Renewal/update

I should post something. Really I should. Right? It's late, though and the kids are all asleep and we have a big day at church. Well, as long as I'm here and you're twisting my arm...

Big weeks, and they keep flying right on by. We've had some gorgeous weather. Think shorts and short sleeves. Think planting peas and potatoes and onions and garlic. The garden dirt is all aerated, mixed, rich and loamy, like something you'd want to scoop up and eat, had it not been most recently the chicken yard. Now the rain is back, just in time to water the tiny sprouting peas, encourage those potatoes, and hopefully ruin at least a couple of onions or garlic. Seriously. I never thought I'd be fine with the decline of baby vegetables, but who actually needs two or more rows of onions and garlic? I guess if they all grow and the economy really tanks big, we'll have to rely on them for immune system support, so never mind. Pray for raging success. Thank you.

The evil sinus bug that's been trying to knock some of us flat seems to really be leaving. I think the recovery is thanks to a combination of getting to play in the warm sunshine and Mucinex-D. After all this I'd do a commercial for them. Well, as long as it didn't involve the green slime characters.

The big kids are doing well. Piano and violin practice go on, flying toward spring recitals. Q is progressing nicely.

Last week, he got to play with the PRC ECO. Wow. More cool stuff. He was really interested in the screen and the colors. Getting to choose which color of ball got dropped down the tube was awesome for him. The funniest part is that toward the end, when it got a little bit complicated, I swear he totally got it. The settings on the screen with a switch (button to press) combination meant that if he wanted the red ball, he had to wait until the green box highlighted the splotch of red on the ECO screen, then hit the switch. The Speech Path guy doing the testing then dropped the red ball down the tube maze and Q giggled accordingly. In order to move on, Q had to hit the switch again to restart the color selection process, then wait until the green highlight box got to the color he wanted and hit it again, before it moved on to say, purple, which we didn't have in actual balls, just as a choice on the screen. After a couple of times of watching the highlighter box go through the whole set of colors and hitting the switch for random colors, Q settled on red. He'd hit the switch, the ball would go and he would giggle, and then he'd hit the switch again, rapidly, twice, so he was both restarting the selection process and hitting it again before it could move on to a different color. And the ball would go and he would giggle.

He did this a few times in a row, getting faster and more appropriate each time. Watching him, I was thinking that if he had that box (ECO) for a few days, he'd gladly spend an hour at a time with it, much as he has when he's had help with other toys that he figures out fairly quickly, but has to work with to perfect his combination of motor planning and cognitive planning. I really think that if he had it for an hour, he'd figure out that choosing the arrow means that you go back a screen to three choices of "games." That the eraser makes things go away. That yes, he likes purple, even though he doesn't see it as much as say red, and that it might even be his favorite.

Q tries to sneak up to the mouse or keyboard if he's on someone's lap here at the computer at home. He very often succeeds. He's erased things for me, the sneaky little monkey. (heh) And in OT, he uses the touch screen and the head switch set-up with flair. This week he used both to get to new pictures and even follow directions. His motor planning trips him up constantly for the following of directions, but he gets it eventually. I wish I had something more to just give him, something to make this less of a struggle, especially in the way of equipment.

Speaking of wishing for things, Melanie has a couple of great posts up at Daniel's blog: Better Than Normal. She's quoting someone else who's blog I haven't read, but after that entry (4/09/09), I will be. If I can ever get there (too much to do).

Right now, I'm going to go sleep. Perchance to dream. Or not -- sometimes those dreams just poke at a person and it would be nice to be not poked at in one's sleep time. It would be nice to just sleep.

Have a luverly Easter, all. Hope you're celebrating Resurrection with your dearly held ones. XO.