Things That Made Me Smile ...

... when I really didn't want too.

There were plenty of things today that did NOT make me smile today. Specifically, the majority of the day being spent watching Jocie vomit, clean her up, worry about her and then repeat numerous times. I hate when she gets into these vomiting spells and it is so hard on us both. Her, for obvious reasons; and for me, because I feel so helpless and frustrated. Makes me sad. I truly am so exhausted tonight!

Luckily, after nap time, we got to restart the second half of the day as I had hoped and prayed for.
     So very VERY thankful!

Things that I found throughout the day that made me smile ...

• A new workout.

• Playing around with the graphics of a cute photo of Boogs.

• Going to Buffalo Wild Wings and getting some delicious wings. I will forever love hot wings.
• While at BWW, hearing the lady in the bathroom stall next to me singing her heart out to Piano Man like no one was listening. She was good too!
• Watching Jocie squirm, giggle and scream with delight simply because Daddy was whistling.

Take home message?
     There is ALWAYS something to smile about!! :)

Bed in a Box

Its just what it sounds like ... an entire bed ... tightly rolled, with every ounce of air sucked out of it ... and stuffed into a box.
     Sounds super fancy & classy am I right? haha

Justin's so funny. He's makes me laugh a lot.

You forget how small a twin bed looks.

It takes a little while for these beds to totally inflate and air out. Jib has minimal patience sometimes. :)

He was so sick of our bed of 8 years, I was so sick of both him and Jocelyn keeping me up at night {he literally flops around ALL NIGHT LONG!}, so back in April, he decided he was going to buy a Temper-pedic twin-sized bed.

I know, a twin-sized bed? Guess his solution was to sleep by himself?

Off and on throughout the months, he did sleep by himself haha
When he was actually home.
On the floor.
Next to me ... who was in the queen bed.
By myself.
Heaven?
     On occasion haha -- If Jocie doesn't let me sleep, what little sleep I DO GET, I can't have robbed by a floppin', kickin', wild husband. As much as I love him, that had to stop!

Justin's thinking was if he liked the bed after trying it out, he would get another one for me, we'd make it into a king-sized bed and with it being two separate beds, there would be the least amount of movement ever.

The hard part? Me liking the same bed.

When he was gone for two months, I tested his out here and there. The verdict?
     I ACTUALLY DO LIKE IT!!

Fast forward to the month of August -- Yea, FOUR WHOLE MONTHS!!
     But he was gone for quite a bit of that.

We now have another bed.

Neither of us have ever had a king-sized bed. This thing is ridiculously HUGE, but I love that we are both getting some good quality sleep. You can not put a price tag on that! Even if you only get 4-5 hours of sleep, when those hours are good quality, it makes a world of difference.

Now the fun part.
     Shopping for king-sized bedding!! woohoo!! :)
          Let the fun begin!! {I've started dropping hints to my mother-in-law for a king-sized quilt. Those are tedious and time-consuming to make, but having a beautiful quilt for our bed would be perfect, so I'm hoping she caves haha}

"C" is for ...

Cars
     Cars
          Cars!!!

Who doesn't love cars?
Kids sure do.
     {And of course 16 year-old's! :P}

It was a fun theme for today.

We did a lot of activities this morning with the letter C and our car theme. Jocie loves picking out the letter C from other letters and images. She only missed one today. Granted, we only did "show me the letter C" five times, but she's three and that's enough. After about that many times, she's ready for something different. But hey, I'll take 4 out of 5 times!! :)

After doing our morning routine of saying our memory verse, praying, calendar, reading and singing; we started on all things cars!!

Perhaps not the best activity to start with, but I hit her with some sensory and fine motor at the beginning.

Activity #1: Dig for cars in rice and talk about colors, shapes, sizes & counting
          She looked at me like I must be crazy if I thought she was really going to touch the rice.

 

And like the mean mom I am ... I made her.

After A LOT of whining, tears and throwing her body around ... she found out this wasn't so bad.

And dare I say it ... maybe even a little fun??

Once we were finished with the rice, we switched it up and made those cars do something.

Activity #2 : Make the cars move & visually track them.
          Its always a challenge for Jocelyn to sit independently AND reach up & out.

 

No doubt she needed a reward. Mickey Mouse rocks!

 

Activity #3: Watch a short car-related cartoon.

          And yes, I use baby wipe containers for A LOT of things haha

After digging for cars and getting a reward, we were off to the next thing.

Activity #4: CAR WASH!!!!!

 

Where are those suckers?!

{Best Facial Expression EVER!!! haha}

After the car wash, you guessed it, something different.

 

Activity #5: Fine Motor, colors and counting.

          We practiced holding a marker to color a what? Yep, a car haha

{As a side note, for anyone that has a kid that needs some boundaries/borders? I take pictures like this one and outline it with Elmer's glue. Once it dries, its clear and yet Jocie can FEEL the car, bird, airplane or whatever the object might be. Kind of a cool, cheap way to help her tap into more of her senses than just visual.}

Jocie does NOT like holding markers, crayons etc. That was a big cry-fest as well, but she tried and we made the best of it. Even though that put her in a sour mood, she made me so proud with the next activity.

She consistently picked the associated number with how many cars she saw.

I.WAS.BEAMING!! SO PROUD!!!!!

I simply can not express in words how hard it is to not hear your child talk ... to hear their sweet, precious voice. So badly, with everything inside of me, I wish and pray that one day Jocie will be able to tell me what she's thinking, what she wants to do, her hopes, her dreams ... literally chat my face off!!

That day may never come, but there is always hope.

However, in the mean time, we are slowly but surely finding ways to give her a NEW "voice."

{And not that I need to justify, but for Jocie -- and many kids -- something like a paci helps keep her focused so she CAN do activities like these. This to her, is like another person chewing gum or on a pencil, walking around while reading/studying, etc.}

Another successful day at POWERful Beginnings Academy ... CHECK!



"C" is for Cookie

The theme for the day at POWERful Beginnings Academy has been one of my favorites thus far.

          "C" is for Cookie.

Some of the activities that were included were of course talking about the letter C, identifying it amongst other pictures and letters, tracing it with our pointer finger on the textured Writing Without Tears card, attempting to write the letter C on a dry erase board, reading two different books about baking/cooking (Sun-Maid Raisins and Mr. Cookie Baker), actually MAKING delicious cookies and a field trip.

I get to teach the best little girl around!!!

{I can see how much we look like one another here! So weird!}

The books suited the theme perfectly and Jocie actually seemed to enjoy them.
She's not a huge fan of new books.
Too bad though, every.single.day we read new books! :)

The cookies of choice?
     Daddy's favorite -- Oatmeal Scotchies

Our planned field trip?
     Daddy's work!
          I wanted Jocelyn to experience making and then delivering a gift to daddy and his co-workers.

I've never tried to make cookies ... or bake/cook in general ... with Jocelyn, so this was a first for us both. Its not that I've never wanted too, but its a real challenge to do this kind of stuff when a person has vision, sensory and motor difficulties.

No matter, I was up for a challenge and the goal was mainly to make it fun no matter how that looked.

I stripped Jocelyn down, cranked up some Mandisa's Good Morning, danced around the kitchen with Jocelyn to get her in a carefree mood and then attempted to have her participate as much as she was willing and able. Amazingly enough she helped empty the measuring cups {even played with them}, held the mixer with me for a little bit and even grabbed some of the cookie dough with her hand.

Jocie seemed to enjoy all of it for the most part. She whined a little bit as this was a new experience, at times got a little scared and it was a challenge for her to demonstrate muscle coordination/control.

All in all, I'd say the preschool lesson was a success! :)

{She could only patiently wait for so long! haha}

{I gave her some flour to play in while I did some of the mixing. She immediately put her hand in it - woohoo! - tasted it, wasn't too sure, made a "this is disgusting" face and then repeated this sequence like 9 more times haha}

{For all those who ate these, we had MEGA clean hands! I must've washed our hands and utensils a dozen times.}

{Such a good helper! She wasn't too keen on the loud mixer.}

While the cookies baked and cooled, we got ourselves cleaned up, ate lunch and then took off on our field trip to deliver cookies to the best people in town.


{Everybody loves cookies! It means the world to me that we have so many people in our lives that are patient so Jocelyn can have the opportunity to say "hi" by waving, hand them a cookie and smile for extensive periods of time so I can capture a picture of Jocelyn LOOKING at the camera. We are certainly loved!}

Today was really fun, a new hands-on learning experience for Jocie and now she's totally passed out in bed.

 

Mama is all smiles!

Quick Weekend

We just spent the weekend with both of Justin's parents, and boy did it go fast! Jocie didn't sleep a wink {quite literally} and I'm thoroughly EXHAUSTED. Even so, I sure did love getting to spend some time with all the family.

I actually brought my camera AND remembered to take pictures.
Yes, I'm patting myself on the back! haha

Instead of writing too much {See above -- I wasn't joking about being utterly WIPED OUT!}, I thought I'd just let you SEE our fun!! :)

We had some pool-side action.

Justin and Grandma were the only adults willing to brave the cold water and play with the kids. The kids loved them for it. Justin is always so incredible with all the little ones!!

{My favorite picture of the swimming bunch!}

{Strong Uncle ='s flying kids!}

The spectators.

General family fun, lots of eating and lounging time.

Next Day? Family brunch with the most delicious omelets and a little four-wheeling action!

{Notice a theme? Boogs did a great job sneaking naps ... little stinker!}

{The Powers' Boys -- minus Kevin :( -- We miss you Kevin!}

 

Really enjoyed our time together this weekend. I truly believe spending time with another, bonding, reconnecting and making memories with one another is what life really is all about.

 

Love all of you!!

Book Sale

This morning Jocelyn and I took a field trip to a children's book sale. Its the first book sale that either one of us have ever been too, and boy am I glad we showed up early.

If asked earlier, I wouldn't have ever guessed there would have been so many people interested in getting books at a discount.

          I was shocked.
          In a good way.

The going price was 5 books for $1.
Sure the heck can't beat that!!

I didn't get to turn our book sale/field trip into exactly what I wanted since it was a bit chaotic and there were so many people there, but it was an outing and a different experience nevertheless.

My mission?

1. Find some new 'Jocelyn Appropriate' books (which includes simple pictures so she can see them. Dang CVI can make a lot of books appear 'too busy' and then she can't see them),
2. Engage in a different activity outside of the home and
3. HAVE FUN!

I found several books about dinosaurs. Jocie doesn't have ANY books about dinosaurs and these happen to fit perfectly into our preschool theme that's coming up in the next two weeks.

 

It doesn't look like it here, but I found a huge over-sized book about a little girl in a wheelchair that I thought might resonate with Jocelyn. If not now, maybe one day? The book talks about the things she can't do because she's in a wheelchair, what she excels at in her life in different ways, her feelings regarding everything and so on.

 

One of the coolest books I found was a hamburger shaped one. Its a 3-D pop-up book about nutrition and even has detachable pictures to go with it. The detachable pictures are a bit too small for Jocie to actually see {again, because of the dang CVI}, but I will totally scan them, make them bigger, laminate, add some velcro and play a matching game with them. Can you see the teacher inside of me emerging?? I do! :)

 

Look at this thing -- cool book right?

 

 

I also came across these books but decided "Toilet Training the Retarded" simply wasn't an area of interest.

 

I snapped a picture of these books because I was shocked, totally and utterly SHOCKED, that a book like that would be at a children's books sell. I have to admit, I was pretty appalled that books like this haven't been pulled and used as fire-starters. I'm not one for everyone being all politically correct all the time {seriously, all that 'correctness' can REALLY get on my nerves}, but once you have someone refer to your very own child as "retarded" ... you think twice when you see and hear that word. I'll never forget the first time a woman came up to me and said "What a beautiful daughter you have" only to then follow that with "I use to work with little retarded children like her."

 

          There simply are no words for that.

 

I realize that the word "retarded" was once acceptable. My friend reminded me today that terms are ever changing and so are their acceptance, but when that word is used now, its most certainly is used in the most derogatory of ways. I'm sure that those like the lady mentioned above, who have felt the need to inquire about my daughter, were simply looking at her in the wheelchair, her lack of visual contact, being nonverbal, the differences in her motor mannerisms; and then of course ASSUMED this about her.

 

It only takes hearing this word once for someone's whole opinion to change. I have people very close to me that continue to use the word "retarded" ... family members in fact ... and they don't use the word to necessarily describe someone, but they don't realize how them using it, makes you SEE that word in your head ... how it makes you FEEL.

Sometimes, it simply comes down to what a person has experienced, that shapes their perception on a subject matter.

 

And let me be clear, I don't care if someone is "retarded" or not, it doesn't defined their character, their heart, their soul ...

          ... What matters is that we ALL live up to our potential ... engage in our individual God-given talents/gifts as He's intended.
     I truly believe that!

 

But I digress. All this nonsense is a totally different subject matter.

 

~**~ Back to the good stuff ~**~

 

Can you believe all these books???!!! Books about counting, farm animals, colors, shapes ... you name it and we about got it! :)

 

All-in-all, we got 25 books for a whopping $5!!! Total steal!

It really was a good morning, got to see some familiar smiling faces and do something different.

 

Success! :)

Throw Back Thursday

I have NO IDEA what we were thinking, but this picture makes me laugh SO HARD!

I literally laugh ... EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.I.LOOK.AT.THIS.PICTURE!!!

A madam and her "workers" hahaha My mom's expression is priceless! Its so fuzzy, but HELLO!! We surely weren't going to BUY these pics!!! haha

 

At least in this picture of us three, we don't look like my mom's trying to put us up for sale!

 

And I'm still missing my crazy, mama-drama family!!

Hoping to get a new family picture in a few years. :)