Snow Days 1

This winter we've already gotten more snow than we typically do. Though we missed most of it while we were at Nana and Papa's house, we technically had a white Christmas, something I'm not accustomed to. Of course, as a child we celebrated Christmas in south Arkansas, in Magnolia and Camden. Most Christmases could be spent in t-shirts.

Since we missed the Christmas snow, the boys were very happy when it snowed again New Year's weekend, especially when it meant that the Monday we would have gone back to school turned into a snow day! The snow was not easy to work with, and it was incredibly cold, but that didn't stop the boys from having some fun--for brief moments at a time.

They started with my personal favorite snow activity, snow angels. The snow was only deep enough for the snow-angel-making to sweep the snow from the ground in those spot, but the boys enjoyed it.



Since boys will be boys, the next order of business became a snowball fight!






Shawn had to check on the snow sticking to his glove,


While Tyler hammed it up for the camera.


Since it was incredibly cold, with a steady wind, that was about all the boys could take.

After Shawn took one last look around at...something....we all headed inside to warm up and play video games.



Wonderful snow days...

What's your favorite snow play activity?

When Senses Don't Make Sense

We've finally started sensory therapy with Shawn this week. So far he seems to be doing well.

We're already learning some things to try with him. His sensory issues revolve around his brain not seeming to process the sensory stimulation he's already getting, so he craves more. He wants to jump and bounce and roll around. He usually wants something in his mouth, whether it's his thumb, his fingers, the caps to markers in his classroom, or anything else. In some ways he's like the puppy, and in fact he and not the dog is responsible for chewing on the Wii controller. The therapy process is at least confirming that these are legitimate issues, though, and not just disobedience.

One thing we've learned this week involves deep pressure when he's touched. For example, when we or his teachers need his attention he rarely responds if he's just touched gently, say on his shoulder or arm. If we press a bit harder so it's more at the muscle rather than just the skin, though, he tends to have a better response. We'll continue to try this and see if it helps at home and school.

We're also going to get him to try some coping techniques on his own. When he is upset or gets over excited we'll be asking him to try a trick the therapist taught him. He's to put his arms on his lap (if he's sitting) and put his palms together. With palms pressed together, he's to squeeze his hands together as hard as he can. It's supposed to give him the sensation of pressure on his palms and thighs plus make his arms and shoulders work to squeeze his hands.

I'm pleased with our first week of therapy, and hope things continue to go well. Now we just need a fun name for our little hand squeeze we'll be asking him to do.

Any thoughts on a fun name a 6-year-old might like for the little squeeze your hands together trick we'll be working on?

Oh What a Night

We don't really have any New Year's Eve traditions in our family. Each year has very different circumstances surrounding the day, so it's not really possible to create traditions for the family. There are many years that HoneyBear and I celebrate my birthday on New Year's Eve, in fact. We have had some pretty special New Year's Eve events in years past, though.

I remember our first New Year's Eve after we were married. I volunteered for a shift at First Night, Fayetteville's New Year's Eve celebration, which was held on the downtown square at the time. HoneyBear joined me while I directed people to bathrooms, etc. Once my shift ended, we did a little walking around, but it was pretty cold (not surprising for Northwest Arkansas in December/January) and it was getting a bit crowded, so we wouldn't have a good view of the fireworks. I think I had worked that day as well, so I was getting tired--though I was not yet diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. We went back to our townhouse just before midnight and just enjoyed time together as a new family for the new year.

Another year, when Tyler was just a year old, we spent New Year's Eve at my parents' house in Little Rock. My mom's twin sister and her husband came over, along with my cousin and her boyfriend (now husband). We played games and just had a fun time together. I don't remember the exact questions, but some of the game's questions were about relationships and physical aspects, which were especially funny with the dating couple. Tyler had a lot of fun with the decorations, hats, and balloons that year!

In 2006 HoneyBear and I actually went to a New Year's Eve event for the first time. We had a chance to get away just the two of us, and decided to stay in Hot Springs. The hotel where we were staying had a party downstairs, so we had dinner and listened to music there. The good thing about it being in the hotel was that we could slip up to our room during the evening--the Chicago Bears were playing that night, and we were trying to keep up with the game!

Last year we had a great gathering with HoneyBear's family at his grandmother's house for New Year's Eve. HoneyBear's uncle's family, with almost all 7 of his children, were in town before the uncle was deployed to Baghdad for another tour (his promotion moved him to a new unit, whose deployment required him to go over again). Another uncle's family, who live only a short distance away, also came over bringing some friends. We ate, watched Wall-E, ate some more, and played games. HoneyBear and I were pretty tired, so we left just after midnight to get some sleep, but the boys spent the night to have more time with their cousins. They tried to "stay up all night," but I don't think they were successful. (I don't have permission to post pictures of the cousins at this time, so I'm not going to post pictures, though we do have some of the younger cousins all together.)

This year was another new event, but was special for us as we spent time with new friends. Since HoneyBear worked during the day both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, the evening had to be relaxed, and we couldn't plan on a late night. While he worked, I took the boys bowling with Tyler's new best friend. He moved with his family from Cincinnati at the beginning of the school year, and it's been nice seeing them develop their friendship. None of the boys were especially good at bowling, but they did have fun.

A few years ago we went bowling over Christmas break with one of Tyler's friends, and after bowling we played pool at the gaming area in the bowling alley. Since that time the boys always want to play pool when we bowl, though they really don't play well. I'm not very good at pool, either, so showing them how to hold the pool cue didn't work out so well!


After trying for a while, we decided to play without the cues, based upon a little billiard ball game at our church. We called it bowling pool because they used the cue ball with their hands to knock into the balls. It still took a while, but was a lot less frustrating for the boys.

After bowling, we returned to the friend's house. His mom had spent the day cooking a delicious meal for us all. HoneyBear was even able to join us after work, so he and I enjoyed an adult dinner with Tyler's friend's parents and college-aged sister, while Tyler and Shawn had a wonderful time playing Pokemon, Lego, and various video games with their friend. Tyler was not able to choose a favorite part of the day, as usual. He loved the time with his friend and just having fun.

That night we let the boys "stay up all night" again. I'm sure they're not the only ones who want to do this all the time, so I try to find times to let them when there's a chance. Tyler's had the opportunity for his last two birthdays, and of course they did so last year for New Year's Eve with their cousins. They never have made it all night, though. After we all emerged this morning we discovered that Shawn had fallen asleep in the chair in the living room with a blanket covering him from head to toe early in the evening, even before midnight we think. Tyler made it to late morning before he went on back to bed. He shared with me later that he was trying to play his Nintendo DS after he went to bed, but it kept getting heavy and he couldn't hold it up away from his face, so he finally just went to sleep!

HoneyBear had to get up for work about 5:30, and took the sleeping Shawn back to bed then, where he slept until about 10:00. Tyler's adventure wore him out enough that he slept in until after 1:00 in the afternoon! Maybe we should do this more often when we're on break, and I could sleep in later guilt-free!

The evening did inspire the boys to want to be more involved in Pokemon cards, so New Year's Day was spent sleeping in, going to a late lunch with the boys, then getting binders and trading card inserts for the boys new interest.

I expect 2010 to be filled with friends and Pokemon-at least for the boys!

Birthday, Mythology and Pluto

Today was my birthday. I was a late-Christmas/early-New Year's baby. I was fortunate growing up to be an only child, because I was able to have definite birthday gifts, separate from Christmas. As a parent now with more than one child, I can see how it would have been very difficult to have a child with a holiday birthday! Of course, now that I have children my birthday tends to be overlooked, as I'm sure is the case with many adults. Since I'm typically on holiday break for my birthday, it's rarely even recognized at work. Oh, well--I suppose I'm used to it! :)

This year was different, though--I actually had THREE birthday celebrations! Such fun.

1) Celebrating at Nana and Papa's House

My first celebration was while we were still in Little Rock at my parent's house. Since everything Christmas fell on a weekend and we were able to stay a few days longer, we had a separate birthday dinner. Nana had some little blow-up letters spelling out "Happy Birthday" that were originally intended for Shawn's birthday in October. Since they weren't used then, the boys and Nana blew them up for me and set them out in the sunroom. (Yes, the spelling is incorrect; Shawn apparently "misplaced" a letter. It was found later, but we didn't get a new picture.)

I became princess for the day! Since I live in a house of boys (including the dogs), I take full advantage of every opportunity to be a princess! A few years ago I had a tiara as part of my Halloween costume, and have kept it available for these types of occasions. Shawn loves it when I wear what he calls my "crown."

 

 

2) Dinner with HoneyBear
The night before my birthday the boys spent the night at Grandma's house so we could do dinner and a movie as another birthday celebration. HoneyBear was off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but had to work Thursday and Friday, so celebrating on Tuesday night made more sense than on my actual birthday on Wednesday.

After some debate, we had dinner at Mermaid's restaurant. Even though the building was a Pizza Inn for years, it's been a relatively upscale seafood restaurant for a while.  I loved the Ahi Tuna Tower with spinach, as always! HoneyBear got his usual seafood trio with wonderful scallops that he shared with me, so I got the best of both meals!

We have a tradition of going to Mermaids before going to shows at the Walton Arts Center, but don't have any shows planned this year, so haven't had the chance to go. This time, though, we headed to the cinema theater instead of the live theatre. Since we had already seen Avatar, we saw Sherlock Holmes and loved it.

As we were leaving the theater the predicted winter weather began, and huge white fluffy flakes were spotlighted in the lights of the parking lot. I was able to enjoy "snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes." Since the 1-2 inches predicted didn't actually happen, this beautiful sight was even more special. (It seems that no date is complete for us, though, without a trip to WalMart, and this one was no different... My special birthday dinner was followed by a quick stop.)

3) Lunch as a Family
Because HoneyBear was able to be off work on my birthday, we had one more special time of celebration with lunch at Red Lobster with the boys. One of my favorite parts of the lunch came from a comment from Shawn.

As a bit of background, Tyler had gotten a much-desired book, The Lightning Thief, for Christmas.

We talked about the book at lunch, and because HoneyBear loves mythology, the basis of the book, he and Tyler began discussing Greek and Roman mythology. (We did emphasize multiple times that this is just myth, and that there is only one God. He didn't really understand why we made such a big deal about that--of course there's only one God! Isn't it great?!)

When HoneyBear mentioned the Roman god Pluto, also known as Hades in Greek mythology, Shawn suddenly jumped into the conversation.

"Pluto's not a planet anymore," he said.

"That's right, Shawn!"

"Now, it's just a dog who is Mickey Mouse's friend."

I do love some of the way his mind works!

I had to put away my princess tiara, but I enjoyed it while it lasted! Now it's time to shift into a new year, both as a count of my age and a date on the calendar. Happy birthday to me!

Do You Believe?

As shared previously (in "Photos on the Square" and "Pony Rides and Smiles"), our family spent Monday night at the Lights of the Ozarks on the Fayetteville Square. We looked at the lights, we took photos, we rode the ponies, we even had kettle corn. This year a new exhibit mesmerized Shawn--a live reindeer exhibit with Santa and his sleigh.

He insisted on having his picture taken with the sign for the exhibit.

We were pretty surprised at his strong reaction to Santa. We could understand the fascination with the reindeer--they were pretty cool to see! It was his determination that we all look through the door as much as possible to see Santa on his sleigh that we didn't expect, especially since Shawn has been ... unenthusiastic about Santa the last few years while trying to be like his brother.

Once we looked through the doorway to see Santa, Shawn asked me a question that will stick with me for a long time. My sweet baby, getting so big and changing in so many ways, asked me, "Mommy, now do you believe?"

Oh, how I love my boy. I hope this sweet innocence, the kind that leads him to giving lots of hugs to lots of people, the kind that has him tell teachers and coaches he loves them at random times, the kind that blows kisses all the time, I hope this innocence can stay a while longer. I'm so glad that this sweet boy can remind us with his question to believe in the magic, and to make the season special. Because based upon some of his other lines of questions this year, it won't be too much longer before this child's faith will believe in what REALLY matters. Yes, my baby, Mommy believes.

Pony Rides and Smiles

Monday night our family continued a tradition started a few years ago of spending time on the Fayetteville Square during Lights of the Ozarks.


Each year we take photos of the boys with the Christmas lights (as shown in the previous blog entry, "Photos on the Square"), take photos of the lights themselves, and, for the last three years, have pictures made of the boys riding the ponies from Playtime Ponies. Since pictures with Santa have never been exactly happy events with the boys, but I still wanted something special for Christmas, this became a great option for me (and Nana liked having the pictures, too). I wasn't sure Tyler would still want to do it this year, since he's getting older, but he became excited after we watched them for a moment.

Unfortunately, Shawn thought we were going to get to ride the horse drawn carriage, so he was momentarily disappointed.

The ponies won out, though, and the boys seemed to have a great time. Shawn was curious about everything, so each time around he was trying to investigate another part of the pony or the tent

Tyler cooperated beautifully with the camera.


Shawn also enjoyed it, though in the end he wound up giving us another photo of the back of his head.


My sweet, photogenic boy knows how to smile for the camera (now if he'd only do that every time...)

Photos on the Square

I love Christmas lights. Let me rephrase that--I love well-designed Christmas lights. We are very fortunate to live in a town with a nice light display on the downtown square, complete with pony rides and concessions. Visiting the square has in fact become a family tradition for the four of us. This past Monday night weather was in the low 50's, making it a perfect night for a visit to the square--not to mention the last night before the boys went to Nana and Papa's house for the week before we joined them Christmas Eve.

We started in front of the lit Hog, once again ignoring the fact that getting in front of it required the boys to climb over slippery rocks by a water feature. Of course, it took a few tries, since Shawn tends to prefer to look at things behind him! I have many photos of the back of Shawn's head.

Last year the "Hog Lights" photo became our Christmas card--needless to say it was taken a little earlier in the season rather than the week of Christmas! It was also a much colder day, requiring the boys to bundle up.

There was a new bench on the square this year--at least one we'd not used for photographs before. These started out with Shawn looking away from the camera.

Then Tyler looked a different direction.

The guitar on the bench is really great for our boys, especially when they both look at the camera for a photo.

(Fortunately, they're covering their laps in this photo. It wasn't until after this that we discovered Tyler's zipper had been down the entire time. He later told me that I should just fix the pictures to have the zipper zipped--a photo editor in the making! Of course, then he thought it would be neat to be able to click on a hand in the picture and make the hand move down and zip up the zipper. He may be more programmer or flash designer!)

Our next set of photos was a repeat of previous years as well. Last year involved a little hugging.

This year apparently moved into kisses, though they're not completely documented. Tyler started the process, sneaking in a kiss on the cheek while Shawn was crossing his legs--which was supposed to be crossing ankles, but had Shawn sitting criss-cross-applesauce.

Shawn quickly decided turn about was fair play and went after Tyler.

Once they settled back down, Shawn turned around to see the lighted carousel behind them.

Even though we're pretty much used to it, Tyler decided to try to help get Shawn turned back around.

Shawn didn't pay much attention, so Tyler had to get a bit more assertive!

Unfortunately, Tyler may not be happy with me for posting these, since they were taken before we realized the zipper situation!
 
This was only the first part of our visit. I'll post more about pony rides and Santa soon!