Dewdrop's New Beginning

Life has a way of surprising you.

This blog is the exact proof of that.  When I started, it was going to be a mommy blog for those mommies who are dealing with things that I was dealing with ... 2 near-Irish twins who both had developmental delays - one speech and one on the spectrum, and so on ...

And then I unexpectedly ended up returning to work.
And then we moved to another country.
And just when I was ready to get back to blogging, we unexpectedly moved again.
And then when I was ready to get back to blogging, I unexpectedly found myself reorganized out of work.
Four months later, another move later, a new job later, I am ready to get back to blogging.

So, keeping with the theme of new beginnings, I have given this blog a new look and feel also.

Let the fun begin!

Wow ... has it really been 1 year?

For several reasons, the least of which being that it's a New Year, I decided to visit tonight.

And then discovered that my last post was December 18 2010!  Wow!  Really?  Can't be?  But is ...

I know that I've commented several times about how this blog intention has changed so much since I first started ... life kind of got in the way.  Really kind of.  And the past 12 months hasn't been much different.

Some Truths Revealed

It has come time to face a few truths about my life.

- I am not going to be able to HomeSchool or even Pseudo HomeSchool my kids.  No matter how much I really want to, and how much I am really inspired by it, it is not going to happen.  I continually see inspiring ideas online ... Tot School, Montessori, Letter of the Week ... you name it and I am inspired by it.  I clip ideas to Evernote, I download file after file, I print things out, I even have a laminator, but they never get organized and implemented.

Where have we been? What's up?

Wow!  Time certainly has flown by since my last post!  I can't believe it's September already.

Well, here's the story.

When I started this blog last fall, I had all hopes and intentions of blogging regularly, tot schooling my two little ones, and being a normal family.  We were well on our way in the first few weeks of September, getting into a nice routine of preschool, tot school, Early Intervention Therapy, the gym ... it was all good.

And then DH (Dear Husband) came home early one afternoon and our entire lives changed.  He had been let go at work.

This led to a 6-month unemployment stretch during which our family has been to he!! and back and made a lot of life changes.  The first of which is that we decided that I would go back to work and he would stay home with the kids.  I am a Librarian (Administrator, actually) and he is in the restaurant business, so we decided that my career was more stable at the moment than his, considering the economy.  The second major change is that we moved from the US to Canada.  I'm from Canada so it was a move home for me, but after 13 years of being in the states, and finally settling in down near DH's hometown, I never dreamed that our life path would bring us here.  We are now closer to my parents, the Dews are in love with their grandparents, Dew2 has started preschool and Dew1 has started junior kindergarten.

So needless to say, when my life when into survival mode, blogging fell to the wayside.

But we have been working on activities and I can't wait to start posting them again.  And filling in on the challenges that we are facing here in Canada (like a 4 year wait for Early Intervention therapy.  sigh.)

Oh - not to forget that the youngest got tubes in his ears in April so he can hear again (we think!).

Thanks for sticking around.  Hopefully I will be able to make it worth your while.

Our Story: The Local Thrift Shop

I just recently discovered my local thrift shop.  I can't believe it took me over 2 years to venture in to it (I spent at least a year telling myself and DaddyDew "I really want to go in and check that place out - I hear good things about it" every time we drove by.)  But I'm really grateful that I did go in finally.  It's addictive.  You just want to stalk the toy aisles constantly, and inevitably, like today, you'll see someone in line ahead of you with something that you wish you'd seen first, regardless of how excited you are about your find.

It's run by the Mennonites.  It supports all sorts of wonderful causes.  The toys are carefully examined and inspected - the boxes are taped shut to indicate (and ensure) that all pieces are inside.  Anything electronic has an "It Works!" sticker on it.  Everything is clean. 

And every time I have gone in, I have found a great find.  Something perfect for the Dews developmentally speaking.  And while I want to share them with you so you can keep your eyes out for otherwise innocent appearing items in your thrift shop, I apologize for sharing something that is not readily available.  I hate it when other blogs to that to me, but at the same time, it has opened my eyes to things I wouldn't have looked at otherwise.

Patience

Please be patient with me these days.

I started this blog for several reasons and with several intentions.

Main Reason:  to give back a little to the blogging community that has inspired me so very much, and enriched my children's lives in ways I never dreamed of.

Main Intention:  to blog on a daily basis about two special needs kids, our activities in many different areas of life, our progress, and as a result to create a resource of entries for other families to use.

However, as life often does, a huge curveball has been thrown to me and my time is not as available as it was a short while ago.  I am doing my best to keep all of the balls in my life in the air, but occasionally, one hits the ground for a bit.

So, if this blog is the ball that hits the ground occasionally, please bear with me.  Please don't give up on me.  I'll be back sooner rather than later (as opposed to my personal blog which I have visited later rather than sooner ...)

I put two new posts in today, so please check out about the Star Box, and Star Matching.

Thank you.

Quiet Book - Shape Puzzle Page

My first page!  You'd think I'd have chosen an easier one, but the inspiration to it looked easy ... and then I started to modify it a little and then trouble began.

I used a Discovery Toys Progressive Puzzle as the pattern.  Traced it onto the white felt, then cut it apart.  My first mistake.  Were I to do it again, or help anyone else do it, I'd do this.

1. Trace the puzzle onto the felt.

2. With the felt still in a square, sew the velcro onto the white pieces.

3.  Arrange and sew the shapes onto the white felt.  Be sure to watch how they overlap the piece lines so there are not any little pieces hanging around or left behind.  Each shape will require two separate sewing lines - around one half and then on the inside of the jigsaw shape, and then around the other side and on the inside of the jigsaw shape.  When sewing the shapes on, be sure to follow the jigsaw lines on the pieces. 

4.  Take your scissors and carefully cut along the jigsaw lines.  you will cut through the shapes, but because of your careful sewing, the pieces will separate perfectly.

I, on the other hand, cut the pieces apart, then had to fit them together and pin the pieces on.  And then I cut again.  Doh.  Then I had to sew the open jigsaw parts together (I should have done it by hand at this point) and everything was sliding around and it got very messy.

The bottom.  I traced the paper shape patterns onto the background, and stitched around it with black thread.  Also, sewed on the velcro after matching it up to the pieces.

All in all, I'm very happy with it.  Doing it a second time would be so much easier ... but isn't it always?

Here we go ...

So here we go.

This is a new venture that I have decided to take on to help record and share the fun that myself and my two boys, Dew1 and Dew2 have every day.

This will likely be my longest post ever. But the beginning must be documented in order to know how we got to where we are today.

We have been given challenges in life to meet - some big and some small. As a result, some of the things we tackle are unusual, or may appear to be age-inappropriate. But this is our family and our life and we take each day as it comes.

Dew1 was a 34-week 4 pound preemie. Arriving 6 weeks early because I got sudden-onset severe Pre-Eclampsia. Our lives forever changed that fateful Monday morning at our routine doctor's appointment. Instead of the usual chipper check in with the nurse, we were met with silence, double checks of tests and blood pressure, and immediate instructions to lie on my left side. The doctor was with us immediately. Seemingly overnight, my blood pressure had skyrocketed, and as I had other symptoms, I was told that I had Pre-Eclampsia, and that the good news was that the cure for it was delivery of the baby. The bad news was that it was going to be this week. So much to struggle with, but after a few days our baby boy arrived, and immediately sent to the NICU where he stayed for 2 weeks. He was small but healthy. I was less so. It took a week and one relapse before I was well enough to go home. All in all, we were very lucky. So many other families are less so.

Dew1 has been healthy. He got Plagiocephaly very early on, and wore a StarBand cranial remolding helmet 4 months. Emerging with a beautifully rounded head and a lifetime of medical complications averted, we were on track for the arrival of his baby brother.

Dew2 arrived after a much fretted but otherwise uncomplicated pregnancy. My full term, 8 pound bear came on the scene in full force and has not stopped since. The difference between the two was remarkable. Dew1 came home from the hospital eating no more than 45 mL at a feeding. Dew2 came home from the hospital eating 2 to 3 ounces. Dew1 was a wonderful sleeper. Dew2 was a horror. Dew1 is in the 50th Percentile, Dew2 is in the 95th. The similarities? Dew2 developed Plagiocephaly as well, and spent 6 months in a StarBand.

When Dew1 turned about 18 months, we started to become concerned about his speech delay. We had given him time to work it out on his own, and nothing was happening. A hearing test showed loss. An appointment to the ENT showed massive amounts of fluid - that had possibly been there for 8 months (he had a very mild ear infection way back when.) After 6 weeks of antibiotics, and the institution of a daily dose of Zyrtec, the fluid began to disappear, and his hearing tests got better and better. This led to an evaluation by Early Intervention that revealed not only a speech delay, but developmental delays, as well as some OT issues (later diagnosed as Sensory Processing Disorder, or Sensory Integration Disorder.) The snowball had started rolling and wasn't about to stop yet. A consultation with a Developmental Pediatrician resulted in a diagnosis of mild autism. He was high risk for these things - first born, preemie, male.

The therapy began. His OT started him on a brushing technique. I didn't get it ... what's this about brushing Organizing him? but it was working. slowly, his crashing behaviours slowed down. Speech started with him, as well as Ed (a "special teacher".) Eventually, a Verbal Behaviour program was introduced, and he attended an "after school program" twice a week that focused on all sorts of things - ABA, OT, sensory, fine motor, manding, group activities. And through all this, he was attending a "typical" preschool, where he was with his age mates, and getting wonderful socialization.

We are just now a year from that beginning, and his progress is amazing. A year ago, he was learning to sign "open" and "help" - and we marveled at the walls that even the little bit of communication opened. Now, he is beginning to speak in 3 word sentences. His play is much more functional - he wants to play with a toy instead of just holding it and checking it out. We still have sensory challenges - his eating is sporadic (he 'squirrels' his food a lot) and he still crashes, but sensory therapy is fun and there are a lot of things we do to help him out. We have transitioned to the Intermediate Unit of Early Intervention, and his new team has been in place for almost 2 months now. He's back in his typical preschool. This year is harder, though, because the delay is so much more obvious than it was last year when they were all 2 years old.

And Dew2? Well, when Dew2 turned about 18 months old, we suddenly realized that we'd forgotten to teach him how to talk! With all of the teachers coming and going for Dew1, Dew2 had fallen between the cracks. We had him evaluated by Early Intervention as well, and he is receiving weekly speech therapy. Luckily, he has yet to show any signs of anything other than a speech delay. In fact, his fine motor is amazing, and his logic and reasoning is wonderful.

Dew2 had his hearing test last week. The test was a disaster - significant loss in both ears. The next day at the doctor's office we discovered that both ears were packed full of fluid. Massive double ear infection. Gee, this is familiar. So he's on antibiotics and we're to check in again in 2 weeks. Who knows how long this has been going on. But at least he's a little less cranky that he was the week before, so we can hope that this will improve his disposition (although, to be honest, he was born cranky...)

So here we are. Dew1 is just over 3 years old, and Dew 2 will be 2 in January. They are about 4 inches apart in height, and 2 pounds in weight. People are starting to ask me how old my twins are. A girlfriend referred to Dew1 as my hollow chocolate bunny and Dew2 as my solid chocolate bunny. I couldn't have described them any better myself.

Since the diagnosis and therapy has began, I have been online searching out anything and everything that will help me help my boys. I was amazed to have a world of homeschooling, Montessori, and Tot School opened up to me. As a Children's Librarian by trade, I thought I knew what I needed to know to let my boys grow and thrive, but was I wrong! I have found more resources than I will ever use, and such wonderful people willing to share what works for them. It is all of them that inspired me to start this blog. I have been blogging on my personal site for at least 8 years, but this is different, and as such I wanted to keep it separate.

Our lives are very chaotic with the therapists coming and going, but we try to do bits and pieces of things. We are also restricted by space. One day I would dream to have a 'classroom', but until then, our dining room (which, incidentally is open to a kitchen that is not eat in, so it is our main eating area) functions quite well. Our living room is also a work area. We do not have neatly organized trays and shelves, as traditional Montessori would lend. We do not do workboxes (yet!). They are still at the stage of pulling everything out and making a mess. But we love it. And wanted to share it. This blog is growing just as we are. It's not pretty today - no funky page colour or fun graphics. But right now I'm too busy with my boys to spend hours and hours making this look neat. But who knows what it will look like in a day, or a week, or a month. I think it will be fun.

I hope that anyone who might decide to read all of this will give us a shot. It's a crazy life but it's ours and we love it.