Magical Wednesday

Here are the last of the "historical" photos from March. These ones are from Mustang's fourth Family Day (march 14th)! We visited her favourite Chinese restaurant with her favourite friends.

Magical Tuesday

Here are some more "historical" photos, from back in March.

Crow tracks

A visit to the Farm

At the beginning of March break we visited the local Farm. It was our first visit since last fall, and we were keen to see the baby animals. Well, see them we did! We missed witnessing the actual birth of this calf by about 5 minutes. But we saw as it lay in the straw - looking a little stunned - and as the mother gave it a good licking - I mean, cleaning.

Then we went and visited the other animals. At the end of our tour, we went back to the barn to check out the new calf and witnessed its first attempts to stand and its first successful suckling. Very cool!

Eeyore

In the dairy barn's "maternity" wing, we saw another cow who had given birth to twins just a couple of days prior. They were hale and hearty already.

And here is friend Pigster, decked out in her March break finery.

Magical Monday

I've been lax in posting real family pictures here recently. I've been taking them, but the transfer to the computer, and from computer to blog, just hasn't been happening. Here are a few to make up for "lost time"! These date from March - we don't have snow any more!!!

Riding lessons

A visit to the Sugar Shack

Puppy !!! (or should I say puppies…?)

As many of you are aware, we have a guinea pig. She’s a calico-coloured, long-haired little critter who is very shy and timid. The kids like to play with her, but she’s not particularly active. I had thought we might get a male and have some babies, but over the months we’ve had her (almost two years by now) I’ve observed that she’s likely not the best pet for my active kids. So why get another one when they’ll not be played with all that often, and can’t run around freely outside and go for walks and the like?

Instead, over the past year I’ve been quietly thinking of getting a dog. Quietly, because the instant I let the kids in on my musings they’d be all over me, relentlessly… But in the last two months my thinking progressed, first, to active consideration, and second, to active looking. And third, now, to actual arrangements to buy one! Yikes!

I’ve long like Labs for their gentle natures and placid personalities – good traits in a house with active kids. But they are big dogs and do, it seems, tend to shed a fair bit. Yet all my research into breeds seemed to point towards the Lab as a good choice. A good non-shedding dog is, it seems, the poodle, which is also a very intelligent breed – both highly desirable qualities. Plus they come in smaller sizes. But I’ve never cared for the poodle look – particularly the really fancy puff haircuts, though I guess one doesn’t always have to have them clipped that way. So I started to consider a Labradoodle. The more I read about them, the more it seemed to be the right choice.

Next step was to find a breeder. There are a couple in Ontario and many more in Alberta and BC. Only a few of them breed the smallest-sized Labradoodles, which is what I wanted, and only one or two of those expected to have puppies available between now and summer. The complicating factor was that I wanted an “intact” female, whereas most of the breeders sell the puppies already desexed. But – based on my fond memories of our dachshund having three litters of puppies when I was a child – I wanted to be able to breed our dog. So I contacted a couple of the breeders to ask about possibilities.

Turns out that an intact breeding female is rather expensive. (Heck, a Labradoodle puppy is expensive, a breeding female is that much more!!!) But then one of the breeders said she’d consider selling one of their year-old females, named Amore, who had just finished all the health testing that is recommended prior to breeding and would be ready to breed this spring. In fact, she could breed her to one of their studs and then ship her to us in whelp in mid to late May (just in time for the kids birthdays!).

(Puppy with her current girl.)

The more I thought of it, the more I liked that idea. We are going to be around most of the summer, just taking short weekend camping trips and not travelling anywhere very far except for five days the kids will be at our church’s summer camp. The litter would – hopefully – not arrive until after that. With any luck, there would be enough puppies that the income would cover the cost of the dog – and maybe a bit more – which would be really nice, seeing as I’ve shelled out a chunk of change for the two different dyslexia interventions for Mustang.

So I made the arrangements and told the kids.

Well, since then we’ve all been a bit dog-crazy. Our bookshelf is crammed with library books about raising, training, and caring for dogs (and one or two on breeding). Mustang took it into her head on Palm Sunday evening that we needed to doggy-proof the house NOW and we all spent an hour or so putting things from low shelves onto high shelves and in plastic containers. Of course, this was all done Mustang-style, so it’s rather haphazard and not very organized – but I’ll say this, that when Mustang WANTS to do something, it WILL get done and quick! She’s got me reading to her a thorough kid-level book about caring for dogs and making up a list of things we need to do and buy. The kids are saving all their allowance money to buy doggy-related stuff.

And as for me, I’m figuring out how to set up a website presence as a breeder and get registered with the breeders association, to help as a means of selling the eventual puppies. Thinking of how and where to put a dog run on our yard, since we can’t exactly fence it (owing to presence of fire hydrant – hmm, if we had a male dog that could come in handy, come to think of it). Where in the house to have the puppy pen. What to do in summer when we’re on weekend camping trips. What on earth one feeds month-old puppies. And so on…

Not to mention looking forward to having an active little furry presence in the house again.

(Photos courtesy of Urban Doodles.)

Day 1 results

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Study the alphabet above hard for 20 seconds. Try to picture it in your mind. Now close your eyes and recite it - backwards. How many tries does it take for you to get it right?

During yesterday's brain training, Mustang got it right on the second go! The facilitator says she is a very visual thinker. Well, I knew that, but wouldn't have expected her to get the backwards alphabet right so quickly!

Another book I've been reading - still in the midst of - is Right Brained Kids in a Left Brained World. It focuses on ADD kids - which Mustang is not, but many ADD kids also have dyslexia, so I've been reading it in that light. One of the tactics the author suggest for tackling spelling is to have the child visualize the word. Write it out big on paper with each syllable in a different colour, have the child make a mental picture, and then get them to spell it - forwards and backwards. Trying it myself, I find I can do it quite easily. Though I do most of my thinking verbally, I guess I've got decent picture thinking skills too - and I know I've always tended to be a whole word reader, like Mustang (and lots of dyslexic or ADD kids). When I go to spell a word, I do often just "see" the word in my mind. I find I have to concentrate a bit harder and "fix" the picture better in order to spell the word backwards as quickly and easily as forwards, but it's not that hard. (It's definitely much easier and faster than trying to spell a word backwards based on sounding it out!) Of course, backwards spelling is not something that one needs to do on a daily basis (!) but it just goes to illustrate the potential strengths of the visual thinker, and how some things are much easier for them than for verbal thinkers. So what we need to do is to figure out teaching methods that take advantage of these strengths, rather than trying to get the kids to work in ways that are suitable for verbal thinkers.

Anyhow, at the end of yesterday's brain training, Mustang was both very tired and excited about what she'd done that day. She said the "orientation" training was 'like a miracle!" in helping her to keep letters & words from jumping around. So it seems like it's working.

Picture thinking

Last Friday I mentioned that Mustang is working with some software that is supposed to help train the brain to hear better, with a view to ultimately being able to read better.

Well, today she’s also starting a one-week intensive “intervention” that is supposed to train the brain to “see” better – or, more specifically, to hold its perspective so as to make it easier to decipher what’s on the printed page. This is accompanied by specific procedures to help kids form mental images of “trigger words” that they have trouble picturing – the theory being that many dyslexic (and ADD) kids think pictorially rather than verbally. (A “right-brained” phenomenon.) Mustang has told me that she “thinks in pictures” and I have no reason to disbelieve her. (While most of my thinking happens verbally, like a little interior monologue, I do sometimes think in pictures too. I suspect Mustang does thinks verbally sometimes, but picture-thinking is probably dominant for her.)

Since it is known that dyslexic kids often say that words and letters “jump around” on the page for them, I have asked Mustang if this happens with her and she says yes. (When I asked her again recently, she said it doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but it still does happen.) This is yet another manifestation of picture thinking, according to the book that got me onto this particular idea: The Gift of Dyslexia, by Ron Davis.

Davis claims that children who think in pictures, when faced with a word – which is a symbol, rather than an actual “thing” – try to flip the physical object (the letters in the word) around in their minds in order to make sense of it. Of course that doesn’t work because the letters d – o – g aren’t an actual dog, they just stand for one. (To be precise, they stand for the sounds that, in English, represent the thing dog. So written language is doubly symbolic, making it even more difficult than spoken language for people who have difficulty interpreting symbols.) But what it means is that children with this problem often reverse letters, flip them around in words (felt for left and vice versa, was for saw…), and even read words in the wrong order. These are things that Mustang frequently does.

Davis also claims that children who think pictorially often stumble over words that do not easily translate into pictures – the more abstract words as well as grammatical markers (the, a, is, was, are, to, on, up, etc).

In light of these constraints, the Davis method starts off by training the brain to “stay oriented” so that the child maintains the correct perspective when looking at letters on a page, and no longer attempts to flip the letters around mentally. Then, once you have trained the “mind’s eye” to stand still, the method calls for helping children to form mental pictures of words that are difficult to represent pictorially – the “trigger words” that they stumble over when reading. This is done by working with a physical substance – clay – to build pictures that the student can then internalize.

When reading the book, much of what he said resonated with me in my observations of Mustang – from words “jumping around” on the page, to the types of reading mistakes made, and even her very physically active nature.

Once again, this is an “alternative method” of treating dyslexia that, it is claimed, works to overcome rather than simply deal with the underlying problems. (Or, rather, to use the dyslexic’s inherent strengths of visualization as an asset, rather than a hindrance, to reading.) Once again, the claims are a bit fantastic – an average one to two grade levels improvement in reading after just the one-week intensive training. And once again, I am enough of a skeptic not to expect such miraculous results, but enough of a believer to think she stands to benefit. And, once again, it certainly cannot hurt.

Brain exercises

A couple of weeks ago a friend lent me a copy of the book The Brain that Changes Itself, by Dr. Norman Doidge. I was eager to read it, as - since Mustang’s official diagnosis of dyslexia with a particular issue around working memory - I have been interested in finding more about memory issues and how one might be able to improve the brain’s capacity in this area.

Chapter three of the book focuses on learning issues and how the brain can, with “exercise” and concentration, make new neural connections that will restore lost functions or improve weak ones. It mentions some software called Fast ForWord, created by Dr. Michael Merzenich and colleagues, that is supposed to help dyslexic children not just “cope” but to actually improve their brain function in areas of auditory processing (often an underlying issue with dyslexia) and memory.

A Google search quickly took me to some info about Fast ForWord, including the Scientific Learning company that developed the product, which had links to companies offering the software and support services. I found and contacted one located in New York State, called Gemm Learning, that offers a “distance” service to people located in other areas. After some thought, and discussing it with Mustang (who was eager to try it out – she likes computer games and she wants to be able to read as easily as other kids), made arrangements to use their services. The software arrived last Friday and Mustang has been working on it daily since then. The recommended “protocol” is 50 minutes a day, five days a week, for up to six months. There is a sequence of products, initially focusing on auditory processing, then moving on to exercises in following instructions, distinguishing grammatical elements, putting words together, and even some math-related exercises to improve basic math skills.

I am hopeful that this will eventually prove beneficial to Mustang. The theory is that when children have auditory processing issues (i.e. have difficulty distinguishing certain sounds, or process sounds more slowly than ideal for comprehension, which relates to reading abilities), by training the brain to process sounds faster it will improve their capacity to translate the sounds into words. There are, of course, those who state that claims of the software’s effectiveness are largely unsubstantiated. But much of what the software’s developers say about auditory processing and dyslexia just jives with what I see in Mustang, that I decided it was worthwhile to try.

Whether it will be effective, or how effective it will be, remains of course to be seen. I'm enough of a skeptic not to expect miraculous results, but enough of a believer to think it could benefit her. At the very least it won't hurt, and since the vast majority of approaches to dyslexia just try to "manage" it through compensatory strategies and accommodations, if this has even the slightest effect in overcoming the problem it will be beneficial.

Odds and sods...

Found money
Last year I had a minor surgical procedure on my eye. As it was a new type of procedure, it wasn’t covered by my provincial health plan and I had to fork out about $1100 to cover the cost. Last Friday I received a letter from the hospital where it was performed – turns out they had just been advised by the health plan that it was covered after all! (Perhaps newly so…) The letter was accompanied by a refund cheque of $750!! (That was for the hospital portion. I need to check whether the surgeon’s fee might also be refunded…)

Winter relapse
We had been having quite lovely weather during most of the latter half of March and into early April. Then, on Monday, winter decided to sneak in through the back door, and since then it’s been cold, snowy – yes, snowy! (though not a lot) – and generally kind of miserable. I had put away the parkas and boots as no longer needed, and here had to haul them out again.

Oh well, it’s supposed to get nice again by tomorrow and stay nice through Easter Weekend. Spring will not be denied.

Bicycle for Button
The Sunday before they left, Laoye was walking to church when he came upon a shiny red child’s bicycle standing by the curb with a sign on it: “FREE.” Being Laoye – and knowing that Button was growing out of his old bike – he sat down on the seat and propelled himself the last two blocks to church. It needed a bit of a tune-up and oiling, and lowering the seat, but is now quite rideable. This bike is the next size up from what he had and is equipped with six gears. It should do for several years.

So we took the old bikes (seeing as we still Mustang’s old bike, though she got a new one last fall) to a friend, to give to a refugee family with three young children, one of whom is the right size for these bikes and one who will grow into them. They will be well used there!

A horrible, terrible, lousy, rotten, yucky no-good day

(edited from initial posting...)

Yesterday was a dull, cloudy, rainy day. It was also a PD Day, so the kids were home from school with Nanny. In the hope that it would provide some small thing to look forward to, I gave Nanny a few dollars and told children that in the afternoon they could bike or scooter to Timmy’s for a treat, and check out the playground across the road. (Button: “But it’s full of snow!” Me: “The snow is probably almost all gone by now. It’ll be a bit wet and messy, but you can still have fun.”) I also left a list of “jobs” – reading and typing for Mustang, some Kindergarten workbook pages and “reading” for Button. Even so, I left the house at 8:40 with a heavy heart, fearing the day might not go well.

It went far worse than I might have imagined. Over the course of the morning I got several phone calls from the kids, indicating that things were not going at all well. Nanny was not in control.

When I walked into the house at 5:00, the children were at the computer - looking at some very inappropriate material, accessed by random clicks from my home page - and had been for (according to Mustang) “three hours” (likely more). Nanny had tried to get them to stop but they wouldn’t listen. (Hello?? If they don't listen to me when I tell them to turn the computer off, I just reach over and press the off switch. It's really quite simple...) Their jobs were less than half complete.

At the supper table everyone was upset. Nanny confessed her impotence (“I know it is my responsibility to get them to do their jobs, but they won’t listen to me.”) I informed the kids of my decision to put a password on the computer that I won't give to Nanny, so they won't be able to access it unless I'm home. Everyone felt and acted miserable.

After supper, I took Nanny aside for a talk.I suggested that it would be best if she tried to find another employer – Mustang needs a strong personality to handle her, I need someone with a strong personality to deal with Mustang. (Nanny is very quiet and does not convey authority.) I told Nanny I do appreciate the housework and cooking she does, but that what really matters is being able to handle the children. It would be best for all concerned if she were to find another employer and I find another Nanny. I suggested to her that if she is going to work with children, it would be best to care for infants, or find someone with quiet, compliant kids. Or else see if she can find a position caring for an elderly person.

So why has it come to this head? In my opinion, it boils down to the fact that Nanny has been unable to establish any kind of a real relationship with Mustang. (She gets along well enough with Button, but Mustang is a horse of a different colour. (Pun intended!)) Failing that, Mustang feels no need to obey Nanny, and Nanny can't seem to find any way to get through to Mustang that she should.

I have long felt that, while Nanny might be okay with the kids during the school year, when Mustang just has a couple of hours with her, I could never leave her in charge during the summer holidays, when she'd have to keep them entertained and in line for the whole day, five days a week. This has now been conclusively proven.

Anyhow, the rest of the evening was spent getting the kids to do the work that they didn’t do during the day. No swimming, no movie (our traditional Friday evening activities).And, as a consequence for the misbehaviour and disobedience to Nanny - since a large part of it centred around computer use - not only will my computer be password protected, I will enforce NO computer for a month (other than Mustang’s doing her brain exercises – more on that later). AND no movies or TV for a month. They will have to find other ways to entertain themselves.

And I think I’m going to have to cut my other musings short, as I just heard a big bump from upstairs, signifying that kids are getting out of bed.