A quick little sassy video

After much resistance and hesitation, like years worth, I’ve joined Faceb**k. And maybe I’ll learn how to tie all this together or something… for a tech-ish girl, somethings still escape me….but in the meantime, if there is anyone out there still reading the blogs, here’s a clip for you. A peek into Braska’s after-school demeanor. Sassy with a touch of bossy.  You’re welcome.

31 for 21: Swim lesson movie

Braska reporting: Me and Kinlee have swim lessons on Wednesdays with Coach  Danielle.  She’s really good at teaching us.  We’re both able to swim the WHOLE way down the pool by ourselves, but we still get pretty tired.

I am just now getting good at jumping, so tonight I wanted to do it a lot.  And Mommy took some movies and helped me put them together for you.

31 for 21: 6 months became 7 years

Because sometimes you just have to take a minute and remember where we started… and how far we’ve come.

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(Thanks to Grandma C for bringing this video back to mind. Just had to share after I watched it for the first time in years.)

Since B will be 7 in about 6 more weeks… here’s to the next amazing 7 years!

Rehearsing hellos

Mommy reporting:  Braska loves to visit the private school that she attended last year, where Kinlee still attends.  We love that place, and someday she’ll be back there, I know it for sure.  Things are in the works… 

Whenever she goes with me for any reason, like visiting for lunch and recess with her friends, or stopping by to pick up Kinlee, she always says she’s going to go tell everyone hello.  She has great plans of what she’ll say and so on.  But when she gets there lately, she kind of clams up. 

When she was a student there, she was quite verbal with her teacher and friends, though somewhat picky about who would receive the blessing of her greetings outside of the classroom…. little diva.  But she seems to be re-discovering again when we pop in for little visits.  (She’s fine on the playground, of course, not a problem there.)

So recently she’s started acting like she’s seeing everyone when we talk about going.  Like she’s practicing.  So I got a little video clip of it yesterday so that those who she picked out to address would get to see how excited she is when she’s not actually looking at them in person and staring in an aloof fashion.

And why not share with the blogosphere, right?  There’s a couple little peeks at her goofy little personality in there, too.  (“I gotta think in my mind!”)

Happy Birthday Papa!

Today it’s Papa Beagle’s birthday…  So we made him a movie.

Hope you had a really great birthday Papa!

For Mrs. E. My memory verse.

On Friday, I had Mrs. S in my class at school because Mrs. E had to go be with her family for the day.  I like Mrs. S. It was memory verse day, which is when we have to say our verse to our teacher so we can show we know it. 

I like to memorize things, because I can usually remember really well.  But I didn’t show Mrs. S that I could do the verse, even though I know it.  Sometimes I just don’t feel like it, and sometimes my memory seems to get a little tired.

So Mrs. E says she will give me another chance to tell her the verse, since she knows I like to tell her my verses best of all. 

But Mommy thought that—just in case I get in a little grouchy mood tomorrow—she would get a little movie of me practicing so Mrs. E could see that I really did know it.

So here you go…  I thought you might want to see it, too.

I can’t believe school only has 3 weeks left! Kindergarten has been GREAT!

Mommy report: BIG feeding news!

First, just watch.  Really. If you even know an inkling about Braska do NOT miss this.

I won’t say much, as I don’t have time to share the whole story.  But here’s the highlights.

• Last Friday, new eyes on B for a behavioral feeding consult. New protocol given.
• For the last 7 days, we’ve rearranged pretty much everything to abide by the new protocol (including 45 mins 3 x day for focused work).  I admit I’ve missed a couple I just couldn’t figure out how to avoid.
• Today at lunch she did really well eating her little tiny squares of graham cracker. So I thought it wouldn’t be to far a jump to cheerios.
• She was watching Sesame Street this evening, and I handed her a cup of milk and a little cup of cheerios and told her to practice her crunchies.
• It took some prompting, but she took one each time, chewed it, and kept it in.

Read that one again right up there….  that is BIG in our world!  HUGE!!!!!

So I had her sit up where I could get video for her feeding team, and she cooperated pretty well.  I can’t believe it, but we’re celebrating here!

(By the way, it’s still VERY new that she just handles a straw cup like a pro.  So the combination, looking so “normal,” is just about overwhelming!  Long way to go still, but hooray!)

Mommy life: Personality changes

Lately, Braska has been showing signs of some changes. Not only is she growing physically—which she IS doing, though SO slowly—but she is really exhibiting changes in her personality.  Some are fun, and some are quite frustrating.

 

She’s 3. Someone must have told her that 3-year-olds are famous for being difficult.  Now, in fairness, and because I know there are some who will defend Miss B, she is nowhere near a “difficult child.”  But she has found her independent streak a little bit, and she has decided that she knows best in many cases.  These are good things, great milestones, really.  But it sure has made life more interesting and challenging around the house.

 

One nice thing is that when she disagrees with an instruction or does not want to cooperate in some way, she says, “No-fank-you” very quickly, like one word, but at least it’s polite.  It’s a hit with people who offer her a bite of food or something like that, generally people who don’t know her background.  They love that she is so polite about her refusal.  It’s cute, but it gets in the way just a tad sometimes.

 

On the positive side, she has really found a silly sense of humor.  She is laughing at appropriate times in TV shows or her learning DVDs.  There is always a “Ha Ha! So funny!” offered when Kinlee does something silly.  And the girls chase each other in small circles and tackle each other quite frequently.  The laughter is nice, I admit.

 

Yesterday, she did something else new.  She is usually very mellow in her high chair.  She sits there to eat or to get her tube feedings.  It’s usually a uneventful situation, except for the occasional, “Eat your food!” that she barks at Kinlee while tapping her tray.  But yesterday she had energy from somewhere like never before.  She just started bouncing around in her chair suddenly. The thing I found most impressive, which was prior to the video below—of course she wouldn’t repeat herself like I wanted—was that when I asked her “What are you doing?” she said, “Jumping!”  Answering a “what doing” question, as they’re called in her IEP, is a big deal, something we’re working on. And it is something that she’s not all that strong at recently. 

 

But this day was different… so I captured a piece of it.

 

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Milestone: Or two or three

Kinlee’s been flying through the milestones lately.  I suppose she’s been doing that her whole life.  I can’t get used to it, and I definitely can’t keep up with the blogging that I’d like to in order to document it.  But I’ll do my best in short bits…

She had her first cereal on her 5-month birthday.  She was a fan.  I marveled at the fact that you could just offer her a spoon of mush and she happily opened her mouth. 

I’ve never experienced such a thing!!

She did have a few faces that were kind of funny, but for the most part, she was very pleased with this new element to her routine.


At 6 months, we started introducing some veggies, touched with a tiny little bit of pears to make it a bit more enticing.  She has done great with all of it except the green items.  Those will have to wait a bit more.  She’s a fan of squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and chicken with apples.

This past week, I gave her the little crunchy things from Gerber Graduates, and I just stared and laughed at how she just seemed to know what to do, and she enjoyed it!  This is so foreign to us with Braska and her feeding refusal.  I can’t believe that a kid can just take food, put it to her mouth, and eat it.  Chewing!  What a novel idea!!
 


She started army crawling just after she sat independently before she was 6 months.  She’s gotten quite fast at it and she can get anywhere she wants in no time flat. And if that weren’t enough, now the girl is crawling too!  She’s not even 7 months!  Maybe that’s normal, maybe that’s what all kinds of babies do, but I’m amazed at this little crazy girl.  No video yet, but we’ll get some.  She’s still kind of wobbly and slow about her steps, but she does it.

Check out this pic I got this week, it reminded me of another and I looked back on Braska’s blog to find it. 

Same hand-me-down shirt, same BabyLegs, and almost the same weight.  Kinlee is the same length as Braska was in that pic, and she’s less than a pound under the weight that Braska was there.  The big difference is that Kinlee was 6 3/4 months, and Braska was 16 1/2 months. Almost 10 month difference in age.  So funny to me to see how similar and still different.