Sibling Warriors

Both Dylan and Ryan were gallant enough to jump into their "Atlantic" swimming pool because it was SO COLD. I did encourage them to wait until the weather and water were warming it up. But their determination and stubbornness didn't stop them, they decided to show their bravery and stayed in the water from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. (Of course, they stopped for a lunch break with no lethal weapons.)

After they had a lunch, they decided to become soldiers against their own blood sibling. Their only weapon was wrestling each other in the water. Nope, that didn't increase our blood pressures -- we instead enjoyed watching them from our patio chairs and laughed. Soon, they surrendered the War at the end of five hours of so-called fighting.

Within five hours of surviving in a cold water and wrestling in the swimming pool, it certainly did wipe Dylan out. He took a two hour of nap while Ryan did not take a nap at all. While Dylan was taking a nap, Ryan did it on his own serenity times: reading books, playing with the computer--nothing special on that day.

When the night of 4th of July fell, the four of us went out to watch the fireworks at a nearby free shopping parking lots. (We were being thrifty at this moment.) At the end of their "Sibling War" Dylan and Ryan were like best friends: hugging and holding each others' hands. It was a beautiful way of watching both of our "soldiers" sharing their joviality by jumping ups and downs when the fireworks shot up on a beautiful night. Their enduring energies lasted until we headed for home. But we, as parents, were already pooped out.

Good grief, we all survived without killing each other-- just loving and kissing to each other before we hit the sack.

Water Squirting

Both Dylan and Ryan needed to beat the heat in Eastlake area. It was 85 degrees after 5:30 P.M! So, we ended up deciding visiting Barnes and Noble Bookstore and eating our outdoor dinner at our nearby shopping center. It was really nice and relaxing evening for four of us.

However, both of our boys begged us to let them play with the Water Squirting. We eventually knew they would jump and splash into fun with water squirting all over their dry clothes. But we were surprised that at first, they ran around the circle of the water squirting. It was like they were cautious before getting them into completely soaked!

Once they got wet, they did the experiments by putting their feet on the top of the water squirting, letting the water goes through in their shirts, and watching their toy cars flipping over the water squirting. After an hour of playing, they started clenching their teeth. Unfortunately, they were completely soaked until we arrived home due to not bringing any extra dry clothes. The next time will do !

The next visit at our nearby shopping center, they have the choices: running toward the water squirts, using coloring chalks at the Chalk Garden, sitting in a front of a fireplace, or rolling it over the green grass. Without a doubt, we will bring extra clothes as a back-up.

Box Tops

Have you ever thought about how did the Box Tops created the donations for schools? Typical of me, I did some research about the Box Tops. It stated that it started back in 1998 through by putting it on the tops of the cereals such as Cheeritos, Total and other Family Favorites. Now, more than 10 years of using Box Tops, it had donated over than 175 million dollars! That is awful a lot of money. Don't you ever wish you could use it for home especially doing the remodeling, face lifted, getting new cars, or going out for family adventures??
Well since we are not able to use the money for ourselves, I, as an educator, find myself that the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in all ages; K-12 needs a boost from Box Tops. . I was thinking of collecting all the Box Tops to purchase a sign language book for every family in order to communicate with their deaf and hard of hearing child. Unfortunately, many of them do have little or no communication at home. It certainly affects to their knowledge in education because they spend 75 % of the times at home while the deaf and hard of hearing students received 25 of the times learning at school due to have a continuous communication. I know it is sad but that is the fact. That is main reason why so many deaf and hard of hearing students read below fourth grade level.

As an educator, I do have a big heart for my deaf and hard of hearing students from Elementary to High School Level. I hope you would have a heart for me by donating the Box Tops. This would be greatly appreciated.

Topless Writer

It's Dylan, who wanted to become a writer, decided to go out for a topless!

Actually, I found a huge pencil in his backpack after he came back from a field trip at San Diego County Fair aka Del Mar Fair. When I first saw it, I cracked myself up (dunno why I did this, but I thought it was funny because he LOVES to write.) Believe it or not, he even wrote comments on Ryan's and my high school picture, and School Program Book! It makes all senses that he likes to write anything he finds inside and outside of the house.

Perhaps that explains he thinks clearly when he goes out for a topless!

Ryan's Progress

Can you believe Ryan has graduated from pre-school? It is so hard to believe that he actually is going to Kindergarten this coming Fall. He has done remarkable well within one and a half year.

Both my husband and I have witnessed the positive changes in Ryan while he was in Pre-school. When he first started attending Pre-school, he would scream, shut his eyes, being so aloof, and threw things up in the air such as shoes and toys. It was extremely difficult for us to see our son having bad times, but we had a faith that he would make a room for an improvement.

During his first winter performance, he was shy and unable to sing. But this has changed to being able to sing the Winter/Spring songs, even “1, 2, 3 Flying Birds.” At his Pre-school graduation. he even could answer the teacher’s questions in a front of the ceremony, “ Tell me what is your name, What is your favorite thing about school? What do you want to be when you grow up?” (I’ve put in McClellan’s Media: Ryan’s Graduation Speech)

Between his first sixth month of school to now, Ryan started picking the words up by saying from two to eight words in a sentence. (Just remember he has Persuasive Development Disorder- Non- Known as Autism with 18 months of speech and language delay.) It is a slow progress but he does speak a lot more clearly lately. At most of the times, it is easy for people to understand if he speaks louder.

Few examples he would say:
1) I cut hair with scissors (He did a night before and he was very impressed with himself that he did.)

2) Thank you, Mrs. Morales for getting me my favorite corn.

3) Hey Ginger, do you want to watch Winnie the Pooh with me? (He grabbed her hands when they first greeted each other.)

4) It’s time to get up Tiggers. I want to see my Tiggers. (That’s the name of his class group. He wanted to wake them up from kids’ nap.)

5) Hey Mrs. Morales, Wake up, Lazybones! (She was pretending to take a nap)

His socialization has improved a lot. Just remember that last year, he only would play by himself almost all day. Now, he would sit and play with his classmates for a longer period of time. He even came up to a new student who was crying on his first day of school. Ryan took this new student's hands, “Come here. It is okay. You will be okay.” Isn’t that cute? He even applauded to the other students when playing basketball, “Good Job, that was great.” That was because he often hears from me, teachers, and his speech therapist.

His academic skills are incredibly good when it comes to a lot of visual pictures while he is weak on his logical concepts. As a proud parent, he is the only ones know how to spell the calendar months without looking at the calander, recognizes the numbers up to 100, and few other related academics.

It means a lot to us that the teachers at the Grey Rabbit Pre-School put a lot of their patience for my sons, Dylan and Ryan, who attended this school, especially Ryan. Thank you staff at The Grey Rabbit Pre-School. Salutation !

Frankly, David and I do not have any regrets for putting him in a small private school for the last one and a half year. That is my strongest philosophy to put him in a small mainstream classroom because it enhances a child's overall performance even with a slight disability. Without doubt, that makes BIG differences in his life: speech/language, socializing and interacting. That’s something we always are grateful that God has put it in our hands. We continue to believe that he would continue to make progresses through by my help, his future teachers and the people who love him.

Speech Therapy

Don’t ever think about going to speech therapy can be boring! Every time, I bring my younger son, Ryan to speech therapy lesson twice a week at Children’s Hospital, I find it interesting. He does enjoy going to speech therapy. He cooperates both in structure and play approaches very well.

Attending Speech Therapy has changed over decades. When I was young, I attended speech therapy twice a week, just like Ryan, and having speech lesson at home daily. It was ONLY structure approach. Boy, I felt SO BAD for my mom and the speech therapist that suffered with my temper tantrum by wiping the stuff off the table. (Mom, please forgive my bad manners.) Just image that I had to practice with my tongue in a front of a mirror, blowing with the feathers, using my fingers over my noses and neck. Using this structure method, I have attended speech therapy for the first thirteen years of my life. This old fashioned approach has paid it off. Look at my life right now ! I am able to communicate with others without relying on hearing adults or a sign language interpreter.

Currently, I am being paid back for doing the same thing for my younger son, Ryan because I wanted to see him able at least to communicate with others. However, his speech lesson is a lot better than in my time. In his first year, it was extremely difficult for Ryan to stay on task because his speech therapist was going through trial and errors by finding it out what is the best approach. In a very short time, she quickly discovered that he learns best through by both structure and play approaches in order to stay on task.

With his structure approach, he currently is working on his pronouns (He/She) by looking at the picture, preposition phrases (Behind/In a Front/Next) by doing hand-on activities and Verb Actions by saying it in a sentence such as “He is driving a car.” He is improving gradually by getting between 50 to 80 % accuracy during his Structure Approach. Of course, he likes getting “high five” praises. That is what I did at home. He often says, “High Five, Good Job, Great Job” to his peers at his school.

After he has accomplished at least 5 to 10 trials, then he can play for a minute. During one minute play, he can talk about the activities he is using (Farm Animals, Birthday Party, Trains, and few other activities.) When one-minute timer ticks, he goes straight back to his structure approaches. He repeats the same thing until the speech lesson has ended. His rewarding for doing the good work and behaving well was getting, guess what? It is Anti-Bacteria Hand Lotion! I know it may sound strange to you, but he loves the blue dots in Anti-Bacteria Hand Lotion.

Not only doing the lessons at Children’s Hospital, he does have mini lessons at home with me daily. He knows that he gets rewards if he has accomplished his task such as getting a small sticker, and Sugar-Free Icee that he loves.

That’s something I am not repentant myself putting him in a speech therapy lesson at Children’s Hospital. He is very fortunately to have an outstanding therapist who sees what he needs to improve. She also gives me several new ideas to work with him at home. For instance, if your child is able to answer your simple questions, always make comments because it will force a child to express a lot more. It is a lot harder for me not to ask him questions. Rather than forgetting not to ask him questions, I instead would say, “Tell me more about this.” This challenges me but this is an excellent experience for me as a mom, not as an educator.

Even attending both speech therapy and his private pre-school has made differences in his life, he is now speaking less jargons, speaking more clearly, interacting and communicating with others. Lately for a month, I have been getting positive reports from speech therapist, teachers and relatives that he is talking clearly, interacting and making more eye contacts. It felt so good to compare from a year ago to now—yet I will continue to assist him throughout Ryan’s life.

Summer Housewife

Yippie, summer is here ! Before I actually have a summer vacation, can you image the looks I had it on my face when my boss, the principal, telling me two days before the school was out that I had to pack everything in boxes?(It does not mean I'm fired from the job. It is just that I will not have a classroom this Fall, just floating it around from one classroom to another. Oh well, at least I have a job. Why should I complain? ) However from that moment, I made my mind up to clean, pack and throw the unnecessary stuff within a week. Guess what? I've accomplished my goal for cleaning my classroom out within two days. I guess my mind was on a fire because I desperately am looking forward to being a summer housewife.

As a summer housewife, I still have tons of things to do inside and outside of the house. My three main destinations for the summer while Dylan and Ryan are with me for an entire summer are:

1) Of course, spend the quality of times with my sons, Dylan and Ryan in both educated and unrelated education activities daily. I can't help with my minor role being a teacher. Also, don't get envy if we get tans from doing the activities.

2) Paint everything upstairs at night while the kids are in bed ( still in my bedroom.) You will have to bear with my dark circle eyes whenever we get together, or see pictures of me.

3) Organize things after throwing lots of old stuff around ( I already did quite a lot this week.) Any volunteer would be granted if you take our stuff :-)

Despite of getting lots of sweaty and smelly over the summer, it is so nice to be a summer housewife when I don't get paid :-) Why should I complain since I don't have to worry about getting up really early for work??? I would rather to have my sweethearts, Dylan and Ryan tucking their little hands and bodies by me.

So, I am playing tagging games. You will need to tell me what is your destination over this summer. Perhaps you can give me tips to speed my goals especially having kids around.