Mostly Wordless Wednesday

He played fireman at therapy today and had a BLAST!

Off to go find fires to extinguish!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

Shawn was walking and working different muscles in the "swing machine"

(Shawn's name for it) this afternoon. He thought it was pretty cool, too!

Cure Big Boy Saturday

Cruising right along! Go, Shawn, go!!!!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday - Bowling

Today the boys had their therapy at the bowling alley. They had so much fun!

They wore their bowling shoes...

Chose their balls...

and bowled the afternoon away!

Shawn knocked down three pins his first time bowling!

Jason knocked down three pins his first time bowling, too! They're twins and like to do things the same I guess. :)

Did I say they loved it? They totally did!

Jay said the experience got a thumbs up for sure.

Shawn loved the balls...which...you know...of course he did. ;)

~~~

It was unanimous. They both thought bowling was their favorite thing for today!

Cute Big Boy Saturday - Beamz

At school yesterday, Jason got the chance to play the Beamz. Beamz is an "interactive music revolution (which) enables anyone to experience the joy and fun of making music by touching laser beams and playing light." He loved it!

Sitting in front of the Beamz monitor while he waits to start.
(The instrument reminds me of an updated version of the theremin.)

The sound on this is kind of hard to hear, but here he is playing.



He was playing weather sounds (rain and thunder). I love watching his fingers wiggle as he plays. :)

Pretty cool, huh?

~~~

Both boys said their favorite thing today was the visit from Tio Mario and Tia Stasi.

Swimming Take 2

Today was Jason's day for swimming. I was all confident in a "this appointment is at 11:30 so I have all day" kind of way until the receptionist called at 10:00. She said they needed to rearrange some appointments and wanted us to be there in 30 minutes.

Um...neither of us were dressed, we'd just barely finished breakfast, my mom wasn't due to arrive to watch the other two boys until 11, and we live 30 minutes away. Sigh. We made it there thirty minutes earlier than the original appointment. I figured that was pretty good for us. ;)

The therapist teacher, Beth, is two for two with the whole making my children fall in love with her thing. Jason practically ran into the pool with her. lol

Getting acclimated to the pool -
Jason started with a little hoops.

This shot made his one and only basket!

He found some weights at the side of the pool.
He thought he was pretty cool floating around with them.

Using the noodle to practice kicking his feet.

This was the reaction when I asked him to smile for me.
He looks more crazy than happy.

Beth had Jason focus on his lower body today. He's also working on getting over his fear of the water. Beth really worked at making him feel comfortable while she exercised his legs hard. Like his brother, Jason was worn out at the end.

I'm pretty excited to see how strong the dynamic duo will be by the time the summer is over. I'm certain Beth is going to make them work hard every chance she gets!

Swimming

Swimming therapy started today.

At 8 am.

In the morning.

It was a little obscene to make me haul my on vacation self across town to be at an appointment that early in the morning us an appointment for that time of day, but it was what it was.

Shawn had his session by himself today. He again fell in love with his therapist teacher, Beth, the moment he laid eyes on her. He wanted to ditch me and go play with her the second he saw her walk into the room.

Chasing the ball - using his arms to paddle through the water

A first attempt to float on his back - he wasn't keen on this idea.
Notice his death grip on Beth's hand? lol

Filling up a water gun - it actually took quite a bit of strength
to load the water

Fire! - more arm strengthening to shoot the water

Here he was reaching his arms out as wide as he could before he
brought them in to clap and make a huge splash

They did a lot of upper body work today, so that was really good. Shawn was pretty worn out at the end.

 

Jason's appointment is tomorrow at the more sane hour of 11:30. Ahem. I hope he has as much fun as Shawn did today. Fingers crossed that we see some great gains in their strength, flexibility, and stamina from all of this!

 

Swimming (Take 2)

Today was Jason's turn in the pool. He was pretty nervous about the experience. He did NOT want to put his face in the water.

 

 

But after a few minutes, his amazing teacher worked her wonder and Jason was enjoying himself just as much as his brother. The best news is that he only drowned once while he was there. ;) (Apparently water splashed on his cheek. Ahem. Drama much?)

 

We're excited to add this new activity into the routine. Both boys loved it!

Swimming

Shawn had his first swimming lesson today. He LOVED it!

He just might have a crush on his teacher, too. He talked to her non-stop AND told her he loved her at least twice. ;)

A Need for Speed

One of the therapists brought this baby to school today.



This is awesome!

As you can see by Jason's face, he thought it was the best thing EV-ER. Hit doesn't even begin to describe how well this car went over with him.

Shawn, on the other hand, was a bit more apprehensive. He saw the therapist ride the car into the building this morning and was leery of the noise the car makes when it's on. Shawn's still pretty sensitive to certain loud noises, which this car certainly was. (To be fair, Jason was worried about actually getting near the car at first, too.)

Imagine Isaac's surprise, then, when he looked up to see Shawn sitting IN the car!



Hey, where's the radio on this thing?

His reaction to it when it started to move was even better! Just watch his face. :)



He went around the entire building (in the fastest gear even) and loved every minute of it!

Shawn's definitely developed a need for speed to match his brother's!

I think now we may be in trouble.

School Daze

I used to think that crying about your babies heading off to kindergarten was kind of crazy. I mean, come on. Kids go to school. It isn't like you don't know it's coming from the time they are born. School is a great thing in a child's life. They learn. They have fun. They make lots of friends. There's no reason to get all worked up over it.

Last week, quite by accident I might add, I discovered that kindergarten registration starts in January. For those of you not paying attention, let me remind you that we are ALREADY IN JANUARY. No, we are HALF WAY THROUGH JANUARY. Added into the mix is that we want to transfer the boys away from our local school into another school that is close to where they do therapy.

Let's not forget the birth certificates (which we didn't have copies of) and vaccination records (which are now housed online and we don't have copies of) and proof of address and notes from therapists (which we don't have copies of) and...

Ack! I have been freaking out in a mild panic ever since I found out.

On the one hand, I am so excited for them to head off into the fun of school. I loved school, and I have no doubt that my guys will, too.

On the other hand, my bay-bees going to big boy school. How can this be?

Sigh. This is just another time where I find myself eating my words. I hate when that happens! ;)

Fire Alarms and the Boy in the Car

Alternatively titled: "Another Example of My Parenting Prowess"

The boys' Wednesday school (therapy) session started out pleasantly. Shawn was putting a puzzle together with his teacher inside the classroom, while Jason was outside doing some exercises with his teacher. All in all, I was pleased that things were going well. It was going to be a good day at school. Yea!

Ten minutes in, the fire alarm started blaring. The strobe lights flashed and the intense wail of the alarm itself startled us all.

When it started, I was outside with Jason. He was not happy about the noise, but he was at first more confused as to what it was than anything else. I left Jason with his teacher, Mayra, and went in to grab Shawn.

Shawn, however, was a mess. Unfortunately, he was sitting right below the alarm when it sounded. He immediately freaked and started screaming and crying. His teacher was trying to get him out of his chair and had just lifted him into her arms, but Shawn was having none of that. He was fighting her to let him go when I got there. I grabbed him and my purse and we evacuated outside to be with Jason and his teacher.

Now, in case you didn't know it, the boys have an aversion to loud noises, which we believe is another remnant from their days in the NICU. (All those beeps, alarms, and machine noises are bound to leave their mark on anyone.) The vacuum cleaner can cause hysterics. Shoot, the sound of the electric mixer is sometimes enough to work them up to a frenzy. You can imagine what the sound of a fire alarm did to my boys.

By the time we made it to Jason, he was also a scared, crying mess. We made our way to a picnic bench at the far end of the playground. A few others from the building had made their way outside, too. We stood around and waited.

And waited.

The alarm continued to blast and the strobe lights flashed for ten full minutes.

Did I mention that my boys don't care for loud noises?

Listening to that alarm was brutal for them and me. Poor guys.

Finally, they were able to shut the alarm off. They tried everything to stop the lights but could not get them to turn off. We continued to wait.

At this point, I had decided it was time for us to go home. The boys were upset (and my head was killing me). I didn't think they'd do much at school after this fiasco anyway. The teachers decided they didn't want to risk taking students back into the room with the lights still flashing because of the seizure risks, so it was a done deal.

I carried Shawn out the back gate and made my way around to the car. Mayra carried Jason out behind me. At the car, I put the car keys into the door cup holder while I put Shawn into his seat on the passenger side. I shut the door and turned around to get Jason.

I almost died when I heard the car horn beep. I whipped around to see Shawn, inside the car, holding the keys in his hand while he happily pushed the "lock" button over and over again so he could hear the horn.

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap!

I tried to coax Shawn into pushing the "open" button on the car keys. He would, but he wasn't pushing it hard/long enough to get it to open the doors. He'd push, I'd run over to the driver's door (takes only one push to open the driver's door, two pushes to open all the doors), and try to open it. Nothing.

My head started to think about how long he could sit in that hot car before he passed out while we waited for Isaac to drive home from work in Camarillo during rush hour.

I contemplated which window would be the cheapest to replace if I had to break one.

I wondered if I could get the teacher to give me her car so I could drive home and look for another key. I had to nix that thought because my house key was on the key chain in Shawn's hand AND the only other key was with Isaac.

I kicked myself a few times for being careless enough to leave the keys in the car in the first place.

Finally, I convinced Shawn to try to push another button. As soon as he pushed it, I heard the click. I ran to the back and exhaled when I saw that he did indeed open the back window of the car.

Hallelujah! Of course he only opened the top window and not the door hatch, but I was taking whatever I could get!

I crawled in through the window (a harder feat than I thought), pulled myself about halfway in, and reached for the keys. I unlocked the doors so Jason's teacher could put him into the car.

I, however, was still half in/half out of the car window. I couldn't get myself back out the window and there wasn't enough room to pull myself all the way into the car.

I was quite the sight, I'm sure, with my outstretched legs sticking out the window. It didn't help that I heard Mayra chuckling to herself after she saw me.

Sigh.

After hours a few seconds, I finally escaped.

I gathered up my bruised ego, finished putting my boys into the car, and headed for home.

Like I said, this is just another example of my parenting prowess. Ahem.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday - Therapy Pictures

This first picture is of Shawn using his walker during physical therapy. The highlight of his therapy sessions is to go into the stinky bathroom. The more we play up how he shouldn't want to go into the STINKY bathroom, the better it is for him. lol. I don't know why he's chosen a room with a toilet as his motivation, but we'll take whatever works for him. He is such a BOY. :)

The women with Shawn in his picture are his interim therapist (his regular on maternity leave) and an intern who is sitting next to him. In this picture, the intern looks a bit like me. Weird.

Here is Jason during his OT session today. He's making ice pops. He saw the freezer forms while he was riding around the therapy room on his bike and begged to make them during OT. His therapist was kind enough to oblige. (Thank you Amy. You totally made his day!) It did take a bit of talking to get him to accept that he couldn't eat the ice pops today, though...

The boys continue to work very hard in therapy. We are so proud of them!