Team Stephen

This sweet boy started First Grade yesterday.  First Grade.  I can hardly believe that he's old enough for that, and yet, he was more than ready.

We met "Team Stephen" on Friday for the first time.  All but one member of the school team is new to us, and I think this is probably going to be to Stephen's advantage.  Every single person on his team believes in Stephen's abilities and intelligence, and our hopes for his future, which makes it a lot easier for us to send him off on the bus to his new school each day. 

Stephen has an iPad with his speech program on it available to him at all times during the school day, and even on his first day, he was communicating well with his teacher, and advocating for his own needs.  He also made sure to show off everything that he learned in Kindergarten last year, and impressed his teacher quite a bit.  Stephen is currently in a combination of special education classes and inclusive (typical) classes and activities, and once everyone has gotten to know each other, and we figure out what kind of supports Stephen will need, we will meet in a month to make a new plan for Stephen.  With the ability to communicate better, Stephen is much more confident and sure of himself, which has been such a joy to see.  This kid just amazes us every day.

Summer fun

We've been having a lot of fun this summer...

 

Learning how to do the back float (finally!!!) - Stephen is so funny about floating on his back.  He is very confident, right until he feels his teacher is starting to move his hand... then he starts to laugh and tries to swim away.

We've been playing outside with no shoes on.  This is a new thing for Stephen this summer - he used to only want to play when he had shoes on, but now he'd prefer to be barefoot.

 We've enjoyed a few lazy days when it's been raining...

 AND!!!  We finally made it to the dentist so Stephen could get his space maintainer put in!  This is the before picture.

And... after.  Stephen was sedated during the procedure, and took a nice, long snooze after it was over.  We stayed at the office for a little over an hour afterwards, and then we came home and he slept for a couple more.  I don't have any good pictures, yet, of him smiling with his new tooth - not because he isn't smiling, but because I'm not fast enough with the camera, and he's always on the move.  Stephen is THRILLED to have his "tooth" back and doesn't mess with it at all.  It is a resin "tooth" connected with wires to his back molars, so we are being very vigilant in his brushing. 


 We've also spent some time at Frontier City with Stephen's grandparents... they usually don't come to visit in the summer...

Which leads me to my next little bit of news!

Back in May, Mom and Dad sold their house!!  They decided to move here to be closer to us, and help out with Stephen while I return to school next month to pursue my Master's Degree.  Thanks to Erik's job, I can attend an accelerated program, and in a year, will have a Master's of Education degree in Applied Behavioral studies.  They close on their new house here next week, and we are all very excited!  They have been living with us for the last month of so, which has also been fun.

So that's what we've been up to - swimming, and fun!!

FINALLY!!!

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but over Spring Break, we were planning on going with Pa and Kim to Walt Disney World... except Stephen had his accident, and couldn't travel for a few weeks.  Luckily, Pa had gotten travel insurance for the trip (he said it was the first time he'd ever done that - wasn't THAT lucky?!?!), and we were able to reschedule. We left last Tuesday, for 5 days in Orlando filled with sun, fun, and a lot of rain!

I'm not going to bore you with a lot of details of our trip.  Basically, we had a ton of fun, and went on a lot of rides.  Because of Stephen's physical challenges, I rented a stroller to be delivered to our hotel, and thank goodness I did!  That place was huge!  We also had it tagged as a wheelchair, because we know he would not be able to stand in long lines and just wait there without wanting to be picked up, and he's just getting a little too big for that.  That was also a good decision for all of us, I think.

 

This coloring picture is a BIG DEAL!  Stephen really struggles with holding things smaller than a thick marker, and in the past was not able to use enough pressure to make a good mark.  Also, he hasn't really ever enjoyed coloring, so having him do this voluntarily, even though it was only for a few minutes, was impressive.

 

 

 

Stephen was absolutely thrilled with most of the characters that he met.  Stephen loves characters, and he's such a cuddly guy, so it was perfect for him.  With the exception of Mickey, Mike and Sully, Stephen met all of these characters at Character Meals, which kept us from having to wait in too many lines.  He also went on pretty much every ride for which he met the height requirements, and was especially thrilled with Test Track in Epcot - a super fast and smooth car ride.  And then of course there were the teacups...

Overall, we had a really great time.  It rained quite a bit on Thursday, thanks to Tropical Storm Andrea, but we soldiered on in the parks anyways - the rain cleared out quite a bit of the crowd, so that was pretty fun too.  While there, Stephen discovered a new love - Star Wars!  He went on Star Tours 4 times, and we plan on watching the movies throughout the summer.  He also made excellent use of his "talker," letting us know when he needed a snack, or when he was tired (that one was a first - normally he'd just pass out during an activity rather than admit he was tired), and communicated verbally a few times too.  We only had one glitch while we were there; we ordered a gluten-free pasta meal at a nicer restaurant, and they made a mistake and brought out something that was not gluten-free, which affected his behavior pretty significantly.  I guess this settles our questions as to whether or not his improved behaviors over the past 18 months were due to maturity, or diet!   So, we had a great time, and hope to go back in the not-too-distant future!!

My heart

These guys...

These guys have my heart. 

And this guy... he's officially on Summer Break.  He is now a first grader!

We had a little bit of drama surrounding his class placement for next year, since there were not appropriate programs at the school he'd attended since turning 3, but we got it worked out, thanks to a little creative thinking.  Basically, Stephen is going to be participating in 2 separate special education classrooms, as well as a typical classroom.  Hopefully this will allow him to get all of his therapy needs met, while allowing him the opportunity to spend time with typical kiddos for peer modeling.

I should warn you... this next part is a little raw....  The last few days of school were very, very hard on us.  As many of you know, last Monday, May 20th, an EF5 tornado came through Moore, OK, leveling two elementary schools.  LEVELED.  This was about 15 miles from our home.  While this was happening, my own baby was at HIS school, in a tornado shelter.  And by tornado shelter, I mean bathroom.  Most schools in Oklahoma City do not have underground shelters, due to cost and the way the ground is.  Stephen was terrified, and spent much of that night and the next day seeking reassurance from his parents and teachers that everything was ok.  There were a lot of hugs and kisses given out.  I'd love to tell him that he shouldn't be scared, but this is just a fact of life.  Tornadoes ARE scary, and he should take them very seriously. 

I know that this blog doesn't reach a lot of people, BUT, if you want to help the people of Moore, you can donate to the United Way, Red Cross, or Salvation Army.  If you wish to help in a different way, get in touch with me, and I'll give you more resources.  In the meantime, I'm going to hug my baby tightly, and get ready for more severe weather today.

Mother's Day and the Dentist

We had a lovely, and quiet Mother's Day here.  My parents have been visiting, so they took him off to spend a few hours at the amusement park, while I gave myself a manicure and took a nap.  Stephen spent much of his morning, amusing us all with his play.  In this picture, he was watching phonics songs on his iPad, matching his alphabet magnets to the songs, and taking apart lego creations.  Prior to that, he had been playing soccer with his soccer bear, and soccer pillow.  He was having a lot of fun, and making a fabulous mess.

 

On Tuesday, Stephen had a pre-op (more on that in a minute) physical, and he is officially 44" tall, and weighs 47 lbs.  He's actually lost a few lbs since his 6 year check up in January, mostly due to his injury, but he's kept it off by being more active, which isn't a bad thing.  He impressed his pediatrician with how well he was using his talker AND his words to tell me that he was hungry, and also when he wanted the extremely slow internet to "hurry!"

The next morning, we were up ridiculously early, and checking in at outpatient surgery at 6am.  Stephen was scheduled to have a mold made of his mouth so that he can have a space maintainer custom-made to fill the spot where his permanent tooth was extracted after his fall, and since he has such horrible anxiety about the dentist, we opted to put him under a general anesthetic for the procedure.  While he was under, we also had a deep cleaning (the dentist said his teeth got a grade of "C" for cleanliness - I guess it's obvious I've been letting him have more responsibility with his tooth brushing...) and sealants on his molars and a few other teeth.  Stephen has these things called talon cusps on 4 of his permanent teeth, and they can make it harder to keep the teeth clean, so we are going to keep sealants on them to help him avoid cavities in the future. 

Everything went just fine, of course, and Stephen enjoyed his day off of school.  I made him stay downstairs to play, instead of letting him go up the stairs by himself to play in his toy area, and we enjoyed watching some fun movies and playing with legos.

This weekend, we continued to see some speech breakthroughs - Stephen was SINGING with some phonics and alphabet songs, and we actually were able to understand some of what he was saying!!!  It was very exciting. 

Where did April go?

For the last month or so, Stephen has had a renewed interest in playing with his Lego blocks independently.  Mostly, he just wanted us to build things for him to take apart - he worked on perfecting his destructive skills, and was able to take our creations apart VERY quickly.  Tonight, however, he wanted to BUILD!  And he tried and tried and tried... and then he got the blocks put together.  So he took them apart.  And then put them back together.  And he was SO PROUD of himself.  (This picture isn't from tonight - this was yesterday morning before a dentist appointment)  He just had to keep at it, and he solved his problem!

 

 

 

This is Stephen's new toy.  It's called a Dizzy Disc - kind of like a sit and spin, but designed for older, heavier kids, and it is much easier to spin.  Stephen was not able to enjoy his special birthday present over spring break due to his injury, so we decided that rather than making him wait until summer, we would do this for him instead.  This is something that will grow WITH him.  He has been spinning himself using his feet, and occasionally gets brave enough to lift his feet and just spin on the momentum.  And I have to tell the truth - I've had some fun on the "spinner" too.  Stephen thinks it's hysterical to see Mommy spinning, but he always makes me stop so he can have another turn.

 



 I just wanted to show this picture, because it was really cute - we were watching a cartoon where the characters were saying something was smelly, and I saw him doing this.  My silly boy.

 

 

In other news, Erik ran the Oklahoma City Memorial Half-Marathon this past weekend, and did it in an hour and 42 minutes - his personal best!  Our friends caught this picture of him around mile 5.

 

 

We had a consultation with the dentist yesterday to plan for Stephen's space maintainer procedure.  They will be putting him under general anesthesia to make the mold of his mouth, because Stephen has severe dentist anxiety, and while they are doing that, they will also do a deep clean, and put sealants on his 6 year molars.  Then we will go back after a few weeks and they will put in the space maintainer and attach the wires to his back molars with cement, which should last about a year and a half.  It should be a pretty straightforward procedure.  He is fully healed from his accident and we all continue to be thankful that he wasn't hurt any worse than he was.

Special Olympics

Last week, Stephen was able to participate in his very first Special Olympics event.  It was a program geared towards children ages 3-7, with various levels of developmental challenges.  We had SO much fun!!!!  Grandma was still here visiting (she left today) so she acted as our class photographer.  Yes, this was an activity we did with Stephen's kindergarten class!!!

The kids participated in events like an obstacle course, soccer, basketball, throwing balls at targets, bowling, and using a big parachute to bounce beach balls.  The event was held at a local high school, and there were literally HUNDREDS of middle and high school kids there volunteering, either to supervise activities, or work as "buddies" for the kids.  Those kids were amazing.

So, without further adieu, here are some pictures!!!

A couple of cool things to mention - that woman crawling under the pool noodles?  That's their teacher - she's the best.  I'm working up something to tell you all about her, because she is truly an angel on earth.  She also made the cool black shirts with stars on them for all of the kids, because she said they are her "shooting stars."  The kids sat SO patiently waiting for their ribbons - we were the second to last school called! 

Something that we don't have a picture of involves Stephen's communication.  He was starting to poop out after a couple of hours (he didn't sleep well the night before), and wanted to be picked up to snuggle.  So we went to sit down, and he used his speech program on my phone to say, "I need a break."  This was a HUGE breakthrough, as he wasn't just asking for a snack.  I've been trying to figure out how to convey a change that has happened with our little buddy... I guess the only way to describe it is that he had a big leap forward in his maturity level.  This includes his communication, interpersonal skills, and play skills.  We are really pleased.

In other news, Stephen's dentist wants to put a spacer in his mouth so that his other permanent teeth don't migrate into the "hole" as they grow in the rest of the way.  In order to do this, he will have a semi-permanent retainer put in, and the first part of this process will take place May 15.  He will be put under general anesthesia, because he has such high anxiety about the dentist, and because of his age, so we decided to do some other procedures (deep cleaning and sealants) while he is under.  Then 3 weeks later, he'll have the spacer put in.  It seems like a lot, but I know that this all could have been much, much worse, and this will keep his smile handsome in the long run.