Puppies chew stuff

We have had our new puppy, Finn, for a week now.  She is three months old.  She is sort of house broken.  She is not even close to being able to decide for herself what she is allowed to chew on and what she is not.  The boys have learned, the hard way, that their toys will be eaten if they are left on the floor.  The worst  casualty so far is Owyn's large Bullseye toy.  It stands about six inches tall and is hard plastic.  Bullseye is Woody's horse from Toy Story.  Owyn was devastated when he found Bullseye with no nose or stirrups and with a good chunk of his tail gone.  To me he looks like a chocolate Easter bunny after it has had it's ears bitten off.  Apparently he looked that way to Finn too.

The boys are loving their "Finnerator" but the training is going both ways and not entirely to the human's advantage.

Talking to Mama

Owyn was in the car with Mama.  From the back she hears "Mama.  Mama, I have to tell you something".  Usually this is a lead in to "I love you".  Mama "What is it Owyn"?  A moment of silence, "I've got nothing".

Ireland

There is a girl at Owyn's daycare named Ireland.  Owyn went to a birthday party this weekend and was playing with his two best friends.  While he was there, Ireland came up to him and patted him on the back and said "Hi cutie".  Owyn just smiled.

Tracy and Owyn were talking later and Tracy asked Owyn if he had a crush on Ireland.  He looked down and smiled, then looked up at his Mama and said "Yeah, I love it when she calls me cutie."

Owyn's four.  He is way too young to start this.

Momments of discovery

We had to drop papers at Owyn's school.  His bus was there to pick him up so we sat in the car and watched.  He came strolling out of the school, all by himself, walked up and got on the bus. 

It's strange that our kids have lives without us.

Finn

 

 We have a new puppy.  We named her Finn.  Tracy and the boys went and picked her up on Saturday while I was at work.  She has settled right in.  The boys are in love.  Bogart (cat #1) is ok with her.  Hobart (cat #2) is not. 

 It was driving Owyn nuts that she didn't have a name.  He did not like having to call her "puppy".  Pets have names, she's a pet, she needed a name.  All was not right with the world.  He's digging calling her Finn.

Last night Rhys was laying in bed after stories.  Finn was on the floor in his room.  He looked at me and very carefully said her name, enunciating the leading "F".  This is a sound we work on in speech, and that he can make, but that he doesn't use in his normal speech.  He did it all by himself, with no prompting from me.  I was so proud I almost cried.

She is very sweet, though not feeling very good.  She got a shot right before she left for home.  She has already discovered that the couch is her favorite place.  She is sleeping in Hannibal's kennel, which seems to suit her.  We have had a lot of pee spots but not too much.  She seems to be settling right in.

Swim Lessons

The boys are back in swim lessons.  Mama put them in while I was gone.  They are both doing very well.  Rhys is more coordinated and stronger than when we pulled him out.  He still has a lot of difficulties with getting his arms and legs and head to all do the right thing at the right time.

Owyn is LOVING it.  He was terribly jealous of his brother the last time around.  This time he gets to swim and is proving to have his Daddy's fishy genes.  He is advancing rapidly and loves every minute of it.

Who knew goggles could be so much fun.  Everything is blue.

Speech II

Rhys and I went to speech yesterday.  We met his new therapist, who seems like she will work out well.  The first part of the session Rhys played with a game and we went over the basics.  I told her what worked in the past and what didn't.  I also recommended that he speak to his first therapist, Sarah, since she had done so well with Rhys.

Once we had the preliminaries out of the way she jumped in with Rhys and they got started.  I would normally leave at this point and let the two of them work alone but between it being his first day with Ms Allison and how needy he has been towards me lately, I stayed in the room.  All through the session he would come over to me and give me a hug or a kiss before going back to work.

They played a couple of games.  Hi Ho Cherry-O worked out well.  Before each turn they had to say words.  A new innovation of Miss Allison was two cards, one with a happy face and one with a sad face.  If she said a word incorrectly he pointed at the sad face.  If she said it correctly then he was to point at the happy face.  Then he did the same for his own words.  This is an effort to ensure that he is hearing the sounds that he is making.  He was 90% with hers and about 75% with his.  We worked on S sounds the whole time, mostly as part of a sentence.  "I spin".  That sort of thing.  I had told her that Rhys responds well to signs with his sounds so she used those.

Rhys can make almost any sound required.  He just doesn't use them spontaneously in conversation.  He was very proud of himself at the end of the session and he told me that he liked Ms Allison and thought he could work with her.

It was a good first session.  Sadly, right now, we only see her every other week, alternating with OT.  That is not enough but that is what is available right now.  Ms Allison is going to keep her eyes open for openings that will let us get him in every week.

Speech I

Rhys has been out of speech for the last few months.  He just did not get along with his last therapist and we were seeing no progress in return for a significant amount of pain on all of our parts.  We decided to give him a break while we waited for a new therapist to open up.

He does not do well, to say the least, when they try to beat him down and force him to do what they want.  The best therapist we have had was Ms.  Sara, his first speech therapist.  She was nearly always able to get him to comply with her and to have a productive session.

Today we start with a new therapist who we have not met before.  We are keeping our fingers crossed.  Tracy is out of town for the day so I'll be picking Rhys up at two schools (1st grade).  We will go directly to speech, which should be pretty painless today as it will be more of a sensing session; getting to know each other and setting expectations.  After that, as long as he is good, we'll hit McDonald's for dinner, pick up Owyn and head home long enough to eat.  Tonight is my gaming night at the local game store so the boys and I will troop over there and hang out until Mama gets in.

It should be a good night but we'll see how it all falls out.

Missing Daddy

Last night I went out to a whiskey tasting with a friend and my folks.  Tracy and the boys were at home.  Rhys was very angry with Daddy for not being there with him.  I got a text from Tracy telling me that Rhys was mad at me and was taking it out on them.

He was very apologetic this morning.

Hannibal

Tracy had to put my dog down while I was deployed.  Hannibal, my doberman, developed a growth around his throat that was slowly killing him.  He finally got to where he couldn't eat and was just miserable all the time.

She took Deuce (the weasel hound) with her to the vet when they put him under so she would know that he was dead.  It seemed to work, she never went looking for him.  She is very lonely though and very needy.

Rhys desperately misses Hannibal.  Just about every day he tells me "I miss Annibal".  He knows that he is dead and gone and that he is not hurting anymore, but he misses his dog.

Tracy is looking for a puppy.

Money

Both boys have recently talked a lot about buying things.  Rhys understands the connection between work and money.  He knows that I have to leave him and go to work to make money to pay for the house and food and clothes and toys.

They both understand that money is how they get things at stores.  We have  chore chart.  It is magnetized with the seven days of the week on top and different chore bars on the side.  There are different colored dots, with smiley faces, to put on when they do their chore.

We pulled the chart back out this weekend.  The chores are things like feeding pets (dog, cats and fish), helping to unload the dishwasher, clearing the table and doing homework.  Rhys is getting three or four a day.  Owyn is working on one or two. 

We have not decided how much they will get per dot.  Tracy is leaning towards a flat rate no matter how much they do.  She's apparently a communist.  I am thinking a base amount with each dot worth a certain amount.  I want them to see the connection between their work and how much they get paid.

We'll work it out this week and see where each of them stand at the end of the week.

Catch up

I've been gone for about nine months, back for two weeks now.  The boys are both thrilled to have me back.  Rhys, especially, has been glued to me.  Each boy has a favorite parent.  While I was gone and they just had Mama she was their go to, but now that I'm home they have fallen back into their old patterns. 

Rhys is happy because he has Daddy.  Owyn is happy because he gets more Mama time. 

I had a DS for my deployment.  I never had time to play it.  I bought Rhys a Lego Star Wars game.  His two favorite things, Lego's and Star Wars.  He has been playing a lot.  We are thrilled because it keeps his attention and it is developing his fine motor skills.  He just likes to kill bad guys with a lightsaber.

Rhys also got an iPad for his birthday.  They use them at school.  Tracy got the list of apps they use and we put them on for him.  He would much rather watch Power Rangers on Net Flix but we force him to play his games first.  He is a wiz at navigating his tablet.

Back in business

I've been gone for a long time.  I went off to war and just didn't have time to update this.  I'm home now and I hope to pick it back up.  A lot has changed in the last sixteen months.  The boys have come a long way.  They are still a joy, and good for a laugh, every day.  We'll see how it goes.