Kieran is six!

We celebrated Kieran's sixth year of life the other day. 

Since he loves pumpkin-related foods, I thought I'd make him a pumpkin roll for his birthday. But that morning, he opened up one of my cookbooks and found a picture that reminded him of peanut butter pie and requested that for his "cake."

Aunt Katy was visiting with us that day and she whipped up a delicious peanut butter pie in no time.

We put candles in the pie after dinner, sang to him, and he did a good job of blowing out the candles.

Our family -- including cousins Trent and Heather -- came over to celebrate with him.

When we went to the apple orchard for Cael's field trip, each got to pick a pumpkin from the pile. Somehow, Kieran managed to choose the pie pumpkin, which we used to make several pies. Have I mentioned he loves pumpkin?

He also likes to make things using my spices. For his birthday, his grandparents sent him his own set of "spices" (colored salt in shakers) to make his own concoctions.

He loves being outside when the weather is cooler (but dislikes hot weather). And he has been working on teaching the chickens about God, to follow him on command, and to march. He is concerned about the coyotes that live in the woods behind our house (or not) and continues to be fascinated by weedwackers (and other lawn equipment; although this summer he didn't like it when Seth got out the lawnmower to mow the lawn). He volunteers to use the vacuum and is learning to read and to do simple addition in school. He continues to surprise us with his progress in school and life.

He loves to laugh and makes us laugh, too. He has been such a joy to have around these past six years and we are thankful to the Lord for giving us our Kieran. Happy birthday, buddy!

Our excitement for the day

Today started out like most other Thursdays -- I took Kieran to his speech and occupational therapies at his school and then returned home. Since Seth had had a torn meniscus in his knee repaired on Tuesday afternoon, he was still home recovering from the surgery. So, I set Kieran and Seth up with some schoolwork to practice while I started washing dishes and putting things away. 

One of the areas that individuals with Williams syndrome tend to struggle with is spatial relations -- being able to describe an object in relation to another object. My mom found some manipulatives that help with teaching and practicing those concepts and I usually pull those out on Thursday mornings to go over with Kieran. Seth helped him this morning (the photo below shows Kieran working with one of the sets earlier this month). 

As I was washing, I occasionally heard some popping sounds outside and eventually heard enough that I decided to investigate. When I went outside and peered around the corner of our barn, I was met with the sight of our neighbor's pole barn engulfed in flames. Heart-stopping.

I ran back inside and tried to call 911 but realized our phone wasn't working for some reason and although I briefly talked to the 911 operator, the signal dropped. (I assumed the fire had somehow cut off our phone line but later realized that a GFCI had been tripped [when I was washing dishes?] and the section of outlets our phone was plugged into wasn't working.)

And since the phone line wasn't working, we didn't have WiFi, which meant my cell phone wasn't working, either (we don't get good cell reception in the Holler). So, I got in the car and drove up the hill where I could get the cell phone to work and called 911 and let them know what was going on. I don't know if it was my first phone call that got things started or if someone else called the fire in, but the dispatch said someone was already on their way. As I headed back down the hill, I got passed by a police car with its sirens on. 

He missed the turn onto our lane, so I waited at the end and flagged him down after he turned around and came back our way. And then I waited some more for the fire engine I heard in the distance to arrive and pointed the way out to them. 

Then, I drove down the lane, found that the son of the neighbor had been home and was in need of calling his parents, hopped back in the car, and drove him up the hill so he could make the phone call. While we were doing that, other fire trucks had arrived and were doing what needed to be done to put out the fire. 

Seth was outside directing traffic and answering whatever questions needed to be answered. When the first truck pulled up with just two volunteer firefighters, they were happy to see another of their own -- Seth -- on the scene. And then just as unhappy to see that he had a bum leg and wouldn't be of much help to them. 

Of course, the incredible irony is that Seth doesn't make it to many fire calls because we live so far out of town -- the trucks are usually gone by the time he gets the call and gets to the station. And this one time when a fire is right in his own backyard (or neighbor's yard), and he was on the scene, he was unable to help because of his knee. 

One of the things I love about Seth, however, is his diplomatic response to such things. "Well, if it weren't for the knee, I would have been at work otherwise and wouldn't have been able to help anyway," was his response when I mentioned the irony to him. 

Our little town sent several tanker trucks and two neighboring districts also sent their tanker trucks. One guy from a town south of us said that he had been harvesting soybeans when he saw the black plume of smoke and began heading in. He was already on his way when he got the call.

Our front yard looked like this for several hours.

They needed so many tanker trucks because we are so rural; we don't have city water on our property, which means there are no fire hydrants in the near vicinity to draw water from. That leaves drawing water from the creek (which is dry), our cistern (which is almost dry), or the fire hydrant that's about a mile away. The tankers took turns filling up at the fire hydrant and bringing the water down the lane. A modern-day bucket brigade.

They dumped the water in this dump tank and the firefighters pumped it out from there.

In the end, the barn wasn't able to be saved and our neighbor lost two pick-up trucks, a couple quads, a lawnmower, other lawn equipment, his tools, a winch (which Seth had just wired up for him on Saturday), and some irreplaceable heirlooms . . . among other things.

The boys stayed inside during all the excitement, although they looked out the windows at what was going on. Cael was so frightened by our initial frantic reactions -- and somehow got the thought the our house was going to burn down -- that he didn't want to go outside at all.

Note Seth's wrapped leg that he

walked on all day.

Kieran, on the other hand, would have been outside fellowshipping with the firefighters and checking things out the whole time if we had let him. When the fire was out and everyone was packing up, I took him outside to walk around. He met the firefighters and decided he wanted to wear his own fire gear, so he went inside and put it on.

When the guy in charge of the scene saw Kieran in his get-up, he said, "Hey, are you a fire chief? Every fire chief needs a radio!" and handed his radio to Kieran to wear for a bit.

He loved it.

They think the fire started when a wood stove in the barn that the son had lit earlier in the morning got too hot and caught surrounding items on fire. We are glad no one was hurt in the fire but sad for our neighbor's property loss.

And I was thankful for the reminder that we needed to have the contents of our barn (and house) documented, which I did this afternoon with my camera.

And then there were six

In March, after the Great Chicken Massacre of Ought-Fourteen, we picked up eight new chickens. I thought that seemed like a lot of chickens. Seth thought that seemed like a good way to keep ourselves in the egg business in case we lost some along the way.

Turns out, Seth was -- yet, again -- right. When the chickens were a few months old, we noticed that one started making noises that no chicken of ours had ever made before. Noises that soon woke us up at before the crack of dawn every morning. "You have a rooster," Seth said. I denied it until I saw the "hen" doing things to the other hens that no other chicken of ours had ever done before.

The one barred rock we had gotten turned out to be a rooster, much to my dismay. And then, Seth had the audacity to suggest that we had another rooster on our hands when he heard a second "hen" making strange crowing noises and getting in fights with the barred rock and the other chickens. I told him that was the last time I sent him to pick out chickens.

I went back and forth on whether to keep the roosters, debating on if it would be easier to just let the hens raise babies instead of buying them and keeping them in the house for a few weeks during the spring, but when one of the roosters pecked Kieran's finger and drew blood, I decided that was enough and went about getting rid of both roosters. (And also, I was tired of being awoken at before the crack of dawn with the crowing.)

One of our church friends who have a farm offered to take the roosters off our hands, as long as we didn't care where the roosters would (eventually) end up. I didn't and so, in July, they came over and carried away the roosters.

The children of the family carrying away the roosters to their new home

We were left with six hens -- three black sex-link and three Easter eggers. 

Cael has taken to taming them, chasing them, and attempting to pet them.

Kieran likes hanging out with them, too. He mainly follows them around and laughs at them. He's also tried evangelizing them a few times. And teaching them to march.  

In early August, we were finally rewarded with our first egg, which Cael had the privilege of bringing in.

This past Sunday, we spent the afternoon getting the coop ready for winter. Since last winter was so frigid, Seth decided we needed to open up part of the coop that's been closed off for awhile so that the chickens have a place to shelter in case we get more Polar Vortices of Doom.

We opened the door at the back end of the current coop

and cleaned out the middle portion that can be accessed through the front door of the shelter.

He and Kieran used the shop vac to take care of the cobwebs and dust.

And when we were finished, we let the chickens explore their new space and entry points. The now-open doorway leads into another fenced-in garden, which I'm hoping, with their incessant scratching, they'll weed and fertilize for me.

Although we have just six chickens now, we're happy with the 4-5 eggs they supply a day and I've even made my very first egg sale (previously, Seth was selling the eggs to his coworkers and then keeping the profits as a "processing fee"). It's nice to be back in the egg business.

First day of School (for Kieran)

Kieran started kindergarten way back at the beginning of August, but I'm just now getting around to posting about it. 

When Kieran was first diagnosed with Williams syndrome and we realized that intellectual and learning disabilities would become part of our lives, our thoughts turned toward the future: Would he be bullied in school? Would he struggle to learn? But choosing an educational partnership for him seemed so far in the distant future. 

As the past few years have flown by, however, we've been thinking about what setting would be best for him to learn in and have been weighing the pros and cons of our choices and praying for wisdom. We've watched as he received services (OT and ST) through our local special education program and as he participated in a small community preschool. 

When the time came this past year to transition him to kindergarten, I listened to what everyone who has worked with him over the past few years had to say about him. They all loved him and enjoyed working with him, but, and here was the common phrase I heard from everyone: he has a lot of difficulty paying attention to the task at hand and is very easily distracted. And when I mentioned the possibility of homeschooling him, everyone on his IEP team agreed that would be a good fit for him. And when I found out there would be 27 children in one kindergarten class and I knew that he would be too busy socializing and paying attention to everyone else in the classroom and wouldn't have a one-on-one to sit with him and continually redirect him, that sealed the deal for me: we would partner with homeschooling textbooks for his kindergarten education. 

Sure, I could fight with our school system to get him a one-on-one or some type of aid, but our school district is very rural and small and the funds simply aren't there. Sure, I could press them with FAPE, IDEA, and hire an advocate to help get him what he needed to succeed in a public school classroom, but since I have the luxury of staying at home with my children, I could also put the money and effort that would be spent on those types of things into educating him at home, in an environment where I didn't need to fight to get him what he needs. And so that is what we have decided to do--at least for kindergarten. 

I've had somewhat of a love/hate relationship with homeschooling over the years. I am attracted to the idea of giving our kids an education in our home and I've even written several curricula that are used by homeschoolers. But I dislike some of the attitudes and actions I've seen from some in the homeschooling community. It can be ugly (and, sadly, we've been on the receiving end of some of that ugliness). Much of that turns me off toward homeschooling. While I could go on about specifics, I won't (at least not in this post). I'll just leave it with this: we have decided to give homeschooling a try for this year. 

Once we chose this particular educational partnership, I started looking into the curriculum that would best help him learn. And I finally settled on All About Reading -- a phonics-based program that incorporates Orton-Gillingham methods in teaching reading. I'd read that the OG method was recommended for those with Williams syndrome and Dr. Mervis, the WS specialist we see in Louisville every year, has been adamant that those with WS learn to read by phonics. For math, I chose Math-U-See -- it was developed by a man whose son has Down syndrome and offers manipulatives and a slow pace. 

So, I ordered those programs along with some other things and once everything finally arrived, we started our school 

Cael was excited about 

all the boxes that were arriving 

and a bit sad when he realized

they weren't all for him. 

We've settled into a routine and, since Cael attends his own preschool now, I have several hours three days a week where I can work with just Kieran. The other days, we just work around having a chatterbox in the room with us. 

I'm able to do a lot of fine motor activities with him throughout the day (like play with kinetic sand, which he isn't really thrilled about but which Cael loves). 

And when Cael is home and feeling in the mood to cooperate, I can involve him in some of the things Kieran and I are working on (like spatial relations and following patterns).

Visual-spatial areas tend to be a deficit for those with WS, so I've tried to incorporate puzzles and tangrams and the like into his day so that we can work on that area. 

And I'm also able to involve things like this spinning board for his sensory diet, followed by some weight-bearing and other exercises that, ideally, will help develop his attention span.

I am not in any way shape or form the perfect parent or homeschooling teacher but, by God's grace, we'll follow this path until we decide that there's a better option for him.

First day of school

Cael has wanted to go to school (preschool) with Kieran ever since he could say the words, "Can I go in, too?" (which was, I think, when he was 11 months old). Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the school year, he'd watch from the car as I took Kieran inside Mrs. Karla's school. He could have gone last year to her afternoon class but that would have meant quite a bit of back-and-forth travel for us, so I opted to have him start this year, after Kieran had "graduated." 

Mrs. Karla sent him a postcard before school started, letting him know how glad she was that Super Cael would be part of her class and that they would have lots of fun eating Popsicles for snacks. The Popsicles sealed the deal for him and he asked us repeatedly over the next few days to read the note to him. He also let us know how excited he was for the Popsicles. 

August 11 was his first day of school. 

He was thrilled to be the one going.

He was up early, ate his breakfast ("sticky oatmeal") quickly, got dressed, and was waiting for the rest of us (Kieran is not a morning person). 

He wanted to take Mrs. Karla and Mrs. Mary some flowers so he found a few Resurrection lilies and picked them himself.

He has been having a great time learning his letters, learning to be a Germ Buster, making new friends, and, of course, having Popsicles for snack (not every day, of course).

He's even learning the Pledge of Allegiance and got to lead it the other day. When I asked him to say it for me, he said, "Special agents . . . of the one true God . . . ." (He learned about being a special agent for the one true God through the International Spy Academy VBS we did at our church this past summer.) Apparently, that's what "I pledge allegiance" sounds like to him.

He wishes school could be every day of the week, rather than just M/W/F.

I'm thankful we have such a nice little preschool led by a lady who loves Jesus and our kids in our area. Mrs. Karla was such an encouragement and help with Kieran, and I'm looking forward to partnering with her for Cael's learning, as well.

Firsts

Many years ago, before Kieran was even born, I planted a grapevine. The idea was that the grapevine would grow up and produce . . . grapes. Easy-peasy like. Somehow, however, my ideas about things don't always translate into reality. Take, for instance, the grapevine. 

Over the past five or so years, I've never gotten a harvest of the delicious seedless Concord grapes I was originally dreaming about. One year there was a drought that we couldn't overcome by carrying buckets of water from the creek to the plants. The next year, the deer and other animals ate the leaves from the vines early in the summer. The next year, I put netting around the vine but the deer reached over the netting to get at the vines. And so it went. 

This year, I determined I would have grapes from the vine and sprayed Deer-Out around the base of the vine in late spring. And then again, for good measure, in the middle of summer.

My efforts have finally been rewarded.

And the other day, I harvested my very first grapes from the vine. 

They tasted even better than I thought they would.

Cael agreed with me and asked for some for his snack that evening (along with some chocolate cake).

. . .

In other "first" news, Kieran has had his first appropriately loose tooth for several weeks (he knocked his two top front teeth on the playset last year and we thought he might loose them but they hung on). He hasn't been wiggling it or otherwise getting it to come out, so when Seth saw how loose it was the other day, he decided to go ahead and pull it so that Kieran didn't accidentally swallow it when it decided to pop out on its own.

So he and Kieran spent part of last Saturday afternoon working on getting the tooth out -- Kieran spent it crying in anticipation of the tooth-pulling and Seth spent it trying to get Kieran to keep his mouth open so that he could get a good grip on the tooth.

It ended well, with Kieran barely even knowing when the tooth actually came out (and I was thankful Seth didn't resort to the door trick or the rocket-pulling trick). Ever since, he's been happy to show people his "loose tooth." 

(Yes, he's only five and that seems early to lose a tooth. I've heard anecdotal evidence that others with Williams syndrome have also lost their teeth at an earlier-than-usual age but don't have a particular reason for it.)

He showed his music therapist his mouth today and she asked if he had been brave. He said, "No, I wasn't brave. I was scared." At least he's honest!

"My" "Weekend" "Project"

Let me just get this out of the way: This is not one of those DIY posts about how to make a patio easily and cheaply out of a used washing machine drum and other found objects, including--but not limited to--paper towel tubes, chenille stems, and used bird netting. First, the used washing machine drum is in our neighbor's yard and I'm scared to venture over there because the house is being foreclosed on and that's where Seth threw the mink he euthanized several months ago. Second, I have no idea how to transform any of that stuff into anything, anyway--even with Pinterest's help. 

Instead, this post is about how to make a patio using lots of money and pretty much no found objects whatsoever. Consider yourself warned. 

A few months ago, I found a pile of old bricks down by our creek and hauled them up to the house, with the thought that if I got enough of them, I could just lay them down on that dirt area beside the concrete patio on the side of our house and make a nice DIY patio that I could blog about and everyone would rave over how handy I was. Sadly for me, my dreams were dashed when I realized that the number of bricks I'd pulled from the pile was enough to cover about two square feet.  

We've had this bare space beside the patio for more years than I can remember. Seth has repeatedly talked about doing something about it but never has the time and continues to spray it for weeds (since he can't get the lawnmower in there), leaving it a nice dirt patch/mud pit when it rains for us to walk through. I've hated it and finally, after the DIY brick-thing didn't work, decided to take matters into my own hands over Memorial Day weekend. How hard can it be to build a patio? People do it all the time. Dig up a little ground, put some pavers down, and voila! I thought to myself. 

So, on the hot Friday afternoon before Memorial Day -- right when the sun was at its highest -- I texted Seth to ask if I could start digging out the ground to prepare it for pavers and he said yes. I started digging. And then, about an hour later, I realized that I wasn't accomplishing much and that I would probably need to involve Seth in "my" weekend project.

That evening, when he got home from work, I mentioned that it might be easier to dig up the area if we (and by "we" I mainly meant "he") got out the tiller. 

Good husband that he is, he got out the tiller. 

He tilled and then we began scooping the dirt into the wagon on the back of the quad. Cael was only too glad to help. 

Kieran was only too glad to stand around with his ear muffs on carefully watching the quad because he doesn't like the noise it makes and is scared of it. 

Seth drove the dirt down to the creek and dumped it there. 

Soon enough, we had a nice space cleared for our weekend project. 

One of our neighbors stopped by on his quad to see what we were doing and mentioned that he had a bunch of old pavers just sitting around that he would be happy for us to use. Oh, good, I thought, maybe this WILL turn out to be a real DIY project using found objects after all!

And then we saw the pavers he was trying to get rid of. Because of their odd pattern, they would have required quite a bit of cutting along the edges to make them fit. Seth nixed that idea. 

And then he told me about the paver sand and gravel that needed to be laid down before the pavers. What? You can't just dig a hole and put pieces of cement in there and make a patio? I did actually say that out loud and Seth did actually raise his eyebrow at my wonderings. Despite that setback, I still thought we'd be able to complete our weekend project over the weekend. 

We went to Lowe's and filled up with bags of paver sand and gravel and got it put down in the hole. And then Seth mentioned The Tamper. Apparently, you can't just put down paver sand and gravel and then just put down pavers to make a patio. Apparently, said sand and gravel needs to be tamped. I quickly Googled "do I need a tamper to make a patio" and found out that Seth was, yet again, right. I also quickly texted my handy-man BIL "do I really need a tamper?" but he never replied. I think he felt sorry for Seth. 

It was then that I realized my hopes for completing my weekend project over the weekend would be dashed. We finished with the gravel and sand Saturday evening and found out the equipment rental place would be closed for the rest of Memorial Day weekend (imagine that!). Not only that, but Seth already had work-related plans for the following weekend and so The Project would be on hold for two weeks. 

"My" "Weekend" Project had quickly become Our Weeks-Long Project. 

Two weeks later, we rented the tamper and Seth began the tamping.

Cael was excited about helping with it.

Kieran was excited about staying inside with his ear muffs on and watching through the closed door.

After the tamper came another layer of paver base. I talked Seth into using these newfangled plastic sheet-type-things instead as they were supposed to be cheaper and easier to use than the paver base. IMO, they were. 

And then, finally, two weeks after "my" "weekend" project began, we were able to lay the pavers we'd bought. Of course, we had to take them up and re-lay them several times since they kept shifting before we were able to get the side wall in to hold them in place. 

We rented a paver-cutting saw so that Seth could cut the pavers we used for the side retaining walls to fit the space.

Cael helped to haul the stones over to the saw with his tractor and wagon. Kieran helped to watch with his ear muffs on.

And finally, three weeks after we began, our weeks-long ordeal was finished.

I'm very happy with how it turned out (despite the fact that it didn't turn out to be a cheap DIY project) and the boys have enjoyed the extra space to ride bikes and play on. Another job well done, Seth.