All Kinds of Fun

Ok, that might not sound sucky, but not having enough time to get all kinds of fun new stuff onto my blog is sucky.

Now, since last time, we've been to Cedar Point, a Very Special Arts Festival, the Zoo, and had our last day of Chase's class for the school year.

Cedar Point
It went really well. It's funny how Chase was terrified of some things that Ethan would go on, and Ethan was terrified of things that Chase loved! Odd how that works.
The boys were troopers! They made it through both days at Cedar Point, an indoor waterpark, two nights in the hotel, and the trip there and home (thank you Grandma for the DVD player for the car!)

We were all tired, but I think that we're going to try to do it again next year!
Here's some pictures. I finally broke down and went for the slideshow...

Torrent Very Special Arts Festival and the Zoo
We stopped over at Chase's school for a really neat little art festival that they do every year. They have several different stops along the way to make crafts to take home. The kids made buttons, necklaces, glitter cards, and also had their faces (or hand) painted and ate snow cones.

Craig and I took the kids to the Binder Park Zoo on Memorial Day. I guess that I took more video than I did pictures, so there's only a couple. The best thing about this zoo is feeding the giraffes!

Here's some pictures of Chase and Cory, and their friends, Daisy and Evie at the art festival and a few of our zoo trip.

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Weathermen

Why is it that weathermen get away with being wrong so much? If a person in another career was wrong as many times as they are, that person would be unemployed.

Even up until the storms hit yesterday, they were still saying that today would be dry. Um, it was pouring when I left the house this morning and it's still raining. Even better, here's the forecast from TheWeatherChannel.com for Cedar Point:Thursday's our evening at Cedar Point, Friday is our whole day. I guess it's not the crappiest forecast, but hot, sunny weather seems to go with Cedar Point.

Another thing that sucks today is that Cedar Point is only open until 7pm! I guess I've never been there this time of year, so I was totally surprised that it would close so early. I'm sure that will probably be a good time to leave for the kids. I'm sure that 9am-7pm will probably be a long enough day for them, and I guess us adults, too. Sigh.

Photos
Here's some pictures from Mother's Day.

Cory before the pickle was taken away.

Cory after the pickle was taken away.
Cory after Grandma made her happy again.Chase and (Great) Aunt Kathy

Cory and Mya

Sharing popsicles

Mya and Amy

Troublemakers

Where's Jose? Can you tell which is the real bird?

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I almost forgot. It's my mom's birthday today. I don't know what I'd do without her. She's completely put her life on hold to help us out with the kids. I love you, Mom! Happy Birthday!

Microsoft Word

Ever since I got out of college, I have used Word to create documentation.

First at Unisys where, for as much as it sucked to work there, the templates/tools that we used to create our documents weren't too bad. (For those of you who work/worked there, I'm talking about BEFORE CMS)

Next at WorkForce where we used Word with Doc-to-Help, or as we fondly called it "Doc-to-Hell". I seriously spent six months of the eleven I worked there just trying to renumber my documents.

Now, at TechSmith we use Word and Acrobat to make our PDFs. I guess that this version of Word has a sense of humor. It likes to catch me off guard when it decides to die and not to give me any warning or message that it's crashed. It's just gone. But, not all the time, sometimes I do get errors. I mean, I'm used of Word crashing, but when it doesn't give me a message, I don't always realize it's gone for awhile. Oh, it only does this when I switch over to another window, so I might not notice it for 5-20 minutes. Nice.

Mothers' Day
We had a nice weekend. We got our "white-trash" pool filled with water, which cost about as much as the pool, but less than a new well pump. We went to my Grandma's on Mothers' Day. Chase again found the booster seat and snapped it on. He did tell my mom this time that he was a turtle. Smart, huh? He's doing so good with his speech that he's able to tell us what he's thinking a little bit. At least now we know that he's pretending to be a turtle, not just goofy.

Everyone in the extended family thinks that I don't do good enough about watching Cory. She runs. She falls. She walks. She falls. (I have the same problem.) Anyway, I can't make her stop running/walking fast. I've never heard so much gasping as I did yesterday. I know that they totally think that I should do something about it, but then they can't give me any ideas about how to stop her. Sigh.

More about Chase
He's doing so good lately, that I want to say that he's not autistic. Again, I wish there was a blood test that could tell us for sure. He's repeating so much, using 4-word sentences, and initiates interaction with everybody. He doesn't talk as much around strangers as he does at home, but isn't that how most 2-3 year olds are?

Fun Times
We're going to Cedar Point on Thursday! I'm so excited! It's going to be me, Susanne, and Ethan (3), and Chase. We're staying for two nights. We got this package for supercheap that gives you 2 evening tickets, 2 full day tickets, 2 nights at the hotel, breakfast, and a parking pass. We also can go to the indoor waterpark for supercheap. I hope that Chase handles the whole thing good. I think he will. He's been there before and like Ethan. Chase is really brave about trying new stuff right now. We'll see how it goes.

... Storms.

I'm such a wuss when it comes to thunderstorms. It doesn't help that they seem to have more Severe Storm Warnings and Tornado Warnings then they ever did when I was a kid. I guess that now they call it "Warning" if the radar indicates conditions are right for a warning, where as when I was a kid, they only called it that if a trained weather spotter confirmed it.

That arrow is pointing at me.

So, the drive to work today was sucky. I jumped every time the lighting hit, which was a lot. I was convinced that a tree was going to get hit and then fall on my car.

Chase
Chase did really good at group yesterday. He was talking a lot and smiled when everyone was singing, although he didn't sign along with the songs like usual. He did all of his transitions well, except when we had to come in from the playground, but it was better than last week.

When they had snack, Chase said something like "Huh?" and made a goofy face, so I did it back to him. He thought it was funny, so we played this little back and forth game saying, "Huh?" different ways. The group leader saw that and was impressed that he was taking that much interest in the game. I also told her about Chase's "nigh-night" thing that I mentioned a couple posts ago. She was very impressed and even made a note about it.

I took him back to school for Occupational Therapy later yesterday, and he did the best he have has. He stayed focused on what we were doing, was very engaged with Andy the OT, and even showed us that he's already awesome at tee-ball! He was actually hitting the ball of the tee like he'd been doing it for years. It was pretty darn cute.

I really think that starting the shots again last week makes a difference in Chase's ability to focus and stay interested in the task at hand. So, I just have to keep remembering to do them!

... Nightmares tonight (For me!)

So, if you know me very well, you know that I'm scared to death of flying and airplanes in general.
Here's what I found in the living room:
When I asked Chase what happened, he said, "Nane, tuntle, stuck. Oh no!"
(For those that don't speak Chasese that's, "Plane, tunnel, stuck. Oh no!")

... Forgetting I can't drink like when I was in college.

Saturday, I went out with my book club/birthday club friends for Heather's birthday. We had a great time, even though we had our dinner reservation pushed back until 9:45 PM, Lansing bars were DEAD because everyone was celebrating MSU graduation in East Lansing, Casey's car window was broken out, and I mixed beer, hard cider, shots, and mixed drinks. I'm excited to do it again, but next time, only one kind of alcohol per night.

Talk Talk Talk
Chase is talking up a storm. He's repeating tons of stuff and did something really neat. I told him last night that it was almost time for bed. He said, "Momma, no go nigh-night." This may not seem like that big of a deal, but it is for the following reasons:

• He understood what I was saying.
• He was able to realize that he didn't want to do what I was saying.
• He was able to respond to me.
• He responded to me using words that I had not said.
• He related my "time for bed" with "no go nigh-night".

So, it really is a great thing. I'm very happy about that. :o)

Pictures

Grandma and Chase at the Zoo.

Shouldn't I be IN there?

If you always carry a chair, you always have a place to sit.

Someone thought that it'd be funny if I looked like Erkel.

... I don't want to be responsible

How is it that we have all these classes and tests to be able to get a driver's license, and yet we can have kids without any regulations or tests to see if we're good enough to be in control of another human's life?

So, today I want the kids to be able to go to daycare. I'd really like to be in the office more. Saying that, now I feel totally selfish.

I do feel that Chase could handle daycare better, but maybe I'm just hoping that he could. Besides, it'd be better to spend the money on speech therapy than daycare. I'd rather not have to make decisions like this. I'd rather that someone told me what I have to do and then I'd have to do it. Wow, I am so less responsible than I'd like to think I am.

On that note, yesterday, I had a great "stay-at-home-mom" day with the kids. I took Chase to swim therapy in the morning and then met another family at Portage Lake Park for a nice afternoon of playing. Chase really had a good time and the other parent remarked about how social he is. Yay!

I have some pictures, too. They're of my baby sister Stacy before her Junior Prom last weekend and our outing yesterday. Looking at the pictures, how could I want to put them in daycare? :o(

Time for a change

So anyway, I'm back. at work on a Wednesday, how novel! Since we don't have speech therapy anymore, I'm going to try to come in on Wednesdays now.
I changed the name of my blog because, unlike my original intention to monitor Chase's progress, I find that I'm tracking my progress. Mostly I feel like I complain about stuff, or maybe I just feel more compelled to write when I'm crabby about something. Hmmm...

Chase
Chase is doing good. More and more like a "neuro-typical" kid every day. Listening to a couple parents yesterday, I noticed more things that Chase isn't sensitive to. For example, the other parents were talking about how their kids can't deal with crowds. One child gets physically ill when he's been around a big group of people. Another clings to her mom, pulling her hair and screaming.

Of course that made me wonder if Chase might actually have issues with crowds but that maybe I don't realize it. I think that he's ok. He gets a little hyper some times, but he doesn't freak out like these other kids. I'm having a hard time lately of judging which things that he does are "autistic" and which things are "two-year old".

I think nothing of taking Chase to Cedar Point. These other parents look at me like that is nuts. Chase has been there 3 times. When he was 11 months old and 15 months old, he LOVED it. He went on all the kiddie rides. At 23 months, he was scared of a couple of the rides, but still had fun. Am I dumb for thinking that he'll have a good time when we go in two weeks? My friend Susanne and her 3 year old are coming with us. I hope it all goes well. Sleeping in the hotel is what I'm most concerned with, but I think that sharing a bed with me, he'll be ok.

Cory
Cory is so snotty. She throws some of THE biggest temper tantrums, throwing herself on the floor and screaming like she's hurt. And that's if you take away a piece of paper that she's trying to eat. A toy is much worse. Maybe she'll grow out of it quick? Please let her grow out of it quick. I'm realizing how nice it is that Chase likes to ride in the car and likes to watch movies. She has no interest in either or both together. Grr. She's cute, but a pain in the butt in the car.