Dear Noah:

Well you had speech therapy today. I know you went to bed WAY TOO LATE last night...but you still got 9 hours of sleep. However, you do better with 10 hours! I was a little anxious about how you would do today as sometimes you are more easily upset and overloaded on days when you are a bit tired. BUT then again that is NOT always the case as there are times you do very very well when a bit tired and sit well and listen well. As usual, there is no rhyme or reasoning to WHEN you will do what you end up doing!

So....for a few days to weeks now you have been a bit more anxious about things in general and more easily upset and you have had a bit of an attitude! Needless to say you have once again started to twirl, twist and pull your hair to the point where it is yanked out. You are well on your way to once again looking like a little monk with no hair on top but all this hair on the sides and back. The hair that is left on the one side is all broken off from you pulling it all the time. We have gently encouraged you to use the twirlys again instead of your hair...which is basically anything that is like a rubber band but easier to twirl and stretch and pull and twist. Rubber banded-type headbands work very well for this. AND a few stuffed toys have a rubber banded type handle on the one ends that you also use. BUT it has been CONSTANT reminding and encouraging. I am hopeful and prayerful that you will soon stop or get it under control enough that you won't end up pulling all the hair out on top of your head like you did before. I wonder if others that see that think WE are the ones pulling your hair out? I guess once they see you sitting around for awhile they would soon see for themselves it is YOU pulling it and twirling it actually OUT of your head!

So we got to speech therapy. You started out upset as another little boy was in there and I mean LITTLE, not even walking yet....who was playing with the beads in the waiting area. I reminded you he was a lot smaller and they were EVERYONE's beads and not your own. BUT you were upset. The baby went back to his mother and you grabbed your beads and put them on a table to play with by yourself. Whenever the little boy came too close you got alarmed however and I was so afraid you would knock him down or throw the entire beads at him to get him away. I think the mother sensed this too as she made sure to keep her baby away so you could play.

BUT when the speech therapist came out and you saw her you waved and wanted her attention right away...but she was busy talking to the other boy's mother and that upset you. But what upset you even more was the fact that the little baby came back over while I was talking to you and sat in the chair you had been in and was now playing once again with the beads. You had a holy fit. Jumped up and down about 10 times and yelled. Not a complete meltdown or temper tantrum but! I went over and explained to you again how that was NOT acceptable behavior and not the way you ever acted but especially in public places and around smaller kids and that you had to SHARE the beads and therapist with others! You did not like it but calmed down. Then you proceeded to tell me that by the time the therapist was ready for you it would be AFTER YOUR lunch time. AND you cried and cried. I got you calmed down in seconds thankfully and made you realize it was not even time to START your therapy yet let alone have it be over or past time.

However, once in the room with the therapist you did extremely well. You sat well and listened well. You do extremely well one-on-one. We then took you to Burger King afterwards to a new one....and they had a small play area. You ate and played and another little girl came in and played with you and again you did very well.

We came home and I knew you were already overloaded because you looked pale, you were very withdrawn in the car and looked like we had drugged you and you kept putting your head down as far as you could get it below your knees even while sitting in your car seat. I have seen this same stance from you when we are in a store shopping and you get overloaded. You end up standing on the end of the shopping cart and put your head literally down INSIDE the cart as far as it will go never bringing it back up again till we leave the store! I guess in a way that acts as blinders to what is going on in your environment and helps to stop any additional overload from coming into your system.

I then gave you a break and let you have some alone time and time to do whatever you wanted. Then we did homeschool. We worked on nouns and proper nouns and adjectives and contractions and compound words and punctuation. I want to teach you to start WRITING sentences soon so we need to teach you all the parts of the sentences and words first.

We worked on our study of Egypt and the Pharoah and hieroglyphics. I don't think I spelled that right. Shows how much mommy knows! We worked on graphs which you love!

We worked on a new song and made a book about apples. You even drew some things and worked on writing them out. We have been doing a lot of verbal math. It amazes me how well you do in math. I mean you can already add 1, 2, 3, 4 digit numbers as well as subtract. We were in the dollar store yesterday and you quickly surmised that 3, 60-minute tapes added up to 180 minutes. Amazing! You can tell me quickly what 4500 minus 10 is and things like that. You can add 2 digit numbers. Even 3 and 2 digit numbers together. ALL IN YOUR HEAD. On paper you sometimes have a harder time which makes no sense to me...but I guess that is how your brain is wired!

We will review LIVING and NON-LIVING things tomorrow as you still don't quite grasp that concept completely. We will then start on the Earth and study rocks and 3 elements of matter and planets. And then the weather again. In the spring we will once again review plants, seeds, and animal cycles of life. And then we will again go over the human body.

We are working on projects with apples for the next week or so. We will then switch over to PUMPKINs and do things for fall in October and again in November. We will begin American History in November by studying the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock. I thought that would be a great way to start it. We will continue on in geography. You already know the continents and oceans. You know most of the state capitals. We will learn more about our state Colorado this year.

You already know your coins and values and how to count out money to BUY things but we will continue on with that. We will also learn different forms of measurements using measuring cups, scales and measuring spoons as well work more using the ruler and tape measure. You will learn to cook some simple things that do not require using a hot stove or oven. Daddy and you will be making some crockpot applesauce this week one day.

We will be taking a field trip to the Butterfly Pavilion and the zoo or Natural Museum of History. We may take a long day and go to a different zoo completely. We will also go out hunting for leaves and make a leaf book and rocks and make a rock display. I also want to make some dioramas this year with you.

As you can see we are just as excited about homeschooling as you if not more and so look forward to it!

So...tomorrow is occupational therapy. Hopefully you will do very well but I already know you will as you absolutely LOVE that time. Today I did have you working with scissors and you did hold them correctly and cut better. All in all you are doing great. I will work with shoelace tying again tonight to review before tomorrow.

There you have it. Busy busy bee you are.

I love you!

Mommy

So tomorrow is occupational therapy.