Aloha Photos

Old Sugar Cane Tunnel - Kauai

Surfing Maui

Kauai

On Top of Diamond Head Oahu

Oahu

Oahu

Maui

Waikiki

Here is the Hubs giving Taj Burrow some pointers before his win at the Pipeline Masters.

Roger That, The Eagle Has Landed

Dad is home and back on duty!

He has some beautiful pictures from his journey but they are all trapped in his laptop so I will have to wait until I have access to that computer to post those. It was a reminder of just how BIG he owes me! :-)

Yesterday I posted about the Talkies and V/V program with Lindamood-Bell. I went by and saw my teacher friend and got the manual and dove right in and started making notes and then Miss M came home with a note from the teacher that read as follows:

Dear Parents,


I am so proud of your child Miss M and pleased to announce that she raised her reading and comprehension level from a level 2 to a level 6 (grade level is level 6). She also raised to a green level which is the top level on the Fair Reading Test.


Thank you for all that you do at home to help with your child's education. It is a pleasure to work with your child.


Mrs. Teacher

So that's great news that she is doing better but honestly what is with the dag-gum inconsistency? Literally one week I receive the she may be retained talk and the next week the note home saying how great she is doing.

She has been getting assistance with the inclusion teacher for reading and following our IEP meeting the teacher was instructed to give Miss M 20 to 30 minutes of individual help in the classroom daily. That is super because I think she needs one on one instruction and maybe her improved scores are a reflection of the one on one help. My concern is the one on one instruction is not part of the IEP, it is simply being done of the schools choice. So she needs the help but there is nothing to legally hold them to the help that she is getting. With out the help she is lost in class but I am concerned that since she has tested so well on this latest set of test that she is not going to qualify for any resource services as was indicated during the IEP meeting.

Any who, what to do? I am going to do what I can to use the talkies program at home with her, it can only strengthen her skills, and hope for the best! Also we may need to find the money to have her evaluated independently.

Day 6 on the RAD planet W.O.D. - I think

I think this is day 6, if not close enough.

Miss M was up last night from 2 AM on.  She has a lovely little talent in that she can make herself throw up.  Apparently she had some drainage going on and that just added to her cause and viola.  No fever, she ate like a champion at dinner, and requested dessert, no evidence of real illness.  It is so hard to know for sure.  She woke up at 2 AM and went to the potty and then reported that her pants were wet.  Which came first?  I'm not totally sure because at 2 AM I am not at my best, I'll be honest.

I think that this may be related to Dad not being here.  Dad calls every evening around our dinnertime and talks to Miss M and whatever other kids want to talk, the two boys are fickle.  Sometimes they want to talk and sometimes not.

I sent an e-mail to Miss M's teacher explaining the night and lack of sleep in the even that she had a sleepy 6 year old on her hands and wondered why.

Mr. C is not behaving well at all.  He also had his behavior marker moved in class yesterday.  Normally my two challenging children have excellent behavior in school.  So when either of them starts acting up at school it is a sign of just how much they are struggling. 

I am awaiting feed back from his teacher on the matter and am considering giving the psychiatrist a call.  I know that there are several students in his class who are acting up badly and that is very disruptive to him, that in addition to Dad being gone and it is just hard to know exactly what is upsetting his apple cart.

Mr. C age 3, Big Sis age 6, Miss m age 3

Day 4 on the RAD planet W.O.D. (without Dad)

Well I must say my little RADish is holding her own and doing quiet well behavior wise. She seems to be going through a bit of a down cycle bipolar wise at the moment - eating more, more difficulty sleeping, more moody and tearful which are some key things we were able to pin point with all the tracking we did. She is handling it all well and right in the mix of missing Daddy. She was feeling sleepy because it was bath time and she no like a da bath. I assured her it would be a quick one and just kept her moving forward. I put the bubble bath under her grumpy nose and said, "Doesn't that smell good? Bubbles or no bubbles in the bath tub tonight?" It is kind of humorous to watch her try to hang on to being grumpy and fight the fact that her brain is truly interested in what you have presented to her - BUBBLES!

Dad called from Hawaii, you know that place that is just up the road where he seems to be getting a lot of work done. She got to talk with him for a minute and that helped her move forward too.

Mr. C however is still in I'll be a butt thank you mode. He was belligerent and defiant with Mr. CBA and it took Mr. CBA an hour and a half to get his brain turned around and going the right way. He threw things at this man and refused to cooperate. This guy is good. He is persistent and calm and they always get to where they need to be.

We know that Mr. C has a food dye allergy. The reaction is that he gets hostile and aggressive. Those darn things are really difficult to stay away from. Even though he makes a really good effort sometimes something slips by at school and he eats a piece of candy with dye in it. Yep, one piece and he reacts.

So last week he wanted to put on a Mario Brothers sticker tattoo. I was against it because it has the dye in it. He was upset and felt he never gets to do what the other kids do because of the dye thing. I felt bad for him and said we would try it but that if his behavior went bad then never again with the tattoos. Once those dyes are in his system it takes days to work it's way out. I forgot that he was even wearing the tattoo but now I am considering if the tattoo and the dyes have had anything to do with his behavior.

Lil Bro has been doing great the past few days which is nice. Apparently it must be a Murphy’s Law that at least one kid has to be in be a butt mode, remember that on our trip it was Lil Bro's turn and Mr. C was doing well.

Big Sis is doing well all in all. She is still emotional with Dad not being here but seemed more with it today. Her homework load this week has been light which helps too.

Dad is missing everyone and said he is ready to come home.  I said, "Now that's love!  Almost 16 years of marriage, you are in Hawii and after 4 days you want to come home?  Man you have got it bad!  Which is good!" 
 
Mahalo!
 

Day 3 on the RAD planet W.O.D. (without Dad)

I thought that was a pretty catchy title I came up with, just sayin.

Sooooooooooo the little people around here are not too happy that Dad is not here.  He is a major player in this craziness and the apple cart is upset without him.  Lil Bro is doing okay and seems kind of out of sight out of mind at that moment but Mr. C is still in butt mode (as in being one) and Big Sis is all emotional on me and missing Daddy. 

In regards to Miss M I have to admit that we are kind of fudging the situation a little.  It is possible that we have promoted the idea that Dad is near by.  I mean really how far is Hawaii if you're 6 and have comprehension issues?  Not that far.  We have talked on the phone to Dad so he must be pretty near by, right?  That's a logical conclusion when you are 6, right?

It just seems that Dad has become the stabilizing affect (in part) for Miss M.  She seems more at ease when he is here, more secure.  I don't really know the 'why' of it and frankly I. Do. Not. Care.  I am just thankful that we have some stabilization!

For dinner tonight we had left over pasta and meat sauce, sweet potato and green beans so we were back on track with nutrition.  The boys wanted to PB and J on whole wheat/whole grain bread with applesauce and green beans so I was okay with that.  My alternate choice if you don't want the dinner is PB and J.

On a school note there is this link about comprehension on Miss M's "inclusion" teacher's web site.  I though it was really good.  It so describes Miss M's comprehension problem.  She catches bits and pieces or parts of what is said to her but does not form a complete picture.  Sometimes she catches enough bits and or pieces to get by with the picture of comprehension.  Other times she is completely lost.  The same thing is happening as she is learning to read. 

At any rate Mrs. Teacher has caught on that we are parents that care and want to help our child succeed.  She sent a note home on some work today where she had helped Miss M re-work incorrect math problems. 

These first two are just wrong, not sure of the process used.  Just rushing?  Not paying attention to what she was doing?  Don't know.
10-2= she put 3
6-3= she put 7

The next 5 she got correct.
9-2= 7
11-3=8
12-3=9
10-3=7 (she had put 8 but corrected that on her own)
8-1=7

The last 7 were wrong.
9-3= she put 12
6-1= she put 7
8-2= she put 10
11-2= she put 12
9-1= she put 10
7-3= she put 10
8-3= she put 11

So I can see where she flipped into adding the problems but how come those 5 problems in the middle went well and they seem slightly more difficult to me?  Is this consistent with comprehension problems?  Attention problems?

Mrs. Teacher's note read, "I helped Miss M with the ones she missed.  She says she understands now."

Miss M got 6 out of the 11 spelling words on the spelling test that we worked on ALL week.
wip (whip)
liglin (light)
wond (world)
again
chop
catch
yuor (erased that) youor (your)
again
wale (whale)
chin
match
She had again on there twice so I don't know if she omitted another word and the teacher did not catch it or what happened there.  There were 11 words this week and she has 11 words on her paper with the again in there twice.  At any rate a 55% on the spelling test is not helping her out any.

The report from Mr. Hawaii is that the surf is the biggest it has been since the 50's.  He ran across some professional surfer (who's name a forget) from Australia and they took a picture together.  He misses us all tons and his sleep schedule is all out of whack because of the time change.  Mahalo!

Day 2 - WOD (without Dad)

Sunday went okay all in all.  The Nanster and I decided to be industrious and finish grouting the living room for the Hubs.  He really may think twice before leaving me in charge again.  hee hee

Here I am hard at work.

The Nanster at work.

We finished it up this evening while the kids watched a video.

Notice in the pics that we are working directly next to the couch; this is where Miss M was (and Big Sis and Mr. C too most of the time)

We took the kids to Golden Coral for a late lunch.

This is Lil Bro not wanting to cooperate with the photo taking.

Following the Golden Pig Out we went to Wal-Mart for a few things for the kids lunches tomorrow. I suggested that we all pick out soup for dinner and so they picked out Spongebob soup and Princess Spaghetti O's. They also rented another DVD from the Red Box at Wal-Mart.

Let me just say that Mr. C has been a toot all day. He had a major tantrum and assaulted Nan. I dealt with the tantrum and video taped so that Mr. CBA can review it Tuesday. Mr. C had been non-stop machine gun style verbally harassing me through out the store because of his lack of ability to find a Red Box DVD that he wanted to watch. It wasn't fair, I never let him do anything, on and on blah blah blah etc. The whole perseverating on it thing as Mr. CBA calls. I call it pain in the butt syndrome but whatever.

As we were leaving the store he wanted to go back to Red Box for a DVD. I said, "Did you earn a DVD with your behavior in the store?" He said, "Why do you always answer my questions with your questions?" Cause I am a trained Mama that's why!

Anyway, he and Nan walk ahead of the rest of us and the sticker lady at the Wal-Mart says, "Do ya'll want a sticker?" I honestly wanted to slap her but I did not because that would not be Christian of me plus the whole video camera evidence thing. So she gives one to Big Sis, Miss M and Lil Bro. Lil Bro is not impressed and gave his to Big Sis because honestly she was the person closest to him. Miss M says, "That's not fair!" I said, "What's not fair?" "She has two stickers." I say, "Why does she have two?" "Because Lil Bro gave her his." "Right. So what's not fair?" At which point she gave me the quiet mad look and I moved forward toward the van where we found Mr. C nearly melting down and still perseverating on the whole DVD situation.

Anyway we all got in the van. The house is less than a mile away. We drive into the driveway and Big Sis has been singing some song on the radio and Miss M is trying to sing along too. In the past she did lots of things to simply annoy others but that is not what she was doing this time. She was being six, she admires her big sister and she wanted to sing along too. Big Sis decided that now was the perfect time to be 10 and tell Miss M that she "can't sing." We all remember that the sticker thing was 7 minutes ago at the Wal-Mart? So Miss M is ready to rage. She starts the angry crying and a scream session all at the same time followed immediately by stomping the back of the seat in front of her. We all move forward with unloading the grocery bags and I have the key to the house so I start directing the bag carriers to place the bags by the front door. I get on the phone to call the CBA who lives near by just in case he might be available to stop by because we now have Mr. C and Miss M going at it in the front yard at the same time and the only thing better than a melt down is a double melt down. I look at Nan and whisper we are not opening the front door we are going to take a walk because if we go in that door it's all over and the holes in the wall are going to start and we don't have The Hubs here to do CPI is need be. She said, "Right."

So I announced, "Come on everybody we are going to take a walk, hooray!" And I start heading down the street. Miss M stomps and protests but quickly starts to follow when I say, "Come on we are going for a walk." With in 30 seconds her brain switches back to positive and she wants to say sorry to Big Sis. I said we would take care of that in a minute because Big Sis was up ahead of us. In reality Big Sis needed to apologize for the rude comment that started the whole thing.

Mr. C is complaining, "I don't like to walk. My leg hurts. I can't believe we are out here walking when it looks like it is going to rain. Have you ever thought about it raining on us? What are we going to do if it rains on us?" To which I said, "Then we'll get wet but that's okay because you are not made out of sugar so you won't melt." He continued on and on and by this time we had walked a few blocks. I let Mr. C know that if he was not able to be all done with his complaining before we got back to the house then he would get to take another lap around the neighborhood with Mommy. He said, "I do not want to walk around this neighborhood all all day. Can you hear me Mom?" So I said, "Well then you better stop the complaining dear." Before we made it around the last leg of our lap toward the house he had become interested in something that Big Sis was talking about and he knocked it off. We all went into the house and preceded on with bath time and he kept a lid on it the rest of the evening and so did Miss M. Mr. C said, "How am I doing now? Aren't I doing better with my behavior now?"

So all in all a productive day and no one raged.

The end.

Here is a sweet pic of my baby blogger assistant who wandered out of his room where he was supposed to be sleeping.

 

Day 1 - WOD (without Dad)

So yeah Dad is in Hawaii and that leaves the Loo Loo Crew foot lose and fancy free on our own and in search of which adult is in charge.

Day 1 went okay. Miss M had multiple mood swings if you will but pulled up instead of crash and burn, always the preferred plan. We were out and about and had forgotten her mid-day med. I looked at Nan and Nan at me and as I said, "Do you think we should go home for the med?" Miss M broke lose with a angry crying jag. So yeah I made a beeline for the house and we picked up the meds and administered the mid-day dose.

From there we did a little thrift store shopping. Each kid had $3.00 of their money they could spend and the money was in pennies and various coins mainly. It started out all good because the casher is a sweet little lady who counts in Spanish, but then the line started backing up and the other customers were not so into my kids using their various earned coins. Not to mention I had my own cart full O treasure, arrrrr.

I was nice though because after my last kid counted their pennies and nickels for their bits of stuff I let the next few folks in the line check out a head of me and my cart O crap stuff. Sniff sniff get the tissues it's a tearjerker moment at the GW with my random act O kindness. The O would be so proud of me!

Miss M purchased yet another horse. Mr. C hit the jackpot and found a Mario as in Mario Super Brothers, a journal, a mini beanie bear and a coin purse with a string on it for his lunch money on Fridays - Yes! Winner!

Lil Bro picked out a truck. It was a tractor-trailer style truck that really hauls hot wheel cars, I was so impressed! He came home and stuffed a train in there that clearly did not fit but that's another story. We nearly had a dilemma in deciding on a pair of Spiderman shoes or the truck. I said, "Which one buddy you pick, truck or shoes?" The Nanster said, "He isn't going to get what you are asking him. You know this right?" My smart 3 year old said, "Truck!" And proceeded to pull off the Spiderman shoes and hand them to me. And I was all like, "Ha! Don't under estimate the toddler dude! Cause he rocks!"  That and we have totally had that discussion in the GW a few times and he knows when Mama says pick she means it and you are not leaving with both items.

Big Sis was packin the big bucks and was able to by a scooter for $6.00 and yet another stuffed Chihuahua dog with a sweater. Thank goodness she found that because that is EXACTLY what we need, another stuffed animal. Will they never catch on that I go through the stuffed animals every few months and donate them to the GW? Such is the circle of life.

We also made a stop by the Steak and Shake. Kids eat free on Saturday with every $8.00 you spend, so we also got shakes!

The only thing better than a little Loo Loo in your day is when you sugar them up!  (btw that is chocolate chips in Miss M's teeth if you enlarge the pic)

For dinner we went to the frozen food isle and Mom let the kids pick which dinner they wanted.  They were totally cool with that.  The Nanster and I had corn dogs, loaded potato skins and a salad for dinner.  I think when the Hubs reads this he is going to know that leaving me in charge was probably not the way to go.

Alooooooooha!

Alooooha

HAWAII

Guess who's on their way to Hawaii today?

It's NOT me!  See this good looking guy in this photo?  He is on a jet plane as we speakin!

That little cutie in the photo with him?  Staying home with Mama and the rest of the Loo Loo Crew.

This autta be good. 

Do we have a plan?

Oh yes we have a plan. 

It's called PRN meds, a psychologist who lives in the area and has and will arrive at our house in less than 5 minutes when needed, a Psychiatrist home number, a CBA's cell phone number and PRAYER! 

Keep them comin!

To Be Continued...