Aisling's Adventures

Life turned upside down

2012-02-04T19:10:00.000-08:00

My last post for Aisling was November 17, 2011. At that time, things were settling down as we were getting ready for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year.

During that time period, I honestly cannot remember anything specific going on with Aisling other than the usual up and down weeks where behavior was great, then not great and back again. I remember we pulled her off the anti anxiety med as a test to see if we could increase her ADHD med with the same therapeutic effect, just through less meds. The answer is a resounding NO, at least at this time. She reacted very badly to that test, telling me just three nights after being on a reduced dosage of the anti-anxiety that she was feeling very stressed and upset and anxious (described as urgency). We were on our way to Irish dance, in the car, and I couldn't turn around to look at her. But I told her I was very proud of her courage in telling me this, because we need to know how she is feeling, even when it is hard to tell us. She started bawling - out and out sobbing - and that's when I knew that this experiment was not going to work. We hadn't told her teacher what we were doing, to keep the behavior reports as objective as possible, and it was clear at the end of the week that this was not going to work. We talked to her pediatric neurologist and he agreed, this was not the course for this girl, she clearly needs both meds.

We also had an IEP meeting where we discussed whether or not Aisling would be a candidate for additional services. The team seemed open to it but frankly, because of her gifted level IQ and because she is receiving other services (counseling, etc) outside of school it seems like we may not qualify for additional supports. It's a long process that wastes the whole year! That meeting was in early December, we received paperwork to complete, and we are having the eligibility meeting on March 1st. That leaves zero time to really implement an IEP if they accept her, before the school year is over. I guess I should be positive and think that means she would start 2nd grade with one in place, in case her teacher for 2nd grade isn't as great as her 1st grade teacher is. Again, that's if she qualifies. It's the first time I've really had the realization that being gifted with a higher IQ is really not all it's cracked up to be - that perhaps being a "typical" kid is just better overall.

All of this was overshadowed by Grandma in KC struggling with health issues. Long story short, Aisling lost her Grandma Salisbury on January 17th. We had been preparing her for the possibility that this would happen, especially as it was becoming clear that Grandma couldn't recover from all she had been through. Aisling was somber and sad during the memorial service, and reality fully hit her when we were graveside. After the final poem was read, and we were all preparing to leave, Aisling "got it" and draped herself over the vault with Grandma's ashes, sobbing. That led to us sobbing as well - that is true heartbreak to watch. I am so grateful Aisling has such wonderful, unsullied memories of her grandmother - trips to Union Station, the pool, making special hats, playing dress up, doing games and paperdolls together, her feis in Kansas City, Christmases, birthdays, Thanksgivings, and "just because" trips.

Aisling is like me in her grief - she doesn't want to think about it or deal with it right now. We talk about it a little, but it's too painful for me even right now, as I have the reality of those last weeks and images of my mom being very sick in the hospital. But I know that we will have to work on it and deal with it together, soon.

Looking towards the future, though - Aisling is registered for two feiseanna in February, back to back, where she will debut her hornpipe and her single jig. She will have to recompete in the light jig and reel, and we need to brush those up as she is "bouncing" too much in her steps and not keeping to the music. We're looking forward to seeing how she does, and hoping she feels as happy with her progress as we already do. We tell her all the time that we don't care about medals, just that she is having fun and doing her best.

1st trimester parent-teacher conference

2011-11-17T19:26:00.001-08:00

Tonight was our 1st trimester parent-teacher conference for Aisling. Its amazing how much I was still dreading going to it, even though I knew some things were better.

The good news is, the addition of medication for the ADHD has certainly helped Aisling's ability to fully hear and engage in dialogue with the teacher. She's far less defiant about correction, and does not approach correction from a "it's your problem that you don't get what I'm trying to say" attitude. The teacher is able to choose when to work with Aisling on those corrections and have more success. Some days are still apparently pretty rough (like Halloween) but they are much farther between.

She showed us a behavioral chart she has been tracking since the end of September for Aisling. It was amazing - I don't know how she did this with everything else going on in her classroom and trying to teach, because the number of incidents where Aisling required verbal or physical (pointing, gesturing, etc) correction for behaviors was anywhere from 4-6 per HOUR. That about made me cry, thinking how hard it must be for Aisling to be all over the place all the time like that, and to be corrected constantly, and for the poor teacher to manage all of that.

But since the addition of the medication (10/31), the incidents dramatically dropped off to about 2 per hour, and most incidents became "self corrected" where Aisling had the awareness that she was out of line. And the improvement has been consistent in the 2 weeks since. There is definitely an uptick in incidents starting around 3:30pm, but as her teacher stated, that is so manageable especially from where she's been.

We do have some concerns in terms of the disconnect between her reading level (fully into 2nd grade reading) and her ability to write and spell. Some of this has improved with the medication - her handwriting is much neater and better spaced. But she is unable to spell. She writes words that cannot be deciphered. She can tell the teacher what she wrote, but does not recognize that what she wrote has hardly any relation to the word she is saying. And, many of her two letter words (if, do, etc) are transposed. The teacher said she is very concerned about this, and I have to agree. I asked if we could go to the old method of learning to spell that we learned - word families, repeated practice of writing those words. She agreed that this is a technique that Aisling would probably benefit from, since they don't teach it in school that way anymore. She gave us some suggestions to make it fun. I did ask if we should be concerned about dyslexia, and she stated that she was overall concerned about the disconnect, the rest remains to be seen. So we are going to start on the spelling aspect, and see if we can help her get words clicking in her brain.

We are also seeing an uptick in her chewing on clothes, fingers, hands, and even biting herself again. This is worrisome to me - all we did was add medication, not change anything. She also tends to fly right back off the handle if things don't go the way she thought they would. For instance, Chuck did not put book fair money in her backpack and she could not let go of the fact, instantly launched into an almost screaming fit. At least she is more easily directed back to calm than before. But the fact that this is coming back up is worrisome and a point for discussion with the doctor.

So all in all, not a bad conference, but still not what I ever would have anticipated when she started school. I know I need to adjust my mindset. Part of me is just devastated that it is such a struggle for her, since she loves learning. Part of me is devastated that we don't get the unfettered joy of watching her blossom through learning.

But, nothing ever worthwhile was easy. She's going to be an absolutely amazing and determined adult.

Time to catch up

2011-10-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of catching up to do for both Aisling and William.

The quick and short version is:

School is better, but still not great.
Anxiety is down, attitude improved. Impulse control and defiance still rampant.
We've been to KC, we've been camping, and spent some time exploring the great outdoors.
Grandma in KC just had serious surgery, and we're hoping to be able to spend more time with her as she is getting stronger.
We're seeing a new doctor - a pediatric neurologist - and are adding an ADHD med to the mix of behavior mod, social skills, and anti-anxiety med.
With the exception of #3, all of this breaks my heart.

The pediatric neurologist appt went really well. He did not want to see her testing as he wanted to formulate his own diagnosis independently. He got on the floor with her and asked her tons of progressively harder questions, had her read to him, tested her logic and problem solving, and gave us even more cause to be concerned about challenging her enough as she progresses through school.

We feel blessed and cursed at the same time. Blessed that she is not going to struggle intellectually, cursed that the brain wiring issue comes along with the blessing. It will make it that much harder to get her through the teen and early adult years in one piece, I'm afraid.

We're hoping for great results with the addition of the one med, and hoping this is not a forever thing.

First little bump in the road...

2011-09-24T07:45:00.001-07:00

I had an opportunity to talk to Mrs. Livergood yesterday, to see how Aisling was faring. I had a sense it was a rough week - we have seen a huge uptick in her hyperactive behavior at home, and we knew she had an incident at school where her bunny moved to yellow for the first time. She had hit the kid next to her in class because he was annoying her verbally, despite her telling him to stop repeatedly. So, at her wits end, she hit him in the back.

The teacher told me that yes, it was a very hard week. But, reassuringly, she told me that most of the kids had a hard week, either due to the weather change or "honeymoon" being over, she's not sure. I let her know that we had increased Ais's medication to double what it was, but we were tracking her behavior because we are concerned about seeing the hyperactivity increase.

The great news is, Ais is less prone to saying she can't do something. She is doing better with generating ideas and starting to get them down on paper, especially after she did some brainstorming with her therapist about things she could write about. She is less likely to blow up into a huge tantrum if things don't go her way. And overall, she sees that her anxiety is much much lower.

But she really cannot sit still. I love her teacher, however. She does NOT let Aisling get away with anything. She is telling Aisling that she understands that her body is telling her to move, but there are times when she just cannot and she has to sit still. She also doesn't let Aisling "escape" things she doesn't want to do - like asking to go to the bathroom instead of sitting in circle time quietly. She is guiding Aisling through the "if you ask me again and again, and I tell you no every time, do you think the answer is going to change?" So she feels Aisling is still learning what will and will not work in terms of getting what she wants. This is golden - we are constantly reinforcing the same message at home, so it's so good to hear it happening at school.

Have I said that I love her teacher? She is simply amazing, and perfect for Aisling.

We ran into Mrs. Lackey, the Craig OT, at William's preschool picnic last night. She was surprised to see Aisling, and so introduced herself to us. It was wonderful to hear how much she felt Aisling had grown since last year as well. She sees that Aisling still needs the ability to move like crazy in class, and she said Aisling has a love-hate relationship with her, as she tells Aisling how to write her letters whenever she's there and helping other kids. But Aisling told Mrs. Livergood that she couldn't write with Mrs. Lackey standing over her. We laughed at that pretty hard. That's our typical Aisling.

We love this girl, but WOW, she definitely is a challenge to parent. We're grateful to our family and friends who understand how hard it is with her, and are so supportive. To those who can't possibly understand why she is on medication, please go educate yourselves, and hold your criticism for parents who just let their kids go unchecked.

1st grade update

2011-09-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

The old adage, no news is good news, is something I stopped believing in sometime in the last part of Aisling's kindergarten year.

But my faith is being restored.

Yes, we started her on medication to help with anxiety. No, we are not treating ADHD directly. That's a symptom to us, not the root cause, and we feel strongly about addressing the root.

Her teacher is fully on board with our concerns and had the advantage of seeing Ais without meds for a week or so. When I talked to her yesterday, she stated that the anxiety has definitely come down some, and there have been some tantrums, but she feels Ais is figuring out that what worked for her last year is NOT working for her this year, and she's having to work harder on her behavior. This is perfect, really. Aisling needs to know that she has to do work she doesn't want to and that classroom rules are really important. Aisling apparently has been telling the truth when she says her bunny is staying on the green card, although she has been very close once or twice to moving to the yellow card.

She is struggling with writing. Not the actual act of writing, but apparently what to write about. This translates into "I can't do it" which her teacher feels is actually "I don't want to do it." Ais maintains the teacher does not understand what she is saying, and she's aware that the teacher thinks she just doesn't want to. She is actually telling her that she "can't do it because she can't think of what to write about." So if that's the biggest contention we have right now, I'll take it. Seriously. That's EASY to fix.

We're coaching Ais on telling the whole story. Don't just say, "I can't" - say "I can't think of what to write." Or like tonight, "I don't want to go for a drive." She told us later, "I didn't want to go for a drive around the lake because I always want to get out and play on the shore but we can't." I think she is beginning to understand.

So now two weekly progress reports later, everything is "S" for satisfactory, the highest ranking you can get. We are very proud of her, because we know what a struggle it has been and how hard she is trying. And better yet, she is proud of herself.

We are tweaking the meds a bit and hoping that continues to help the anxiety and everything else will fall in place. And, we are still in line for an evaluation by SSD for an IEP, which Mrs. Livergood feels strongly is important for Aisling. But everyone is relaxing in the house, including me, and it feels like things are getting healthier again. I'm cherishing the real conversations and connections we are having again.

We're going to Kansas City....Kansas City here we come!

2011-09-06T19:24:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I registered Aisling for the Kansas City Irish Festival and Feis, conveniently held over Labor Day weekend. Since we haven't really traveled anywhere as a family for a long time, it was good to get away and have a fun event, friends and family to see.

True to form, we waited until Thursday night to start the process of packing. As I began pulling her shoes out of her dance bag from the Monday class, I was shocked to discover 2 hard shoes, and 1 ghillie. I started tearing things apart where I thought it might be, and no luck. I sent off a last ditch email to her teacher to see if she found an extra one after class, with no real hope that she had. I began to take care of everything else, then headed to bed.

As soon as I got up on Friday, I checked my email and practically jumped off the couch. Mary Jo replied that another family found an extra shoe in their bag Thursday night and she was just about to start researching initials when my email popped up. Problem solved! They were headed to the feis as well, so we made arrangements to meet to pick it up. It was nice to know that others waited until the last minute to get ready, too!

We finished packing and getting ready, and I made a side trip to the doc with William for his rash. Once home, we ate, then packed up and were on our way. We got to KC around 5pm, and discovered the Irish Fest was right outside our hotel. We had a great view of it from our 13th floor rooms! The kids were thrilled to have their own room, although we didn't realize the music would go on until 11pm. That wasn't a problem for me - Gaelic Storm was playing at the stage nearest us, and another great band down at the Boulevard stage, but Aisling was not as thrilled. William easily fell asleep - but woke up screaming when the music suddenly stopped at 11!

Unlike the two other feisanna we have participated in, we did NOT have to be up at the crack of dawn to be ready by 8am. We're a little wiser now, and they didn't start until 8:30! This meant that instead of being up at 5:30 for me, and 6:30 for Ais, we didn't have to be up until 6ish, and really 7:15 for her. No matter, she still got up with me, but it could have been so much worse. We ended up not having to rush to get ready. We were easily ready to go at 8:30, so we started downstairs. We knew the figure and team dances would go first, so we wouldn't actually dance until 9am or so. We spotted Grandma and Grandpa Salisbury, said hello, and watched them get settled in to see Ais dance for their very first time.

We were able to connect with Mary Jo, who ran the girls through their reels. Ais was ready! Sure enough, once she got up on the stage, she was amazingly composed. She ended up being paired with the one girl from another school, who was trained a bit differently in the reel. Mary Jo teaches them to cover the stage, and we've noticed that some schools teach to stay more stationary. This girl and Aisling ended up going the same direction halfway through their reel, but Ais was behind the other girl, and nearly ran in to her. I cringed, hoping she wouldn't be distracted by this. She ROCKED it! She calmly and easily danced her way around the other girl and completely hit all her marks. I was so proud of her, and when she came off the stage even Mary Jo said, "Aisling - you rocked it!". We had just a few minutes before the light jig, and Aisling missed running through the steps with Mary Jo. No worries, she got up there and really did a good job regardless. I really saw improvement from her from the last feis.

We decided to head off and wait for results. It wasn't too long before we discovered....a solid third in the reel and tied for second in the jig! I was absolutely thrilled for her - and she was thrilled with herself, which was all that really mattered to us. We got her medals engraved and some ribbons to hang them on, and she wore them for the rest of the day.

We ended up getting lunch with Grandma and Grandpa, then they went home and we finished up at the Irish Fest. Aisling was anxious for face painting, and after some last minute changes, ended up with half of an Irish butterfly on her face. It was absolutely beautiful!

We then headed off to the Embassy Suites nearest to Bethany and the airport. After a quick dinner at Chipotle, some relaxation at the manager's reception, and some swimming, we were all ready for bed! We took our time getting up and about the next day, but headed off to a wonderful day with Bethany, Bill, Liberty, and Justice.

Lib was thrilled to pieces to see Aisling and they were immediately off and running. We didn't see them for quite awhile! Aisling and Lib had great fun playing dress up and inventing games and stories together! William and Justice sized each other up a bit, and decided that they needed to play independently before they could play together. We got the older three outside and having fun after William took a nap, and we ended up staying until 9pm. As we were leaving (so sad) the kids had a wonderful time looking at the stars and moon from their porch - it was a simply stunning view and mesmerized us all.

We decided to have brunch with Grandma and Grandpa, so we took the kids swimming after breakfast in the morning, and packed up to leave. Aisling was sad - she didn't want to leave KC and even said, "Why do we have to leave, I wish we could stay here forever." After brunch we hit the road for home and ended up making it home around 5pm.

Both kiddos were tired and it was absolutely wonderful for all of us to sleep in our own beds.

We have decided this is the last feis for the year for us, unless Ais picks up her slip jig and/or hornpipe in time for a final fall feis. I think it's time to put the reel and jig to bed for a little while - she needs some variety, and we love her love of dancing. That's all we really care about - the medals are great rewards for her, but the beauty, fun, exercise, and her self esteem are more important than anything to us, and hopefully, to her.

Week one conquered

2011-08-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Week one of 1st grade has been conquered. Results aren't quite in yet - waiting to hear from the teacher about the other three days, but I can tell you Aisling is working hard to keep it together in class. She's come home exhausted every night since Wednesday. I don't blame her - we're exhausted too.

She did tell me today that she "failed first grade" already, because "I made a mistake". My alarms bells went off. She wouldn't tell me why. Finally this evening while I was making dinner, she sat next to me and told me it was because she didn't cut a picture of scissors out on the dotted line. Basically, she did do that, then went the "extra mile" to carefully cut the scissors out on the solid black line, including cutting the holes where your fingers go to hold a pair of scissors. She was very proud of herself, and asked Mrs. Livergood to come see what she did. She explained what she did. Mrs. Livergood told her pretty directly that the directions stated cutting on the dotted line, then she walked away from Aisling without further comment.

I'm sure that crushed Aisling, based on her reaction. But we talked it through, and I had to tell Aisling that it's so important to follow the directions given, and to not do what she wants to without asking for permission. Aisling definitely sees things differently, and wants to do "better" than the simple directions, so I guess I should be grateful that we are starting at square one with following directions as stated. But I also don't want her to lose her innovative and creative spirit - I do want her to channel it when appropriate. Obviously Aisling was looking for praise from Mrs. Livergood, and got hurt when she didn't receive it. It's a hard lesson, but an important one - sometimes you simply need to follow directions.

We started her medication tonight. I'm hoping that we will see improvement over the next few weeks, as Aisling is clearly going to need a boost to get through the next week. We go back for monitoring in three weeks. My heart aches that we had to go this route for her, but as the speaker of the seminar on ADHD and comorbid disorders stated the other night, this is intended to be like a pair of glasses to help sharpen her vision and focus. I just need to get comfortable with this - as the implications of not dealing with these issues medically become more and more serious as the years pass.

We can't afford not to medically help her at this point.

First day of 1st grade!

2011-08-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

Aisling had a really great 1st day! She was up and at 'em when her alarm went off, and was totally ready when the bus came (late, of course).

According to Mrs. Livergood, she had a good day, but the negativity and perfectionism did crop up when asked to do a writing assignment, and to draw a self portrait. Mrs. Livergood has a background in special education, and told us she can really identify with Ais's quirks for personal reasons, so she already was armed with tools to combat some of these areas! She broke the assignments down into pieces with Ais, and gave her a time limit, then walked away. Voila, success!! I really think I am going to like Mrs. Livergood - a LOT.

Aisling was really positive about the first day, although she shared some of the struggles, too. Off to see Miss Tina in the afternoon, then home for dinner and bath. No TV tonight, and I think that was a great thing. She's already in bed, asleep, and it's not even 9pm.

Here's to a great start to the year, and a committed team to make this a success. More on the team meeting later!

Time to go back to school!

2011-08-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

Aisling heads off to 1st grade on Tuesday! Hard to believe it, but it's here. We still don't have everything quite worked out yet, but there will be a meeting of the minds (Ms. Schilli, Mrs. Livergood, and hopefully the new guidance counselor) tomorrow so we can get a plan in place while other pieces of the puzzle are falling together.

We've had a busy week, and a busy but fun weekend. Last weekend we got her school supplies, then followed up with a 2 hour Irish dance night, then she got to go to the zoo, a playground, and we met her teacher Friday night.
Yesterday she took part in her first group Irish dance exhibition (part of the 2 hours of Irish dance Monday night!) at the Crestwood Car Show. It was HOT - the girls were doing their best not to complain but the asphalt was burning their feet through their ghillies. I felt very badly for them. Everyone did a great job - the youngest ones (including Aisling) were so cute because they were so unsure of themselves, the makeshift stage, and the order in which they were supposed to dance. But they did it, and every little experience like that helps! Aisling didn't even complain about her wig - so we must have got it on really right this time, with plenty of bobby pins and tightness. Of course, the girls were the talk of the mall walkers who oohed and aahhed over the curls and little outfits. Little do they know what it takes to get a kiddo ready for a 15 minute performance! Regardless, I was really proud of Aisling - she never complained once about the heat or the wig, and she was a trooper. On to more of these experiences, we hope! KC is coming in a few weeks and we hope she feels ready. We won't have her try out her hornpipe there - she doesn't feel ready - and she keeps getting blisters from the shoes. Her feet are needing to toughen up a bit and I want her to still have a ton of fun, not worry about competing.

Today we took advantage of the cooler weather to go to the Missouri Botanical Gardens to see the treehouses they built! They were a ton of fun and we all agreed that the first, third, and fourth ones were the best to explore and play in. After that we treated ourselves to brunch, in which Aisling was absolutely STELLAR in restaurant manners and eating! We took the time to really play that up with her. We headed off to see some of the Chihuly glass in the reflecting pond, then went to the Childrens' Garden where both she and William had a ton of fun, running around and playing. Aisling gave us some hope - in the general store area of the Childrens' Garden, she was busy organizing all of the play food by type and putting it away, then also swept the floor! If we can get some kind of simple organization like that at home, all of our lives would be calmer. We'll have something to work towards with her this fall.

So, last day with Heather tomorrow. I don't know what they have planned, but hopefully they have fun!

So here we are...

2011-07-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

With the results of testing.

Because this blog is so open, and I don't want this "record" to impact Ais in the future, I won't disclose everything. But, it's neither worse than we thought, or better than we thought.

What we do have for certain is clear scores with a 95%tile confidence rate of what we already know - she's bright. She's ahead of the game in several areas, and she's average in others. What we did put together is that she is able to talk to us using sophisticated vocabulary for what's going on, but when it comes to us talking to her about situations, she is average in her ability to process it. It's that delay that is so evident when we think to ourselves, "Did she really get what I said? Because I think she was just agreeing with us but doesn't get it.".

We also know we need to attack the anxiety she feels, and the stuff that flows out of that - rigid thoughts, "little lawyer" behavior, hyperactivity, defiance, and anger. So, we have another doc visit this week to discuss.

We also know that we will be pushing the school in the next few weeks. We have no idea who her teacher will be yet, and while I called the school and passed along preliminary thoughts of meeting up with the team before school starts, I have yet to hear from the principal. I am sure there are many reasons for this, but I cannot sit by and let school start without a plan. That will set Aisling up for failure, and we cannot have another year like that.

And finally, the piece that probably hurts the most - my thoughts that Ais and I are not really connected are probably right on the money based on what we saw and heard in results. Attachment issues....not a comfortable thought at all.... I wish I could determine where it all went wrong and do it over again. But here we are, ready to face what we need to, so she can be successful and feel great about her accomplishments and direction.

It's time for this momma to let go of all the hurt, anger, and frustration of kindergarten year and move on. It won't be easy, but it is necessary. She deserves nothing less.

An Samhra Feis - Feis #2!

2011-07-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, when I finally came up for air from my new job, I checked out the upcoming feisanna to discover the An Samhra Feis was happening literally right down the road from us! I had exactly 2 days to get her registered, which I did.

While she had started her hard shoe class and is learning the hornpipe, she was nowhere near ready for dancing it at a feis. So we registered her for the light jig and the reel, the same two dances she did in her first feis in February.

I was a little worried last night as I had her practice - she was all over the place and not at all seeming serious about things. I realized later that she did so much better when she was worn out - her legs became tighter and her form was better! So I decided to make sure she did some trampoline work in the morning, to help her focus a little better.

We got her shoes ready, packed the bag, ensured we had extra socks, bobby pins, safety pins, and everything else we needed.

The not so enjoyable aspect of feisanna are the insanely early starting times! They start at 8am sharp, and usually the teams (ceilis) and first feisers go immediately. You would think that this would guarantee the feis would move pretty quickly. In Ais's first feis, that was the case. Not so much with this one. There were tons of teams which were great to watch. But halfway through the first two classes of teams, the judge actually stopped the musician, made her come to the desk, had her go through some other music, and then restart the teams! I felt so badly for the teams on stage because they appeared to be about 3/4 the way through their set. They had to start back from the beginning - and that slowed the progress of the other classes quite a bit. The upside to that was, we got to see Mary Jo! She pulled Aisling off of a chair she was standing on to watch the teams, and ran her through the jig. We were thrilled to see her, and I could tell it settled Aisling to do this. She said she would come back before the reel, so we hoped to see her. But, there was a lot of ground for Mary Jo to cover, plus she had newborn Ciara with her.

Aisling did a wonderful job waiting - which was so hard. It's boring, at that point you are getting tired of hearing the same flavor Irish music over and over. She hooked up with a few of the other Clark Academy dancers in her class, and they did a wonderful job being patient. As an extra bonus, we ran into Fiona from Aisling's days at the YMCA Early Childhood Ed center! Fiona has been in Irish Dance about a year longer than Aisling, and was in the Under 7, Beginner 2 competitions. They were so excited to see each other and told each other good luck. I was really proud of how Aisling handled herself. When she saw Fiona dance she congratulated her on such a good performance. Aisling is really growing up and learning to be a great sport! And, it helps that they had been friends and are so excited to see each other.

When her class was finally called up, she stood perfectly with a nice smile on her face, and she did a great job being a good sport. She went and performed in a pair with Katie Jane from her class, and they really did well. Off the stage we went, and we hung out hoping to see Mary Jo before the reel. Another 15 minutes later, and after becoming friends with another Clark Academy girl with an iPad, we were getting ready for the reel. I reminded Ais a couple of times as we were in line, and she brushed me off. I took that to mean she knew, she was ready!

There were 7 kids total in both the jig and reel - the same kids, and mostly Clark Academy ones. Aisling and Alison went together, and Aisling, in my mind, did a great job, covering the total stage and staying in time. Unfortunately, Alison started the jig during the reel, and she ended up walking off the stage and was understandably upset. The judge got up while Ais was dancing and went to talk to Alison, and gave her a second chance to dance after everyone else went. Aisling meanwhile was oblivious to the drama and kept going. I was very proud of her! She finished her set and went back in line, and patiently waited. To Alison's credit, she performed her second chance at the reel flawlessly. But she was still so upset, and her mom was visibly upset for her reaction, with tears in her eyes too. We all crowded around her and told her how well she did....little did we know just how well she did! She ended up tieing for 3rd in the reel. I wonder if it affected Aisling's results, but that's neither here nor there, ultimately.

We headed out of the room and upstairs to take pictures and get results. We sat for a little while, and William went home with Grandma which made waiting easier. We got the results as a 4th place in the jig, and no placement in the reel. It didn't matter to us - we are very proud of the effort she put in. She truly did her best in our eyes!

We went and got Aisling out of her school costume and then the wig, which she was so grateful to get off her head. We headed back down to watch some more dancers and cheer on more Clark Academy girls. While Aisling was not as happy about her results as we are, she managed to hold it together, even when she ran into Fiona with two 1st place medals around her neck, and five 4th place ribbons in her hands. I love Fiona's mom- she instantly jumped in and told Aisling that Fiona danced in 7 dances, and had been dancing for almost 2 years, so that's why she was doing so many events. Then she congratulated Aisling up and down for her jig result and her dancing. Aisling, bless her heart, found it in herself to tell Fiona congratulations and how well she danced! She did tell her she wished she had gotten a medal too. But who can blame her? I love that she was so mature on the front end.

We headed over to Grandma's, both of us tired of Irish music and headachy. It was already 100 degrees outside at 11am! We ate lunch at Grandma's and came home, to which Aisling chilled out with movies while I laid down to get my head to quit pounding.

Aisling did process through everything by bedtime though, and had to talk through her disappointment with Chuck. She really wanted to do better, and wanted a medal, and is struggling with why it didn't happen this time but it did in her first feis. She's going to have to experience these hard knocks an this will be very good for her overall. If she becomes serious about it, she will have a real motivating factor. If not, she will be having fun. And she will be learning that not everything comes easy!

We are proud of our Irish dancing sprite.

Hitting the next level .... hard shoes!

2011-07-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today Ais and I ventured to On Pointe Dance for her new hard shoes! She is beside herself with joy.

Back in May, as I knew I would be starting a new job, getting Aisling through her testing, and needing to rearrange both ours and her schedule, I asked her Irish dance teacher, Mary Jo, about starting her in hard shoes.
My biggest concern is that she will have too much Irish dance coming too fast at her, and that she isn't really ready for it. Her ability to pay attention in class is hit or miss, depending on how she's feeling at the time and whether or not it's been a hard day. The OT helped her quite a bit but we really seems to have plateaued on it's effectiveness. So, while I don't want her to get hurt trying a harder class, with more focused movements while she's still throwing her body around, I also don't want her to get bored by just soft shoes as we are not doing a lot of competition or extra activities around Irish dance. (It can get very very involved and very expensive!). However, I knew our current schedule of dance on Monday and Wednesday nights, with OT on Tuesdays and therapy also on Wednesday was going to be way too much to continue. Mary Jo, being the amazing and honest teacher that she is, emailed back to assure me that Aisling is very ready for hard shoes, and it should actually help her with placement of her feet and overall footwork. Since that class is Monday night for 30 minutes after her other class, easy enough! We signed up and ditched the Wednesday night class.

So Aisling has been in hard shoe class for a month now, 4 total lessons, and already she is picking it up! So last week we tried on some already used hard shoes for her, but they were too big. That was too bad - we could have purchased them for half the price of what new costs! So, off to On Pointe we went today, and found her the perfect fit for new shoes.

She tried a few of the steps she knows from the hornpipe dance, and a couple of times we heard the satisfyingly perfect wooden click of heel striking toe as her feet turned out perfectly and came together. Ahh...who knew I would love that sound? It's mellow, not at all like the metallic clacking of tap shoes. And, I can totally see what Mary Jo is talking about - it's going to be so easy for Aisling to do damage to her shins and feet with these shoes that she is going to learn pretty quickly how to carefully place them.

She can hardly contain her excitement. I have to agree with her, totally. I want a pair! I want to take Irish dance right along with her!

So on the clicking heels of this excursion, I jumped onto Feisworx and eFeis to see which feisanna are coming up this fall and nearby. I started kicking myself when I realized the An Samhra Feis is the 23rd, here in St. Louis, literally down the road from where we live at the Westport Sheraton. The next one is KC's feis over Labor Day weekend. We are hoping to go to Chicago or somewhere fun that weekend, so I don't think we'll go. So, I signed her up for An Samhra, and while it's really short notice, I'm hoping that she's able to sharpen her jig and reel quickly. If not, well.....who cares? Its the experience right now, not the results. I really don't care if she decides she only wants to do "recitals" and recreational dancing versus competition. Honestly, from what I see from the feis standpoint, at the higher levels it's almost like a pageant in some ways. I don't look forward to that but I hope it will moderate by the time Ais gets there (if she wants to!).

So after our excursion, we took time out to play in the pool at home. Aisling specifically asked for me to get the old pool out with the soft sides, since she cut her foot up pretty badly on the plastic pool at Grandma's. She had a great time, and was thrilled when William woke up and came out to play. It was the perfect ending to a fun Saturday!

June fun in the sun!

2011-07-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

The best thing that has happened to us so far this summer is that school, and all the stress of Aisling's behavioral issues in class, are over for the summer.

Whew.

Aisling is still seeing the therapist to help us determine just exactly what is going on. We have seen a marked increase in her anxiety based behaviors, and even now some serious worries creeping in to her daily life. I won't go into great detail here because I don't want Ais to look back at this and feel like this is all we talked about. But to this end, we have put her through some testing to determine if what we are seeing now is ADD/ADHD, OCD, anxiety, or a combination of it all. We're still waiting for the results of this testing, but I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is already. More on that in some other post, when we're ready to deal with it.

We've taken advantage of the mostly cooler summer days to have some fun on the weekends! We had the perfect day to go to the Museum of Transportation for a picnic lunch and exploration of the exhibits. Aisling had a great time, really getting into the cars this time, and having fun crawling all over the trains. She did get anxious about whether or not the stationary train displays were going to move and run us over. It took a lot of convincing to get her to relax and not worry so much as we were walking down the tracks to the farthest shed.

She was, as usual, sticking close to Chuck's side as we rode on the trolley and the train. She loved watching out the window of the trolley, as the world passed by. I bet she would have loved riding trains for normal transportation every day.

We didn't have much time to go to the pool, as the weather wasn't really cooperative, nor was my new work schedule. While I was away on training for the majority of the first three weeks of June, Aisling stepped up as a big sister and started teaching William new words, how to sing the alphabet song and a few others, and counting to 12! With her attention and love, he's really taking off in the language department. It's so fun to see, and they are having a great time playing together. They have their spats to be sure, but it's really not what I expected at this age.

We broke out the slip and slide and tiny pool at the end of the month, as we caught a break in the yucky weather and it got hot enough to enjoy the cold water. Aisling and William had a great time splashing, although Aisling really fills up that tiny pool! And she tried to teach him how to go down the slip and slide. We just don't have a flat enough surface in the backyard for it to work terribly well.

Onward to July - just a short 6 or so weeks until she is back in school!

Kindergarten Talent Show

2011-05-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

Aisling had a busy last few weeks of school! Kindergarten ended on a bang with her first field trip - to the zoo! Chuck went along as a chaperone because we were specifically asked to have one of us along for her sake. Turns out, she was the least of their worries in terms of behavior! She had a great time and told me all about it when she got home. Turns out Chuck had some entertainment on the trip as well - seems one of the gorillas was feeling a little self-amorous!

We had been talking for months about what she wanted to do for her Kindergarten Talent Show. Well, there wasn't actually much discussion - she was adamant right away that she wanted to dance for her class. The discussion mostly centered around me trying to convince her that she didn't really want to wear the wig and outfit because of the time it would take to get her outfitted. That discussion ended with Aisling convincing me that yes, indeed she did want to be fully kitted out. Ok...! It was a bit of a logistical nightmare but....we got it done.

On the morning of the 24th, I convinced her to let me put her hair into ponytails that would be easier to fit the wig on. I also did the "poof" and tacked it down hard with some bobby pins. She didn't seem to mind, and it didn't look too tacky after all. Her first show was at 10:30, so I got everything packed up and ready to go - and was there at 10am to make sure we got her dressed and wig on. Ms. Schilli was happy to see me, and had wondered what kind of time it would take for us to get her ready! She held Aisling back from gym time, which I appreciated. We pretty quickly got her dressed (oh my goodness, kindergarten bathrooms STINK!!!) and we escaped to the chairs to get the wig on. The teachers all crowded around her to see this thing go on - it was quite the show! Once it was secured, Ais got up and did a few practice steps to make sure she was comfortable. The teachers were amazed while watching her - and I was very proud of her not being shy at all!

Once her classmates came back, they all gathered around her and kept trying to touch her wig. She did a good job of telling everyone they couldn't touch it, and she sat down with the group but away from the ones really insistent on touching it. She was the first in line to perform (thank you, Ms. Schilli, for that gem!) and everyone thought she did a great job. I was proud of her!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxpC9MYhE2g

She had a second performance at 2:30 that Chuck was able to come to, in which she did the Reel. She stumbled a little with it, but no one really noticed. Again, we were proud of her, and happy she felt confident enough to do this.

It was quite fun to see the kids reactions to her with the wig on. After the second performance, as I was taking her wig off, several of her friends came up and wanted to touch it. One little boy wanted to wear it! I told him he didn't have enough hair to attach it to, and showed him the "torture combs" that have to dig in to hair to attach. That convinced him pretty quickly that it wasn't something he wanted after all! Another couple of her friends really want to try Irish dancing with her. I gave the information to their parents but I doubt she will see any of her friends there. It's not for the faint of heart!

I shared the link with her Irish Dance teacher, Mary Jo, and she put it up on the Clark Academy of Irish Dance Facebook wall. All in all, it was a great day!

Birthday week!

2011-05-02T19:28:00.000-07:00

Aisling had a whole week of birthday, with Easter thrown in!

Normally I would have posted on her birthday, but with the festivities lasting all week long, I couldn't find the time.

The birthday week started off badly - a tornado hit our area on Friday night, April 22, and we found out that her most favorite cousin's house was hit by it. We were in our basement as the storm roared just to the north of us; Grandma Salisbury snuggled with Aisling under my sewing table and tried to distract her as I wrangled William, Grandpa Salisbury and watched the weather reports rolling in. We finally got the all clear and headed upstairs.

On Saturday, we were all exhausted from the night before and the adrenaline of the tornado warnings. We got our act together and got the kids ready to go to Grandpa and Grandma Renner's to celebrate Easter a day early, as the college kids needed to return to school. We packed up the cupcakes I made and off we went - everyone enjoyed hanging out together and William and Aisling had a wonderful time hunting eggs that Grandma Renner hid for them. They finished right as the rain came in. Aisling must have eaten her weight in M&Ms! She was very keyed up for cupcakes and present opening. After everyone had a chance to eat, we broke out the cupcakes, lit the candle, and sang Happy Birthday to our soon to be 6 year old. William was very curious about the whole thing - he didn't remember this from his birthday, of course, and he was concerned about the candle being "hot". Aisling blew the candle out, but she told us she did not make a wish. That made me a little sad - I still don't know why she didn't have a wish. Maybe she's just too "practical" - although that's a magical part of childhood I don't want her to lose.

Off to present opening and Aisling seriously scored fun toys and loot! William even stayed out of things but sat in my lap to watch the proceedings. He was most excited for her about bubbles and the bubble machine, although he did try to play with her magnetic paper dolls. I was proud of how calmly she took that.

Sunday was a quiet day, and Grandma and Grandpa Salisbury returned to KC. And then....

Monday was her birthday! I drew a huge happy birthday picture for her in chalk on the porch the night before, so she would find it on her way to school in the morning. Chuck caught a picture of her at the end of the walk, wearing her new dress that I made for her (which she loves). She apparently was thrilled by the drawing! She took mini vanilla and chocolate cupcakes from Trader Joe's to school with her as a birthday snack. She was one tired puppy from school when I picked her up at the bus stop, and she actually had cupcakes leftover to bring home! We rushed home and got ready for Irish dance, where she had a wonderful dance class.

When we returned home and started getting ready for bed, Chuck found Aisling down to her underwear only, holding a stuffed animal up in each hand as though she was doing a 3-hand dance. We laughed and watched the show - she really made a great scene out of it. I wish she had clothes on - we would have videotaped it!

The rest of the week went more quietly, and then....Sunday! Aisling's "Friends Birthday" party. Before the party started, though, I had one birthday surprise left for her- her Barbie dollhouse. She was THRILLED and played with it for a few hours before her friends came over. She decided to leave it in the living room so her friends could see it and play too. I was proud of her decision, because I knew that wasn't easy for her.

She invited Barbara, Celia, Amiah, Maia, and Sabrina to her party. The girls were so excited to be together! William was something short of amazed at all the girls in one spot, and pretty soon they were all outside playing and chasing each other, and acting terrified of William. He enjoyed himself mightily! We came inside and tried to play Twister. Only a few girls were interested. They all broke off into groups - two playing Barbie, two hanging with their moms, and the other two playing dress up. Suddenly almost all of them were dressing up, and then things got a little hairy. One girl and Aisling fought over one of the fairy wands, and Aisling got territorial about a headpiece that she had hanging up as a decoration. Everyone was telling on Aisling and Aisling was insistent that no one else touch those items. I had to forcibly remove the items she and the other girl were arguing about and put them up high out of her reach in the closet. Aisling melted down - and I told her she needed to pull herself together or I would be calling moms in about 5 minutes to pick up her friends. After about 10 minutes she was able to rejoin the party but she was still upset. We started making jewelry and that sufficiently distracted everyone!

After that activity I brought out the cake which got tons of 6 year old oohs and ahhs, and exclamations at how huge and cool it was! My inner 6 year old was pleased. Everyone sang to her, she blew out the candles, but again did not make a wish. Off to open presents, and I had to chuckle about how everyone crowded around her as she was opening. It was nice to see that not all of the behavior issues Aisling has are out of the norm! And actually, she was better behaved in many respects than her friends.
Parents started arriving right after that and we said farewell to her friends, in the midst of many of them asking if they could spend the night. Internally I was cringing, externally I was saying, "I'll talk to your mom soon to see if there might be a time...".

Overall Aisling had a wonderful birthday, and it is amazing to see where we started this year, and where we are at now. She's 6; it's hard to believe; it seems like yesterday I was holding this not so tiny baby with starting deep blue eyes and a hint of white blonde hair. We are very proud of her, and cannot wait to see what her 6th year on earth brings.

No news = good news?

2011-04-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since the last update. We are seeing some progress, but I haven't been blogging about it because I don't want Aisling to look back through this blog and feel like her entire kindergarten year was all about the negative challenges she's experienced. We haven't really heard much from her teacher since we added gum to the mix of her day. There have been continuing concerns about her interactions with her friends - respecting them, and listening and following directions. To that end, we are working with her counselor to help her understand how to be a better partner in games, and friend. She's now involved in a group at school that gets to play games and learn how to take turns and be gracious in both winning and losing. We're still also working on the anxiety that rears up in the strangest of ways - deep concern about not being a good enough Irish dancer; deep concern about doing the right thing and not being able to control her actions; anxiety about not being a good enough artist (at age 5!) and even anxiety about things she thinks she hears, but doesn't, really. For example, Chuck and I were talking about his work emergencies one evening, and she heard the word emergency. She went flying through the house and out on the porch to see emergency vehicles go by, even though we were actively trying to stop her and tell her that it was an emergency at Chuck's work, not a firetruck or ambulance. She still made it all the way out on the porch to see. We got her back in to explain...but she just didn't process it well.

She also has developed this very bad "habit" of having to do eeny meeny miney moe to make a decision. It borders on....a compulsion. This makes me very worried.

In the grand scheme of things, that's the most maddening part about sensory processing disorder. One minute its one thing, the next it's another. When you think you address one thing and it starts to get under control, then something else seems to "break". And because these kids know there is something different about the way they hear, see, feel, touch, and perceive things, it starts a vicious anxiety and self esteem issue.

Its heartbreaking, its maddening, its challenging....and when she does make progress, it's amazing.

We start therapeutic listening this week to help her start integrating her senses better, and also brushing to see if we can help her with self awareness. She doesn't know it yet, but we bought a trampoline for her and William to use in the basement. It will be a shared birthday present for both of them, to minimize any territorial feelings (I hope). And, we'll continue working on the social stuff with the counselor.

Aisling herself seems to be somewhat more relaxed and open to receiving direction. We've lost a lot of the "little lawyer" behavior we saw in the months preceding January. She's able to use better logic to think through some things, or reason out why it was a bad idea after it happens. We still have a lot of impulsivity to deal with, but overall, it's better. And, she seems to be seeking out an actual physical and emotional relationship with me, rather than just being a Daddy's girl, which makes me very very happy.

Academically, she is doing beautifully. We are still working with her on writing, and coloring is a hit or miss proposition based on how her day is going. But she's reading at a fully 1st grade level, and sounding out words now, and also doing math! She amazes us every day with what she is accomplishing despite the challenges.

She's excited for her very first friends only birthday party. I'm hoping it's not too much for her. We're inviting 6 girls and hope most, if not all, will be able to make it. It's another Tinkerbell birthday for her, but we're going to make it a ton of fun. Stay tuned!

Progress...in a piece of gum!

2011-03-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

Aisling has been in occupational therapy for a month now. We got some immediate feedback to have the teacher engage her in "heavy work" - pushing on walls, dragging books around, etc, as well as using a wiggle pad and weighted blanket/lap pad whenever she is concentrating on work. We passed along these tidbits to the teacher, but the feedback we were receiving was that she was turning the wiggle pad and blanket into toys. I was so frustrated, even broke down in tears when I received a call from the teacher while I was at work. I know I caught her off guard; she started saying, "You're doing everything you can, you're doing more than most people do for their children, this will probably get worse before it gets better." I choked out an, "I know..." and then proceeded to set the dreaded parent-teacher conference time with her for the following Thursday.

I had a chance to take Aisling in to school on Monday, and return her behavior folder from the week before. I took a few minutes to talk to Ms. Schilli at the back of the classroom. We talked about how she still has such a hard time sitting still, and how she is still using her hands to chew on her fingers, on her sleeves, on her shirt, etc. We talked about taking the items away from her as soon as they become toys, per the OT at Sensory Solutions. Ms. Schilli said she wished we could think about something for her to chew on, like gum. I was a bit shocked; I thought that gum wasn't even an option, since it is normally not allowed in class. However, we agreed to try it. I had some in my purse, so I handed over two pieces, thinking - well, what could it hurt? She loves to chew gum anyway, why not?

I got an email from Ms. Schilli at the end of the day - "Aisling had a great day! Could you please send more gum to school?" Really?? Wow....ok! I sent a pack with her the next day, and anxiously waited. I sent an email in the morning, and got one back, "She's having a good morning!". And then in the afternoon, "She had a good day!". Aisling came home with a "I was caught being respectful and responsible!" sticker! She said it was because she successful ignored Amith's constant chatter and attempts to get her to do something she shouldn't. We were very proud of her! We've been waiting so long for good news that I was absolutely beside myself, and she could tell. We headed off to Sensory Solutions, where we talked to Ashley about the gum (she apologized for not having suggested it sooner) and showing off her sticker. We got more instructions about heavy heavy work before she has to concentrate, and I help my breath for Wednesday, still thinking it could be a fluke. Nope! Wednesday was another good day. We went to the parent-teacher conference, and instead of dreading the meeting, we laughed about the success of adding in the gum, and how Aisling is so much more focused. She is beginning to ask Ms. Schilli if she can push on the wall, or roll the heavy ball back and forth, or do other things to calm herself. Ms. Schilli pointed out the trampoline in the classroom they brought in for her to use! I was touched and grateful. Ms. Schilli said she really has improved so much, the issues she is seeing now are the ones I mentioned earlier in the week about perfectionism and anxiety (more on that later) as well as the usual kindergarten social dynamics (like clapping her hand over Amith's mouth because he was annoying her so badly). She observed that Aisling's handwriting has improved greatly this week, and especially when she writes after a "heavy work" session. There is a marked difference. She then showed us examples of books Aisling is writing - one about the sun (illustrated with orbit paths!) and a clear introduction, middle, and end to the book, and one about her Tinkerbell charm bracelet. It was so neat to see these! Also she mentioned that Aisling is reading at a 1st grade level, and she loves to read. I worry about this a bit as she will not have as much time to just read as she's moving up in the grades, but at the same time, we're sure they will work with her.

Ms. Schilli told us that if we have a written document of her diagnosis, a copy of that to the school would allow them to get her more formalized services and an IEP if necessary. We're going to accomplish that this week.

We are seeing an increase in unacceptable behaviors at home, but I'm sure that's because at school things are calming down, and she's working at it, so she feels safe enough at home to really let loose. Oh well, we can handle it, although it has been tough the last few days.

As one of friends who has a child with sensory processing disorder stated, "Our OT say, busy mouth = quiet body."

Hooray! Real progress, and hope....in a piece of gum.

First Feis Weekend! Winterfeis 2011

2011-02-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

The ramp up to Aisling's first feis had us running here, there, and everywhere! On Thursday, Aisling had her semi-private lesson to work on the reel, with her friend Elise. The girls really worked hard and had a great time with the individualized attention from Mary Jo. Aisling was energized as we left from her lesson.

On Friday night we finalized our plans to visit the Arch on Saturday, and the hotel room arrangements for all of us. We knew the biggest part of packing would come on Saturday, but I made sure all the stuff needed for her dance bag was ready to go. Wig? Check. Bobby pins? Check. Hair spray? Check. Rubber bands and comb? Check. Safety pins? Check. Shoe polish? Check. Headband? Check. Skirt and shirt? Check. Shoes? Check. Sock glue? Check. Poodle socks? Uh oh...missing one, they need to be bleached. Spankies? Oh crud, GOT to get those tomorrow morning.

Saturday morning, we located the missing sock, and Chuck bleached them. He ran off to do an errand and I bundled up the kids in the car and headed to On Pointe to find a new pair of socks and black spankies. We got there, and the only socks they had were the championship length ones. The didn't have the spankies! We ended up with boy shorts, just her size. I think they ended up fitting her better, anyway. The coverage was much much better and more appropriate for a 5 1/2 year old in my mind. While Aisling was trying these on, I was chasing William around the store trying to keep him from destroying the place. Once we got those items, we rounded up William and got the heck out of dodge.

Back to the house, lunch and William to bed, then we finished packing. Miraculously we managed to get out the door by our target time, 3:00! We got checked in, thoroughly explored out room at the Westin, and decided to head for the Arch. Both kids got their first ride on the Metrolink, which thrilled both of them to pieces. William was all about the choo choos, and Aisling couldn't believe we were on an electric train. We hopped off at the Landing and hoofed it to the Arch. Aisling was beside herself, thinking we were going to get to go up! But as we rounded the corner to the front entrance, we were stopped short by two things. One, a sign saying the ride to the top was completely sold out. Two, the line to get through security. Chuck prepped Aisling for not being able to ride while we both groused about the security line. Fifteen minutes later, once we got to the metal detector, they made me take William out of his stroller, as well as everything in the basket. I was NOT happy, and admittedly threw the sheep practically at the security person running the scanner. I think the other security person understood how frustrated I was and was nice enough to pull the stroller over for me to load William back in. Aisling managed to miss all of this drama! She did however touch the metal detector which made it go off and caused the scanner chick to yell at her. Like a 5 year old knows what to do? You didn't tell her not to touch it!

Aisling and Chuck navigated through the disappointment of not getting to go up to the top during the weekend (just no time to do so) and we all set about exploring the museum and it's pioneer days artifacts. This ended up being really great for Aisling, as we have been reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder series with her, and it helps her put the things discussed in the book in a new light. We ran into a few other Irish dancers exploring the museum, but they didn't seem to be as friendly as I'd hoped. They could have just been tired, though, from the Irish Arts feis that occurred that day. We left the Arch around 5:30, and headed out to the steps of the riverfront. She really wanted to go down them, but it was cold and getting dark, and we needed to head back. Aisling got a little pouty but I can't say that I blame her. We promised to bring her back when it was a little warmer and nicer. We headed back to the Metrolink, and headed back to the hotel. We went down to the restaurant and got some dinner, in which the kids were surprisingly good despite their exhaustion! Upstairs to the room, hot baths, and early bedtime for ALL of us. The downside of a non-suite room is apparent when you have a toddler and you all have to adjust your bedtime around the youngest. We were all asleep by 9:30-10pm, which was fortunate because....

William woke up at 4:15am! And so did the rest of us. I tried to comfort him back to sleep....and he almost did, until Aisling had to get up at 5:00 and turned the light on. There was no going back. We all got ready, since we were going to have to be up soon anyway, and got some munchie breakfast. I did the majority of Aisling's hair, including all the braids pinned down to anchor the wig, and the "poof"! We got the dance bag, put our jackets on, grabbed her outfit, and off we went to the Ballpark Hilton shortly after 7am.

Once we arrived at the Hilton, we found our way to registration where we picked up her number and double checked the stage assignments. Aisling and I hoofed our way to the room with stages 3 and 4, where all the first feis dances would take place. We set up in the corner in the back of the room, and ran off to the bathroom to put her outfit on. We ran into another Clark Academy dancer and were happy to say hi and nervously chat. Aisling was on her best behavior! Back to the ballroom, in our corner, and I pulled the wig out to put on her head. We got it on, and all that practice paid off! It looked great and natural on her - well, at least as natural as all those curls could look. Around the corner came Mary Jo, and I was struggling with the headband so VERY happy to ask her to help. Right about this time, Grandma and Grandpa showed up and watched the fun of the wig and headband. Mary Jo was able to secure the headband perfectly, and then added more and more pins to keep the wig from bouncing at all off her head. Aisling was cringing by that point. Chuck told her he ran into some older dancers who were getting help with their wigs and they were saying, "ow ow ow!" too while their moms pinned the wig down. After all was said and done, I helped her into her shoes, and Mary Jo asked her to come to the hall for a quick practice. Shoes tied, off to the hallway, and I caught Aisling and Elise practicing their reel with Mary Jo. So sweet! Here it is:

It was pushing 8am, which was the official start time for the feis. Predictably, William started crashing, but he was so good, he just wanted to be held. She sat and watched with Grandma and Grandpa, and she really absorbed all the sights and sounds going on in front of her. The teams went first, and Aisling is now interested in being on a team! Her class number went up, so she went to check in, and we didn't have long to wait - as soon as she checked in, she was ready to go! Three girls were in her first dance - the reel - and she was the first to dance. The helper on the stage helped them count off, and then Aisling went. Something went wrong, though, and the judge held up her hand to stop Aisling. She helped her recount and get started again, and I thought Aisling did so well! You could see her thinking, going through the steps, and picking right back up if she missed a step. She smiled and bowed perfectly at the end. I got teary, I was so very proud of her! We all clapped for the first feisers, and I intercepted her coming off the stage with a HUGE hug and told her how proud I was of her. She had huge eyes and asked if I was proud of her - of course I was! She said she was really thinking through all the steps. We needed to get her over to the other stage to check in, but Mary Jo intercepted her and ran her through her jig steps quickly. I heard the monitor call Aisling's number, and I hated to be rude, but I told Mary Jo they were looking for her and rushed her to the stage. We stood to the side while Aisling performed. In this class, there were only two girls. I was proud of how well she did! There were a few points where she was trying a touch too hard - her legs were maybe a bit too high (thank goodness for the boy shorts underneath!).

After she was done performing, Aisling returned to the audience to watch the bigger girls dance. Eventually she got hungry and came out where we were sitting to get a snack. We heard from Mary Jo where to check for medals, and Grandma and Grandpa decided to head home. We gathered all of our stuff and decided to go through the little vendor area. Aisling picked a shirt, that had the Winterfeis logo and half of the roster of kids dancing, that had her name included. Then we went to find her medals. Turns out she received a 2nd place for both dances! We were so excited, and so proud of her. We got a few pictures of her, and she started really begging for the wig to come off. We didn't waste any time with that - I can only imagine what that felt like to her to have it pinned down to her head for so long. We walked back to the hotel, and I convinced Aisling to take a long soak in the huge tub while we were packing stuff up. She happily did. We made it home around noon, and William went straight down for a nap while Aisling went outside to play her heart out with Sabrina.
We also went to Ainsley's 6th birthday party later in the afternoon, so it was a very full day.

We are really proud of her - words cannot describe the joy since it has been such a hard road the past few weeks. We are looking forward to more experiences like this in the future! Pictures soon.

Another part of the team falls into place....and diagnosis #1.

2011-02-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

Today was our eval with Sensory Solutions. We walked in to a roomful of kids and parents there for their OT appointments. This concerned me a bit, as I thought our evaluation would end up taking back seat to all the other kids. Not so! The receptionist greeted us calmly and happily in the midst of almost chaos as kids and parents came and went. She apologized for it, and stated this time of the day (4:00) was very busy with kids! She smoothed us right through to paperwork and got us hooked up with our evaluator/OT, Erin. We went into a room with a hanging hammock swing, and she had Ais climb in to it to swing. She asked her quite a few questions and observed her behavior while she talked to me about what our concerns were. Of course, Aisling was showing her true colors during this, which while it made me cringe, also made me very happy. She was acting crazy, hopping in and out of the swing, trying to push herself off so she could go higher and higher, and having to be redirected over and over. After a very thorough questioning, she took Aisling to the gym to try other activities and watch her behavior. Aisling came back with a set of headphones on her head, and she climbed back into the swing. It was an amazing change....she was calm, relaxed, enjoying the motion of the swing, just calming herself while listening to the music.

Erin explained that the music consisted of different modulations in various configurations and tunes, meant to stimulate certain synapses and pathways. She pointed out the immediate difference in Aisling's behavior. It was startling. It's the type of therapy we would have to do 2 times/day, 30 minutes each session, for 3 months. Of course, we don't think GHP is going o pay for much if any of this. Oh well, it will be worth it. When I pressed Erin on how much of her behavior was sensory issue-related, Erin felt like a large portion of it truly is. We're still not ruling out ADHD, but as Erin pointed out, dealing with the sensory issues will make dealing with any ADHD so much easier.

So now we are set up for weekly visits with Sensory Solutions to start diving in. We're ready, truly truly ready.

A part of the team falls into place

2011-02-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

"Aisling's Adventures - a sort of diary about the life of Aisling and the adventures she encounters along the way."

When I wrote that back in 2006, I had no idea about what kind of an adventure we were embarking upon, although I suppose we should have seen clues then.

Today Chuck and I went to our evaluation with a recommended therapist who truly deals with children and their various school and social related issues. She had us start from the beginning - and right off the bat, as I told her what Dr. Huger thought after evaluating Aisling, and her concerns about the ADHD/sensory/anxiety trio trick bag, she immediately said, "I've never met your pediatrician and I love her. She's thinking through the whole picture, not just a small piece of it." I felt almost all of my anxiety leave me right then. I relayed that we didn't know what we were dealing with, it could be parts of the trio, all of the trio, or 2 of 3 issues, and we didn't want to go auto - medication, we wanted to figure it out. She said, of course - she's only 5, not even 6, there's much that can change between now and third grade when you start to more clearly see what the issues are, I don't prefer to medicate until we know for certain. I could have cried (and I did, later)....and the evaluation went on from there. We covered most of what we see with Aisling, good bad and ugly. She validated my advocacy for Aisling on the sensory piece. As we were talking, she stated that there were many things we discussed that truly appear to be sensory issues best dealt with by an OT.She asked for consent paperwork to be completed by Sensory Solutions so she could talk with them directly about the results of the testing. HOORAY! She asked for consent paperwork to be completed so she could talk to the teacher. Double HOORAY! She wants to start ruling out or in whatever she can so we can "unlock the puzzle". We talked a lot about the IQ portion of this puzzle, and how in all likelihood it is probable that she truly is "gifted". Once we have the results from Sensory Solutions, we are going to proceed with other testing to ensure we are getting the best information about what's going on, which includes a lot in the way of IQ testing.

So, she's an official part of the team to help our daughter get on the right track. I am at peace.....on to the sensory evaluation tomorrow.

Aisling's teacher called today. She had a very bad day, and actually the teacher indicated that Ais's behavioral issues have really escalated in the last three weeks. She asked how she was doing at home. She started pointing out that all of the behavioral issues are linked to sensory seeking behaviors - hugging too tight, running around inappropriate, not being able to sit still, always needing physical touch, etc. I was very open and honest with her and told her everything up to today. She was relieved to hear that we found someone finally after such bad experiences, and repeated her commitment to helping in any way she can in the classroom, if she is given ideas to act upon based on Aisling's sensitivities.She even talked about a sensory diet in the classroom for Aisling. She also did mention, if there is a medical diagnosis, getting SSD involved as they help deal with these issues too. That made me cringe a bit, because I don't really want an IEP or SSD to be involved with labeling her. But we'll cross that bridge if/when we get to it. Because at the end of the day, it's all about helping Aisling, and not about pride or labels.

It's official...she's registered for her....

2011-01-31T20:35:00.000-08:00

FIRST FEIS!!!!

February 20th - the Winterfeis. Looks like there are a ton of people already participating in it, I hope it doesn't get much bigger.

I have to admit, I got a little chill as I was registering her on feisworx to get her signed up for Winterfeis. I can't believe we're at this point!

She will be trying out her Reel and Light Jig dances in front of a judge. I don't care how she does - I want her to have fun and get a taste of how far she can go if she wants to, in Irish dancing.

Here's us trying on her wig for the first time. I don't think I really like it - it's too much hair for this little girl. But the bounce is rather amazing!

"I have to keep my anger to myself."

2011-01-30T19:41:00.000-08:00

We are still trying to unravel the mystery known as Aisling. ADHD, sensory processing disorder, anxiety....trying to find the right people to help her.

We've been working on this since November. Two crappy assessments (the second one by a supposed child psychologist specializing in ADHD and child anxiety) and a new insurance carrier later, we've ended up back in Dr Huger's office for an ADHD consult. Her assessment? She's not sure - it could be both ADHD and sensory issues, or one or the other. But one thing is crystal clear in her mind - we have an anxiety and possible OCD issue going on, and if there is an ADHD component to her issues, treating it with medication will actually make the OCD worse. The game plan? A consult with Sensory Solutions (happening on Feb 1) and a psychiatrist so we can see how deep the anxiety/OCD is. I'm grateful for Dr. Huger. She is very common sense, concerned, and asks all the right questions. She was frank about the first assessment - she was hoping we would not get caught in the APN's "web" of medication only, and that we would be able to see someone else, but she was not at all surprised the assessment ended up the way it did. The other thing she was very frank about, which I appreciated, was abolishing the thought that Aisling would "outgrow" these issues. After I expressed my concern about the disparity between Aisling's cognitive abilities and emotional maturity, and that Chuck remembers being very similar in kindergarten but he has been successful, she gently but pointedly drove a stake in that thought. Her perspective was this - two different people, possibly incredibly different coping mechanisms. What he may have been successful in dealing with, she may not. That completely deflated my worries about if we were putting Aisling through unnecessary doctors, assessments, and therapy.

So last week was pretty golden with Aisling at home. We thought it was translating over at school, too. As a matter of fact, we were elated to find the Gifted & Talented testing authorization paperwork in her backpack. We quickly signed it and sent it right back. Chuck in the meantime found a group in St. Louis that holds seminars dealing with kids who are gifted but suffer from ADHD, sensory issues, anxiety, etc. Apparently this is a very very common coexistence.

Fast forward to Friday, when I pulled her red behavior folder out of the backpack. There was not a single smiley face on the 5 areas - all were checks. Comments? "Aisling has had a difficult week, not listening or following directions, and she is yelling at her friends. I will call you."

I dread this call.

She did have a difficult week - it's been a difficult month. Her beloved dog died earlier in the month (RIP Bubba) and her beloved cat died on Monday of last week (RIP Mollie). She wasn't sleeping well and she was very upset. She's trying so hard to concentrate in Irish dance so she can go to her first feis; and she had to stay up very late Monday night at dance because we had the Feis 101 meeting where she got her wig and school outfit. And, she knows we're stressed - I found out I was going to be forced to go part time at work (no longer an issue) plus she saw Dr. Huger, I saw my doctor for the post-op appointment, and William was at Grandma's practically all week, throwing a wrench in the normal schedule. Oh, and did I mention I had to take her to work twice with me last week? She was a doll both days.

Part of me wants to ignore the call and not talk to her teacher. But.....I can't ignore what happened today.

Aisling wasn't thinking earlier today - she was helping Chuck change the oil in his car. She got in the car and was playing around with the Subaru promo ball hanging from his rearview mirror. It has a hysterical face on it. She pulled on it and ripped it off. This greatly upset Chuck. They apparently talked about it, and when they came inside they rehashed it with me. I was concerned Aisling wasn't taking it seriously enough, not getting the emotional needs of others behind it, so we talked about what would happen if Chuck stepped on one of her Zhu Zhu pets. (We would never do this....but were trying to illustrate a point). She immediately started crying and we walked her through what she was feeling and how others feel the same way when their things are broken. She went into the kitchen and a few minutes later I walked in, and found her in the corner, withdrawn. I asked her what was wrong, she pulled away, then looked at me and said she was horrible. UGH. I knelt down in front of her and told her she was not horrible at all, she just doesn't think about things before doing them, and she needs to. Then I told her she was a very sweet girl, and I loved her very much. A huge hug later, and I thought we were back on our way to ok.

She was struggling to get ready for bed tonight - took a long time to even get to brushing her teeth. I happened to be walking past the bathroom as she was getting ready to brush, and I caught her biting the crook of her right arm, hard enough she left a red mark. I flashed back to seeing her do this at the Feis 101 class....but at the time, I thought it was because she was bored, and doing it to experiment. I remember doing something similar at her age...just to see what would happen. But this was very different.

I asked her why she did that, and had to ask her a few ways before she started talking. She said she does it when she's angry, she's learned not to do it in class because it freaks the teachers out; she also said she's been doing it for a little while and learned not to bite so hard that she leaves a mark. I asked her if it felt good to do that, and she didn't really say no, but she didn't say yes. I asked her if it hurt to do it, and she said not really, because she doesn't leave a mark on herself. We started talking about this, and I told her I was really worried about her. I asked her what she was feeling before she bit herself, and she said she was angry at me. I asked her how she could deal with her anger without biting herself, and she said by clenching her fists. I sat her on my lap and asked her why she was so angry. Instead of answering that, she said, "I've learned I have to keep my anger to myself. I don't want to give my anger to others." I asked her who told her that? The way she said it, it was an incredibly grown up thing to say. "No one. I figured it out myself." She looked so incredibly sad at this point. I just hugged her and told her that was too much for a kid to hold in - no one has to hold in anger like that all by themselves. I only ask that she never grab, hit, push another kid or person in anger, but to say that she was angry was just fine. I asked her to always tell me when she is that angry, and to not bite herself again. She then told me she was sad because I didn't play with her anymore, because William needs so much of my attention to stay safe. I reminded her that he's getting older and that's getting much better, and told her two secrets. 1. I miss playing with her very much.....and 2. I didn't think she wanted me to play with her anymore because she always wants Chuck instead.

Right at that time, William came running in to give Aisling snotty, slobbery baby kisses....because he loves her so much. After he left, I reminded Aisling that William has never known life without her - although she remembers what life was like before William. I told her whenever she's not around, he looks for her and asks, "Sissy?" over and over again, because he doesn't know what it's like to be without her. I told her she is going to be his biggest protector until he gets big enough to protect her....and that's what siblings are for. Then I reminded her I couldn't imagine life without her, or him....and that she was my only daughter, he is my only son, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thankfully, that ended the night on a good note, and she was more relaxed for bedtime. I don't know how this week is going to go; I'm very apprehensive. And now, I have even more reason to be concerned about what's going on in this beautiful girl's head.

Reconnected

2011-01-06T18:59:00.000-08:00

I'm holding my breath....but it feels like a reconnection has occurred.

She and I have had more time to be together by ourselves before Chuck and William come home. She has been incredibly affectionate and willing to listen and follow directions when asked the first time. We've spent more time laughing and playing around....yesterday getting her up for school and back in the routine, she was really struggling. It could have tuned into something really frustrating, but I went in teasing her, and helping her at the same time, and she brightened up right away. No fuss....and last night we went to Irish dance lessons, where she really focused and even got a difficult sequence correct. I was so proud of her - I didn't see her goofing off, messing around, or anything. I wonder if we have hit another level of maturity and that it's all going to improve from here. On the way to dance, we had serious and fun conversations; it's been a long time since we've been able to do that.

Her teacher noted to Chuck today that he has seen an improvement, although admittedly Aisling had a tougher time yesterday - she grabbed a friend's arm. She told me that he did that because the friend grabbed a handful of pencils and said, "I have tools now." I asked her why that meant she needed to grab his arm, and she said she was afraid he was going to hurt her, but couldn't tell me why or what he said before that made her think that. We discussed that it's never ok to touch another kid, and to get a teacher if she felt like she was going to get hurt. Unfortunately during this conversation we both had to yell at her because she was playing with a remote control and bending it without paying attention to what she was doing. Since we haven't had to yell in a quite awhile, she was stunned. That was a reminder about how sensitive she really is.

But the night still ended well. And to put it in perspective, she wasn't the only one who was having trouble transitioning back to school yesterday. So, all in all, we're excited about her progress. And I'm happy that we're reconnecting when we haven't been close in quite awhile....I love that little girl.

First winter break....

2011-01-03T19:23:00.000-08:00

Aisling duly informed us on December 23rd, her first day of winter break, that she didn't want to be on break, she wanted to keep going to school instead. We asked her about Christmas, and she said yes, it would be ok to be off for Christmas eve and Christmas day, but then to go right back to school. I hope this attitude about learning prevails throughout the next...oh....17 years or so!

Aisling was very sweet while I was in the hospital - she asked Grandma to help her spell some words so she could put together a care package for me when I got home. What she brought me was a sweet little Christmas bag full of pictures and notes, and a book she made titled, "How Much I Miss You". Each set of pages has something different on it, including pictures. The first set: "I miss you so so much" with a heartface, blue eyes crying, and blonde hair. Second set: "I still smile but I miss you very much" with a picture of a blonde girl smiling. The next set of pages includes winter picture cut outs. It's very sweet, and definitely a keeper.

On the 23rd, Heather came over at noon while Chuck and I ran to my doctor appt, and then to do some errands. She apparently had a great time with Heather and was very sad to see her go home, despite assurances they would see each other at Grandma's the next day! On Christmas eve, Aisling, William, and I took a short little trip outside to explore the freshly falling snow. It was William's first snow adventure, and Aisling loved to show him how to sweep it off the cars, pick it up, and try to throw snowballs. She even attempted a snow angel but there wasn't quite enough on the ground yet. We headed back inside to get cleaned up and fed, then get ready for Christmas eve celebration at Grandma's.

Aisling got ready with little fuss, and was ready to go! She had fun playing with her cousins and checking out the mountain of gifts in the living room. Dinner was just kind of a side note for her - she filled up on ham and biscuits, and not much else. Once it was announced that it was time to open presents, she pretty much got over the top excited and dove right in. It took some real convincing and direction to get her to slow down so everyone could join us and so she could properly thank everyone. I don't think she managed the thank yous very well, so I'm hoping everyone realizes just how much she (and we) appreciate the fun gifts she received. Some of those amazing gifts included tons of craft projects, several chapter books like Charlotte's Web, the Chronicles of Narnia; a whole slew of stickers, lip gloss, headbands, a new wand, and several other princess themed items; a new nightgown, and a huge "paper" Cinderella doll. And, really exciting to her, was receiving two Zhu Zhu pets AND the pet salon! She immediately set out to play with some things but the only ones we really let her get out were the Zhu Zhu pets. She laughed, squealed, and chased them around for a long time. We finally wound the celebration down around 9:30 and headed home, where she was very intent on making sure we had the Santa plate, cookies, and milk ready to go for Santa. She included a note that said, "I love you, Sant" (forgetting the a, very cute). She had told me a few days before that she hoped Santa would take a minute to use the pen he crossed names off with to write something back to her. It took some real convincing to get her to relax enough to go to sleep so Santa could come!

Right around 4:55am I heard her get up and thought she just needed to use the bathroom. Nope! Suddenly she was in my face saying, "Momma, I think I heard Santa, he must have just come to our house!". Oh, boy....I told her that I was sure Santa had already been here but she needed to go back to bed because it was TOO early to be up. She wasn't quite awake, I think, because she argues with me that I needed to put her back in bed so Santa wouldn't see her, even though in the next breath she said she was sure Santa was gone and she wanted to check the fireplace. So I ended up helping her back to bed, wondering how long before she tried to get up for good. She never went back to sleep; we heard her playing in her room. Around 6:55 she snuck out in to the family room to see if Santa had been here, and came rushing back to tell us he had, and that we all had presents in our stockings, and she and William had presents on the fireplace. So, we missed the opportunity to take the annual picture we've always gotten of her rushing out of the hallway, hair flying, to see what Santa left. That made us sad, but we also realize that she's getting older and not as able to wait, and William in the mix makes it harder to get those pictures. She did say that Santa wrapped some of her presents in the same paper as our presents to her under the tree. We reminded her that sometimes Santa uses our paper to wrap gifts! Then we heard William stirring....7am....time to drag ourselves out of bed. There wasn't enough coffee in the world to help with the exhaustion we were feeling.

Aisling dug in to her presents from Santa and was thrilled with everything, including the Lite Brite. She also loved her new ornament - Tiana from Princess and the Frog. She was disappointed that there wasn't much candy in her stocking. We took a little break to get some breakfast and deal with William's fever, and frankly to down some coffee so we could function. Then we headed to the living room to open the other presents. Aisling was very happy to have some new clothes, new Barbie and Ken dolls, a new iPod, new movies, and new activity games. She was thrilled to have me open my present, which she handpicked - a Waterford crystal ring dish. It was perfect and very thoughtful of her! We opened some of the packages and let the kids start playing. We assembled Aisling's Marble Race kit and had a fun time racing marbles down the tubes, traps, tunnels, and spinners. After awhile it was time for lunch and Aisling played with her Zhu Zhu pets back in her room. After William's nap we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner, and she decorated her jewelry box while there. All in all it was a nice Christmas!

We knew the snow wasn't going to last, so we took advantage of the still very cold weather on Sunday to go sledding. Aisling was so very excited, and got all her gear on easily. She tried to help William ride in the sled down to the hill but that just wasn't working out well. Once on the hill, she wanted to do it all herself - and did! She took many many trips down the hill, even almost ending up in the creek during one trip. That was a little nerve wracking since we didn't know if there was water in it or not right now. She never complained about trudging back up the hill to go down, nor did she ever complain about being cold. She really is getting to be a big girl! The only bad part of our excursion was when she made a bad judgment call on the way back home. Her boot was somehow falling off and instead of stopping to fix it, she decided to walk on the side of the boot. We were very angry with her about this - that was sheer laziness - and had to tell her that we were not buying new boots for her if she ruined these. She just tends to not think about these things, and we need her to start realizing her actions have consequences.

We took a few days to relax, play with toys and try to get reorganized. On Thursday we decided to take advantage of the "balmy" weather (relatively speaking, in the 50's!) and headed off to the zoo. The snow was all gone and there was still a chill in the air, but we enjoyed visiting the bird house, the primates, and going for a train ride. Off to Bread Company for lunch, and back home for a relaxed afternoon.

On Friday Aisling and I decided to try to do our errands before the bad weather was coming. It was 60 degrees on New Years Eve! That always makes for a dangerous weather situation. We headed out to west county to the JoAnn's Fabrics in Ballwin, and had fun looking at fabrics and ribbons. I started hearing something that sounded vaguely like the tornado sirens, and Chuck called right then. He confirmed that there was a tornado warning one county over and it was due to effect west county, practically right where we were at. I tried not to freak Aisling out, but I rushed her to the front where we checked out and got into the car for a tense 11 mile trip home. We got home with a little time to spare, but heard reports coming in from that exact area of straight line winds 50-60 mph, and then a tornado touched down south and east of that area. We hung out in the basement as the winds picked up here, but it was essentially a nonevent for us.

The difficult part of winter break came today as Aisling lost her lifelong companion, Bubba. She bawled when I told her, thank goodness she had Heather with her to help her calm down. It's interesting to see her process through this - as she remembers something she did with or for him, the tears start fresh. She wanted some hair off of his reddish-brown spot on the top of his rump, which she always loved to scratch for him. She's devastated that she didn't get to finish his ceramic bowl for him. He was always fiercely protective of the kids - when we brought both of them home he came into the nursery with us and would sit with his ears perked at the new puppy in the pack. He put up with much of them hanging on him, hugging too tightly, trying to ride on him, etc, with never a nip or a growl. He, like Mattie, is irreplaceable. And I think it shocked Aisling, based on the look on her face, to see both of her parents crying along with her as we said our goodbyes to him at the vet office.

I'm sure at this point Aisling never wants to go on a break again.

Time for Christmas fun!

2010-12-20T11:21:00.000-08:00

As a quick side note to the "ADHD. Or Not." post - we are seeing some signs that Aisling is taking some steps ahead in emotional maturity. It's still a two step forward, one step back process, but now that we feel we know a bit about what we are really dealing with, we are helping her recognize when she's losing it or her body is driving her to be overly active. Prompting her has been helping, as has giving her some room to make her own decisions within a timeline. Also, we are shutting down her instinct to argue with us by simply not allowing it. It's hard, she will keep insisting, but its gotten better. So on to Christmas fun!

Aisling had been begging us for a Christmas tree but we didn't have time to get one until Thursday night. She offered up a wonderful suggestion that we could have dinner at her favorite place, Mongolian BBQ, since the Christmas tree lot is in the same parking lot. We were already one step ahead of her in that regard, but we weren't going to destroy her good suggestion. We went to dinner, and then braved the cold to get the tree. She tried to help pick it out, but unless you've had some experience with it, it's hard to pick the right one for our space and ornaments.

Aisling helped Chuck cut the extra trunk and branches off of the tree and set it up to relax for a few days. She was very helpful! She kept the piece of the tree trunk, silly kid. It's still in her room. We waited a few days, then Chuck brought all the lights and ornaments up for decorating. She was over the moon and really wanted to handle the breakable ornaments. She had a hard time not getting possessive about the family ornaments. We had to remind her multiple times that she had her own set of ornaments that she could put up, but Chuck would handle his and I would handle William's. Chuck relinquished control of his ornaments to Aisling which made her happy, as they are all Looney Tunes ones with different sounds and features. She stuck with decorating right to the end, and I was proud of her although a little frustrated too. She did end up breaking a few ornaments because she wasn't listening about how to find the right branch to hang the glass ones on. She was pretty upset about that, but we got through it.

On Sunday we got the kids dressed in their Christmas clothes and went to see Santa! Aisling had circled so many different toys in so many different catalogs, that we couldn't keep track of them. She was SO upset that especially we recycled the American Girl catalog. She really wanted some of those dolls for Christmas. We had to talk her down quite a bit, and tell her that she needed to talk to her cousins who had those dolls because they did not play with them - they were more collector dolls. She was still so very upset, but she agreed that maybe this year was not the year for them. We told her that she could definitely share that with Santa anyway so he could be prepared for next year.

All the drama was forgotten as soon as she saw Santa. She brought tears to my eyes when she ran right up to Santa and gave him the biggest hug she could before she finally climbed up on his lap. The pictures were taken, and then she spent some time telling Santa what she wanted for Christmas. She was absolutely sparkling. Afterwards as I was paying for the pictures, she realized with panic that she forgot to tell Santa she wanted a Lite Brite for Christmas. I kept her from interrupting the family visiting with Santa by telling her that I would write Santa a letter telling him she forgot that....so crisis averted.

We rushed home and took the family Christmas pictures since they were still dressed up. This can tend to be stressful, but the kids were in a great mood and cooperated beautifully. I did a little silliness to get big (genuine) smiles from both and Aisling did a great job not being overly cheesy. Once that was all done, it was time to get ready for a big week.

Aisling was so very excited to see Grandma and Grandpa Salisbury on Tuesday, and she really did an amazing job of not getting too crazy or worked up. She used beautiful manners at dinner time, and was easily following their directions. She knew I was having surgery and wouldn't be able to lift....and she promised to help. She was good for Grandma and Grandpa on Wednesday and was so excited to see me on Thursday when she got home from school. She made me a whole "I love you" package full of pictures and notes that melted my heart. She gently hugged me and was so helpful....All weekend long she was a great girl with few meltdowns or arguing spells. We told her how very proud of her we were!

We celebrated an early Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa and Aisling received a Razor scooter and a kindergarten workbook. She was very excited about the workbook and started in on it immediately. She was also happy about the scooter, although she thought she was too young for it. We showed her where the box said 5+ and she immediately brightened. She knows she won't be able to use it until this spring but it will be fun to put it together.

On Saturday Grandma and Aisling got one last bonding time as I took a nap and they decorated a gingerbread house together. They had a ton of fun doing it!

We are really looking forward to having a sweet Christmas with her - she's growing up so fast!

ADHD. Or not.

2010-12-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

We had our appointment on Wednesday with the behavioral health center our pediatrician referred us to. Because this could get pretty unflattering, I'm not going to name any names. I'll try to curb my frustration and irritation.

I had been dreading this appointment since I set it up. We know Aisling needs some help in developing some physical awareness and coping skills, and we know we need help to help her, as we are out of ideas. But since I set up the appointment, and had even talked with her teacher a bit about it at the parent-teacher conference, I felt like things had taken an overall negative turn. Her teacher volunteered a summary to take with us, which was helpful in many regards. But she also sent home the weekly behavioral folder (which had been about 3 weeks between seeing them - but the parent teacher conference and holidays were some of the reason, I'm sure.) and in it, most everything was negative. She couldn't sit still in group time, tell her to quit picking her nose, she's not focusing, etc etc. I was so frustrated I signed it and shot back, "Is she BORED during group time? How often do you have it and what are you covering in it?". We know she gets bored and loses focus and can't sit still when she's bored. The teacher called me later Monday night to talk to me about it. We agreed that giving her something to do with her hands would probably help her focus in. I really think she's a kinesthetic learner! Since I had her on the phone, I told her that I was concerned that everything was getting so negative for Aisling, that she wasn't enjoying school much. She doesn't make direct comments about it but she knows she's in "trouble" and that doesn't help matters any. To her credit, the teacher does not want Aisling to feel badly about school and herself in this process. But then she let out that Ais had a very rough last 10 minutes of school - got into a screaming fit with a classmate who came to help her put blocks away because she wasn't doing it the way Aisling wanted her to (she had a specific method she was doing). This just about threw ME over the edge because it seemed again that the focus was very one sided. Upon pressing the teacher, she did say (quickly) that the other girl was screaming at Ais too, and she wanted to do it her way, not Aisling's way, and neither girl was giving an inch. Really? Sounds like a normal headstrong conflict to me - two girls who need help in learning how to compromise and not raise their voices! I pressed the teacher for more thoughts on this - asked her if she really felt Ais was out of the "realm of normal" in her behavior, as she is pretty young and her emotional maturity is significantly gapped by her cognitive and physical maturity. I pointed out that everyone seemed ready to slap a hyperactive label on her and I just don't see it. She agreed that in her 30 years she has seen the spectrum of kid behavior and her concern is the persistence by which Aisling holds on to anger and thoughts, followed by the inability to sit still. She said she would send home the summary on Tuesday, which I was anxious to read.

Tuesday came and when Ais got home, I quickly read through the letter. It was all about hyperactive behaviors. There was some information about how she doesn't seem organized or aware of her physicality, and some persistence in her thought, especially when she feels she is right. I seriously about threw the letter down in disgust. 80% of it was details of hyperactive behaviors.

We went to the evaluation on Wednesday. It started out better than I hoped it would based on my experience in even trying to set up the appointment. It seemed the Advanced Nurse Practitioner was listening to us and asking all the right open-ended historical type of questions to ferret out patterns of behavior and inherent genetic tendencies. But I was amazed at how quick she lasered in on hyperactivity. Meanwhile Aisling is sitting quietly, playing with a dollhouse and then later coloring with no constant moving around, etc! She asked about a family history of anxiety and did explore the obsessive thought patterns Aisling tends to have - "superglued thoughts" about how something should be and how she will argue like a little lawyer until you either shut it down or give in. She asked Aisling what she thought about Chuck and Aisling said she sometimes didn't love him. Why? Because he gets mad. What do you think is going to happen? They're going to send me away. I was SHOCKED and started crying. I had no idea she thought that, and cannot figure out where she would get such and awful idea. Then she was asked about what she thought of me. Same thing- I sometimes don't lover her. Why? Because she gets mad. What do you think will happen? I don't know. I stated that she was right - we are pretty relaxed most of the time in working with her style of getting ready (which is what most of this revolves around at home) but when it was time to pull the trigger, her dilly dallying escalated it to anger.

So at the end of the parental and child interviews, she hit us with a sheet outlining ADHD behaviors and said Aisling fit it. She felt Aisling had some strong obsessive thoughts that she wanted to work with her on, but to do so effectively she would have to take the "edge off" of the ADHD. I was in disbelief. I looked at the sheet and looked at her and said I was not convinced she had ADHD - she can concentrate when she is engaged and interested, and I do not want medication to be the starting point of helping her. I specifically stated her brain is still forming and I was not comfortable giving her medication when it could alter her brain chemistry for the rest of her life. She shot back that these drugs had been around for longer than she or I have been, and there is no long term effects at this point. I let her know that I have a background of psychology and mental health and have some knowledge of what I was talking about. She promptly wrote all of that down in the file - I'm sure I got the label of "that mom who thinks she knows everything." I don't know everything, I explained to her that was why we were there - because we are out of ideas about how to help her. I reiterated a NO on the medication, we wanted to try helping her develop coping mechanisms. She told me, "She cannot help her hyperactivity. You are impeding her ability to learn for the rest of her life by not dealing with the ADHD because it's preventing her from letting go of the obsessive thoughts." After I continued to protest that I was not convinced it was ADHD, she said, "I'll write down here that there is no follow up needed. We are here to support you, but we don't deal with just counseling. Here are two names of counselors. Counseling alone isn't going to help her - when you are ready to come back to us we'll have all the records of the counseling if you go through these counselors." We reiterated that we just weren't sure that this was much out of the realm of normal kid behavior, which she rebutted; and that we weren't sure she wouldn't outgrow it as her dad did. She rebutted again.

I was so aggravated after leaving that it was hard to remain calm. We are not going back. We are seeking other opinions from child psychologists about how to help her learn coping skills and physical awareness and recognition. I do not appreciate the immediacy of pushing medication rather than starting with basic behavior modification. Where did we get the idea that medication should always be the first step?

I feel like the real issue here is not one of physical energy - I think she is possibly going to outgrow this aspect - but I think the real issue is one of her strong thought patterns and propensity to argue to the nth degree about it. Learning how to cope with that will at the very least reduce stress levels. My instincts

And now, since I am getting tired, it's time to go to bed.

And so the holidays begin....

2010-12-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

With Thanksgiving ... and then the start of the Renner grandparent tradition - taking the granddaughters to the Nutcracker Ballet. It's a rite of passage to go to the first one, and this was the year for Aisling.

But back to Thanksgiving - Aisling had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! She came up with an interesting holiday outfit - her last year's Christmas dress over jeans (because she didn't have any tights that fit her) and her new snow boots. It wasn't worth an argument, as Chuck pointed out. I tried to sway her to a different outfit, to no avail. So off we went.....

William was asleep when we arrived at Aunt Julia and Uncle Dale's house, so Aisling soaked up the sole attention. She tried to teach her Uncle Ken how to Irish dance, and was not impressed with his form. She chowed down on all of her cousin Heather's yummy food, and apparently even got two (or maybe even three!) pieces of pie! She enjoyed hanging out with the family, but we decided to hit the road around 6:30 and she was ready.

On this past Sunday, Aisling went to her first Nutcracker Ballet with Grandma and Grandpa Renner. She got dressed up in her holiday outfit, chowed on a light lunch, and they picked her up at noon. Apparently she loved it. She got engrossed after awhile, and when the lead ballerina lifter her leg over her head, she uttered a singular, "Awesome" under her breath! They came home around dinner time and Aisling was happy to tell us all about it. So, I would say it was a success and she was excited to go.

She's begging us to put lights up on our house and to get our Christmas tree, so we can start the holidays officially. There isn't time until this weekend - she'll have to be patient - but that's so hard for a kiddo to do when she's so looking forward to Christmas.

"Never Grow Up"

2010-12-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

Hey Miss Aisling,

I wrote on your brother's blog so I thought it was only fair to write to you too considering you're my favorite big (you'd yell at me if I called you little) 5 year old. I hope your mama doesn't mind :)

I heard this song for the first time a few weeks ago and the first and only person I thought of was you. Every time I hear it now it makes me smile because I picture your sweet, beautiful little face in my mind. I just want you to know that I love you SO much. I will always be here for you and you can come to me for anything. I know there have been times where you think I'm being mean to you but it's only because I care about you and don't want to see you hurt. I think this song explains that better than I'm able to :) When you're a little older you'll understand that everything your mom, dad, and the rest of this family does is just out of love. You have no idea how much it means to me that I'm someone you look up to so much. Thank you for always making me smile whenever you're around. I can't wait to spend time with you over Christmas break and every day this summer. We're going to have so much fun!
Love,
"Your Heather"

Aunt Tami and Uncle Charlie... I apologize I'm posting a Taylor Swift song on this blog. I don't like country music either but just listen to the lyrics and I think you'll probably forgive me :)

"Never Grow Up"

Your little hand's wrapped around my finger
And it's so quiet in the world tonight
Your little eyelids flutter cause you're dreaming
So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite night light
To you everything's funny, you got nothing to regret
I'd give all I have, honey
If you could stay like that

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple
I won't let nobody hurt you, won't let no one break your heart
And no one will desert you
Just try to never grow up, never grow up

You're in the car on the way to the movies
And you're mortified your mom's dropping you off
At 14 there's just so much you can't do
And you can't wait to move out someday and call your own shots
But don't make her drop you off around the block
Remember that she's getting older too
And don't lose the way that you dance around in your pj's getting ready for school

Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple
No one's ever burned you, nothing's ever left you scarred
And even though you want to, just try to never grow up

Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room
Memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home
Remember the footsteps, remember the words said
And all your little brother's favorite songs
I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone

So here I am in my new apartment
In a big city, they just dropped me off
It's so much colder that I thought it would be
So I tuck myself in and turn my night light on

Wish I'd never grown up
I wish I'd never grown up

Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up
I could still be little
Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up
It could still be simple
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple
Won't let nobody hurt you
Won't let no one break your heart
And even though you want to, please try to never grow up
Oh, don't you ever grow up
Oh, never grow up, just never grow up

An adventure to get new shoes

2010-11-29T19:24:00.000-08:00

But not just ANY new shoes....

Her Irish ghillies!!!

Ghillies are the soft shoes used by female Irish dancers. They are a soft leather shoe that lace up over the top of the foot and are typically tied around the ankle, much like ballet's pointe shoes. They have to be fitted....we learned a lot in this process.

Aisling actually got them on November 20th. I didn't tell her where we were going, but instead told her we were on a surprise mission to get something for her. I called ahead to verify someone would be there to fit her, and off we went. William had to tag along, since Chuck was off on his own errands.

We arrived at On Pointe in Fenton and Ais was terribly confused. She somehow got it in her head that we were headed to some playground or park or something, and so wasn't very excited when we pulled into a strip mall. She told me she didn't think it was an adventure to get her dance shoes....I bit my tongue (hard) and took her inside.

The owner of the shop was thrilled to see us! She pulled out the princess papasan chair immediately and sat Aisling down in it. She asked which school we were from and told us how much she loved working with Ms. Mary Jo. She proceeded to try on two different pairs of ghillies. They have to be snugly fitting - no extra leather or room in the toe at all! The first pair she tried on were 1/2 a size too big, so we stepped down a notch. They were TIGHT to get on, but once they were on, they were nearly perfect. She showed us how to tie the laces and instructed us to get further techniques from Mary Jo. She then told us the kids never "outgrow" their ghillies, but they tend to split them along the side of the foot. The leather stretches for a long time to conform to their feet, and eventually will just completely split once the foot is too big. She then had Aisling point her toes for her, and she and her assistant gasped. The owner said, "Look at that - she has the perfect foot for ballet and Irish dance. Her pointe is already perfect!"

She then had Aisling stand up and asked her to step to the dance floor and practice a few steps. And then, the neatest thing happened...Aisling caught herself in the mirror and broke out in a complete grin. She had no sense of self consciousness.....she started dancing right away in her new shoes, and she loved it. The owner lowered her voice and quietly asked me...."How long has she been in dance?". I responded with about 6 weeks. She looked at me incredulously and said, "Only 6 weeks? Look at her! She already has the "snap" to her leg movements. Most beginner dancers take a long time to catch on to that! She knows so many of the steps already. Just look at her! You better start saving your money up now, Mom!".

I am sure part of those comments were to make us feel warm and fuzzy, but to some extent I agree with her. She does have the "snap" needed already, and when she pays attention, she gets the steps quickly. Most importantly she loves it....and I love her excitement. She literally Irish dances everywhere.

We talked about the choice of Irish dance vs ballet. Apparently the owner's experience and education was in ballet. I told her about Aisling's femoral anteversion and how she cannot rotate her knees out more than 45 degrees - just part of her anatomy. They agreed that Irish dancing was best for her then - if her turnout would be limited by her hips, then she would be forever frustrated that she wasn't meeting her instructor's demands and it was not something within her control. Then we laughed about how ballet wouldn't be high energy enough for her anyway, at least not in the beginning!

Aisling spied a headband to hold her hair back (so problematic - that thin, fine, beautiful hair!). They really made Aisling feel special by including her in the programming of the embroidery machine and having her pick out the thread color to go on the headband. She got to start and stop the machine, and watched it the entire time.

By the end of the day, Aisling was thrilled about her adventure to get her ghillies. And she was so excited to show Ms. Mary Jo her new shoes and socks at her next dance class. I am thrilled for her....and feel even more comfortable that we chose the right activity for our high spirited girl.

Reptiles, primates, and giraffes, oh my! And camping too.

2010-10-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

In the midst of all the drama of school, we've taken the time to have fun as well. We're not quite into a routine yet that is comfortable, but I think we're getting closer. What has become apparent though is the need for real family and friends time, and an assessment of what's really important in our relationship with our beautiful daughter.

She's excelling at school....learning sight words, trying to read, becoming quite the artist, singing and dancing her way through everything. She's trying to navigate the tough world of bigger kid relationships, and to that end, her social skills class started this week. She told me the names of the two other kids in the class, and I was grateful to hear of the one girl who is in our neighborhood that I met a few weeks ago. She seemed "normal" enough...not much different than Aisling. And her mom had shared with me a few of her concerns too...so it was good to meet other parents who worry too.

She literally Irish danced her way down the main aisle at Target a few weekends ago. The socially conscious mom in me worried about her annoying people....the wish-I-could-be-a-kid again mom in me reveled in her freedom and spirit to do this without caring what others thought. So I let her.

She had her first teacher's Professional Development Day on October 1st, so we took advantage of this and went for a one day camping excursion with our friends Melissa, Mike, and Ainsley. The girls had a wonderful time, fishing, playing, talking, setting up camp....and Aisling even demonstrated to us that she's learning about how to better make friends as she introduced herself to the boys who shared our site Friday evening. She played football with the older boy, Jackson, and they all played flashlight tag once the sun went down. I was very proud of her! She was quite the grown up girl, helping set up the tent, carrying things back and forth, trying to console both William and I when William fell and busted his chin. I have to say, we were all quite tired and happy to be home, clean and warm, and playing with toys by Saturday afternoon.

This past weekend we took advantage of the beautiful fall weather to enjoy the zoo. We got up early and were at the zoo by 9:45. We went right to the Herpetarium to see the lizards, snakes, frogs, and turtles. Aisling bounced between all the exhibits and the most wonderful thing to see and hear was her asking Chuck a ton of questions and truly listening the information he was giving her. As we left the Herpetarium we headed past the Primate House and we heard a TON of commotion. We stopped and circled our way back in. The primates were very active and captured everyone's attention. She again had a ton of questions and really listened to what he was telling her...all while I was chasing William. But she was also intent on one thing...one place she really wanted to see last time but they weren't there....the giraffes.

Out of the Primate House and on the way to Red Rocks, Aisling whipped the map out of the stroller and used it to try to figure out where giraffes were located. We came upon them, and she was thrilled. She climbed up on the fence and settled in to watch the adult giraffes, and the new baby that was exploring. She was disappointed to leave, but we were all getting hungry, and that nearly resulted in a meltdown. Lunch at St. Louis Bread Company calmed everyone's nerves and tummies, and back home to enjoy a "quiet" afternoon of car washing, hopscotch, and playing.

I'm trying to remind myself always with her....she's only 5...she's really doing well overall....we just keep working with her on our expectations and she will turn out alright. We have our rough days - like today when she still hasn't found her new glasses that she is only supposed to wear at school, and I had to tell her if she can't find them there will be no Christmas from us because we will have to buy new glasses for her. But the good still far out weighs the bad - watching her read words she knows, watching her play with William and try to teach him new things, having her snuggle with me and tell me how much she loves me, watching her intellectually blossom.

Life is good.

Two steps forward, one step back

2010-09-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

After the shocking call we received from Ms. Schilli regarding Aisling's behavior, we cracked down on her every move. She spent a lot of time in time out that weekend, and started to understand that we meant business. The next week was golden - very little trouble with her, very little backtalking, she was reaching out to one little boy she didn't like to try to make friends with him. Ms. Schilli noted in her behavior folder that "Aisling had a great week! I saw an important change in her behavior." We praised her and started feeling a little more comfortable that she was beginning to understand. We didn't let up on the expectations, though. However, this last week has been more rough. She has begun arguing every little point again, screaming and crying that we aren't understanding or hearing her, and that she doesn't deserve to be in time out. Most of the infractions are not doing what we ask (tell) her to do the first time it is told to her. The rest of the infractions are obnoxious behavior corrections - taking toys away from others when they start to show interest in them; getting sassy; invading personal space; and being bossy to name a few. You would think she would learn her lesson - William bit her in the side on Sunday when she invaded his personal space and wouldn't leave him alone. He growled at her increasingly loudly and finally chomped on the soft skin on her side. He actually broke the skin....but she hasn't quite gotten the picture yet.

Her behavior folder came home again today, as it does for every kid in Ms. Schilli's class, every Friday. My heart sunk as I read it. From her notes:

"Aisling is working on compromising with her peers. She gets very angry when things don't go her way and then it takes her a long time to regroup. Aisling is working on staying focused during instruction time. She often leaves her spot to talk with her friends. ... I am recommending Aisling for a social skills group with the counselor."

So many thoughts go through my mind at this point. I love her. She's a good little girl, she really is. She's very sensitive and gets her feelings hurt. She's damned smart. She clearly has an anger management problem. She's going to be an angry teenager. She's not going to have friends. Is she on the autism spectrum? She's only 5, not even 5 1/2 yet. She's so verbal and logical in so many regards. We've failed her as parents. I haven't spent enough time with her helping her feel secure. I'm angry that she's not listening to our attempts to help her. I still see vestiges of the baby she was when I look at her. Where did my sweet girl who always wanted to be friends with everyone go? We made the wrong decision putting her at the Y and exposing her to a ton of kids who weren't well watched and behaviors corrected. She learned how to be a bully from Caitlin. We didn't do enough to teach her how to be a good friend.....my family's lack of social graces and skill have just reared it's ugly head, and on and on. I feel guilty, I feel sad, I feel responsible for her having such a hard time adjusting socially to kindergarten. I never expected this level of issue.

I told Aisling how disappointed I was in the report and asked her about what Ms. Schilli said. She didn't really remember specifics (how could she?) but she thought she was doing ok. She wasn't telling the teachers no, and she said hi to Amir today, but he said, "what?" to her like she was bothering him. She had no clue...so I told her the report said she was not respecting others still, yelling at them and getting angry. I told her she was going to be attending a special class to help her learn to respect and be friends with others. She immediately started bawling - begged me to please not send her, the kids in the class would be mean to her, she didn't want to be taken out of grade school, she didn't know where to go, she is trying so hard to be a good girl but she must not be trying hard enough, she'll try harder, she didn't want to be like Caitlin, she learned to be bad from Caitlin, but she's trying so hard to be good - then started really screaming please don't send me to this class!

My heart utterly broke.

I told her I love her. I told her she IS a good girl. I told her again I love her. And again that she IS a good girl. I made her look at me and told her I love her. Then I told her that she needed help learning to respect others and be a good friend. She would be still in Ms. Schilli's class but there would be times she would have to attend a special class so the counselor could help her learn these things, because she wasn't learning it well from us. I told her we hoped she could return to the little girl who loved everyone and wanted to be friends with everyone, and this would help her do that better.

She did stop crying. She laid across my lap and I again saw a flash back to the beautiful baby and toddler she was ...she told me in a very small voice that she thought she was a good friend today. Her friend Amiah was in timeout, and her other friend Maya was sad because she wanted to play with Amiah but Amiah told her no (which is why she was in timeout - apparently mean spirited about it). Maya was crying, so Aisling felt really sad for her and wanted to cheer her up. She asked Maya if she wanted to talk. Maya told her yes, but she wanted to sit down. So Aisling sat down with her and asked her what was wrong, and they talked about it. She said Maya stopped crying and was still a little sad but she thought she felt a little better by the time Amiah was out of time out.

Yes, honey....you were a very good friend to Maya today. This is the Aisling we know and love deeply....and we wish we saw all the time.

Parenting feels like a test ... fail it, and your child ends up a miserable, badly adjusted mess who struggles to be happy and fulfilled. Pass it, and you get to take joy in the success your child encounters along their journey of life. Right now, although this is realistically probably a very small bump in the road it feels like failure to keep her happy, well adjusted, and socially capable.

Aisling, as you are reading through this, I hope you know just how deeply we love you and want you to be happy and succeed in the dreams you have for your life. You are our "vision" and our "dream".

Ms. Schilli called.....

2010-09-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

And it wasn't good.

Aisling was sent home with a "Think Sheet" because she had a very rough day in school today. She apparently grabbed a boy by his shirt as they were working on a project because he wanted to turn it into a guessing game, and she ended up yelling at him. She got the Think Sheet for that...which wouldn't have been so alarming (while it didn't make us happy and we were discussing how to deal with it) but Ms. Schilli's call filled in some other gaps.

Apparently Aisling is insistent on only playing with one friend at a time. When another friend wants to join them, Aisling tells them no, they can't play with her and her friend. To further make matters worse, she bosses around her friend and yells at the friend if he/she doesn't do what Aisling wants. She refuses to interact with boys, and gets physical at times if things don't go how she wants. Today, on top of the other incident, she apparently grabbed a girl by the back of her neck because she wouldn't either play with her, or wouldn't do what Aisling wanted, or something. I honestly lost track at that moment because I was so shocked at what Ms. Schilli was telling us.

Ms. Schilli was trying to loop us in on how she was handling this behavior - mostly with timeout, encouraging Aisling to use words instead of hands, etc. We told her we were having rough days at home too, but thought it was only at home because we'd hoped she was transitioning ok at school. This was real news to us, as Aisling had never mentioned trouble on any day. Ms. Schilli praised her for being honest and telling her why she did something (which is a positive change from her preschool days where she would shut down) but we are very upset that she is carrying on the bullying behaviors she experienced at the Y in her last class.

While all of this was very upsetting and resulted in Aisling losing many privileges and choice points until she earns them back with good behavior, it wasn't all bad news. Ms. Schilli reiterated that Aisling is "very very very ready for kindergarten academically, she is transitioning beautifully in that regard" - great letters, great colors, beginning reading, etc. But her social skills are needing real development, clearly. Aisling has a lot of work to do to re-discover the sweet, caring, and yes, vulnerable to getting her feelings hurt, girl that she used to be. I hope she can get it together, quick. Until then, she's going to have a lot of timeout, early bedtimes, loss of items and privileges, and even "fines" for these bad behaviors we've seen in the last several days.

To dance or not, that is the question

2010-09-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight was Aisling's scheduled trial Irish dancing class. She's wanted to get into dancing since Grandma started talking to her about ballet and ballerinas, even to the extent of making up positions and showing off her "dance moves". She saw two performances of Irish dancing, and once we came across a group of Irish dancers taking a lunch break during their feis weekend in Westport. She was pretty fascinated, and I absolutely love watching Irish dancers.

I think she wasn't certain we would ever do this! But I arranged for the class the same week she went to the school's Girl Scouts meeting to get more information about it. We told her she would have to choose between the two activities, because it would be too much to do both. While she seemed interested in Girl Scouts, it wasn't an immediate "I love this" type of reaction.

Her class was scheduled at 5:30, so as soon as we got home we got her changed and headed for a McDonald's dinner. She thought that was a treat, and was really very good through dinner, following directions and not wasting time. Back in the car, it took us forever to get to Crestwood where the classes are held.

We followed a group of girls with pink "Clark Academy of Irish Dance" shirts to the studio, where we had a short wait for the beginner class. It was fun to watch the older girls practicing their reels and jigs, using the hard shoes. The class let out, we introduced ourselves to the instructor, and Aisling was invited in to celebrate someone's birthday! She was in heaven with a bright pink iced chocolate cupcake.

I corralled William and tried to keep him busy while they were stretching and starting practice. It started a bit slowly and Aisling really had a hard time modeling what the instructor was doing - both a combination of not being able to translate what she was doing as the instructor was facing her, and also never having taken a dance class before to understand how dance positions worked. She really had to work at third position - every time she tried it, her right foot toes would face inward towards her left foot toes, instead of her right foot as the anchor pointed to the right and her left foot crossed in front, toe to heel, left toes pointed to the left. She finally got it about 2/3rds the way through the class, after much repeated assistance from Mary Jo and Lucy. She also got to practice some steps, and they focused on stepping down the line with the right foot pointed in "tall toes" and the left foot in third position behind. I was really impressed with how Mary Jo and her assistant Lucy were able to incorporate each girl's level, including Aisling, into the class so no one lost any ground. The kids were split off to work in small groups on steps, they practiced rhythms, and practiced jumping up and down in time.

By the end of the class, Aisling was saying it was hard to hold her foot in the point position. I was chuckling, watching her. I think we may have found an activity to wipe all that energy out! While I talked with Mary Jo, Aisling gathered her stuff. Mary Jo said what we saw was very typical of new students, she was no worse in coordination than anyone else (that's a relief) and she would benefit from doing the class twice a week if we signed up. That makes sense - once a week would be just enough to be getting it by the end of the class, to wait a whole week before practicing it again, relearning the progress made the week before.

This morning I had an email from Mary Jo regarding Aisling and that she handled the practice like a star. She clearly hopes we will sign Aisling up...and we are going to! This will be good for all of us - hopefully I can pick up a few steps along the way, too!

1st week of Kindergarten

2010-08-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

It's official - Aisling is now a kindergartner! And she's loving every minute of it.

Monday Grandma and Heather took Aisling to a special last day before school celebration day. They went mini-golfing, which she has always wanted to do. She hit a hole in one in the first hole! How's that for beginners luck? She gave Grandma her special thank you gift - the handpainted bud vase she made for her at Painted Zebra several weeks ago. Grandma seemed to like it.

She carefully laid out her clothes for school on Tuesday, and we asked her what she wanted in her lunch. We had fun packing it, and making sure she had everything together. As she was getting ready for bed, she ran into the hallway to make sure she put her backpack by the front door so she wouldn't forget it. I had a sudden feeling of almost dread - that feeling of life is about to change significantly and I am not so sure we have our act together well enough to accommodate those changes. Too late to worry about it now....

Tuesday morning came and Aisling was up at 7am ready to go! She literally jumped out of bed and immediately got dressed in her polka dot shirt and white skirt, with her white sandals. She worked on her hair for awhile and put her sparkly pink headband in. I have to say, she looked so cute! But she missed the steps of using the bathroom and eating breakfast....I had to chuckle. I took William to Ms. Jessie's house and returned home where she was very surprised to see me. "Momma, why are you here?" I told her I wanted to walk her to the bus stop for her first day, and she seemed really happy. We stepped out into the front yard and took her picture with her backpack. 8:30 came around and she practically sprinted out the front door. We had to tell her to calm down, the bus wouldn't be coming for awhile, but she was too excited. We met the other girls at her bus stop, Danielle (3rd grade) and Megan (5th grade) and their mom. They have a porch that they have invited us to use when it's raining! They are very nice and the girls had great fun picking cicada skins off the cedar tree and sticking them all over me and the other mom. Danielle decided to leave a scary present for the mailman by putting all the cicada skins in the mailbox, which Aisling thought was hilarious. That thankfully meant she picked all the ones off me and put them in the mailbox too.

The bus arrived at 8:55 and Aisling was so excited, she ran to it and started climbing on without even saying goodbye. The bus driver made her stop and turn around so Chuck could get a picture of her. It just reminded me of how very confident she really is - and determined that she is going to have her adventures the way and time that she wants them. We waved goodbye and headed back home. I didn't cry at all - it's hard to be sad when she is so excited about this new journey!

I started my new schedule and it felt incredibly weird to leave work at 3pm to pick her up. I picked up William first, and he was a little confused as to why I was so early. It took a little while to convince him to leave. We got home in plenty of time, and I got snacks and a sippy cup ready since it was pretty warm. He got belted in to the wagon and we walked down to the bus stop to wait. The bus was very late - didn't arrive until a bit after 4pm, when it was due between 3:45 and 3:50. Aisling got off the bus and was very concerned because she thought she got on the wrong one! She told the bus driver her address, and the driver didn't tell her no, but Aisling was adamant that the number in the front window of the bus was the wrong one. I told her she had to be on the right bus because Danielle and Megan got off with her. That seemed to calm her down a bit. She didn't want to talk about school very much but she did say that she had PE class where they had them learn to sit on their dots on the floor, and she had music class. The music teacher used instruments in the classroom to talk about sounds, and they learned a few new songs that she didn't remember. She also said she played with her friend from the Y, Barbara, and that there was a birthday girl today who brought apple juice and a treat for everyone. We got home and looked through her backpack.

She was so wound up and excited that she literally could not sit still. She bounced from toy to toy, floor to couch to chair to bed to dining room to dancing in the hallway. Finally I made her just sit on the floor and breathe - she was driving both William and me nuts! She decided to go play in her room by herself, which was the best thing she could do because it allowed her to regroup. I started dinner (and William started fussing and being a clingy baby) but Aisling decided to be a golden girl and help wherever she could. I so appreciated this! She went to bed pretty easily Tuesday night.

Wednesday she asked if I was going to walk her to the bus stop again but I told her no, I just did for her first day but I would be there to pick her up from the bus stop in the afternoon. Her eyes lit up and that warmed my heart. So, lather, rinse, and repeat for the rest of the week. Although I will say that Wednesday afternoon she was so tired apparently she was almost falling asleep on the bus! I discovered as we were walking home, and her pants were practically falling off of her, that she forgot to put on underwear in the morning!! I was mortified - I was sure that she probably flashed everyone whenever she sat down! She told me she just forgot them.

Ms. Schilli, her teacher, called Wednesday evening to give us an update on how she was doing. I was sure she was going to mention the lack of underwear. She told us that Aisling was doing extremely well with the transition, and seemed to be making friends easily. I asked about that, since we knew she had only played with Barbara. Ms. Schilli said that was pretty common at this age, and others were doing the same thing. I mentioned that we hoped she would branch out, because she seemed to get attached to only one friend in depth. Ms. Schilli said she was glad to know that. She then told us that she Aisling drew a great picture of a memory from the summer - the Maryland Heights carnival - of me and her in the Ferris wheel, her friend Ainsley on the merry go round, and an empty ride too. Ms. Schilli mentioned that told the story really clearly; we laughed about what a great storyteller she is. I mentioned the commando discovery and that I had already talked with Aisling about that. She laughed and stated that it actually happens more frequently that you would believe! We then talked about some of out questions - how the ABCD days worked, the snacks, and peanut butter/nut restrictions.

I told Aisling that Ms. Schilli had called, and she was surprised. She had a pretty good night playing with William and doing what we needed....until it was time to take a bath. That tiredness caught her up - she had a major meltdown and ended up having to put herself to bed.

Thursday and Friday were straightforward and it seems we are getting into a routine. We were going to go to the Back to School Picnic Friday night, but it was canceled due to inclement weather.

Speaking of inclement weather, we had a tornado warning Friday night, right after the kids went to bed! Lucky us; to make it worse they canceled the warning within a few minutes, but after we had already gotten the kids ready to go to the basement.

So we survived the first week of kindergarten; Aisling LOVES it and is having a great time telling us what she did every day, as well as telling us about how her classes work. We had to make a few adjustments like sending a snack with her every day (we thought it was provided!) and sending peanut butter sandwiches after we got the ok. She is testing limits more this week than she has in awhile; the sassiness is coming back a bit; but we'll get through this. We are really enjoying some of the things she is saying and doing!

More Kindergarten Preparation!

2010-08-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday Aisling had a whole day of more Kindergarten preparation. The day started with the bus safety orientation at 11am. Aisling was up at 9am and carefully picking out her clothes (which caused a bit of an argument regarding what matched and what didn't), doing her own hair, and talking nonstop about what was going to happen.

We arrived at Craig at 10:45 and took a quick detour to vote for state primaries. She thought that was great and watched us both use the electronic voting machine. Then off to the cafeteria to learn about buses!

There were a ton of new kindergartners there, and even a familiar face or two! Barbara from the Y was there, as was Heather's other cousin Sarah. Aisling remembered Sarah and was excited to see Barbara. We know Sarah will be in half day kindergarten, so Aisling won't get to interact with her this year, but we aren't sure about Barbara.

The Transportation Director led the orientation, and they used Buster the "robot" bus. It was pretty cute although Buster's voice kept cutting out. Aisling volunteered to tickle Buster awake (because he apparently is some kind of smooth dancer and it wears him out into a deep sleep...??) with another little girl named Ashlyn. (Poor teachers, I can already see where this is going to go!)

Buster ran through all sorts of safety rules and even I have to admit after about 20 minutes, I lost interest in what was going on. I think the kids kind of felt the same too. Aisling jumped up to volunteer to show other kids what to do, with both Sarah and Ashlyn, and at one point she leaned on Buster with her chin in her hand. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud! She certainly isn't shy about volunteering or being assertive in getting recognized. Although Ashlyn was definitely more outgoing and verbal than Aisling, and dominated the discussions led by the Transportation Director (almost to a point of annoyance).....made me feel a little better about Aisling's social skills.

Off they went for the ultimate goal of the day - the bus ride! She happily skipped off with the other kids and they went for a 5 minute ride through our neighborhood, as it turns out. While they were gone the principal talked to us about Craig, introduced the PTO president who invited everyone to a back-to-school picnic, and the Transportation Director answered questions about bus stops, times, what happens if we aren't there to pick our kids up, etc. Chuck and I started getting anxious as the time crept closer to noon, since we were supposed to take Aisling to get her eyes checked.

When they returned from the bus ride, Aisling was upset we had to leave. About the only saving grace there was her excitement to get her eyes checked and possibly get glasses!

So we were a little late but the wonderful office staff worked with us happily. I think they knew there were going to be serious dollars involved based on Chuck's level of nearsightedness, my level of nearsightedness, and basic genetic odds. The exam took a long time but was thorough. Dr. Huff determined ultimately that she's not really nearsighted, but she has astigmatism that is affecting her ability to discern letters such as E and F, and O, C, and G. She only needs them for classwork, not all the time. Off we went to pick frames....

Which took forever and involved lots of negotiation. I loved the plastic, non nosepiece style frames in darker colors, as they made her eyes pop. She hated them. She liked the metal framed colored ones that were branded with princesses and other stuff....I really didn't think they looked as good on her. An hour later we were still haggling over what frames to pick. Frankly I gave up. She got metal ones that look nice; they will be pink with pink camo on the side. I don't have to wear them, so whatever! They should be ready soon.

My biggest fear right now is she will lose track of them since she does not have to wear them all the time. I don't know which is worse - wearing them all the time (and keeping track of them) or losing them because they are only required in the classroom.

After that visit, it was nearly 3pm! 2 1/2 hours at the eye doctor...whew...I am sure they were glad to see us leave even though they were very patient.

Chuck and Aisling took Bubba to the vet and I went to the pool, where I tried to finally get rid of my migraine. Aisling joined me at 4:30pm, but only got to swim for 30 minutes before we had to go pick up William. The great thing was, her friend Jake, his little sister Jillian, and their mom Jenn were also at the pool so we got a rare moment to hang out. Aisling showed off her much improved swimming skills (thank you to the J!!!) and it all hit home at what such a big milestone kindergarten is really going to be. She's accomplished much in even the 4 months she's been officially 5 years old, and there is a lot of excitement and a whole new level of learning coming in just about a week.

And yes, I got teary eyed sitting in the cafeteria, watching her amongst the other kindergartners. I'm going to be a mess on the 17th. Where did the last 5 years go?

Getting ready for kindergarten = lots of doctors and $$$

2010-08-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

We're getting Aisling ready for kindergarten; it's hard to believe her first day is August 17th!

From her annual doctor visit in July, we had a few concerns that we have to get addressed. First was her baseline eye exam. She had a hard time identifying some pictures; enough that I set up her eye exam with Dr. Huff; that exam is this Tuesday, and I'm pretty sure it will end up in eyeglasses. Chuck was 5 years old when he got his glasses; I was in the 5th grade, so I'm pretty sure she's just cursed.

I had expressed some concern about how her feet were still turned in a touch, enough that she trips over herself at times, particularly while running. Dr. Huger referred us to a pediatric orthopedic specialist. The doctor we saw did a comprehensive exam. We weren't sure what we were in for - but Aisling and I got a great laugh about the HUGE paper shorts she had to wear to get an x-ray of her hips and legs. She decided she wanted to go to the x-ray all by herself, which was a little sad for me. I guess the protective mom in me doesn't go away! It was only a few minutes later when she came back and we saw the doctor. He laid her down on the table, grabbed her legs, and gently rotated them in and out. It was painful to see (although it clearly didn't hurt her!) but when he did this, her knees rotated all the way in until the faced each other! When he rotated her legs out, they didn't go very far at all. He then had her walk down the hallway to see her gait, then sat us down to discuss. He put her x-ray up and you could easily see where her legs are perfectly straight. That was a relief - no bowing of the leg bones. But he stated that her hips are formed a bit differently - the ball of her femur is rotated forward in the hip socket, and that's just how she's made. This causes her legs, while straight, to face in and easily rotate in towards each other, not out as much. He went on to explain that this is called femoral anteversion, and is somewhat common in children. They either outgrow it, or don't, by the time they are 8. She has a mild enough case that there is no further treatment available or necessary. Severe cases can be solved by surgery, which involves cutting the femur and realigning it with a series of plates and screws. NO THANKS.

He went on to say that we could tell her all day to walk straight, and she could for a few steps, but she would revert right back, only because it's something she literally cannot control. He then said that normally if you rotated someone's legs in and out, they would only rotate about 45 degrees either direction. Her legs rotated in by 90 degrees! And out by only about 20 degrees.

So we will see him when she's 8 to reassess.

Yesterday we checked all her clothing to see what still fit. This girl has grown yet again! of the 8 pair of jeans she has, only two fit. Most were too short and too tight across the hips and legs. Sitting down was painful to see. So, she's now in a size six of everything, even though we'll still have to get her adjustable waists - she's pretty thin through the waist and hips for that size, but the length is perfect.

We had made a decision back in April to pull Aisling out of preschool at the Y. We were tired of the problems we were experiencing there, mostly with the other kids being so cliquey and mean, and the teacher turnover. Besides, it didn't seem logical to keep her there after they celebrated their preschool graduation with a big ceremony, cap and gown, etc. She kept telling us she didn't want to go to school anymore, she really was tired of it, and didn't want to learn anything else. We realized she was probably way burned out - she had been at the Y since she was 2 1/2, and in daycare totally since she was 3 months old. She has spent the summer with Grandma, going to the library and participating in their reading program, taking swimming lessons, and getting individualized attention. It's done the trick - she's now REALLY excited about kindergarten and no longer thinks that school is going to be a drag. She's looking forward to learning about the bus, and she even had a chance to design her backpack on Land's End. She chose a pretty blue one with chocolate trim, and chose a pink butterfly to be embroidered on it. Then we put her initials on it, and she chose the way the initials look - fancy script! I was a little skeptical of how it would turn out, but when we came back from our KC trip, the package had arrived and we opened it. It's really very cute, much to our surprise! And, it should last her through 5th grade, when we can upgrade for a bigger one for middle school. Thankfully I found the backpack on sale through Land's End, so it was well worth the $$$. I got her a Hello Kitty thermos to go with her Tinkerbell lunch box (since she loves both), and we're waiting the tax free weekend to get her supplies.

Apparently in kindergarten all the kids share the supplies, so we don't have to put her name on anything. I thought this was a little different, but I sort of remember the same scenario when I was in kindergarten. That was a LONG time ago.

One of the things I am really excited about is a modification of my work schedule to be home when Aisling is done at the end of the day! I can leave work at 3:00 to be home when she gets off the bus after 3:35. While it means more work for me at the end of the day to catch up, plus one Saturday a month, I cannot wait to be able to have a more relaxed evening and get dinner on the table at a more reasonable time. Plus with any homework or projects she has to do, we can make sure they are done without pushing into bedtime.

So while the money is flowing out, there's also a more normal balance to things happening. I'm so grateful for the flexibility my boss and the owners of the company give me...they say I deserve it and they know I will make sure everything is done; I say I don't take anything for granted and I'm one lucky woman.

Trip to KC...and Peanut Butter Really Does Remove Gum

2010-07-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

We took some time to go to KC in the middle of July. Aisling was golden child on the way to KC and while we were there. I needed her to step up, since I was flying solo - Chuck stayed home to get some progress on our master bathroom. And for the most part, she did! She was very safety conscious, held my hand whenever she could, plugged outlets with safety covers, and made sure things William shouldn't get in to stayed out of his reach. I was very impressed.

Grandma and Grandpa Salisbury came to visit us at the hotel after we arrived, which was nice. Having been in the car for 4 hours, even with a stop for lunch and playtime in Columbia, the kids were just needing to chill out and play with their toys. Aisling jumped right in to greeting Grandma and Grandpa, and started playing right away with Grandma. It was so sweet to see her interacting without any fear, even though it had been over 6 months since we had seen them. She conversed easily with her grandparents, and really showed us what a big girl she could be. She broke out the princesses and played with Grandma, and listened carefully as Grandma told her stories about when I was a little girl, my freckles, and chewing gum. This came back to haunt us tonight! She explained carefully that when the nuns caught her chewing gum, they used to make her put it either on her nose or behind her ear all day. Aisling was fascinated by this! Grandma DID explain that it hurt getting it off - it turned into concrete and took skin with it at the end of the day.

We made our annual trip to Union Station on Sunday to see the trains. We'd hoped to go to the Science City exhibit, but William was winding down for a nap by them. Instead, Aisling chose the model train exhibit before going outside to see the real trains. She was SO excited to see a model exhibit using bigger Thomas the Tank Engine trains! I thought she had outgrown this, but she did laps around the table and laughed, and got into the detail about Thomas with William. What a great big sis! She even remembered all the train names, except James (she called him Jane!).

We came back to the hotel and chilled, put William to bed, and I even took a little nap while she watched TV. She was a very big girl, did not go anywhere near the door, and never touched the curtains or locks. We got up, cleaned up, and headed to the family gathering.

Aisling was totally in her element - she got to rough house and have fun while my cousins and brothers totally egged her on. She did try to play quietly too by herself for a bit, so she clearly is beginning to understand when she needs time alone. We stayed late late late - it was 10:30 before we got back to the hotel, and she was fast asleep when we arrived. But again, she showed what a big girl she could be, by waking up and not whining when I asked her to walk inside and to our room.

Monday morning we got up and went swimming. I was very worried about how she would do, while I was holding William, so we took her water wings. Turns out the depth was 4'6", and she's swimming pretty well now so she could have navigated ok in an emergency. She spent a lot of time jumping off the side of the pool and getting in and out of the hot tub. Her swimming lessons at the J are really paying off! When it was time to leave, she was good about it, not throwing a big fit. We went upstairs and put Will down for a nap, and she watched TV while I packed us up. I even was able to start loading the car because I trusted her not to open the door while I was gone. It was risky to do this, but it was already so hot outside I didn't want to be loading and hauling one kid while forcing the other to hang on to my shirt.

Things took a turn for the worse when we ate lunch and got on the road for home. I think both kids had just had enough, and she certainly tried so hard all weekend to be good and do what I needed her to do. Suffice to say, she got her movies, TV, and laptop taken away for the time being for not listening and obeying.

Fast forward to today. Apparently she remembered Grandma telling her about putting the gum behind the ear and on the nose. So at dinner time she went to the bathroom to wash her hands, and decided to store her gum on her nose. It didn't stick....so she put it behind her ear. We just thought she was dilly dallying until Chuck went back to check on her, and found her hair on the right side all wet. She was trying desperately to remove the gum but made the situation even worse. Thoughts of an extreme page boy cut danced through my head when I saw her. It was bad....but Chuck to the rescue with some peanut butter, and her hair has been saved. So, we're now on gum restriction for the time being. What makes kids do these crazy things????

Come on, kindergarten. I hope for another dose of maturity to hit with school and homework. :)

Trying to reconnect

2010-07-09T20:30:00.001-07:00

Since before William was born, Aisling began to become super attached to Chuck. I expected this to some degree - I was a daddy's girl too - but I didn't expect the level of attachment to him and the level of detachment to me. Partially this is due to the typical newborn to toddler phase that requires so much sole energy and time. But I've been distressed about how hard it is to reconnect with her, especially as she is also becoming ultra sassy, independent, and talking back at the same time.

I've become a non-fun mom. I am constantly harping on Aisling to act like a big girl, eat like a big girl, sit still, obey, stop backtalking, quit playing with baby toys, etc. I don't tolerate the backtalking and sassiness, and I demand she obey. It's required me to get down to her level and become a drill sergeant at times. It's not fun, and is actually depressing.

So I've been trying to balance it with just having time with her and me. I want to try to recover the connection we used to have, and I do see glimmers of that still there. But it's been hard.

I've been trying to take her swimming, one of her favorite activities, so we can just be together and play. She loves that - she really is a fish. She asked me once why the grownups were sitting outside the pool on the chairs while the kids were in the water. I told her some grownups loved to just soak up the sun. She said, "But you like to play in the water with me, don't you?". Yes, I really do...she's so much fun.

On the 4th of July we went to watch the fireworks in St Charles. The highlight of the night was when she stood in front of me, grabbed my hands, and wrapped them around her. She talked my ear off, we enjoyed the fireworks, and she fell fast asleep on the way home so I had a great time carrying her in to the house.

Tonight we had another girls' night out, but with Melissa and Ainsley too. She was initially really excited, and seemed to have a good time. We went to dinner, went to Painted Zebra to decorate a vase for Grandma and Grandpa as a thank you gift for caring for her this summer, and then out to ice cream. I asked her if she enjoyed herself on the way home, but she surprisingly answered no. I was devastated - she said the most fun part was the painting, but not eating out or the ice cream. Really?? That was not what I expected in the least. She said she would have rather played at Ainsley's house then stayed overnight. Well, I can't compete with that!

I'm trying to even out the experiences - get back to the 80/20 rule - especially now that she is about to go to kindergarten. I don't want to this to be the same cycle I experienced - detachment from the mom to the daughter, which occurs again and again. I'm trying to break that cycle. She's such an amazing daughter - beautiful, quick, eager to learn, inquisitive, sensitive, creative. She sat in my lap and sounded out words as we were reading in the doctor's office today and it struck me just how sharp and observant she is.

I'll keep trying....wish me luck. I love this little girl more than she can ever understand. I'm trying to break that ugly cycle that I experienced.

Speaking of the doctor, today was her 5 year physical. She is 48lbs, 45", both just a touch under the 90th percentile for height and weight for her age. She's pretty much stayed consistent there all her life! Dr. Huger asked her questions directly and Chuck and I stifled our laughter at just how much detail she provided to a very patient Dr. Huger. She does have a consult with the pediatric orthopedist to view her toed-in feet and also a vision appointment to determine if she is going to need glasses. She is on the bubble with this - hard for her to read some of the pictures on the chart. 3 shots later (and she was VERY brave - only said "Ouch, that hurt!" as the shots were administered. She's a healthy, seemingly happy and pretty well adjusted. I'm so excited to see what maturity level the kindergarten experienc will bring for her.

Preschool graduation

2010-05-16T19:11:00.001-07:00

How can it be? Aisling "graduated" from preschool on Friday! (who ever thought to make graduation from preschool a big thing anyway?)

Grandma came and picked her up after lunch so she could have a relaxed afternoon before the ceremonies. Grandma took extra special attention to her sandals, polishing them up for her! She and William played and relaxed - by the time I got there, Aisling was in her dress and ready to go.

We got up to the Y and dropped her off in her room. They had tiny, cute graduation caps and gowns ready for them! We went to the gym to wait. William had a great time exploring the gym and sneaking time in with the balloons. Pretty quick though, the graduates were walking through the doors singing.

I was very impressed with how they all were so patient and sat still so well in their marked chairs! Aisling saw us in the front row and waved. They sang three songs, got a chance to tell everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up. Aisling, when asked by Ms. Sara, said she wanted to be a soccer player, a teacher, a mom, and an astronaut! She was the only one who came up with 4 ideas. :) After they sang their final song, Ms. Sara started a slideshow of pictures that she made herself. That was it, I started crying. It was very touching to see all these kids from baby days, with chubby cheeks, dimpled arms and chunky legs to the tall, thin, (mostly) graceful, confident little kids they are today. Some of them have lasting friendships....the boys, especially.

For Aisling, she is so excited for the next stage of her summer- staying home with Grandma. She'll get to stop the Y on the 28th, and spend the rest of her summer relaxing, unstructured, and unhurried before "big kid school". And hopefully, that will go a long way to help her be excited about kindergarten.

Happy 5th Birthday to Aisling!

2010-04-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

Our Aisling is 5 years old today.

Where has time gone? It seems like just yesterday I was giving birth to her - pushing for 45 minutes to get her out, feeling the pain of her head emerging, and then the joy of hearing her first cries.

Today I watch in awe as she confidently greets her friends and runs off to play with them, with hardly a glance back.

She's a joy.... maddening at times, stubborn as hell at times, funny and silly at times, and incredibly sweet at times. But I can't imagine my life without her.

Do you know what I love about you?

2010-04-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

We had a choice. End the night really angry and hurt by each other, or try again.

It was a major meltdown. One I haven't seen in awhile. And I, fed up by the attitude, put her in a major timeout while I dealt with her brother.

I had to hold her face in my hands to get her to pay attention. And I had to yell. And she stopped. The look on her face broke my heart.

I told her I would put her to bed after I got William to bed.

She told me what she did wrong. Bless her heart, she got it right.

I crawled into bed with her. "Do you know what I love most about you?" Her blue eyes, piercing mine, suddenly engaged. "You love my heart."

"Yes, I love your big, sweet heart. Do you know what else I love?"

"You love me, all of me."

"Yes, but I love your big, smart brain. You know what else I love?"

"Me."

"Yes, but I love how athletic you are."

"Momma, what does athletic mean?"

"It means how active you are, how into sports you are. Do you know what else I love about you?" .....

How sweet you are, your beautiful blue eyes, how much you love your little brother, how much you love your dada...."and how much I love you, Momma".... how much you try to be a friend to others, how you don't like to see others hurt....

A snuggle, a hug, tons of kisses.....and our night was forever changed. And hopefully, our path too.

A trip to the ER

2010-03-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we landed in the ER with Aisling.

When I picked Aisling up from school Thursday night, they were down in the gym because of the rain. She apparently had just fallen, and she showed me the red mark on her cheek. I didn't think too much of it, as she wasn't crying, but when we got home and sat down for dinner I noticed a big bump on the side of her forehead in line with the red mark on her cheek. I asked her if she bumped her head at school, too, and she said she hadn't. We figured she must have done it at the same time. She didn't eat much dinner, but I also digured that was because she didn't like what I fixed.

When she got up Friday morning, she seemed fine. Everybody went off to school or work, and I didn't think too much of her bump until about 1:30 when Ms. Sara from the Y called.

She told me that before morning recess, Aisling began screaming that her head was hurting, and she was holding her head in her hands. They went outside and Aisling sat on the wall, complaining that the light hurt her head worse, and she wanted to go inside. She didn't play at all. She ate a little lunch, but the most unusual thing was the fact that she fell asleep during nap time, which she NEVER does. And she woke up when Ms. Sara came back, screaming again that her head hurt. That's when they called. I told Sara about the bump and bruise, and she said if she had known about it she would have called earlier, because Aisling was definitely not herself. Sara told me because she didn't have a fever she didn't have to go home - but I was already packing up my stuff while on the phone to come get her. I was feeling panicky because it was so out of character for her, I thought for certain the bump on the head had something to do with it. I told Sara I was on my way, and called the doc. They told me to bring her in as soon as I could.

When I arrived, Ais was in some teachers lap, clutching a baby doll and looking very very pale, and her eyes were a washed out, dead looking blue. I picked her up and tried to rush us out of the Y. The teacher and director stopped me to sign a form. Really, people? You didn't document her fall the other night but you're going to stop us as I am trying to rush her to the doc? I was not happy. I signed the stupid form, gave Aisling my sunglasses got her to the car. She was too limp to help buckle herself in.

Chuck met us at the doc's office. They got a weight on her (46 lbs) and asked what happened. The nurse checked her ears and temp. We had to wait about 15 minutes for the doc. In that time, Ais fell sound asleep in my arms, and had wiggled herself into the cradle hold position. Dr. Laycob came in, heard the story, and said, "She's really subdued, this is not like her..." He hadn't seen her since she was a toddler....but he has a crazy great memory. He looked in her ears for blood, and didn't see any, but when I pulled her hair back while he was across the room, he immediately said - we are not messing with this, I don't like the look of that bruise, I can see it from here. You are going to the ER for a CAT scan. He called ahead, and off we went.

We had to go through triage (grrr) at St John's to get into the pediatric ER, which I thought we were supposed to be able to bypass. They got us into a room right away, and the ER pediatrician immediately came in to see her. They did vitals and those were all ok - her blood pressure seemed a little high at 124/96 but that may be normal for the level of pain she was in. They did a neuro exam, and that was ok, although when she was asked questions about William she quit answering and could not tell them if he was bigger or littler than her. That was very unusual and at this point I really got worried.

They got us into the scanning room, and Aisling did an amazing job laying stock still. She told us afterward that she was shaking, but we couldn't tell! Back to the room we went and waited for the results. They were back in about 20 minutes. The result was clear, but with the caveat that they found an area bilaterally which was devoid of cortical white matter. They want us to go back for an MRI at some point in the future to tell if it was a scanning artifact, or just an unusual scan. Normally this is a sign of developmental delay, but Ais has been anything but delayed - she is usually ahead of her peers. The pediatrician explained that radiologistics expect to see a certain ratio of white and grey matter during scans, and that it is possible that she is either a little ahead or behind the expected ratio, especially since it was bilateral. But at the end of the day, there was no fluid, tumors, or other areas of concern in her brain.

They did find fluid in her sinus cavities and felt that she might have sinusitis which was triggering a migraine, especially with the family history of migraines. They dosed her with Motrin and wanted to see if it helped; if it didn't they would pull out the big gun drugs to get her to feel better. Chuck had to leave to go get William since it was about 5:00; Aisling was starting to feel a bit better but she said it still hurt pretty bad. After awhile Aisling asked to get up to go to the bathroom, and she suddenly had color back in her face and her eyes were finally brightened and back to normal. She said the headache was gone! The pediatrician intercepted us in the hall and asked Aisling if she was hungry- if she could tolerate food and drink she could go home. So Ais got a grape popsicle, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and chocolate milk. She ate it all and kept it all down, which was good news. The doc told me before discharge that they believed she has a slight concussion and sinusitis which triggered the migraine. We were told to keep her on ibuprofen for 36 hours, add some kids Sudafed, and an antibiotic for the sinus infection. She did say that about 85% of sinusitis is viral, not bacterial, but she wanted to do everything possible to get her feeling better quick.

So off we came home and got settled with dinner, bath and beds for the night. Aisling woke up at 3am Saturday morning with her head hurting badly again, so we started the ibuprofen routine right then. She stayed in bed with us....and got up far too early thanks to William fussing and crying from 5:00am until 6:30am. She ended up taking a nap at 12:30, in anticipation of Ainsley coming over to play at 2:30.

She still was clearly not feeling well, but tried her hardest to play with Ainsley. She got her feelings hurt very easily. But by the end of the night they were happily playing together and with William. She seems better today but still not 100%. I think it's just going to take some time to get past this.

Suddenly, a big girl

2010-03-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

We've been watching Aisling's logic skills grow and grow over the last few months. It's been really fun to watch - but we weren't all that sure just how far along she was in terms of doing things that other kids are doing. Well, we've recently gotten answers.

A few weeks ago Aisling had her last visit from Ms. Jane, her PAT educator. Jane sat down with Aisling and an alphabet puzzle to see where she was in terms of understanding letters, sounds, and pictures associated with it. Aisling completed the puzzle in less than a minute, getting every letter, picture, and sounds right on the first try. Her spatial relations are still developing, clearly, as she had trouble navigating the Z into place. But Jane was pleased to see where she was at, commenting that most children her age are still working on this aspect. She then sat with her to read Brown Bear, and to help Aisling make her own Brown Bear-style book. Aisling immediately picked up on the repeated phrasing of the book, and when it came to making her own, she had a great time. She was very insistent on fully coloring in the pictures before assembling the book. Jane had Aisling spell some words out for her, and was again pleased to see what she could do. The upshot was, Aisling is more than ready for kindergarten and will probably end up in advanced reading, because she's already well past what they expect kids to enter school with. She's already sounding out words, trying to spell, and she writes things on her own with no prompting, putting her at a 6 to 6 1/2 year old level for reading and reading readiness.

We've been telling Aisling we are going to pull her out of preschool for the summer, and send her to some day camps. She needs the break, and she's burned out on school. She's really looking forward to this time off.

This week she has been really intent on doing things on her own, for herself. Earlier this week, Chuck found her on the sofa dressed, hair brushed with a barrette, socks and shoes on, ready to go. The next day she did all of that, then also got some bread, put it in the toaster and started it, put butter on the toast, then cinnamon for cinnamon sugar toast! She did burn her finger a tad since she didn't realize the metal would be pretty warm. One night she also stripped down, pulled the switch up in the tub, and turned the water on for her bath. This morning she started to take a shower, including turning the water on, all by herself!

It is really neat and special to see her maturity level coming through, and her interest in doing things for herself. It's a little sad, too - wow, the years are going to fly by and the next thing I know, she will be ready for middle school...then high school... then driving....then graduation....then college. Yikes! I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

She and William have figured out how to play and have fun with each other. She has gotten down on the floor with him and started chasing him while he's crawling. He laughs hysterically which makes her erupt into loads of giggles, which ultimately gives her hiccups! This morning they crawled side by side down the hall chasing one of his plastic leapfrog table balls. The laughing was contagious!

We have fun days ahead - Aisling's birthday, William's birthday, and the summer. :)

Who knew?

2010-03-07T15:27:00.000-08:00

Who knew that little 4 and 5 year old girls could be so mean?

The cattiness starts early.

We've been trying to help Aisling navigate the ins and outs of preschool relationships for the last year, but in particular the last few months have been terrible. There is one little girl, Caitlin, who has been labeled a bully by the teachers. It's not like them to do this, but apparently this little girl is downright mean one minute, sweet as pie the next.

Aisling, our sweet hearted, kind, headstrong but also very vulnerable little girl has fallen into Caitlin's trap. She got red cards for a whole week in January because she was playing exclusively with Caitlin and modeling her behavior. We went to Caitlin's birthday party in December and I got a taste of how Caitlin treated her friends. I was so angry I vowed Aisling would not let Caitlin step into our house. She had a bounce house set up in her basement, and it only accommodated two kids at a time. Aisling loved it and went right in while they were all playing in the basement. Apparently she was not in there very long before Caitlin went inside of it and pushed Aisling forceably out of it. Another little girl, Elizabeth, came upstairs to tell me Ais was crying (but by this time I could hear her!) and to say that Caitlin was being really mean to her. Thankfully she said this in front of Caitlin's mom! I went downstairs and found Ais sobbing and a few girls standing around her, telling me (within her mom's earshot) what had happened and how mean Caitlin was being to her. We went upstairs and settled down, and the rest of the day was fine until we left when one of Caitlin's friends (and a former classmate of them) was verbally abusive to Aisling. I overheard it and I had quite enough. I hugged Aisling and brought her down the stairs, but as the little girl was "telling" on Ais, I turned right around and said, "Are you tattling? Because I didn't see anything wrong here. You girls need to learn how to be nice!" We left right then. Ais just hugged me...it was very sad.

Fast forward to January and February, and stuff got worse. In February, I happened to pick Ais up just as they were coming from the gym. Caitlin and Lauren rushed to tattle on Ais to me - saying she hit them and called them names. I told them to quit tattling - if they didn't tell the teacher I didn't want to hear it. The teacher just smiled at me. Later Aisling told me that she did call Caitlin names because she was trying to get her to quit beating up on her. I was shocked. I asked her if the teachers knew, and she said no. I asked her what happened and she said Caitlin started punching and hitting her, and knocked her on the ground. I asked her if that was before or after she called her names, and she said before - she was trying to get Caitlin to stop. I asked her if she told any teachers, and she said no. When asked why, she said, "Momma, I don't want Caitlin to be sad. No one wants to play with her, so I do because I don't want her to be sad.". How do you argue with that? To do so puts a dent in the gentle, empathetic spirit she has, and that is the last thing I want to do.

A few days later I picked Ais up in the gym, and as soon as I came in she was wrapping herself around me while Caitlin and Lauren were tattling on her. "She hit me with a ball". "She called me names". Since I was fed up with it all, I looked at both of them and said, "Stop tattling. I'm really tired of it. I don't want to hear about you girls being mean to each other any more. Come on, Aisling." They just looked at me in shock. I walked right over to Ms. Sara and told her what Aisling had told me about the Friday before. She was so upset and said, "That Caitlin is really mean and rough." We talked about that Aisling didn't want to tell on Caitlin and get her in trouble, and didn't want her to be sad. Ms. Sara pulled Aisling over and reinforced that it was never ok for someone to hurt her, and that she needed to come talk to her if it happened again, because that was NOT tattling. I think the message got through to Aisling - and I told her that it was ok to hit back if no one was coming to help her and she couldn't get a grown-up's attention. I don't want her to be bullied or walked on, I do want her to stand up for herself physically if she has to.

Since then Aisling and I have had many conversations about how it was ok to play with the boys rather than the girls, since when all the girls play together it gets mean the moment Caitlin is involved. She likes Brendan and he seems to enjoy her company too, so that seems to be working ok.

Unfortunately she is so burned out on her "friends" at the Y, (meaning the girls) and preschool in general that she is not terribly excited about kindergarten. I'm not thrilled about the Y anymore either, and haven't been for about a year, so I am more than ready to pull her out at the end of May. We are going to enroll her in some day camps so she can do something different and fun, and meet new kids. It doesn't seem as though many of the kids in her current classroom will be going to Craig, which is wonderful. Caitlin won't - she's in the Bellerive Elementary jurisdiction. Hopefully that will go a long way in making her excited about the biggest milestone for her since she was born - going to "real" school!

Holiday Program!

2009-12-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

Aisling has had a string of bad days at school. They have implemented a red-yellow-green system for behavior, with each color having the corresponding face drawn on them, and tucked into envelopes with each child's name. Aisling has had several red days at school. When we ask her what happens, she gives a typical "I don't know" answer because she thinks she's going to get into more trouble. Also, she doesn't want to talk about it because she knows we will talk long to her about it. We need to learn to shorten our discussions but it's hard to get the message just right in the time she is really open and listening to our discussion. The biggest problem seems to be a girl in her classroom whom is very outgoing, and also impulsive. Aisling has latched on to her since she says the other girls won't play with her because she gets her feelings hurt and cries. So we're trying to work with Aisling on controlling those impulses and get control of her behavior - because we don't want her to be attracted to "trouble" personalities that lead her down the wrong path.

We did talk to her teacher, who said that yes, Aisling cries easily because she is sensitive. She mentioned that all the kids know each other's hot buttons and therefore keep pushing them once they know they've hurt someone else's feelings. They do say they aren't friends with each other when they don't feel like playing with a particular person, which the teachers are trying to work on. She didn't think that Aisling's behavior or social skills were lacking, but that's just a phase they were all going through right now.

So we were able to relax a little about this, and change the focus to enjoying her holiday program. Grandma picked Aisling up from school, got her dinner, and got her ready for the program. We rushed home to get the camera and a diaper bag for William, then met them up at school. It was a pretty quick program - all of the kids in Aisling's classroom got red noses to be Rudolph, and they sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, as well as the Reindeer Hokey Pokey. It was truly cute! She had a few cookies and some punch, then spent some time running around the walking track and the gymnasium.

We came home and took our holiday pictures. There are two wonderful, spontaneous pictures of her and William that Chuck captured. They are the essence of Christmas to me.

Visit with Santa!

2009-12-05T19:41:00.000-08:00

It was that time of the year to make our annual visit to Santa! But first, we had to get our H1N1 vaccines. Aisling and I both rushed over to Parkway Central where we were pleased to find out that we qualified for the nasal vaccine, which was a far shorter line! Aisling did not really like the nasal vaccine - it burned a little and made her nose drip. She told me she'd rather have a shot, which I found amusing.

Aisling had been planning for a few weeks what she was going to ask for. On her list: a sparkly pink guitar with purple butterflies; a pink princess shirt; a princess Barbie; and a paintball gun. That's our girl!

We planned to meet up at the Mills Mall with Ainsley and Melissa, so we could do our usual group photo. It was more complicated this time, since we added William to the mix. I felt bad that Ainsley ended up sitting to the side with William and Aisling on Santa's knees. I wanted her to be between them, between Santa's knees but that seemed to awkward. They didn't seem to mind, though.

Aisling gave her goofiest smiles - she really doesn't know how to be natural in front of the camera. I understand this - I'm the same way! But we got a few great ones. She was so intent on telling Santa her list that she never looked at the photographer. I didn't mind - I told him to go ahead and take a picture of her telling Santa what she wanted - that was more sweet to me than the posed picture.

After we got the pictures taken care of, we ate lunch at Subway and Aisling and Ainsley got a treat of a carousel ride. Aisling was in heaven! She had a bit of a hard time leaving the mall, though, but she was tired and I think ultimately she felt it was ok to go. She fell asleep in the car on the way home - but of course wouldn't think of taking a nap once we were home!

"I'm very sad!"

2009-11-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

As I write this, Aisling is in her bed crying herself to sleep.

Why? Because like most 4 1/2 year olds, she is having a hard time listening and following directions. If it's not her way, then it's cause for serious meltdown. It's the quest for independence, but its frustrating beyond all belief for both her and us.

I hope that when she has a chance to read this, maybe when she's a preteen, or maybe when she's a teen...or maybe not until she's an adult, she will understand why we are "mean" to her right now. It's an effort to keep her from becoming a self-centered brat. It's because we love her and want her to be well liked and respected, and to not be an outsider looking in. It's because we know she has a huge heart and wants to be a grown up girl who can influence the decisions we make with her and about her. But like most kids she's going about it the wrong way. And with the addition of William, and time and financial resources being really tight, its critical more now than it ever was that she learn to respect adults, follow directions, and use her brain to think about consequences of her actions.

Tonight I had a simple instruction - brush your teeth. She argued, she didn't want to go to bed. We went back and forth and I warned her that she was going to have to put herself to bed. She didn't heed the warning. I told her finally that she was going to have to put herself to bed, and she launched into a huge meltdown, including jumping up and down and screaming. Chuck came upstairs and had to raise his voice to her, and eventually had to spank her to get her to stop escalating in the tantrum. Ultimately she did calm down, and went to clean up her face. She begged us to read her a story as is our usual routine. That led into the conversation about consequences. It's hard to know if she gets it and understands or if she thinks we're just mean.

I went into her bedroom after putting William down, and brushed her hair away from her face. It was still wet with tears, and she was sniffling. I kissed her and told her that I was heartbroken that we couldn't read to her tonight. She said she was heartbroken too. I asked why, and she said, "Because you are mean to me." It's devastating to have your child tell you this - you want them to always feel loved and happy and secure that there are reasons you do what you do.

So Aisling, as you are reading this, remember that we do love you, and we love you so much that we want you to be a happy, healthy, well-liked adult. This requires us to do things that hurt your feelings and make you think the opposite - that we are mean and controlling. We know you are a super sensitive, loving, strong willed and incredibly smart girl who wants to control your own destiny. We're trying to let you, in safe ways, but it isn't always possible. The worst thing is, it's going to get harder before it gets better. Your teenage years are going to be tough. But we'll get through it, and it never changes one fact for us - you are our beautiful daughter and we will go to the ends of the earth for you, if you walk with us, not against or away from us.

Social skills

2009-06-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

Life is returning to some semblance of normal for everyone in the house. Hooray!

Aisling has transitioned to her new classroom extremely well. As a matter of fact, she was so excited to go to her pre-K room that instead of clinging to Chuck like she used to at drop off, she runs over to get a book and sit on the carpet just like everyone else. Sometimes she doesn't even give him a kiss goodbye. Such a switch!

The defiance, sassiness and talking back has finally decreased significantly. It took awhile for her to understand what talking back was and why it's so unacceptable. We had to put her in lots of timeouts in her bedroom and leave her kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs, but it did the trick. She realized that was not the way to get our attention and that being ignored was worse than anything. We're just so glad to have her more back to normal and being our sweet girl.

We're seeing a step forward in her social skills that makes us very happy. At the playground she and Ainsley almost melted down over a difference in opinion on how to play princess. Specifically, who would be queen and who would be the princess. Both wanted to be the princess of course, because no one likes to be the evil queen! They both came to us and pleaded for us to make a decision, and we all said no. Chuck suggested they sit down and talk about it and work it out. So they did! Between the two of them they negotiated a compromise- one girl would be princess then the other would have a turn. Then off and running they went to play!

It seems so simple of a concept but it's a major step to getting them to work it out. It's very tiring to referee conflict all the time, especially when they are taking turns tattling on each other. It's fun to see the girls maturing!

Party on!

2009-06-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

This was a busy party weekend! On Friday night we went over to Jenn and Bill's house to see our friends from college, which was so fun. All of us have kids, or have kids on the way, so the kids had a great time playing. Ava, Carter, Anthony, Aisling...and William....raised the roof with the volume. But they had a great time. Aisling is showing us she can be very social and use great manners with her friends, even though they don't always do the same for her. It's hard to sit by and let them work it out, but that's what we do. And often we have to talk to Aisling later about why we didn't intervene, or why a kid acted a particular way. In doing so we remind her that she's not always the best at using her manners with friends either!

On Saturday we attended Kate's graduation party. Kate doesn't like to be the center of attention but she appeared to have a great time at her party. :) Aisling loved the attention of all the grownups, and we even spent some time playing duck duck goose with her and a few other games. She really got in to telling her older cousins some stories....she's so mischevious!

We're seeing a little decrease in the defiance and sassiness of the past few weeks, which is a welcome change. We'll keep working on it, and she will too. She's moving into the Daisy classroom and I think that will help her tremendously.

Adjustments

2009-06-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

Aisling loves her little brother. End of story.

Aisling does not like her parents right now.

William came home on June 1st and although he's settled right in, and Aisling has settled right in to having him around, she is testing every single rule and expectation to see if they still hold true now that he's around. She has thrown more severe tantrums, been more sassy and defiant, and done more backtalking than we have ever seen before.

I understand where she's coming from. She used to be the focus of our family, she used to have our undivided attention, and now things are not quite the same. She's still getting attention, but she's ensuring she gets it by behaving any way she can. Bless her heart, we hope she starts to realize that she's still getting our attention and love, it's easier to receive it when she's doing what's expected. It's going to take some time, clearly...but we can't wait for her to return to her old self.

She has some other changes coming her way, too. Some of her friends in her classroom have transitioned to the pre-K (Daisy) classroom, and she's still in the Daffodil room. Now there are 3 year olds in her classroom and the behavior they bring as young threes is appropriate for their age, but frustrating for her age. We did receive a note that she will be transitioning in the next week to be a Daisy, so she is excited about that, and we are relieved. There is more structure in the pre-K classroom, and she needs that right now. Transitions have never been easy for her, so we hope this will go ok.

Some pictures from various events this week!

Aisling is a big sister!

2009-05-31T17:31:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, May 30th, at 10:46am Aisling became a big sister to William Greyson Renner!

I woke up at 6:30am wondering how I was going to spend another day overdue. Ten minutes later I had a contraction and thought, wow - that kind of hurt! The next one was 6 minutes later, and then they became 3-4 minutes apart. Grandma arrived to take Aisling at 8:15 and we left for the hospital at 8:30am. Aisling still maintained that she would be having a little sister as we left.

Chuck called Grandma around 11am to let her know that she had a new grandson. Grandma told Aisling it was a little boy, and apparently Aisling was absolutely devastated. According to Grandma she threw herself over a chair and sobbed, "no!!!". Grandma tried to comfort her and decided to take her to McDonald's for lunch to soften the blow. She put on her "I'm a Big Sister" shirt she got from her Sibling Class. A woman at McDonald's apparently noticed and asked if she became a big sister today, so Aisling said yes. Grandma explained that Aisling really wanted a little sister after Aisling told the woman it was a little boy. The woman apparently talked up having a little brother to Aisling, which made her feel a little better.

They stopped in at the gift shop in the hospital where Aisling picked out a beautiful flower arrangement for me, and a teddy bear for William. She came running into the room with a sweet smile on her face and showed off what she brought for us. She wanted to see the baby right away, so I pulled her up onto the bed with me. She was very disturbed by my IV and wanted to know what it was and what was in it. I explained it to her and showed her where they stuck me 2 other times before they got it working. She was very careful not to bump it. The nurses brought the baby down form the nursery and Aisling got situated in my lap to hold him. As soon as she saw him I think she fell in love. She explored every facial feature, and his hands, and his hair, and gave him sweet little kisses.

Aisling was surprised to receive gifts for becoming a big sister. She received one from her baby brother (which had the added bonus of keeping her occupied to some degree), and some other gifts from her favorite cousin Heather. She wanted to open all of William's gifts, too! She and Chuck left after dinnertime - I think she was happy to be headed home to get some sleep. She really kept it together as good as she could.

She came back up to the hospital with Chuck on Sunday before lunch. She was excited to see me and William, but also had a severe case of ants in the pants. Who could blame her? I was bored sitting around the hospital all day. Grandma and Grandpa Salisbury came in to meet William and stayed a majority of the day. She was excited to see them, and wanted them to come see her new big girl bedroom. She did learn how to comfort William and see if he was hungry by putting her (clean) finger in his mouth. After that she wanted to put her finger in his mouth ALL the time! She got to watch some movies while I caught up on a little sleep with William. We told her I would be coming home on Monday while she was at school, and she was happy to hear that.

She decided she was going to wear her "I'm a Big Sister" shirt to school on Monday so she could share the news with all her friends and teachers. She seems to be taking the new addition really well, although I'm sure there will be a few bumps along the way.

First Haircut! And strawberry picking

2009-05-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

It was time. Aisling has never had a haircut in her 4 years of life and she was just getting too raggedy to go any further. She had so many layers from her baby hair growing in at different speeds, and the layers made her hair look thinner than it really is. In addition, the longest piece of hair goes halfway down her back and is getting pretty damaged. Aisling was so excited to have her first haircut but her big concern was that her curls would be cut off. Undoubtedly they will be, but once the humidity comes up I imagine they'll come right back.

We made an appointment at the Hairy Elephant in Ballwin so she could have a great first experience. She got to choose her flavor of shampoo and conditioner. She told the stylist she wasn't scared as she was washing her hair, but her clenched fist told us otherwise! She got to pick the movie she wanted to see while her hair was being cut, and she chose a Barbie princess story DVD. The haircut was over in a matter of minutes, and her hair was styled and put into cute pigtails. She got a sticker, and I got teary eyed as I was scooping up tendrils of hair to keep.

After we got home from the hair cute, we headed off to Thies Farm to meet Melissa and Ainsley for strawberry picking. It was hotter than we expected but we had a good time picking a whole flat of strawberries to take home.

Sunday was a nice relaxed afternoon - mainly so I could recover and count the days until the baby's arrival. We're ready, and Aisling keeps asking when it will come. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Aisling has decided the baby is a girl, because she really wants a sister. I hope she is not going to be disappointed if it's a boy. We'll know in a few days!

A party weekend

2009-05-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

It was a busy weekend for Aisling! She was invited to Sabrina's 4th birthday party, which was Saturday. She was so looking forward to it and giving Sabrina her birthday gift - a Playdoh Ice Cream Shoppe, which she absolutely loves herself. We didn't have far to go - just right next door! Sabrina had a bunch of friends and family over for her princess party, which was right up Aisling's alley. They got to make princess crowns and Aisling put a lot of thought and design in to it. It turned out pretty cute and totally Aisling. She loved wearing it.

After the party we headed over to Creve Coeur Days Carnival. She had gone with Dada earlier in the week an absolutely loved it and really wanted to go back. We bought 20 tickets with the intent of riding just a few rides. That was a good thing, because we were all a little underdressed for the unseasonably cool weather!! Aisling ended up riding the little rollercoaster, a huge slide, the motorcycles, and bumper cars. She got her first taste of cotton candy, too! She is now a cotton candy monster.

On Sunday we decided to take a few pictures of Aisling with me, before the new baby arrives. My belly is huge, and Aisling is fascinated and a little scared of it too. She's felt the baby move a few times and thought it was neat but didn't want to let her hand linger too long. I think she's just a little weirded out by the whole process, and who can blame her? It's a pretty abstract concept for even a 4 year old. She didn't really want to take part of the pictures, but we got a few. She was obsessed with lifting my shirt and putting her face against my belly. Those pictures are hidden forever. :)

Its hard to believe she will no longer be our only kid....but I suspect she will be our only daughter. We'll see!

Stingray exhibit at the Zoo

2009-05-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

Capping off our busy week we decided to go to the Zoo to see the new Caribbean Cove stingray exhibit. We received a pass to come to the Zoo Members opening, before the public got to see it.

The line for the stingray exhibit was long, and wrapped around the back of the Caribbean Cove pavilion. We were concerned that it was going to take forever, but in reality we were only in line for about 45 minutes. Aisling thought it was incredibly cool to reach in and touch the stingrays, although it took awhile for them to come close to her. She couldn't quite get her hand deep enough to touch them so I had to help her. It was hard to do that with a 9 month pregnant belly leaning over a low wall.

After the exhibit Aisling wanted to see giraffes and other animals, so we headed for Big Cat Country. The leopard was in rare form, stalking humans that were walking by, and even jumped up on the wall. We left the big cat exhibit and headed for the zebras, camels, and giraffes. Unfortunately the giraffes were not out, which was a huge disappointment for Aisling, but she still had a great time looking at all the other animals.

We basically had the zoo to ourselves, as it was after closing time, but the zoo personnel were not in any hurry to kick people out. We enjoyed ourselves, and headed home. It's going to be an interesting weekend, I'm sure....Aisling is still adjusting to "normal" life and our house rules and expectations.

Big Sister Class

2009-05-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

Back in April I enrolled Aisling in a Sibling Class at St. Luke's so she could get a sense of what it will be like to have a baby in the house. Since she was fresh from her vacation, she was excited to do another special activity, especially since it had to do with becoming a big sister.

Sabrina was also enrolled in the class, as she has a baby brother due a few weeks after Aisling's little brother or sister, so we were looking forward to seeing her. We got there and were the first class participant so she got to spend some tie playing with bubbles. Another mom and little girl showed up, and finally Sabrina and her mom made it. (They forgot! But we were glad to see them..)

The nurses who were teaching the class showed the girls how the baby's heart and lungs would be listened to, and even pulled out a doppler to have the kids listen to their heartbeat. Aisling went first, and she looked a little scared! Then they showed the girls how to hold a baby and took pictures so that they could put them in the baby's bassinet. Then the girls listened to a story about a baby's arrival in a family, then watched a video. Then, the most exciting piece - time to tour the maternity floor and see the babies in the nursery!

The girls had a really great time, and Aisling was very excited to receive a "I'm a big sister" shirt to wear when the baby is born. Now, we have to hurry up and wait....

Back from the beach

2009-05-02T20:57:00.000-07:00

Aisling is back from the beach, and she had a wonderful time!

Grandma and Grandpa Renner started their journey with Aisling on Friday, April 24th. They stopped in Granada, MS, which is the halfway point to Dauphin Island. On Saturday morning, Aisling's actual birthday, they headed the rest of the way. We sent along a present and card for her to open, and Grandma and Grandpa ensured she had cake and ice cream as well.

She apparently received a full week of being catered to, and scheduled around, so that whatever she wanted to do they did. She and Grandma wrote all of their adventures down in a journal for us to have when she returned. They even took pictures! Grandpa "jumped" Aisling in the waves, and they spent time feeding the seagulls.

Grandma bunked with Aisling as she was afraid Aisling would get scared sleeping in a room by herself. This wasn't a problem last year when we went, but Grandma gets dibs on spoiling and soaking up Aisling. They ate ice cream every night, and now Aisling is an ice cream monster.

Aisling was very excited to see us, and was quite ready to be done with Grandma and Grandpa when they dropped her off. I felt a little bad about this, but I was excited to see her. She spent the rest of the afternoon telling us everything, and we unpacked her things. She has enough seashells to fill a whole desktop fishbowl!

I'm sure we'll have a few readjustment issues over the next few weeks, going from Grandma's style back to rules and expectations and our style, but it will be good training for the baby's arrival later this month.

(The seagull pic and pic of Grandpa were taken by Aisling with her camera!)

Aisling's 4th birthday!

2009-04-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Aisling celebrated her 4th birthday today with a Tea Party! (It's early, as she will be headed to Dauphin Island on the 25th, her actual birthday, with Grandma and Grandpa Renner). We decorated the house with ribbons, made paper flowers to decorate hats with, and I made her birthday cake and cupcakes. We also had tea-party foods - finger sandwiches, little tea cookies, veggies and dip, and of course, tea for the adults, lemonade for the kiddos.

Aisling was so very excited, she couldn't keep herself from bouncing around the house. She wore her new navy sailor dress, and her new sandals. Unfortunately, she was so excited and twirling around the house so much she crashed and burned into the blue chair in the living room. She did bump her head and required a bit of ice, rest, and TLC. Once her first guests arrived, though, she was up and back at it!

The girls had a great time making tea party hats with ribbons, the paperflowers, and tons of little stickers. Mason also jumped in to make a top hat for himself, but the other boys were too busy playing with cars and trains to make a hat. After the hat making, the girls ran off to play until food was ready. The kids chowed down and then returned to playing, which was for just a few minutes. Aisling took time to stop and play with Jillian, to practice her "big sister" skills! The kids all did such a great job of playing together without any squabbling or being rough about toys.

Aisling had specifically requested a cake with flowers on it, and I was happy to make that. It was a strawberry cake, frosted with vanilla whipped cream cheese frosting, then had a fun time decorating it with the flowers and greenery that Aisling picked from Trader Joe's. She chose white lilies and pink gerber daisies, which were perfect for her theme.

We gathered everyone together and sang Happy Birthday...which of course had me a little teary, as it does every year! She made a wish and blew out her candle easily, then chose to dig right in to a cupcake. It apparently wasn't doing it for her though, and she wanted a piece of cake too. No problem, she's the birthday girl, why not? After cake it was on to the presents.

Aisling received so many wonderful gifts - clothes, games, princess toys, a cupcake set, etc. As soon as all the presents were open she did a wonderful job of sitting down with Sabrina and Ainsley to play with the new loot. There were a few negotiations about who would play with what, but since the party was over and most everyone had gone home, it was easier for Aisling to share.

The afternoon ended with Aisling and Ainsley chilling out and playing, and then Aisling had an early bedtime. We'll be getting her ready and packed for her weeklong vacation at the beach without us!

Easter all week

2009-04-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

It was a week full of Easter activities! We colored eggs with Ainsley on the 8th, had an easter egg hunt at Aisling's school on the 10th, and then Easter came the 12th. Aisling was excited all week for Easter, looking forward to what the Easter bunny would be bringing her. She thinks that the Easter bunny is looking for her to be good like Santa does. We haven't told her any differently!

She received an Easter basket full of stickers, bubbles, and other fun gifts. The Easter Bunny had a great time placing eggs all around the house for her to find. She needed a little bit of help to find all of them (a function of being really tired!) but as soon as she found them she would come racing back to her basket to open them and dump all the candy.

We got ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa's later that afternoon. She really was excited to dress up in her butterfly dress, although she was disappointed she had to wear tights and a tshirt underneath it. It was unseasonably cold! The Easter Bunny had left more eggs at Grandma's but outside for her to hunt! She didn't seem to mind the temperatures, even though the Bunny was crafty and hid the eggs in hard places like the truck tailpipe and in the middle of a pot of pansies!

Aisling was thrilled about the amount of candy in her eggs and spent the rest of the afternoon chowing on candy even though we tried to moderate it. Not surprisingly, she didn't eat much dinner, and was a crab going to bed. But all in all it was a wonderful weekend!

Butterfly House!

2009-04-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

We decided to head to the Butterfly House to take advantage of the gorgeous warm weather and overcast skies (which are perfect for the humid dome the butterflies are housed in). Aisling was very excited to go, and really had fun trying to sit still so a butterfly would land on her. Unfortunately they didn't land on her, but one of the striking blue ones landed on my sunglasses. She thought that was pretty neat and enjoyed watching it.

She and Chuck had a great time walking through the insect displays in the lobby (while I was grossed out, I couldn't get too close to the hissing cockroaches and spiders). After a few minutes it was clear she had energy to burn so we headed outside to play on the great playground in the park. She demonstrated a new skill - going down the fireman's pole! We weren't sure she would do it, as she's recently been showing us fear of certain things, but once she watched another kid do it, she took a chance. She mastered it quickly!

We left after about 30 minutes though, as the warm weather was replaced by more typical cool, very cloudy, northern wind conditions.

Jake's birthday at Vetta!

2009-04-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

Today was Jake's birthday! He actually turns 4 on April 8th, but his party was today, and we were thrilled to celebrate with him.

The party was at Vetta, which has a soccer area and a huge bounce-house area. The kids started out in the soccer area, then rotated into the bounce houses. Aisling was surprisingly shy around Jake's friends, but after about 15 minutes she warmed up enough to go and play in the bounce houses. She found Jake too, and ran around after him. About 10 minutes before it was time to stop and eat, Aisling came over to me complaining that she was tired and didn't want to jump anymore. That's really unusual! But I was happy to just sit on the floor and hold her.

Jake had pizza and a cute soccer ball birthday cake....Aisling ate more than her fair share of pizza, and then ate the icing off the cake. We said goodbye to Jake and climbed into the car, where Aisling declared she was tired and really wanted to take a nap. That was fine by me!

Dinner, smores, and movie night

2009-03-28T10:20:00.000-07:00

Aisling was excited to discover that Ainsley was coming over for dinner, smores and a movie night! The girls had a good time, really playing with each other. We were cracking up listening to their conversations, which seem so adult in so many ways!

After dinner we made smores, Aisling's favorite dessert snack. She always gets it all over her face! Ainsley isn't as fond of them, she'd rather just eat the chocolate separately. After the girls got cleaned up, we put them in their pajamas and settled them in for movie night - Tinkerbell!

Carter came to play!

2009-03-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

Aisling was so excited to have Carter and his parents Jenn and Bill come over for dinner and playtime. Carter enjoyed playing with all of Aisling's cars and train stuff, especially her Harold the Helicopter. That caused a few hurt feelings as Aisling wasn't so sure she wanted to share that with him, but it all worked out in the end. Carter also loved her little playhouse, and Aisling and he had a good time playing in it before dinner.

The kids were wonderful during dinner (a wonderful night to cook out!) and then we went inside to play some more. Carter and Aisling had a great time in her bedroom - she loves showing off her new big girl room. Around 8pm we all called it a night - bedtime! We're looking forward to having Carter, Jenn and Bill back for dinner again soon.

Crazy hair day!

2009-03-05T22:07:00.000-08:00

Aisling has been celebrating Dr. Seuss week at school, and today was crazy hair day! I asked her as I was getting her dressed how she wanted to do her hair, and she said she wanted a bunch of "ponies". When I asked her how many she wanted, she said 8! I wasn't sure she really had enough hair for 8 but we tried, and managed to get 8 in.

She was one of the very few kids who actually did anything crazy with her hair, and so they made a big deal out of it at school. They had fun colors to spray in her hair, and asked Chuck if that was ok - of course it was! She had a great time.

When she came home, worn out from a day of hard playing at school, she and Chuck chilled out and played cars in the living room floor. They had a great time!

Ainsley's Birthday Party!

2009-02-19T20:58:00.000-08:00

Aisling was invited to Ainsley's birthday party. She had a wonderful time, although she was surprisingly shy around all of Ainsley's school friends. It was interesting to see the roles reversed - usually Ainsley is more reserved about participating but this time it was Aisling. She eventually warmed up and had a wonderful time. She wore herself out completely though, and at the very end she had me hold her because she was just so tired. It was good timing though, because it was nearly time for cake and ice cream. Ainsley received a ton of wonderful presents, and Aisling was very good about not trying to jump in to help open them. At the end of the night, we headed back home and Aisling was asleep in 5 minutes flat.

Getting ready for Valentine's Day

2009-02-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

Aisling has been so excited about Valentine's Day, and anxious to decorate her box for school. We finally got the chance to do this - Chuck started it with her and he ran out of ideas (and patience). I jumped in and we finished it up with hawaiian flowers, glitter dots, and princess stickers. She was thrilled to take it to school and thought it looked really great! As a matter of fact, she was anxious to show it off to her new teacher, Ms. Holly, whom she thought would absolutely love it. Chuck said they made a big deal over her box!

Trip to the zoo!

2009-02-01T20:29:00.000-08:00

We were all going stir crazy, so Melissa and I decided to take the girls to the zoo! It was a nice day, and although most of the animals were hanging out inside, we took the opportunity to go to the Children's Zoo. The girls had a great time looking at everything they could, and playing with the displays at the Children's Zoo. It was a nice diversion from a winter day!

Practicing to be a big sister

2009-02-01T19:26:00.000-08:00

We got some time to spend with the Bucheks today! It's been a long time and we were happy to have them over for dinner, Christmas gift exchange, and playtime. Aisling and Jake played really nicely together and had a wonderful time. The kids really were on their best behavior during dinner, too! And, Aisling got to practice being a big sister with Jillian, who very much put up with Aisling's fledgling baby-holding technique. Aisling was very gentle with Jillian, and told us later she hopes the baby is a sister.

First best snowfall of the year!

2009-01-28T19:53:00.000-08:00

We had an amazing snowfall! Aisling was begging to go sledding so I promised her I would pick her up early to do so. I snuck out of work around 3pm and we headed off to the hills in the subdivision to sled. Aisling had a great time, only got scared once. She almost ended up in the water going down the one hill but I stopped her in time. She was thrilled I was able to get myself on the sled with her, and go down the hills with her.

So much fun, I haven't been sledding since I was a kid! Pure joy on her face.

Dewey's Pizza and Magic House!

2009-01-17T19:37:00.000-08:00

We decided to meet with Ainsley and Melissa at Dewey's Pizza and head to Magic House for some fun! I was very impressed with the girls' ability to be patient during the 20 minute wait for a table at Dewey's, and was doubly impressed with the amount of pizza both girls put down! They had a wonderful time at Magic House and enjoyed exploring the new side of it, especially the dress up room where they could wear any costume they wanted while acting out fairy tales. Great fun!

Earlier in the day, Aisling drew a pretty cool flower - very stylized, and I'm glad we captured it on the camera. She's beginning to really put some form behind her drawings.

Checking out Monkey Joe's

2009-01-04T19:06:00.000-08:00

Melissa was searching for an option for Ainsley's 4th birthday party, and had the bright idea to check out Monkey Joe's. We got invited along! You can imagine Aisling's excitement to find out she was going to get to bounce all afternoon long.

She had a great time, and Ainsley finally warmed up to the bouncing, too. They wore themselves out completely. The only downside came when an 8 or 9 year old boy came running through full speed ahead at the same time Aisling was coming out of an inflatable, and he ran right over her. He hit her so hard she was knocked to the ground and had a huge bruise on her cheekbone. One other parent who witnessed the whole thing asked if she was ok, and went to get a "referee". He told her about the boy as apparently he was running rampant and not being supervised in the least. Aisling needed cuddling for about 10 minutes, and then she finally decided she was ok enough to go play some more. But they didn't last too much longer - and we headed off to a pizza place for pizza and ice cream.

The girls discovered the game room after they ate, and found some motorcycles to play on. They loved them and all the dads in the game room were cracking up at the girls. It was quite cute!

Carriage ride at Tilles Park!

2009-01-03T18:50:00.000-08:00

We took the girls for a ride in a carriage through Tilles Park! Ainsley and Aisling exchanged presents, ate dinner, then off we went. They loved all the lights and thought the music in the park was pretty neat.Once we got back to the house, the girls played hard - they came out of Aisling's bedroom after getting her in to her Ariel swimsuit. We haven't laughed that hard in awhile! It was a nice way to wrap up the holidays.

Late Christmas in Kansas City

2008-12-28T20:23:00.000-08:00

We were seriously overdue for a trip to Kansas City, and so we had a planned late Christmas with family there. We headed up to KC on Friday, and arrived around 4pm after an uneventful ride in. Once we got checked into the hotel, though, Aisling decided she wanted to swim before we did anything else. Well, that was not to be - we didn't have time to before headed for dinner, and we all needed to just relax from a long trip. That resulted in a serious meltdown and loss of pool privileges for the evening. Unfortunately, that turned out to be our only opportunity to go swimming all weekend.

We got her calmed down and watched a movie, then headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner. Aisling was happy to see then, even if it took a little while longer than we expected to warm back up. But Uncle Jim and Michael managed to break the ice with her by playing and joking around. She seems to think they are "gentle giants". We headed back to the hotel late in the night and gave Aisling a nice warm bath - she was pretty easy to get to bed.

KC suffered a huge windstorm that night, that took out the power in the area we stayed in. We woke up to a continental breakfast, rather than the usual hot breakfast. That wasn't so bad, but we didn't realize the extent of the problem until I went to take a shower. Surprise, there was NO hot water available thanks to the power outage. The hotel's generator only supplied power to the electrical outlets and lights. This was an unpleasant surprise but we figured that we would come back later in the evening and things would be back to normal. We did check at the front desk, as I realized the pool would probably remain closed for a while - the temperature would probably drop quickly, and they couldn't run the pump. Aisling was devastated, especially since she lost her privilege the night before.

We were able to get her cheered up a little by heading over to Grandma and Grandpa's. Right off the bat she got to open her Christmas presents - some very cute clothes and some wonderful books. Uncle Jim and Michael got her playing and entertained her enough for me, Mom and Dad to go do some banking business. When we returned, however, we found Aisling with a huge fat lip and three men all too willing to tell us what happened! Seems Aisling was playing in the TV room, dancing around, and started to run up the three stairs but missed. She tore the flap of skin between her lip and gum again, but this time really badly. She also bit her lip pretty badly. But she seemed to be ok with a little TLC and ice, and was chilling out watching cartoons with Uncle Jim. More of the extended family came over and prepared dinner, and we all chowed down. Aisling did a great job eating vegetables, and it's been awhile since we've seen that! We left around 8pm and headed over to Beth and Bill's house to exchange presents with Liberty.

Liberty was thrilled to see Aisling, and Aisling was thrilled to see her as well! The girls immediately ran up to Liberty's room and tore it apart with all of her toys. They came back downstairs and had a great time playing Elefun, then headed back upstairs for more fun! They exchanged their gifts and that's when things got a little territorial. A little juice and snack calmed everything down, and all was well. They had such a great time that it was really hard to get Aisling ready to leave. We made it back to the hotel at 10pm, and stopped in at the front desk.

Much to our dismay, the power was still off, and the hotel was COLD. Aisling was devastated - she couldn't even get a hot bath to play in. We got some extra blankets, cleaned her up a bit, and tucked her in to bed. We climbed in ourselves and crashed completely. Some time during the night the power did come back on, but not in enough time to fix the pool situation. Again, we were treated to a cold continental breakfast....but we didn't care too much, we had hot water! We called Grandma and Grandpa to tell them we would be a little later than usual, as we wanted her to have some time playing in the water. We went downstairs to check out later, and talked to the general manager. Aisling had such a sad look on her face, and was so disappointed, that the general manager took pity on her. We got a free night for future use...and to make it up to Aisling, she gave her a little panda bear to take home. That finallly brought a smile to her face! We headed off to Grandma and Grandpa's house to make waffles for breakfast.

We had a wonderful time in KC, mostly relaxing although a little stressful with the hotel situation. Aisling still isn't over not getting to swim. But, we'll be back in KC sometime soon and can change that situation for her.

Christmas Day 2008!

2008-12-25T19:50:00.000-08:00

Aisling surprised us by sleeping in until 8:30 this morning, and then not being too anxious to go open presents! She did come running in to our room saying, "Wake up, Momma and Dada, it'ssnuggle for just a minute. Chuck got the camera ready and Aisling and I made ourselves somewhat presentable, then decided to head out into the family room. Aisling rounded the corner of the hallway then got a HUGE smile on her face when she saw all the presents that Santa left her! She showed some restraint, though, checking out to see if Santa ate all her cookies. She thought that since they were gone, perhaps he had shared them with his reindeer. I'm thinking though Santa was WISHING he'd shared them as I know Santa had a big dinner Christmas Eve!

Santa brought her a new playground ball, a new pair of jammies, a puzzle, and some Tinkerbell and Hello Kitty underwear. She was pretty confused about that - "Momma, why did Santa bring me new underwear?". Uh oh, I guess we'd better make a note for Santa that she's not so comfortable with him bringing her underwear from now on! She then looked through her stocking and found a ton of new, fun stuff. After that, we stopped for some coffee and munchies, then headed to the living room.

Aisling was thrilled to see the presents under the tree - I think she kind of forgot about all of them! She received a new football, a responsibility chart, more new jammies, and another box of legos among other things. Funny, she shook the box of legos before opening it and said, "Wow, I have more legos!", We cracked up but didn't tell her she was right. She then opened her new camera and was thrilled, and started taking pictures right away. She got some good ones, too!

After all the present opening, she jumped down into the floor to play with all the toys she had received from Christmas Eve and Day! Grandma and Grandpa came over later that day to see all the loot and we were all still in our jammies! Chuck made Christmas dinner, we pigged out, then had a relaxed evening. It was a great Christmas!

Christmas Eve 2008

2008-12-24T20:07:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve started off with Aisling and Chuck relaxing at home while I had to work! They apparently played, watched TV, and ran some errands.....all was well until about 2:30. I received an instant message from Chuck, saying Aisling had a massive wet accident in her carseat. I was already closing up my office, so I rushed home and found Chuck dismantling the carseat and Aisling quietly watching him, completely bare of clothing. I asked Aisling what happened, and she said, "Dada drove too slow home." I had to chuckle at that - she DID try to tell him at Trader Joe's that she needed to go, but he persuaded her to hang on until they were home. They headed to Walgreens and then home, where instead of getting her out of the car right away, he proceeded to check the mail then come back and let her out of her carseat. Lesson learned!

We got the mess cleaned up and got dressed to go to Grandma and Grandpa Renner's for the family celebration. Aisling was very excited and having a hard time listening and following directions. As soon as we got there, she ran in to check out the tree and figure out which presents were hers. Then she paid attention to her cousins, and played with them until dinner time. She was quite the ham, soaking up as much attention as possible as well as showing off her sassiness. She didn't each much dinner, despite Aunt Jill's coaxing, and instead ran off to sit in front of the presents. Grandma rounded up all the adults and granddaughters to open gifts and do the ornament exchange. This year, Aisling was all about opening every gift, then going back to closely look at what she received. Last year, she was enthralled by with opening the gift, figuring out what it was, and trying to play with it before moving on! She received a ton of playdoh, lots of coloring books, art supplies, and some clothing, a Thomas train, two Hotwheels sets, pajamas, books, and one of her favorite gifts - a handmade fleece Tinkerbell blanket that her favorite cousin Heather made her. She was exhausted after opening all those gifts, and immediately wanted to wear a set of her new pajamas for the rest of the night. She ended up playing with her blanket and her cousins until we came home. It was all we could do to keep her awake enough to put cookies and milk out for Santa, then go to bed. She was more than willing!

Altogether, it was a good night, and Christmas Day should be a ton of fun!

Pictures with Santa

2008-12-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

It's a busy week! We've already had Aisling's school program, and tonight we took Ainsley and Aisling to see Santa together. The girls had a great time playing in the germ pit for a few minutes, then we went to stand in line to see Santa. The girls were really excited! Thankfully they were able to be distracted by the TV in line showing all sorts of clips of Christmas movies. Eventually they got to sit on Santa's lap, where Aisling gave the weirdest, cheesiest, craziest, most unnatural smiles we had ever seen. It was almost like she was practicing to be a model or something! She didn't tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas (I don't think she honestly knows what she wants!) but did give him a hug and said thank you, then rooted for a candy cane on the way out.

We returned to the germ pit where the girls played for a long time and got really tired. As we were saying goodbyes, Aisling started to melt down about a number of things - needing a drink, not wanting to put her coat on, you name it, she was upset about it! The funniest part of the night was when we got to the car. She and I had a disagreement about her zipper - she wouldn't zip it up past her belly button and it was frigid outside. I pulled it up, she pulled it back down. I put her in the carseat, and got her arms in the straps. I quickly pulled the zipper up and snapped her buckle shut so she couldn't lower it! Feeling rather victorius, I got in the car and Chuck started driving us home. We started hearing screeches of frustration, and Chuck asked her what was wrong. She was mad because she couldn't get the zipper down! We told her it was ok and kept going...suddenly we hear a, "Dammit!". Then again..."Dammit!" Then, more emphatically, "Dammit!!!" It was all we could do to keep from laughing out loud - she was so frustrated and exasperated and she was using the word in the correct context! Oh, and her solution to her frustration was to pull the zipper ALL the way up so the hood and mouth flap were up and closed. She was proud of herself!

Holiday program at preschool

2008-12-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

Tonight was Aisling's preschool holiday program! This year as a Daffodil she got to sing the Peppermint Stick song and Jingle Bell Rock.

We rushed home from school to eat a quick dinner and get dressed. Grandma was going to meet us there to see the program, and so we got out of the house on time and to school a bit early! Aisling was thrilled to meet up with her classroom friend Fiona, and the girls hung out in the chairs before they were called into the hallway to wait. Aisling apparently waited very patiently in the hallway, although I'm sure it was very hard for her!

It took them a minute to come in and get assembled, but when they did, the kids stood perfectly still for their first song. I was impressed! "I took a lick of my peppermint stick, and I thought it tasted yummy! It once was on my Christmas tree but it's better in my tummy." Then the got gussied up for Jingle Bell Rock with sunglasses and microphones they made in class. Aisling didn't know all the words but she really tried! She was one of the few kids who was swinging her hips around and dancing to the rhythm. It was very very cute, I couldn't stop laughing.

She was proud of herself and came to give me a kiss afterwards, then was happy to see Grandma. After the last classroom performed, she was really anxious to go on the other side of the gym to play with the basketballs that were out. However, she was so tired that we decided to persuade her to leave. No easy task - once she gets her mind set on something, she is hard to redirect! Eventually we got her home and after a bath she was asleep pretty quickly. It was, in her words, "a long day, right Momma?"

We decorated the tree today

2008-12-14T21:11:00.000-08:00

Aisling had been begging for us to decorate the tree for a few days, so we accomplished it tonight. She was not very patient with the process, and was really struggling to get the ornaments to hang in the middle of the branches, not the end of them. We didn't break any ornaments this year but it seemed like more a of a chore this year than last year. Aisling did seem to have fun, and asked me about a bunch of the different ornaments and where they came from. It was neat to explain the ones that especially were hers and Chuck's. She loves playing with them!

Seriously fat lip

2008-12-10T20:59:00.000-08:00

Aisling apparently had a serious crash and burn with her friend, Ethan, at school today! Because of the cruddy weather (so cold outside) the kids were playing in the gym today. Ethan and Aisling were apparently running in the gym, but somehow were running without seeing each other! The top of Ethan's head connected with Aisling's lip and mouth, and she fell over, with him landing on the top of her back. When the teachers picked her up, she was crying and her lip was already swollen - but she became really alarmed at a pool of blood she left on the gym floor! The teachers tried to call me but couldn't get a hold of me, but were able to get Chuck. He went up to assess, since she was bleeding so much, and brought her a new shirt too. It turns out that not only was her upper lip cut form hitting her teeth, the little connector piece of skin between the upper lip and gums was completely broken. That's where all the blood was coming from.

He did ask her if she wanted to eat lunch, and by that time, she had calmed down a lot. She went back in to her classroom and decided she did not want to come home for the rest of the day! When I picked her up, her lip was quite swollen and a little purple. I'm sure it's going to hurt for quite a long time.

Gingerbread house

2008-12-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

Aisling and Ainsley got to hang with Chuck all afternoon while Melissa and I went Christmas shopping. They apparently had a grand time, with no squabbles (at least, not that he would admit to). Melissa and I carefully stashed all the goods in the car and got dinner underway. The girls were thrilled to see us, and even more excited to know that we would be making gingerbread houses after dinner! That was interesting, as Aisling thought for certain that the gingerbread was the kind that you could eat. Imagine her surprise when she also discovered the decorations were icing and candy! It was really hard to keep her from chowing on the candy (which couldn't have tasted all that great, anyway!). She kept losing the pieces of candy but we managed to decorate almost all of the house, including the sidewalk! Ainsley got a little tired of it more quickly, but her house turned out cute as well. The girls were in a fantastic mood and Ainsley even allowed Aisling to give her a hug! The night ended a little later than usual but the girls were very ready for bed. Aisling is proud of her gingerbread house, and wants to know when she can eat it.

It's fall!

2008-11-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

Chuck and Aisling decided to try to let me relax today, and went outside to rake the leaves. Well, Chuck raked, and Aisling jumped. They were out for a long time, and I heard her laughing and giggling the entire time! I decided to join them and get a little exercise, too. Aisling really didn't want me to mess up her piles of leaves - she was pretty adamant, "Momma, don't rake them too high!". Even though it was a little chilly outside, she didn't seem to mind and spent quite a bit of time playing. Thankfully she wore herself out! She actually took a nap, and that allowed Chuck and I to finish up getting the leaved raked and bagged. I imagine that will be her last nap for awhile.

Ainsley came to play

2008-11-06T20:25:00.000-08:00

Ainsley and Melissa came over for dinner and playtime, since it had been awhile for the girls to get together. They really did a nice job of playing together and even decided to play Elefun cooperatively! They are truly growing up - they have some pretty funny conversations together, and it's neat to see them interacting in more big-kid ways.

It was really a pretty relaxed night, and they are looking forward to spending some more time together soon.

Halloween!

2008-10-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

Aisling was so excited for Halloween, and couldn't stop talking about trick or treating. Ainsley was coming over to trick or treat after school so we knew we were going to have a tight schedule. Aisling was in a fantastic mood when I picked her up, and we headed home to get dinner ready. When Melissa and Ainsley arrived, the girls finished the little bat pumpkins by making silly eyes and sticking them on the pumpkins, as well as inserting the wings. After dinner, the Aisling and I changed into our costumes (Melissa and Ainsley were already ready!) and Chuck finished hanging some last minute decorations on the door. They lit the pumpkins and took some fun pictures, then off we went! (And yes, I was the witch to Aisling's Dorothy - I figure she'll appreciate this picture when she's a teen.)

We were really selective about which houses to go to, as we did have some interesting experiences last year. It was also a tad chilly and we didn't want to be cold on a long walk around the neighborhood. Overall the turnout of trick or treaters was really light this year, and we didn't run in to many groups on the street. More than one neighbor commented on Aisling's strategically small pumpkin basket for treats...we stuffed as much as we could in there then it gave us a reason to call it a day. :) Sabrina also stopped by to trick or treat at our house - she looked really cute as a princess!

The girls came back to check out their loot and give candy to the few other trick or treaters we had. They settled in to watch Aisling's new Tinkerbell movie (which she was so proud that she bought with her own saved up money a few days ago!) and soon it was time for Ainsley to head home. All in all a great night, although I'm sure the candy frenzy will begin tomorrow!

Halloween Prep

2008-10-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

Took us some time to get the pumpkins done! We ran pretty close to out of time, but we're still juggling a lot of hospital visits, holiday stuff, work, and daily chores. We're just glad to have gotten this far! Aisling and I started to scoop out pumpkin guts (or goo, as she called it) so she and Dada could finish carving the pumpkins. The details are a bit of a surprise -Aisling only said that she wanted a happy and a scary pumpkin. She also set to work putting the second coat of black paint on the littler pumpkins so we could finish them. She was a good helper and had a great time!