31 for 21: Day 28 The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Today was character day at Katie’s school.  Katie’s class dressed up as part of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

 Ok, I took this image from Amazon.com if you couldn’t tell!  Thanks Amazon!  I love Amazon too.

 

I have to admit, I have never read this book.  I knew it was a classic, but it had not been a book that I had ever picked up before to even glance at it.  I was at the store the other day and I did read the book once I knew that was what we were going to do as a class project.  Very cute book and I will have to get it for Katie as a Christmas gift.  I will write in it and tell her a story about her class and this day on the inside cover. 

So, I am not at all a crafty person.  I love crafts, but they are always bought.  The only thing that I have ever really gotten into is scrapbooking.  Now I keep pinning all these pins over on Pinterest with the great hopes that I will do some of these crafts!  It doesn’t matter if I don’t.  I like looking at them all regardless.  Now I have made a few food items from there and I can’t wait to try some more of the recipes I have gathered.  Anyway,  back to this story….

The paper came home with a list of possible suggestions on what Katie could be out of the book.  A leaf, a strawberry, a watermelon, an ice cream cone, a cake, an apple and the cupcake which she was,  along with a few other things I can’t remember.  I told Kiley we had to do the ice cream cone or the cupcake.  I googled images of homemade costumes thinking how am I going to come up with an outfit!  Not this un-crafty girl.  But….the debacle over my son many years back in kindergarten not dressing up for the Fairy Tale ball or  something like that still lingers with this momma.  I  will have to you the story about this someday, along with a few others….like the time I forgot to pick up Blake on the last day of school that same year as the fairy tale ball and the school calls me.  As soon as I hear my name on the overhead hospital paging system, I jumped up from my cafeteria chair and ran out of the hospital!  I knew what I had done right at that moment.  Needless to say, he was the last child there.  How embarrassing!  Oh well….stories of a failed momma another night.  Back to this story…..

I went to work and told a few people what I was going to try to do this past weekend (make a costume) because I was looking for some suggestions on how to do the costume.  Well, I am saved that night.  My friend sends me a message that they have cupcake costumes on sale at Old Navy for the grand total of $12.50!  I knew what I was going to do first thing in the morning!  And VIOLA!  The cupcake she was, courtesy of Old Navy.  Now, I would have loved to have made some of the outfits I saw such as these, but I happily took the easy way out. 

 

I got home this evening and I see that Katie’s teacher has posted a video.  I copied all of these images from her video, so thank you Mrs. Amy.  I can’t tell you how much I love her teachers and their para pros.  I can tell they genuinely love our kids. 

 

Katie looking so cute sitting with the scarecrow earlier in the week.

  Watching with a little skepticism in her eyes as another child is getting his hands dirty.

 

Katie looks like she didn’t really like this. Her faces is saying yuck!  Good sensory stimulation Katie—I love your hands in this!

 

Mrs. Marge is the apple, Mrs. Amy is the caterpillar, and Mrs. Cathy is the watermelon.  Now they are crafty!

 

A picture of the class today.  Please excuse the red blurs, but I do not want these children’s faces posted without their parents permission. 

Going for a class walk.  Not sure where to, but of course they needed to parade themselves around.  They are too cute not to let everyone see their handiwork.  

 

I just met this little boy on the left a few weeks ago.  Very sweet.  The one in the middle is wonderful with Katie.  He loves her and I love when he says her name. 

It looks like they played some great games too!

 

I would say my bug had a wonderful time these last few days!  What a wonderful story that came to life today for The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Note to self, why did you get the 2t-3t costume when you know she wears 4t and it was available for purchase!? Duh! The cupcake liner kept riding up on Katie---momma thinks you were adorable regardless.

Gearing up for a nice, relaxing weekend as we go into the final days of October.  Other things were planned, but a great offer came up, so plans were changed and we are relaxing.  I’ll share those details later.

31 for 21: Day 27—Fun after therapy today

A diagnosis of Down syndrome usually means some form of therapy for our children at some point during their lives.  For some it starts shortly after birth, some a half year into the journey and for some even later.  Of course there are probably exceptions to this as there are with all things in life and they take therapy for a short time or never.  For Katie, we were in contact with Early Intervention services as soon as we got home from our NICU stay.  We didn’t actually start any therapy until she was 6 months old and then it was a monthly thing, then bimonthly, then weekly and now we are even doing triweekly services with speech.  (just to clarify—2 days of speech are private and the other day is public with the school)  She has never had an actual session with a physical therapist, but occupational therapy did the job of both.  People ask me all the time how come we didn’t have a physical therapist.  At the time we were getting evaluations, there was a waiting list to get a consult with the therapist and I didn’t push for the services like I should have.  I didn’t even ask to be put on the PT list for a consult.  My OT, Missy, did a great job with Katie.  She would show me what to work on with Katie PT wise and she did just fine.  Therapy won’t work if you don’t apply what they are teaching your child.  You can’t expect your child to work an hour in therapy and that is it until the next week.  You have to apply everything they are teaching BOTH of you.  Learning never stops for any of us.  So, as we continue to move forward with therapy, we are steadily working on old and new skills and I don’t feel that therapy services will be stopping for us anytime in the near future.

For the first three years of Katie’s life, the therapists came to our home.  (It was lovely too!)  Now we go to them.  She loves therapy.  Those first initial visits were rough.  Katie has to grow into things I’ve noticed.  She screams and cries like her whole world has gone to pieces (and for her it has)  until she adapts after a few days or weeks in the new routine.  Just like school was at the beginning of the year.  Everyone at the therapy clinic can tell a big difference in how she was when she first started.  We started with new therapists last year when she turned 3 and moved out of Early Intervention.  My girl loves her therapists!  I have been lucky in that Katie has loved them all past and present.  Today they had a bounce house, hay rides, games and treats for the kiddos at the clinic.

Katie woke up at 1 am last night, stayed up for about 15 minutes, back to bed until 3 am.  Then she proceeded to stay up the rest of the night.  So, come therapy time today, she was exhausted.  She still had a great time, but was ready to go after she had an allergic reaction to the bubbles solution.  Here is some snapshots from today’s event.

We have to be appropriately dressed for these type of fall festivals! 

 

Katie and her speech therapist Mandy.  We love Mandy!

 

 

Fun things like the bounce house and the pumpkin ring toss!

  

Going for a hayride with Mandy. 

 

 

Katie doing her favorite thing ever—bubbles!! This girl loves bubbles. Pop, pop, pop,pop, pop!  That’s what Katie says. 

 

Note that Katie is wet and that she has her hand (both at different times) in the soap dishes.  She had soap all over her.  You can’t see it, but her hair is slicked down with soap on her right side.

 

Love this game!  Pin the “stache” on Mr. Frank, who also sees Katie as her OT.  We love Mr. Frank too!  Katie is like what the heck on the middle photo.  Mr. Frank is hanging sideways.  Kiley found it amusing and of course pinned it perfectly.  Great game for those who are looking for a twist on pin the donkey!

Okay, so remember Katie got her hands in the bubbles several times.  She ended up with bubbles in her right eye.  You can’t see it here, but her eye is really red and she had a rash pop up on her right cheek.  She was miserable by this time.  It was time to go.  She fell asleep about a minute after we got in the car, took a nap for a few hours (remember she had been up since 3 am), and when she woke up, the picture on the right tells how she was still feeling! 

My sweetheart did ok after an hour or so once she fully woke back up.  Her eye is no longer red and the rash is gone.  She is ready for more fun tomorrow!  It’s character day at school tomorrow.  She will be a character from the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, along with the rest of her classmates.  Stay tuned…..

E is for Events (part 2)-Field Trip 31 for 21 Day 10

Katie got to go on her first school field trip ever this past Friday.  I took the morning off from work to be able to go with her and asked her grandma to come also.  This was the first time that she rode on the bus too.  We went to the 30th annual Honey Bee Festival in a small town near Valdosta.  Isn’t it funny how you can live somewhere for many years and never attend such a popular event?  Well, that’s me.  I love arts and crafts and parades, so I am not sure why I haven’t been before this field trip.  I will have to plan on going to next years for sure.  I didn’t have near enough time to do all the looking and shopping I wanted to do.  I did get some cute little outfits for the Katie bug.  I will have to share those when she wears them.  Alas, we were a little pressed for time (or maybe it was just me as I wanted to stop at every booth), so I didn’t find the jelly and jams I was looking for.  And was anyone selling honey?  Seems like it couldn’t be a honeybee festival without someone sharing all things honey, but what do I know.  I’ll let you all know next year.  Oh yeah, check out her outfit…it was spirit day at school, but we don’t have any school outfits yet (we are working on that), but I had the perfect outfit for her.  Take a look at her shirt, could it bee a coincidence? 

 

Okay, bad pun, couldn’t help myself.  Anyway….
Back to the field trip.  Katie and 5 of her classmates went on the field trip.  (Two have Down syndrome too!)  Along with taking the kids to the Honeybee festival, we went to Katie’s teachers home and went on a hayride (which had a pumpkin scavenger hunt for the kids along the route) and we had a picnic on her front lawn.  It was a truly wonderful morning!  I can tell how much her teacher and her parapros love these kids.   They are so good with them.  The kids got to see the fire truck, walk among the food and craft booths, hop on an old caboose, touch real cotton coming out of the cotton field, hold pumpkins, sit on an John Deere tractor, and enjoy a picnic lunch.  What more could you ask for?  Thank you Mrs. Amy, Mrs. Cathy and Mrs. Marge for a wonderful time!  I won’t ever forget it!

(I would have loved to show the other children, but I didn’t ask permission to share their photos, so I will share Katie’s friend Juicy with you.  He is so sweet, he takes good care of her and I love to hear him call her name.) 

L to R-checking out the train, everyone walking the streets, Juicy giving me the look like I need to stop taking his picture

Lto R-don’t you love festivals and fairs, the funnel cakes and lemonade always hit the spot for me, walking around to some more booths, Katie leaning on Juicy

L to R- checking the train out, walking with grandma, this was the only bee I could find

L to R- on the hay ride, Mrs. Amy with Juicy on the hay ride, one of the pumpkins hidden along the hay ride trip

L to R-enjoying the picnic, our tractor we rode, getting down with the grub

Katie checking out the tractor and the pumpkin.

More pictures of Katie and Juicy checking things out.