Swear Jar

Diary of a Wimpy Kid has come in handy again. Zachary announced he was going to make a Swear Jar. He explained it to John, and then announced he was going to get rich. John asked him what it would cost him if he said an inappropriate word, and Zachary said, "$1." In our house, curse words of course are off limits, but so is calling people names like idiot or dumb, and then there is s*cks and cr*p. John is going to go broke if he is not careful. And I'll tell you one thing, my son does not have a hearing problem.

A friend of mine the other day was meeting me and she said s*cks, and Zachary busted her. She is our first contributor. Zachary has officially set up the jar. So if you plan to stop by, either watch what you say or come with your ones.

Puzzlemania

During the summer, Zachary takes to assembling puzzles. He actually is on his fourth puzzle right now. He's so sweet to watch. He quietly works on these 750-1000 piece puzzles. I had some friends over the other day and they didn't even know he was in the other room the whole hour and a half. He loves it when we help too. I've promised to do a piece a day, although I normally get sucked into more pieces. "Just one more, and then I am stopping."

We started at the lake with our family reunion. We had about 8-10 people working on this puzzle at various times.

Work in progress.

A completed puzzle (he's in his swim jammers), which came apart right after he finished and took 3-4 pictures. John nearly died after we worked on this for so long. He said the other day he wanted to build it again, and then frame it. And the puzzle on the right, thanks to Aunt Kathy, is our newest challenge.

Family Reunion 2011

I'm a bit behind on my posts, but for those who were not at our reunion, this is worth seeing. We often have an ice cream freeze contest, accompanied with a skit. The skit and ice cream are voted on separately.

Mom came up with the clever idea of dressing as Wal-martians. I was pleasantly surprised that John was willing to dress the part too. So once we decided on our skit, we had to think of an ice cream to match. We decided to make B.S. - Beer Sorbet. And surprisingly we only got 2 votes. We came in second on the skit though.

We competed against Uncle Mike's Irish Cream, which apparently was pretty lucky because he won the taste off. Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bill brought "Whataicecream" with all the fixings, and it was da-gone delicious (but not low-fat). Aunt Ruth and Uncle Steve brought their own booty-lisheous ice cream for non-dairy fans. And Eric and Ryan, with their families, added the Swamp People with a tasty treat of pistachio ice cream.

And a few photos for your viewing pleasure (in order of mention above)...

And last, but not least, the Walmartians...

Walmartian in training...

Junk mail

Too much, I say! It is just too much junk mail, so back in April, I decided I would get my name taken off these mailing lists. I spend about 30 minutes 1x a week calling, and now it is only about every other week. It doesn't take much time, and I cannot tell you how little junk mail I receive. I know many of you are thinking you don't have time for this, but I came across an additional solution too...dmachoice.org. You can select which catalogs, magazines, and other mail offerings you receive. You can be specific on the catalog or say "none" to all of them. That is one place to start.

This photo is just the ones I have called and noted the dates. Of course when you call they tell you it might take 4-8 weeks to be effective, but I don't care. I check additional junk mail received against those I have called and toss them. It is so freeing not getting all that in the box. I was to the point that I only checked my mail 1x a week because I hated to get so much junk. If everyone would do this, think of the trees we would save, and the amount of time we would regain.

People, take a stand against Junk Mail! Reclaim your lives and save the trees!!!

PS I know I've been a bad blogger. I want to post Zachary's solo from his play, but the time it could take to extract just that part is weighing heavy on my shoulders. Oh the stress! Just kidding.

Swim Team

I decided I wanted Zachary to be a better swimmer about a year ago, but his therapy schedule would not allow it. I thought it was important since he does not seem to understand drowning.

I mentioned swim team to him last summer, and he has talked about it off and on all year long. We started the last week in April, and have been swimming Monday through Friday for an hour per day ever since. Zachary really likes it and wants to be faster and better. I have been so impressed with him and how he has improved. They learn four strokes and let me tell you, there are a lot of pieces of information to coordinate. And with group instruction, well, that can be a challenge in itself.

Last week was our first Swim Meet. And it was chaos! People everywhere, at 6:30, and most of them smiling. Some are crazy, hard core swimmers. I figure as long as Zachary is enjoying it and improving, we are right on track. He raced in three events and was a trooper from 6A until about 12:30. I was glad we did not have to stay for any relays.

Thought you would want to see how he is beefing up now that he is a swimmer!

Lions and Tigers and Bear, oh my!

None of these animals showed up this week, however, we did have "trimming and washing and mowing, oh my!" Zachary has decided he wants to be responsible and with that decision he has decided to learn few new tasks. Mowing the lawn, doing laundry, trimming his nails, ironing his clothes, and cleaning house. It does help that three of these are Scout tasks for a pin he needs. Here are a few pics of from our exciting first week of Summer. We are loving the new, responsible Zachary...

He is going to make some wife extremely proud when he shows her he can clean and do laundry. I'm training him up in the right way, not only for a wife, but for me too...less chores sooner than later. I just hope he keeps the positive attitude.

Warms a mother's heart

A long overdue milestone was accomplished this past month. There was a program we worked on with Zachary when he first started therapy. It was called Joint Attention. What it requires is for a person to attend to another person's actions. So for example, if I pointed at something, anyone standing near me might look in that direction. The most common one I think of is when you are in the grocery and you smile at a crying baby (I tend to make a funny face), and they stop and respond.

In Zachary's case, he never responded to a person smiling or pointing. It was just a blank stare. But the other day, he did. He was doing homework, and I was just watching him work. I smiled at him when he looked up, and then he smiled right back. I can't tell you what that meant to me. Never take your child's smile for granted. It has always been such hard work to get Zachary to smile. And here in this instant, he was smiling back, welcoming me into his heart. And the cool thing, is it was not a one time deal. He did with his Pops also when we were visiting last weekend.
Therapy work continues to pay off...even eight years after we started!