Life is Therapy

I am starting my first ever blog series. I hope that it will be informative, encouraging, helpful, and fun.

Sometimes we parents can get bogged down in the notion that the teaching of our children must be done by professionals. Parents of children with special needs are particularly vulnerable to this idea since children with special needs often have to learn and develop quite differently than children with typical needs. This series centers around the idea that learning can and does occur most effectively through everyday life experiences at home and out in the community--for children with both typical and special needs.

The other piece to this puzzle is that just about everything can be therapy of one kind or another. Jumping in a pile of leaves? Sensory therapy (crunch of the leaves, feeling of fall after the jump), emotional therapy (joyful exuberance), play therapy (work out some pent up energy), social therapy (turn-taking as you wait for your chance to jump in the pile), physical therapy (gross motor skills required in jumping), vision therapy (identifying the pile), kinesthetic therapy (using combined senses to know when to jump), speech therapy (talking about the leaves, saying boom or crunch), and occupational therapy (picking up leaves). Get the picture?

Here's some more examples. Back in this post, I joked that Jack was getting blue speech therapy by sucking an icee through a straw. Well, it actually is speech therapy. Sucking through a straw works the muscles required for speech and sucking up an icee requires the recruitment of more muscles than say water. This post was an example of how swinging can be used for speech therapy. Of course, swinging is also sensory therapy. Riding a tricycle is physical therapy. Every bite of every meal or snack can be vision therapy and fine motor therapy and sensory therapy as the child finds, touches, and tastes their food. Get the picture?

This series is not just for children with special needs either. Parents of children with typical needs don't really call it therapy when their children practice their skills such as potty training but it's basically all therapy. We're all trying to help our children to develop skills to help them have the best lives they possibly can.

This is where we share our ideas and stories with one another. We're all in this together. Let's laugh together, motivate one another, and stimulate each others ideas. If you have a blog, create your own "life is therapy" post and link to the specific post in the Mr. Linky below. If you don't have a blog just leave a comment with your life is therapy story.

After that long-winded introduction, here is therapy at breakfast starring Jack!


***More Life is Therapy:
Prepositions at the Park
Rainy Days

Halloween 2009--A Lesson in Expectations

I'm going out of order here. I'm behind on posting other recent events but I'm going to go ahead and put up our Halloween pictures. We went to a pumpkin patch again this year. We went back to same one that his school went to last year. I will post pictures from our Pumpkin Patch adventure later. We picked out this pumpkin.....

This year, I was inspired by pictures of Kelly's family carving their pumpkins. She posted them on Facebook so if you are her friend on Facebook, go check them out or go post a comment at her blog asking her to put up her pumpkin carving pictures like I did.

Jack's co-teacher, Mr. Daniel, reported that Jack LOVED putting his hands in the pumpkin at school when they carved the class pumpkin. Jack loved it so much that Mr. Daniel got all the pumpkin goo out and set it on the table so that Jack could play with it some more. Ms. Sunny and I were delighted to hear it but very surprised since Jack is very picky about textures and generally does not like to touch gooey things.

Kelly's inspiration and Mr. Daniel's gooey goodness story started a little fire burning in my brain. Oh, what fun our family will have carving a pumpkin this year! I expected that the three of us would get into it together. Alas, Jack just wasn't into it. At first, I thought maybe he was just waiting for the pumpkin goo. I wanted a picture of him marking on the pumpkin to create the template but Jack doesn't like to draw so we just posed this shot.

Turns out that Jack wanted nothing to do with our pumpkin or our pumpkin goo. David cut the pumpkin open and we tried to get Jack to feel around the inside but he wanted nothing to do with it. So next I carved out the face I had drawn. It was my first pumpkin carving in a very long time and I couldn't make the teeth so we went for a great big smile....

So then I thought well maybe he did not like the plain ol' pumpkin but Jack will be enamored over this pumpkin with a face!

Ummm....not so much....

Then David grabbed a candle and lit up our pumpkin. Alright, I thought, Jack's going to love this!!!!

Or maybe he'll just love the railing on the porch as usual....I don't think he ever really noticed that pumpkin. But, you know what? He had fun when we let him swing or run around outside after dark.

After that picture, we got Jack his favorite dinner (ham buh guhs and pie) and rented Fantasia because we thought we'd all love the music and Jack might enjoy the visuals. Jack did love dinner and he loved walking around outside the movie rental store. Fantasia locked up a bunch (old DVD I guess) but Jack really enjoyed just spending time with his Mama and Daddy. Let it go, I told myself. So what if we did not really do the pumpkin carving as a whole family! The important thing is to enjoy ourselves as a family. It really doesn't matter what activity we do or how we do it, right?

Lesson learned......ummmmm....or maybe not....

I had my heart set on Trick or Treating this year. Jack and I sort of did a dry run when we went door to door selling coupon books. He loved knocking on people's doors and he loved being outside. Perfect! I thought Trick or Treating is going to be the best thing ever! Lots of doors to knock on, other kids everywhere, Yipppeeeeee!!!!

I dressed in a costume that I kid you not had little boys everywhere getting huge grins on their faces, pointing and stammering, "T-t-t-t-t-t-t-homas!" My kid is gonna LOVE this!!!!

I thought our trick or treating pictures would look like the ones featured here.

Jack had fallen asleep on our way home from visiting with friends (another fun post coming later). I knew it would be a bit of a late evening so I just let him sleep while I put out our candy and got in my costume. He woke up a little ill but I thought once we got started he would cheer up. Alas......

our cute train engineer only wanted to walk in the dangerous road. NOT GONNA HAPPEN especially not in the dark on Halloween.
We tried walking abit but Jack stayed upset and only wanted to be carried. He clearly wasn't enjoying it. I kept asking him what was wrong and it finally dawned on me that it was kind of late and Jack had not had dinner. In my excitement, I had forgotten to plan for dinner. I gave up on trick or treating in the neighborhood and we headed off to McDonald's and our usual Halloween party.

I experienced another "Duh" moment when Jack started chewing his sleeves like his life depended on it. Uh oh, teeth, I think my little guy is getting some more teeth. So he was hungry and hurting upon awakening from a nap only to have his Mama hurriedly rush him through putting on a costume and parading around for the neighborhood. Hmmmm....not your best set up for success.

After the ham buh guhs and running around and seeing the other kids at the party, we found ourselves having a good time after all....

How could you not? There was music, there were other kids and the bouncer.....

At the end of the party, I took off Jack's costume and we stomped around outside. Look who's having fun now....

Note to self: Drop the expectations, make sure that kiddo is as healthy as can be, as rested as can be, as pain free or distracted from pain as possible, well fed and well hydrated and just follow the fun. Life is much happier that way!!!!

Kashi--Part of an Active Preschooler's Lifestyle

He he so we're doing a Kashi commercial. :) Not really. In the interest of full disclosure, I purchased the product consumed in this short clip and we are in no way associated with Kashi. Their fruit and grain bars are good though. Jack was enjoying a Pumpkin Pie Bar while running around our yard and our neighbors' yards. I thought it would make a cute commercial and so I taped some of it and here you go....