If you want a job partially done, I'm your girl

A realization hit me like a lightening bolt this morning, as I thought about my massive "To Do" list while I ate my breakfast:  I'm great at project preparation, or even project progression, but I suck at project completion.

I read this week's lecture for my writing class, took notes, looked at the homework assignment and thought about it (but didn't actually do the homework).

Then, I thought about my first big writing assignment (due in a week-ish), picked a topic, sketched a rough outline and took down some notes (but didn't actually start writing the paper yet). 

Then, I decided that it was time to make some communication boards for Maya.  I have BoardMaker, but had decided not to make boards until I saw the format that they were going to use at school (so that I could learn from them and stay somewhat consistent).  They sent home a sample board last week, so I thought I should make some. I was ready to go!  Except I had to find the cd first . . . sigh. 

I'll admit it---the misplaced cd was nearly enough to make me give up on this project. 

Why?  I don't know.  Sometimes I feel like there's always so-much-more-that-could-be-done . . . so much that it's easier to just say "Oh well, I can't do this all, so I may as well just take a break".  Like I spend so much mental strength thinking about the steps to do projects that I'm left without enough energy to actually get up and do them.  But today I was determined, and I set off searching for the dvd, while pondering my all-to-often readiness to (temporarily) abandon a project that a takes a turn for the difficult ("temporary" abandonment can last for hours, days, or weeks, by the way).

I started searching in the back of my desk and found this . . .

This is a small notebook that I bought when Maya started therapy.  The therapists would come and work with her, and I would sit on the floor and take furious notes so that I could replicate the exercises when they were gone.  The first 20 pages are full, and then empty.  Again, I'm a great project starter, but my follow through?  It's just 'eh'. 

The notebook itself is a perfect example of my project preparation---I got the ideal notebook to take notes in, but stopped after a few weeks.  I got the BoardMaker cd, but haven't made boards yet.  I set up my awesome computer writing station, but haven't done the real writing yet.

I got canvases and paint to make art for the kitchen, and . . . well, take a look:

A solid start (one completed painting), fizzling effort (a 3/4 complete painting), and a blank canvas.  Sigh.

After a brief pause to take the pictures you just saw and clear out a drawer in the coffee table, I found the cd!  Installed it on my computer, opened it up . . . and realized that I had no idea how the heck to use BoardMaker.  Oh brother.  On another day, I would have given up (again)---but today is a day of detemination!  I found some tutorials and watched them (for 57 minutes, I might add).  I learned the basics.

And, finally, after three different restarts, I made a board.

Maya's special instructor is coming by today, and I'm going to go over it with her (she's a BoardMaker pro) and see what I need to modify.  I'm going to send the board to school with her tomorrow to get feedback from the teachers.  I'm sure I'll have to redo it, but at least I did it.

I think sometimes it's the subconscious fear of not doing things perfectly that keeps me paralyzed from making progress.  It's hard to put the paint on the canvas (or the words on the paper, or the buttons on the communication boards) because, odds are, I'll look at it later and think "Argh.  I could have done that better".  But I'm starting to learn that sometimes any painting, flaws and all, is better than a blank canvas.

News in brief & new giveaway winner

-Maya loves school.  LOVES.  I picked her up yesterday (and will every Weds, to go to after school feeding/speech therapy) and got to see her so excited, running around and pointing to show off the classroom, hugging her teachers, etc.  It's too cute.  The teacher even asked her "Where's Adam?" and she toddled over to bulletin board with the kids' pictures and pointed to the right kid!  (She doesn't know everyone, but she's learning.)

-Maya does not love the bus.  I don't think she hates it, but she doesn't love it.  On the FB page (which you should like) and Twitter (where you should follow) I've mentioned that there have been some tears (yesterday from Maya and then me, today just from Maya).  Today was a better ride, though, with less crying, and the bus people seem nice.  We're hoping that it will get easier.

-Maya's made some great art (pictures in my Twitter feed) and so did I!  The teacher sent home a leaf to decorate with some family pictures.  Maya was a fan :)

-Parker is not having a good week.  He spends a lot of time moping in his crate.  But also, he gets to run in the baseball field on some mornings (I couldn't take him with Maya, because the field isn't fenced in---I worried that he would bolt after something and I would be stuck with the jogging stroller).  He loves the running, but doesn't like the quiet apartment.

-We have a new giveaway winner!  The previous winner never claimed the Leapfrog DVD, so we have a new winner, care of random.org:  Comment #22!!

"Queen Amy said...

I know my letters and my daughters know their letters, but I love coming here and I would really like to win your giveaway and give it away to one of the children I work with who hasn't learned their letters. That sentence had a lot of letters!

August 22, 2011 11:05 PM "

 

Congratulations, Amy!   Email me to claim your prize!

It's (almost) party time

It's almost birthday party time!  Maya will turn 3 on May 30 (Memorial Day, this year) and we're going to have a little party the day before. Somehow it snuck up on me . . . we're a week and a half away and I still have to order, um, everything (paper goods, decorations, etc).  I'm also furiously spring cleaning (which is why I haven't had as much time to blog), and I've decided to repaint all of the doors & moulding, too, so I'm scrubbing and taping:

Is it weird that I like the way the tape looks?  It's like racing stripes.

But we have done some prep.  Take a look at Maya's adorable party outfit:

It's a jungle/safari theme---how great are those zebra stripes?!

Also, if you're planning a party, it helps to have a really generous friend who is the Birthday Party Queen . . . she may just ship you her leftover giant cardboard animals. 

Yeah, you read that correctly.

That's my scary tiger face.  It's really hard not to growl when you're next to a giant cat.

See what I mean? Not even Parker could resist.  Although his scary face leaves something to be desired.

Other upcoming stuff:  Follow-up cardiology appt-this week, 3 yr pediatrician check-next week, then birthday bash, then my 10 yr college reunion, and then Maya's ABR-June 7.

A DIY label project that I can help you with

Lately I've been aggravated.  I've had a few projects going on, and went to an iPad workshop on Thursday, and all week long I keep thinking "Someone must have done this before.  I can't be the only person trying to  put labels around an apartment/use an iPad for communication/do other random teachery things for a nearly-3-yr-old with delays." 

It's so frustrating to think that other people have done some trial-and-error stuff and perfected some great ideas, and I don't know what they are.  Instead, here I am, trying to come up with everything on my own . . .  and I never get anything right the first time, so I have to keep redoing the same stuff. 

Here's an example:

I went on a preschool visit and saw that they had labeled everything with words.  Great idea!, I thought.   I can totally do that.   (While I don't expect her to start reading any time soon, it can't hurt to create a text rich environment.)   And so I made labels:

written on sentence strips, laminated, and then hung up with painter's tape

Then I later realized that if we're teaching Maya with PECS (picture cards, or pictures on the iPad), the labels should really include a picture icon in addition to the words.  Oops.  So I have to redo them.

Then I find out that kids learn capital letters first.  So they have to be fixed again.  Now they have to be all caps and include a picture.  Also, everyone who texts/emails/blogs/etc knows that CAPITALS are for YELLING.  So I was less than enthused that my "chair"s  and "door"s were about to become "CHAIR"s and "DOOR"s.  I envisioned walking into my kitchen in the morning and being visually assaulted from the moment I flipped the LIGHT SWITCH and walked past the CABINET, DRAWER, and GARBAGE to the REFRIGERATOR. 

Not cute.

(As it turns out, with a decent font and good clip art, the text is less AGGRESSIVE than I thought it might be.  Thank goodness.)

Here's the step-by-step process (so you can do it yourself without having to reinvent the wheel) of the new-label-making. 

Step 1: This is what I came up with, through googling clip art images and formatting in a word document:***

 Also, I can't spell REFRIGERATOR, in case you didn't notice.  I fixed it and reprinted, but I'm too lazy to take new pictures, and I also don't care if you think that I can't spell.

Step 2: I cut out all of the labels, because they laminate better individually:

Step 3: Set them up in sheets to be laminated:

Pre-lamination

 Post-lamination

 Post-lamination, again

Step 4: Cut out the laminated squares.  *Remember to round the corners, because kids will rip these things down ad nauseum  and you don't want scary, sharp edges.

Step 5: Hang them up (painter's tape works well) around eye level.  I taped these up near the bottom and then remembered she's not a crawler anymore, and I had to move them up!

 These say closet, bathroom, closet.  I mean, CLOSET, BATHROOM, CLOSET

One labeled drawer and cabinet.  Her speech therapist said there's no need to label every single thing---which would be overwhelming---so just pick a few to label. 

***DO YOU WANT TO MAKE THESE LABELS AT HOME?!?

I've already done the work to find decent images and format this stuff.  There is no need for you to start from scratch---shoot me an email (uncommonfeedback@gmail.com) and I would be happy to send you the word document.  You may need to tweak them (you probably don't need "PARKER'S CRATE") but at least you won't have to reinvent the wheel.  It makes me crazy that we all are constantly trying to come up with new things, and we probably could just get some great easy ideas from each other.

Oh brother, times 10

In choosing to blog about life with a child with special needs, I think it would be irresponsible not to include some of the bad days . . . otherwise, readers who are in similar situations may feel like I'm idealizing life, or minimizing and skipping over the obnoxious, challenging parts.  Today was one of the lousier days.  If you're thinking "Lousy days be damned---make me smile!", then just skip ahead to the end :)

Today a lot of annoying things added up and became totally overwhelming.  Here were a few:

1. We have a huge stack of bills and insurance stuff to deal with. I have to call them, but I've been putting it off because although I hear of people "fighting with their insurance" to get things paid for, I have no idea what that actually means. I feel like I'm going to call and talk to some pencil pusher who says "we don't pay for that" and I'm going to say "you need to, the geneticist said she needed this test" and then he'll say "well, we don't" and then what do I do?  (I'm going to start making calls tomorrow, though.  I know I'll feel better once I address it.)

2. Parker's therapy dog class last night sucked, and I have a ton of work to do with him.

3. I can't get anywhere with the agencies that are supposed to sign off so that Maya can get splints for her legs. The process has been going on for literally months. I spent time basically bitching at several different people over the past 2 weeks, but all of them are powerless . . . the people who actually have the power to move it along either: are never in the office, don't answer their phones, or have permanently full voicemail boxes. I am waiting on a new phone number that I can start calling to bother people, and soon I'm going to request an address and just camp out there.  With Maya.  And Parker.  And we're going to sing "Wheels on the bus".  Over and over.  And then I'll change the lyrics to "The people in the office need to sign that form, sign that form, sign that form . . . the people in the office need to sign that form or we'll never, ever leave."

4. I worry that our lack of ability to get spints, and to get our speech agency changed, might indicate that this agency will mess up our transition to the preschool system, which starts in the winter/spring.

5. As I try to do all of this, I still am surrounded by way too much stuff at home. Why is there a pile of change, a tube of sunblock, and business cards on the counter?  Why can't we stay on top of putting things away, instead of emptying our pockets or stroller contents or whatever when we walk in the door?  (This is why the purging & reorganization project will continue, even if it's only at a snail's pace, until everything has a home that is easily accessible.)

I've just had it today.

And I tried sitting on the floor and crying, but it didn't help.  And Maya didn't understand what I was doing, and sat next to me with a furrowed brow.  Then I sniffled "Mommy's sad, Maya.  Can you give me a hug?"  And she climbed right into my lap and did just that.  Then she squeezed a handful of my face and I had to kick her off.
 
So, there's that.  It's not all sunshine and roses here . . . but we do have some good times :)  New pictures are up in the Facebook album "What clean(ing) looks like", so you can see progress in the media center bookshelves.  And here's a video of our dynamic duo . . . playing together in the hallway. 
 
Highlight: You may not have ever heard Maya talk before, because she gets pretty quiet when other folks are around.  But here, you can hear her version of "Pa-pa"----her nickname for Parker.  It's the only thing she'll reliably say almost every time we ask her to.  The silly part is that she says "Ma ma!" instead of "Pa-pa".   You'll hear it at 1:03.
 



Remember, if you just see a blank spot with a "play" arrow underneath, click the arrow and the video will start!

Beauty is in the details . . .

My cleaning out has sputtered a bit this week . . . the apples that took over the kitchen clamored to be cooking into applesauce and apple bread (recipes to follow), the fridge is nearly overflowing with CSA veggies to be processed and enjoyed.  I only have a few free hours when Maya is napping, and they've gotten eaten up by more routine chores. 

But as we clean out, we are taking the time to make small upgrades, too.  Why wait?  There's no point in putting off fun little adjustments that make such a nice difference. (Speaking of upgrades---did you see my fun new clogs on the Facebook page?  When you get rid of old, broken shoes, you get new fun ones!)

I hung a bulletin board (that I've been intending to hang since we moved here . . . 2.5 yrs ago), but it looked too school-bulletin-boardish, so I gave it a quick sloppy coat of plum/wine colored paint . . . much nicer.  A free, tiny adjustment that makes me smile when I walk by it:

I've been trying to find a home for my glass vases (previously they were in a kitchen cabinet, but I want to free that space for more pantry stuff).   Finally, I decided to home some of them on the bookcases in our living room (we have three, with glass doors----two in a media center, one as part of a hutch).  At the craft store this afternoon I scored some pumpkins, gourds & pincones, which fill the cases are create a nice autumn touch---the hutch is done, now I'll have to figure out how to arrange the others. 


Doors open:                                                                      Doors closed:

I'm excited to swap these out with other seasonal stuff----my mom always has nice seasonal decorations . . . it just makes every time of year feel special  :)  And since these displays will all be behind glass doors, they will stay simple and out of the way.  No clutter!

In other news, Parker's therapy dog classes start tomorrow night (and I'm nervous!).  He's definitely been practicing here at home . . . his patience and obedience are tested daily by little Maya, who now like to give him hugs and kisses:

Maya: I love you, Pa-pa!  Mwahhh!

Parker: Oh brother.                         

Seriously, though, their relationship is so cute.  I need to get some videos and pictures to show off here----he runs to her with his little tail stump wagging and licks her ears and head and she giggle, giggle, giggles.  She yells "Ma ma!" (which is how she says Pa-pa, her best attempt at Parker) and he's learning to come running when he hears it (again, more giggles).  We don't know if we'll ever fully use him in a service dog capacity (who knows what Maya will need in the long run), but he's certainly her therapy dog, 100% of the time.  He's been everything that we were hoping for :)

What clean looks like

No, wait---I'm thinking about what cleanING looks like.  It looks like a gigantic mess.  Things are pulled out, spread out, shuffled around, divided into piles, etc.  We are slowly but surely plodding through the apartment, one section at a time, leaving empty drawers and closet shelves in our wake.

We've broken our clean-out-the-clutter project into phases.  Phase 1 is simply "Do we want this in our apartment or not?"  If not, the item gets moved to the guest bed*.  And that's that---no "should we move it into storage? should we sell it?  should we give it to so-and-so?" etc---that's too complicated and a barrier to getting rid of things.  So the bed has rapidly filled up, and 6 bags (!!!) of stuff has already been donated (clothes are easy to donate). (In all fairness, a lot of baby toys/clothes/etc are all just moving down into storage, but at least they won't be right in our space.)

On Monday, a box of eletronics is getting shipped to Gazelle---they'll pay you (not a lot, but we're not in this for the money right now---we just want to see junk go) for your old electronics, or recycle them for you even if they're not worth anything.  (We're cleaning out responsibly---no filling up landfills with old crap.)

I'm starting an album on the Facebook fan page with pictures-in-progress of the cleaning project.    I don't want to clutter up the blog (ha ha) with the junky pictures, and waste my storage space on them---but if you're nosy interested (like me) it's fun to watch other people move through their junk.

*By the way, I say "guest bed" because it is the bed in the room that is theoretically our guest room. One of the giant goals of this project is to have a usable guest room. Right now, as you will see in the pictures, the guest room is really just our stroller parking/miscellaneous room for things-that-don't-have-a-home.

Project-o-rama

Seriously, why do I have 5 bottle openers? 

Do you want to hear why?  Well, imagine that they're numbered 1-5 (l-r).  Here's why we have them:

• 
  
  #1 is awesome, the best wine corkscrew around. 
• 
  
  #2 is small, it would be perfect if you were going on a picnic, or camping, (or needed an easy-to-conceal weapon) and you wanted to pack lightly---and it can open wine bottle, beer bottles, or even a can.
• 
  
  #3 is what I would use to open a bottle of wine if I couldn't find #1.  No, that's never happened.  But it could. 
• 
  
  #4 doesn't really need justification, because it's awesome. 
• 
  
  Finally, although not as awesome as #4, #5 can open bottles and cans (#4 is bottles only).

See?  Getting rid of stuff is difficult!  There are reasons for everything.  Suffice to say, we no longer have 5 bottle openers.  (You're dying to know which ones made the cut, right?)

And as drawers are being emptied, other projects are (finally) getting finished:

She loves it :)  But after some quality drawing time, she tried to eat the chalk.  And then to feed it to Parker.  She really loves to share with him (which is, of course, adorable) ----often she'll be sitting and playing with something and then she'll spot him out of the corner of her eye, giggle, and crawl over to "give" him the toy.  (Giving him the toy sometimes consists of trying to shove it up his nose, and sometimes consists of laying it across his front paws.)

Parker also likes the chalkboard walls, because chalkboard walls mean that there's chalk around.  And chalk, apparently, makes a tasty snack.  He ate about 1/4 of a piece this morning while we were feeding Maya a snack.  Oops.

But then he made up for it by showing off his artistic side.  Well done, Parker.

PS.  We kept 3 bottle openers: #1 because it's the best for wine, #5 because it's great for opening cans with the pointy thing, and #4 because we're whimsical, and we have space for it :)

Get out of my house! (Subtitle: Where I've been)

So I haven't had much time to chat and blog because I have been heavy into Project Clean-Out-My-House.  I feel the need to purge things . . . I feel like the household clutter around me is somehow turning into mental clutter that is fogging up my brain.  And I've realized that we do have a lot of hidden, under-utilized storage space (in cabinets, drawers, closets, etc.).  If only I could get rid of stuff we don't need & reorganize the stuff we need, we would have space to find permanent homes for the random things that are always floating around.

Today during naptime I tackled the toy area.

Before: (1: 30 pm)

(to be fair, I was already in the middle of spreading things out and cleaning them in this pic)

After: (3:30 pm)

The changes:  The toy bin rack moved into the guest room.  We really wanted to move to a more open-access type of play space, but the rack is too flimsy and Maya could pull it over if she tried to pull up on it.  So it went into the spare room and I'll have to teach her a sign for it, and then we can walk in and pull out a bin to play with.  The toys left in the living room are in containers that we already had :)

A SMART IDEA FOR KIDS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS (or any kids, really):  You might be able to see that next to the wicker basket with toys (and next to the pink tub) there is a clear, lidded tupperware container (like this sweater box from the Container Store).  Maya's teacher had a great suggestion:  Take a few highly motivating toys (that bin has a few books in it that Maya loves, and another bin across the room has her kitchen toys in it).  Keep them in containers with clear lids----either she will learn how to open them independently (which is good fine motor practice for kids with OT delays) or she will learn to ask for help, or bring them to me for help, etc (which is good for kids with speech delays--like Maya, or kids who need motivation to interact with others).

I've got about 35 projects going on at once :)

More hair drama, and Scrabble Pt. 2

Today was round 17 (ok, really, round 5) of attempting to cut Parker's hair.  The electric clippers that we bought aren't strong enough (we got "medium" and apparently we need "heavy duty") so I reverted back to using scissors, and did as much trimming as I could while outside at the park. 

Clipping away:

It might be hard to see the difference in pics, but there's a big one.  The fluff is gone, replaced by the softest little curls.  It's like having a sheep.

                 Before:                                                                               After:

If you look closely, you can see little white splotches in the grass.  That's Parker's fur (I bagged as much as I could scrape up, and figure the rest will be gathered by birds to pad their nests.).

Parker!  Get off my lap!  (Maya is eating a sticker in these pictures.  And, what's the deal with perspective?  Why does Parker look gigantic in one picture and tiny in the other?)

You may remember that back in the day, Dave made a scrabble board shadowbox with the Nieder family names.  After we got Parker, Dave realized that his name would fit across the bottom of the board . . . but, alas, we had thrown away our extra tiles.  I mentioned this on a message board, and one of the lovely ladies  (thank you!!!) there offered to mail us the letters . . . and here's the finished product!