Jace

We have had a rough few months with Jace. We have been trying several things to help him. School is working nicely with us. He gets sensory breaks during his morning preschool and then we also communicate through a notebook. We also got Jace this squishy fish that he can have with him so when he feels anxious, he can fidget with it. And school has been okay with him having it there. Play therapist thinks he is regressing back to toddler stages, which some of his behavior is totally toddler like. Jace is like a puzzle to me. I wish I could get him figured out to help him more and so that we can have better days. I believe that his anxiety has increased, which could be the reason why his rocking has increased ALOT! He isn't sleeping through the night and nor does he stay in his bed. He gets up in the middle of the night and goes down to the couch and rocks. So, since he isn't getting a good night sleep that in turns affects his behavior. I called his doctor on Monday and just heard back from him last night. The plan is...to increase his medicine to help with the anxiety. We are going to try this for a few days and see if this will also help with his sleep. If this does not help with his sleep, we will then start melatonin with him. Also, his doctor put in a referral for Jace to possibly start OT again to help with his sensory issues. They will have to do an assessment again, but I have already chatted with them about him so we will see how that turns out. Hopefully in the next week or so, we will see some improvement with Jace.

Kai is walking!

Not the best video quality!

Selly Family Update

Well I haven't been the greatest of keeping up with our blog. I wish I would make the time to blog at least once a week. We are keeping busy. I feel like I am running all the time, with bringing the boys to and from school, Jace and Kai's therapies, doctor's appointments and Taekwondo and then this past month extra visits to my great grandma's. On top of all of this, Levi is on 10 hour shifts. And for those who don't know how Unimin works their guys, they work 19 days on and then have 2 days off. That is a lot of hours if they are doing 10 hour shifts and sometimes it's 12 hours. Or Levi will get called back to work shortly after he gets home. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving break, we are hoping that Levi will have 4 days for that. Kai's update is in the blog about him turning 2 years old. Some time here I will blog about his medical updates. Gavin is doing good, growing like a weed! He is loving kindergarten and is doing very well. It just amazes me how smart he is already! He is doing things that I think is beyond kindergarten level. We just had his conference and he had a really good report card! He has improve on his writing skills and coloring as well. He knows quite a few sight words and quite a bit of math as well. He also gets very wiped out from kindergarten. He is soooo crabby when I pick him up from school. It's kind of a bummer because it's almost every day and it's not pleasant for me or him. I almost wish he would just do a little cat nap after school, but Gavin doesn't really do cat naps. He is one that is out for awhile. Along with him being crabby after school, comes sassy mouth too ( I really think a lot of it has to do with him being wiped out). He is working on having better afternoons after school. Just recently, Gavin had an audiologist appointment. I wanted to have his hearing checked because it seemed like he wasn't hearing that great. My suspicions were somewhat right. His hearing falls in the normal range, but for his left ear, it is barley in the range. She also tested the pressure in his ears. There is negative pressure in his left ear. She stated that if he were to keep going this way with that pressure, he could potentially have a hearing loss. So Gavin sees the ENT on Monday to see what he would like to do to relieve that pressure. Gavin also had a pulmonologist appointment recently. They did that blowing test ( I can't remember what it is called). He did ok, but the numbers I think were on the low side. His doctor said to continue the Asthma Control Plan that we have for him and to continue the daily medicines. I have noticed that his asthma is flaring up, so I think we are gonna have to step it up a notch.

There isn't much to update about Levi, he work a lot of hours and is wiped out a lot. As far as me, for someone who doesn't work, I sure keep really busy. I just feel like I can't keep up with everything and it is sometimes hard to find balance. In the past month, I have been helping my great grandma a lot. She is getting up there in age, she just turned 93! It is getting a bit challenging for her to do things. She's can barley see, has a hard to hearing and has a hard time getting around. She still lives on her own in a high rise in Edina. She has asked me to help her with multiple things. I have recently been added to checking account and now power of attorney of her finances. I am currently helping her get her Will prepared with a lawyer and also I will be the guardian of her when she becomes incapacitated. So it has been a little hectic trying get everything taken care of, especially when she is a little over an hour away. I have also been trying to get the rest of our things unpacked! Yes, I know, we moved here at the end of April! I am trying to go through things and get rid of stuff we no longer use or don't need.

Jace's update: Love this kid to death, but he is definitely my most challenging! This past month or so has been really challenging. A lot of people just look at his behaviors as just "bad behavior". But it's really not (there are times that it is). There is so much to Jace that people don't see and understand. Heck, I don't always understand. I am trying to learn more about Jace so that I can help him more and in turn then he can function more like a regular 4 year old. For those who don't really know about Jace's stuff...Jace has been diagnosed with overanxious childhood disorder (childhood anxiety) with some OCD features. Jace also shows autistic traits and SPD (sensory processing disorder) traits. On top of all of this, Jace has a speech delay. So if you know about some of these disorders, you can probably relate to how challenging it can be. Jace still continues to do speech therapy at Pediatric Therapy every week. He speech has improved a lot! We were going through a period about a month or so ago where Jace's behavior was really bad. He was rocking A LOT more and not sleeping through the nights anymore. I wish I had video of his rocking to show people who haven't seen it. It can get very intense! Jace continues to do play therapy as well, so I had talked to his therapist about it. He got bumped to doing play therapy every week instead of every other. We had learned a few things. The main thing was he wasn't enjoying his morning preschool anymore. We still don't' know exactly way, but I have been in contact with his teacher and OT at school. I found out that he was doing some silly behaviors, nothing too bad. His therapist said that he was doing those silly behaviors because he is trying to work through whatever is bothering at school. So Jace now gets sensory breaks at school. He just started them last week, so we will see how it goes. We are gonna try some therapeutic listening with him. Jace saw his regular doctor (who is excellent doctor for these kinds of things) and he would like us to try these new things to see if they help before upping his medicine dose. As far as the rocking....it can be challenging at times. Jace NEEDS that hard impact. This is the only way he knows how to wear himself down. So we are working on a few things at home to help him with that. We are trying to do some rough house play at night time just before bed. We got him a sit and spin for Christmas. We are also looking a getting a hammock swing for the doorway swing. As far as him sleeping through the night, part of the problem is that he falls of of bed and then the only way for him to get back to sleep is to rock. I was looking into getting him a bed bolster, but they are kind spendy. So I got creative and made one kind of. I got a body pillow and a deep fitted sheet. I put the body pillow under the sheet length wise of the bed. So this acts kinda like a bed bolster and it's comfy. I did this two days ago and so far the past two nights he has slept through the night and in his bed...yeah! I hope this works long term. I will have to get a picture of what it looks like and post. So as you can see, it's been a little hectic around here trying to help Jace meet his needs. I can go on and on about his stuff and the different disorders, but.... So if anyone who reads this has any other ideas that may help Jace, feel free to let me know.

Jace's bed with my homemade bed bolster

First Snow Fall 2010

November 13th, 2010--The first snow fall of the year. This is the first time Kai actually got out and "played" played in the snow. He did not like it! He lasted just a few minutes, just long enough for me to get some pictures. Gavin and Jace had a blast. They played out in the snow for a long time.

Hotel in St. Cloud

The first weekend in November we went up to a hotel in St.Cloud for a little weekend getaway. The boys had a lot of fun. We meet up with cousins during the day on Saturday and then Saturday night we had dinner with my cousin, Kim and her boys, friend Berta and her husband, Brandon, friend Kayla, her husband Rukshan and their kids. It was a great time!

Kai having fun in the wading pool

Kai kept wanting to go up and down the stairs

Gavin (the pool water was a little chilly)

Gavin and Jace playing with the Ipad

Kai eating

Kai trying to play the games

Gavin and Jace with their cousins, Alex and Josiah

Gavin and Jace playing in the water

Jace had fun playing with the sprayer

Jace

It was a great time! This sicknesses didn't stop us. Just before the weekend Jace and Kai had gotten pink eye. Jace's cleared up right away, but Kai's didn't. Kai had an icky virus as well. After day 5, they switched him to different drops and that helped a lot. He also broke out in petechiea (non-blanching spots). It is where the blood vessels were breaking. They had run some blood work and everything look good. They think it was due to the virus he had. The night before going to hotel, I ended up with pink eye and then Friday night of that week, Levi got pink eye. So the pink eye part was no fun. Levi's was really bad. We were suppose to head over to Pine City for my nieces birthday party that Sunday, but Levi needed to get home to get in with the doctor. Gavin lucked out and didn't catch the pink eye.

Halloween

The boys had a lot of fun with Halloween this year.

Pumpkin Carving!

The boys also did a gingerbread haunted house. It was actually kinda difficult to do. Some of the materials did not work very good, but they had fun anyway.

We had grandpa and grandpa (Levi's parents) and Joan over for supper. It was "make your own pizza" night. I think everyone enjoyed making their own pizza and they turned out really yummy!

Gavin, Kai and Jace

Grandma and Grandpa took Gavin and Jace around trick or treating while Levi and I stayed behind to pass out candy and hang out with Kai. The boys had a lot of fun and ended up with a lot of candy by the end of the night. We had a good turn out for trick or treaters. We counted 56 of them!

Random pictures

Visiting great grandma (great, great to the boys).

Kai sitting on great grandma's couch eating fries.

Leave it up to Kai to climb in the oddest spots. He always plays with the stuff in this cupboard, but this was the first time he climbed in. Then he did get stuck and Levi had to get him out.

Jace

Kai really enjoys getting his back rubbed!

Kai and his new highchair. This one is one that will grow with him. We really like it and it is nice and sturdy. Kai also really likes it!

Kai's birthday cake video

This is the best quality video, it was taken with my Ipod

Kai's 2nd Birthday Party!

Since Kai didn't really have a 1st birthday party (due to him being sick), we thought he should have a wonderful party for his 2nd birthday. I think overall, he had a great birthday!

We decided to go with the Handy Manny theme since I had a hard time finding just plain cars and trucks theme party stuff.

Besides cake and ice cream, we also had a lunch.

Kai eating his birthday lunch!

Lots of presents, thanks everyone!

Enjoying lunch!

The older kids playing outside in the leaves, with the help of Levi and the leaf blower

All the kiddos except for Ethan, Claire and the Rauh kids

Opening presents

Getting mad while opening presents

Cake time!

Not too sure about the cake

Not happy about the cake

He was much happier after the cake mess and being able to be down on the floor and play with all his new gifts. Thank you everyone who came and shared that special day with us.