It's the most wonderful time....of the year

Yes folks, as most of you know I'm a HUGE Halloween fan. So I'm a bit late on this posting but we're down with an ear infection and strep on the little man so this is how it goes :0) Tis the season as my pediatrician said to me today. But back to Halloween......We started off our morning with a wonderful Halloween treat - Candy Corn. God Bless the creators of this wonderful thing! Jimmo will have to wait a few years to enjoy this treat but he had some yummy waffles instead!

Miss Terrific Teacher invited Princess and I for the Harvest Party. I was tasked with bringing the supplies for GFCF rice krispie treats. Jimmo was a bit tired for the party but he managed to participate in helping assemble the treats together with the teacher. and then quickly went back to his own business of reading his book.
And finally it's off to trick or treating. Jimmo's costume has been set for awhile - he was going to be a monkey. However Princess must have changed her mind about 20 different times from August till October 1st. Hubby gave her a deadline to bring an end to this wishy washy nonsense. Most 4.5 year old girls are princesses/fairies or something of that nature. Not this girl - she wanted to be a skunk. Yes a stinky skunk. It mostly has to do with an obsession she has for tails. And she was very excited that both her and brother Jimmo would have tails. So here are a few shots of our zoo?? Pre and post make up. Jimmo was really not into the in and out of the wagon scenario. Perhaps next year we'll have to change up our strategy a bit.

Jimmo taking a ride in his Halloween carriage.

Long night - time for bed!

Continued Success at School

You might recall on Week 2 of school, I explained the communication system Jimmo is using at both school and home. PECS, Picture Exchange Communication System, has been working quite well for him and each week he has been successfully graduating to the next phase. Without going into too much detail with the phases, below is a video from this afternoon as Mrs. Terrific Teacher is working on some new trials with him. You can see the two other sweet boys in his classroom on the video and one of the two wonderful classroom aides. And so you're not confused with the voices you hear, one of little guys is using his talking device for his communication system which you'll hear in the background.

In this video, Little Man does two out of three successful trials trying to ask for his rice cake sandwich. I know that sounds so delicious doesn't it? But truly it's such a perfect lunch for him. The crunch of the rice cake satisfies his oral needs and is conveniently gluten free and the peanut butter is good protein. Jelly is always a bonus isn't it? Happy Friday Everyone!

Little Man Turns 3 - Happy Birthday!

Little man loves when people sing to him, so we basically sang Happy Birthday all day long. Jimmo woke up well rested and ready to go to school.

He had a great day at school and Princess and I came at the end of the day with cupcakes for the kiddos and teachers. This was my first baking experience with GFCF, interesting to say the least but you can see he enjoyed his cupcake. The actual cupcake was fine but the icing was slightly greasy in my opinion.We visited his favorite park since it was such a nice day. We were the only one's there so we took advantage and stayed till we could play no more.On Saturday we had our family celebration. Each year we celebrate Jimmo's birthday at this great farm out in the country. It takes almost an hour to get there, but we (especially me) love it and we look forward to it every year. They have farm animals, pig races, a cow train, pumpkin trampoline, tons of slides and an apple dumpling to just die for. But the highlight this year was their giant pumpkin trampoline. Little man dragged us back three times to go on this. Here's a great video of how much he enjoys it. Do you see a trampoline in our future?

And a few more pictures to enjoy....



And later that night we had one of little man's favorite meals - Chili. He loves somewhat spicy foods like a lot of kiddos with Hypotonia because it wakes up their little mouths. The 2nd GFCF baked good - birthday cake - was little to be desired but we all attempted to eat it. We'll get it right for his 4th birthday. Happy Birthday Little Man!

Fragile X makes it on NPR

This morning, Fragile X Syndrome made the news again. NPR did a great special with FRAXA on their upcoming treatments and the history of how FRAXA came about.

It's only 7 minutes long and can be found by clicking HERE.

News clip from Denver

I came across this video clip from my listserv today and thought it was helpful to share. A local station out of Denver did a piece on a family with a 15 year old Fragile X boy. It's always encouraging for Hubby and I to see older Fragile X kids talking and interacting with adults. The only concern we had about this piece is that we don't think scientists would agree that the "cure" is on the doorstep, as the mother stated, but we continue to pray for it.

http://www.kwgn.com/pages/video/?clipId=2912790&topVideoCatNo=undefined&c=&autoStart=true&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=

Week 2 of School

Half way thru week 2 of school and Jimmo is going strong. As for Momma...still depends on the day. Mrs. Teacher and the aides have been wonderful. We had our first "Back to School" night this week, which was a great opportunity to chat with Mrs. Teacher and get to know her and how Little Man did his first week. He continues to be excited each morning when I get him out of the car and I have to tackle him to get my goodbye kiss in. The GFCF diet is going well. I definitely think his excema was tied to a dairy allergy. I have found the diet to be sometimes challenging for family dinners. Between the countless number of blogs out there and the library, we're slowly adjusting. It's a much healthier lifestyle so it's good for everyone. The juicing is going well. I've been trying to talk hubby into the Vita-Mix (thanks RF!). This "machine" is amazing and I think it might actually grind up a chouch if I tried. Princess has been testing out some of my concoctions and liking.....some.

When working on communication with Jimmo, we've collectively decided to follow the PECS program. We implemented it this past early spring and it's been going well for him. Essentially we've taken a picture of every toy in our house and one of all the food that he eats and we ask him to choose between 2 or 3 each time he wants something. For example, we have a picture of his toothbrush in the bathroom and he hands me the picture after he sits in his chair to let me know he's ready to brush his teeth. Or at breakfast, I show him a picture of a sliced banana and a picture of his cereal and he takes the picture from me that he wants to eat and hands it to me. Around mid-summer we worked on putting these pictures on felt boards with velcro and having him take them off the board and hand them to us. It's been a struggle over the summer with the boards and he usually pushes them away. He would rather take them from your hand. Today Mrs. Teacher was doing Discrimination trials with him and she devised a way (putting it on a slant) to use the board with success. Below is a video that Mrs. Teacher gave me this afternoon (isn't she the best) that shows him discriminating between a picture of the toy that he wants and a blank card - AND MOST IMPORTANT doing these trials ON the board. And Mrs. Teacher mentioned she started taping after doing it like 20 times and he was still successful.

Great job Little Man and thanks Mrs. Teacher for letting us share our achievements with our family and friends.

First Day of School

I guess Little Man had as much anxiety as his mamma on this day because he decided to get up at 5:40. Oh lovely...poor Mrs. Teacher. He was in a great mood all morning. He ate a huge breakfast and we had fun getting him dressed for his first day. When we were about to leave he got a little cranky so Daddy took him out back for a quick swing. That seemed to do the trick - always does. When we arrived at the school, Mrs. Teacher was there to greet us with a big smile. Jimmo charged right into the room looking for the ball popper that he fell in love with during the open house. At this point I let out a sigh of relief, ahhh, he's going to be fine. We watched for a little bit and gave him kisses and headed out. Another rookie move - forgot his lunch at home but luckily we don't live too far. I laughed when the school secretary showed me 3 other lunch boxes brought in late.


So off princess and I went on our first morning. We thought the only way to conquer our sadness of not having little man with us was to have some pancakes at the golden arches. I have to admit, it worked a little bit. Mrs. Teacher called and gave us a mid-morning update. He apparently had a rough 10 minute patch but a rice cake made it all better. We visited a health food store seeking GFCF flours and various diet items. Then princess had gymnastics. She was the only one in her class so she got lots of attention and I got to sneak a few pictures.

I think it was the longest morning of my life. The time went soooo slow. Princess and I came home and ate lunch and then eagerly sat out front of little man's school 15 minutes before the pick up time. He came running down the hall, glanced at me and then ran past me. OK so at least I got a glance and most important - he seemed very happy. Mrs. Teacher was amazed that someone could fall asleep sitting up and eat his lunch at the same time. That's classic sleep deprived Jimmo for you! His daily report came back great. He ate all his lunch like a big boy and it sounds like he actually had some fun. I think they'll work on shapes tomorrow - ;0) Just kidding.

Today is the first day of "school" for princess. We're doing Classical Conversations together. The format has the parents participate with the children and it meets once a week covering all major subjects in classical model. I felt it was a great fit for our family. Last year she was dragged to therapy after therapy appointment and could have used more 4 year old time. So this year I'm dedicating to spending time with her before she starts kindergarten. Although Classical Conversations is a home schooling class, they have welcomed us to join them for this year.


Thanks for all of your amazing prayers for our family. We will continue to pray for all of you with little one's also starting school - whether it's preschool, kindergarten, 1st grade or 8th grade - BIG STUFF.