O turns 13 years old...

On Jan 3rd it was official: we have a 13 year old... its been quite a ride with this one. Never a dull moment and we are constantly kept on our toes. Every year brings its own joys and challenges. Seems like not so long ago we were rocking our sweet babe to sleep that very first night. Happy Birthday to our first born!! We love you no matter what and we always will. 

Not super often we get to see this smiley face!! 

This face is more what I see most days.

Photos were taken by Slow Road Photo in our garage last September when we realized school photos weren't probably happening this year with Covid. I didn't get a school photo last year of O so I wasn't going to miss another year. 

We celebrated O's birthday with lots of Nintendo switch time and their favorite dinner from Pancheros. We also ate more ice cream for dessert. They opened their gift too which was a whole bunch of colorful new t-shirts (I know, we are super awesome parents!)

O has also been taking long naps some days when things are too stressful. Some days it's close to three hours and we have to wake them up. Most often those naps are because we have completely stressed them out asking weather or not they did their schoolwork. 

February in one blog post...

Apparently February came and went without a moments hesitation.

On the first day of February Auntie Mick came over to hang a bunch of picture frames that had been in storage for 6 long years or more. I gathered it all and put it into piles and stressed about where to hang it all. In a few short hours Auntie Mick had a vast majority of it hung on all the newly painted walls. AND it turned out FABULOUS! I mean- she transformed the house into an actual home with the way she hung all the photos. Our hallway she turned into a magical family gallery space! I love walking down this hallway and seeing the years of family photos now.

We had our traditional yearly visit to our friends house down in Apple Valley to watch the superbowl. Always tons to eat and a great time had by all.

We had a few family dinner with Mormor and Morfar. Sometimes at our house and sometimes at theirs.  We miss eating big dinners with them. After dinner we would try to play a game or two so that we could have a little extra bonding time.

On Feb 7th we went to the school I work at for a district wide chess tournament. Lucius played with a bunch of his school buddies and of course walked away with yet another trophy.

Of course, an hour into the tournament I recieved a call from O's school telling me that O fell on the playground at recess and hit their head. I had to leave Luicus at the tournament and spent two hours at urgent care for kiddo number one. Mild concussion and a bit of a strained neck from falling over a railing at school recess. Hit the back of their head on the metal railing, a wood beam under the railing and the thick ice that covered the ground. Uffda. No reading, or screens for the weekend. No running or contact sports for the next week. O was not too thrilled to be BORED because O couldn't read or watch screens.

We got a new rug that I ordered online to bring all the new furniture together to make us a fancy livingroom space finally. Super exciting to see the house start it's final transformation after all this time working on it.

Throughout the winter I tried taking the kiddos to the Shoreview Community Pool for evening swim times. They both really love the water and since O didn't really want to continue with the ninja warrior course, I thought it was a good alternative.

As the weather started being slowly less cold (though I still thought they should have been in coats, but what do I know), they kids had fun with hockey sticks and a tennis ball in the driveway.

It had been a while (almost a month) since our last Library visit to borrow books. So when we finally got new books all our meals started looking like this... and our house like this...

Lucius continues to practice his new Trumpet...

And O officially came out to his best friend from the old school about the new name O prefers using at the new school.

Sound Therapy...

On February 5th we started Oliver on Sound Therapy in combination with his weekly OT sessions. Which means Oliver wears special headphones to listen to specially made music that will hopefully help his self-regulation, spacial awareness, and other sensory issues Oliver struggles with. OT has been a huge life saver for Oliver and our family. We've seen huge changes in how he is able to control outbursts and work with his peers. This is might actually be one of the last pieces of therapy we use this year. It looks like we might be taking a break from OT for the summer because Oliver has met a lot of his therapy goals and come a long way in understanding his triggers.

"Therapeutic Listening is a specific sound-based intervention that is embedded in a developmental and sensory integration perspective. The music in Therapeutic Listening gives the listener unique and precisely controlled sensory information. The music is electronically modified to highlight the parts of the sound spectrum that naturally capture attention and activate body movement, synchronizing it with the environment. Therapeutic Listening uses electronic modifications, along with the organized, rhythmical sound patterns inherent in music, to trigger the self-organizing capacities of the nervous system."- from the vital links therapeutic website.

Here's to progress. Oliver will still have SPD for the rest of his life but as he grows he may be better equipped to handle a lot of situations he was not able to handle in the past without his current therapy. We're currently on week 3 of 12 weeks of sound therapy. He has to listen to the music/ sounds twice a day for 30 minutes each time. Hoping for a smooth 12 weeks and seeing how this impacts his sensory stuff.

Giant Snow Slide...

On Tuesday we went to the boys school conferences and meet with their teachers. I love their school and all the staff that work with the boys. It's fantastic how much care we know they both receive from staff at their school on a daily basis and it's amazing. Well their teachers had nothing but really good things to say about them both. Oliver's Teacher said that he is improving on getting his homework done AND turned in (that's been an issue in the past). She also said that he has been able to work more independently and his frustrations are less than what they've been in the past. We've noticed big changes at home after having been in therapy for almost 6 months now, so we were glad to hear things have been improving at school.

Lucius' teacher told us that he has been working with his friend to test out of 3rd grade math. Which means he already tested out of 2nd grade (the grade he currently is in). He's been pushing himself to improve his multiplication and division skills. His friend and him work independently together and she said the work so well (a friendly, encouraging healthy kind of competition). So neat. He also has been working hard to improve his reading skills and it shows. He has been reading more and more lately out loud to us and I'm thoroughly impressed with how far he has come under she love and guidance. We really do have the best teachers!

Since we heard so many exciting and positive things at their school conferences we decided to take them out to dinner at the malt shop. Of course we had to each get our own flavor of malt!

Then we went over to see the snow sculptures and take a few rides on the giant snow slide at the Fairgrounds. It was super windy/ chilly so we didn't stay too long but we did go down the snow slide twice which was super fun. 

 

Oliver turns 10 years old...

This is my son whom I love to pieces. Oliver turned Ten years old. I never imagined the child I had a decade ago would teach me more than what I feel like I am teaching him.

This kid very outgoing and has more bravery in his little finger than I do in my whole introverted being. Taking an ounce of his courage I write this post because it has weighed on me of late.
O has his own unique sense of, well... everything. Though we tend to disagree about things from time to time, we always try to agree to learn from each other. There's so many words I could use to describe him and labels that would be appropriate but why box him in. There's no box big enough to contain him and he continues to break every idea people have of him anyways. 

his puppy eyes face

My amazing son has made it his personal mission to break down societies gender stereotypes. He gets very annoyed that the world feels it has to separate people into girls and boys. I feel his frustration. I grew up with the label “tomboy” because I loved all the boy things. Being a very gender non-conforming female, its was a very easy decision to allow him the same freedom to be gender creative. He is very confident and comfortable in his own skin. What’s more... His friends openly accept him for who he is, no matter what.

 (His Legolas hair after we watched the Hobbit movie. 

It took me about an hour cause I've never done a fishtail braid before.)

Happy Birthday to my amazing kiddo!! May you always find the courage to be who you want to be no matter what anyone else says. You will always be loved by me!

For Oliver's Birthday we went out to eat as a family with Mormor and Morfar to one of his favorite resturants, La Casita. Before we left he opened his gifts from his grandparents.

A few random photos of Oliver being himself:

This one his art teacher texted to me. He just finished making his torn paper landscape but he included the Eye of Sauron because it was right after watching the Hobbit movies. His art teacher said "the landscape looks too happy to be watched by Sauron." True- but who am I to argue with that happy face of his!

Ear Piercing...

The day after Christmas, or as Oliver wants to say "ear piercing day!" we went to see Auntie Dana's friend at a tattoo shop. She pierces ears with a hollow needle and not an earring gun. I know next to nothing about piercing so I referred to Auntie Dana on everything. Oliver, Oma, Auntie Dana and Myself walked into the shop and filled out the paperwork. We waited a bit in the lobby then walked back to her area. She asked who was going first and without a moment of hesitation Oliver jumped on his chance to FINALLY get his ears pierced.  He has been asking for this for about 6 months and I told him when he turned 10 he could do it. Mostly because I wanted him to really think about it. So he's been collecting earrings since August or so while he impatiently waited to get his ears pierced. It was a few days before he officially turned ten years old but it close enough.

 

Auntie Dana's friend was amazingly patient, answered ALL of Oliver's questions and pierced his ears. I was impressed that he did both and he didn't seem to find it painful in the least. He doesn't really like washing them or cleaning them but they are healing nicely.

Oma and Auntie Dana got their ears pierced after Oliver. Since it was a big family affair I was starting to feel left out, so I pierced my upper ear too. Now we can say "remember that time we all got our ears pierced?" Also- I knew I would probably forget to clean his piercings so I figured if I did mine we could keep each other accountable for washing them.