At Home Therapy Plan 2.0 (or is it 3.0? 5.0?...)

I finally gave up on self-discipline. Almost a year later I still hadn't found a way to consistently do therapy with Ava during the day. I'm a speech therapist. My daughter needs speech therapy. This shouldn't be a difficult equation!

So, I enlisted my husband's help. The newest plan involves dinner. It is our most consistent group meal. We sit down as a complete family at home at least 5-7 days a week. After dinner, Michael helps his father clear the table and load the dishwasher while Ava and I do speech.

It's been a little over a week and this seems to be working. It's the routine. Everyone knows and expects this particular plan, so I don't have to remember all by myself.

Now getting Ava to cooperate so that we actually get speech practice instead of pouting in is an entirely different matter. I tried being firm. Boy can she be stubborn. She's perfectly happy to sit in time out, or forgo some fun activity later in order to avoid speech now.

I admit it. I have resorted to simple bribery. My children rarely get candy. We just don't keep it around and so they don't expect it. If I pull out a single pink starburst candy, show it to her, and tell her she can have it if she does a good job at speech, I get a beautiful session. I leave it right there in the middle of the table in full view. When she starts to slip and get pouty because I ask for three repetitions of something difficult (stupid /k/) then I don't even have to say anything. I just reach my finger over and slide that piece of candy a little farther away from her. Our eyes meet and I raise my eyebrows a little and she's back with the program.

I feel a little like I -should- feel guilty about this, but I don't. One piece of candy a day is certainly not going to kill her and the consistency of cooperative speech sessions is priceless.

There you go. I wouldn't exactly recommend it for professional practice, but it's working here in my own home.

Fall

When we were rearranging Ava's room we moved a bunch of treasured belongings crap into the upstairs landing area. It's still there. We'll get to it eventually.

A few nights ago as I was getting ready to head up to bed I heard the distinctive sound of a kitty batting something around in play. I went around the corner to investigate. The sound was coming from above. I looked up and to my horror our kitten Grace was dashing around the upstairs landing on the -outside- of the rail.

I must have gasped and startled her because she startled, slipped, and fell off the landing heading for the hardwood floor a full story below.

Did you guys read that news story about a woman walking by on a street who caught a baby who had fallen off a balcony? I am so not that woman. My reaction time is s l o w. Grace crashed into the floor before I had even fully processed what was going on.

I was terrified, briefly. But she scrambled up and ran off as if she hadn't just fallen straight down from one floor to another onto a hard wooden floor. It took much longer for me to calm down and for my heart rate to return to normal than the entire event took to begin with.

And the moral of this story...?

I have no idea. :-). Don't count on me to catch you if you fall? Kittens really can fall at least one story without harm? Be thankful when disaster passes you by?

The Weekly Review: Week 37

This week's atypical weekly review is brought to you courtesy of the two hours I went overboard prepping for a preschool school project last night instead of working on preparing a typical weekly review.

So, this is how it went...

Assignment:
Help your child make five holiday cards to be sent to a nursing home.

Initial thoughts:
Hmm. I can use the cricut to make some trees. Michael can glue them to some construction paper and then glue on some ornaments and color it and we'll be done.

And then:

1. Well, if I'm getting the cricut out anyway, I might as well cut the cards out of cardstock and matching envelopes. (This step didn't go smoothly, and took much longer than intended.)
2. Oooh, I have some pretty glittery cardstock. I'll cut the ornaments out of cardstock too.
3. And look! I can print a pretty phrase too! (Joy)

Seriously, by the time all that was done, my poor husband had put the children to bed by himself.

And now I have a big pile of card components to assemble with the children today and they'll still just color all over them.