Visual Who?

Visual Phonics. In case you were wondering. Today I attended my first of three Visual Phonics classes (VP, no, not velopharynheal, like all SLPs initially think when seeing those two capitalized words together...nerds). The course is designed to teach you a strategy of making each sound in the English language visual/motor so that children can use their entire teeny, growing, developing brains to understand what the f#*@ our ancestors were thinking when they invented English in the written form. Seriously. Have you ever thought about that? An example - there are THREE different ways to say the /t/ and /oo/ sounds together (I know you're saying them together right now) to make three different words with three different meanings and three different spellings. WTF. Now imagine you have some sort of speech/language disorder on top of that...eep.

Thankfully I am taking the class with two of my closest work friends and I kept managing to get "stuck" with them whenever we did (gag) ice breaker activitieS. Yes, more than one. Bah. But since it was with either of them, it wasn't so bad. The very experienced, old-school, knowledgeable SLP took 90 minutes to introduce the class. Not that I was counting. Ahh...thank GOD I had had time to make and drink my coffee before class. I may have died. But didn't. Thank you friends for keeping me going.

After that, the rest of the class went faster and when we got to the meat of it, I got pretty excited to bring the info I learned back into my therapy room. I have several students who are going to benefit from the visual cues and crossover that will help involve their whole brain in the process of correcting their speech sounds. Yesss....I *might* look a little more like I know what I'm doing. ;-) Ha. Take that, stupid /r/ sound.

In other news, Morgan continues her quest on the potty chair. Tonight she was playing and stopped to absolutely BEELINE to the potty...and just about exploded once she got there. Yet again I praise the potty/poop "gods" that help her to now stop and go on the potty and not ruin the undies and rest of clothes she is wearing. I'm not ready to call her a "reliable pooper" by any means but we're definitely on our way. Thank goodness. SO much easier to do a wipe or two and flush than clean, wipe, hold child still, wiggle, get mad, ask her nicely to hold still, tell her sternly to hold still, use my teacher voice and make her cry to hold still, and then get her diaper on.

I need to let go of some of my control-freakedness. Today while I was at class, Adam was supposed to be at some batting cages in the QCs to get ready for his softball tourny in St. Louis with the rest of his team. Well, we couldn't find a sitter on short notice so he was just going to stay home with her. Come to find he failed (purposely!! what!?) to tell me if we couldn't find a sitter he intended to just take her along and see how it went. Well....when I texted him to check in after lunch, he said they were on their way and my internal self freaked!! Oh dear, did he have her sippy/water? toys? diapers? did she eat lunch? what about nap?!!! surely she'll be seriously injured?!?!??!! Needless to say after some forced quiet time (the instructor doesn't look kindly on self-talking when everyone can hear you) I had calmed down and then felt a bit "silly" (read: stupid) for feeling that way when clearly she'd have a great time and start her nap on the way home after Adam deemed her too tired to stay any longer. Which is exactly what happened. Sigh. Someday I won't be so controlling...b/c I'll be dead. :-D At least I'm able to admit it.

Let's see...anything else major this week that I missed...already posted about kickboxing...(which I get to do again next week b/c my stepmom, Susie, is coming for the week while Adam's gone!! YEAH for another pair of hands and adult to talk to while at home!! And all the other good things Susie brings with her kind self). She's set to come tomorrow (weather pending) and leave Friday. I'm eager. The end.

Tomorrow we have church and there's a lady there that's been so kind to us since we joined the church and is rather smitten with Morgan b/c she's got an 8-month old granddaughter who lives somewhat far away and needs some bows. :) So off I go to be bow-makin'-Liss yet again. I'm actually excited...I have quite a bit of ribbon I've collected from the dollar section after a few recent Target trips so this could get to be a late-nighter...except I'm so tired from SOMEONE being up at 6:03am this morning yelling, "pooooooop!!" Hmm. Easy potty training a blessing? Sometimes I wonder....but of course tomorrow morning she'll sleep until 7:15 and make us late for church seeing as how she's our Sunday alarm clock. ;-)

Kickboxing - YES.

I feel like a million bucks. I just went to kickboxing for the first time in over two years (wait, was it really that long?!) and when I was going regularly, I LOVED it and felt awesome when I went. Then I got all knocked up and then the kid came and I couldn't leave her b/c I'm dumb and now that I'm finding my wings again, it feels. so. good. SO GOOD.

Which brings me to WHY couldn't I bring myself to leave her until the last few months? So ridiculous. But I know why and it wasn't ridiculous...well, mostly. 1) She was a very fussy baby and didn't want to leave Adam alone to deal with her - strength in numbers. 2) I am a control freak (in case you didn't know....no, really! Believe it or not! - Stop laughing.) and I usually knew what she needed to feel better. Not that Adam didn't too...but please reference the beginning of #2...'nuff said. 3) Working Mommy Syndrome - the intense need to spend every one of her waking minutes with her b/c I'd have to go back to work the next day...and then being too tired or running around keeping a household when she went to bed to leave and go to the Y/run.

I am so glad that I'm finally branching out and breaking out of my Working Mommy Syndrome. I can't even blame it all on that b/c in the summer I'd still feel that intense need to be around her or Adam and her together. Family time. I don't regret it necessarily but I'm excited to be coming out of that shell. Whew. Melissa! Welcome back!! How ARE you!? ;-) Wonderful, thanks. Life is pretty good right now.

In other news, Morgan's potty training continues to fly through the roof. She had two accidents yesterday but in her defense, she told me she had to poop 15x and we tried 15x with no success until time #16...poor Dora. The great thing is that every time she has an accident she immediately knows and tells us .... "uh noooooo" over and over. This is going faster than I thought and I do realize that much of it is luck that she's interested and successful at this age. ;-) This is NOT me complaining whatsoever. We even went to Walmart with her wearing undies yesterday with success! (and a back up pair of pants in my purse.)

Today one of my older tough /r/ kids at work finally GOT it. A real, true /r/. I don't know about any other SLPs out there, but when it finally happens that you can send him to another SLP and say look! He's got /r/! S/He's going to agree. Sweet. One down, a million more to go. :-/

Time to watch Biggest Loser and ingest this giant yummy grapefruit. SO good...

I heart my family. What a great day. We were up at 7am and didn't stop. Morgan was relatively good the whole day and might have slept this afternoon for hours and hours had I not woken her at quarter to 5. Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky. Lots of it is choices I've made. Some of it is answered prayers. Either way, I heart today.

16 Months

I know I say this every new month but what!?! What?! I have a 16 month old? Didn't I just write 15? Or 8? Sigh. Developmental highlights:

• She understands more and more every day. I find myself giving her directions and telling her things I'm not sure she'll understand just to see if she gets it...and most of the time she does. If she doesn't get it, she looks around or at me until I give her further cues and she gets it.
  
• Morgan's expressive vocabulary is somewhere around/over 30 words b/w her verbal words and sign. She still uses some sign but I'm noticing it waning as she now usually says 'more' or pairs the sign with the word. She puts two words together here and there (I hungry, I see, stop barking) and has even imitated a few three word utterances that just about threw me for a swooning loop (there it is!). All of this of course, makes me (SLP mommy) very pleased.
• Morgan only had one accident today on poor Dora. Otherwise, all potty was done in the potty chair. It's time to get rid of all onsies. :)
• My "spunky" little girl has decided in the past few days to start hitting me once in a while. Sometimes it's just for "fun" to see how I'll react and other times she's been naughty or I've had to discipline her and she hits me. UNBELIEVABLE. Tonight while we were working on trim, she actually had the nerve to hit me in the face. Needless to say we were instantly in time out and she did a nice job of sitting back down when I told her to while she was bawling. I think some of it is her age, some is testing boundaries, and some is likely from such a change in pace with the house in shambles and mommy and daddy working on the home project this week. Makes me feel like I'm not being a good mom b/c I sometimes get to see children with zero discipline who do things like hitting their mothers...the difference? Morgan, "poor child," receives discipline when this happens.
• Morgan likes coloring. We recently made a ton of valentines to send home to family and she "wrote" her name on each one. Clearly it was b/c we had done it lots of times, but about half way through these valentines (over a series of days), I'd say the routine "ok, let's write your name," and Morgan would respond, "em!" (letter M). Floored me. She sort of got the O, and more often would say N for the end, but woah! She is starting to know the letters of her NAME!? She's ready for kindergarten. :) JK. She's still my baby. :)
• Morgan's play continues to grow and impress me. She is very loving to her babies and now will bring me a box of "pretzels" (there are pretzels on the outside) and we "eat" them with smacking sounds and all.
  
• She. Loves. Helping. Any time she can push a button, close a door, stir the pot, or put the veggies in the microwave (I love you steamer bags) she will and loves it.
  
• What else...she's fully mobile. Her gross motor skills are on par or ahead. Her fine motor is pretty great too, as she's able to stack and pick up the tiniest things on the floor (although our floor is always spotless so I don't know how I know that ... guffaw guffaw).
  
• Aside from the very naughty hitting, I think this might be my new favorite age. She can tell us so many things, follow directions, and play on her own sometimes when we're doing other things.
  

Needless to say, she's doing so well and we are very pleased with her and how she's developing. In other Schmidty news...

The trim is 90% done. We just have most around the door to install and it's DONE. Everything is cleaned and back in the room. Now it's just a matter of cleaning the rest of the house tomorrow where the disaster had accumulated throughout the week...and maybe a trip to the QCs for fun? We shall see.

My new favorite appliance is my Shark Steamer Mop. OMG if you don't have one, you are seriously missing out. I vacuumed my new floor and then used the mop...SO easy, SO beautiful, SO clean. You don't have to buy refill pads as you get two and they're washable. I heart it. Thank you Al & Sherri.

I'm feeling better today but was definitely not yesterday. By nighttime I am pretty sure I had a fever (chills, achy) and Adam was a trooper and took over household duties so I could rest. Still wasn't 100% this morning but nothing a little Tylenol didn't help with. I was actually feeling pretty great until around dinner when it was a bit painful to swallow. If I have strep (which I don't think I do at this point) I'm going to be p!ssed.

Lastly, I heard that back home they're supposed to get a ton of snow in the next day or two...we're getting thunderstorms. :) Fine by me. Enjoy your shoveling, folks.

Oh noooo...

It's...highlight reel time!!

• If Morgan says "Oh nooooo" behind you a bunch of times while you're painting trim outside just after taking multiple walks in her stroller, her hand is covered in mud that she grabbed off the wheel and wants you to remove it now. No, NOW. Sniffle...sniffle....cryyyyy. See? Faster, mom.
• Morgan barfed at daycare today around 11am. Mary was just about to call me after cleaning her up, but since Morgan started immediately saying, "I hungry!" right after (no fever, playing fine), she didn't call and Morgan carried on as usual. Random.
  
• Morgan is now almost regularly going on the potty at Mary's. We're not near Dora undies at daycare yet, but she even pooped on the potty today. ;) We're on our way! And it's almost uncanny how accurate Mary can be with predicting development of a single child.
  
• I'm pretty excited b/c there is a good chance that my sector SLPs and I are getting iPads for therapy. SO excited to see my students' faces light up when their "old lady speech teacher" is in this century with them. :)
• Trim is painted. Thank God that's done. :)
• A few days ago one of the little girls at daycare sent home two tubs of summer clothes (she's maybe 14 months older than Morgan) and I'm shocked that this little girl ever wore these things more than once - we had at least 30 dresses amongst a ton of other things to go through and have. Lucky us! After going through things and thinking of all the money we had just saved, I may be guilty of hoping just a tiny bit that the next one is a girl too b/c I'm cheap. :) But I LOVE buying clothes for Morgan so I can't imagine that it wouldn't be fun to buy clothes for K#2, right?!
  
• Today I found out that my college throws/track coach passed away. It's not a super-surprise b/c his health was never really great, but it's still sad that someone who got me going on a dream I didn't know I had passed away. Thanks, Coach Bill, for believing in me when I didn't fit the "normal thrower-girl bill" and helping me get started on a successful path to being an All-American. You will be missed. RIP.
• I can recite Brown Bear Brown Bear and Goodnight Moon from memory. Baby Bear Baby Bear is a close 3rd. She finishes the sentences for me and either says the name of the book or "me! me!" (I see a ___ looking at ME.). She's so stinkin' cute.
  
• I'm a little obsessed with my kid. I heart her. In case it wasn't obvious.

The end.

Road Rash Baby-Style

So the rest of the weekend went well (what? It's Wednesday...I think it's officially too late to talk "weekend" anymore). The floor is done and now it's just a matter of painting the trim (groan) and attaching it to the walls. Yet another room in our house has white trim...and the transition continues.

Monday ... what did we do Monday? Can't remember. But yesterday we had a night at home. What!?! Unheard of. We haven't had one of those in a very long time it seems. Between mommy being gone several times last week having all the fun, running errands constantly for the current project, having more fun with friends, etc. things are a bit hectic right now.

On to the subject of this post...Poor Baby Morgan. :-/ Adam had to pick her up from daycare yesterday b/c I had a meeting that ran too late to pick her up at a decent hour. While I was en route home, Adam had put Morgan down to walk to the house from the truck. He decided to get the mail first (good husband behavior) while Morgan walked around likely yelling "Dop boodit!!" (stop barking, at the neighborhood dogs)...and decided to follow him. As fast as she possibly could...and BAM. Face, meet concrete. Concrete, meet face. Poor kiddo. Thankfully it was mostly cheek under her left eye. She cried pretty hard but after some daddy love, a drink of water, and some hugs, she was set to go. Survival success again. :-D

I vow to be in bed ready to sleep by 10:15pm. This has NOT been the case and I've been really relying on my coffee in the morning lately. Darn too many things to do.

Iowa Children's Museum & New Floor!

What a busy/great/tiring/snotty/wonderful day! Morgan was up nice and early (6:30am hello it's Saturday, child) so the rest of us followed suit. Amazing how such a tiny person can impact an entire household.

Adam's parents arrived without incident yesterday and picked up Morgan from daycare when they got here. We had decided to rip out the (1st floor) living room carpet and lay down the wood laminate floor we recently purchased for CHEAP. Originally I was going to stay behind with Adam and do it while Morgan and G-parents went to Iowa City to the Children's Museum...however, Al & I switched places and lucky us, off we went after the carpet had all been ripped out and Morgan had napped.

Such fun!! The museum was one of the neatest places ever. I think Morgan might have enjoyed it even more had she been a little older, but she still loved almost all of the things we did. :) I say almost b/c silly me, I thought she could handle the giant (and I mean from second floor to first floor) closed in curly slide but when I let her go for Grandma Sherri to catch her at the bottom and heard *clunk clunk clunk scream* I ran down the many stairs to a very sadscaredhurt baby who had a bit of a red bump on her head. She calmed quickly, took a drink of water, and ran off to play more. Oops. I left my mother-of-the-year tiara there for a more deserving mom. :-/

When we got back, the floor was about 1/3 of the way put in. We worked on it through Morgan going to bed and we only have about 2 rows left. The vents are in the way, it was late, and it was time to call it a night. It looks SOOO beautiful. My only regret is that we aren't in a place to buy enough to do the entire rest of the wood laminate floor on the first floor. Sigh. All in good time.

Now we're relaxing after brownie sundaes and a rather yummy baked chicken dinner, if I do say so myself. I still have to go get wood. Boo. But hip hip hooray, I see at least 40s in our future - heat WAVE people. I heart it already. Squee!