Nick's Video

I was looking over some pictures and video to prepare for our Easter Seals Telethon and interview and thought I would update Nick's animoto video. I know it is a couple of months early (for my June awareness video) but here it is just the same.

Reading and Writing

Nick continues to work on his typing.
He has to write out at least one sentence and some sight words and then can also write out what he wants. We set up the computer when he is doing his bathroom routine.

March 13:

Four

Did

Do

Soon

With

You

Ride

Nickolas

I went on the rides.

Katheryn.

Ridding

At school he uses a program called WordQ. It cues what he is typing and he can use the mouse to hover over the word and it will read it out. If the correct word is there he can either click on it or pick the number with it.

March 14:

I want to grow up to be a ninja turtle.

Nickolas Ridding 

Ran

You

Will

This 

Saw 

We did the words a couple of different ways. The sight words he would pick which ones and copy down. That was working on his typing and learning where the keys were.

March 16:

I went to the museum with Jennifer, Devon, Lucas and Katheryn.

I liked the mummies.

But we also worked on sentences; what did Nick want to write about? What did he do today?

March 19:

I went to the movie theatre with Daddy, Austin, and Uncle Brad.

We saw Sponge Bob Squarepants.

Nick

He also liked writing his name, and Katheryn's name. Katheryn is one of his first words that he knew how to spell. One day I was bringing him downstairs and he just started naming off the letters of her name. I had to get him to repeat it before I realized what he was spelling.

March 20:

Soon 

He 

Into

Brown 

Out

I went to McDonalds 

As he got better at the typing I stopped helping him as much with the letters. Instead of asking him what he wanted to spell out and telling him the letters for him to find, we started sounding out his words.

March 22:

I went to grandma ridding apartment

I had an Easter egg hunt

Maddi and Austin came for dinner

I have noticed a huge improvement in his spelling with this. All day we work on spelling like this. And it works, of course, the other way around too. With his reading. Sounding out letters and words.

Our newest word to sound out... and Nick did it successfully... is Booyakasha

Lost Tooth

The day came today that Katheryn has been waiting for, for over a year!

Her first lost tooth!

All of her friends at school have lost multiple teeth and she wanted to join the toothless-smile club. But at almost 7 years old, her teeth are stubborn and just did not want to budge (Nick's are the same, not showing any sign of being loose at 5 1/2).

But a month ago whether determined by nature or accident (there was an incident with Katheryn holding onto her seat belt with her teeth) she finally had a wiggly one.

And at a family dinner it finally came out! Katheryn was on the lookout and said she thought it might come out because "Papa Bartley always makes lots of food".

And it came out with a mouth full of food. So I made her spit out her food (which grossed out Uncle Jamie) and we found it. (and yes that is an Elsa costume she is wearing... just because)

 Katheryn was very excited to put it under her pillow before going to bed. The tiny tooth is under there.

Kyle and I were not sure what the going rate for the Tooth Fairy is. All we could remember was the Modern Family episode where $100 was accidentally left by the Tooth Fairy (and this is a favorite show of Katheryn's).

I thought the Tooth Fairy would leave a loonie and Kyle thought $5. And of course a new toothbrush. So I googled it and found it is a common question (I think I got 25 cents). In the end the Tooth Fairy decided the first tooth is special and left a nice crisp $5 bill, brand new toothbrush and a certificate (in the shape of a tooth of course)

 The toothfairy was even nice enough to leave the tooth for mommy to keep.
Katheryn was very excited when she woke up and saw what the Tooth Fairy had left for her

Social Butterfly

Katheryn's birthday party is coming up in a couple of weeks. She got to pick 5 friends from school to come.

She came home after she handed out her invites to say that she wrote out invitations for 3 other kids and invited them. So we made 3 actual invites for these kids as well. Katheryn came home from school with 3 other hand-written invitations from other kids including a birthday in June, November and no date, but at one boys house #22.

We were home one evening and I answer the phone and hear this little voice say "hello". In the background I hear a mom say "ask for Katheryn".
Katheryn got her first phone call!

Katheryn was funny on the phone. Bluntly saying "who is this?" and then "what do you want?"
The conversation improved after that.
We put the phone on speaker because Katheryn was having problems hearing her.
And I got to listen to the cute conversation as the 2 girls made plans for the next day.

I didn't actually realize that her first social call was a milestone.
But it totally was! (at least from the parent perspective)

Teddy Bear (and turtle) clinic

We got to go to the Teddy Bear Clinic again. We went to the first one 2 years ago, and missed the one last year when the kids were sick. They were very disappointed and have been talking about the Teddy Bear clinic.

Since it is at my work. I'll put a plug in for Rouge Valley Health System.

The teddy bear clinic is held annually at Rouge Valley (this is the 3rd year) for children to learn and interact with routine medical procedures as their teddy bears get checked out.

First Elsa bear and Raph got signed in and we wrote out their arm bands

Measurements and weight were taken

And some vital signs.
Temperature and blood pressure, and Nick listened to his heart

They had some toys to help to breathe and use muscles.
After surgery it's important to take big breaths. And Child Life Specialists (like Alex who put the whole clinic on) have fun ways to help breathe and distract from pain.
When Nick had his surgery in August, I talked with Alex about some resources she had to help with the recovery.

We learned about taking blood and started an IV on Raph as well

Then it was time to learn about surgery. Nick was not very interested in the surgery table. Been there done that, I guess.

Nick dressed his Turtle up in the funny hat and mask that Mommy got to wear.

We practiced giving medicine to Raph

We also did some testing. Looking at what a CT scanner is like.

And looked at some cool pictures of the brain.
I talked to Nick about the ventricles in the picture and what his were.

They also got to put on a cast, and play with the casting material.

We also did some testing. Looking at what a CT scanner is like.

And looked at some cool pictures of the brain.
I talked to Nick about the ventricles in the picture and what his were.

There was a local photographer taking pictures for the Scarborough Mirror. He took some pictures of Nick at the CT pictures, and Katheryn at the surgery table.

Kyle said that the clinic was very unlucky for the bears. They went in for just a check-up and left with surgery and casts and IVs and had CT scans done.

Until next year!