Howdy Partners!

They say everything is bigger in Texas and I am finding that to be true about a lot of things, especially the summer party we went to today! We were lucky enough to be invited on over to Perry and Kelly's annual shindig again this year, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint!   From great friends, great conversation, and great  food, to bucking broncos, lasso competitions, water slides, and bounce houses. Perry and Kelly sure know how to do it up at their place,

WESTERN STYLE.

   

               
       This is the front of their house.  I love their covered wagon. they actually have several of these old wagons on their property.  There sure is something to be said for moving out in the country...........SPACE!


          
Check out the fabulous building they put up in the back of their house. Every time I see it, it gets better and better and now there is just no other word to describe it other than amazing! The mural on it is a gorgeous western scene and the inside has been converted into a real life saloon! 


  Okay, so maybe this part of the party wasn't exactly western, but it was a cool way to cater a party and to bring in a little bit of Perry's roots, since he is actually from across the pond.  Whatever you wanted, you just walked up to the bus window and they handed it out to you! I wanted to go inside that bus and walk up the stairs so bad!

Sarah gave the bucking bronco a try.......for a whole two seconds when she was thrown into the air. After Brooke saw that, she wasn't going anywhere near that thing.

Here are some pictures from inside the saloon. It is so creative and everybody completely got into the fun!

Yeah, cowboy hats were a staple item at this party and the band rocked it out.

Even Roy Rogers made an appearance!

It was a fun and exhausting time for everyone where we all giddied up till we were ready to drop.  Thank heavens, the two little cow gals are now snug in their beds and the pillow is calling this Madame's name.  

It's More Than Please and Thank You

      With girls who have autism spectrum disorders, we almost always see academic difficulties.  As we work to catch them up with their peers, academically, it can be easy to forget the importance of developing age appropriate social skills too.  I recently discovered  two American Girl books which I think are definitely worth mentioning.       

For girls  ages 8 and up, with ADHD. SCD or who are on the higher functioning end of the autism spectrum, and with fewer academic  reading difficulties, both books are nice reads. For those who struggle with reading, these are books that can be shared from parent to daughter or used to supplement a girl’s social skills group.

Inside each book, you'll find great  colored pages covering social thinking activities, role-playing,  modeling via scenarios, what not to do, how to apologize, dealing with your differences, how to avoid hurting other people's feelings, how to keep yourself from being taken  advantage of, how to compromise, deal with betrayal, jealousy and so much more. A good purchase which I highly recommend. While AG is not marketing these products specifically to girls with ASD, ADHD,  or Social  Communication Disorder, American Girl is becoming increasingly more sensitive to girls who are different. An example of their committment to acceptance and understanding is this new line of dolls they have just debuted, which are without hair.  So now, girls affected by cancer, alopecia or any other medical condition that causes hair loss can too have a "My American Girl" doll which is truly a reflection of themselves.  Just another reason why American Girl gets my business.

 Kudos to American Girl.   

Tacky, Tacky, Tacky



 My Living Room

  Most of the time, my house stays as neat as a pin.  I like it that way. It is relaxing for me to leave and come home to a clean and organized home.  But, I have to be honest here, when it comes to my purse, I am embarrassed to admit, I am a bit of a hoarder, plain and simple.  I truly don't know how so much stuff creeps into my purse and on most days I don't even notice it.  It's not until after extended periods of time when I try to cram something new in that I realize it is again at its brink and can’t hold another thing. It happens a few times a year and today was one of those days. I was on my way out the door to run some errands in a different vehicle than I usually use. I had just come back in the house from the driveway where I had started the van we'd be taking (when you leave your vehicle in the driveway in Texas, it totally has to be cooled off before you can get in it).  I went back in the house  to grab my list of stuff to do and to put my phone car charger in my purse,  but it was hopeless. My purse was overflowing with a wild array of  …..items.   In an effort to get out the door quickly to run my errands, I opted for a quick, short term remedy, and I took out a few big handfuls of the random items and put them on my washing machine with the intention of sorting through the pile when I got back home. But before I left, I stood there a moment staring at my shortcomings with embarrassment, pleased that my mother wasn't there to shake her head at me in shame.

There was a fork, a knife,an old telephone bill, 3D glasses from a movie we saw last week, lotions with no tops on them, rubber bands for my kid's braces, an old People magazine I have every intention of reading, receipts, paint samples, and Lord knows what else. I was still standing there staring at the mess wondering why my purse always looks like this,  when Sarah frantically came running back in the front door telling me she had accidently locked the van, while it was running and I immediately remembered…………….I..........don't..........have.............a................spare.......key...............!!!

After I was sure I had heard her correctly, I looked at her and said,

YOU DID WHAT???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brooke, sensing my distress looked at Sarah square in the face and exclaimed,  "That was so tacky, Sarah!"  Tacky is Brooke's new word.  Because her latest obsession is DISNEY IMAGINEERING, she has become  a walking app regarding the history of both Disneyland and Disney World.   Evidently Walt Disney did not like the "tacky" hotel and advertising signs directly outside of the Disneyland gates and that was partly his motivation to purchase the land in Florida which later became Disney World. (I learned this from Brooke) For some unknown reason, Brooke has latched onto that word and is readily identifying anything she finds unpleasing with it. 

    Anyway and luckily, disaster was averted when I remembered my stepdad has a spare key.  I called him at work and the girls and I drove the whole 2 minutes from my house to his job and look what we picked up-

In just a few minutes we were back home and then leaving again in a VERY COOLED OFF van!



Brooke said I was 'tacky" because I take too many pictures and because I always say to say cheeeeeese.

I headed to downtown Fort Worth because I need to have some work done on the van and I had gotten a good recommendation for a body shop there that would give me a fair estimate.  We took several little twists and turns down little streets through the outskirts of Fort Worth.  The landscaping was beginning to look more and more like a small barrio of a foreign country (where  Brooke described  every other building as tacky)  when we stumbled upon this gem just down the street from the body shop-  

Yes, it was a house completely decorated in beer cans.  I bet their neighbors love them.

I had to get out and get a better view of this one.

Sarah thought it looked beautiful but Brooke stayed in the van and told us it was tacky, of course. 

After our visit to the body shop, the girls and I celebrated another hot day of summer with a stop on the way home at one of my favorite places ......

There is nothing like a Reese's Blizzard.



UnLucky Loser

  
Today I took the girls and met up with my good friend Jennifer and her daughter Emma for an afternoon of bowling. Emma is going into sixth grade this year and she has been friends with my girls ever since we moved to Texas from Maryland two years ago. I love Emma's spirit.  She is outgoing and spontaneous and she knows how to laugh, just like us. She knows what she likes and doesn't like and she's not afraid to tell you.  I can see why my girls like her so much.  If I were Emma's age, I'd definitely pick her to be my friend too.
     So anyway, there we were, all five of us at the bowling alley, ponied up to the cash register guy, getting ready to pay for our afternoon of fun when  good 'ol Emma, pulled out a report card from the school year that just ended which said she had perfect attendance during the entire school year and an accompanying coupon for two hours of free bowling, free shoe rentals, and a free pitcher of coke (most importantly of course) for us all!  SCORE!  I decided at that moment, that it would  be  crucial to include Emma in more of our summer fun. 
     The bowling alley we went to was an older one, where the air conditioner was turned down really low to make it feel more like a meat locker than a place to bring your kids and bowl. But hey, it's Texas and it is summer so I am not complaining.  
     On another note, we were there for all of fifteen seconds when Brooke VERY loudly announced to everyone, "Oh gross, this place looks and smells like an airport!" It is during moments like these that I remind myself my husband and I have spent thousands of dollars on speech therapy and wonder if the silence before speech was better.
     We got our classy bowling shoes on and began our game with great enthusiasm. Let me assure you,  the actual act of bowling itself was quite a sight for any spectator, at least whenever it was my turn.   I promise you there will be no dust in the gutters of lane 18.  I continued to embarrass myself well into the second game, even after we asked the management to put the bumpers up. Anyone watching would find it hard to believe after today's performance, but I swear, as a kid, I briefly played on a bowling team called The Lucky Losers and I was pretty good. Today there was no Lucky in my skills.  I was all Loser.
     We also enjoyed the typical bowling alley pizza while we were there.  You know, the pizza that tastes the same way it did 30 years ago- Sort of gross and good at the same time.

     After bowling, we ventured over to the arcade where Jennifer and I had an "old school" go at air hockey while the kids wasted dollar bills in all the other games trying to rack up as many tickets as they could. Yep, no exaggeration when I say Jennifer and I played  air hockey with the kind of umphf that required putting our hair up in ponytails so we could get down to business- grunting, yelling, making that table shake, and breakin' a sweat.  I felt like it was summer, and I was 16, and that felt great. After it was all said and done, I was beat by the Babbster (my new nickname for J, a variation of her maiden name) but I put up a valiant effort.  Jennifer was vicious at air jockey.  That is just the kind of competition I like.   Next time, next time......... 
     After the girls spent way too much time deciding what ridiculously overticketed (I can't say overpriced if they are buying with tickets, can I?) junk they would cash their arcade tickets in for, we headed home.  As we pushed open the black tinted, heavily fingerprinted glass doors of the bowling alley and headed to the car, engulfed in the beaming hot summer heat, one of my kids ceremoniously asked, 'What are we gonna go do next?"  

Disc Oh!

I am working with several families this summer which I love. I provide educational consulting and advocacy, IEP/504 development and review, and dyslexia therapy for children with reading or other disabilities.  I began using these balance discs a few years ago with children and I have found them to really increase attention and availability for learning for the children with whom I work.  The balance discs provide movement for children who like to squirm in their seats and they also help kids who tend to zone out, to instead stay alert  They are epecially good for children with all types of ADHD, weak trunk strength, slumpers, or learning or attention issues. Sitting on balance discs helps children understand their space when boundaries are an issue. I have recommended them to some parents who are now using them in their homes with success at the dinner table, for bible studies, when crafting, when doing homework, or a myriad of other activities.  I think I got these discs at TJ MAXX for about 10 bucks a piece, but now Wal-Mart is carrying them as well in their fitness section. I love working with kids, especially those who learn differently or who have unfair obstacles to overcome, and I love finding things that help to make their lives easier.  I put no limitations on what children can achieve, no matter their diagnosis or its severity.  If when I die, I have spent all the days of my life helping another to live a better life, then my days have have been well spent. 

Welcome To Holland

I often give this poem to parents of children who are newly diagnosed with a disability.  I feel like it really explains things, so while I am sitting here on my comfy couch, watching a promo video that came in the mail on Disney Vacation Planning with my daughter for the 200th time, here it is again:

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

Discovering 10 Spray

Having a child on the autism spectrum can mean lots and lots of sensory issues. Having ones hair touched or brushed can be extremely painful for some kids on the spectrum. For those who are always looking or ways to improve the lives of those around us, I have an awesome recommendation for you!  I want to share my favorite hair product with you. It has  literally changed our lives for the better.  It's called  It's a Ten and it has truly been a miracle hair product, just like the bottle says!  My daughter Brooke is extremely tender headed and before we found It's a Ten, she could not stand to have her hair brushed, at all.  The slightest hair brushing would set her into a tailspin. Mornings and after bath times were filled with screaming, crying, and wild tantruming as I  tried desperately to get a brush through her long locks or God forbid, to try and style it.  Now, ALL OF THAT IS GONE, hairbrushing is a pleasant experience, and I have It's a Ten to thank. You can use it on wet or dry hair.  I usually pump about five or six sprays on Brooke's hair and immediately I can get the brush through it with no fussing. One day,  I started using it on my hair and l love it too. It makes my hair so easy to brush and lay very nice after flat ironing.  It is a bit pricey at $30 a bottle, but it only takes a few squirts and it really lasts a long time.  It comes in two sizes, but go for the bigger size, as it is a much better deal.  I promise you, if you have a child who has sensory issues related to hair, is  sensitive to hair brushing or who gets horrible hair tangles, it is definitely money well spent!

The Marking

My daughter Sarah is still fighting double pneumonia and her doctor says it could be several weeks before she is up and running again.  She was not happy when the doctor broke the news to her that she would not bounce back immediately after taking days and days of antiobiotics.  It has not been an easy road with this pneumonia thing.  What started out as strep throat following an AMAZING Disney vacation, quickly turned into pneumonia.  Daily chest xrays, uncontrollable temperatures of 104 and 105, and dehydration earned her an inpatient visit at the local children's hospital, but more on that later. Here is a picture of Sarah when the doctor told her it may take several weeks before she is back to normal.



So what is a mom to do when she has spent the previous months counting down the days with her kids until all the summer fun begins and then one of the kids ends up covered in the bed for days and then weeks, sick?  Well, after today's redundant doctor visit I decided to take action.  We headed on over to our local Sweet and Sassy store for some fun that wouldn't demand much physical energy but would still bring plenty of excitement. Yep, we decided to go ahead and get Sarah's ears pierced.  I have put this off for quite some time now, as she has been asking to do it since she was six years old.  I don't know why I could not bring myself to let her do it before.  I see tons of babies being toted around in their cute little carriers who have pierced ears, but I could never let mine be one of those babies. Sarah seems so perfect to me, just as she is.  And in my mind I had somehow decided that piercing her ears would be less attractive, that it would mark her in some way, permanently.  Well, I was wrong again,  at least on the less attractive thing, because her newly pierced ears look beautiful.  Lord knows the little thing (yes I am referring to my 10 year old) needed a pick-me-up and that seemed to do the trick.  She smiled the entire way home and looking back at the new sparkle in the rearview mirror, so did I.  

(I think she looks a bit like a cartoon character in this picture, but none the less, here she is, earrings and all.)