Why I Dream About LEGOS

My mind has a hard time shutting down at night. I often continue the day in my sleep, dreaming about what ever is going on in my life.  This was especially bothersome in college, when I would often dream that I was studying or sitting in class. However, sometimes this works in my favor and I get to experience Disneyland all over again in my sleep.  Lately I have been dreaming about LEGOS and this says a lot about my life and our whole family these days.

Max is obsessed with LEGOs.  That is just the way Max works.  He is incapable of mild interest, he is either interested 100% or totally indifferent.  It all started when the Star Wars LEGO Wii game arrived from my father for Christmas.  Max's little world shifted and so did the rest of the family's, as Star Wars LEGOs took over our home.  Max was, and still is, willing to do anything to play it daily.  We use this to our full advantage and Max does a detailed OT/PT work out prior to playing.  While he plays, he sits on a therapy ball.  If we feel he has played too long, a brief mention of time has Max pausing the game and repeating his routine.  It is awesome!  To say I am thrilled with this development is an understatement.  The sound of the Wii starting up all but brings tears of joy to my eyes.  

The Bear Walk

The Crab Walk, with his bottom fully off the floor!

Getting ready to play Wii, with his Ketocal drink box at his side.  Notice the coaster, that was Max's idea!

Thanks to Max's buddy, Weston, he knows there is a full line of accompanying toys to match the Wii game.  Max and Weston are best friends and that means they discuss and play Star Wars every second that they are together.  Weston has the toys, Max has the Wii game, it is a match made in heaven.  It was not long before Max wanted to earn the LEGO toys he saw at Weston's house.  Yes, more motivation!  Max has started to make (I use this term loosely) his bed daily, he helps Caroline with the dishes and he is willing to do even more exercises to earn quarters.  All his funds are dedicated to his Star Wars LEGO account.  He has one small set already and is working daily at earning another.

Today I was watching Max play and I marveled at yet another layer of awesomeness to this LEGO phenomenon.  LEGOs take a lot of fine motor coordination.  This is quite a weak point for Max.  I watched him struggle this morning to get a tiny gun in a LEGO man's hand.  It took him so long I was able to run to the other room to get the camera.  He did not give up, and finally the gun was in place, just a second after I took the photo above!  Max's devotion to his beloved toys are giving his adorable little fingers a marvelous work out.  

Somehow, in two short months, LEGOs have transformed Max's day into one long occupational and physical therapy session.  The best part is that we are seeing results and he is having so much fun!  This more than offsets the fact that I find LEGOs in my purse and bed and that I have the LEGO Wii music permanently stuck in my head.  I dream about LEGOs at least once or twice a week, but it is worth it.  I count those dreams right up there with the Disneyland ones!  

100th Day of Home School

I can't believe we have made it to the 100th day of school!  To celebrate, we decided to put together a puzzle with 100 pieces today.  It is a fun, yet realistic, reminder of how far we have come in 100 school days.  Sometimes I see the whole picture on the cover of the box, complete and beautiful.  Other times I see a pile of colored pieces and wonder where to start.

As we hit the 100 day mark, I thought I would take the time to update our progress with homeschooling.  Caroline really enjoys learning at home and we have seen a marked decrease in her anxiety levels.  In an interesting twist, we have also seen her become more of a risk taker.  I think her anxiety was shutting down a big part of her, with it lessened, she can now participate more fully in life.  Which of course lowers my anxiety, so it is a win for both of us.  Overall, I am quite happy with our choice.  That is not to say that it has been all sunshine and roses.  It hasn't, as the sometimes pathetic phone calls to Ray or my mother can attest.  There have been some tough days, but they are just days, not weeks or months.  A friend reminded me, "you had tough days in public school, you will have tough days with home school, some times school is just tough."  So simple and so true, no choice is ever perfect.  You just have to find the choice that is closer to perfect for you.  So far homeschooling has been that "closer to perfect".  In fact, I find it hard to imagine life any other way, after just 100 days!  This surprises me.


As for our curriculum, I could not be happier.  Calvert is very comprehensive, and never do I have to worry if I am teaching her the right information.  The material is presented in tiny chunks that build on themselves, so for the most part, learning has been effortless.  The one day Caroline really struggled in math, we realized we had skipped a preceding lesson.  It was an eye opener on how a well designed curriculum works, and also a small wake up call in regards to my administrative skills.  Some of my other wake up calls have been much more humbling, like when I put up the alphabet across the wall, and it was in the wrong order, and Caroline had to point it out!  In my defense, when you are up on a ladder things tend to blur together.  I have also loved the nuts and bolts learning that I am getting while teaching.  I was not taught phonics as a child (British schools preferred straight memorization in the early 80s).  I find phonics fascinating, and now I can finally read Dr. Seuss with ease!  I know Ray finds my frequent texts or calls to his office enlightening, as I excitedly report a new phonics rule, new to me that is.


However, the pairing of Calvert with a virtual school has not been what I expected.  The curriculum really does stand on its own and does not need over sight, at least in these early grades, of a teacher other than myself.  I found it amusing to receive a report card for Caroline.  I have a pretty good grasp of how she is doing, after all, I am the one presenting the material every day.  I was led to believe there would be some flexibility regarding when the two weekly online classes would be held.  There was not any flexibility and Caroline misses one class a week due to another commitment.   There is also a lot of uploading of work, marking attendance and other minor details that get cumbersome, once you embrace the independent life style of home education.  In addition there has not been the sense of community that I had hoped for and had been told about, seeing that Calvert students are spread out by hundreds of miles in our state.


This leads me to the big S word in homeschooling.  Socialization.  I should start by saying that this word gets most homeschooling families pretty worked up, so step lightly if you choose to discuss it.  Here is my theory: have you ever met a shy or socially awkward person that was the product of a public/private school?  Yes, you have, school is not what makes or breaks a child socially.  Of course it can influence things, but not nearly as much as the child's home life.  I would wager that most ill adjusted adults, came from ill adjusted parents and homes.  However, despite my usual annoyance when someone brings up the S word, I do know they are asking the question for a reason.  There is the reality that Caroline is not sitting with 26 children, 7 hours a day, 5 days a week.  This has caused us to be more proactive about seeking friendships and activities. This is a great skill to instill in kids, since that is how you make and maintain friendships for the majority of your life, once you are out of school.  We enrolled Caroline in a one day a week, 4 hour, home school group in a neighboring town.  Her particular class has 8 students, 6 of them girls.  On the first day we were delighted to discover she knew 4 of the kids already through other activities that she attends.  She has also maintained many friendships from Kindergarten and seems to pick up a new friend weekly from one event or another.  We have found, like so many other home school families report, that we actually have to turn down activities due to the sheer amount of them.  So that is the long answer, the short answer is:  Caroline will never lack for friends or interesting things to do, we promise.


I have had a few friends ask how I am holding up with so little "me time" in our new schooling arrangement.  I will admit this has been challenging at times, but not nearly as tough as I thought it would be.  I had forgotten that, to date, I have gotten very little time to myself as the mother of young children, so I am already used to it!  Ray has also been wonderful about helping me carve out time for myself, so it is really not that bad.  I will admit though, that I am looking forward to a school program that we will enroll the kids in this Fall.  It will take them out of the house one full day a week.  I think it will be good for all of us.  I get a day to myself, they get to take classes that really are better in a group setting like drama, PE, art and music.  They will also be able to take other classes like foreign languages and even Lego robotics.  


I wish I could take Lego robotics!  This school journey has taught me something I had forgotten.  Learning is really quite thrilling and should not be confined just to the "school years".  Teaching Caroline has awoken that in me and I am really enjoying teaching and relearning things along side her.  A super flexible schedule and a lot less stress in our family has been great too.  We are looking forward to the rest of our school year and we are excited for the next one, where we will add Max to the equation.  I am hopeful to have just as happy a report when we get to Max's 100th day.

Let it Snow!

Caroline and Max are often on opposite extremes when it comes to their interests.  Their feelings about snow illustrates this perfectly.  Caroline from the very beginning has always loved snow, Max has wanted nothing to do with it.

This photo from two years ago sums up their feelings.  Caroline is ecstatic, note the snow angel behind her.  

Max, is not happy and horizontal.  

Max had the hardest time keeping his balance in snow a few years ago.

I could understand why Max did not care for snow.  His balance pre-diet was so poor that walking in snow was a chore.  No one likes to feel like they are going to fall into wet coldness at any moment.  And speaking of wet coldness, that was all two much for his sensory system, which was usually on overload back then.  


Max's aversion to snow was so pronounced that I had stopped buying him snow pants.  So when we were hit by a huge snow storm on Friday, I assumed it would not matter.  It would be the same story of Caroline outside and Max inside.  However, Caroline was desperate to make a snow man and she informed Max that he would be coming out with her, no matter what.  With our increased effort to encourage Max to take risks and to push himself, Ray and I agreed with Caroline.  Thus began the hunt for something appropriate for Max to wear.  The only thing I could find that would be at all water proof was my old ski suit.  Max looked down at himself and then looked at me and announced...I look like a blueberry.


Under much duress Max finally agreed to go outside.  We were out less than 30 seconds before Max realized that snow was his new favorite thing, with three little words from Ray, snow ball fight!  Oh, he was thrilled with this idea and started to cackle with laughter.

Next he realized he could pretend that chunks of snow were weapons, bombs, lasers, guns, you name it.

He also thought that building a snow man was indeed great fun.  Especially, when you loudly contemplate knocking it over, causing your sister to panic.

Max's new found love of the snow grew to the point that even the offer of ketocal hot chocolate, did not make him want to stop playing.  Finally, both Ray and I had had enough of the cold and dragged both kids inside.  


Three cheers for Caroline for pushing us all to get outside!  She was right we needed to build that snowman, all of us!

A very happy snow day!

  

For the Love of Sweets - Home Made Gummy Bears

I love candy, quite a bit!  However, I am one of those odd people that prefers non chocolate candies, like salt water taffy and gummy bears.  When Max went on the Modified Atkins diet for the treatment of Glut 1 DS, one of my first concerns was about how we would navigate childhood with out the classic supply of sweets.  Of course children don't need candy, but I think most would agree, it is often one of the highlights of childhood.  It certainly was a highlight of mine!   At first I thought Max might be able to eat candy that was made for diabetics, but I quickly found out that even a stick of sugar free gum was not going to work.  Sugar free gum has 1 carb in it.  Max gets only 10 carbs a day, and I am not comfortable sacrificing a carb to something with no nutritional value.  I would rather that carb go to two blueberries, than to gum.


I can't remember what I was searching for one day, but I stumbled upon a recipe for gummy candy on line.  It had never occurred to me that gummy candy could easily be made at home, so it was not something I was even trying to find.  It truly was a thrilling day in our house when I made our first batch.  They turned out so well and the best news is they have NO CARBS, so Max can eat them all day long if he wanted.  2013 Update: Jello has changed its powder!  The information below is from The Charlie Foundation.  Please use their calculators to make sure this candy fits into your Keto diet appropriately if you continue to use the powder. 

Old nutrition values per 100g: Protein – 56.8gm, Fat- 0.1, Carbohydrate 4.9 

New nutrition values per 100g: Protein – 61.4, Fat 0.08, Carbohydrate 22.4

We stopped using Jello awhile ago and switched to Stevita since we were trying to avoid using artificial sweeteners.  However Stevita has also been found to have more carbs than previously thought....so we now use Bickford flavors.  1/4 tsp per three packets of gelatin.  We also use food color natural dyes, India Tree, that we found on Amazon.com.


I have been meaning to post a tutorial on the gummy candy for a while, but life got away from me.  Recently some Glut 1 DS parents asked for the recipe, so I got busy!  I have been reading and connecting with more and more parents who have children like Max, mild Glut 1 cases on the Modified Atkins diet.  It is exciting for me, since for so long we felt like Max was the only mild case out there and also the only one on the Modified Atkins diet, instead of the ketogenic diet.  It is always nice to feel less alone, less alone with lots of Gummy bears.  Life is sweet!


Home made Gummy Candy


Ingredients:
3 packets unflavored gelatin
1 packet Jello (sugar free)  or regular is you do not have low carb needs, 1/4 tsp of Bickford flavor.
Just over a 1/3 cup of cold water


Directions:

Mix 3 unflavored packs of gelatin with just over 1/3 cup of cold water.
Add 1 packet of sugar free Jello.

Create a double boiler.  I placed my glass measuring cup right in the pan of water.


Heat slowly - stir the whole time.  The mixture will turn darker as it melts.  

Pour into candy molds.  The top (backs of the candy) will look opaque.  But the rest of the candy will be translucent.  If all of your candy looks opaque you did not allow it to melt enough in the double boiler.


Place in the fridge, however it will set up at room temperature.


Pop out of molds and enjoy!


Store in an air tight container.  It does not need to be refrigerated, but I keep them in the fridge anyway, since 90% of Max's food is in the fridge, he has his own shelf.


I did an taste test with store bought gummy candy and some of Caroline's friends.  The candies looked almost identical.

Max's candy won the taste test!  All the kids thought it tasted better!