Our Backyard Update

My bad, Brian told me last night that the sores on the deers' leg is because of the crust on the snow. I did see more than one with this kind of sore. So, maybe a coyote won't get them, but it still looks like a big owie!

Here are a couple more pics of wild animals...

Our Backyard

Yesterday we had some visitors - 5 total...

Look at the big guy up top.

The pics are a bit blurry, the deer were right out back but took pics through the window to not scare them off. Asa thought they were pretty cool. There are a tone of deer around us, but only recently have come down into the yard. It's been a rough winter for them with all the deep snow so we've put out some feed in various spots. The deer pointing right in the last photo just above has a sore on it's left hind leg, I hope it heals and it is able to steer clear of a hungry coyote....

3 Years Ago

2008

Who recognizes this little chub nugget? I was going through pics of the last time all three of us went to Florida as a family. Ace and I have been, but haven't got Brian to go in 3 years! We are thinking we might try to go end of March, I need Beach and Sunshine!

2009

How many more days left of winter?

Today there is hope that winter won't last forever! The temperature has finally risen enough above freezing to melt some of the dastardly white stuff. And it felt oh so good not to freeze your face walking down the street, when you breathed in it was refreshing instead of brutal. I was also humbled by the sunset the other night, a glowing ball that had meaning, "I am here and I am rounding the earth to bring you green grass and fresh flowers in just a few short weeks" (more like months, but weeks sounds better). Of course there were a few stray snowflakes in the air as a reminder...

Speech

Or as I like to call it "Asa Speak". My little boy is doing awesome. He is picking up words left and right and working really hard on trying to sound them out. You have to listen very carefully, but you can make out what he's saying. Like this morning when he woke up he opened his bedroom door and Frankie and Fraser were right there to greet him, of course being bulldogs they bulled right through him and went into his bedroom. Asa's room is a favorite of the dogs. So they went right in and made themselves at home, Mr. Asa was not happy about this and sternly proclaimed "GHHHA!" (GET). Repeatably he tried to make his point, but as they do with the older human pack members, they weren't listening.

As most of you know and some may not, children with Down syndrome typically learn to speak much later then typical kids, Asa will be 4 in June. Much of this is due to low muscle tone and forming the words, this is Asa's biggest struggle. Sometimes a child may have Apraxia of Speech, in this case the process of of the word from the brain to the mouth gets mixed up and it is much harder for kids to form front to back and back to front sounding words. With hard work with a PROMPT (Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets) Speech Therapist this can help the "process" or "programming".

Asa has been signing since he was 10 months old, and spoke his first words around a year which were hat and light, go figure. It has been a slow process for him, bursts here and there. We are in a burst moment right now. We are also very grateful for our Auntie (Brian's sister Steph) who is an SLP, she bought us Baby Signing Times for our 1st Christmas and we've been signing ever since! In addition to Baby Signing Time 1 and 2 we have Signing Time 1 through 6. This is the best learning system for ASL because you learn right along with your kids and it is fun!

So as our vocabulary builds here are some of Asa's words. Doe instead of go, dumb instead of come, eeha instead of here, dips instead of chips, boo instead of blue. We've also got, ankie instead of Frankie, he's good with Russ, but can't get any form of Fraser out. Waddy instead of water, oose instead of juice, but you get my point, he's trying! And he's communicating which is awesome. In the mornings he always says bye to Russ, the other morning when we were leaving the house it turned into "bye Russ see-oou-ader". The see you later part was all one word, I was explaining this to his SLP (not auntie BTW) and she said that was totally fine because it is one word to him right now, he's repeating what he's hearing and that is great...

Be still my heart... Love my Pooka Poo...

Wordless Wednesday

Snow Day

Here in Northern New England there is rarely a snow event that deems itself monstrous. We're built for these things in the Great North Woods and I have driven in the worst of conditions. But in loo of the snow event that happened yesterday the owner of the business I work for (who happens to live outside Boston) called late Tuesday and told us to shut down for yesterday. "Okay, twist our arms to not have to come into work". The storm that everyone said was a lion in the mid and central US really was a lamb for us. We only had about 8 inches by mid afternoon and petered out by evening. But hey, two days this week with my little man just the two of us - priceless.

What do you do?

When you have a sick child in the middle of winter and you're stuck inside? Well, you dig out all the sections to the Play Hut and you set them up in the dining room of course!

 

And you get your doggy to go in it!

You should of heard the glorious giggles that were bursting at the seams..

Does this look like a child who doesn't feel well? I said to him "make a silly face" and he was trying to stretch his cheeks out. I have a feeling his friends Karleigh and Vanessa taught him this one - Ha!



And you finally get a haircut! It had been way too long and long! I pick and choose my battles and it is a battle in more ways then one. The last time we went to a "Salon" for a "Professional" haircut it was a challenge, so the next time I did it myself. I have to say, I'm not great at it but it turns out better then someone who went to school to learn how to cut hair! This is my third go at it and there are some shabs here and there but overall it turned out well! In these pics it's still a little wet from the tubby, it does layer over cute in front...

And when you can't get outside to play and climb you use the next best thing - DADDY!

(I don't know why this pic came out so horrible)

These pics don't do his new haircut justice either. I took these last evening after being home sick all day and taking a 2 hour nap in a closed room with vaporizer...

Welcome To The Jungle

Well today I could say Welcome to the Snow Jungle! But that is forecasted for tomorrow, we are only suppose to get 4 inches today, anywhere between 12 to 28 inches tomorrow!

We did make it to the Monarchs Hockey Game Saturday night. I wasn't quite sure if Mr. Asa was going to be able to go. He started in with a hoarse cough Thursday evening and blossomed from there, fever off and on and pretty restless nights. We stayed home yesterday to hunker down and try to kick it and I think we did! I actually felt like a real Mom making paper hearts covered in glue, glitter and feathers to tape to the windows. Opening a collection of Play-Do that had been hidden in the craft chest since June! And wooden beads on vinyl rope courtesy of Grammie.

Thankfully Saturday wasn't a bust, we mustered through. "Welcome to the Jungle".

It was kind of a boring game, no fights and low scoring. During one of the "toss outs" the very nice man in front of us gave Ace the hat he caught. Thank you very nice man who we don't know...

The Monarchs won, it was their last game before the All Star break, their Goalie (#76) was selected for the AHL All Star Team Eastern Conference ...

It was fun to get out of dodge, we didn't see so unfamiliar faces. Our friends Jess, Todd (who are Asa's daycare providers) and their girls, who dragged along my cousin and his girlfriend were there. We got to walk around and sit with them for a minute, broke up the time nicely so Mr. Antsy Pants didn't get too unruly!