Oatie and the Honey Farm.... where Pooh Bear lives....

On Friday, Oatie had a field trip, and my daughter did the Honey Farm two years back as she was in the same preschool where Oatie goes now. Two years ago, Oatie Screamed and HATED honey, he wouldn't even try to taste any, he cried and really didn't enjoy it.

Well this time, he tried all 6 different honey types, he had a go using the Smoker, he got to turn the honey centrifuge thing and he was so into seeing the Bee's looking for the Queen bee and and just loved every minute of it.

When we left, he said, "Mama, Pooh Bear lives here"

We had a quiet weekend, we bought my daughter a bunk bed, Oatie is thrilled as now he can camp in either room, he kind of breaks in and lies on their lower bunks and says "nite nite" lol!

Just 2-3 weeks left of School and wow this year has flown.

My Favourite Apps... for the caregivers...

Well, I did promise Eric, that I would put my favourite apps, I am partial to Apple products, you might have guessed when Oatie says "look at the apple mama" when he takes photos of me pretend or real... Luckily for you, he hasn't worked out how to upload the photos he has taken of me to his blog... PHEW! shhhh don't tell him!

Well, with all the faffing of the red tape and otherwise, we have decided just to buy him an Ipad2 and just get the ball rolling as he to me, is at a crucial point in his speech development, he's parroting everything and is trying so hard to communicate and be understood... and if you work out what he's saying, it just gives him a huge confidence boost.

A lot of them do have FREE versions, so you can trial it, but some free ones have all the features as paid ones, the informant you can upgrade by migrating it so you don't have to re-enter your data... well it was like that...

So here are my favourite Apps for the Caregivers! Apps for the kids I'll leave to the experts...

Just right click on the link and open in a new tab, so you don't have to go back and forth...

My first one is
1password:

This is so fantastic for me, I store our health card details, membership, credit card, library card, any sort of online activity here, you put in your extra password and can lock it down further to a master password and, once you're in, you press to log in to say the library or eBay or amazon it's fantastic... so if you hate looking around for your card or can't remember it's a great app, you can have auto lock so no chance of someone being able to see your sensitive info and you can also have auto wipe or remote erase I believe...

Timelogger:
I have just gone for the free version as I actually weirdly like the adverts. It's what I time my ABR with, and it's fantastic. I put all Oatie's exercises in and press start stop, and there is also a pause and it logs all the time and at the end of the session I just email it as a CSV excel sheet to my desktop voila! easy...


Blogbooster, you may have seen photos uploaded with blogbooster, annoying as they have really upped their selfbragging, but it's so easy, quick to use, you can pixel size the photos and sync it to your Picassa web album and it's totally easy and brainless... so often if I'm at home I might type on my desktop, and then go to blogbooster and upload the photo as it can be uploaded and done in 10 seconds. The only disadvantage is that the photos don't show up in the margin of other's blogs.... but for a huge time saving app, I love it and like it says you can blog on the go.

Iflow, I really like this one, it was under a different name but they have re-branded it... it's the classics but it's cheap or free... and you can have hands free reading, you can customise the speed, colour etc,... it's great if you can't watch Dora the explorer for the millionth time or just want to treat your child and get a read in too.

Informant, well I have to say I love it, I have my desktop synced with google docs which then syncs with my phone. no probs or hassle, and I ensured I had the auto sync at totally different times of the day. So super I can change an appointment on my desktop, shake my phone with the app open and it's all synced... or vice versa... (I'll let you know how 3 way syncing with the ipad goes... people have said it's been fine...) Informant has my calendar and to do list, and one one of the organised methods, I have set up my contexts which is the different type of shops, so as I need things, I put them in under the correct shop so when I go out with my limited time budget, I can just go, Costco... and all the things I'd like to buy are there in a list. or Fabricland, and all listed, it's saved so much time and got rid of the feeling arghghgh I forgot X.

Obvioulsy, Shazam, Shazam is better than soundhound, I've been trying both out simultaneously and Shazam is more accurate. What is a better way than having your ipod playing great tunes to help you treat your kid more easily...

Home Routine, this is based on the "Sink Reflections" woman, but I love it and you can customise it and I like the morning evening routine very much, love checking off those stars...

if you have other kids and need them to "comply" well irewardchat is fantastic, you can even calculate how many stars till they qualify for X.

Lifeplanner, this is the one that I said most other would find it useless, but I really like it, it's kept separate from my schedule and keeps me on track, like it bings 5 or how many minutes you want, to tell you that you have free time or you should be doing your chores... I often get carried away doing something else and I has made me more time savvy... I like it a lot.

If you have a home gym or go to one, Ultratimer is your app. You can put your very own work out in it and group workouts, so you can just chill and do your reps and it tells you (from what you programmed) what you're doing next, and you can play music from your library at the same time.

Spelling, if you have younger kids who all have spelling homework, well this app is fab as you put your list in, and say the word or they can, and then they can practise the spellings and it emails you how they did, so you can see which words need some work....

Grocery Gadget, I love it! you can just scan the items you want to add to your list and you can email it or sync it with someone else and they can whilst they are out go shopping for you with photos and everything.

Ohhhh and if you want to see how much time you WASTE!!!! well this app is for you, you start and stop the time of your chosen list Eat dinner and you can see how much time you spend doing what. The worst bit is that it can't lie or fudge it so it is what it is... It's called Timerific

Well these are my favourite apps for being organised with a special needs kid...

Love Oatie's Mum
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Oh and we got 3:05 of ABR in on Monday and 2:32 today.

Bonjour! French Play....

Today was a "normal" day whatever that is....lol! no drama or Speedo's so it was a good day overall.

It's "half term"/Spring Break this week so our adult skate isn't on till next week. So I went for a Swim to loosen up my poor back, which was nice, my running buddy wasn't up for running either today so she walked and met me at the pool for a coffee which was fabulous. Picked Oatie from School, had lunch, did some ABR , we collected my daughter, and went to my eldests school to see their French Play. My eldest has a DVD in French that they are to watch at home 3 times a week, and then after many months later his class put on the play part of the DVD. The thing is that Oatie and my daughter who both go to French School do the DVD too.

So it was really nice, my eldest spoke loudly and clearly and in sync with his friend in their speaking part. My daughter sang the song sat on my lap with my son's class and Oatie shouted out the "Perdu" bits, which was adorable.

After school we dove to the second hand sport shop to get some........ to get some...... to get some...... "Hockey Skates" for my figure skating kids! Well it was for a multitude of reasons, mainly they don't like going to the family skate as previously we all weren't allowed on the ice at the same time, then because they just have to go round and round and "no tricks" which is fair enough... and they have to wear a helmet (also fair enough) and not skate fast (also fair enough). So I thought to make it more "interesting" they could skate a family skate in hockey skates, they get a challenge, and enjoy having the helmet and some padding lol!.. I can keep up with them and apparently if you're a figure skater, wearing hockey skates really improves your V-push technique? I have no idea by a friend of mine who's a coach recommended that. If my eldest is like he was on figure skates, he'll be up and off straight away... or he'll be on his bottom lots...We haven't told Oatie yet our plan for Sunday as I know he wouldn't sleep, he'd be so excited about Buggy Skating.

I couldn't do that, Crystal would nip me, she's so gentle with Oatie

We had a family day today...

Today my elder two had their early morning skate, and Oatie and I made some porridge ready for when they got back. Oatie has started to eat Grapes, Porridge, chilli con carne, and he's really become adventurous with his food. I know he didn't like certain foods because of his Cerebral Palsy, as it would make him gag. So to see him eating these foods and join in is so nice, he can eat a sandwich without me tearing it into bits. I put this improvement down to ABR



The kids played, did crafts, watched films together, and Oatie showed of his new Ipod skills and we had a really nice day. I iced the royal icing flowers for our Valentine's cake, as Oatie's Grandparents are coming for a visit this Thursday till next Wednesday.



We had a special meal to celebrate Oatie's brother passing his skating test and it was a nice peaceful, uneventful day.



Ok, uneventful till now... After seeing all the lovely smiling faces on one of my favourite blogs Everyone Outdoors I have finally written a letter requesting inclusive skating to be permitted at our local rink. toe picks crossed!

My post vanished! oh well...

Oatie in the tunnel at School this morning, (with a car of course!)

Yesterday I diligently wrote a post, but with my wonderful (I really actually LOVE IT) Iphone, I swished the screen by accident and well I forgot to save it... oops!


Oatie's recognising of site words is amazing, we added a new word "pig", and instantly after being told what it was, he said the letters and then after shuffling his existing cards, he said them all correctly... I suppose what was so endearing was when he tests us back, he's started to use inflection in his voice to ask the question back, so he held up Cow and said "what's that Dadda?" so his dad cheekily said PIG, Oatie was like, nope, here's "pig", he found it in the jumbled pile on the floor and this is "COW", it was that which I was just astonished, I guess.  My daughter self started to read at 2.5, but his retention and accuracy is amazing. 

Well Yesterday I had two questions, but today I want to throw out another?

1. My first, was what should people say, when they don't know what to say, you know like when they are confronted with your child's disability, lots of people don't' know how to react, and go all funny, and look away or the next time you bump into each other ignore you... as YOUR CHILD makes THEM feel uncomfortable.  Or should they say nothing?
   
2. Well this is more on a personal note, we always wanted four children, so did/does my husband.  So I'm feeling broodie at the moment and I suppose it's been a year since his diagnosis and I'm beginning to heal a little from the shock and ready to take life by the reins again and move on from the diagnosis...  But what would the probability be to have two children born into the same family with CP?  I hope it never would, but it could and that scares me.
   
3.  Which I suppose give me a supplementary question, if people could during their pregnancy SCREEN for Brain Damage caused in the womb, I have read recently that pregnancy caused CP for example happens in the first trimester, would YOU have a scan for that? and what would your actions be?

Here is a photo from this morning, Oatie has been loving school after Christmas, he's been on the goodbye mat joining in the songs, and today he put on his own hat and one glove as he was going to take the one he put on off, to put that one on...  and today to my regular "rock" at school he said to that dad, "So X, how's it going, you going in your pizza car (it's red and all red cars are pizza cars) now?"

No School today...

Well for some in the area it was a "snow day" we've had extreme weather Since Saturday night, it's high winds -16 but feels like -30, you say, hey that's normal, but at the moment it's WET cold, it's 80-95% humidity... usually here it's really dry, so even if it's the -20's you don't feel it.

Well, I have taken my kids to school in some treacherous weather, and I know when they are there they'll be fine, but during that journey, I'm like what am I doing out here this is NUTS! So today, I heard some schools were closed and waited till Sunrise to make our decision to go or not. So I took my eldest two out they were both keen to get back to school after the long break. The roads were OK a bit hairy but ok. I felt bad as I took my daughter into her school but not Oatie. we couldn't park in the bay as it wasn't snowplowed at all, it was 3 feet high, so they only parking was in the staff car-park, the path wasn't shoveled and neither was the disabled ramp. So there was no way I could wheel Oatie in at all, he would have to be carried, My daughter in that situation would carry his backpack which is way lighter than his and I carry hers and Oatie and she does the doors and helps with his boots, holds his hands so I can take my boots off etc... It's like a comic act, but my daughter is just LOVELY. (The sensation of "breaking into School" is like walking up a mountain). His teacher saw me in the hall and totally understood, she said that when she arrived at school that it would be really hard to get Oatie in. The thing is that he's growing as kids do... so he gets heavier but I am not matching in strength! If I had more time, I would shovel the ramp myself. Only one family (if they see us), ever helps us, only 1 and I am thankful that it is 1 and not 0, and my point is... that it's not like England where some buildings are centuries old.... these are recent buildings where people have known of physically less able people when they were designed, planned, approved and built! Why don't they have a service road be designed around the back of the building say...that could be used for vehicles carrying people who need wheels and they could use it for emergency vehicles like fire/ambulance or even deliveries on each majorly used public building, on right from the onset, and not an after thought! I feel bad as I wonder if we will lose his aid, from Oatie's sporadic preschool attendance, but if he can't get in to school without it being an iron-man challenge for mummy, then he can't get into school. I've seen what it's like for tomorrow, so I will put on my winter camping gear, and psych myself up for the challenge!

Today Oatie got all his flashcards correct, first go, so his sister added Dad to his flashcards. We did 2 hours of manual ABR and as per usual, he'll have 11-12 hours of Machine ABR tonight.

Oatie is excited as he'll be going into school tomorrow regardless, come rain, shine, arctic storm, arctic front and mummy's burning biceps!

While I was doing guided reading with my eldest, Oatie spontaneously built a plane out of stickle bricks...

Building his plane

adding sound effects

enjoying his plane

My first reading experience

Today my brother started my first guided reading experience, my brother and sister are going to teach me to read.  My big brother told me what the words were, only once, anyway dad came down to see as he could hear everyone clapping, and even after he shuffled the words, I could recognise the words correctly and I got them all right, we started with 3 words, Cow, Bear and Dog and my sister added Car to it.  I then wanted to make sure that my dad knew what they were, so I tested him and taught them to him, just in case....  I was using my finger but I decided to use Goldie (my toy car) parking at the correct word as my reading companion!

 
(Mum posted 13 second video of me, but on mum's iphone it's just blank space, if you're wondering why there is some blank space)