Inconvenience

I am basically a people pleaser by nature. It just clicked with me in childhood like a baby duckling imprints on its mother. We follow rules. That's a fundamental truth. We try to make the people around us happy. Another fundamental truth. Being an inconvenience or annoyance to others is to be avoided at all costs.

As an adult I realize that this simply isn't possible at all times. I know that. I know it isn't healthy or possible to feel a compulsive need to keep everyone around me happy all the time. You'd think raising two under two would have beaten that out of me, but dealing with children is somehow exempt from all of the above.

Then it turned out that Ava needs extra help. In order to get her the help she needs I have to be her advocate, translator, chauffeur, personal assistant, and liaison in addition to raising her to be an intelligent, caring, responsible adult who knows, without question, that she is loved. In order to be this advocate for her I have to do things I find uncomfortable.

Specifically, I am asking her preschool office staff and teachers to make some accommodations for her. She has been receiving speech at school. Her teacher has been wonderful about it. She even helped us get permission from some of the other parents in the room to participate so that her therapist can facilitate her communication in a small group. Overall, the school has been wonderful too, even providing a room for them to work in.

Ava's third birthday is on the horizon and the school district is preparing to evaluate her in December. They've called the school to set up an appointment to do an official classroom observation as part of that evaluation.

Last week her occupational therapist expressed a desire to observe her in the classroom during play and during her lunch at school. She and I tentatively set that up for next Tuesday. I mentioned that to the preschool director as I was heading to pick Ava up from her classroom and I got a distinctly chilly vibe. She said it was fine, of course, but the subtext was clear [enough is enough].

It was just a little thing. It was, perhaps, 30 seconds of my day. She didn't even say anything, it was just a negative, inconvenienced vibe. And yet I'm still thinking about it. It's because I want to please. I don't want to be that parent who is a nuisance.

I need to get over it. I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. This journey with Ava will consist of many more moments when I have to push, or inconvenience someone. It's just the nature of this particular beast.

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.

Salt Art

These turned out beautifully.

1. First you take watercolor paper and let the children drizzle glue all over the paper.
   
   
   
   
2. Then you have them sprinkle salt over the glue until the glue is completely covered with salt.
   
   
3. Count to 20 or sing the ABC song to let the glue set a bit and then shake off excess salt.
4. We let ours dry for a couple of days but I've read that you can just go ahead and move to the next step immediately if you like.
5. Put liquid watercolors in an ice cube tray. We have red, yellow, and blue. We used those to also make orange, green, and purple. (You could also use water colored with food coloring.) Put one eyedropper in each spot.
   
   
6. Let the children drop the watercolors onto the salt trails using the eyedroppers. The salt trails will wick away the paint. They loved this and it really encourages fine motor control because it works best if they only dispense one drop at a time.
   
   
7. Admire end result and place somewhere to dry.
   
   
8. [Optional]When children want to continue using eyedroppers and watercolors provide additional paper and show them how they can use the eyedroppers as tools to make lines from the drops of paint.