budding photographer

Dominic has really started enjoying the camera app on my iphone.  which is fine, i've got the whole thing in an  otterbox, he won't hurt it.   and its kind of funny to see what he takes pictures of.

I found a picture on there of the 101 Dalmatians playing on our TV, for example.  And the fish tank. Lots of pictures of his thumb.

The other day, at our chiropractor appointment, he played with my phone while I was getting adjusted.  There were roughly 30 blurry unidentifiable pictures, and then there were some decent ones.   He has figured out how to take selfies!


Here he is making faces at the camera:

I had my glasses off because I was laying face down. I didn't realize until I saw the camera later that he put them on.  Being as how both his parents wear glasses, we expect he'll end up with them eventually.   They look pretty good on him.

And here is one of the best pictures he took - of me getting an adjustment from Dr Allen

Here we come, Third Grade

I met with Dominic's  SPED teacher on Friday, Ms V.,  And we're all set to start school Monday.

We covered all the usual back to school topics:

- He'll have the same EA for working on his ABBLS goals that he's had for the last several years, Ms B, which  I'm thrilled about.  They will also have several other adults working with him every day, to hopefully broaden the number of adults he does well with. 

 - How the summer Went :  in 12 weeks of daycamp, he really only had 3 bad days.  She was really impressed.  Also let her know that wearing him out makes him sit more calmly.  She's going to entertain the idea of PE every day instead of every other.  We're okay with that.

- Communication: We'll use a binder again, and we'll have a touch base meeting in October to see how he's doing on his goals and on the ABBLS programming

- Food:  we'll send 2 snacks per day, plus some extra GFCF non perishables, and a baggie of frozen cupcakes to live in their freezer that he can eat during class parties

- the iPad:  It'll stay at home for now.  They'll let us know if they'd like us to bring it in.

- homework:  Will have its own folder and come home every day.

- Transportation:  The bus will pick him up at our door every morning at 7:34am and drop him back off every afternoon at 2:45pm.

- his daily schedule:  They'll be attempting to give him only 2 extra sensory breaks this year (last year he had three).  They're going to work really hard on encouraging him to make choices himself about what to do - giving him three options (going outside,  painting, or going to the library) and then allowing the other child he does sensory breaks with pick the second one of the day.  I told her "good luck"

- his Speech therapy will be a bit different this year.  Ms S, the SLP (speech and language pathogist) will be in the building a few days a week. Instead of Dominic getting his speech therapy from an EA under Ms S's supervision, she will be working directly with him this year.  One day a week, he'll be in a speech therapy group setting working on increasing verbal turn taking with peers (which his EA watches so that the skills can potentially be generalized for the rest of the week) and the other day he'll be one on one with Ms S. 

~~~

Here's an interesting number.  In a school that has just under 300 kids enrolled, there're 27 of them on the SPED teachers case load.  thats pretty much 10%

House Alarm

When we moved into our house 15 years ago, it creaked.  And it sounded like someone was walking around upstairs (we sleep in the basement).  So we got a security system.  We’ve kept it going all these years and it really is just a piece of mind thing.

Saturday morning, I was in the shower and the alarm started going off.  I got out of the shower, grabbed a towel, laid eyes on Dominic and turned the alarm off.   He was sitting on the sofa, fingers in ears, holding a box.    I went up stairs dripping wet in a towel to find the front door wide open.

I closed it.

Went back downstairs to inspect the box.  It was a delivery from fedex.  Here’s what happened

The Fedex man rang the doorbell

Dominic, while I was in the shower, un-deadbolted  and opened the door thus setting off the alarm, and brought the box inside.

Then he sat on the sofa and stuck his fingers in his ears.

First – huge scare, he could’ve just wandered away and been a block away or more by the time I got the alarm off and got upstairs.  He didn’t.  We have since changed all the deadbolts in the house to be keyed and have hung the keys far outside his reach.

This is a huge gain for him to be able to open the door (he didn’t have the hand strength even a month ago), get the box, and sit and wait for me.  

Catch up post. With pictures!

This post will jump around a lot.  Sorry in advance.

Dominic had a great first couple of days at camp this week, but the second half of the week was the hardest he's had all summer.  He was tired, aggressive, impatient, non compliant, and growly.  It corresponded to a supplement tweak I'd made, and we realized he was detoxing more than his body knew what to do with.  Couple of course corrections and an adjustment from our chiropractor (who is back to work after surgery, yay) in which she manually drained his liver (and he LET HER) for a solid 5 minutes - longest ever - and he's completely chill this afternoon.   Hoping he'll be back to normal at camp next week.

I picked him up one day and I have no idea what he did, because when he WENT to camp, his hair was nicely brushed.  At any rate, i think this is a preview to teenage angst.

Today is Rod's birthday.  Yesterday, while i was making his birthday cake, my friend came over to get something that I made her.  And for some reason the dog didn't greet her.  Then I realized...

He'd put the dog in the box.  and the dog stayed.  Shanti's a little weird.

I made a GFCF Chocolate Cake, mostly so that Dominic could have a piece, but i'm always happy when he can do something totally in line with what kids without dietary restrictions do....

Then he got really quiet and i Couldn't figure out why....  Remember the box the dog was in???  I peeked out of the kitchen and saw this. 

Today we went to Lowes in search of a few more things for our hopefully almost done basement remodel.  Along the way Dominic found a new trash can for his room.   

While our Chiro was on hiatus, we took him to her backup for an adjustment.  SAid backup gave him a phone cord to play with and that was a month ago.  He still begs for phone cords.  Calls them slinkies.  Mostly because he's now killed a good 5 slinky dog toys (from toy story).  Anyway.  He slept with that thing, carried it around.  Loved on it.  Was horribly sad when i made it go away one day.    Today, tho, at Lowes, we found the PERFECT replacement.   And i bought 4.   Its a bracelet meant for holding a key chain. But he had me remove the key ring from it.  No worries.

Oh and, this is not the basement as it will be.  We are replacing (right now in fact) the door he's in front of and then have to do the trimming.