Getting out of Bed

Approximately four months ago, we took down the crib and replaced it with a toddler bed. The toddler bed is your typical low to the ground bed designed for little tikes to access on their own. At the time of the change, Crew was doing nothing more than sleeping on his back with very little movement. Often times, I would get up in the night to rotate him from side to side because he wouldn't roll or move on his own. The shape of his head has always been a worry to me and so I was trying to prevent flat spots resulting from laying in one position.

Hence, we started him in the "Big Boy" bed. Our PT, Tressa, taught us the techniques needed to teach Crew the basics of getting in and out of bed on his own. Over the past 4 months, we've gone through the motions many times but progress is slow. It's always SLOW:(

Apparantly, his latest milestone achieved was a crucial stepping stone in attaining another one of our goals. Night before last S came running into my room laughing, "Mom, Crew's out of bed!" Together, we run back in the room to find Crew up in crawling position on the other side of the room from the bed. S tells how he was reading his book and out of the corner of his eye he sees something moving across the room. He looks over and Crew is out of his bed crawling around. We were so happy! However, I'm seriously bummed that nobody saw how he did it but I guess it doesn't really matter. It seems that these transitions and FIRSTS are happening without an audience which tells me something about Crew's personality. The song from Rachel Colemans Signing Time video, "Crew will do what Crew will do when Crew is ready to do it" rings true!

The flowers are Blooming

This is an exciting time of year for me!














The daisy is a favorite of mine: Beautiful yet Casual.













Johnny Jump-ups are awesome because they spread like crazy and come back from seed.

Oh, I can't wait to see what treasures next month will bring:)

Rocktricity

The conversation went like this:





H (age 7): Mom, I forgot about ROCKTRICITY.





Mom: It's called ELECTRICITY, H.





S (age 10): Mom, I don't think this is really a discussion about speech.





H then pulls me into his room and shows me this!!!

After a discussion on safety and the importance of not sticking stuff (especially metal dog tags) into the outlets, I ask S to go get my camera so I can blog which was very upsetting to H.

And H responds, "But mom, what if the police blog too!"

Tis the season for Baseball

H and Crew watching the game. Crew does not enjoy going to the games which is really hard because I just want to watch the game but I'm constantly walking him around. We've found that a cup of rootbeer from concessions keeps him happy for a little while.

Before the game. S is playing quite well this season. We have games 3 nights a week plus practices.
This isn't a great picture but I wanted to show the piles of cotton which have fallen off the Cotton Trees. It was coming down so thick that I got some in my eyes. While playing catcher, S lost the ball a couple of times because the cotton behind home plate was 6 inches deep in some areas.

Freedom at last

Gratitude and Happiness

We started having family night on Sunday because the boys have Baseball on Monday. Our Bishop asked us to use the Conference edition of the Ensign as our guide for Family night.

I picked the talk by Bonnie D. Parkin, "Gratitude: A Path to Happiness". We've all been having a hard time here for reasons I don't want to get into. There has been a shortage of patience and tolerance and a lot of hurt feelings. I've been struggling... a lot. The kids are reacting in their individual ways.. acting out, withdrawal, clinginess, whining. I'm at my wits end.

This talk jumped out at me. I shared the story of the ten lepors. In Luke chapter 17 the Savior heals 10 lepers. As you recall, only one of the cleansed lepers returned to express his appreciation. Sister Parkin points out: Isn't it interesting that the Lord did not say, "Your gratitude has made you whole"? Instead, He said, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." The lepers expression of gratitude was recognized by the Savior as an expression of faith. As we pray and express gratitude to a loving but unseen Heavenly Father, we are also expressing our faith in Him. Gratitude is our sweet acknowledgement of the Lord's hand in our lives; it is an expression of our faith.

I'm going to focus on those words this week. Maybe it will help? She goes on to suggest that with faith we should receive all things (tribulations included) with thankfulness.

Tonight, our family started our own gratitude basket. We all wrote down something we are thankful for and will add to it each day. Next Sunday we will pull the notes out of the basket and share them with each other.

DH had the treats. Sugar cones stuffed with Cookies N' Cream icecream. DH is the best at filling the cones. He packs the icecream clear to the bottom of the cone. Yum!

Bullet review

• The visit with Dr. Rehab last Friday went well. We've decided to start Crew off with some Botox injections in his hamstrings. The tightness in his hamstrings prevents him from sitting flat legged. I have scheduled this for the 7th of June.
• S pitched one inning again in his Baseball game Monday. He struck out two batters and got the 3rd out on First base. Yahoo!
• H played his second baseball game of the season on Tues. He did well at bat hitting the ball into the outfield.
• Today, I am so thankful to stay at home and spend some time with the kids, mow the lawn, and prepare for tonights cub scout activity.
• Today, I heard the devastating news that my 28 year old friend has stage 4 breast cancer and it has spread to her bones. They are waiting to find out if its in her organs. She has 5 young children. This is horrible:(

Cause for Celebration

I am crying tears of joy here for yet another milestone achieved. In my previous post I talked about our efforts to motivate Crew to roll which is one step in transitioning from laying on his back to a crawling position.

Today, I layed him down on the floor.... on his back with his toys and left the room to do my online bill pay.

A few minutes later I could hear him dragging his toys across the wood flooring which was strange because I layed him down on the carpet. Thinking maybe he had scooted across the room on his back I entered the room and was shocked to see him on all fours crawling about.

I started laughing, cheering and crying. "Look at you, look at how BIG YOU ARE!" I exclaimed using sign language for emphasis. Crew starts laughing... victory written across his face. I pick him up and we hug.

Where's the icecream now!

Icecream for Breakfast

One word: Motivation.

During Crew's PT appointment yesterday we discussed finding something to motivate Crew. This has been a major topic for us since the beginning of Crew's PT days. What mother wants to hear that their child is lacking motivation.

Wikipedia states, "motivation refers to the initiation, direction, intensity and persistance of behavior. Motivation is a temporal and behavioral state that should not be confused with personality or emotion".

Okay, I feel better now:) It's not his personality that needs changing just behavior. In an effort to motivate Crew to roll I used the best thing I could think of..... ICECREAM. I have just one thing to say, "Icecream does the trick:)"

Triple Header

I have baseball on the brain. S played his 2nd baseball game of the season last night. They lost 7-9. The boys are ages 9- 12 and its his first year for pitching. Last year it was coach pitch but now the boys are learning to pitch and its so stressful watching them struggle. Coach put S in as pitcher the first inning. S had never pitched before. He was a bit rusty but I thought he did a good job for first time. The other team had several good pitchers and we really only have one. 12 year olds are only allowed to pitch one inning and so these younger boys 9 and 10 years old are learning.

H has his first game of machine pitch ball. The league has been taken over by a very disorganized woman. First game is tonight and I still have not been given a game schedule or the jersey. I'm thinking tonights game is going to be very interesting:)

Crew's ear has been draining for almost a week. Today when I took out his hearing aid there was dried blood in there. I'm so worried about his ears and his hearing. We don't need one more setback. Tomorrow morning we have a triple header with Dr. visits: 9:00 Physical Therapy, 10:00 Audiology, 11:30 ENT. Hopefully we will figure out what is going on.

Good news is that I had an excuse to come home early from work today. The babysitter is sick and so I only worked two hours so I could make it home in time to meet the Preschool bus. The weather is beautiful and now I need to go pull some weeds:)

I lost sleep last night over our culdesac woes! A nice quiet family moved out and some witchy weirdo lying ho bought the place. Rumor is that she bought it on a short sale and so hopefully she is just fixing it up to re-sell. She's been scouting out our culdesac for weeks sitting in her car watching our houses and our kids. I finally sent DH out one afternoon to see what was going on because I was concerned about the welfare of our children. She said she was just looking at houses but she drove by several times a day for weeks and now she is acting like she hates all of us! What the hell! Nothing adds up with this woman and I'm so sick of seeing her here! Pray that she never moves in. Gag!

In My Garden

I love Spring! Gardening is therapy for me. I love planting, propagating, tilling the soil. I love the sun blazing down on my back. I like the feel of the soil in my fingers.

Isn't this world beautiful!

Random Happenings in the Gizmo Household

• I spent $15.00 in Bandaids today. S collided with his best friend on his brand new birthday bike. Road rash!
• Crew lost his hearing aid on the bus Friday. He must've ripped it out because I tape them to his head. It was his right ear which is strange because he has a difficult time reaching his right ear which means it must really be bothering him. The right ear has been draining icky goo for 4 days. I called the ENT on Thursday after 4pm expecting a call back the next morning and they didn't call. I totally forgot about it because I was tied up at work and now its the weekend. After a frantic call to Transportation, his wonderful bus driver found the aid and returned it.
• Crew and I watched H play soccer during a rainstorm. We huddled under a blanket because I don't own an umbrella and even if I did I probably wouldn't have brought it with me because it was sunny before we left home and I never remember stuff like that. I was pushing Crew in the stroller on the way back to the van and realized he had his head layed back and his mouth open as he was trying to catch a drop or two. Water running down his glasses.... a smile on his face:)
• Carl took the boys to see Spiderman 3 while I took a nap. Sweet!
• DH came home early on Friday because the babysitter was sick and I had work stuff to do. Thanks!
• The basement is sheetrocked. Yeah!
• DH vacuumed the house:) **There's a first time for everything**
• My good friend and long lost walking partner (who just had twins) decided she could squeeze walking into her schedule between feedings. I've missed her company terribly over the past 8 months and am very excited to start walking the hills with her again:)
• It's Saturday night. What more can I say!

Who Are You???

Okay, all of you lurkers.... It's time to show yourselves! Time to DELURK! I check my stats everyday and I know that I have readers beyond my maximum ELEVEN comments:) I would love it if you introduce yourselves.... and comment once in awhile.

I'm getting hits from all over.... CALIFORNIA, OREGON, WASHINGTON, OHIO, NEW JERSEY, TEXAS, LAS VEGAS, UTAH, VIRGINIA, CANADA, ARIZONA, MISSISSIPPI, PENNSYLVANIA, ARKANSAS, INDIANA, MASSACHUSETTS, NEW HAMPSHIRE, CONNECTICUT, MINNESOTA, NEW YORK

JAPAN

Oh...

and IRELAND!

It really does make me excited to see so many hits and just a little worried of being stalked. So, for those of you who lurk here please comment:)