Simple All Natural Teething Gadget

Just stuff fruit in and you’re good to go! Better than Tylenol or round the clock Oraljel, this teething gadget uses fresh fruit straight from your fridge to soothe sore baby gums and even keep them hydrated! Healthy and safe, and did I mention mess free, all the child has to do is hold the ring and suck or chew on the mesh fabric section. Most of the juice in the fruit will be sucked out within the first few minutes but the longer the child chews, the more the fruit chunks will break down and seep through the netting for them to also consume.  Liam enjoys lots of fruit this way all the way down to the seeds.  The clean up for mommy afterwards is simple and quick so you know I love it even more! It has quickly become our favorite cold teething trick this summer! (Liam does not even mind that one of his is pink!)

Erasable Love Notes

When Brian and I attended the NOAH Conference for Liam’s Albinism, we sat in on a session called “Team Parenting”. It was geared towards making sure both parents of a special needs child did not feel neglected by their spouse or like they were taking on the majority of the “work load” in the household. Part of the conversation was on making sure that your spouse and you kept in contact daily—in phone conversations, text messages, leaving small notes, etc. Several of the parents gave some examples of things they do daily just to let the other person know that they care like leaving love notes for them throughout the home/work, doing mid-week lunch dates, morning coffee together, or evening walks around the block. (For me, I had heard all of this once before in our pre-marital counseling that we did through our church years ago but Brian said for him, reinforcing it by hearing it again was a good reminder.)

 One of the dads mentioned that his wife stole an idea off of Pinterest and that he and she both use it to leave each other little messages each week. I too had seen this done on Pinterest, I’d even “repined” it 6 months before, but—since my hubby is NOT on Pinterest—Brian had never heard of this. (Laugh all you want but he thought it was cute.) So crafty me, when I got home one evening and had some free time, I put our own together and placed it on our nightstand for him to see. He laughed initially but I bet he uses it eventually. (Fingers crossed at least!)

*If it does not work for our little love notes at least it will work in my kitchen for a to-do list and a weekly menu!

Bonus: It costs under $10 to make (depending on size frame)!!

Picture frame

Choice scrapbook paper

Dry erase markers

Multiple prints and multiple uses: To-Do lists, Menus, Love Notes....

Inside Parenting a Child with Special Needs: "Welcome to Holland"

Recently I received a copy of this poem written by Emily Perl Kingsley that I though I just had to share. I don’t talk about Liam’s condition of Albinism very much here as we write mostly on his own blog for our family and friends and those in our Albinism family to keep up with there, but I thought that this poem hit me more as a parent and as a parent of a special needs child and that even other parents with normal healthy kids ought to read this. It gives you a great picture of what life is like for parents raising disabled kids and answers the number one question that I always get from people when they hear about Liam’s Albinism…. “What is it like raising a visually impaired child?”  So for those who wondered……

 

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved. Borrowed from:

http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Wooden Photos

These were made by one of my best friends, Jess, who doesn't like to brag but our family thinks she is pretty awesome and did I mention talented? This comes from someone who had me walk her through creating her first painting to hang in her own house and now she is making these for others. I won't tell you how she does it, but I will tell you it takes a lot of work and a little luck to craft these blocks. If you want to know more or how you can contact Jess just shoot me a message, she would be happy to make anyone one of these to hang in their home!

Book Review--Push The Button

Push the Button
Currently one of our favorite books for Liam, this book attracted his eye in the bookstore because of the large red push button that squeaks when pushed. For Liam it is important that we get high contrast books and typically pop up books, texture books, or books that make noises hold his attention well.
“Push the Button” is published by Begin Smart, and part of their collection of books for ages 12-18 month that encourage four basic things for babies:
*hand-eye coordination
*understanding cause and effect
*small motor skills development
*following directions

Most of the books in this age range from Begin Smart are made to teach your child to imitate sounds and name specific objects. (Shhhh, whoosh, squeeeeak, eeeek, splash, button, bee, flower, water, hat, box, etc.)
Their pages are filled with bright colors and most of them are very high contrast pages with large plain objects on each page.  It’s easy to focus on a certain object so you can point out things as you read to teach them instead of a jungle of images to distract attention.  Each page has only simple one-liners on them so that the child is not bored and transferring their attention elsewhere before you ever finish reading it to them--remember, their attention span is somewhere around  5-10 seconds right now, so they will probably not sit still for a long wordy book--a few seconds for each page is all you will get out of them at first.

These books also use large, bold black printed words with good spacing between the letters so that when it comes time to begin teaching letters and reading you can easily point out each letter as you sound them out with the child. (Very hard to do this with small, fine print books.)

In all, we found this book series to be very affective in: attracting and holding Liam’s attention, giving him strong images to point to,  large letters/words for when we start his learning to read, great sounds to make with him that also make him giggle and try to imitate, good thick pages for him to easily carry and flip through on his own, and giving him a squeaky button to learn the concept of pushing a button with.  It may annoy his parents to death but at least it’s a start towards his love for books and learning to sit down and read with us and you’ve got to start somewhere.

If you like this book here are some others in the collection of BEGIN SMART books for 12-18 months:
*Play Colors           *What Does Baby Say?
*Splish-Splash        *Peek-a-Boo What?
*All Gone!              *Moo! Moo! What Are You?

Favorite Things

Just because. These are a few of my favorite things....

Fall. I am crazy about Fall...Fall colors, Fall coffee flavors, Fall wardrobe, Fall weather, the promise that Christmas is coming...all things Fall really

Liam’s green blanket. We call him Linus when he drags it around, but it is one of my favorite things, something from his infant days that he still holds onto and so do I. Handmade with love by one of my favorite friends and indestructible.

Chicago in the Winter. A concrete jungle, the windy city. Good friends and deep dish (Chicago style) pizza.

Writing. My pain, torture, joy and pleasure. Where I keep all my precious memories.

Color. Each one tells a story, carries an emotion, draws the eye a different way. I love color.

Traditions and hand-me-downs. I was one of three girls growing up, now I’m one of six....we love hand-me-downs.

Pictures. Past and present. They tell a story, a “you had to have been there” sort of story. A thousand memories.

List making. My work spouse and bestie Jess would tell you its an unhealthy obsession but I think that about her ink pen fetish.

Power outages. Power outages = cuddling, candlelight dinners, old board games, and NO food network for the hubby. :)

Road trips. Enough said.

Buttercream icing on anything and everything.

A good chick flick.

A good man flick. Preferably one of the Die Hards

Music that makes you want to dance. Anywhere and everywhere.

Stomping in rain puddles. I know it’s odd but I find when I’m near one (or even when its farther off) that I get the compelling urge to jump in it. And I always act on these urges.

Porch talks with my grandparents, even if it is five a.m.

Letters in the mail. Call me old-fashioned but something about getting mail makes me giddy, as long as they’re not bills.

Quilts and the smell of said quilts. Like my nana’s house in the summer. Windows down, pies a cooking, coffee a brewing, bar-b-que on the grill.

Old books. I love the smell and the feel of them, their pages, their covers. The old language used in some of them, even though it may be hard to understand at times. I would never trade paper books for a electronic version.

Owls. Don’t know where it started but it ended up all over my house, my office, and Liam’s room.

Libraries and the smell of libraries.

and lastly (for now anyway) Nights at home with my boys...playing in the yard, on the swing, on the kitchen floor, reading bedtime books, and our nightly prayers. I love everything about my little family.

MEMO TO MOM: Make more lists like this one, if not just to annoy non list makers.

Book Review- "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?"

Another Eric Carle book, with Bill Martin Jr., that we love right now is “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” the slide and find edition. It is a large thick book, same bright colors on white backgrounds like he is famous for but has sliding trap doors added to slide back the words on the page and find an animal underneath. For example, “Brown bear, Brown bear what do you see?” Then slide back the part that says “I see a purple horse looking at me!” to see the purple horse. Then the next page reinforces the purple horse and opens the slide door to the next animal. “Purple horse, purple horse, what do you see?” “I see a yellow duck looking at me!” etc.

The images, very high contrast with the white background, take up two full pages and are easy for visually impaired kids to spot and point out. Sliding the secret door works on their problem solving and fine motor skills while they learn their animals and colors. It is quickly becoming one of our favorites to read with Liam before bed. I’d definitely recommend any Eric Carle books for use with visually impaired children but all children seem to love and enjoy them. I wonder if Eric Carle ever thought these books would be great for visually impaired children when he picked up this style since he always seems to lean towards simple and large high contrast images….something to look into I guess.