The Weekly Review: Week 32

Blog Post with an Outstanding Description

This week Amalah wrote about a situation at her son's school where several parents of children with special needs felt they needed to advocate for their children. This post contains an outstanding description of the variety of personalities and responses that make up that population of parents and how they all ended up in the same place anyway.

Weekly Blog Post that Made Me Want to Cook:

Weelicious.com featured a crockpot vegetable lasagna recipe a while ago. I liked the idea so much I decided to try it. It was so easy and turned out really well. And, all four members of the family liked it. That's a major success around here.

Weekly Entertaining OT Activity:

This week our OT arrived with three things. She brought powdered sugar, peanut butter, and honey. We didn't measure anything, so I can't give you an exact recipe. We put several tablespoons of peanut butter in a large bowl (for each child) and let them taste the peanut butter with their fingers for a while. Yummy and good sensory experience rolled into one. Then we put some honey (a tablespoon or two?) in another spot on the bottom of the bowl and tasted that with our fingers too. We talked about how the peanut butter and the honey tasted and felt different from each other. Finally we sprinkled powdered sugar (lots) on top of both and let the children taste that too. Then we encouraged them to pat the sugar down into the honey and peanut butter using their hands. Patting turned into pushing. Pushing turned into stirring with a finger. Stirring with one finger turned into mixing enthusiastically with both hands (tasting frequently all the while). Eventually, with much stirring and adding lots of powdered sugar the mixture reached a play-doh like consistency. We made peanut butter play-doh. Lots of fun, yummy, and a great sensory experience. The end.

The Weekly Michael

Michael's continued theme is exploring destruction. Please tell me this is a phase. This week he deliberately pulled up his floor vent and stuffed random objects inside (multiple times). He popped Ava's balloon - with his teeth. He pulled a well attached canvas wall print off his wall and then pulled the 3M wall hangers off both the wall and the picture as well. He attempted to cut a hole in the side of a bottle of glue with his scissors (right in front of me). I have actually told him that he needs to stop and think about whether his actions will destroy or harm something before doing it and decide to stop if the answer is yes. The next time he destroyed something he just informed me that he had forgotten to think.

Ava this Week:

Baby Kitty has been replaced. At the store the other day Ava passed by a bin of $4 baby dolls. She found a pink one with a kitty embroidered on its bib and a pacifier in its mouth. She cradled that doll in her arms for at least half an hour before we left and asked so nicely if she could take it home. I couldn't resist. Certainly not for four dollars. Mama Kitty and Baby Kitty are still in bed with her, but Bitty Baby (as we call her because she's small) takes the place of honor tucked in Ava's arm as she falls asleep.