Thanksgivings

I know several people who are posting daily "thanksgivings" throughout November, either on Facebook or on their blogs.  I didn't take up that challenge, mostly because committing myself to one more daily obligation, no matter how soul-nourishing, would have been -- well, committing myself to one more daily obligation.

But I do believe I could have blogged a Joy-Thanksgiving pretty much every day of the month.  It has been an incredible November!

Here a just a few of the Joy-Thanksgiving events of November.  Milestones, not just inchstones!

Joy's participation in her school music class annual program was more robust than it's ever been.  Her music teacher burned a CD of the songs in the program to send home, and we loaded them up on Joy's iPad so she could listen to them at will.  This year's show was in honor of Veterans' Day, so we had patriotic music mixed in with Joy's usual Baby Einstein soundtrack.  Her favorites among the program were This Land is Your Land (mama approves, even if they didn't include the populist-protest verses!) and a little marching ditty called I am Proud to be an American (not the Lee Greenwood "God Bless the USA" song, thank goodness.)  On concert day, Joy's class was stationed at one end of the risers, so Joy could stand or sit with her staff members next to her class.  She marched in place a little bit in the right place, and waved a little flag, and made it through the whole show.  Proud, proud mama!

Some days later, when GrampaK came over for lunch one Saturday, I was telling him all about the concert and Joy's participation.  Joy was on the couch with her iPad -- and as I told Grampa about the songs on the iPad, all of a sudden the iPad started singing I am Proud to be an American.  Which means that Joy not only followed our conversation and acted upon it, but she also must have gone deliberately to the music-program song list rather than playing Baby Einstein.  Oh.  My.

Then there's this e-mail message to share from one of Joy's school staff the week after the music program, which sent me over the moon for the rest of the workday:

Just have to share my goosebumps delight from the first ten minutes of [Joy] and my day.  Tons of language in context.  No cue prompts.  We sailed thru our multiple tasks and I can't stop smiling.  Wish u had been here to share

That day, something came home that made me smile even wider:  Joy's first homework.  Oh, we've had schoolwork tasks come home before, but they were always framed in terms of showing us what Joy's working on in school, rather than actually being called HOMEWORK.  I was surprised how deeply this affected me -- all it entailed was a square 4x4 grid, on which Joy was to place smaller paper squares, using the terms "take" and "put."  But the importance of it was driven home a week later, when I was asked by another kiddo on the schoolyard, "Does Joy ever have homework?" and I was honestly able to say, "Yes.  Yes, she does."

In the wake of all that, you might guess how much smiling went on during Joy's parent-teacher conference mid-month!  I was surprised to see Joy's team so well represented, having only been sure that the teacher and case-manager would be there, but her student-teacher/SEA and her speech therapist and her occupational therapist were all there too.  So much good news to share, together with ideas for how to tweak things even better!

The best piece of news from that conference, as far as I was concerned, was the piece of construction-paper artwork above Joy's locker.  It turned out that they'd had a class project making construction-paper clouds with rainbow bands dangling below, where each cloud had the student's name and each rainbow band carried an adjective describing the students.  Most students came up with their own, but since that's not Joy's scene just yet, the teacher invited the students to help come up with a rainbow of adjectives for Joy.  She said they were just tumbling over one another with suggestions, and the themes were all directly from the kids.  Here's what they came up with:


Sensitive
Outdoorsy
Technical (they refined this one from "computer-y" in admiration for her iPad mad-skillz!)
Swift
Beautiful
Musical


Even after just a couple of months, my daughter's classmates know her really well, don't they?  Because that rainbow there is an awesome representation.

The LEND trainee who came along to observe the conference was deeply impressed, and we had a fine conversation afterward about the importance of inclusion even when a student isn't in the classroom.  (There's a whole 'nother blogpost in there, my friends!)

But wait, there's more.

This past week, Joy was invited to not just one but TWO birthday parties, together with her sister.  On back-to-back days, yet!  The first party was for a neighbor and the venue was a bounce-house facility.  How perfect is that?  Joy bounced and bounced, and repeatedly tossed a bouncy-basketball up through a basketball net (from the bottom up, rather than making a basket, but who's counting?)  Then after an hour and a half of bouncing and sliding, the kids all herded into a room with tables for cake and ice-cream and present-opening.  And Joy sat down between two kids she didn't know, with Rose a little way down on the other side of the table.  Once we got her served with goodies and lemonade, I went over to the edge of the room and sat on the benches with the other parents.  And stayed there, while Joy competently ate by herself and drank her drink and hung out uncomplainingly!

While I sat, a gregarious dad with a German accent served me cake, and then asked me if that blonde girl in the green shirt was my daughter.  "Yes," I said, preparing for the usual autism-solidarity conversation: is she on the spectrum, I have a close relative who is, etc.  "She looks so much like my niece!" was what I heard instead.  "I did a double-take, she could almost be her twin!"  JUST LIKE ANY OTHER KID.  No disability-related content to the conversation AT ALL.  I can hardly remember the last time I had a conversation with a stranger about my daughter that went that way.

And then we had another party the next night, for a classmate of Joy's, who also has an older sister who's a friend of Rose.  This one was at a gymnastics-sort of facility, with crash pads and climbing ropes and play structures and swingsets and free arcade games like air hockey and basketball.

Joy shot hoops with glee, over and over.  Look at her go!

Among the guests were classmates both past and present, who are happy to interact with Joy but also to give her the space she needs.  Then crowning delight came when we learned that the birthday girl's mom had assembled a special goody-bag just for Joy, full of stimmy-delights instead of the pencils and Blow-Pops that interest her so little.

Daily Thankgivings are hardly enough.  We are grateful beyond words to see our daughters grow and mature and move forward.

May your own celebrations of gratitude be plentiful and delightful!

Eight Years Old

Happy birthday, dear Joy!

We just got back yesterday afternoon from our annual Memorial Day trip "up north" to the family cabins, a trip that regularly coincides with Joy's birthday.  I've just changed the "Introducing Joy" sidebar to reflect her new age.  Eight.  Hardly seems possible -- eight years old!

We celebrated with balloons and bubbles and little cupcakes in the cabin.  We'll have further celebrations at home, and shopping for a big-girl birthday bike as soon as we get our post-holiday act together to do so.

As Memorial Day trips go, this one was relatively uneventful, especially considering our track record of muddy departures and explosive avian visitations.  (Well, JoyDad did have to do some work on breaking out a beaver dam that was flooding the road.  But we'd had warning so that was expected.)

Our party was smaller than usual, just the four of us and GrampaK.  The weather was pleasant for the end of May, mostly cool with a couple of rainy bits but at least one warm-enough-to-swim afternoon.  We did our traditional walks in the woods:

and spent a lot of time on the screen porch watching the hummingbirds come to the feeder:

(When I posted this one on Facebook, I captioned it: "Secret for a long-lived relationship -- always respect your partner's side of the hummingbird feeder.")

You can tell that your daughter is growing up when she wants to drive the boat!

Not to worry, folks, it's safely docked.

One of the basic experiences of life up at the lake is the lack of running water.  We bring drinking water along, but wash water for the dishes and floor and ourselves comes from an old-fashioned pump just a little ways away from the cabin.  This weekend I had a startling realization -- though we'd been bringing Joy up to the cabin at least once a summer for her whole life, and sometimes more often than that... we'd never taken her down that short path to "help" pump water.  It's been part of Rose's experience since not long after she could walk.  But with Joy, early on I suppose it felt like too much of a hassle, and then later we just sort of had our fixed routines and always expected to come back from the pump with a full bucket in each hand, and no hand left to hang on to Joy lest she make a dash for the lake.

This vacation I finally realized what had been happening.  And Joy and I went to have fun with the pump.

So easy, to get into these ruts and hold our kiddos back.  We've got to do better than that.

We will not have another trip to the lake without a trip to the pump for Joy -- which she enjoyed to the hilt, my sweet water-loving child.  We've got to keep examining, and listening, and doing better.

Happy birthday, my sweet eight-year-old!

Songs of the Season, Part 2

JoyDad and I had a remarkable time at Monday's Solidarity Singalong! Hundreds of protesters filled the Capitol rotunda on the ground floor and balconies, singing recall-themed versions of Christmas tunes, in cheerful defiance of our governor's latest attempt to quash dissent. A resounding win for free-speech!

Photo credit madtowntj of Daily Kos

The re-purposed tunes of the Solidarity Singalong are at least somewhat analogous to a little ditty to the tune "The Farmer in the Dell" that we've
been experiencing a lot lately:

The A says "aaa", the A says "aaa"
Every letter makes a sound,
The A says "aaa!"

The song is from a series of products by a company called Leapfrog. (Link goes to a YouTube video -- I'd've embedded it, but it looks like they've disabled that option for this one.)

The "A says 'aaa'" phonics-washing of Joy began around the time of her birthday at the start of the summer, when she got a Leapfrog Fridge-Phonics toy from Auntie S as a present. The toy has a magnetic back, so you can stick it on the fridge -- or in our case, the fireplace.

You choose a letter to put in the slot, and then the toy sings the song for that letter. Or, push the little orange notes above the letter and it sings the familiar ABC song.

Some months after we got the toy, we discovered that the Leapfrog Talking Letter Factory DVD, which we'd gotten for Rose when she was just beginning her love affair with letters and words, had become acceptable to Joy as well. The cartoon story on the DVD involves a tour of a factory that makes letters, and sings through their "every letter makes a sound" songs one by one, with funny little additional mnemonics (for example, the E cups its hand to one ear and says "eh?" as if it couldn't hear you!) Joy particularly loves the opening menu-sequence, something she apparently shares with quite a few kids on the spectrum.

Then still more recently, just at Thanksgiving, we pulled out yet another saved Leapfrog artifact from Rose's toddlerhood -- her "My First LeapPad." Kids interact with this clever toy by touching a series of printed pictures with an attached electronic pen. You can buy a variety of spiral-bound books, each coming with its own game-cartridge. To tell the toy what page you're on in any given book, you have to touch the green "GO" circle on that page with the pen in order to get the correct noises that go with that page. It's definitely a couple of steps beyond the baby-toys that have been the staple of Joy's repertoire.

And guess what? We already had the "I Know My ABCs" book and cartridge, built around the "A says aaa!" song!

I was amazed how fast Joy figured out the sequence of turning on the toy, turning the pages of the book, and tapping the "GO" cicle. The latter is a particular accomplishment because the "GO" circle is at a different location on the perimeter of each page, in order for the toy to differentiate which page's fun to serve up. I love to watch Joy scan all the way around the edge to find the "GO"!

After all this musical phonics-washing, Joy now can fill in the blanks when we sing her a letter:

JoyMama: "The B says..."
Joy: "buh!"

And look what else she's been doing lately, another Rose hand-me-down:

One more Songs of the Season post yet to come... stay tuned!

Northwoods Adventures, May 2011

Here's the long-promised roundup of our Memorial Day at the lake.

Balloons for the birthday girl:

And for her big sister:

We walked in the woods:

And blew bubbles on the pier:

And played with the bubble-swords on the screen-porch (thank you AuntLO and UncleDO for the gift of bubbly entertainment!)

And enjoyed the heck out of pine-needles (so soft! so fragrant!):

We had unusually long stretches of independent play with the ring-stacker:

And lots of people-peek play with the pompom:

And the rocking chair:

Rose learned to cast with a borrowed fishing rod:

And caught a 20-inch northern pike off the end of the pier! (Actually, Rose hooked it, JoyDad landed it, and GrampaK de-hooked and released it. Rose was not interested in even get near enough to "her" fish to be photographed with it.)

Very tame, so far. Minor adventures only. Nothing nearly so eventful as last year...

Until we set out for home.

We'd decided to try & save some time by going out the "back way," down a remote logging road that had recently been widened a little by a new logging operation. We actually drove out to town that way on Monday, so we knew the road was passable (if a little muddy & exciting to drive.) We and GrampaK were the last ones out on Tuesday -- he went one way, we went the other.

And before we'd gotten more than a couple miles out, we zigged where we shoulda zagged -- and the passenger wheels sunk deep into soft mud at the side of the road.

"Everybody out," declared JoyDad, after the first attempt at backing up went nowhere.

I swung my door open... and it barely cleared the mud.

So we all clambered out the driver's side doors, and I spent the next 10 minutes holding Joy and getting bitten by mosquitoes while JoyDad got muddier and muddier trying to dig out (without tools) or toss something under the wheels for traction (a losing battle.)

Finally we decided that someone needed to hike out. Probably about 3 hours walk to the nearest house. We only had the one cell phone (mine) and of course no reception back-of-the-beyond as we were.

So the mud-spattered JoyDad set off down the road, glancing down at my cell for "bars" about every ten steps. I piled back into the car in the mud with the girls, out of mosquito range, to settle in to try & entertain them for who-knew-how-long. With no means of outside communication whatsoever.

Rose and Joy were two different entertainment challenges. Rose was aware enough of the situation to have some imaginative worries, and kept asking when Daddy was coming back. (As if I knew. He'd set out at 8:45. In my mind, the earliest he could possibly return with help would be 11am, and that was terrrrribly optimistic. But I didn't name a time.)

We snacked. I read chapter after chapter from Little Women. Joy watched DVD -- how long would the battery last? The sun started streaming through the trees onto the car, but I didn't dare run the air for more than 5 minutes every half hour, for fear of killing the battery too...

And then, just at 11:00, a tow-truck appeared through the leaves.

I didn't remember to get out with the camera to record the sunken car, but here's how it looked just after rescue:

We had guardian angels watching over us that day. JoyDad got a shoulder-tap from the first one about 15 minutes into his hike. He was watching that phone for the non-existent "bars" when all of a sudden... it RANG! Still no bars visible, but just enough connectivity that it was able to let him know that there was a message waiting.

That message was from the angel -- because I almost NEVER use my cell unless I'm setting up a specific call. Very few people have the number, and even fewer use it unless we've set up to speak. And yet, someone from home-town had called, just about the time we were getting stuck.

If JoyDad hadn't gotten that voice-mail alert, he'd never have known about the patch of connectivity back there in the woods. As it was, he was able to call 911 and be connected to a towing-company dispatcher and get help on the way.

And then he walked out of the connectivity and didn't hit another patch before finally intercepting the tow-truck, about two hours after his hike began.

Second angel was a mechanic in Merrill, Wisconsin, who was able to take a look at our vehicle when it started making awful noise en-route, and (instead of taking us for a huge sum of cash in our distress) assured us that we'd make it home as long as we didn't accelerate into any sharp turns.

I'll spare you the account of the rest of the trip -- it was long and warm and kinda cranky -- but we made it. And even the total expense, between the tow and the next day's necessary repairs, weren't nearly as awful as they could have been.

Wonder how next year's trip will go (she says with fear and trembling!)

Break!

There's some wonderful stuff going on with Joy, beyond the birthday party and swimming I talked about in the last post.

I haven't yet told you about the birthday card she decorated for her classmate. Poor Joy has not had a happy relationship with writing-utensils over the years. We keep trying to get her to make marks on paper, and she would rather do anything else -- crumpling the paper ranks much higher on her preference list than drawing on it. Even so, I've made her "sign" every card that's gone out under her name or from the family, usually a hand-over-hand mark made under protest.

But they've been working at school with drawing-on-paper. And look what she produced when I put marker in hand and held down the birthday card for her to "sign":

All I did was hold the paper down. She did the spirals herself, no hand-over-hand involved except to help get the marker-cap back on.

But wait, there's more.

In our computer-bookmarks for years has been a fun baby-game site called Kneebouncers. The games are super-easy and work by just clicking on the screen or hitting any key. Unfortunately they recently went to a paid-subscription model, but there are still a couple of freebies, and we made a great breakthrough with one of those this weekend. The game is called Peek-a-bouncer, and to make it work, you have to click-and-hold (or push any key and hold). Then the curtains slide open and you see a funny face and a voice intones "peek-a-boo!"

Joy always tended to get frustrated with this game, because with the other games, all she had to do was a quick click to make things happen. In Peek-a-bouncer, if you just quick-click, the curtains barely budge and the voice gets cut off.

But on Sunday, after much hand-over-hand play, where I'd help her hold the mouse-button and I'd say the words "push-and-hold!" in the same tone as the "peek-a-boo!" -- she actually began to push-and-hold on her own. Experimenting with how much hold it took to create how much effect.

Oh, my goodness.

And then!

Last night Joy's newest barista (autism line-therapist) got Joy to turn a difficult evening around quite dramatically. Joy had been having a rough time, didn't want to be in any of our standard rooms, the barista was trying all the favorite stuff to no avail. They were working in Joy's bedroom when the barista as a last-ditch effort thought to ask her: "Break?" And Joy understood immediately, and dived on her own into her bed-tent, where she immediately set to work on putting herself back together. Over the course of 5 minutes in the tent, Joy stimmed herself from angrily-overwrought into pleasant-mood. The rest of the session then took place in pleasant-mood mode.

This is something we're going to USE. Again: Oh, my goodness.

[Bet you thought from the title of this post that JoyMama was going to be taking a bloggy break. Heh. Not a chance. You're stuck with me.]

Two Good Days

Friday was a good day.

JoyDad and I both had the day off. Unpaid, since it was a required furlough day for me and he took a "moveable" furlough day. But still, a day off for the both of us, with both kids in school.

Several hours into our spring-cleaning & online activism, we got some lovely news.

The so-called "budget repair" law, passed in an undemocratic sneak-attack the previous week, had been put on hold by a Dane County judge!

Judge MaryAnn Sumi of the Dane County court agreed with Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne that the apparent violation of Wisconsin's open meetings law was sufficiently serious to warrant a temporary restraining order, preventing the law from going into effect until the court can hold a full hearing the week of March 28. (The law was scheduled to be published March 25, to take effect March 26).

JoyDad and I decided to go downtown and celebrate. After all, if the law were to delay our paycheck-whacks even one week, that's over $100 we'd have available again to pump back into the local economy!

So we went to the Capitol around noon. I carried a sign that thanked the judge on one side, and on the other said "Rule Against the Bill!" Got lots of thumbs-up and car honks. (In Madison these days, you don't just lay on the horn to support the protesters. Instead, you tap the horn to the cadence of the chant: "This is what democracy looks like!") We walked through the Capitol, and then joined a group singing protest songs at the top of State Street for a while.

Then we walked down State Street and found a restaurant with supportive signs in the windows, and had a lovely lunch. We made sure to tell them exactly why we felt able to do so, and why we chose them in particular.

And the sun was shining, and our crocuses were blooming in the flowerbed, and we felt some of the first real hope we've felt in an entire month of unrelenting bad news. Not that this is over, by any means. The majority party will appeal every step of the way, probably up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court if it gets that far. (Vote JoAnne Kloppenburg for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice April 5!) They can even take up the bill again from scratch, give appropriate notice, and presumably pass it again. But the public outcry would be immense, it would be an admission that they didn't do it right the first time, and the protest movement would only gain new steam.

And then! I took Joy to her swimming lesson after school, which is just about her favorite part of the week. I got to see her hoist herself out of the pool on her own, at the place where the water was too deep to get a boost from the bottom. I got to see her propel herself from one platform to another one five feet away, all under her own steam. I got to see her blow bubbles in the water (in between drinking it.) And I didn't even have to do a big clean up in the locker room of the generally-inevitable laxative effects of water-play -- she waited till later that evening!!

Saturday, too, was a good day.

Joy and I attended a birthday party for one of her classmates in the afternoon, an invite-the-whole-class affair. It was held at the apartment-dwelling of the birthday girl, probably about 10 kids in a small space with hard surfaces. The noise was pretty intense.

Joy, however, hung in remarkably well. We had a good 20 minutes before she began a big protest, and then we were able to go into the hall and walk the stairs and laundry-room for a while and calm down enough for a second try. I had provided ribbons for her own use, so the wrapped packages wouldn't be too much a temptation.

Since it was all classmates, they are well-acquainted with spending time with her and were very sweet. The birthday girl made sure that Joy got a turn with the blindfold from the pin-the-tail game -- we turned it into a peek-a-boo game, and then Joy did manage to take a turn sticking a tail onto the donkey (after everyone else was done, and without blindfold or spin.) At a later point I asked another little girl if Joy could play with some discarded paper from an unwrapped present. Not only did she bring that paper over, a minute later she came around again bearing a curly ribbon for Joy's use!

We made it through over an hour in total, long enough to enjoy some cake. Joy wasn't the only kid who cried during that time, and none of the other crying was caused by her. And as we left, there was another kid who was also overwhelmed by the noise -- the hostess was just calling his mom to come pick him up.

SO included. It felt great.

One more "good" to share.

Rose and JoyDad got to take a turn at the Capitol while Joy & I were at the party, but I got my turn in the evening. I joined an interfaith vigil that meets every night now for an hour at the Capitol, 7-8pm.

We weren't a big group, and we weren't allowed to light our candles -- a couple of law-enforcement fellows very nicely told us that they had their orders regarding the defacing qualities of dripping wax. (One of our number spoke up, "That's OK, these guys are public workers, they're on our side!" and got some discreet grins and nods from the cops.)

We held signs, and sang. Last night's organizers had also printed out brightly-colored slips of paper with relevant quotes from various scriptures and philosophers and other leaders and thinkers. We took turns reading quotes and then taped them into a collage. I also took some chalk and put one of the quotes onto the pavement:
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." — Elie Wiesel

Among our number were two boys on the autism spectrum. One of them played a hand drum enthusiastically as we sang. He wrote his own message in chalk to the Governor on the Capitol's very front step after the vigil, just as I was leaving. I believe the message was taking a turn for the rude... but y'know, this young man has the right. He's among the ones who stand to lose the most.

Two very good days.

Twice as Old

Happy birthday to me!

It occurs to me that I'm more than twice as old as I was when my classmate and I made these signs:

and hitch-hiked from Freiburg, Germany over to the gorgeous town of Strasbourg, France:

and then re-crossed the French/German border in the company of a car-load of Algerians. Who ditched us right after we got across the border (I think we were more trouble than we were worth), so then we caught a ride on a big rig with a long-distance trucker, who didn't want to go into town when we neared Freiburg so he dropped us at a rest stop and we had to find someone who would take us into town from there.

Good times! And, good guess, Lynn. I'll grant you that much, seeing as how you made the whole pack-o-memetastic-lies happen in the first place....

Back to the present day, we had a low-key celebration. JoyDad took us all out to eat, and did all the Joy-packing and Joy-wrangling to make it possible (she really did very well, as restaurants go.) Rose made me a birthday card, and they gave me a book edited by a college classmate of mine, and this evening we're going to eat my traditional favorite -- as baked by JoyDad -- spice cake with penuche frosting.

Included: J-Cat's Birthday Party

In Joy's life lately, there have been lots of neat little examples and efforts toward inclusion -- thinking about ways to integrate her life and her experiences into the lives of those around her. I was contemplating a great big long post about it, but it grew too huge. So I'm going to post a bunch of examples, in bits and pieces. That way your eyes don't cross while reading, and I get a whole bunch of posts out of it instead of just one! (Ulterior motive thus confessed.)

First up -- a birthday party last month. We are so happy when Joy gets invited to birthday parties! This one was a family party, celebrating the birthday of her young suitor and playdate friend, otherwise known as J-Cat.

The hand-designed thank-you card from J-Cat to Joy

A number of things went into making this party successful for Joy. First off, it was a family party, so there were parents floating around along with kids of various ages, meaning that not all the kids had to be involved in any one activity all at once. Then there was a meal that Joy appreciated heartily -- pizza, grapes, baby carrots, and birthday cake! all things that she loves to eat.

Most importantly, J-Cat's mom had Joy-proofed the living room area and filled it with things she's liked on our playdates: an exercise ball to bounce on, scarves and ribbons and noisy toys. Other kids could come join her there, and some did for little stretches -- Rose helped take the lead with that -- but Joy could also happily play alone while adults talked nearby. She also went outside to swing on their swingset, while other kids ran around with their games.

Birthday cheer to J-Cat, and thanks to his mama! We sure enjoyed the party.

The Point of a Party

A couple of posts back, I promised a reflection on Joy's sixth birthday party, a gathering that took place on May 23.

We've fallen into something of a pattern for these birthday parties, inviting families from church and the neighborhood and school, with kids both Joy's age and Rose's age.

The weather cooperated for playing out in the backyard, unlike last year (which was rainy and cold, to the point that we barely got out onto the deck). It was unusually warm, summery warm! Almost too warm for the bouncy castle, which heats up fast in the sun.

We had a fine turnout, and the kids were soon running all over the back yard and playing, and riding Joy's new and old trikes up and down the driveway.

The only one who wasn't having much fun... was Joy. She tolerated it OK, but all she really wanted to do was play with her mylar balloon and watch her videos.



Even the present-opening wasn't a thrill. Oh, she tolerated that too, and pulled on the paper and got them open. But when we looked at the photos JoyDad had taken of that part of the party, there wasn't a single smile on her face. (Though the presents were well-chosen and she's been playing happily with them since.)

Even our own big present, the big kid tricycle, we managed to bungle somewhat. After the party-preparations were in place but before the guests arrived, we decided it would be a good moment for the tricycle presentation. So we all trooped out the back door and I went to the back of the garage where the trike was hidden, to bring it out and surprise her as she got to the driveway.

Unfortunately, the family trooping out to the garage made Joy think she was going to get a car ride, something she loves to do. She was terribly disappointed that no car ride was forthcoming, and wouldn't even look at the trike as she expressed her displeasure.

Basically, the party worked for everyone but the person it was ostensibly celebrating. Not that it was a train wreck, it just wasn't much fun for our six-year-old.

Next year I hope to do better. One thought would be a series of birthday playdates, such that we could involve the friends but make it less a crowd situation. (And there will be new people in the circle; we'll need to work explicitly on involving kindergarten classmates, I think.) Another thought would be a pool party at a local motel, something that was a good success for some friends of ours a couple of years ago.

It's good to see possibilities for learning and growth, for Joy's parents as well as for Joy. Happy birthday, Joy, and here's to the upcoming year!

Product Hits and Misses: All Terrain Tricycle

I've just changed one little thing in the sidebar -- Miss Joy is no longer 5 years old, but SIX! Happy birthday, sweetheart!

JoyDad and I decided a while ago that our gift to her would be a new tricycle, more suitable to her size. She'd finally this spring started riding the sweet little trike handed down from her sister, just as she got to the point of outgrowing it!

So we went online to see what we could find for a big-kid trike. We didn't need anything adaptive, mind you. Just something that acknowledged (universal-design-wise) that sometimes bigger kids like to ride trikes too, whatever their neurology. What we found was way outside our price comfort zone. We were not particularly interested in dropping between $150 and $250 on a tricycle, no matter how right-sized and sturdy!

Fortunately our school-district team came up trumps. The PT at Joy's school recommended a trike from Harbor Freight, which has a local store here. The product is called the All-Terrain Tricycle, and the full price is an eminently-reasonable $59.99 (plus shipping if you order online.) Apparently this item goes on sale frequently. We paid $50; as of this writing, it's $42.99 online.

The trike comes partially-assembled in a box:


The assembly instructions were poor, but the assembly was intuitive enough I had no problem. It was half an hour from box-opening to all-cleaned-up, with photography included!



The trike rolls easily, is plenty tough, and has multiple holes for setting the seat closer or further back depending on how long your kiddo's legs are. Downsides are minimal. The seat is a little too tilted for my taste; the front tire assembly pivots all the way around, as opposed to our smaller trike that didn't let you turn it too far; and, the new-materials smell from the tires was so strong we couldn't store the box in the house!

Other than that, though, it's an excellent bang for the money, and I think Joy will do just fine with it. I'll write more about the presentation of the gift, and other birthday-celebratory reflections, after we're back from our traditional Memorial Day pilgrimage to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Happy long weekend, everyone!

Hitting the Bottle

This post is in the interest of parental self-protection.

If Joy ever comes to visit you, and catches sight of a bottle similar to this in your home...


... and starts excitedly making a hand-sign that looks like this:


THIS is what she actually gets to have, when we celebrate a special occasion. Like last night for my birthday, when she saw the bottle & stem-glasses come out (she gets an open plastic cup now) and was "more"-signing so enthusiastically I thought she was gonna hyperventilate.



Kristian Regale Apple-Lingonberry fizzy juice.

Please make a note of it. Thank you.

Apple Picking

It was a cool summer, with the chilliest July on record according to this morning's paper! But now that fall is imminent, we've had a long string of dry sunny days with highs in the upper 70s and mid 80s.

Perfect for an apple-picking trip this past weekend! As if we didn't have apples coming out our ears from our own trees earlier this summer. But there's something special about an apple orchard, at a gorgeous farm where they even have an old-fashioned tire-swing for the kiddies...


Look at that sky.


It's good to get out and about as a family!



P.S. My better half is celebrating his umpty-umpth birthday today. Happy birthday, dear JoyDad!

Birthday Blessings

Celebrating Joy's birthday is always a bit of a scheduling juggle. Often her birthday falls during our annual Memorial Day trip to the lake. This year, the following weekend already had a bar mitzvah celebration in it. So we ended up having her party yesterday.

Yes, even with JoyDad on crutches.

The past two years, we've been blessed with glorious weather for our Joy-birthday parties. One year we had the guests help pick our strawberry patch. Last year we spent almost the whole party playing in the yard, with Uncle Schnirelmann and Auntie K helping out with Joy. This year, we were going to have a backyard barbecue. Including the four of us, we were planning on about 20 people.

We got the people, a lovely turnout! Only, we didn't exactly get the weather. It spattered rain on and off all day, and the temperature never even hit sixty. So we went with a sandwich platter setup instead, and planned to shoe-horn everybody into our modest little house. Which meant I kinda had to clean. And call ALL our chairs into service, and figure out how to get the food served and everyone seated, etc. etc.

JoyDad did quite a bit of food preparation, for having to stay off his feet. I had to shuttle ingredients and supplies around, but he produced an excellent macaroni salad and put together the sandwich and veggie trays.

I know I've said this before, but we have such wonderful community going on here. We invited families, and it was a delight to have both moms and dads show up with their kids. Rose picked off the older kids and led them away to play independently, while the parents helped the younger kids play with Joy in the basement. We did several turn-taking games, where we had every child tap the push-button communication device, which was programmed to speak the words "my turn!" before taking their turn with the crash pillow or the ball or whatever. Joy had been playing crash-pillow with her therapy-barista just before the party, where she would crash and then lead him by the hand and "make" him crash too. So she was "making" me take my turn crashing at the party as well!

Then we went upstairs for presents. Joy was definitely more engaged with present-unwrapping than she was at last year's party. With some support, she was able to pull paper and presents out of gift bags, and enjoy textures of presents and ribbons. Some of the presents will figure into their own post later. But here's the ribbon...


Then dinner, with lots of scrambling by parents around the "buffet table" (actually laid out across our countertop & range!) to feed the children who were already seated around the dining table. Joy ate a good meal without much assistance. Then we brought out the Jello cake and vanilla ice cream. I decided not to do the candle-blowing-ceremony, just in case Joy should take it into her head to grab big handfuls out of the middle of the cake. We just sang while presenting Joy with the first serving from the cake. But then I looked at her face at the end of the song, and was surprised to find her with pursed lips. As if to blow out a candle... We seriously do not give her enough credit sometimes.

After the meal the party continued on our deck, which was just dry enough for bubble-blowing and hula hooping. Joy navigated the chaos remarkably well:


What a delight to see her enjoying the toys, among her peers. She even submitted to birthday hugs from her friends at the end of the evening.

And while I was out on the deck, and JoyDad was holding court in the living room with his foot propped up, our friends put all the food away and did all the dishes.

Many, many birthday blessings!

Five Years of Joy

Happy Birthday, Sweet Joy!



May you always see the world through eyes of wide wonder.

We love you.

Happy Birthday to God's Hands

Rose turned seven yesterday.

That's, like, halfway to high-school. Oh, my baby!

We've been celebrating for days -- restaurant outing on Saturday, party at our house Sunday, cookies and paper crown at school yesterday morning, family presents & cards in the mail last night, probably a few cards yet to arrive.

She's such a fascinating combination of old-soul and pre-teen and sweet innocent child. Oh, and little snot, too.

The pre-teen Rose was kind of hoping for a Jonas Brothers CD or Michael Jackson.

The innocent child was just as thrilled to get an Imagination Movers CD instead (Juice Box Heroes!)

The little snot is having trouble making herself convey the proper thank-yous to relatives sending her gifts in the mail (we're working on it!) Although, I had to remind JoyDad that he developed a reputation in his own immediate family as a youth for ripping open a birthday card, declaring "No money!" and tossing it dramatically aside...

The old-soul has been delighting her Sunday School teachers.

I heard from one of her teachers awhile back, who was touched at how Rose is always excited to talk about her little sister in class when they discuss the events of the week gone by.

Last night I heard from her other teacher (who also happens to be one of Joy's baristas) about their project this past Sunday.

The lesson involved one of the healing miracles of Jesus, and the idea that we are called to be God's healing hands in the world. To expand on the idea, they created a poster together, tracing their hands and adding other illustrations as well.

As the poster-making was drawing to a close, Rose had one more idea. She began drawing a smooth, looping line connecting all of the hands on the poster and the other illustrations. "That's God's love," she said, "running between all of us."

Amen. And, happy birthday!

Happy Birthday, JoyMama!!!

Yes, that's right, JoyMama is another year older. And another year wiser.

Rose and I just got done wrapping the package that contains JoyMama's gift (can't tell you what's in it, it is a SECRET!). We plan to go out to dinner tonight to a local brew pub, and then come back home and have some birthday cake. Because it's not a birthday if you don't have cake, right?

Join me in wishing JoyMama a great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!


UPDATED by JoyMama:
Aww, JoyDad. You stinker. *KISS*

Well, here's the cake. My very favorite birthday cake, spice cake with homemade penuche frosting:



JoyDad and Rose got me a small CD player for treadmilling purposes. Just exactly what I wanted! I assembled a mix CD today. Will try it out Tuesday.

On my birthday, I ate cake instead of running.
Today, I ran outside in the morning. Then I ate cake for breakfast.

Life is good.

Elvis Makes a Birthday Appearance

JoyDad got a birthday card that needs to be shared.







Even better: the black background on the Elvis photo is velvet-fuzzy!

Thank you, dear extended-family-members-who-don't-yet-have-aliases (but you know who you are).

UPDATE: OK, they've got aliases now. Full credit to Auntie Run-at-the-Mouth and Auntie Meerkat -- thanks for a most excellently appropriate birthday card!

A Special Day for JoyDad

Born in the same year as Barack Obama...

Older than Sarah Palin...

More years till retirement than Joe Biden...

In a whole 'nother generation than John McCain...

It's JoyDad, and today is his birthday!


Still a charmer after all these years... Happy birthday, my love.