Busy Book - Shapes Page

As I was browsing the web searching for fleece hat patterns I found some patterns and examples of busy books. Busy books are homemade activity books made out of cloth - usually felt. Some people make busy books entirely of pages that are quiet when the child plays with them and then they call them quiet books. They are to entertain a child when you need them to be quiet (at church, in a waiting room, etc...). Here is an example of a completed busy book.

We travel for the holidays on extended car trips and I thought it would be fun to make some busy books to keep the children entertained during the car ride. I finished my first page today. It is a simple shape matching page using velcro to attach the pieces. I'm pretty pleased at how my first attempt turned out.

If I get it done tomorrow I'll show you the second page I'm working on. It uses magnets and focuses on numbers and patterns.

A Couple of Projects

Using my sewing machine, some scrap fleece I've had lying around for ages, and this Snowblossom Fleece Hat Tutorial I made Ava a hat. It took me about an hour and a half. The tutorial is really well done, and the sizing guidelines worked perfectly.

It would be even cuter in a better color combination, but I just used what I had around. If I make a trip to a fabric store, I'll pick out colors to make another one for Ava and one for Michael too.

_______________________

I stumbled upon a picture of a project someone had done using plastic Easter eggs to make a word family activity. I decided to make some for Michael. He's really proud of being able to sound out three letter words, but he is sounding them out letter by letter and hadn't caught on to word families yet. I've only made two so far, but they work beautifully. He can rattle off seven or eight words so quickly this way. It's becoming automatic. I really need to make the time to make some more.

Sorry about the picture being so blurry, but at least it gives you an idea. First I tried glue and that didn't work so well, so with the second one I tried tape. That didn't work all that well either. Anyone have any other ideas?

Ava's Hello Bag

On our way home after being discharged from the hospital we stopped at the grocery store. Before the unexpected hospital adventure we had been postponing a trip to the store for several days and we had very little left in the house to eat. So we had to stop by the store just so we could feed everyone lunch when we got home.

I was carrying Ava around the store keeping her happy while my husband did the actual shopping and Ava spied something in a clearance bin that made her perk up. It was a Hello Kitty lunch bag. I pulled it out of the bin and told her she could carry it as long as she walked. It worked. She walked around looking at all sorts of things. But she never let that bag go. She was in love. We decided to bring it home.

Now I expected her to use the bag for all kinds of things. As it turns out, only two things ever go in the bag.

Compartment 1: Mama Kitty

Compartment 2: Baby Kitty

Ava carries her kitties in her kitty bag. It's adorable. They are in there and nearby all the time. They go up for nap. She takes the kitties out to sleep with them and then carefully returns them to their compartments and brings them downstairs with her when she wakes up. The bag and kitties travel from room to room with her and then go up for the night where they get to leave the bag to cuddle with her at night. Then back into the bag they go in the morning to come back down. So funny.

Home again.

We spent the night at the hospital with Ava. It was the first night we had spent there since the hospital stay when Ava was born. I would have been all right without having to do that again, but it was necessary. The nurses in the pediatrics ward were just as great as the nurses I'd had in the maternity ward.

I was worried we'd have another night as bad as the first and need another breathing treatment, but the oral steroids finally kicked in and the stridor improved through the night. We all got a decent night sleep all things considered. The nurse had to wake us every four hours so we could help her check Ava's vitals, but aside from those 10 minute awakenings we all slept through. Any mother of a newborn would think that's a great night's sleep.

And so we're home again. Things aren't quite back to normal, but we're heading there.

Wishes are not always granted.

We did go to our doctor's office. The receptionists listened to Ava strain to breathe in horror for a short period of time before sending us straight to the emergency room where her oxygen level was 91. I thought that sounded pretty good. Just like getting an A- on a test. Apparently not.

We pinned her down while she strained to breathe in enough air for the next scream during her breathing treatment. Then we pinned her down while they gave her a dose of oral steroids. She promptly choked half of that back up. Then they told us they just needed to observe her for two hours before sending us home.

An hour later the stridor was back. That earned us another delightful breathing treatment and an admission to the children's ward. And that's the current update.

How to properly ring in the change of seasons...

In our house, it wouldn't be fall unless we pick up a child from school with a 102.5 degree fever, wheezing, and the croup. Please, oh please let this pass quickly, relatively painlessly, and without a trip to the emergency room. And while I'm wishing, it would be awfully nice to not pass the illness around through all members of the family including the grandparents this time.

The first illness award this year goes to Ava. It is interesting though. The last time Ava was sick, last spring, she couldn't really communicate about it. This time, just as the 4 hour dose of acetaminophen was wearing off she came to me and said, "Mama, my mouth hurts." As pitiful as that was, I was grateful that she finally has the words to tell me.

The Weekly Review: Week 28

The weekly review will look a little different this week just because I feel like changing things up a little. This time you get what comes floating off the top of my head. :-)

The Weekly Annoyance:

Facebook changed everything around again and I'm not particularly fond of this newest version.

The Weekly Indulgence:

I'm watching fall television pilots over the internet. I very rarely have the time to watch tv anymore, but prior to having children I loved checking out all the new shows each fall. Now we don't even subscribe to television. I do have a hulu plus account and lots of the networks make their newest shows available on their website and so I have spent way too much time this week checking out some new shows that I enjoyed and several I thought were pretty awful. Still, I had fun and isn't that what's really important for leisure time?

The Weekly Admission:

Someone, who shall remain nameless, had their school pictures come in this week. I admit it. I snickered. If you could just see the facial expression involved you'd snicker too. How can it be so cute, and yet so funny at the same time?

Weekly Coolest Toy Ever:

We found Michael's birthday present. It is two months early, but I stumbled upon it on Amazon and it was just so perfect. Apparently Lego has a whole separate educational line. Who knew? I certainly didn't. In that line they have a Duplo set called tech machines. This is a set designed around the concepts of air, land, water, and space. The set comes with lesson plans for a teacher. The thing that is unique about it is that there are screws built into the duplo blocks. So when you assemble the vehicles, you lock each piece together so that they can actually be played with without falling apart. I think Michael is going to love it. It's a shame I have to hide it for the next two months.

Dawn of a New Era

And so begins sibling sneakiness...

Part 1:
The children were playing "sleepover" upstairs. I heard thudding feet coming down the stairs and I overheard Michael say, "We need to go to the basement without Mama seeing us." He says this five feet away from me at full volume of course. He's just old enough to start being sneaky, but still unsophisticated enough to think that if he can't see me, I can't hear him. Ava echoed, "without Mama seeing us". I actually thought it was all pretty funny and kept my back to them as they "snuck" around the corner to the basement stairs. I managed to not laugh out loud as Michael pulled Ava away rather loudly when she almost came the wrong way (towards me).

Part 2:
I put the children down for nap. Michael first, and Ava second. I close their doors during nap. Michael's door has one of those child protection devices on the inside doorknob to keep him from wandering when he should be sleeping, but Ava's does not because until recently she didn't wander.

I came downstairs and began to settle. I love naptime. I love the quiet and the moments that are completely mine. Then I heard feet coming down the stairs. And giggling. And shushing. Michael said, this time whispering (loudly), "Shhhh! She'll hear us!" Apparently Ava had left her room and let Michael out of his and the two decided to go exploring. I deliberately shifted in my chair making it creak. Michael said, "Quick, she's coming!" and then I heard thudding feet heading back upstairs.

I waited a few moments to give them time to get back upstairs. Children who were experienced at this game would have each gone to their separate rooms and pretended to be asleep. My little ones both headed to Michael's room and were playing when I got up the stairs. I escorted them both back to their beds and reminded them that naptime isn't playtime. I actually sat in a chair in Ava's room for the five minutes it took her to fall asleep when she stayed still for that long. Then I slipped back downstairs for a second time.

Speech Sample - Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech - 25 months

This is a bit of a therapy session I was doing with Ava on 4-4-11. We were using a few of the Kaufman Cards. She had just turned 25 months old.

In the previous sample, Ava used the following consonants: /b, d, t, m, n, w, j/. All but one of those (mama) were used in one-syllable CV words.

In this sample Ava produces five different two-syllable words. Four of them were imitated correctly and one was imitated incorrectly, but still with a two-syllable non-reduplicated word. She uses /b, d t, p, m, n, h/ in this sample. She has added the /p/ and /h/ syllables in the six weeks since the last sample. She has also moved from productions that were primarily the CV syllable shape to productions that are C1V1C2V2 in syllable shape which is much more complex.

Rear-Facing Car Seats Revisited

Almost four months ago I wrote a post about reading a NYT article on the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation to keep children rear-facing until at least two years of age or until they reach the rear-facing weight limits of their seats.

Then, and now, both of my children are still rear-facing in their seats. Ava is in a seat with a rear-facing weight limit of 35 pounds and weighs about 32 pounds. Michael is in a seat with a rear-facing weight limit of 40 pounds and weighs about 36 pounds. Michael is almost four years old. He never complains about being rear-facing. He's starting to get a bit cramped. I have to shuffle legs around to get him buckled in, but once he's settled he is perfectly comfortable.

The Washington Post just did an article on the topic. Again, the information that stands out in my mind is that "children younger than 2 were 75 percent more likely to die or be seriously injured when facing forward." The article explains that rear-facing is safer because small children have relatively heavy heads and weak necks and spines. When forward facing during a crash the heads can snap forward with so much force that necks break, spinal cords are injured, and brain injury can result. When rear-facing, the seat supports the head and neck and distributes the force of the crash more evenly.

Given the safety reasons for keeping them rear-facing, we have decided to continue as long as possible. With our current seats we can keep them both rear-facing for several more months. But as soon as either child outgrows theirs we will have two choices. We can turn one of them around and keep one rear-facing with the current seats. Or, we can buy a new Radian. That will buy us an extra five pounds. At this age, that is a lot. It could well keep both of them rear-facing another year.

Is the extra time rear-facing worth buying another very expensive carseat that we don't really need? That is the question I'm wrestling with. I'll probably just postpone deciding until the last minute.

Wilbarger Deep Pressure and Proprioceptive Technique (Brushing Technique)

I have to admit, when our OT first introduced the "brushing technique" to us I thought it seemed a bit questionable. And yet I think it is working wonders.

First, some background. Ava seems to have a fair amount of tactile defensiveness. Prior to beginning occupational therapy she hated tags in her clothes. She never allowed me to fix her hair with barrettes or hair bands. She barely tolerated brushing her hair. For months, brushing her teeth involved pinning her down and brushing them as she screamed. She panicked every time she needed a band-aid. She is an extremely picky eater and her pickiness seems to be related to food texture. She doesn't like to get her hands messy and even as a very young toddler taught herself to use utensils rather than have to touch her food. Art activities were only tolerated when a paint brush or some other tool kept the paint from her hands.

Several weeks ago our occupational therapist gave me a surgical brush and showed me the brushing/deep pressure technique. At first it felt awkward and I was self conscious. Ava was a bit intolerant at first as well. After only a few sessions it became something we both enjoy. I tell her it is time for brushing and she hops right into my lap.

Now, you are supposed to do the technique every 90 minutes to 2 hours all day long. We don't. We do the technique twice a day before nap and before bedtime. I am going to try to incorporate it right after morning dressing as well. However, even with a twice a day schedule I have noticed changes.

Ava now lets me fix her hair. She is more tolerant of a wide variety of clothing situations. She is more adventurous with touching art materials, sticky foods, and muddy or dirty things. She's allowing band-aids without much of a fight. For Ava, the brushing technique has worked wonders.

She's also having a bit of a speech and language and social developmental spurt and I'm not sure that is all coincidence. I think that she's feeling more comfortable in her own skin and less overstimulated by her environment. That translates into more mental resources left over for communication.

So what is the Wilbarger Deep Pressure and Proprioceptive Technique?

This technique of brushing the skin and joint compressions was developed by Dr. Patricia Wilbarger, an occupational therapist and clinical psychologist with 30 years of experience working with children with sensory processing issues. The technique involves running a soft surgical brush (it reminds me of the brush the hospital uses to clean newborn babies) over the arms and hands, back, and legs and feet of the child with a firm pressure. The brushing is followed by a sequence of gentle joint compressions of the fingers, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, and spine. The entire process takes only minutes and is often soothing and enjoyable for both parent and child.

Here is a link to a youtube video of an OT using the brushing technique with a young toddler. The video is pretty different than the way we do it. Our way separates the brushing from the joint compressions and is smoother, slower, and more relaxing.

Instructions for the Wilbarger Deep Pressure and Proprioceptive Technique (brushing technique)

Before I explain how we do the technique I should say that this is just the way that we do it as shown to us by our particular occupational therapist for our child. The technique may vary in other situations. Also, I highly recommend that you only perform this technique after being shown how to do it by a certified occupational therapist (which I am not).

Brushing
Use a soft surgical brush. Use pressure firm enough that the bristles on the brush bend. You may do the technique through clothes. My daughter often seems to be a little hot and sweaty and the technique seems to be easier to administer through clothing. Never brush the tummy or face.

We sing a song as we do the technique. At first I would modify the "This is the way we wash our hands, wash our hands, wash our hands. This is the way we wash our hands so early in the morning." song. The first verse would be, "This is the way we brush our arm, brush our arm, brush our arm. This is the way we brush our arm, brush our arm with Mommy." (and so on for each body part). Now I just sing the numbers 1-10 to the melody of a lullaby. It is soothing and peaceful and helps us keep a calming rhythm during the entire technique.

Sit down with crossed legs and invite your child to sit in your lap. Their back is towards you. Begin on whichever side of the body is most comfortable with you. We begin on the right. With a firm pressure, stroke up and down the full length of each body part in the sequence described from 3-10 times (as many as your child will tolerate) moving smoothly from one section of the body to the next.

1. Right arm and hand. (Both sides.)
2. Back. (Have child lean forward so you have room.)
3. Left arm and hand. (Both sides.)
4. Left leg and foot. (Both sides.)
5. Right leg and foot. (Both sides.)

Joint Compressions
You've now worked your way around the body in a circle with the brushing. Set the brush down and move right into the joint compressions. These are difficult to describe in text, which is why it is so important to have an OT demonstrate the technique for you. I will try.

1. Right elbow. Bend elbow 90 degrees supporting elbow from bottom with left hand and holding the wrist with your right. Gently push elbow down into your left hand 10 times.
2. Right shoulder. Straighten child's arm. Place left hand on top of shoulder still holding wrist with your right hand. Hold arm away from body and push straightened arm towards the shoulder 10 times.
3. Right hand's fingers and thumb. Gently squeeze each finger and thumb between your thumb and finger (one at a time) starting at the base of the finger and sliding towards the tip. Do this once per finger.
4. Left elbow. Same technique as before.
5. Left shoulder. Same technique as before.
6. Left hand's fingers and thumb. Same technique as before.
7. Left hip. Cradle the left hip from the bottom with your left hand. This is kind of like having your child sit on your left hand with the left side of their bottom. With their leg bent bring their leg towards their tummy almost like they are going to hug their legs. Place your right hand on their left knee and press down toward their hip 10 times.
8. Right hip. Same technique as before.
9. Knees and ankles. With the child still in your lap place both feet firmly on the floor with their legs bent at a 90 degree angle. Place your hands on top of their knees and gently press down towards the floor 10 times.
10. Back. Set them down on the floor right in front of you and have them cross their legs and sit up straight. Place one hand on their chest and the other on their back and press gently towards the floor 10 times.

Ava just melts into my arms by the end. It is a really peaceful time where we are completely focused on each other and we both enjoy it. The trick is to find the time in a busy day to work it into your routine.

Amazing Things Do Happen

Eight months ago we were a household with two cats. Peanut was mine from before we got married and Cleo was my husband's cat from before we got married. Cleo was a one-man cat. It took me years, I kid you not, to get her to let me pet her. But she adored my husband and the feeling was mutual. He had brought her home from a local animal shelter when she was tiny.

Over six months ago Cleo slipped out of the door and was lost. We searched the neighborhood, let the neighbors know she was missing, posted a few signs, and brought a flyer to the local vet's office to join a sadly crowded bulletin board of similar flyers. We knew the fact that she was people shy was not going to help a lost kitty.

The date on the flyer is the date the vet's office intended to pull it down. They will typically only leave the flyers up for six weeks or so. They called us and asked if we had found her and we asked them to please leave it up.

As days, then weeks, then months passed by we gave up hope. When Michael asked what had happened to Cleo we told him that she had accidentally slipped out the door and got lost. She couldn't find her way home, but another family found her and was taking good care of her for us. We didn't really believe it though.

Several months later we decided to get kittens. Peanut was lonely and too old to want to be involved with the kids much. The kids were starting to get interested in pets. We got the kittens from the same animal shelter my husband had brought Cleo home from all those years ago. When I took the kittens to the vet I saw the flyer and almost told them to take it down, but I didn't.

A few days ago Michael said, "I love our kittens! I hope they never, never slip out the door Mama." He hadn't forgotten Cleo.

Yesterday, out of the blue, we got a call. Someone had Cleo. Apparently she had found her way two subdivisions over. A man who we are told looks something like my husband, saw a stray kitty and slowly began to win her over. They fed her and took care of her as best they could, but they traveled a lot and weren't interested in adopting an indoor cat. They began to think that she had been an indoor pet and after several months found a home for her with a neighbor of theirs. That woman took her cat to our local vet for her annual checkup yesterday and saw our flyer. She called us and Cleo came home that day.

She's so happy to be home. We are happy to have her. Right now she's sequestered in our bedroom just getting used to being home again before we introduce her to two preschoolers who are 6 months older than she remembers and two kittens that weren't here before.

We got her back. After being missing for more than six months, we got her back. It is absolutely amazing.

Speech Sample - Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech - 23 months

This is an audio clip from a video we took on 2-12-2011. Ava is 23 months old. At this point Ava was about six weeks into receiving speech services. Ava and I were laying on the floor and she was making some observations about the striped shirt I was wearing.

In the last audio sample, four weeks prior to this one, Ava produced 10 utterances in a little under a minute. Those utterances included four different words. She used one consonant (/d/) and three vowels (/Ɛ/, /Λ/, /OƱ/).

Here is the new sample:




In this audio sample Ava's utterances are:
"brown" /baƱ/
"brown" /baƱ/
"black" /bæ/
"brown" /baƱ/
"white" /wæ/
"two" /tu/
"there" /dæ/
""black" /bæ/
"more" /mɔ/
"no, no" /noƱ noƱ/
"yeah" /jæ/
"no, mama" /noƱ mama/
"no" /noƱ/

That's 13 utterances total in just over a minute. Two of them are two-word utterances. Nine different words are used. She went from using one consonant to using seven. In the last sample she used three vowel sounds and in this one she uses six vowel sounds. In four weeks, Ava made huge strides in her speech.

The Weekly Review: Week 28

Blog Post that Gave Me an Idea:

I need to do this project for a meal plan board. Several months ago my husband and I finally felt that our family life was pulling together enough to stop planning meals five minutes before we needed to start cooking (and then often going out to dinner because we didn't have ideas/groceries). It has actually been great. Our food budget was reduced by at least a third and as long as we've actually done the meal plan and made the trip to the grocery store we always know what dinner will be. My current sophisticated method of accomplishing this task looks like this:

The meal plan board would be a beautiful upgrade.

Ava this Week:

Ava started going to school two mornings a week when she was 18 months old. She cried at drop off every time. They always tell you that after a few days, or weeks, or months it will stop. It didn't. I was told that she was fine within five minutes of me dropping her off, and I believe that. That knowledge didn't make leaving my crying child any easier. I learned to just make the transition short and quick. Lingering only prolonged things. It has been this way for over a year.

It started last week, but was perfect this week. (I hope I'm not jinxing things by saying this out loud.) Ava has been perfect at drop off. She's excited to enter her classroom. She immediately goes over to her teacher or joins the other children at their activity. I have to get her attention to give her a kiss and tell her goodbye. It is beautiful every time and I feel relief and gratitude for the change.

I really do think the combination of occupation and speech therapy is beginning to pay off. Ava is more comfortable in her classroom and more confident about her ability to communicate and participate. And that translates into less anxiety about being dropped off. It is wonderful.

The Weekly Michael:

Michael loves company. He likes to communicate and interact with other people most of the time. A few weeks ago he was constantly seeking out my company or his Daddy's company. "Come play with me" was a common refrain. Over the past couple of weeks we have started to see a shift. He's asking Ava to come play with him. When she is in the mood to join him, they disappear for 20 or 30 minutes at a time to their bedrooms or the basement playroom. I love watching their bond as playmates begin to deepen.

On the other hand, Ava is still kind of a Mama girl. Often she doesn't want to leave me. Or she'll play with Michael for a while and then wander away from him to come check in on me. And I'll hear Michael calling after her, "Ava, come play with me!"

Kitten Update:

The kittens are hitting adolescence. They are climbing curtains, tipping over laundry baskets and getting stuck in boxes. They are also still adorable and cuddly with us and each other. Black and white Sophie is amazingly tolerant with the children letting them carry her around and pet her in their rather clumsy way. Grace (all black) comes out in quiet moments and snuggles the adults making sure we get some kitten love too. They are now four and a half months old and have been with us for over half their life. Here's a picture of the two of them in a quiet moment.

Weekly Random Question:

Do you ever find yourself debating what's more important: transferring leftovers into a smaller dish so they'll take up less space in the fridge vs. the fact that doing so will create an extra dirty dish to take up space in the dishwasher?

Speech Sample - Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech - 22 months

This is an audio clip from a video we took on 1-15-2011. Ava is 22 months old. At this point she had been evaluated by early intervention and had begun seeing a private SLP twice a week for 30 minutes. I was not yet working with her in any structured way and we had not begun receiving services from early intervention yet.

Ava was laying on a blanket and I put my head beside her. She was quite offended that I was trying to share her blanket and was trying to persuade me to move off. She keeps pointing to a spot off of the blanket and telling me to move "there" while I keep pointing to a spot on the blanket and insisting that I stay. After quite a bit of back and forth I tell her I'll get off if she says "please" (we had taught her the sign for please and I'm actually asking her to use the sign). She uses the sign and I move.

During this interaction I am focusing on getting as many conversational turns in as possible without frustrating her. I've made the situation into a game where she is vocalizing over and over for me. In this one minute interaction I get 10 utterances and a sign. There -may- have even been one two-word utterance of "No, there!", but I can't swear that she really intended two words of if her Daddy and I were reading too much into that one.





As you can see she had made significant progress in a month. In the first video and audio sample Ava was mostly saying "there" over and over. In this audio clip you hear "there"(deh) "no"(oh) "yeah"(eh-uh) and "uh-oh". That's three vowels and one consonant. Still, it is four distinct utterances.

Speech Sample - Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech - 21 months

I decided to go back into the family video archive and try to pull some audio files that are representative of Ava's speech at different points in time. I've already posted something recent and a video from November of 2010 when Ava was 21 months old.

Here's something from about three weeks later (12-19-2010). Ava has found something interesting on the floor. It looks like a sticker of an eye that has fallen off of something and she is pointing to it and "talking" to her Daddy about it.

This was taken about two weeks before she was evaluated by early intervention, about four weeks before a private SLP and I began speech therapy, and about six weeks before she began receiving speech services through early intervention.

It was however, after I had accepted that there was a significant delay and that I needed to schedule evaluations. I began to consciously try to encourage more vocalizations and one method of doing that is to "echo" back what you hear from your child. You hear my husband doing that with Ava during this clip.

Keep in mind that she is almost two years old here.

They Called

Our diagnostic evaluation is officially scheduled. December 15. I spoke with the coordinator of the diagnostic team that will be evaluating Ava. They'll be sending someone out to her school the week before her evaluation to observe her and then we are supposed to allocate all morning starting at 9am for the actual evaluation.

I was nervous as soon as the person on the other end of the line identified herself, so my initial impressions probably aren't super accurate, but I didn't get a great vibe. I can't even quite pinpoint why exactly. I just got the feeling somehow that she already didn't think Ava will qualify.

My thoughts scatter in so many different directions when I think about the evaluation and they're all contradictory. First, I feel I'm embarrassed because I might be wasting their time - Ava probably isn't severe enough any more to continue to qualify for services. The next moment, I'm scared that I'll get that same terrible feeling I've gotten after her initial evaluation and after her formal articulation test. The one that sinks down to the pit of my stomach when I realize how far behind her peers she still is. I worry that she'll do too well and then I feel guilty that I can possibly want her to do poorly. What kind of thought is that for a mother?

I need to just relax. The evaluation is almost three months away. It doesn't do anyone any good to spend those three months obsessing over what may or may not happen. And ultimately, whatever happens, it will be fine. Everything will work out.

It is so easy to dispense such advice, even in my own mind. Now to just follow that good advice...

Movie Night

We have recently started movie night in our household. Once a week or so, we pick a small-child friendly movie. We sit in the dark with a special treat (last night: Necco wafers) and watch the movie - all four of us together. The children are pretty sensitive and during any tense moments we often end up cuddling both children and reassuring them that it will be all right. We tell them that we do not, in fact, have to "quit" the movie.

Our first movie night a couple of weeks ago was the Curious George movie. I thought it was wonderful. It was relatively conflict free and the only part that devastated the children involved animal control briefly taking George away. Last night we watched Ponyo. While the plot was not perfect, it enchanted the children and was interesting for the adults. Definitely a success.

One of the best parts of movie nights has been watching how magical it is for the children. You can just see the wonder of the storytelling in their exclamations and the way they sit on the edge of their seats. I adore watching Ava hop up during the credits and dance to the final song.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for low conflict movies? Traditional Disney movies haven't worked well. My kids are still too little/sensitive for traditional Disney villains. I even unsuccessfully tried Finding Nemo the other day. I could really use some fresh ideas.

The Things I Struggle to Resist

Everyone has their thing. Some people are into cars. Other people are into their houses and decorating or cleaning them. Some people are into clothes or accessories. Some people love crafts. Some people enjoy hobbies and tools. That thing... your thing... is difficult to resist even when buying another item is an indulgence you really should resist. All of the other things are easy to resist, because you just aren't that into them.

For me, cars are just a way to get around. I don't much care what kind of car it is or how it is decorated or cleaned. I love our home, but home decorating and cleaning isn't really my strong point (just being honest here). Clothes are just something to wear. I want to be warm and to feel marginally attractive, but as long as I have two decent pairs of jeans and enough t-shirts, socks, and underwear to make it until the next wash day that's enough for me. Occasionally I will get into a craft of some kind (crosstitch, cricut, many educationally related craft projects), but those are usually relatively short lived.

My weaknesses are books (for myself and for the children). When I am going through a book phase I do the bare minimum on the blog and eat, breathe, and sleep books every moment I am not engaged in child care. The instant download of a new kindle book to my iPhone is dangerous and I will absorb one or two series (3-8 books) in a week. Fortunately, at that point, sanity returns and I put books aside for a while.

The library gets me through the summer months, but Scholastic book orders are dangerous to me during the school year. I have to struggle to get my monthly wish list for the kids down from $60 to a slightly more reasonable $20-$30.

And so that is why it surprised me that I fell in love with a jacket of all things at the mall this weekend. My parents had both children overnight (happiness and joy and much thanks). My husband and I went out for dinner and then headed to the mall to sit in a bookstore and enjoy some leisurely quiet time in public. I got distracted from our main goal (of some peaceful time) by a need to replace the jeans I had literally worn until they had holes in them. While shopping for jeans I discovered this amazing jacket. It was light and compact and fit me beautifully. The cuffs fell right at my wrist and the neck fit perfectly without being too long or short when zipped all the way up. And it was so warm. It was stuffed with goose down.

And I had been wanting a jacket. I only have a winter coat, but no jacket. For the past several years during a fall trip to a park, the rest of the family would pull on jackets and I'd struggle into a bulky long winter coat. Of course, this beautiful, warm, lightweight, perfectly fitting jacket was prohibitively expensive and so I reluctantly put it back on the rack. I went and found some jeans. I insisted that we pop back in and drool on the jacket some more on the way to the bookstore but then I put it out of mind.

As I sat in the bookstore browsing books on homeschooling (a story for another day) I vaguely noticed that my husband disappeared for a while and then came back. On our way out I asked him to grab my sweater from the bag the new jeans were in because the night was chilly. He reached in and pulled out the jacket. He has gone back and bought it for me while I was completely distracted at the bookstore.

And so, for once, I find myself in the odd position of being incredibly excited about having some new clothes. (And very thankful to both my parents for watching our children and my husband for being so thoughtful.)

So what is it that you struggle to resist? :-)

Scholastic Teacher Express eBook Dollar Sale - Code for $10 free

Scholastic has a Teacher Express store where you can buy teacher's resource books in eBook format. The books usually range from $5 to $25 dollars each. They have books targeted to preschool all the way to books targeting high school. They cover a wide variety of subject areas as well.

Through September 20, 2011 they have 849 of their eBooks on sale for $1 each. I think it will combine with the coupon code 10THANKS for $10 off your order. You can actually choose $10 books for free without entering any payment information at all and immediately download the books in pdf format. You do need to create an account with them.

I haven't actually placed my order yet, but I have 45 books in my cart so far. I may need to narrow that list down a bit before actually placing my order. They seem to do this sale once a year. Last year I bought 20 or so books and have enjoyed them.