Sitting at the table

I'm realizing that Thor is starting to take over my postings recently, but that is because there is much more to post about him. Hermes is fairly self-sufficiant, as far as five year olds go, and I think he is making a point of not doing anything that might land him in the blog. Buddha is growing and eating and sleeping and having a runny nose. I did realise the other night that when he giggles, he has perfectly formed 'hahahas', which is adorable. Thor right now is sitting at the table, not fussing in his chair, not standing in his chair, but happily sitting, I moved his chair enough so he could see what Hermes is up to, and no more squirmy-standy-fussy Thor. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. He is meticulously eating his cereal right now, he really wanted cereal for a post nap-time snack, and I was not going to try to tell him no. He is eating his cereal peice by peice and occasionally laughing out loud. I do not know what he finds so funny, and am not getting any indication from him when I ask. He is happy for the time being, though, and starting to seem more himself after the holidays, so that's good.

sirvived christmas

We all managed to survive Christmas, surprisingly enough. I have the mother of all colds, but am surviving, and am pulling myself far enough away from deaths door to clean the house and assemble the New York Jazz calander for Jazz-dad, I told him to expect it by saturday, as I just don't think I'll be able to get to it tonight, and still be able to make my house a bit more inhabitable.
Buddha did fairly well for his first x-mas, he pulled on peoples hair, chewed on people's fingers, fussed at inoportune times, and would giggle and smile angel-like at people when they needed it.
Hermes thinks that everything he recieved is just the greatest gift EVER!, I am very pleased that he not only enjoys everything he recieves, but he is taking good care of it so far, and he wants to send everyone thank you notes, or e-mail, or calls.
Thor did well. He had a minor meltdown on x-mas eve, and we made a hasty break for it on x-mas day to avoid the meltdown. We opened most of his gifts for him, he doesn't quite grasp that there are still gifts after the first one. It makes me rethink how we're going to handle his birthdays from here on out. The hard part about his being two, and borderline on the spectrum, is in a years time, we could look at him and wonder why we ever worried in the first place, or in a years time, he could be worse. It seems that everytime he improves in one area, he backslides in the other. I keep telling myself that as long as he's happy and relatively healthy, that's all we care about. For the most part this is so, but sometimes I wish ti have him just curl up on my lap, tell me he loves me, and ask for something to eat/drink/do/cuddle/play with.

sanity fleeting

It's been a week from....well...it's just been. We kept Hermes home from school on tuesday and wednesday. He went back on thursday and brought home a massive cold for everyone to share! Buddha is cranky, Thor is cranky, Hermes is cranky, and I, Momma, am cranky. Due to a budgeting snafu, and the cable company telling me they accepted payment arragnements, then not doing it, we were without cable or internet here in housewife land from Monday morning until this morning. I did not think this would be a huge issue at first. We have plenty of computer games that Hermes can play off-line, and plenty of movies for everyone to watch. Hubby and I were particularly thrilled when Thor decided he wanted to watch Firefly with us, and he now says a letter grouping that sound suspiciously like "KaiLee pretty!" which is awesome, but he also gets upset if Dora isn't on at 7:30, and Oobie after that, or if he wakes up from his nap and Mr Rogers is nowhere to be found. We are noticing that Thor is a little more structured in his routine than we thought, but not too terribly bad. Very few thing will upset him. Thursday we had Snow!! This kept Thor occupied at the window for a while...stuff falling from the sky. We also had the last of his evals, and he will be starting, well, something after winter break. His speach is behind, but not too terribly behind. His other skilss are rather advanced, though, which skew the charts some. He has fabulous gross motor skills, rather good fine-motor, excelent comprehension and receptive skills, and is a drop dead mimick. He just wont talk, likes to touch textured things, and occasionally spaces out. Sometimes he goes limp when angry, he has an attachment to bedding, any bedding, and dislikes overly active looking colors. He's 'normal', 'below normal', 'exceptional', and both 'off and on the spectrum' all at the same time.
Basically, all professionals agree, his brain works different, but we don't know how, he CAN talk, he just WONT, and he's very happy and inquisitive.

Buddha is growing, teething, and having a cold-there for miserable.

Hermes is on winter break-therefor exstatic.

Santa is coming soon

Speech Therapy

After Thor's most recent eval, it is determined that his diagnoses of PDD-NOS stands for now, but the only thing anyone can find amiss is that he doesn't talk. Hearing is fine, he IS capable of speech, he just chooses not to. Any other delays he might have, and any personality quirks, might be tied to the lack of speech. The drs all agree that his brain processes info differently, but without him being able to communicate in a way that people other than me can understand, it is complicated to figure out. There is a rather large battery of tests that he was put through, and most of the info garnered from said tests agreed with each other, but the doctors disagreed with the tests. The issue with testing a toddler is you never know how much of what they do, or don't do, is because of their age, lack of sleep, being hungry, putting on the wrong pair of pants in the morning, and interesting cloud out the window, or because they are honestly working within their abilities. Add to that a child who doens't say 'No!' "I don't want to" or "I can't" and you see where the issues come in. At this point, ON PAPER, Thor looks to be about 6 months behind where he should be, not too bad as an adult, but when you are only two, it's quite detrimental. In person, on the other hand, it is obvious that the kid has so many lights on upstairs it a wonder that he doesn't blow a circuit. He is smart, but has very few ways to communicate this, for whatever reason.
The solution? We are starting to teach him to sign basic words and ideas. This will do a few things. Give us another way to communicate to him, give him a way to communicate with us, that we can understand reliably, and, they think that it might actually help him to talk. We are also going to have to be strict about things he already uses words for. Once we have heard the word definitively eg 'Spaghetti', we are to make him use the word. If we have the long pasta for dinner, we will give him a little bit to start, then if he wants more, he will have to say 'spaghetti" or at least 'spagh'. This is to be done with all words he knows. It is going to kill me, I know that before he decided that it's just easier to talk, he will amp up the power of the puppy-dog-eyes, the whining, the tantrums, and the snubbing. I am to ignore these things as much as possible, because even acknowledging the tantrum will encourage him. Lastly, we are in the process of setting up intensive speech therapy. It is being provided through the county, and the therapist will come to us until he is three, at which time he will be going to preschool if therapy is still needed. We will also have access to a teacher if we find that after he starts talking, he is behind the curve.
Life is gonna be interesting.

peanut butter sandwiches

Having children makes you remember things you thought you forgot. Things like: A peanut butter sandwich makes an adequate breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches smell aweful after sitting under a bed for a week or so (sorry Mom!). Dried and crusty pb&j sandwiches REALLY hurt to step on. Crubchy peanut butter DOES taste different from the creamy. Strawberry jam is superior to grape jelly, apricot preserves reign supreme.

I can always get Hermes and Thor to eat pb&j, even when they want nothing else. Hermes can get really, very picky about how his sandwich is presented, Thor could care less, it's gonna get ripped apart either way. Thor is rather fuzzy on the concept of 'sandwich'-two peices of bread holding something in-between them, he feels that the bread is just a wrapper, an edible wrapper, but a wrapper none the less. Sandwiches must be vigorously opened, their contents spilled out on the plate/table/floor and eaten. If the contents stick to the bread, he will eat it, but never the whole slice, he will either eat the crust, or eat the middle, leaving the crust perfectly intact.
Hermes likes his sandwiches to be as even and symmetrical as possible. He will argue with you over how it should be cut, over which side should have the jelly, and tell you that the pb side ALWAYS needs to be on the bottom, otherwise your sandwich gets soggy. Hubby says he sees alot of me in Hermes when it comes to tirades about sandwiches. I know he is right, but I'll never admit it.
I am excited for the day when Buddha gets to partake of the classic childhood food.

Still trucking

Mondays experiment in potty training didn't work too well. Thor decided that instead of going to the potty seat when he needed to, he would just use the floor, but he did let me know, so that's something. Thor is starting to present more repititious behaviour when it comes to repeating sounds, and doing things in certain orders...every time. I don't know if this is a new thing, or if he's always done it, and I'm just now acknowledgin it-either way, it's something to report at his various appointments next week and the following week.
Buddha is having a really big issue trying to cut his top teeth, and his working valiantly to stand. He is also starting to make noises that sound suspiciously like 'bottle', 'momma', 'poppa' and 'up'. Thor and Buddha sit next to each other in the car, and will chatter and giggle at each other for entire rides. Somehow, they understand each other perfectly.
Hermes is gearing up for the weekend, he knows to do his homework tonight, so he can go to the in-laws overnight tomorrow, Thor will be joining him. Hopefully they have fun and behave.
I am having some unexplained, sharp foot pain on the top of my foot, two-thirds of the way between my big toe, and my ankle. If it gets any worse, I will be spending part of my two-thirds child free saturday in the doctor's office, trying to figure out what is up. I have really bad tendonitis and fasciitis, but have never felt anything in my foot before, I am wondering if I somehow frractured or dislocated on of my tarsals (my junior high Boi teacher would be proud, I remembered that right!)