Summer Begins

I never thought I would be one of those parents saying, "holy crap, it's SUMMER!!!" Yet here I am, and that's exactly the sentiment. What am I going to do with this child all summer?

I mean, I can do lots of the regular stuff- days at the pool (though how I am going to manage a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old at a public pool is beyond me), mornings at the playground, rainy days with the playdough. Then we'll have our other stuff- Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at speech therapy, Thursday morning at Wee Time. But I feel like other familiaes have the luxury of allowing their kids to languish during the steamy summer days; we can't do that. Joey is too desperately behind in language skills to let any precious bit of them go.

Sometimes I forget how far behind Joey really is, because I am busy rejoicing in what he is doing. The other night I was tucking him in bed and asked 'What song do you want? Do you want 'Wheels on the Bus'?" and was thrilled to hear the reply: "No. How about 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore'?" That's no script. That's not echo. That was a real response!!! And then I see other families in stores and playgrounds, having real conversations with their kids, and finding out the kid is only 3 years old... that's when I remember how much work we have to do, and how much work the poor child is doing just to try to get above the waterline.

So I am working on activities that encourage him to talk. I am hoping to get him interested in stories and creating stories, maybe even making small books. Somewhere I have some books with very simple narratives, I might pull them out for models. Get him thinking about story. He needs to be able to relate to what happened and what he has done during the day, and be able to talk about it. Dealing with conversations, not so sure what to do for that.

Ah, summer. At least he'll get to sleep in.

Two more days

Only two days left of school. I'm working on putting together some activities for Joey and Andy to do this summer. I'm just hoping they will do them, without too much clamor for Pinky Dinky Doo and Sesame Street. We make some thank-you cards for Joey's teachers and aides today, and he seemed ot like sticking down stickers. That should occupy him for a whole... five minutes. I wish he would color and stuff. :P Rainy days are going to be the worst. Sunny days can be spent outside, but rainy days... there are only so many times I can go to Walmart and play Shapes and Letters!

A Boy and his Bus

Joey hasn't been feeling perfecty perfect over the weekend. Probably a little allergy, but he spent a lot of time just laying around. I did manage to get him out Saturday, though. We went to Wakefield. Bus came with us.

If you've never been to Wakefield, its lovely and quiet. Its one of the few places I can let the guys run, and not worry overmuch- you can see where they are, and there's nobody around, so they can run and see the animals and squeal as much as they like. there's a nice little path circuit to walk, along the river, up to teh house, around teh animals pens, and back.

We were almost back to teh car when I noticed Bus was missing. I knew he had brought it, because he was trying to hold my hand and Bus at the same time while we were looking at the blue heron on the river. About that same moment, Joey noticed Bus was gone, too. The world immediately began ending. With a normal four-year-old, you could ask some questions and limit your search a little; with Joey, all he could say was "No BUS!!! Bus all GONE!!!"

We walked the entire circuit again. Usually once through it enough for them to nap well; twice was totally exhausting. Trying to get Joey to scan the ground or the fencing for Bus was impossible; he had decended into the world of "No BUS!" Andy had no idea what was going on, though he was happy to see the sheep again. We found the Bus! He had placed it carefully on a fence while looking at the sheep! So all was well, and everybody slept all the way home in the car.

but after that, Joey wasn't feeling good enough to do fun stuff. He spent a lot of time watching Pinky Dinky Doo...