Cabin Fever

 

 

The lazy days of winter are upon us and we're all looking for interesting things to do to combat cabin fever.  See the 2 pictures above?  I just found them still on my camera from New Year's Eve.  Talk about lazy days of winter all right...

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!

Healthy and Safe

Flu season is well underway here and each day Casey comes home and tells me the new members of the went-home-sick club in her class.  All of our hands are chapped from the washing and sanitizing, but we've all gotten our flu shots, so we're doing our best to stay healthy.  Chapped fingers crossed!

The girls and I had a completely scary experience in the car the other day.  They had off for MLK day (which was also inauguration day, which was also being tagged as National Gun Appreciation Day :) and we were on our way home from hanging out with friends in Loveland via I-275.  The sun was shining and we got on the highway, along with everyone else, going 60 mph.  Within a mile, I hit a patch of black ice, which we didn't know was there until my car was sliding to the right then suddenly to the left - almost 180 degrees.  Somehow we ended up back in the correct lane and direction without getting hit!  I still cannot explain how we didn't get hit - there were plenty of cars on the highway available for us to plow into or them into us.  Afterwards, I was shaking and Casey asked me why I did that (meaning drive the car sideways).  And then the whole highway was ice until we got off at our exit.  I honestly don't think I got over it until the next day.  It was so, so scary and I can't stop thinking about my little kids in the car who no longer sit in the protection of 5 point harness car seats.  That same day 2 interstates were closed due to 80 and 50 car pile ups.  I am sooo ready for winter to be over!!  I can almost tolerate the single digit temperatures we've been having, but driving in unsafe conditions nearly leaves me packing for Florida.  Ahhh, the sunshine, warm breezes..... I think I'll go look at pictures of the house we have rented in Hilton Head for June right now.

Besides trying to stay healthy and safe, we've been trying to eat better here, too.  I think I've done a good job so far trying to buy extra fruits and veggies and less processed sides.  While the girls will turn their noses up, I swear only because it's like a right of passage of childhood, they are pretty good with the fruits and vegetables.  They both love steamed green beans and broccoli and seem to like a lot of fruits.  I have managed to hide from them the fact that I hate most fruits.  I have my whole life.  I've challenged my mom on several accounts as to whether she actually pushed me hard enough as a kid to eat fruit, but she swears she did and I just gagged when forced.  Nothing's changed.  I still cannot handle the texture of most fruits.  Basically all I eat are apples, melons, and bananas.  Thankfully, my kids haven't noticed that I don't eat fruit and they only have selective aversions to blueberries (sometimes), oranges and pineapple.  Some nights we are busy (or lazy) and I resort to the quick frozen foods.  Thank God for Trader Joes!!  Their frozen, quick dinners are so easy, tasty, affordable and mostly healthy.  Tonight Tom wasn't home for dinner, so we had frozen spinach ravioli.  Yum!  Sure beats chicken nuggets.  I so wish the Trader Joes Gods would open a store up here in the burbs!!!  Seriously, if a Gap and Trader Joes would open stores here, I may never need to go to Kenwood again. 

I signed up for a beginners photography class and it starts next week!!  Ironic there are no pictures in this post, huh?  Between potty training, which is still going mostly well except for the 4 pairs of underwear I've had to throw away (I am seriously glad I saved all of the underwear Casey grew out of - I don't feel bad tossing it in the garbage :) and indulging in curling up with books in the evenings (not really, since all my books are on the ipad, but curling up with my ipad doesn't sound as lovely), I haven't really taken many pictures.  But then we really haven't been doing that much to photograph.  Unfortunately, with the weather so cold, we've all been spending too much time in front of things that plug into the wall, but at least after my class I'll be able to take really great pictures of all of us in front of the TV, ipad, iphone, computer and games, right?   :)