*WA-HOO* It's a Celebration!

This morning I woke up at 6am and shortly after at 6:30am, Ethan came to my bedroom door knocking. I let him in and he immediately heads to my bed and jumps on it mumbling to me about something I couldn't quite grasp. He then hops off the bed and says, "you are beautiful mommy." I about melted and had to give him a big hug. We went downstairs, he had breakfast and then I changed him out of his pull-up and into some Lightning McQueen underwear. As I put them on him, I told him that Lightning McQueen does not like to get wet or poo'd on and that if he needed to go, he was to go in the potty. Ethan replies, "don't get McQueen wet; go potty." I went to the basement to work on a window pane frame I had and when I came back up to the kitchen, I saw Ethan on the potty and he was grabbing some toilet paper. I went to him and asked if he went pee and he said he went poo! I couldn't believe it!!! He actually went all on his own without my prompting. I am so excited!!! We're getting closer. Hopefully he can keep it up. **WA-HOO!**

School Evaluation and Classroom Placement for Brian

We arose early yesterday morning for Brian's 9am appointment at the elementary school. He was tested and evaluated for classroom placement for the upcoming school year. Things seemed to go well. One of the three kindergarten teachers took Brian back to a classroom and when they came back, she shared his test results with me. Brian maxed the shapes and colors as well as writing his name begining with a capital and the remainder in lowercase. He did pretty well with grouping. When the teacher asked him to group together 3 things, 4 things, etc. he was able to. He got 4/5 on this one because when she asked him to group 5 things, he counted 4 and didn't add another to make 5. When we went out to dinner last night, I had him group peanuts at the table and he was able to. He had a little trouble recognizing all the letters of the alphabet and numbers so we'll have to work more on that. I think he has lost the memory of those since being on summer vacation. He recognized a few of the sight words and had a little bit of trouble with the front/back and direction of reading a book. Not quite sure about that one or how they tested for it. He also only counted to 7 on rote counting which I KNOW he can do at least to 10 if not more. The teacher said that perhaps he was just nervous with someone he didn't know. I honestly think that he may have been distracted and interested in the new surroundings...which may be the ADD. I'm not positive, but that's my hunch. She then stated that Brian did well and that he tested average among his peers. WOW! For him to have a diagnosis of autism and then to test average with his typical peers almost brought tears. It's such an emotional feeling to know that our hard work, research and dedication to him has gotten him so far. I remember him playing solo or even parallel playing among other children and now when we go to the park, Brian is the first one to ask a child to play or what their name is. :) I'm so proud of him. The next part of the evaluation was with the speech therapist. Our neighbor's daughter had gone in before Brian and when she returned, the therapist said something about th sounds coming out as f sounds which is typical. We're actually working on that in speech with Brian now. Anyways, Brian goes with the speech therapist next and when he returns she smiles and says, "he's great!" She then asks if he goes to speech and we talked a tad bit about his sessions now. She doesn't have any concerns for him so now I'm left wondering if his speech therapy received at school will be reduced. Hmmm. The therapist was also to hang out a bit with Ethan earlier while she was waiting for students to evaluate. She had a small chat with Ethan about what he was coloring. As we were leaving, she said that I should keep an eye on Ethan and his speech patterns. I stopped and I was a little annoyed; not with her but with our past. I had taken Ethan to be evaluated for speech when we were in NC. They did see him however, I was told that he really did not need speech therapy and was testing within the range. We of course then moved and I asked for a referral for him to be evaluated. He was tested and the results came back as him not needing speech therapy services. And now, just a quick chat at the school, and the speech therapist is suggesting that he may need some service. We talked a bit about that and she told me that he was evaluated via medical views and that it's different than educational. She told me to check into Early Intervention, which is how Brian was able to start pre-k in SC at age 3. So on that note, I better go so I can research it and see if I can get Ethan into an appointment. If I can get him into pre-k this year, then that would be wonderful!

Just CAN'T get ahead!

Going to bed late last night and waking up extremely way to early this morning is surely why I am tired, I thought. After the 3 hours the kids have been awake, I'm ready to just go back to bed. Wait, maybe this all started last night on my way to bed. For the past three nights, Ethan has not allowed us to put a pull up on him for bed. Matt and I will wait for him to fall asleep to change his underwear to pull ups. Last night, Matt fell asleep with Ethan in our bed and Ethan was only wearing his underwear. I went to bed around 2am and started to change him when I realized he was wet. He had pee'd in our bed. I woke Matt up to let him know he was sleeping in pee and I'm not sure what happened after that. I took Ethan and put him in bed with Brian after getting him cleaned off and then I went to bed in the guest room. I think Matt continued to sleep in the other bed. LOL! I woke up then at 6am this morning to Cody barking wanting to be let outside. I dragged myself down to let him out and then crashed on the couch. I remember hearing click clack of the dogs footsteps on the kitchen floor and then some crunching by the dog food. I just figured that my mom's dogs were eating their breakfast. Then I realized, my mom's dogs were still in the kennel. I bolted up and when I looked toward the dog food bowl, I see a BIG Black DOG! It's Cody!!! He had let himself back into the house through the basement door, made his way upstairs and into the kitchen and helped himself to my parent's dog's food. LOL! I then get the poodles out of the kennel, let them outside and when they come back in, JJ dumps the dog food bowl all over the kitchen. I had to clean that up and Ethan and Brian try to help when Ethan then dumps the water bowl all over the kitchen floor and it mixes with the dog food. Nice slushy dog food on my kitchen floor now. I proceed to clean that up and I start to cut open a watermelon for Ethan when he then says, "sorry." I look, and he has now pee'd all over the kitchen chair and left a puddle. Nice. I'm cutting watermelon, making pancakes and cleaning up pee. **sigh** I asked Katheryn to help me out with cleaning the basement while I worked on the upstairs. My mom then comes to pick up the dogs. Ethan at this point now is just wearing a t-shirt because I had him take his underwear and pants off from when he pee'd. We go outside to say goodbye and Ethan starts to pee on my mom's foot!! LOL! So funny. I couldn't stop laughing. She then leaves and I came inside to make a comment on my facebook page about him peeing on her foot & while I'm typing, I see Ethan peek around at me with a red hand towel. I asked him, "what are you doing" and he replies back in his innocent voice, "nothing" and then runs off. I immediately got up to check on him and my bathroom floor is flooded with water!!!! I'm trying to get the house cleaned, bed sheets washed and dinner prepped because we are having some friends over for dinner tonight who we met in Germany. It is now about 1pm and I have accomplished very little. Ethan is not allowing me to move ahead and I have sooo much to do before they get here in about three hours!!

Word Wall Words and Bob Book

It's been a crazy week with trying to potty train Ethan and get Brian prepared for Kindergarten. As part of Brian's readiness for Kindergarten, I have taken his word wall words from pre-K and wrote them onto index cards. I then took them and taped them upside down and facing towards the door so that Brian can flip a card up to see and read the word. I have used three doors in my kitchen for his words. He just about has one door mastered. It's amazing how much is lost over summer vacation. When we first started he only recognized about 5 words. Then, tonight Katheryn was helping Brian read through some Bob books that we had bought for her when she was in Kindergarten. These are the greatest books to help a child get started with reading. It progresses with the child's level and the child feels so proud when they finish. Brian came downstairs with the Level 1 Book 1 of the Bob Books and read. These books are very thin and contain simple one-three word sentences but he was reading!! I wanted to make sure he wasn't just memorizing because of the pictures so I had him trace the words with his finger as he read and he did!!! I was so darn proud, excited and stunned all at the same time. And to think he asks me if he can sell his sister.

Potty Training - Day 1

Well, I'm getting down to my last bit of pull-ups. When I bought the box, I told myself that this would be the last box of pull-ups I would buy. With my supply running low, I thought today would be a great day to start training Ethan to go potty. When he woke up, we pulled off his pull-ups and replaced them with Elmo underwear. He didn't want them but I put them on him. After breakfast, I had him sit on the potty and he said his pee pee wasn't going to come out. We tried again about an hour later and still nothing. I mentioned that we had apple pie and if he could go #2 that he could have some. This got his attention for a minute but then it quickly faded. He didn't care. More hours passed and he had two accidents. I told him that if he could go pee in the potty, he could have candy. He demanded candy right then but I stuck to my guns and said not until there's pee in the potty. I had then gone upstairs to clean up the boys' room and put laundry away when Katheryn came racing upstairs. She said Ethan went and sat on the potty and when she thought she heard water, she went to check on him and saw that he was peeing in the potty. He then flushed, pulled his underwear up and washed his hands. Amazing!! I thought, potty training is going to be easy! Well, I thought too soon. An hour later, he pee'd in his underwear again. I changed him several times after this and finally he came to me to open some carrots. I asked him if he had to go pee and he started to back away from me and said no. Hmmm. Something tells me he's wet...again. Sure enough...he went in his underwear...again. Potty training is some tough business. I then went outside later to wash the car and clean out the garage. Ethan came out too and was just in a shirt and his underwear. He was so gosh darn cute running around like that. I just wish potty training were just as simple. At dinner, Ethan got a bit fussy because his corn cob was too hot. I cooled it off but I think he was also tired because he went into a screaming rage and suddenly stopped screaming. Right at that moment as we are all trying to eat dinner, Ethan is standing beside my chair and pee starts running down his leg , past his shoe and onto the kitchen floor. Great! I hadn't even finished dinner. I quickly strip him and take him to the bath. We then read a story together and now he's peacefully sleeping. Tomorrow is another day. ;0 Hopefully I can get him potty trained by the end of the week but at this rate, that may be just a bit too ambitious. ;-)

Babies come from God

Brian has been on a quest to see who knows where babies come from. He asked me the question all parents wait for ... "where do babies come from?" My response to him was that babies are a gift from God. He seemed satisfied with that answer and that was the end of it. A few weeks ago, we had gone to Subway and a lady was in line ahead of us and was holding an older baby and Brian went to her and asked, "where did your baby come from?" She turned and looked at me and told Brian that we leave those questions to your mommy. He responded back to her that her baby was a gift from God and that he was a baby once and that he was a gift from God as well. :) I was so proud of him...spreading the good news! :) Then this morning, as I was at the dining room table, he asked me if he was born. I told him that yes, he was born in Germany. Then he said "God made me born?" I told him again that yes, God gave him to Matt and I as a gift and that he grew inside and then had to be born to come out of me. Then he asked me if he was a cute baby. I told him, "yes, you were a very cute baby." He then says, "yeah, I am adorable" and walked away. LOL! He cracks me up. :)

Wood Stain - Color: Grapevine

I finally was able to get to a set of old wooden window panes Matt and I had acquired from our rental home in S.C. There were two of them and I remember telling Matt 5 or 6 years ago that we needed to keep them. He looked at me with a puzzled look and just said, "ok." We've moved now three times with them and I am finally getting to them...well, atleast one of them anyways. I went to Lowe's and I got a small can of wood stain that I had them color to Grapevine. It's a purple sort of color. I was going to a reddish/rusted look and this was the closest I could find. After spending about an hour pulling out the nails and sanding off the layers of paint, I was finally ready to stain. I am so proud. It looks great. It's about time I did something with it. The kids kept asking me what I was going to do with it and I decided to hang it in my Americana bathroom downstairs. Instant primitive wall art! I am going to put some hooks on one end and a nice ribbon to hang it by. I was careful to clean up after myself because I do have Ethan who likes to explore everything. I even made sure to tap the stain can lid on very tightly. I left the window pane outside to dry and came in to check my facebook. As I typed in my password, here comes Ethan with the can of stain and he dropped it onto the dining room floor....which is WOOD! My heart dropped and I panicked! I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I quickly rushed to grab paper towels and thankfully, because the wood floors are finished, I was able to wipe the stain away. The Grapevine colored stain. I immediately sent Katheryn outside to double check and make sure he didn't get any stain any where else and she said he didn't. I'll have to double check but boy was that scary! I saw $$$ having to be spent for new hardwood floors.

July 4th Weekend

We had a great July 4, 2009! Matt was home from work Fri-Mon which meant lots of family time. On Friday, Matt and I spent the day getting ready for our backyard BBQ for Saturday. We put up a canopy and set up the tables and chairs. Matt and Katheryn cut the grass in the backyard while I got the inside straightened up and laundry finished.

Saturday was busy with food prep and cleaning the house. It worked out pretty well. Our friends came between 2 and 3 and Matt grilled up the chicken, dogs, brats, shish kabobs and burgers which all turned out very delicious!!! The spread of food was wonderful. Everyone brought a side or a dessert and I think I've gained about 5 lbs because everything was just so wonderful.

Around 6pm we had a convoy of 4 headed over to Antietam Battlefield for fireworks. It was soo much fun. They are absolutely the best fireworks show around this area. They lasted for about 30 minutes. Matt was able to secure a spot earlier that morning right up front by the Maryland Symphony Orchestra.

Our friend Wendi and her daughter were able to spend the night with us as well as another of Katheryn's friends. On Sunday, we had some left overs from lunch and headed out to play mini golf. Matt ofcourse won. :) We then said our goodbyes to Wendi and her daughter and headed to the pool. The kids enjoyed it however Katheryn was miserable and grumpy. She was trying to make everyone else have a horrible time because she didn't bring her bathing suit. She got over it though once I ordered some pizza and fries for the kids. :) It was a great time.

Then on Monday we went to Frederick to pick up my $50 spa gift certificate that I had won on the radio. Since we were in Frederick, we decided to stop in at Verizon so I could get a new battery for my phone. Well, batteries are an accessory and would cost $40. I was then told that I had a $50 credit towards a new handset and then the deal of buy one LG brand phone and get 4 free looked interesting. Well, because I needed a new battery, we went ahead and I picked out a new handset. I love the phone that I had and ended up getting an updated version of it. I don't love it yet but it's very similar. Matt updated his phone and we got Katheryn her first cell phone since it would be free. So now Katheryn has her very own cell. Look out!!!

Afterwards, we drove to Cunningham Falls for some hiking. The boys absolutely loved it and Katheryn was there with her new cell phone taking pictures and video. LOL! She is so tickled to have this phone. LOL!

We ended the day coming home to some more BBQ and enjoying the evening on the back patio. The kids and I lit up some sparklers and Brian and Ethan took to them very well. Brian was actually dancing with his sparkler in hand while Katheryn was the opposite. She was completely afraid to hold it and dropped hers on the patio and wouldn't go near another one. LOL!

It was a great weekend with family!! I truly enjoyed every minute spent.

Matt and I waiting for fireworks skimming through a home improvement magazine.

Brian and Madison walking to the fireworks.

So cute!!