Thursday, April 17, 2008

Spring has arrived and MAMA is back

It has been a busy 'break.' While I am excited that I have started to reorganize or rather gain the upper hand in my house again, I realize I have overly-high expectations as to what I can actually accomplish. Getting sick really set me back, then the girls getting sick, well, that is just always fun and time consuming. :-) But with Alex's birthday coming up I really hoped to have more done--for example, the bookroom. We can't even walk in there anymore and I just feel like I need to hire someone to take care of the kids for a few hours so I can tackle it. Then the days after follow it up so I can do the basement, garage, boys' rooms, girls' room, and my room. So what did I accompish so far? I am not telling you--I still have three+ days of my vacation left.

The girls are feeling better-though poor Alex is still tired, cranky and sore. She loves being able to have ices though. She uses her own scissors to open them up and is very self-sufficient in getting the pop, a napkin so her hands don't freeze and settling down to enjoy the ice pop.

Yesterday Kath brought "Mama" back into her vocabulary. She has to work it, you can see her thinking it before it pops out. It is like watching someone try to speak a language foreign to them. She moves her lips, watches your eyes and then finally will let out a sound. If she gets it right she is very excited and expects you to be too. And, by golly you should be. She worked real hard to get it out!

She is loving being outside so much, but since she is still crawling she is ruining shoes and pants. But that is better than yesterday when I didn't put shoes on her (we are encouraged to let Kath go shoeless so she can feel the ground and have her brain send messages back and forth.) But she cut up, mostly, her right foot. So today she had a thinkish pair of sweat pants on and socks and shoes.

She loves to 'help.' I asked her one day this week if she wanted to help me make cupcakes. She nodded her head and then 'helped' me line the tins, scoop mix and generally made a mess. Since she does not have a lot of fine motor coordination her movements are jerky and powerful. Yesterday she played in the old firetruck we have (if anyone sees one of those Little Tykes cars in a garage sale--and lives within comfortable driving range of our state, let me know--make sure the wheels work though). She struggled so hard to get her fingers around the ignition key-it was like watching someone work a crane from through a game arcade window, her hands were getting the message but not everything was listening at the right time. But, she didn't give up. It wasn't until I watched this for a few minutes that I realized the amazing part was that this was with her RIGHT hand, not her left. I have often said that I am pretty sure she would be right handed-her left hand works like the 'other hand' does. It was just great to see her right hand reach for, work on and struggle with a task. She seems to be using it much more and not just as a helping hand. I also asked her today if she wanted to help us move the sand box. She had just heard me grunting as I pushed it, so once I put her next to the box, she began to grunt. She cracks me up.

Hope everyone is well.
Good nite!

1 comment:

crazyauntkaren said...

Whew you are making me tired just reading this. Hope everyone is feeling better. So far, all clear here on the Coxsackie virus front. Hang in there.