Bobby Had A Little Lamb

Bob sat down at the kitchen table to eat breakfast this morning.  He was sitting facing the glass door and looking outside.  Bob:  "There's a baby sheep."  Me:  "What?"  Bob:  "There's a lamb."  Me:  "What?"  Bob:  "A Lamb!"  Me:  "What are you talking about?"  Bob:  "THERE IS A LAMB OUTSIDE!!!"  I go over to the door, look outside and I can't believe my eyes, there indeed is a lamb on our back patio...

I think that the Easter Bunny must have sent him to check up on Bobby, make sure that he was being a good boy (like a Christmas Elf!!).

Zoi came over to see what all the fuss was about and went crazy.  We were afraid that she was going to bust through the glass door jumping and barking at the lamb.  We let her outside into her fenced area and the lamb ran up over the hill.  We haven't seen it since.

Bob took Bobby outside to play for a little while before he had to go to work (yes, he actually had to work on a Sunday).

Baseball anyone??

After Daddy left for work, Bobby said:  "Go ride in the car."  Since it was an actual sentence, I had to take him for a ride!  We went to the WV welcome center (which is across I 79 from our house) and stopped so that I could test out my zoom lens towards our house...

Bobby waiting patiently in the car while Mommy played "camera"...

We went and picked up Grandma Carolyn and took an old fashioned Sunday drive.  Grandma wanted to ride through Wyatt where her mom grew up.  Here's the school where Grandma Prahl and her siblings went to school...

Before we dropped Grandma Carolyn off at home, we stopped at the Middletown Mall to do some shopping...

It was extra crowded today!  See, there is another person in the mall...

if you squint, you can see him in the background.  Actually, we went to the mall so that Bobby could walk around without a crowd.  He even decided to set up the Easter Bunny display...

We finally made it home from Bobby's big "ride in car" and are just hanging out, missing Daddy while he is at work.  Bobby even got Daddy's new Hawaii hat and tried it out...

Time to cozy up on the couch and watch some TV and try to get Bobby to bed early.  He was up until 10:30 last night, will be even worse tonight dealing with the time change.  Fun!!

AWWWWW MAN!!!!

Yesterday was a great weather day.  68 degrees, partly sunny, breezy...a day when you know that spring is near.  When the trees (to purchase) start appearing in front of the stores, Bob gets excited.  He loves decorative trees.  Trees are his "thing."  Bob ended up taking yesterday off of work and we went and bought some new trees, mulch and soil.  While we were out we stopped at Lowe's and got a new sump pump and some PVC pipe for my mom's basement to hopefully help with future flooding. 

My remote key chain has a button that powers the back window of the 4 Runner.  When we left Lowe's, I lowered the back window with the remote, we loaded up and off we went to pick Bobby up from school.  We knew when we got him that there was no way that he was going to go inside when we got home so we knew that our afternoon and evening were going to be spent outdoors.

Bobby was excited with the pipe in the back end of the car, he climbed right on in and checked out the angles...

I also put out Bobby's bin of potting soil.  He went back and forth from the car to the potting soil having a great time...

Bob was happily working on planting his new trees...

And me, well I was out with my camera happily taking pictures of my favorite subjects.  An awesome afternoon for the Smith family!!! 

Bobby's new shirt from Hawaii.  Grandma made it home!!

Daddy got out the hose to water his tree, so I thought of a fun thing for Bobby to do...wash the car.  He loves to "wash" cars, really he loves to play in the water.  I went over to the 4 Runner and shut the back hatch.  My mouth dropped open and thoughts started racing in my head....

Oh My God, I just busted the blankety, blank windshield.  Oh My God, I just busted the blankety, blank windshield.  OH MY GOD, I JUST BUSTED THE FREAKING WINDSHIELD!!!!

Bob took it way better than I did.  Bob- "Why are you so upset?  Did you MEAN to break the windshield?"   I finally calmed down and called the glass place.  So tomorrow morning I get to take it in and spend $254 on a new windshield.  Wow, that is one expensive car wash, that never even happened!!! 

I didn't take any more pictures for the evening.  Bob continued planting his trees and one of our neighbors came up and jumped with Bobby in the trampoline.  It was a perfect evening, except for the one big blankety, blank accident.  UUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!!  (There are so many more exciting ways that I would prefer to spend $254!!!!).

Helmet Head

Daddy is planning a big surprise for Bobby, a ride at the Burning Rock ATV Park, near Beckley, later this month.  Bob came across the Mud Buddies Foundation online when he was searching for trails to take Bobby to ride the Rhino.  The foundation works with persons with disabilities to provide "trail therapy," a great fun sensory experience for those with disabilities.  Bob emailed them and we are planning to take Bobby to the next ride.  The one problem that we have to overcome, Bobby has to wear a helmet and eye protection, not something that he enjoys at all.  Bobby has had a helmet for a while and now Bobby isn't allowed to ride in the Rhino unless he has his helmet on to prepare for the trip.

Next step will be to add eye protection.

One a totally unrelated topic, I have been trying out the zoom lens on my camera.  Here are a couple of shots of the University Town Center from our driveway...

Sam's Club and Walmart...

I need a tripod because it was a windy day (especially on top of our hill).  Our house is basically the same level as the Town Center, but we are 5 miles apart.  Hard to believe you can get that close with just a basic camera.

Squishy Baff

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Shelly told me about a sensory activity that Bobby might like.  She had bought it for Sonny, he wasn't having it, but Joey loved it.  The very next day on Live with Kelly they were showing the top new toys from the annual New York toy fair and they showed Squishy Baff, the same thing that Shelly was telling be about the day before.  Last week I was at Wal-Mart looking at play-doh toys and there was Squishy Baff sitting on the shelf right beside the play-doh, so I had to buy a box.

The box contains 2 baths worth of squishyness.  You fill your bathtub with 2 1/2 inches of luke warm water and add the first packet into the water and stir it around for the squishy part.  When you are finished with the bath, you add the 2nd packet to turn it back to water.

After you add the first packet, you have to wait 5-10 minutes for the squishyness to be ready.

This is a super thick, squishy bathtub full of kid fun.  So thick that it holds this cup upright...

When I came back in and felt the "water," I had serious doubts that Bobby would get in.  He sat on the side of the bathtub for a long time and just looked at the water, trying to figure out what to do...

He then did a spiderman over the bathtub, hovering over the tub with his hands and feet planted on the tub rim...

He finally did it, he put his feet in the water.  He never did sit down, but played in the squish for about 5 minutes.

He would put his hands in, scoop up and handful, drop it into the water then shake his hands like a wet dog to get the rest off.  When he was done, I got the 2nd packet to turn it back into water and it said that it takes 5-10 minutes to transform back.  Well, Bobby isn't going to wait 5-10 minutes for anything, so I had to get him out, dry him off, take him into the other bathroom, and rinse him off in the other bathtub.  I also had to keep adding water to the mixture when it was draining because it never really turned all the way back to water.  I finally had to wipe out the rest from my bathtub. 

The next time that we do this activity, we are going to do it outside in a baby pool (which they also talk about in the directions), where he can play in the squish all day, in and out as he pleases and I can just hose the goop off of him.  Seems to be a common theme with our sensory activities, much more fun if they were done outside.

Bobby dressed himself again, this time in my polar fleece top, upside down and inside out.

Playing in rice, beans, or the little water balls has become a routine part of Bobby's evenings.

More Sensory Fun

I read a blog posting about sensory activities that talked about little balls that absorb water and are used in floral displays.  I had never heard of or seen these before and just dismissed the idea.  Yesterday I went into the Dollar Tree store to look for a different, specific item to use in the sensory bin and saw this on the shelf...

I knew that this had to be what was descibed in the blog.  Since they were only $1, I bought 5 containers. 

They are small balls of water absorbent polymer and are packed in water.  Wet, slimy balls of fun!!  Bobby doesn't like wet, slimy foods so he didn't try to put them in him mouth.  The balls do not burst.  It's hard to explain, it's something you have to feel for yourself.

I think that it would be fun to fill up a baby pool with these outside and sit down and play.  That's been a common problem with these sensory activities.  Bobby could play so much better with them outside where he can be as messy as he would like.  But we need them for indoor play during the long winter months. 

Can you tell where Bobby was drying off his hands?

He liked this activity, didn't love it like the moon sand (or the rice and beans).  Defintely an activity to keep in the sensory activity rotation. 

Big Red Safety Box

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a posting on facebook for the Big Red Safety Box.  It was posted by a few different groups that I follow, so after the 3rd time I saw it, I decided to check it out.  All that you had to do was fill out a small form and submit it and they (Autism Speaks and the National Autism Association) would send you a free box of safety items geared specifically for those with autism who wander.  Wandering is such a problem in the autism community that it is now a medical diagnosis.  The reason that we need it to be a medical diagnosis is for school IEP's and to try to get insurance companies to help pay for the costly items that are available to help track these individuals.

I was excited about the kit that I immediately sent the information to a couple more of my friends that also deal with wandering.  By the time that they filled the form out, the kits were gone.  In 5 hours the 1000 free kits were gone.  Wandering is such an unfortunate problem in the autism community.  In fact it is our biggest issue with Bobby.

One of the questions on the form was, "why do you need this kit."  Bobby has wandered from our house 3 times so far.  Once he went to our neighbors house (luckily we live in a community with 7 houses and they know Bobby).  I was in a training recently where a father told about his child leaving their house without them knowing.  He was found (yes they were all out looking for him by then) when someone a few streets away called 911 because someone had entered their house, sat down and started using their computer.  Sounds funny, I know, but thank God that the boy entered this house and was not shot for intruding, didn't go into the house of a pediaphile, or enter some other horrible situation.  These are the things that keep autism parents up at night.  Bobby was also missing in the woods surrounding our house for around 45 minutes.  I called 911 and Bob went out on his 4 wheeler to look for him.  Bob finally found him and I called 911 and told them that Bobby was found and they immediately got off of the phone so that they could call off the search party.

When I called 911 all that I had to do was give them Bobby's name, his Project Lifesaver transmitter number and what Bobby was wearing.  911 immediately knew what I was talking about and have access to all of his information.  Bobby has been a Project Lifesaver client for almost 4 years.  He wears a LoJack tracking device all of the time.  He swims and bathes with his bracelet.  A volunteer from the Mon. Co. sheriffs office comes out monthly, in full uniform, to remove the bracelet, change the battery and put on a new band.  This is also so that the clients are used to the staff wearing police uniforms.  Bobby's physical description, photos and all other information is already accessible so that we don't have to stop and try to find a picture (which obviously in our case, would not be a hard thing, but some families aren't picture obsessed like me) and calm down and give this information.

Yesterday, our Big Red Safety Box arrived...

The kit contains 2 door alarms and 2 shoe tags (which open up and contain all of the childs information.  The directions also direct you to keep a hair clipping or a nail clipping of the child in a dry, secure place).

The kit also contains some great information for family plans, IEPs, safety checks...

If any of my autism friends want copies of these documents, let me know.  I will be more than happy to send them to you.  Again, this is information that you hate to think about, but it is a necessary evil if your child wanders. 

Baby oil and Bulldogs

I came across a recipe for a sensory activity on Pinterest (which, by the way, is a great place to search for sensory activities) for "Moon Sand" which was just odd enough that I had to try it out.  You take 8 cups of flour and add a cup of baby oil.  As I was mixing it, I thought, wow I could actually play in this stuff.  It feels like silk, reminding me off a silky baby blanket.  I don't understand rice and bean play, but I totally get this!!  Bobby could NOT wait for me to finish preparing.  He wanted to get his hands in NOW.

We got right in and started molding.  It molds well like wet sand and breaks apart very well, without the grittiness of sand.

Zoi came close and laid down.  "Can't believe he gets to make more messes in here.  Woof."

At this point, Bobby is still relatively clean.  Wonder how long it will last?

He's playing so nicely that I decide to get my mom's new Kindle Fire out and set it up for her.  Funny how you really get into what you are doing and stop paying attention to what else is going on.

Apparently Bobby's hair needed washed with some flour!!  Really he just likes to watch it fall in front of his eyes.

 I stopped and cleaned up a little.  Not too bad.  Time to get back to downloading facebook and Words with Friends for my mom!

By this time he was such a mess that I just had to snap a few pictures.

The mess was finally big enough that the fun had to stop.  Daddy even came in to help clean up.  When it was all over and the mess cleaned, Bobby tried to get some of the moon sand out of the garbage can so that he could play some more.  We will defintely do this activity again, but it will be moved outside next time.  He absolutely loved it!!

Later in the day, Bobby was playing outside in his dirt bin when Rosie the bulldog came up for a visit.  Bobby was less than excited.