Celebrating The Little Things In Life
Something I never thought would happen has happened. Little T has been afraid of putting his head in the water while swimming for a long 7 years. Yesterday, things started turning around. For the first time, he put more than just his chin in the water and he finally blew bubbles.
These are the little things that a parent of a special needs child celebrate as a huge victory. A couple years ago, I wasn’t sure if Little T would celebrate this milestone before he turned 10. Then, Tim and I found out that our local parks and rec offered adaptive swim lessons. We immediately enrolled him in swim lessons and picked up brand new swim trunks for him. After his first two weeks, we decided to take a two week break because he was a little overwhelmed by the first two weeks. He is now entering his second two week session and he’s loving it.
Drama King has traded in his baby floaties for…Yep, you guessed it, Noodles! Why are those things so much fun in a pool? On Monday, Drama King and I joined up with our local unschooling group for a after dark pool party, although it didn’t get dark until after we left. We took one of Drama King’s favorite snacks – Frozen Gogurts – to share with our friends. I swam and helped him practice his swimming kicks. I borrowed a couple noodles from the kids and decided at the end of the evening that he MUST have his own set and maybe we could get some for Little T. I guess I’ll be watching those for clearance since stores are starting to thin out their summer stuff now.
In other baby news, Erica and Tony had their sonogram a few days ago and found out they are expecting a baby GIRL! They are thrilled because now they’ll have a boy and a girl to round out their family. Erica is planning on getting her tubes tied after the birth so no more unexpected surprises like this little girl was for them.
Tony’s family has taken on the party planning for her baby shower. I’ve offered to help out as needed but planning a party for that many people would be a huge undertaking for me at this time. I am searching for ideas to pass on to them so comment and share your favorite baby shower party ideas.
You know you’re a mom when…
- You celebrate the first time your child blows bubbles in the swimming pool because you know it means he’ll be swimming soon.
- You celebrate the fact that someone else is joining the special division of parents with more than one child because you know their world is about to change forever!
- You sit down to write ‘You know you’re a mom’ and all you can think about is all the stuff you need to do for your children, like setting out swim attire because you have a doctors appointment and someone else (read: Grandma Cindy) is going to have to ready the child or ensuring the sleepy child is actually awake because he’s slept too long already.
- You’re brand new smart phone has a Winnie The Pooh background, Scooby soundboard, Mario tic-tac-toe, and many learning games just to keep your children entertained and learning in the event you ever run out of interesting stuff to do. Because you want to be prepared and you’d NEVER run out of interesting stuff and really HAVE to use the phone to entertain them, right? {insert evil laugh}
7 Link Challenge #7links
ProBlogger set a challenge to look through our blog and in essence create a ‘sneeze page’ to share posts that you may not have seen, if you came in later in my blog life.
1. Your first post
My first post was basically an announcement that I had switched to WordPress, followed up quickly with an announcement that I had added photos to our photo album. But my first ‘real’ post chronicled our horrid trip over 4th of July weekend to Disneyland when I was 8 months pregnant with Drama King.
2. A post you enjoyed writing the most
I always enjoy writing reviews of products and announcements that benefit our readers but I would have to say writing about the milestones our boys accomplish are always fun. My favorite, maybe because it recently happened, has to be Crossing The Blue Line where I talk about Little T’s swim lessons.
3. A post which had a great discussion
Not a lot of discussion since originally my blog was only for friends and family. I decided a few months to expand my readership and started out with 5 Minutes For Mom’s Ultimate Blog Party 2010 and soon we’ll be participating in another huge blog event, Blogmania.
4. A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written
Heather over at Shhh… Mommy’s Hiding wrote a particularly home hitting post about Regular Moms vs Special Needs Moms. Every time I read it, yes I marked it as a favorite in Google Reader, I think about all that Tim and I have done or learned over Little T’s life. It’s no wonder when Erica or Rob have a question about a non-traditional method of parenting that they call us for advice.
5. Your most helpful post
My first and only at this moment for On The Grill because it provides a fabulous recipe for the best burgers we make plus a link to a recipe for some awesome fries.
6. A post with a title that you are proud of
I always try hard to come up with a catchy title but I think my iPad iCraze is my best title by far.
7. A post that you wish more people had read
Corn Dogs, Beef Jerky And a Sprinkle of Rain because the title is funny and completely describes our day at the county fair. And it makes me laugh just thinking about our day.
Crossing The Blue Line
We all know that dreaded line that marks the end of the shallow side of the swimming pool. Most of us wouldn’t cross it at some point in our life and then it happened; The day we crossed the blue line.
Little T’s day has arrived. He crossed the blue line yesterday. He was so proud of himself that he skipped his normal after swim routine to run out to the car to call me. Yes, Grandma Deb took him to his lesson at his request and he was so excited that he skipped his routine, a routine that he has never skipped, to call me and tell me what he did. When he got home, he immediately told Drama King and Tim about his triumph defeat of that dreaded blue line. He even refused to get out of his swim trunks.
Mommy and Daddy couldn’t be happier for you, Little T!
In other swimming news, Little T still has not blown bubbles nor put his face anywhere near the water but he loves swimming finally. He is excited every day when I announce it’s time to get ready to swim. Drama King is feeling a little left out because he’s not getting to swim so we’ll rectify that in a few weeks once Little T’s lessons are done.
Little T’s First Swim Lesson
Little T has always had trouble with water, if it requires or he thinks it may require putting his head under water. Needless to say, he was less then happy when I informed him that we signed him up for swim lessons this summer. I opted to put him in the adaptive aquatics for kids with disabilities instead of traditional swim lessons. I thought it might be slowed paced and more understanding of his quirks.
After his first lesson today, he is excited about doing lessons 4 days a week. He will not go into a deep swimming pool without his floaties so this was a first for him. It took about 5 minutes to coax him into the water. Another few minutes to get him to trust himself and then he quickly started doing things.
He floated on his back with his head resting on my shoulder for a minute. He refused at first to put his chin in the water but he DID it by mid-lesson. He walked along holding onto the rail ‘chasing’ the instructor towards the deeper end of the pool. He wouldn’t go past the red line that denotes the shallow from deep end. He bounced up and down over and over. He refused at first to put his mouth in the water but he DID it by the end of class. He floated on his tummy and kicked his feet pushing me and him in the water.
He is SUPER proud of himself and of course Tim and I couldn’t be more excited for him. I cannot wait for him to be able to swim. It’ll be a long road but our only goal is for him to be able to trend water in the event he falls into the pool when we’re not watching.
Monday Mingle – Our Busy Weekend
Saturday, Tim and I reorganized our coupon dividers and we’re contemplating moving to a binder system. It’s getting rough to flip through 20-30 coupons to find the one coupon we know is in the divider. We have three 13 slot file containers, two dedicated to grocery items and one dedicated to non-grocery items. On top of that, I have a binder where I’ve been putting the full page coupons or larger saving sheets. If you’re a coupon person, what type of system do you use?
Today, we’ve played catch up on random things. We watched the final three episodes of “FlashForward”. I was sad to hear that it wasn’t picked up for a second season because I thought it was a great show. And while I enjoy “V” just as much, I hate to see such an interesting show be dropped to a remake of a show.
I’ve also been working on a few reviews for you guys. I have a SafetyTats and GlueDots review that I’m working on now. Do you have any questions or concerns about either of these products that you’d like me to answer?
And I’m searching for Blogmania sponsors so if you are interested in offering an item or gift card in exchange for advertising on our site and through our twitter accounts, please contact us.
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