Monday, October 26, 2009

Lightbulb Moment

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Early school mornings often look like this these days. Laying in front of the floor heater vent, breakfast within reach, minimal lighting. George has always been a morning person (versus Emma's night owl behavior), so seeing him so sleepy and cuddly is precious to me. It only takes about 15 minutes though and then he's up and running (literally), playing, eating, jabbering, the usual.

Emma noticed something this morning that I hadn't clued into. Most mornings, once George has gotten past this floppy phase, he starts turning on lights. ALL the lights. Lights we don't usually use, like the bright overhead light in the living room and the two hallway lights. I thought for sure this was just a habit, connected to his love of all things that can be switched, pushed, turned, or otherwise engaged. He doesn't usually do it at any other time of the day, but I figured it had gotten to be part of his routine ("do it once, and it's routine"), and didn't think on it further.

However, rather than it being a tactile sensory response, Emma suggested that it's more of a need for the light itself. George is both very literal and also very receptive to sensory input. That combination reveals itself in these dark early mornings where George must create the environmental surrounding that tell him it is, indeed, morning. Emma pointed out to me that the only other time George floods the house with light is occasionally after dinner; again, now that it is already dark so early in the evening. As soon as I start giving countdown warnings that bathtime is approaching, George races around the house, turning off as many lights as I will allow.

Creating night time.

No one will ever convince me that my children aren't brilliant. Both of them.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Clouds of Words

Clouds of Words

I feel stuck lately. Stuck in my head, stuck in routine. I created the word cloud above out of all the words in this blog. Seems like I've said it all before, probably too many times. And with the deadly combination of constantly changing weather and the flu cycling through our family, we're not getting out much.

I'm not taking many pictures, so I'm stuck with the ones I have. We're not having fun, new experiences; so I'm stuck with random bits from day to day. The kids haven't been on their best behavior lately; so I'm stuck with my desire to share their successes, but would really like to moan and whine.

Can you tell we've been housebound for too long?

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Finally Fishing

These photos are a couple of months old, but I don't think I ever shared them here.


Finally-Fishing

Friday, October 09, 2009

Hockey Mom

hockey

Journaling:

As of today, I have a GINORMOUS sports bag and HOCKEY STICK in the back of the van. WHAT????????????? We are NOT a sports family, what’s going on? Yeah so, today I found out about an ice hockey group for kids with special needs. And it started today. So we boogied over there and spent AN HOUR trying to find a uniform that would fit little man. (The group is for kindergarten through high school, so he was by FAR the smallest). By the time we were done, he only got about 15 minutes on the ice.

In that 15 minutes, he went from hanging between the coaches knees trying to stand up, to SKATING ON HIS OWN AND HITTING A HOCKEY PUCK!!!!!!

Please excuse my screaming, it was unreal how well he did. All the other moms & dads were coming up to me exclaiming about how well he was doing.

So yeah, I'm a hockey mom now.

(For biggie size views of the photos, follow this link to the full set on Flickr: Hockey)