104.8. Not a good temperature

Her checks and nose are so pink she reminds me of pinkalicious ( her bedtime story tonight). She was burning up at 2am with a temp of 104.8 and i'm usually under the impression her temperature may be higher then that Braun ear thermoter is reading. It's after 3 am now and sleep is far from my mind as she breathing a little rapidly and through her month. I've administered motrin. She is dressed lighter now has cooled down to 101.54 The humidifier is helping let's hope we are not at sickkids hospital soon. Curse that flu bug!!!


-- Post From My iPod
Sherry

yucky flu!

Ashley's now on Tamiflu after running a high fever for two days.  My husband and James have recovered but now it's Ashley's and Damon's turn.  I'm hoping Taylor and I miss this flu altogether.

Flu is stopping by for a visit.

Getting by the last two days  with  both  my hubby and James  fighting fevers,  along with aches and pains, it looks and sounds a lot  like flu to me.  Scary stuff around here but so far no one else is sick and they were well enough to eat small meals, freezies and drink.  My husband is fine spending the day up in our bedroom however that's harder for James he naps up there  but once the tylenol kicks in he wants to be down stairs with us but was willing to sit on the far couch.   I hope his germs didn't reach his siblings.

Another downer the weather man says it's going to rain for Halloween. still early but 60% chance.  I hope the forecast is wrong it's so much fun to go trick or treating with them.  Ashley has a number of friends on the street I like to take her out as well but not in the rain.

More exciting news Taylor is sitting up already at 6 months, it so cool to see him play at the fisher price piano upright and unsupported.   It's truly  amazing to me after watching his sister struggle and struggle with this skill  it took her 28 long months and hundreds of  hours of therapy to achieve sitting.  I can't take anything Taylor learns to do for granted now and I'm so pleased for my little guy.

Saturday morning therapy

Ashley's  brothers thought it would be fun to play Kerpluck with her this morning.
Brother therapy the best kind.  Look at the skills she worked on..

1. Sitting cross legged
2. Hand over hand help from mom to insert the sticks for game set up. 
3. pulling out the sticks by herself
4. turn taking which James patiently and loving explained to Ashley a few times.
5. Ashley was declared the winner by the boys.

Fun had by all !!!  Mommy loved it too.

Therapy Thursday

Ashley at therapy yesterday working on stepping, and taking a break she wanted to crawl into the TV.

Taylor cheering on his sister!

Junior Kindergarten - October

It's mid october and Ashley is adjusting well to JK despite missing a few days due to illness.  Today she received her step by step simple communication device ,  she had a good time with it. Her EA recorded greetings which she used when they visited people along the way to the library. When she pressed the button it said. "Hi, I'm going to the Library".

You can also  pre-record multiply messages  which they did for snack time she used her device to say  " I'm having cookies what are you having Mya?" ,  "And you Sarah"  , What are you eating Anna? and so on.  The girls eating with her responded right away and really enjoyed talking with her.   They wanted to try the button for themselves but Ashley EA explained it was Ashley voice they had their own.   Ashley was very pleased with all of this.

I was also told she loved the smartboard.  Ashley was thrilled to touch it and enjoy the alphabet software they were using to teach her the letters "a" and "s".  They are working on teaching her all the letters of her name.

Taylor and Carter

Most monday's I take Taylor to the library for Mother Goose a class for mom's and babes where we learn rhymes and songs to entertain our little ones.  It's lots of fun for Taylor and this is something I  did with his brothers when they were young.

This week my good friend Carm and her littlest one Carter 4 1/2 months joined us. The boys are already buddies.  Aren't they cute

6 months already!

My youngest monkey is 6 months old as of yesterday.  He's so lovable and continually smiling.  He's Ashley favourite she is always giving him hugs and kisses.   It's so wonderful for him to be  the youngest of 4 as there is always someone to play or cuddle with him which makes for one very happy baby.

Taylor 6 months old

My smart cookie!

I went with Ashley to JK this morning to meet with the school physiotherapist (PT) (who is also the school's occupation therapist (OT) ). In the real world this would be two separate professionals but here in the Canadian school system a PT is acting as both PT/OT.   She seems very qualified to do both roles I just would love it to be two people not sure why perhaps then Ashley would get more help.

We reviewed her one hand walking with Ashley's Educational Assistant as well as  walking with the walker.  Her EA seems comfortable doing both so Ashley's  getting great practice with  both types of walking each day at school which will really help her reach her goals of independent walking.

We also talked about getting Ashley a better chair for the classroom that can go very low so she sits with her peers at classroom work tables and also raises high enough  for her to work at the classrooms smartboard.  The school is also planning on ordering her a computer and switch which will act as a mouse and some software which will work on literacy skills. We are having another meeting to discuss the computer  and software in early november and I hope  to attend that meeting  as well.  I was told that I will likely get a copy of the software so she can practise at home  on her alternate days.

The PT also suggested we use a product similar to floam to wrap around chalk, crayons or markers to help her learn to make marks on paper or learn to  scribble.

They are also going to teach her to  tear paper , I was thinking perhaps tissue paper.  She spends tones of time now reading her books now and has never torn a page I don't think she has the strength or perhaps just needs to be shown how.    It should be fun to help her learn this I hope she won't tear her beloved books  after that.


Her  teacher  also told me today that she was able to use her eye  gaze communication to select requested numbers and she  found both number  1 and 2 on request with her eyes and followed thru by picking up the correct number!  That was as far as they got due to time so she is 2 for 2! 


She is also finishing everything sent  for snacktime  and i should send more food.  Image that from my skinny girl who just learn to eat back in March!!    I need to send more then 2 fudgeoos and oreos.  (I send fruit too but she loves the cookies and they have more calories!)

Next week she is going to attempt  staying for pizza lunch at school with her class on wednesday.

And my sweet boys

My Damon is always trying to avoid my camera,  here's one photo I managed to get.  He's joined   Act One Productions at school which is a 10 weeks lunch time program.   They are   putting  together a musical production of Mamma Mia.   He loves listening to ABBA so when he heard the school was putting on a musical based on ABBA he came home asking me to sign him up I don't think he realized what he was signing up for at that point, acting singing and dance doesn't really happen around here too much.     After three weeks he had to fill out a form requesting the part he wanted he  initially  asked for a non speaking part but they gave him a small speaking part anyways and I believe he is warming up to it.

He also has to sing in a group for a  few songs.  I'm excited to see the show already.

My littlest babe of course  I can't leave him out he is starting cereal already!

Taylor is eating me out of house and home already in one week he polished off two boxes of baby cereal.  I recall with Ashley having a pantry full of cereal she could never finish a box as she eats so little she would maybe eat a tablespoon or two for a meal.  Taylor  eats 5 or 6 tablespoons and wants more and as an added bonus is sleeping a little better now too.  He is such an angel!

Cross Country Running

Now that James is in 4th grade he is allowed to join a number of teams at school, this fall they offered Cross country running.  This was a sport I excelled in  when I was a child so I talked it up a lot and he was very eager to join.  He has been training with the team every lunch hour for the last month or so.  Today was the big race it was fun to go and cheer him on.  It was was very fast paced he placed 95th there was many kids in the race and not sure he inherited my running genes.  However he was thrilled he enjoyed every minute of it and says he can't wait to do it again next year !!!    I'm so proud of him he also brought home 4 test for me sign this week he had perfect on three and an A on the forth. Talk about a good start seems like something has changed for him and I think it's that he's matured.   It's so nice to be getting all this positive stuff happening at school.  He tells me he is even walking away from conflict on the school yard when kids are playing too rough!

For all this good stuff we are rewarding him with a book  ( Diary of a Wimpy Kid book 4) he can't wait to read it. He can't get enough of books!   I'm going to pick it up tomorrow!

Okay I'm going to stop bragging about him now.   I just couldn't resist.

Time for pumpkins

Ashley been sick again with some sort of virus it was in her ears last week but just a little not enough for her doctor to treat.  It's a week and a half later and she still fighting something but her ears are clear and it appears to be a bad head cold.  At least her doctor decided it was time to treat it with some good old amoxicillin as he was concerned it may have moved to her sinius.  Which would explain some of her  crying and out of sorts. Despite all that she missed all her class time last week but I still took her over to the pumpkin patch to join her class for some fun at the farm.

Last week my parents also visited it was so nice to see them as they have been traveling for many weeks and we had not visited with them since late July.  My mom cooked so much food we ate and ate it was so yummy.  Mom I hope your going to visit again soon.

Happy 40th Birthday Honey

It's hard to believe my husband is turning 40 today.  We meet in university when I was just 20 and now it's more then a few years later and  we  have 4  kids  and a great life together.  Honey I hope you enjoy every minute of today and our  celebration dinner tomorrow with your family.  You are a  wonderful husband and father and I'm looking forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you.

Happy Birthday !

I love you

Remember when........   life was a little slower and quieter