Friday, October 10, 2008

October 10, 2008

Well, it's been a crazy week! Mostly for Trey and I. I got sick last Friday and was bedridden for a couple of days with a sinus infection and now Trey has a stomach flu/virus and is sequestered in our room bedridden. THANK THE LORD the boys have remained healthy! We've been very careful! So basically it's been a quiet week with not much going on since Trey and I have not been feeling well. I started feeling much better early in the week, so yesterday the nurse and I took Nate and Owen to the pumpkin patch. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. They had lots of animals and of course tons of HUGE pumpkins. We bought a couple and will decorate them soon. Nate has a program on his computer where he can pick how he wants to decorate his pumpkin - colors, scary or funny, etc. We'll get a picture of it when it's done. Luckily Nate slept well last night (which hasn't been the case all week - he's been a complete night owl laughing and talking with our night nurse!), so we will be taking him to school today. This weekend not much will be going on other than watching OU/Texas - our house is divided on this one. I say GO SOONERS! Well, that's about it for now!

Jennifer

Monday, October 06, 2008

Videos of Owen on YouTube

Here are two videos of Owen. The first is of him walking into Nate's room and the second is of him pushing our kitchen chair around the house. Pretty funny.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLn69N55sdg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZFnB657S1I

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Forgot to Mention.....

Before taking Nate to his first day at Kindergarten, Trey and I went to school to talk with the kids about Nate. We took his Kid Kart and some of his equipment to show them. Basically, we just explained how Nate is different in very simple terms, brought pictures of him and let them ask any questions (which was a lot!). It helped so much to introduce Nate and his situation first and then actually bring him to class. On his first day, we were walking down the hall to his class, and one of the kids yelled - NATHAN'S HERE! It was so cute! The teacher said the kids were so excited all morning knowing Nate was coming to class that day. They seemed to accept him although there was still some staring, which is normal. A lot of the kids said hi and waved to him. One little girl actually lives a couple houses down from us and already knew Nate. This class is very different from the class he has been in for the past couple of years. His other class was for special needs kids (although most were extremely mild special needs compared to Nate) and was more of a play class, which was good for him at the time. Kindergarten is very structured and more educational which is great for Nathan. But his time at school is more for social skills and being around other kids his own age, than education. The home bound teacher is focusing solely on education. I have requested the home bound teacher do more "kindergarten curriculum" and gear her time to more education based activities. He seems to really enjoy it! Nate loves to learn!

Owen Playing Outside



He likes to slide down the slide, but also likes to climb down the slide!

Sunday, Oct. 5th


A couple of weeks have passed, and a lot has been going on. First of all, OWEN IS WALKING! What a blessing! We plan on posting a video of him walking very soon.

Nathan has been doing good. We were able to get in the pool one more time last weekend and he loved it, of course! But, now Fall has really arrived (I think??). Nate hurt his leg in the stander last week, but fortunately, it was minor and he just needed to rest and take it easy. It is much better now. I think we finally got his power chair joystick problem resolved. The power chair has been an ongoing issue as far as getting the right joystick and his hand/arm situated properly. He has such little movement, you have to get everything just right for him to be able to operate it. With the old joystick, he could go forward and around in a circle one way and that was about it. We tried out a new joystick and adjusted his arm differently and he was able to turn, stop, go backwards and forwards. Now it's a matter of waiting to get the reps here to fix it and adjust it properly (which always takes awhile!).

We took Nate to see Veggie Tales Live last weekend and he really enjoyed it. The picture of him is when they first came out on stage. We left at intermission because we went to the evening show and didn't realize it was going to be as long as it was. Veggie Tales is one of his favorite shows so it was definitely a treat for him!

Also, Nate went to his first day of KINDERGARTEN! What a big boy! He did great. For the first few minutes he cried a little, probably because of stress and being in a new environment, then he fell asleep for about 10 minutes. After that, he really enjoyed it. They did a science experiment and math. He answered some questions for me and answered them correctly. What a smart boy! Hopefully, we will be taking him once or twice a week for about an hour until RSV/Flu season hits and then it will be strictly homebound schooling. We are still working on his computer so he can communicate and use it for education purposes as well.

Hopefully, we can take Nate to the zoo again soon before the weather gets too cold. That's about it for now!

Thanks for checking in!

Jennifer