Barack Obama

We did our very best to watch the inauguration. I know that they cannot fully comprehend it, I'm not sure than any of us can, but I felt it was important. They went with me to vote in the fall and I explained that when we voted for the president this is the man that the people chose. So, he gets to 'be in charge' of America. It turned out that our main focus was remembering his name. I want them to know the answer when asked, "Who is the president of the United States of America?" So, we went over that a lot. Now Emma is walking around the house saying, "Barack Obama! Barack Obama!" We listened to the prayer, the oath and as much of the speech as they could handle. History in the making. I hope they have at least some recollection of all this as they grow.
Off to therapy, they each have a long day of therapy today.

Great Day

We had a really great day today. We did nothing exceptional, but I have more energy today than I can remember having in a very long time and that makes a difference. The girls have played, not without conflict, but contently. This morning we sat in the living room floor and played with flash cards. We worked on letter recognition and phonics, number recognition and counting, and opposites. I found myself working on shapes with Emma a lot today. The other day we got each of them a lap desk at Hobby Lobby. They LOVE them and this evening we again sat in the living room floor together. Emma and I wrote letters, spelled names, drew & identified shapes, and drew stick people. Alex paid some attention to this as she worked diligently on her own notebook. Kirsten got her a HSM stationary set for her birthday and she was busy working in her notebook with her pencil and ruler. I watched as she used the ruler to draw straight lines and then used her eraser on those pencil lines. I like watching her explore and create on her own. Emma wants me to color, but doesn't want to do much drawing on her own. Sometimes I hold her hand in mine and we write or draw together. I guess I will keep encouraging. Alex had PT this afternoon and Emma had OT. Daryl (OT) is reluctant to splint either of them for their fisted hands because they are both able to open those fingers on their own. They just choose to have them fisted most of the time. I will discuss this with the neurologist when we take Alex in February.

Other stuff

I've failed to blog on the other things we've been working on. We go over the girls speech homework at least a couple of times a week. We are working on specific concepts with Emma such as... above/below, front/behind, in/out, etc. I'm doing analogies with with both girls. Ex. My sweater is soft, but a rock is _____. And so on. Alex is doing great with plurals and possessives, in individually and we are getting better in sentence form. She is also working on using the correct pronouns... he/she/they. Alex is also working on sequencing (first, second, third, fourth, etc.) and on the concept of all/some/none. When we read books I try to take the time to ask other questions. Such as, I spy something that is yellow and square... then let her find it. Looking for more than one characteristic takes more patience than just picking the first yellow thing she sees. I know that Heidi (speech therapist) works on predicting story lines with her. I have a harder time doing this because she knows all of our books so well. I really need to get some new books.
I was wearing a GAP sweatshirt today and Emma was pointing out the letters and saying, "A, B, C..." So, I pointed her finger to each letter... "G... A... P" Alex was interested by this time and so we said the sounds that each letter makes and then said the word. We do this a lot with different words we come across. Good thing we are a GAP kind of family and not Tommy Hilfiger! That would be much harder to sound out!

Play-Doh

Seems we've done more with Play-Doh this week than anything else. The girls got a canister of play-doh and toys for Christmas and we've had a lot of fun with it. Of course it is more developmental work than academic, but important just the same. I'm trying to encourage Alex to use her right hand more, she keeps it curled up most of the time and doesn't use it much. Emma really started getting independent and using the tools herself. Oh, and it was fun.
We also had some craft stuff from Uncle Pat for Christmas that we've played with. Pipe cleaners, foam stickers, googly eyes, pompoms, etc. We used the foam letters to spell their names and they picked other stickers to decorate with. They each also made a silly face with the supplies and we hung them all in the living room. I wouldn't say that they are very independently creative with this stuff, not in the sense of coming up with things to create. But, we are working on it.
There has been no occupational therapy this week because Daryl was out, but they did have speech and physical therapy. They also spent a morning with Lisa and the girls to play while I got my hair done. Nonnie came to stay one evening with them and Courtney came the next evening so I could attend church meetings. Last night we went to Fun City with Kyle, Misty, Kayla & Braeden and the kids seemed to have a good time. There has definitely been a lot of social time this week and today we are recovering from it all!

Field Trips & more

When we went to Ft. Sill to stay with Drew we has some great 'field trips'. We visited Geronimo's grave. It was the first time we had really talked about Native Americans. We just took in the sites and I explained that a long time ago the Native Americans lived in the United States before we did and that Geronimo was a famous Native American.

We also visited the conservation area at Ft. Sill. They had a bobcat, a wolf, a turkey and birds. The girls were excited to see the animals but we were careful to explain that these kind of animals live in the wild and are not people's pets, so we have to keep our hands to ourselves. I also explained to them that they were living here so that they could be taken care of and be safe.

We also went back to Prairie Dog Town. We've been before, but always enjoy going back. We have learned that if we sit quietly and be respectful that they trust us more and will come very close. This time we fed them goldfish crackers and had lots of little critter friends.

Lastly we went up on Mt. Scott. It is so beautiful and you can see so much. We got out long enough to take a few pictures, but it was really cold and windy. Alex really took to the mountains this trip. As we were driving through the wildlife refuge she kept saying, "There's a mountain! There's another one! That mountain big!" We talked about how beautiful they were and I asked her who made the mountains. "GOD did!" I love that they know that.

So, back at home we had a fairly normal week back at therapy. Not much formal school stuff, but Alex practiced tracing letters in her workbook on her own yesterday. This afternoon we colored on a big poster board and drew pictures. Shapes, people, letters, names, etc.
This morning we went to Misty's to play with the kiddos. They all played and although Emma was a pill they seemed to have a good time. Church and Sunday School tomorrow.