party at the only free venue we have available to accommodate 18 adults and 12 kids -- the church fellowship hall. It started snowing in the morning so there were a couple of families that couldn't make it, but there was still a good turnout.














Singing Happy Birthday to me:














J had sandwiches catered from a business associate he knows which were quite good. For dessert, he surely didn't disappoint -- Finale Desserterie's Dark Chocolate Decadence -- maximum chocolate extravagance of dense, fudgy, flourless, truffle-like cake with a hint of coffee. Possibly the only dessert to top the Godiva Cheesecake I had last Tuesday:














Enjoying my just desserts














The kids enjoyed Oil's cupcakes at their table:














We found some classroom toys to keep the kids occupied or at least give them something to engage in minor conflict over. Riley kept trying to sit on the Sit-N-Spin while other kids were on it. He hasn't figured out how to give them personal space yet. Here he is enjoying the trains:














Thanks to my wonderful hubby Jonathan & the Crounse, Zivan, Sawyer, Davis, McFadden, Holley, Huffman & Klauder families for braving the snowy roads to come out and celebrate with me. It's was a fine end to my first 40 years!

Shelby

trains and trampolines

On Christmas, the only gift that Riley received from us was the Fisher Price laptop. The rest of the gifts came from family members and Jonathan's friends & patients. So he had a good loot already from others.

Since Riley has shown a lot of interest in the train table at the library, we figured he was old enough to enjoy one of his own. We found a great deal for a pre-owned train table and Thomas train set on Craigslist that I purchased back in Nov. However, since the Christmas tree took up so much space in our living room/playroom, we had to wait until we took it down to get it all set up.

The table is an octagon, which makes it easy for him to get around it and will make it more fun to share with his friends. Here's J helping Riley set up the train tracks:













I love seeing my boys play together!













The other thing we decided to get for Riley is a trampoline. Our boy is a natural gymnast and uses our couch, ottoman, chair and bed for bouncing and launching himself off of. Time to give the furniture a break and give him something more constructive to use. J set this up for him today and he's pretty much spending the majority of his time on it.













A short video of him getting acquainted with his new toy:

I'm seriously thinking of putting him into a tumbling class when he turns 3 as his favorite activity seems to be to climb, jump, swing and run. After what we witness at home and at the playground, seems a fitting thing for our active boy.

Shelby