eSpecially Ben

Image taken from Tulane University More than a week ago, my husband noticed that Ben was falling forward. He banged his head badly on one of these occasions. I was away the weekend, but when I came back, Ryan showed me how Ben was drifting forward while sitting in the bathtub. That evening I emailed Ben's teacher to ask her if she had noticed anything. The next day, Ben's teacher called me to say that, in fact, she noticed Ben falling forward often. She and the assistant thought it could be an ear infection. I was able to get Ben in with a pediatrician that afternoon. I prayed it would be an ear infection. But life being what it is, of course it was not an ear infection. That would have been too easy. A curve ball was being sent our way. The pediatrician was a doctor whom we had not seen before. She was serious and focused. Ben's ears were fine, but she persisted with questions and was obviously concerned. While we waited in the office, she called Ben's neurolog

I admit, this picture is a bit unsettling. Ben has been seeing the same pediatric dentist for 3 years. The office prefers that parents do not go into the exam room with their children - something about children acting up when parents are around. Anyway, I had given them permission to use the papoose three years ago - but had never seen it in action until this day at the dentist's office. Now I know why Ben gets glowing remarks on how well he behaves for the dentist - poor kid doesn't have a chance!

I get a report about Ben's progress almost 6 times a week from each of the therapists, after every session. Most of it is mundane information about what they did, how well the session went, how hard Ben worked, how hard Ben worked them, what equipment may need to be fixed, etc. But today, although the setting was the same and the speech therapist was giving his report as usual - he seemed to be saying something new. Or perhaps I was hearing it differently. Basically he said, Ben knows his name - he can identify it. There is no need to work on that goal. Well, I knew that from Ben's IEP meeting in January, but it was good to hear from an outside source that this was, in fact, true information. The speech therapist also said that Ben has met the goal to identify articles of clothing (shoes, socks, pants, shirt) from both pictures and actual items. Then he said Ben knows his numbers, 0-9. His next step was to help Ben learn his colors. The therapist said that when Ben pays a

  Ben, age 6 I vote octopus because I like them better!

This weekend will be the first time I will miss a holiday with the kids. I am going away with my mom and sister to celebrate my mom turning 60. This is a photo of Ben from last year - Easter morning, dressed in his new shirt and ready to find eggs in the yard. I just hope the Easter Bunny remembers to visit our house this year...

 In September I wrote about our journey to the world of toilet training. At the point of writing the post, we were about 6 days into it. Now we are at the 6 month mark - which is cause for celebration, or at least a reason to buy some new Spidey underwear! Ben is doing fabulous at home and at school with toilet training. He is proud of himself, we are proud of ourselves and we only see progress ahead. That's not to say there are setbacks, which are usually caused by us not being on a consistent schedule with Ben.   Big Mack Button In the last months, we introduced a Big Mack button to try to help Ben communicate his toileting needs to us. Before Ben sits on his potty, he pushes the button and the recording says, "I have to go to the bathroom." Ben's school has been extremely supportive with our efforts to train Ben. At Ben's IEP meeting, the school agreed to use the same button, wording and process each time he used the bathroom. It is working! On a few o

  Ben, Logan and Sean made these bunnies last year at the YMCA. It was nice to pull them out with our Easter decorations - I'd forgotten all about them. Bunnies are made with stuffed athletic socks,and then decorated with ribbon, markers, pom-poms, googly eyes and stiff thread for the whiskers.