The first time (and last, hopefully) that I need to skip the week's blog!

As most of you may already know, we are dealing with bed bugs! We are staying at an AirBnb through next Tuesday and all of our stuff is staying at the Clubhouse until the heat treatment next Monday. Including my computer! I won't be able to do an update tonight from my phone, so I think I'll need to skip this week's blog. You'll get a double dose next week and hear all about our bed bug adventures.

New York Pizza, Dentist, Dr Seuss

With Nico's new delivery of Little Passports, U.S. edition, he found a recipe for New York Pizza. So on Saturday we tried it out. It was mostly a change in crust, since Nico still preferred his normal toppings, but Guy jumped on board with the straight up basil and cheese pizza. The crust was good, Nico says he wants me to make it from now on. It was more crunchy. I liked it, too.

Saturday afternoon Nico started not feeling very good. He had a headache and a tummy ache that ended up with him getting sick. He felt fine and dandy afterward and ate some pizza, and back to normal life after. Just one of those things!

This week at school is Dr Seuss week! Monday was Green Eggs and Ham day, so he was supposed to try eating something new. I sent Lima Beans to school with him :) He ate two bites! Tuesday was wear blue day, or a shirt with your favorite animal on it. Wednesday was class picture day so it was "Well dressed Wednesday". Today was crazy mismatched sock day.

Tuesday after school Nico had a dentist appointment. Nico asked the dentist when he could get his front tooth fixed because it was chipped. The dentist told him it would be better to wait until he's older, because front teeth have ridges on the bottom that wear down over time. The dentist then casually mentioned that maybe they would fix it around the time Nico gets his orthodontic work done. That was the first I had heard of it, so I made sure to ask him about it. He said that Nico has an overbite that will need to be fixed. They typically like to see a 10% overbite but Nico's is 100%. Oh! Ok. Just the night before Nico had asked me, "What is head gear?" and I had told him all about orthodontics. He'll be 12-ish when we start to pursue that.

Tuesday morning I also received a call from the nurse telling me that she had forgotten to pass on Nico's vision test results. They tested his vision as part of the gamut of testing they did. His vision is "borderline referral", so she suggested it might be a good idea to get his eyes checked. Nico in glasses eh???

Today Guy went to Nico's school to read Nico's class a Dr Seuss book during their library time. He chose Oh Say Can You Say (a family favorite!) He had fun doing it. He read the book using different accents. I got to hear a preview when Guy read the book to Nico last night. And then Nico took the book to bed with him and read the entire book out loud about 5 times. Tongue twisters are fun.

Last night Nico told me that today they were celebrating July birthdays and that we could bring treats to share if we wanted. So today I made a double batch of snickerdoodles and sent them with Guy when he went to the school. The party started right after the library time, and Nico got to share cookies with the class. Guy joined his class for the party. He told me that one of Nico's classmates asked, "What kind of cookies are these?" Guy told him they were snickerdoodles and he said, "I've never heard of snickerdoodles, is that the same as schnitzel?"

Guy told me that the librarian took a video of a portion of his reading. I have been following the school Facebook page and they have been posting pictures/videos of the guest readers this week, so if they post it on Facebook I will get it somehow so that I can share it with the blog next week!

Pretending to be an ostrich, wearing Guy's shirt.

 Rough housing. Guy shoved Nico between the wall and the bed, then called me over to see. hehe.

Drama class is going well. He is successfully memorizing his lines. We've been practicing every morning. I'm so proud of him!

His reading adventures this past week include Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. He checked out the next one today at the school library. He always reads a book while he eats breakfast.

That's it for this week!

Friends, Chili, IEP Meeting

Last Friday was another day that we watched the kids after school. We played games downstairs. While we were down there, two of Nico's neighbor friends came over to see if Nico could play. Rylan's brother Merek, and his sister Madilyn. So they joined us downstairs for a little while, and then they went upstairs with Nico to play. Jeff got home at 5:45, so we said goodbye to the main house and I started dinner. Merek and Madilyn stayed for dinner, we had rice and ground beef, and cheese and cut veggies. They devoured the veggies, I was very impressed with that! And everyone loved the rice and ground beef.

They stayed over until about 7pm, when I sent them home. As soon as they were gone, I started shivering, and quickly realized that my fever was back and that I needed to lie down. I got into bed around 7:30 and didn't get out until the following morning at about 10AM. Except for bathroom breaks, which were very difficult, I could barely lift my body off the bed. Nico was just about asleep around 9:30pm when I asked him if he could get up and get me my water bottle, which he did instantly and then told me that he could be my servant and whatever I needed I could just tell him. What a boy!

Guy took care of everything the next day and I mostly stayed in bed. I loved lying down in the bed and hearing them have fun playing games.

They went and got pizza supplies so I wouldn't have to make crust, and Guy made the best pizza ever. I chose an animated movie called Epic to watch, which we enjoyed.

I stayed home from church on Sunday, it was another slow day. We played Robot Wars on the bed. Guy won.

Monday came and went, Nico didn't have school that day and I don't think we left the house. 

Tuesday was the Blue and Gold banquet at Cub Scouts. This is a banquet that the Bear Den plans and implements. They decided on a cowboy theme. Guy had signed up to bring chili, so he made a huge pot of chili and brought it with him with some toppings. 

Apparently it was a big hit. He was going to make a double batch but he didn't think it would all fit in our crockpot, so he made half the batch for Tuesday night, and half the batch on Wednesday! (more on that later)

Wednesday we woke up to snow - walking to school early for Chess.

Wednesday was also the day that we had Nico's IEP meeting. 

All the testing has been completed and this was the results and eligibility meeting to see if he met criteria to continue receiving speech services. Since his teachers brought up the issue of his struggle with inattention, he was also tested for attention issues to see if he needed services for that. Receiving services for that requires an educational diagnosis (vs medical diagnosis) of attention issues by the school psychologist, which she did not give him based on results. Inconsistent results is what showed up based on testing and questionnaires filled out by us and his teacher.

They also did an IQ test, but did we really question his smartness? He showed up in the 97th percentile for IQ (which qualifies him for GATE program in the future if we're interested). The piece he did the best on, 99th percentile, was the Visual Spatial portion. "High scores in this area indicate a well-developed capacity to apply spatial reasoning and analyze visual details."

One of the points that was made is that the inattention piece, though not "diagnosed", is getting in the way of Nico being able to use his smartness. The school psychologist recommended a book, which I've ordered and should arrive tomorrow, called "Smart but Scattered", and then the possibility of a vibrating watch that vibrates every 5 minutes or however long we want, to remind him to take an inventory of where his attention is. Was he paying attention? Was he making clicking noises? Was he humming? Just to help him stay aware of what he's doing. What they don't want is for him to always be on the receiving end of, "Nico, stop that.", so they're wanting to help him become more aware of what he's doing so he can understand himself and control impulses better on his own. His teacher has already given him a few measures to help with his need to move - a special cushion that allows him to move around, and a "band", I'm not sure what that is but she said that the combination of the two seem to really help him. The Audiologist also gave the input that taking breaks with a snack seems to revive Nico's ability to focus, so we might work that into his day somehow too. Even though there's no diagnosis, they can still accommodate all these things to a reasonable degree.

Based on speech testing, Nico is still eligible for speech services.

A few other tidbits I found entertaining - Nico was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said he wanted to be a builder or a landscaper. They also did a classroom observation, and the psychologist was quietly observing him in class when Nico turned around and looked at her, never having met her before, and asked, "Do you know when Mrs. Williams [his speech therapist] is going to pick me up?"

Wednesday evening everyone gathered in the Clubhouse for some chili! Everyone loved it. Guy did a great job. He got the recipe from one of his coworkers, it took some convincing, because it was a special recipe, and Guy had to swear to never enter the chili into a competition before he would hand it over. Hehe.. it's a kid-friendly one with no beans and small vegetables and not too hot.

Allicia made cornbread for everyone. 

Thursday, Nico's World Edition of Little Passports arrived. He had been waiting for it. The country this time was Japan, and it came with instructions on how to fold origami plus a few sheets of origami to practice with. Nico made a balloon, and a jumping frog, and a few others. He's really enjoying it!

Nico and Evelyn decided that they aren't going to walk home together anymore. Evelyn expressed her dislike of waiting for Nico after school, and so they agreed to walk separately and they are actually both very excited about doing it. The first day they walked separately was on Wednesday. On his way home he ran into Madilyn and walked home with her. They are still walking to school together, though! 

A few snippets from the banquet and origami

Wahooz, Poems, Snow Travel, and Word Crimes

I was out of town until just yesterday. My plan was to return Monday but I got sick while away and couldn't drive home until Wednesday.

I asked Guy to tell me about last weekend. I transcribed his exact words below. For reference, on Saturday morning Guy took Evelyn with him to pick up Nico from the Grandparents' Salisbury house, where Nico had stayed overnight. He then took both Evelyn and Nico to Wahooz to use the tickets they won by finishing the workout challenge last year. Also, "Odd Saturday", which Guy mentions, is a tradition that Jeff and Allicia and family do on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of every month. They invite friends over to play games and they eat dinner. We do not typically participate because Saturday is our pizza night.

It was snowing and pretty deep when we got there, I almost slid off the road, (but not in a scary way. In a very safe way). At Wahooz, the main attraction was the laser maze, which they went through several times to go avoid lasers. Then played some arcade games. Nico and I played Connect 4. And I won. And um then we tried bowling for a little bit but that didn't last very long. Evelyn wasn't interested. Then what they really wanted to do was play on the Ballocity which was like a giant play area with balls, but not like a ball pit but like a giant multi-story building that has tubes where you can shoot balls and they go in tubes and go all over the place. They disappeared in there for a while, running all over the place. Actually they were there the longest. Then it was time for us to grab our coats and go home, but Nico wanted to play on the spin-a-whirly game, like tilt-a-whirl. I thought he was going to get motion sick but he was all golden. Then when we got home, it was Odd Saturday, I played [games] and Nico watched a movie downstairs which turned into mostly rough-housing with Avery but for the most part they were having fun, and the adults were having fun. Sunday I don't remember what we did. Hey Nico what did we do on Sunday? Nico: Family Meeting. Guy: We did do a family meeting where we filled up my pills for the week. That was Nico's idea. The rest of the days were just kind of doing chores. We wrote poems. 

Here is Guy's poem:

He's a poet!

And here is Nico's (amazing!) poem: 

He took it to school with him to let his teacher read it, and she wrote that sweet note on the bottom. He then told me he has started writing Mrs. Kobe a poem that he's going to let her read when he's done. Here is the start of it:

We've got poets in the house!

Here are some pictures from Guy and Nico's time together: 

 Guy sent me this picture of Nico's perfectly square cheese, Nico insisted he wanted me to see it.

Nico spent the whole time I was away sleeping in our bed with Guy. Guy said Nico is a tornado.

On Sunday they went to see The Lego Movie 2 in the theaters after church. They were giving out these Lego sets! I'm sure they got popcorn and water too. On Sunday they also saw a Downy Woodpecker on the tree out front.

Tuesday, Nico and I were supposed to visit GG, but since I was still in Redding, Guy said he could take Nico. Allicia is out of town at the moment, too, so I was going to be watching the kids this week after school. But on Tuesday I was just going to be watching Evelyn, by taking her with us to GG's house. So, Guy and Nico and Evelyn all went together! They played Jumanji and Evelyn and Guy tied. Afterward, they hit up Jimmy John's.

Wednesday was my travel day home. I woke up in Redding with several inches of snow on the ground and no power at the hotel. I packed up all my belongings with a head lamp on, and dug my car out.

I put chains on my car before leaving the parking lot. I was so grateful for my "mountain training" when I lived with my parents before Guy and I were married. It helped me more than once on this trip - 1st in getting my chains on, and 2nd in not freaking out driving on snow-covered roads with my chains on. I had a lot of people praying me home. 

As I was climbing the mountain of that first pass, I came to a bridge where there were 3 semi trucks stuck in the snow, with just enough space between them for cars to weave through. A police trooper stopped me before I passed the 3rd one, I rolled down my window and he told me if possible that I should turn around and not go any further, that the roads would only get worse from there "They have two feet of snow in Burney!" I imagined plowing through 2 feet of snow with my car. I told him I was still going to go. He told me to make sure I had extra water, a flashlight, and extra blankets, I told him I did. I saw him glance at my front tire for chains and then he waved me on.

About an hour into the trip, after I was over that pass, the chain on my left front tire broke. I had to take both chains off at that point. Thankfully, I was only 7 miles from the nearest town (Burney), and there was no longer snow on the road but just wet cement and a bit of slush. My mom directed me to the nearest Les Schwab, where I got studless snow tires for my car and another set of chains. The 2 feet of snow in Burney was true, but it wasn't on the road. They had piled it all in the middle, it was an easy town to maneuver through and they were well prepared for visitors. The ground was wet, there was no ice anywhere. I didn't have to use chains again! I went over several more passes but there was just sporadic slush. The snow plows kept the road pretty clear. It was a miracle in my opinion, after seeing the reports that the roads would be terrible. The wet roads were steaming themselves dry in front of me.

I arrived in Boise at 9:15 PM, and pulled up to the house to see both my boys outside in the pouring rain, waiting for me to arrive. They gave me a big hug and then helped me unload my car.

It's good to be home!

Here's a picture from today watching the kids after school. Guy came home early to help me out, since I'm still not 100% recovered.

Nico reading DogMan to Avery and Ivy.

All the kids had Valentine's parties today at school, Ivy came home wearing all pink and eating a pink heart sucker.

Nico's Valentine from his teacher was in his planner:

I got an email late last night from Nico's drama club teacher, they have assigned roles in the play they're doing! Nico was assigned the role of King Lobster. He is in Act 2, Scene 2, and then he plays  a different character (one of the sharks) in a later scene. Here's a shot of some of his lines:

There are two full pages like this one, plus another half a page, with his lines scattered like seen here. That's a good amount! Then he's got 3 lines as a shark. The total play is 18 pages long. I think there are 15 kids in his class. His performance is on April 11th, all are invited to come!! If you need specifics let me know!

Tonight Nico is contemplating writing a comic about "Word Crimes", based on a Weird Al video that Guy showed him called Word Crimes. Nico and I watched it tonight and we paused the video every so often so that I could explain what each word crime was (for example, using an apostrophe incorrectly). Then we read Captain Underpants so that I could point out every single word crime. We found about 15 word crimes in the first 2 pages. Captain Underpants is the best book for misspelled words and grammar problems. 

He has asked me to write him a story that has lots of word crimes in it, so I'm going to go do that now. Until next week!

Soap Carving, Auditory Testing, Sleepover!

Last Friday, Nico pulled out his pocket knife and started carving his soap figure for Cub Scouts. He decided on a horse.

For Saturday movie night, Nico chose Ferdinand as the movie to watch. We couldn't find it available to rent on Amazon Prime, but we did see that it was available at the RedBox at M&W Market. So Nico and I walked over there to rent it. As we were leaving I hear someone yell, "Joanna!" and it's Guy, he had stopped at M&W to get gas after he was done running errands, so we rode home with him.

Ferdinand is a VERY good movie. And the pizza, was VERY good.

Earlier on Saturday Nico and I completed his shelf by adding book ends, a pencil holder, and wrapping the edges with a bumper so that he wouldn't bonk his head at night. Here's how it looks!

On Sunday we celebrated Papa's birthday at Smokey Mountain Pizza. I can't believe I got NO pictures from it! But it was fun, Nico and Lexie played games in the arcade, and it was fun to get together, have some food, eat some cake, and celebrate PA!

Bright and early Monday morning was Nico's Auditory Processing testing. We drove out to Amity Elementary school to meet with the audiologist. She remembers Nico from Madison Elementary, where she had come to test all the kiddos' hearing. 

Nico went into a soundproof room, and the audiologist went into a different one that was connected by a window they could see each other through. I couldn't hear what they were saying to each other, but I did have a pair of headphones next to me that let me hear what Nico was hearing.  He had to go through a gamut of testing.

He had to pick out what someone was saying in one ear, with background noise coming in to the other. He had to identify "High" or "Low" for a series of tones, repeat words that were said in one ear, at the same time as a different word in the other ear. "Which word did you hear in your left ear?"

She said this kind of testing can be hard on kids and that they often take breaks, and indeed we did. Nico needed two breaks. The first one, she came out of her room first and said, "That last one was hard on him so we're going to take a break." He was discouraged that he couldn't get them all right and it was really getting him down. She told us while we were on the break that from what she was seeing that he's actually doing better than most kids his age. That seemed to cheer him up a bit.

The final report was what she had reported earlier - that for all the tests he did, overall he was testing better than kids his age. This means he has NO auditory issues! 

The only somewhat "off" thing is the reflexes in his left ear. Like you can test your knee reflexes by hitting them, they test ear reflexes by sending sound into the ear and measuring the reflex response. She said that the reflexes in his left ear are not quite what they should be. 

Alos, throughout the testing she saw that he favored his right ear and could generally understand things better when heard through his right ear. She said typically kids tend to favor their right ear. The language center is on the left side of the brain, and when someone hears something in their right ear it goes straight to the left side of the brain, so the response is quick. When something comes in through the left ear, it goes straight to the right side of the brain, so in order to get to the language center it has to cross the hemisphere over to the left, which takes a bit longer and is more pronounced in children.

I think they're mostly done with all the testing at school, and we'll talk about the results in a few weeks at another meeting.

On Tuesday, Guy took Nico to Cub Scouts only to find out they weren't meeting that night. Doh!

Wednesday morning I left on a trip and am still there - in Northern California at a conference. I will return home next Monday.

Nico stayed with Guy Wednesday, and today my Mom picked him up from school after Drama Club. Nico wanted to show her his classroom, so he took her in there, and his teacher was still there, so she was able to meet his teacher. Grandma said she was sweet and that she loves Nico.

Bruce and Rory are also staying the night tonight at Papa's and Grandma's. Mom sent me a picture of a snack bar she made for everyone tonight that was a hit! 

And here is Pa reading to Nico before bed. From here it looks like a Richard Scarry book!

Ok that's it for this week!

Jumanji, and a Rash!

Last Friday I met up with Brianna who was in town for a short while, and she gave me a Christmas gift to give to Nico. It was a game - Jumanji! We all played it the following morning, and many more times on Saturday. We were even planning to watch Jumanji for pizza that night but Nico changed his mind - the trailer looked a bit too scary. It was my turn to choose, so I chose Sherlock Gnomes. Guy had to go to band practice at 4:30 on Saturday so he missed the movie (I'm sure he wasn't too sad about that :)) but I did make him a pizza that he ate when he got home.

Saturday was a fun day. We played a lot of Jumanji, and then after lunch Nico and I went on a bike/scooter ride on the greenbelt. It was so sunny! Nico's leg got sore after a while on the scooter so we walked part of the way home. 

Once we got home I told him we were going to the car wash. Here is his reaction to being in the carwash:

He loved it.

Once we got home, we all got in the car and drove about a mile to a nearby open house. After walking through it Guy and I both agreed it was quite a fixer-upper (for $397,000!!!). We're pretty sure for that amount you would just be paying for the location.  Just a side note - we go to open houses sometimes, but we are not actively searching for a house to buy. We would like to move soon, but when we do that we will probably be renting!

We bought an adjustable lamp for Nico's shelf above his bed, it has two adjustable LED lamp arms. Now he has so much light at night!

 On Monday I received a call from the nurse at Nico's school, that he was complaining of a tummy ache. I talked to him on the phone for a bit and he was set on coming home, so I picked him up from school. He.... was fine. I took him with me to run errands and then told him we could stop for a snack and he could choose between a smoothie or Subway. He chose smoothie. But then when we got there, the smoothie place just happened to be right next to Subway. Sooooo... he got both. This is how you reward kids for staying home sick. Hehe?

Nico has been getting these small rashes on his upper body for a few weeks, mostly his arms. We confirmed that they are not bed bugs (we sanitary washed all the bedding in the house anyway), and they are not ant bites. When we visited his doctor on Tuesday she said she thinks they are related to what's going on in his gut. We discovered some helpful information with a recent test so we began a new treatment Tuesday night. I'm hopeful that the rash will clear up. New ones are still appearing. I'm trying not to fret!

Waiting for his appointment at the doctor.

Guy had expressed sadness that he didn't get a smoothie when I got Nico one on Monday, so we stopped on the way home to get Guy this Chocolate Berry Almond Smoothie from Boise Juice Co.

Nico's first adventure in Drama Club was today after school. He seemed to really enjoy it. They played games in class.

And tonight, he is reading more Tom Gates books! They are a favorite right now.

Pinewood Derby!

Last Friday was the Pinewood Derby. Out of 30+ cars, Nico came in 18th. He was very excited. Each car races 4 times and then the scores are tallied up to determine the winners. Since him and Guy had spent so much time working on the car, I think Nico was expecting a bit more winning. His very first of 4 races he came in last place against 3 other cars. The look on his face was sad (checkout video at end of blog), but then in the next race he got 3rd place out of 4 cars and he was SUPER excited! At the end, each person was given an award, Nico got the Lean Green Racing Machine Award. He was very happy about that.

When we first got there, it was imperative to have a little play time first. The other kids were crawling through the chairs and Nico joined right in.

The MC was joking at first about how we'd be there until midnight because Pinewood Derby races take a long time, especially with a whole bunch of kids. But, she explained the rules and the kids generally followed through. We were done in about an hour and a half. When it's time to pay attention, you put two fingers up in the air.

 3rd place in one of the races

 Afterward. Digging the baby interaction in the background.

On Saturday we tackled the huge task of cleaning out under Nico's bed and organizing his toys.

Organization central. We got rid of a trash bag full of stuff.

Afterward.

For pizza that night, Guy chose The Fuller Brush Man to watch, prompted in his desire by a nostalgic text from Grandma Russell about the movie. "Wanna buy a brush?" It's a black and white comedy/murder mystery, and Nico and I both really enjoyed it! I am delighted the way that Nico has been interested in a variety of movies. We were able to watch the movie downstairs, as Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos were out of town for the weekend.

Nico loves the vest that GG got him for Christmas. He wears it almost every day and he says it's his "Lucky Vest" because GG got it for him. He wore it to church on Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon, Nico went over to "the boys' house", and soon came back over with 2 of the boys. Since Jeff and Allicia were out of town, Guy and I retreated to the basement so they could play in the Clubhouse as loud as they wanted. 

On Monday, Nico didn't have school, so he came with me to my parents' house where my mom and I were going to do some work together. After lunch Papa took Nico to the park. They batted for a little bit and then Nico played on the playground. It was windy! Papa said they both stopped for a minute to listen to the wind in the trees.

Nico's been on a kick with taking things apart. He has been searching for things to take apart and then put back together. He took apart his remote control car and the remote, some of his game and some of his cars. When Rylan came over on Wednesday, he helped Nico with one of them. Then they went outside with Guy to try to fix the turn signal on the car, as part of the "taking things apart" campaign.

Wednesday morning we had Nico's yearly IEP meeting for speech (Individualized Education Program). In a few weeks we are having his 3 year review. They re-evaluate his need for speech services every 3 years, so he is going to be going through some testing in the next few weeks to determine needs. I love talking about Nico with other adults that know him. We had to list strengths, Guy and I came up with a list, but then hearing a list of strengths from his teacher was very nice. Nico's strengths:

He is very outgoing, makes friends easily, is not scared to be the center of attention when speaking in front of the class, is funny, gentle, interested in a lot of things, loves organizing things and loves science and understanding how things works. 

Nico is reading the next Tom Gates book, and is enjoying Press Start books, he checked out three of those from the library today.

That's is for this week, enjoy the video!