We’ve been doing a fair amount of salt dough creation. Right now we are working on an Easter egg tree. We made salt dough eggs, and have painted them a base color. We’ll be adding accents later. Kidlet and I will be exploring glass etching to decorate the vase we are using to hold the twig “tree”.
One of the things that Kidlet struggles with is handwriting (which I know I’ve been mentioning for years!). The fact is that he has some motor skill issues (not uncommon with aspergers), and its not entirely in his control (although he absolutely will not hold the pencil correctly; I’ve tried so many different pencil grips, and the Flip the Pencil Trick, and grip tools, and the Y shaped pencils from penagain – nothing helps).
The trouble really comes in that it is hard work for him to get the letters even remotely legible, and he knows that it still isn’t very neat, and he gets so frustrated that he can’t make the letters look like he knows they should, even though he is already taking much longer to write than his classmates (when he tries. Frequently he just gives up trying to make it look good, and has a chicken scratch only a mother can read =().  Writing time can become melt-down time, pretty quickly. (They just started learning cursive too, a nightmare, but that’s another issue ;))
So, it is with some annoyance that twice a week I have to make my kid sit down and do 2 pages of spelling homework. His school uses Scott Foresman Reading Street, and on Monday they take a pre-test of 12 normal words and 3 priority (sight/dolce) words. There is a second list of 15 words (“challenge words”); so if a child gets one of the pre-test words correct, they don’t study that word, instead they study the first word in the challenge word list, and so on. With few exceptions, Kidlet rarely misses any words on the pre-test, so his post-test on Friday will consist of almost all challenge words.
A sheet like this comes home each week with the words circled that Kidlet needs to study. (The errors in capitalization are mine. waterproof and evaporation aren’t capitalized on the actual weekly sheet, but my app “auto-corrected” them for me, oops).
BUT, the homework is photocopied from a SF spelling practice book, so the 4 pages a week of spelling homework are on the first 12 words of the 30 (sometimes it includes the first 3 challenge words, but not always). The 12 words my kid almost never needs to study. Can you guess how well it goes over that he has to do the dreaded writing to “study” words that he doesn’t need to study?
So we come up with different solutions for practicing the words that he “needs” to study (tbh, he generally only gets 4-5 words that he actually doesn’t know how to spell, even when its all “challenge words” ;)). I’ll have him use a set of alphabet stamps to spell his words, or type them on the computer using different fun fonts. Sometimes I will pull out the gel bag (ziploc bag with cheap hair gel, food coloring and glitter) and have him draw the letters in that. I will have him use the words in sentences, the sillier the better (typed up ont he computer of course). Some days I let him give me the spelling test, and he has to correct it. We’ll use magnet letters or scrabble tiles, or do oral spelling bees. We’ll twist pipe cleaners into letter shapes to spell the words. I try to be creative and come up with different things each week.
On days where I know that I am volunteering first thing in the morning, and I will be the one pulling and correcting the homework (the teacher only keeps track of IF they did it, now how they scored on it), I don’t even make him suffer through those worksheets. (don’t judge!) However, even on days where Lil L is headed to child care, I sometimes have trouble getting the kids out of the house early enough to drop her off first. I have to take Kidlet in, then take Lil L to KinderCare, and then come back to Kidlet’s school to volunteer. So I present the homework most days, even if I *think* that I’ll be the one checking it in.
Is it really *that* hard to click on the individual blog entry when linking from a blog to pinterest? It’s quite annoying to click a pinterest link that looks so very interesting to discover you are at the blog home page, or on an archive page, in either case, no idea where the original post is located. (or to a tumblr feed, or a google search page, etc).  Almost as useful — linking to an embedded picture, so the pinterest link pulls up some bp1.blogspot.com address, instead of the actual blog where you might find information about the picture.
You really gotta wonder if people are actually trying to access the links they are re-pinning.
Only pin / re-pin to an original source!
Lil L is 32 months. Kidlet just turned 8.
A Few of Lil L’s recent activities. You can see her poor scraggly hair a bit in some of these. My daughter inherited *my* hair, which means its very thin, very fine, and tangles if you breathe on it. This is no exaggeration. No amount of leave in conditioner, de-tangling spray, etc does any good. We get giant clumps of rats nest hair, and combing it is a NIGHTMARE. She tends to have greasy looking hair around the house, because I saturate it in conditioner and let it just sit on the head in the hopes that just maybe THIS time it will make a difference. (it doesn’t =0)
Playdough mats (L for her name, although she can spell it now)
I bought this button art on a super sale for Christmas 2010, but had it put up until she could actually use it. We pulled it out a few months ago, and she loves snapping the buttons in place. She often wants to use it without one of the included patterns, but this time was using them. She decided that she wanted her boat to have eyes, color coding on the picture mat notwithstanding.
Making sculptures from Crayola Model Magic, buttons, tiny letter dice (from inside mini boggle games from Oriental Trading that were 50% off since they were “less than perfect” which doesn’t matter for this!). She did her name first without assistance, then asked how to spell mommy, daddy and her brothers name, then she found the letters on the dice and pushed them in.
Showing off her “P” work.
While mommy and kidlet were dyeing some rice  (below) for a later project, she is playing with a sensory bin (mainly a mix of brown and wild rices that I had bought in bulk and everyone in our family hated it the one time I made it) with measuring cups, containers, and funnels. The bin WAS full when she started; throwing the rice about is so much fun.
We used gel food coloring (since that is what I had on hand) and a bit of rubbing alcohol. I don’t know what purpose that serves exactly, but we were happy with the vibrant colors that came out of it.
Kidlet has been working on idioms. That is a tough one when you have asperger’s. I had seen a display of idiom worksheets onpinterest (can’t find that link now to credit them). But they didn’t share the sheet they used, just the image of finished results, so I created one.
We have done a few of them (ants in your pants, let the cat out of the bag), which I meant to show here, but didn’t get them scanned. I put the idiom in at the top, and then have him draw what he thinks it would look like if it meant exactly what it said. Then we talk about what it really means, and add the definition and use. Then I have him write a sentence using the idiom.
What’s new?
Kidlet officially has Asperger’s with major sensory processing issues (not that we didn’t already know that for months). I will leave it at that un-emotionally changred sentence for now. I assure you, reality is far from un-emotional.
Kidlet informed me some time ago that cute bento lunches were not appropriate for his age (whatever!). I still pack his meals in laptop lunchboxes or bento boxes, but they aren’t worth photographing.
Baby L is no baby! Not quite 3, but way “too” bright. I have struggled with tot school because her knowledge exceeds her age. Far exceeds it.  She has known her alphabet (and not just singing it, but being able to identify letters at random, upper and lower) for a year and knows the sounds of most letters, counts to 30 on her own (and rocognizes, in random order written numbers to 20, plus the 10’s to 100), can tell you how many objects are in a group without actually counting them, up to 5 easily, knows all her colors, all the basic shapes, can expand on patterns, sorts by at least 2 different criteria (round & blue for instance), and on and on.
Her motor skills are age 2, so much writing isn’t possible (although we have been doing various pre-writing activities and fine motor activities with tweezers and eyedroppers, etc to prepare her), and she certainly isn’t holding writing utensils correctly, or able to use scissors. And emotionally she is 2. She isn’t ready for more advanced “work”, and it’s been VERY challenging for mom to find activities that will interest the 2 year old who has the”academic” knowledge of a 4 year old and are actually doable by said 2 year old.
Emotionally, I am a wreck, and physically, there hasn’t been a lot of change. I’ve lost maybe 15 pounds since Baby L was born.
So very busy.  I’ve been fighting with my meds, and they finally seem to be getting me close to normal. I have some motivation and I’m not laying on the couch half the day. I’m not spending a ton of time on the computer. About the only thing online I’ve been up to lately is playing with Polyvore. It’s fun, its like scrapbooking with clothes or playing with paper dolls. I can browse there on the iPad, so I don’t have to be AT the computer, except to make a set, but can check in with my contacts from time to time while hanging with the kids.
Lately I have been using it to try and organize a capsule wardrobe plan because *fanfare please*, I have started losing weight again. I’ve been stuck for so long, but now I am inching back down the scale. I’m at my lowest since before I got married (in ’98), although not quite down to where I was when I met DH in ’96. Almost though.
When you lose so slowly, its hard to see it, which makes it hard to celebrate. I tried on my wedding dress though, and while not falling off me, there is definitely some room in there. I am also able to fit into my “inspiration shirt” that has been hanging in my bathroom (a 3x from coldwater creek). NSV are the best.
I spent a few days this past week cleaning out my closet. I’d been wearing the same old clothes that I’ve had forever, even from my highest weight. I had sizes ranging up to 38. Pants were almost literally falling off me, and the shirts were like tents.  I’ve continued to wear what I could and put off buying much because it seems crazy to spend a ton of money on clothes that will again (knock wood) be too big in another year.
However, I decided it was time to ditch them and get an interim wardrobe.  They say that keeping the big clothes around makes it too easy to fall back into old habits. Besides, its difficult to feel good about how far I have come when I still LOOK like I weigh 375 pounds because I’m wearing baggy, oversized clothes that only make me look bigger than I am.
My mom was in town for a couple days (DH is gone to Chicago for 2 weeks for work, and she wanted to give me a break), so I had a (relatively) neutral judge on what still looked OK and could stay in the closet and what was ridiculously big and needs to be donated to Goodwill. I ended up with 5 large black garbage bags full of discards. My closet is still a little barren, but I think I can get by with just a little shopping, accessorizing with things that I haven’t shrunk out of (ie, bags, shoes, scarves, jewelry, etc!).
Since my old inspiration shirt is now a wearable part of my wardrobe, I have purchased a new inspiration shirt. It’s an XL from J.Crew. It’s suprisingly close to fitting. Once I can wear it, I will be in basically NORMAL sizes. (OK, for all you 2’s out there, it doesn’t seem normal, but from someone that was facing having to shop online because she was bulging out of 38s, the largest found locally, the prospect of being able to get even the largest size of a normal store is liberating).
We’re alive and kicking.Â
Mostly been packing regular laptop lunches or having hot lunch. I’m quite sad about that, because I’m missing opportunities for Halloween bento, which are by far my favorite to do!
Tot school goes on, but Baby L and I have been sick for 4 out of the last 5 weeks. We’re really sick for a few days, then just a little sick, then it lingers on a few more — and then we get sick all over again. L is getting tot school time, but I’m not planning ahead very well, and I’ve not been documenting what we do, so no posts there.
I’m spending ridiculous hours a week on my volunteer jobs at Kidlet’s school (this is the last week of intense work for one of them thankfully).  I’ll still be spending about 4-6 hours a week volunteering in the classroom, and the Art Lit coordinator job I’m doing does take quite a bit of time in prepping the lessons, teaching the parent class and then presenting it to my son’s class, but we only do a new artist/culture every month or so, so it shouldn’t be as time consuming as the volunteer coordinator job has been in finding people to chair events, and filling holes for classroom helpers, etc.
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This is one of the few mid sized bento that we have, and its the perfect amount of food — and he accidentally broke one of the clips. Sigh =)
PB and blueberry jam leaf shaped sandwich, grapes, babybel, grape tomatoes and carrots.
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Another quickie. One of these days I’ll find a little more time again!
Pb and lemon curd sandwiches in flower shape with candy sprinkles in the center, quail eggs, starawberries and corn.
Apple week  Â
Baby L is 16 months Â
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Tot Basket: V-Tech Learning the Alphabet Apple Â
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This toy has a number of settings, some are defintely for the older preschool set. At 16 months, her favorite mode is “music”; when she pushes any of the letters it launches a different instrumental, generally toddler faves. She also really enjoyed spinning the clock handles.Â
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Felt Board. I made these felt pieces new for this week with a bit of felt, some nice sharp scissors, and some fabric glue. It has 10 little apples for apple chants and of course the apple tree.Â
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We did “10 little indians” with apples instead.  As well as a chant ala 5 little monkey with apples instead. And another, which makes a good fingerplay as well.Â
Way up high in the apple tree
Two red apples smiled at me
I shook that tree as hard as I could
Down came the apples,
Mmmm–were they good!Â
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Tot Basket: Magnetic Apple Fractions. Technically, these belong to big brother, but she kept wanting to play with them. Â
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Pulling them out and fitting them back in like a shape sorter, and dividing them into pieces and then having them snap back into place when she got the pieces lined back up were loads of fun.Â
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She also enjoyed stacking them, and I was very suprised to see that she was able to balance all four apples on top of each other, despite the fact that they aren’t flat.Â
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Crafts:Â
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We looked at red and green apples and talked about the colors, and then I gave her red and green tadoodles markers to see how she would do with them, as the last time we tried markers a few weeks back, it was disasterous. It went a lot better this time, though much marker ink still ended up all over hands =)Â
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I made an apple tree out of cardstock and glued it down on a background. The intent was to let her use up a whole sheet of smaller apple stickers, but I couldn’t find them, so instead I used spray adhesive to turn some larger paper apples (bulletin board decorations) into “stickers”.Â
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That left us with apples rather out of proportion to the tree, but I don’t think she minded ;)Â
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Others: Washed apples with a vegetable brush in a pan of water; paper apples graduated in size downloaded from File Folder Fun, which we used to talk about big, bigger, biggest and small, smaller, smallest;Â
On topic books we read this week: 10 Apples Up on Top, The Apple Pie Tree, Apple Farmer Annie, Five Red Apples (pat the bunny series)Â
On topic snacks this week: apples, apples and more apples! raw in thin slices, applesauce, baked with cinnamon, apple muffins, thin apple sliced cut into apple shapes with mini cookie cutter 😉
The Favorite:
Applesauce on a Stick
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1/2 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
3 medium apples unpeeled cored and cut up
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup dark raisins
1 tablespoon sugar or to taste
Popsicle sticks
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Process apples, juice, cinnamon and raisins in blender or food processor until smooth; add sugar to taste. It will taste less sweet when frozen. Spoon into 3-4 ounce paper or plastic cups or frozen sucker molds. Place in freezer. When partially frozen, insert a stick in each cup and finish freezing.
New sign: “Apple” isn’t really new, but of course I focused on that this week! Make either the “X” or “A” sign, place the knuckle of your right index finger against your cheek and pivot the hand back and forth.Â
Find more terrific tot school posts over at 1+ 1 + 1 = 1