Week 136

Thanksgiving.

This was another good week for Ryan.  Actually, it was an Outstanding Week for Ryan.  He only had school on Monday and Tuesday and for both days he came home with Outstanding certificates.  We could not have been happier with Ryan at school and I am glad to see that his teachers recognize his effort.

On Wednesday we had Aunt Anne, Uncle Chris, Megan, and Kate come in from Pittsburgh, PA as well as Grandma.  We are not going to see the Pittsburgh crew for Christmas so we exchanged presents on this trip.  One of the presents Ryan received was a small Cars Lego set.  He sat down and put the entire set together with very little help.  He sat down at the kitchen table and followed the directions.  He did a great job putting the set together.

On Thanksgiving day, we packed up and went to Nonna and Papa's house.  All the cousins had a great time playing together.  Ryan even participated in a small performance for all the adults in his Thanksgiving hat.

On Saturday, we had a baby shower to attend at Aunt Marg and Uncle Jim's house.  Phil's cousin is pregnant and instead of a traditional baby shower they decided to make it an after Thanksgiving family gathering.   Our only reservation about going to the party was the dogs.  They have two dogs.  Aunt Marg texted Dawn pictures of the dogs and we had been preparing Ryan for them.  For those that have forgotten, Ryan is afraid of dogs and wants to know when we go to a new house if they have a dog.  Aunt Marg and Uncle Jim kept the dogs outside and Ryan even ventured outside to throw the dog toys to the dogs.  Granted, he stayed behind the invisible fence so the dogs could not get to him but he did have fun throwing the toys to the dogs.  They also had a room set aside for all the kids to play in and both Ryan and Julia spent most of the time in this room playing.  During this party we learned that Ryan has a new skill.  He learned how to open a soda can and when he was finished he crushed it with one hand!  He told me that when you finish a can you had to crush it!  When I asked him where he learned that from he told me TV.  Not to be left out, Ryan shared his new found knowledge with his sister who was very happy to learn how to open a soda can.

Jack turned four months this week!

On Sunday, we decided to get a jump on decorating for the Christmas season.  The kids were very excited to help decorate the Barbie tree.  Dawn has been collecting Barbie ornaments for years and now has enough to fill a whole tree.  We also welcomed back our Elf on the Shelf, Andy (named after Andy from Toy Story).  We have caught Ryan going up and talking to Andy quietly about what he wants for Christmas.  It is very cute.  They are all very excited for the Christmas season!

PC

Week 135- Our Little Volunteer

This was another busy week for Ryan.  On Thursday we had his teacher conference to go over his first report card.  His teachers had really great things to say about him and his love of learning.  They said that he is always excited to learn and always ready to speak in class.  What they did not mention was the comment that they placed on his report card...he has difficulty handling conflict.  This is something that we worry about him at home.  He has a difficult time understanding that not everyone is going to listen to him and follow his instructions.  This was demonstrated this week with yet another bus incident.  Another boy was talking about guns on the bus.  Ryan told him to stop talking about it and the other boy refused.  They got into an argument and Ryan slapped the other boy across the face.  The bus driver did not see the incident but another boy and Julia saw what happened and they told us.  We made him apologize the next day and we never heard anything about the incident again.  But this is something that we have to be mindful as he gets older.  The only other area of concern that they pointed out was his reading. His reading level is below grade level.  However, they showed us that it is just below where he needs to be so we are not worried.  He went from a non-reader last year to someone that loves to read.  At the end of the conference they gave us his first unit test in Social Studies and he got a 100%.  Overall we are pleased and he has made great progress with the full day of first grade.  His teachers are great and really seem to understand Ryan.

On Friday I was able to witness how far Ryan has come in his gymnastics.  The owner of the gym was working with a small group from his class on the high balance beam.  Ryan was able to climb up, balance himself on the bar and attempt to catch a ball and throw it back to owner.  It took him a few tries to keep his balance but he did not give up.  After three tries, he was able to complete the task several times until the owner told him to get down and let someone else give it a try.  The old Ryan would have had a difficult time getting up on the beam, balancing, and would have given up after the first fall.  He did a great job and really seems to enjoy the experience.

This past Saturday was a very busy day.  After his religion class he had his last soccer game of the fall.  While he did not score any goals this season he did a nice job playing the game.  He is still a little afraid of the ball when it is kicked hard at him but he is getting better.  I am not sure if he is going to stick with the sport.  The level of competition is getting more competitive and they are just passing him by on the field.  He loves being part of the team and he has a lot of fun with the other kids on the team.  We will have to wait and see what happens during the spring season.

We also kept busy this week with the collecting and sorting of the back packs. Below are some pictures of the event. Dawn and her friend Donna, with the help and support of family, friends, and Mahopac students, collected 140 backpacks for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.  Ryan had a lot of fun helping with the week's events.  They even started to call the front room the "donation room".   And when Ryan saw Dawn and Donna counting money donations to purchase supplies he took out his wallet and handed them $7 and some coins.  Such a generous, caring boy!

Helping to sort the back packs

The finished product

The cousins enjoying time together on one of the half days of school this week!  

Helping unload the back packs at the Belle Harbor Yacht Club

Having fun with his cousin Frankie

It was a good week and we count our blessings with Ryan.  He was so excited to help with the donations and was a big hit with some of the ladies at the Belle Harbor Yacht Club.  He has come such a long way and we are all extremely proud of his progress.

PC

Week 134

With this being Veteran's Day and schools closed tomorrow, today didn't feel like a Sunday.  Here it is after 10 pm and I realized I didn't post a blog entry today.

Here is my sweet boy proudly displaying his first religious education test.  He scored a 95.  He explained to us that he only got one "x" and it was for question #17.  He didn't answer the question.  It was a unit test covering 7 chapters in his textbook.  We studied a half an hour the night before and another half an hour the morning of the test.  He was patient and willing to put in the time.  And his hard work paid off!  We made a big deal about the test and praised him for his hard work.

The kids had off from school on Election Day, and we had a great time playing together.  Here is a video of the dance party we had.  Jack was thrilled to sit on my lap and watch his brother and sister dance around.  Sometimes it is the silliest things that bring the biggest smiles :)

Dance Party

I hope you had a good laugh watching them.  I watched this video over and over again; it is hysterical! I can't get over what a ham Ryan is and how sophisticated Julia is.

Update on Julia... She continues to dance and sing during any free moment she has.  Ballet, Irish Step Dancing, free style, tap, she does it all!

Here's a video of her practicing her Irish Step Dancing.  Irish Step Dancing

Also, Julia scored a hat trick in last weekend's soccer game and did the same in yesterday's soccer game.  Ryan seems totally fine hearing praises to Julia for her excellent work on the soccer field.  I think if it was last year, he would have been upset because he wasn't scoring goals.  But this year he is not jealous of his sister and he isn't upset that he isn't scoring goals.  He is a better defensive player and he seems to accept that there are some players on the field that are there to score the goals and some that are there to prevent the other team from scoring goals.  We're so proud of him!

And an update on Baby Jack... We think he is teething.  He had a rough few days this week but seemed to be handling things better this weekend.  Jack loves to watch Ryan and Julia and is intrigued with the world around him.  He is three and half months old and about 16 pounds already.  I'm really enjoying my time home with him and sad that it is going by so fast.  When I sit and play with him, his smiles and giggles melt my heart!

We've been involved this week with a collection for the children impacted by Hurricane Sandy.  I'm collecting backpacks with supplies for the children in some of the hard hit areas.  So many friends and family members have been donating brand new backpacks filled with school supplies and other items.  We're hoping to collect 100 backpacks and are close to our goal.  I will post a picture next week of all of the backpacks before we deliver them.  We turned one of the rooms in our house into the "backpack" room and Ryan and Julia have been helping me organize supplies.

Within only 2 days of spreading the word about the collection, we received a dozen backpacks! We now have over 30 and are expecting about 60 more, most of those coming from a collection done at Mahopac Middle School.

It is nice to know that there are so many generous and caring people in our lives!  I'm proud to have so much support and that we can do something nice for those kids.  And I'm so glad I can involve my own children in this learning experience called humanity.

DC

Week 133- Hurricane Sandy and Halloween

Week 133

This has been a trying week with Hurricane Sandy.  We lost power around 9:30 PM on Monday night and did not get it back until around 8:00 PM on Wednesday evening.  We were extremely lucky that we only lost power considering all the damage that the hurricane did to the tri-state area.  We are also lucky that Uncle T and Auntie B had power and were willing to take us in for the two days.  It would have been extremely difficult to have Jack in a house without any power and water.  Ryan handled the situation extremely well.  Both he and Julia were excited to have a sleep over on a school night.  They were also excited to take the school bus with their cousins.  He did a nice job with all the changes.  What was very cute was when we returned to our regular bus, Ryan hugged the bus driver.  The driver took it in stride, patted Ryan's shoulder, and had him take a seat.  But this is something that we will have to work on with him.  While it is cute now, in a few years this will not be socially acceptable  and he may not understand why this is not okay.

Halloween!
This was a very exciting Halloween for the kids.  They were able to go Trick-or-Treating with their cousins in their development.  We usually hit about 5 to 10 homes in our development and then call it a night.  In their cousins' development, we hit 10 homes in five minutes.  Ryan had a great time but wanted to talk to everyone.  This included people as they were trying to give out the candy, people walking through the development, and the people coming to the door.  He had to know what people were dressed as when they came to the door.  He was also obsessed with winning a contest at school.  A local dentist offers to throw a party for the classroom that turns in the most Halloween candy.  Ryan insisted that he turn in as many bags of candy as possible.  On Friday afternoon, he came off the bus all disappointed that his classroom did not win the contest.  He handled it well but he was still disappointed all weekend.

A Pirate and Merida, the Princess from Brave.

Jack's First Halloween!  

Jack loves laughing at Ryan and Julia.  Ryan also loves making Jack laugh.  Below are some pictures of the two of them laughing at each other.

Dawn found a found GF biscuit mix at Walmart and Ryan loves them.  She caught him stuffing a whole biscuit in his mouth!

A difficult week but Ryan made it through with few difficulties.  We just have to focus on teaching Ryan to read and understand social cues.  Like we have stated earlier, these are cute now but soon they are going to be socially unacceptable and we are not sure Ryan will understand why.

PC

Week 132

Ryan was so proud of himself this week and couldn't wait to come home and show us his certificate for reaching the "outstanding" mark in his classroom. Getting Ryan to do homework is much easier this year.  He tries really hard to sound and tap out words to practice reading and writing.  He enjoys listening to us read books and he loves doing his math homework.  Ryan going to school full day has proved to be very beneficial for him.  He rarely brings home extra work to do that wasn't finished in the classroom.  He has time to go to his speech, O/T, and counseling services and complete all of his work in school. 

 Ryan and Julia have started a reading program in school that is linked to an online program called Raz-kids.  Both of the kids easily spend an hour at a time listening to, reading, and taking quizzes about books online.  I am usually the one that has to tell them it is time to get off of the computer.  They love earning stars for completing the activities and with those stars they get to purchase items for a rocket ship.  It is a cute program and it keeps them intrigued.  And they are doing a GREAT job learning how to read! 

 

 

Julia takes a turn reading books online while Ryan watches and helps.

Ryan was watching the news updates about Hurricane Sandy and afterwards we caught him drawing this picture of New York.  He also wrote down some of the cities he remembered seeing the names of on the TV.  If you look on the left side of the paper, he drew the evacuation map and listed Zone A, Zone B, and Zone C, just like he saw them do on the news.  We've said it before, Ryan thinks in pictures.  He amazed me when he drew this picture purely from memory of a news story picture that flashed on the screen for no more than 15 seconds. 

Singing Happy Birthday to Nonna

Nonna and Papa with their 5 grandchildren

Spending time with Uncle Tim and Uncle Michael who were in from California for Jack's Christening.

Getting ready to celebrate Jack's special day.

God Bless Jack!

DC

Week 131- RIP Ty

Ty Louis Campbell, five years old, lost his fight to cancer this week, on 10/17/12.  I've been following his story and reading his mom's blog for about two years now.  On the day of his death, there had been a prayer chain set up for 7 pm.  Ty had passed away earlier that afternoon and I spent most of the afternoon reading the comments that flooded the blog and his Facebook page.  At 7 pm we paused at the dinner table to say a prayer for Ty.  The four of us held hands and Ryan stopped and said, "What about Jackie?"  So we added Jack's little hands to our circle and prayed for Ty and his family.  And that evening before bed Ryan looked out the window and said goodnight to Ty.

I've spoken to my children about Ty but didn't start showing them the pictures posted on his mom's blog until last week.  Julia had a lot of questions for me and each morning sat by me while I read the blog, handing me tissues for my tears.  Ryan was just as curious but it bothered him to see and hear about a little boy so sick.  I questioned myself as to whether I should share his story with them, especially Ryan who is so sensitive and has already had trouble going to sleep because he is afraid of dying, but I thought it was important to be honest with them.  I don't want them to take for granted all of the things they are blessed with, including their health.  The next time they complain that this is "the worst day ever" because they didn't get a toy they wanted or an extra treat or get their way, I hope a gentle reminder of Ty will help them appreciate what they have.  I know this is a tall order for a 5 and 6 year old, but now is as good of a time as any to teach them about appreciation and compassion, and instill in them a love for life.  It has been a lesson learned for me too!  From heaven, Ty's legacy will live on and he will do great things!

When I told the kids that Ty died and went to Heaven, they wanted to make him a card.  The next morning before school they did so, and after school we drove it to his house and placed it in his mailbox.
Click here to see the video: Ryan and Julia made Ty a card to send their love to him.

I can't imagine what Ty's family, especially his mother, is going through right now.  There is nothing like a mother's love for her children.  I feel the best thing we can do for them is let them feel our love, always.  Ty's card was not the only artwork produced by Ryan this week.  In the midst of all of the tears I shed for Ty, I had a few more left for Ryan, my beautiful, intuitive, sensitive, sweet boy.

Ryan: I made you a picture, mom.  That's you and me.  Me: What are we doing?  Ryan: That's you loving me.

If you haven't read the Super Ty blog yet, I've included a link to the entry where Ty's mom shared his final moments... http://www.superty.org/2012/10/our-baby-is-finally-free-rest-in-peace.html

May God bless Ty and his family today and always!

DC

Week 130

We had a good week with Ryan.  He seems to be settling in with the bus and we have received nothing but good reports from school.  He had a spelling test this week and he spelled 9 out of 10 words correctly.  For one of the words he wrote a q instead of a p.  We are still seeing some fairly wild behavior at home but it appears that he is keeping it all in at school and letting us have it at night!

Homework is something that we are doing but it is still a struggle.  He gets frustrated quickly and wants to throw the pencil down and leave the kitchen table.  He eventually completes the work but he wastes more time complaining about doing the assignment than it takes to complete the assignment.  Writing is still something that he tries to avoid but we are working on it both here and at school.   It is getting better but it is something that we have to carefully plan and make sure he does when he is in a good mood.  We are getting better.  We were watching Julia's soccer practice and waiting for Ryan's to begin and he got a big kick out of doing his homework on a clip board outside.  Not sure if that will work again, but it worked on a busy night.

We had another crazy Saturday morning with Religion ending at 10:30 and soccer beginning at the same time.  We thought that Ryan would have a difficult time coming to soccer late but he has taken it in stride.  He is perfectly fine coming in late to the game and it is not effecting him at Religion.  He is even taking to the Religion classes extremely well.  We thought that we would have to convince/drag him to class every Saturday morning but he is excited to go.  We were also worried that he would not be able to make it for the 90 minutes.  We keep getting good reports from the two volunteer parents that are teaching the class.  And on the soccer front now Ryan only wants to play on the field that I am coaching on.  If you recall last year, he did not want to play on the field that I was coaching on and it took a great deal of convincing to get him on my field.  This past weekend the other coach and I decided that we are going to switch fields at half time to work with all of our players.  Ryan did not want to switch to the other coach and insisted that he stay with me.  Luckily another player also did not want to switch and insisted that he stay with the other coach.  It made it easy but it also reminds me that for even simple changes of schedule I still have to prep Ryan.

Ryan has made such progress from when we started this blog that I sometimes forget how difficult it was in the beginning.  We have been very lucky with Ryan and all of the progress that has made over the past few years.  The forgetting to prep him for the coaching change was one thing and another was at a Birthday party this weekend.  We have been letting Ryan cheat when he goes to birthday parties.  When it came time for cupcakes one of the young girls handed Ryan a plain cupcake!  The other cupcakes were all decorated and he was upset because the girls were asking the other party guests which one they wanted and Ryan did not get a choice.  He got upset and ran out of the room.  Dawn had to go get him, calm him down, and ask him why he was upset.  Luckily he was able to tell Dawn why he was upset and was able to return to the room and get another cupcake.

Below are some pictures of this week's events.

Ryan at a birthday party applying what he has been learning at gymnastics.

 

Ryan takes a liking to all little kids and it is great to see him interact with them and share his gentle side.

 

Ryan and Julia added their decorative talents to our anniversary cake.
10/10/12...8 years!

 

PC

Week 129

First and foremost I want to wish Ty a Happy 5th Birthday.  Over the course of the past couple of years we've followed Ty's blog and have shared Ty's story on this blog.  On October 4th he turned five years old.  Ty, who lives just a couple of towns away from us, has cancer and things are rough for him and his family.  Prayers are needed, as well as a miracle.  Please read his mom's blog posts about his birthday...www.superty.org
 

Bus Update

At the beginning of the week I contacted the school's psychologist and Ryan's teacher to make them aware of the bus situation with Ryan. We spoke about some role playing that can be done during his counseling sessions with the social worker, and his teacher was going to remind the class about appropriate behavior on the bus and what to do if someone is bothering you.  The psychologist was also going to relay the information to the Assistant Principal and get back to me; I haven't received any calls yet.  I check with Ryan often about how things are going.   I can tell he is still hyped up on the bus.  Twice during the week when getting on the bus in the morning he stopped to tell the bus driver a story and both times the bus driver had to cut him off and ask him to find a seat.  Just about everyday he came off the bus full of energy.

Speaking of his energy, I also spoke to his teacher about his attention in class.  I explained to her what we are seeing at home and she said she doesn't see any of that in school.  He is on task and keeps up with the class.  We both thought that Ryan must be trying so hard to stay focused and calm in class that he sees the bus and home as his outlets to release his built up energy.  It is time to get Ryan back in for an appointment with Dr. Cowan and hear his suggestions.  We've always been against putting Ryan on a medication to help control his ADHD but it may be something we need to consider.  His behavior during the week can be so erratic that it is turning our household upside down.  We're trying to keep him busy and give him other outlets to burn off energy at, with activities like soccer and gymnastics.  He enjoys doing these things, but doesn't seem any calmer when he returns home.  We will keep trying our best!

Ryan and Julia at the Fall Festival hosted by Adams Fair Acre Farms

Fun at the Fall Festival

Jousting...they were so excited that they were allowed to fight with each other!

 

Ryan was a little timid at first, but by the end of his ride I heard him telling this employee that he was going to come back next time with an apple for the horse. 

Jack didn't go to the Fall Festival; he spent some time with daddy at home.

Decorating his pumpkin from grandma

Ryan stayed on task for 20 minutes to complete this homework assignment.  After coloring in question #2 out of the lines, he decided to take his time and color the boxes for the other questions much neater.  After he was finished he made up a math worksheet with addition problems for the two of us to work on.  Ryan loves math!

The kids playing with their new cooperative game.  It was so nice to watch a game between them that didn't involve one of them winning and the other losing.  Thanks, Bridget!

Painting pumpkins for our front stoop

Out of the blue Ryan wrote a note to papa and asked us to mail it to him.  
Video:  Ryan's Note to Papa




































DC