I was sorting toys in the pod and Owen was running around with his light saber (he didn’t want to be too far from us). I’d have him run things in the house now and again. This time he was so cute carrying Katie’s pony—with his light saber—but of course I didn’t quite get the best picture. 🙂
And when I went in the house a few minutes later, I saw someone happy to have her pony back. 🙂
Today was a banner day!
While the kids were downstairs, I was upstairs sorting toys. The keep pile was very small and the huge Rubbermaid garage sale/donate box was overflowing!
Then, as you can see from my earlier post, I cleaned out both Katie and Owen’s rooms…taking out at least one bag of clothes from each room, in addition to assorted toys and books…plus the glider rocker and ottoman!
Of course, all this stuff is still somewhere in/at our house…but it’s planned for eviction soon! 🙂
Owen barely took a cursory glance but Katie was ALL about it. We left it in the bug bin through dinner then Tom let it go.
I guess she had this outfit on in pics from earlier today, but this is a good shot of it anyway. 🙂
This was a piece of her old mobile that she dragged out of the garage sale bin—she was entranced by all the little hanging figures and kept kissing them and hugging them. 🙂
Including Yoda, too, you notice. 🙂
I’m exhausted but still need to get at least one more room done. Granted it would be more awe-inspiring had I taken Before shots…but egads were they embarrassing!
We took the glider and ottoman out to sell since we never use it, cleaned out all the stuff that was tossed in before the flooring install (books and toys), took out all outgrown clothes, actually vacuumed, and wiped everything down!
We also took the screen door down so Charlie was very interested.
And Katie was as well—she kept creeping upstairs to see what I was doing…
She loves toys that she can reach now!
Owen’s room wasn’t quite as messy, but his room was full of construction dust. 🙁 I also sorted some clothes and toys for the garage sale and prettied up the books.
Grandma Marsha gave Owen this stuffed Yoda a loooong time ago, and we put it away because he had no idea who Yoda even was. But with all his playing Lego Star Wars and watching the movies with daddy…he now definitely knows who Yoda is. And I found him while going through Owen’s closet today…so we decided to just give it to him!
He loved it.
Katie is napping and Tom and I are busy upstairs so he has the whole floor to himself for Lego construction!
The kids were watching Sesame Street and Tom came downstairs for something and I heard him say “Wow there’s kids all over the floor!” Turns out, Owen was trying to get Katie to make the letter of the day. 🙂
All total I spent about SIX hours in the office tossing, shredding, and scanning…and you can’t tell I did a damn thing and it actually looks worse. GAH! But I got rid of at least [the equivalent of] two more reams of paper, a bunch of CDs/DVDs and empty cases, and I have a pile for the garage sale!
I was busy in the office when Tom called me out into the living room saying “You have GOT to see this.”
I think she’s the most pathetic looking thing. Or maybe the most comfortable. 🙂
So I get a call from the school today saying Owen got sick in class and they’re just letting me know. Apparently they will keep the kid there unless a) I want to come get him or b) he gets sick again. Well, I didn’t get any more details (to hopefully help me decide) and Katie was down for her nap…so I said I’d leave him.
Then I texted Tom to let him know and he said he’d go get him (he was planning on leaving early anyway). So when they got home I found out that he simply said he didn’t feel good, then walked over and barfed in the waste basket—which really impressed the teacher! She asked Tom if we trained him to do that and he said not really…but we try to tell him to get to the toilet, a garbage, or at least a non-carpeted area!
We made him take a nap (since he missed nap time at school) and he seemed fine afterwards. He was ravenous at (and after) dinner and was his typical crazy self all night.
I was trying to get him to drink some water and after awhile he said “Mama, my belly doesn’t like water anymore. I think my belly needs chocolate milk to feel better.” 🙂 (Tom had stopped at the store and bought chocolate milk as a treat.) I told him his belly liked water just fine and he could have chocolate milk in the morning. 🙂
Today’s “bag” was a bunch of shredding and a bunch of scanning…so we lost about a ream of paper. Yeah, it doesn’t sound like much, but it was a lot of clutter in the office. YAY!
And all the scanned stuff went to Evernote (one of my favorite programs/apps ever) so I technically still have it!
🙂
Owen came up and asked me to tie his B around his neck. Within seconds, Katie brought me her baby B and wanted me to do the same thing. 🙂
It was 50° and sunny this morning so we tried another walk.
She loves saying hi!
Then it was off to the golf course!
And she had fun chasing…a rock. 🙂
And then the sun went away and it got quite chilly so we headed home.
Tom: Owen, I heard you had school pictures today!
Owen: Yesss! I was a graduate!
Tom: A monkey graduate?
Owen: No, a white graduate!
It was a fairly nice day so I agreed!
Katie went right to the pole!
Owen hammed it up at the top of the slide!
And Katie asked to swing!
First I was baffled that there were two school picture days in one school year. Then I was annoyed because I just saw it as a blatant money grab—and I was adamant I wouldn’t be buying any more. (Remember, I bought the rights to all three photos the last go-round.)
Then I saw the proofs.
OMG SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!
Owen loves the graduate one—and I have to admit it is SUPER CUTE. And it turns out that this is a fundraiser for the school so at least that’s a bonus.
When I told Owen I was going after I dropped him off at school he was upset because he wanted to play with the toys. Katie took care of that for him.
So, we had Owen’s autism re-evaluation today. The results? Not autistic in the least. Not even remotely close to ADHD, either (the only thing that was remotely close to the minor issues he has). So…YAY! The doc said he had obviously just been on the slow end of the curve for social/emotional stuff.
This rough graph is how the doc explained it: The yellow pie-shaped area is considered “normal” (between the 25th and 75th percentile). At age 3 he was below normal; at age 5, he’s jumped up into normal. The “issues” he has now are consistent with typical 5yo kids, but we need to watch the ADHD tendencies. (A specific ADHD questionnaire I filled out gave Owen a score of 1 out of 9—where a 6/9 is a clinical ADHD diagnosis.)
In fact, after testing Owen for a mere 10 minutes, the doc looked at me shaking his head and said “He’s not autistic.” But then he finished out the test just to get some hard (confirming) numbers.
As I expected, towards the end of the 50+ repetitive questions (“Which is the island? Which is the cliff? Which shows annoying? Where’s the mountain? Which one is the electrician? Where is the triangle? Which is the raccoon? Which is the walrus? Which one is the guitar? Which one shows sharing? Show me crying.”) he started to lose interest, wasn’t paying attention, and was staring off outside looking for the squirrel. (If you recall, this was the doctor that feeds a squirrel peanuts through his window—and Owen had remembered that when I initially told him about the appointment this morning…and he had put peanuts out but the squirrel hadn’t come to get them yet.) The doc eventually quit the test as he really already had enough confirmation that Owen was not autistic. He did the calculations and all of the results put Owen square in “normal for his age” range.
Just to put it in some perspective, they plan two hours for testing. The last time I think it took 1:30. Today we were done at 40 minutes.
Waiting for the squirrel:
Showing daddy and Katie how to feed the squirrel:
Katie drawing while we waited for the EFMP paperwork. Since Owen no longer has an autism diagnosis, we’re no longer eligible for the EFMP program.
The Doctor was printing our paperwork and the printer was making typical noises.
Owen: Excuse me? Doctor? Your printer is making funny noises.
🙂
So we’re happy. And relieved because, honestly, all this time since the original diagnosis, we haven’t really thought of him as autistic…and now it’s confirmed he’s just a normal little boy.
But it was time to get Owen from school…
And this is what it looks like walking with her…
We talked to our contractor tonight. Turns out they DID put up tons of plastic—covered all the cupboards, closed off rooms, AND had a suction fan going to pull dust outside…it was just SUPER dusty. He hadn’t been expecting the jackhammering and had to even get a bigger jackhammer. The thinset was the actual problem—he said it was REALLY thick. It took them a full day and a half just to get the floor up–and then he had to get a diamond sander to smooth it all out…and THEN he had to self-level the entire kitchen/laundry room. Lordy. Can you imagine if we had attempted the flooring install ourselves?!
Additionally, one of his guys noticed a problem with some flashing on the roof…so they fixed that.
And he fixed our toilet that Tom had planned to fix afterwards—but it was more of a major fix than we thought.
And he’ll fix the few problem boards when we move out.
So I’m happy now. I’m still annoyed at all the cleaning we had to do (LOL)…but we really got our money’s worth and he’s a good guy.
Today was a technology day—I cleaned out my email Inbox! I’m pretty good about keeping it somewhat empty by Archiving and Deleting, but it was getting out of control. A few 15-minute sessions throughout the day and I went from 750ish to 299! No, it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things—and it doesn’t help with decluttering the house—but it’s something instead of nothing!
We arrived a bit early at school so Owen wanted to show me some of his stuff.
Owen: Mama! Look! I’m snack helper this week!
Me: What does the snack helper do?
Owen: Well, when they bring the snack in, I help hand it out to everyone!
