Saturday was Aidan's 7th birthday. We went to Jokers which is kind of a Chuck E. Cheese type thing. (I, being a dunderhead forgot my camera, but I took some pics at home so fear not. LOL ) This place has a GINORMOUS climbing structure though. I mean this thing is twice the size of the one at Chucky's. So we get there and one of the girls I work with is having an official "invite people and have cake and presents" part there because her daughter's birthday was the next day. They're the same age and I was hoping we would get there quick enough that they could play together, but John got home from work a half hour later than we expected so by the time we got there the kids were already out running around. So we sat and ate our pizza and doled out the tickets and tokens and then let loose the hounds of play.
They spent most of their time in the climbing structure and really, I don't blame em. Did I mention this thing was ginormous? The only one I've see that was bigger was in St. Louis and that one had older kids on staff to go in and find the little ones when they got lost. They did play some games and go on some of the "extra" things like the inflatable slide and moonhouse. Ian really wanted to get tickets so he could get Aidan something for her birthday with them. hee hee Pretty early on Aidan wanted me to go in with her and since I'd seen some other grown-ups in there I figured it would be alright so in I went. Dang it was fun. LOL I was climbin and slidin and all kinds of stuff just following Aidan around. Then I got out for a while so I could go do some stuff wtih Ian. We played and he went on some of the extras, then he wants me to go in the climbing structure with him. Cool! So in I go, but Ian just ain't an intrepid climbing structure explorer. He has his area he likes to stick to so when I suggested going up he wasn't having it. So I went up myself. ::bad mommy!:: I'm climbin and crawling and who should I run into but Aidan! So we head off and as we're passing through this juncture I look up and see a climbing hole in the mesh. I say to my ever adventurous daughter, lets see what's up there! And up we go. This thing went ALL the way to the top so by the time I got up there I was starting to feel a little something in the knees and I was breathin a bit but what should we find when we get up there ::insert heavenly choir here:: the opening to the CORKSCREW SLIDE!!! Oh yeah!!! So down she goes and down I go and of course, we gotta do it again. We're scramblin up there and at the top I'm definitely noticing those things a bit more, but...it's the CORKSCREW SLIDE! But when we got to the bottom and I roll out of that slide I suddenly hear my body screaming at me "YOU'RE 40 YOU IDIOT! STOP IT!" I swear that was the first time I'd actually felt the repercussions of being 40. I still didn't feel 40 though. I was rather offended that my body was being such a killjoy, truth be told. Youth really is wasted on the young. >p So once the tickets were used, tokens spent and stuff gotten at the prize counter we left and headed for home.
We stopped at Wal Mart because Aidan had some money from Great Grandma burning a hole in her pocket so to speak. She picked out a couple Pokèmon (gods they're taking over the whole house!) and we went home. We watched the first Pokèmon movie again (Ian finally got to watch it for the first time the night before and yes, I had to watch it again on Sunday) then we had dinner and cake and ice cream. And presents. Her favorite part. LOL She got some money from Gramma and Grampa and I got her some speakers for her Mix Max.
Daddy got her a little stuffed Turtwig. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I think there is finally a toy that has pulled even with if not taken the place of Blankie. She LOVES this thing! Takes it everywhere makes up whole stories about what it does when she's at school. She leaves it a little (imaginary) cell phone so it can call her if there's an emergency. She leaves him grass sandwiches for lunch and a little TV so he can watch in the afternoon after he trains in the morning. The first thing she did when I stopped to pick them up after school was to call Turtwig and let him know we were on our way home so he wouldn't worry. I'm kind of torn between being amused and being disturbed by the whole thing. LOL Last night when I was tucking her in she was talking to Turtwig and putting his little twig on his head down flat. I asked why and she said it was in case there were any girl Turtwigs around. He wanted to look slick for the ladies. O-o She has another smaller stuffed one that comes in a Pokèball called Pachirisu. That was actually her very first Pokèmon. When we were getting ready for school today she said that Pachirisu slept through training yesterday because he was up all night playing rock, paper, scissors with himself. Tonight she told him he needed to sleep or tomorrow he'd get doomed. Honestly, I have a whole new respect for what goes on in that child's head. She may actually succeed where I have failed as an author someday. Ian and Aidan are both working extra hard this week to behave so they can watch the second Pokèmon movie this weekend. Oh joy. At least after they've watched them a couple times with us so we can make sure they're understanding everything and getting the appropriate message out of them they can watch the silly things on their own. Here's a picture of Aidan and her Turtwig (and Blankie).
I got a VERY good email from Ian's Special Ed Case Worker yesterday. She said that she and his teacher Mrs. E spoke and they've come to the conclusion that Ian is doing very well in class without his Ed Tech so they wondered if it would be alright if she only came to class when Mrs. E though Ian might need her. Geez, I wish Mrs. E could be his teacher forever. I said sure, as long as he is doing well, keeping up and interacting appropriately in class I'm all about him getting used to doing it on his own. I decided that it was time I put that into practice at home as well, so yesterday I told him about the email and said that from now on, he would be doing his homework without me being in the room with him. If he ran into trouble he could ask for help, but he needed to keep himself on task and get everything done on his own. I was a bit nervous, but I'll be buggered if he didn't do great. Of course the first page of homework is always the easiest. It's just sorting spelling words. He flew through that and only flipped a couple of Ss backward. The second page is a bit harder as it has questions he has to read and answer with the appropriate spelling word. When he came and told me he was ready to do his homework today I told him he was on his own again and I could tell HE was a little nervous about it this time. But I told him the same thing, if he got stuck come and get me, but otherwise he was on his own. He got stuck maybe three times on the whole page and only made one error aside from a flipped S. Once again I am confronted with the fact that my child is WAY more capable than I'm giving him credit for. Here I am trying to make sure he's able to advance on par with his peers and it seems I may actually be holding him back. UGH Once I reviewed the page and told him how well he did his face just lit up like a spotlight. I hope he didn't think he couldn't do it because of me. Well, anyway, now we both know he can do it. LOL I really need someone to smack me in the head once in a while and remind me to give the boy more credit.
I'm taking him to the Autism Specialist tomorrow to get him re-evaluated. He hasn't had an evaluation since he was three and since he'll be going into a new school next year I want a current eval to present. They are also going to look and see if he has co-morbid ADHD, which is possible. I'm not ruling it out, because the boy is easily distracted and rather fidgety at times. And since Mrs. E isn't going to be his teacher next year, even though it's a better school district over all, he's not likely to do as well as he is this year, so I want a good, solid IEP in place when we get there. He's really going to miss his Ed Tech, she's been with him since Kindergarten. He already said it's going to be sad knowing he's not going to see her every day this year. I'm a little worried and probably over reacting, but what else is new.
I'll see if I can get some pics up at the MySpace of Aidan on her birthday in the next couple of days. I think that's it for now, though. Lord I can ramble. LOL Peace out.
Daddy got her a little stuffed Turtwig. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I think there is finally a toy that has pulled even with if not taken the place of Blankie. She LOVES this thing! Takes it everywhere makes up whole stories about what it does when she's at school. She leaves it a little (imaginary) cell phone so it can call her if there's an emergency. She leaves him grass sandwiches for lunch and a little TV so he can watch in the afternoon after he trains in the morning. The first thing she did when I stopped to pick them up after school was to call Turtwig and let him know we were on our way home so he wouldn't worry. I'm kind of torn between being amused and being disturbed by the whole thing. LOL Last night when I was tucking her in she was talking to Turtwig and putting his little twig on his head down flat. I asked why and she said it was in case there were any girl Turtwigs around. He wanted to look slick for the ladies. O-o She has another smaller stuffed one that comes in a Pokèball called Pachirisu. 
That was actually her very first Pokèmon. When we were getting ready for school today she said that Pachirisu slept through training yesterday because he was up all night playing rock, paper, scissors with himself. Tonight she told him he needed to sleep or tomorrow he'd get doomed. Honestly, I have a whole new respect for what goes on in that child's head. She may actually succeed where I have failed as an author someday. Ian and Aidan are both working extra hard this week to behave so they can watch the second Pokèmon movie this weekend. Oh joy. At least after they've watched them a couple times with us so we can make sure they're understanding everything and getting the appropriate message out of them they can watch the silly things on their own. Here's a picture of Aidan and her Turtwig (and Blankie). 
at 8:39 PM :: ~#~
StSquirrel, at
11:30 AM
