Casey never even made it out of her PJ's Saturday. I forced Emily and I to put on 'real' clothes (if you consider yoga pants, wool socks and sweatshirts 'real clothes) around 11 a.m. It's still winter here. And by the forecast, it's not going to change anytime soon. Weekends find me trying to find new ways to keep the girls (and me) entertained. You'd think by the huge haul of toys they received only one month ago at Christmas, that wouldn't be a problem. But then they wouldn't be typical kids if they weren't already bored with some of those toys. They still love everything, but not being able to go outside and burn some energy off, has left us all a bit restless.
Emily can walk up and down a set of stairs pretty well now but it's not something we are 100% comfortable with yet, so all of the girls' toys are in our dining room. As opposed to the finished basement like every other house with kids. I know this because every kid that comes to our house asks to go in the basement to play with toys. They look at me in disbelief sometimes, like I am surely withholding some treasure trove of toys down there. But until we feel certain sister can be safe on stairs, we'll continue to forgo a dining room for a toy room. The room is only so big, though, so I have been wise enough to keep a certain stash of toys in our unfinished part of the basement, out of sight, not only because of the lack of space but to also be able to rotate some 'new' things back upstairs when some fresh material is needed. Saturday I brought up the easel for some new entertainment for the girls as well as to provide another opportunity to work in writing letters with Emily.
Now that we are into the listening therapy with Emily, I am trying to take advantage of her increased focus when we can. We've just started here at home and she's doing great. We've done it a couple of times at occupational therapy and I was very, very impressed with the results. Like, blew my skeptical socks off. Emily has a very difficult time focusing on tasks. Especially if there are other kids and/or activities going on around her. (Basically if she's not by herself in a cardboard box, she's not interested in doing goal-oriented tasks.) You can about imagine how getting her to write letters, ect. is going at school with a room full of kids. Or at therapy where there are other kids doing fun activities all around her.
Her OT, Angela, suggested therapeutic listening a while ago and, to be honest, I kind of blew it off. We were coming up on the holidays and buying a $150 pair of headphones specialty made for this therapy, as well as the other accessories wasn't appealing. From what I understand, there hasn't been a ton of research done on this therapy, so I was a bit ignorant about it, too. But Emily's interest in other kids and her lack of attention for her own work has been an obstacle in her learning for a while, so we tried it for an hour at therapy. With the headphones on, she worked for 1 solid hour at fine motor skills and I was sold. My dad has season tickets to the O-G basketball games and sits next to a couple who has a daughter with disabilities. Through random conversation (I swear I did not even talk to my dad about the headphones!) it was discovered they tried therapeutic listening with their daughter and they wanted to give us the headphones!!! Twice a day now, we gear up with the electronic music-ish sounds and the super expensive (but free) headphones and read, write and play. We're hoping this therapy will lead into increased focus throughout the day and increased capacity for focus and learning in the classroom. Because, I swear, this girl has some really good stuff to show us yet.
Sunday was church and beginning the first of our home lessons with Casey in preparation of making her first communion in April. It took us about 30 minutes to review the material and pray and, once again, I am reminded that I could never home school my kids. I am certain I said way more prayers than Casey did during that lesson at the kitchen table. My were mostly of the 'grant me patience' variety....
It's the end of January and we're doing a lot of painting nails and playing games to help combat the cabin fever here. February is a short month and then comes the promise of temperatures slowing getting warmer. And we'll finally get outside again!
Check this out: I found my old checkerboard I got as a birthday gift when I was about Casey's age. I apparently thought I needed to sign my name on each side in a 'fancy' way :) Casey loves that I still have this and we can both play together.
She loves it except when she's getting beat :)
My first photography class is tonight. I hope to learn a ton about my new camera and taking great pictures!
Great pictures, girl! Love the blog...the listening therapy is so fascinating! Hope you enjoy your first photography class :)
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