A girl can dream, right?

OT room at school? Well-supplied?  With the child being taught to self-regulate by requesting really well-applied sensory breaks with the proper equipment? A girl can dream...

Excellent post on SPD Network GO READ CLICK HERE

So, what is the impediment to having a straight-up, legit OT room?  Probably funding.  Why is there a funding issue?  Beats the heck out of me.  It only took me about $700-$800 to fully equip my living room with OT equipment, so you'd think in a school that probably spends that in xeroxing each week, they'd be able to help out the Special Ed dept. and get them the things they need, but so far, equipment and a dedicated therapy room are just sort of "on the list" of things we'd all like.

How can we imitate THIS?

I'm no good at lobbying or getting political, but you'd think in a world where so many children are being impacted by the ravages of SPD, and the benefits to be had by incorporating GOOD OT into the daily life of school, well, one would think it would be a priority.  I pity the teachers who are trying their best to work with our SPD kids and never have the benefit of calm, collected, focused kids because the sensory needs can't be adequately addressed.  *sigh*

The kids in the above post have it really really good.  Lucky for them, dreaming still for mine.   Someday.

The Park of FUN and DOOM

They built this amazing new park near us.  It has a lot of interesting things to do, but the moment we set foot in it, I knew it held untold dangers for da Creature.  I had intended to post this right after we went for the first time, but the pictures were on my phone, and well, it has taken several months for me to feel like making my phone talk to my computer to retrieve them.

But Saturday, da Creature and da Sister went to da Park as a reward for several consecutive good days of doing ALL our work, and she noticed that this slide (the one I had most worried about, ironically) was awash with caution tape and blocked off.  So, my question is...who thought this was a good idea to begin with, in this day of lawsuits and CYA, this seems like an extraordinary risk for a recreational facility to take.  Honestly, I thought it was really nifty, but probably doomed, even for the NT crowd.   But, nonetheless, the park has been a blast for da Creature and I am grateful they made it for our community.

Pics from right after it opened in November---

Sensory Friendly Costuming

So, sewing was OUT of the question, to continue the story from Wednesday, but in my former life before I became da Mama to da Creature, I did a fair amount of costume design, so making a Lorax wasn't really a problem, except....

His sensory nuttiness.  A mustache? Out of the question.  Eyebrows? Glued on? Out of the question.  Wear an orange bag, ties drawn in at his thighs? Out of the question.

What to do then?  Make a mustache on a stick, and eyebrows on a head band.  Make his "orange bag" body out of a pillow case, and have it all removable, discardable, breakable, and rippable.

The mustache and eyebrows are a deconstructed flower from Walmart.  The rest is just the pillow case and an orange t-shirt.  The insufferable know-it-all character was provided by da Creature.  Type casting, much?  *laugh track now*

Oh, the Assumptions You'll Make

If you were sitting in my kitchen this morning, you would have heard the following exchange between da Creature and da Mama---

da Creature:   "It's Dr. Seuss day on Friday."
da Mama:   "Really?  Does that mean y'all are dressing up?"
da Creature:  "Yep, and I'm going as the Lorax."
da Mama:  "Really?  *pause*  Um, how's that gonna work?"
da Creature:  "You have a sewing machine."

Gravity Sucks

So, once upon a time, da Creature was fearless.  I mean, breathtakingly, terrifyingly, FEARLESS.  As a toddler, he would climb to the top of the 5 year old play set and if you made eye contact (just don't make eye contact), he would automatically assume that if he jumped from the six foot high platform, you'd catch him.  Right?  Didn't seem to matter that you were ten feet away from him, you'd catch him, so it was perfectly safe to leap bodily into the air and hope for the best.

Those days are gone, and it's bittersweet.  No longer is he fearless.  He will still walk off a precipice, in a heartbeat, but now he is also afraid.  It makes me sad.  However---we managed, in our 20 minutes of adventure last night before he decided it was "too hard" and just flopped on the mat in a pathetic whining heap, never to rise again without the aid of litter-bearers and trumpet fanfares (oh, the drama of it ALL), to get him to do THIS:

See the hand on the left side of the picture?  That's da Sister, WILLING him to stay on the wall.  About two seconds later, she had to catch him as he decided that was enough of that, but it was a very cool moment in the life of my little guy.  Here's how he got there:

Go da Sister!  We managed to get him up the wall.  A thousand little victories over SPD later, we'll have him married, with children, holding down a great job, and loved by his community....

All it takes is making him get off the mat and keep trying.

Planning the Great American Vacation with da Creature

This should be, er, "exciting."

We are going to drive CROSS COUNTRY this summer.  From Mississippi to Wyoming to Salt Lake City to New Mexico to Carlsbad to San Antonio and back to Mississippi.

I feel so intimidated by the prospect.  Terrified, to be honest.  Though he rides fairly well, and we've driven to Chicago twice, St. Louis four times, and spend seven hours quite often in the car going to OT and back, the prospect of being DAYS away from home and his controlled environment scares the ever-living-bageezus outta me.

So, I will be blogging the adventure.  Because then at least, I'm not entirely alone while we manage meltdowns and hotel rooms that smell funny and "where'd all the trees go, Mommy?" questions and food we didn't plan on and all the various things that an SPD, Asperger's child will chaotically do/say/scream about along the way.  Wish me luck.  I'm taking advice, btw....if you have experience in these matters.  We cannot afford a Winnebago, so it's us and our Honda Accord and the road and hopefully a few campgrounds to save money along the way.  Did I mention that I'm a paranoid control freak?  Did I? 

breathe in
breathe out
breathe in
breathe out

Wait, we WERE trying to get to Albuquerque?

So, we'll be seeing you from the ROAD in June.  At the very least it will be constantly interesting.  At best, he'll walk away with all those concrete memories he deeply craves---"Yellowstone is steamy, the Rocky Mountains smell like vanilla, Eastern Kansas, New Mexico and West Texas are FLAT, Salt Lake City has a SALT LAKE and it tastes funny, Abiquiu has purple rocks, Taos is full of ART, Carlsbad smells like wet dog and sounds like dripply drops, San Antonio has UNDER stuff..."   Since he doesn't visualize well...he won't have to.  God bless cars, and God bless gas prices, and God bless us.

And yes, this means he gets to go to (da Creature phone home?):

Field Trip with Grandpa

We went to Battlefield Park in Vicksburg with da Grandpa (who is an engineer) and had a BLAST.  We ate at Walnut Hills Restaurant where da Creature drove da Grandpa a little bit to distraction with his impression of a lidless blender (he was hungry), but the food was wonderful and the caramel cake was warm and gooey.

After lunch, we drove through the park, and spent time at the Cairo while Grandpa explained it all...