Blogging: The Annual Checkup

Okay, so my lack of posts isn't so bad as the title makes it out to be, but it certainly feels that way. I hadn't posted in such a long time before this last year, and lately all my posts have been months apart.

Hello readers, it's me, Penelope. 

Are you out there?

I wouldn't blame you for leaving. This relationship probably hasn't been a very beneficial one for you. But let me try to make it up to you with an update on...well, us.

Penelope
I'm doing photography again! There was a while there, where I honestly thought I would never pick up a camera again. And I didn't mind at all. I hated even knowing that the camera was sitting on a shelf in the same room with me. In a strange, needing-something-to-blame sort of way, I think I blamed Mason's cancer trials on my obsession with photography during the year leading up to it all. I took pictures of his treatments to document it all, but that's where it ended. And as soon as the future wasn't looking so grim, I stopped taking pictures at all. This is evidenced by a clear lack of pictures of Mason (or myself, or anyone else) from the middle of 2011, through the end of 2012.

It's only been the last few months that I've been taking pictures again. One actual photo session was all it took to remind me how much I love photography. I'm picking up where I left off, and re-starting my business. Life is good!

Mason
Mason has grown into the smartest, most funny, young boy! He is still obsessed with trains, but has also developed a love for horses. He's currently reading all he can about how to take care of horses, because he plans to buy one--with money he's saving.

On the health front, he is just thriving! It's amazing how one's perception of normal can fluctuate. I had gotten used to the cautious boy his treatments brought out, who was content to spend his days without sports, the outdoors (sometimes), or daring tricks. It took this entire year after treatments, but his body has finally returned muscle, coordination, and stamina. Now the daredevil of days past is back, and with his new-found coordination, Mason has turned into a force to be reckoned with.

Homeschooling
I don't know why this is getting its own large, bold, title--I guess because it feels like an official part of our family, now. It's probably also because I've been wanting to write a homeschooling update for a while, and never got to it.

Whatever the reason, progress in school is great! This first year has been a big huge experiment for the both of us. I'm not only learning how Mason best retains new information, but I'm also learning what my own limitations are. I'm impatient and lazy, and prefer the easiest path possible in any area of life. I've learned that if I make things too hard on Mason or myself (i.e. anything scheduled that isn't flexible), then I run the risk of days at a time being deemed a "vacation," while we both recover from the overload. I don't need to compete with the homeschool blogging superstars out there (who I totally wish I could be). I just need to teach Mason so that he understands. I'm realizing more and more, that life itself is a school, and that just doing our everyday activities, and turning them into teaching moments, is learning at its greatest. Plus, you know, reading is everything. ;)

The biggest thing I learned this year, though, is that the Lord has a plan for both of us.

For a little while, I began having doubts about homeschooling. Mason was asking why he couldn't go to public school, and those closest to me were making comments (that I'm sure they thought were harmless) about him needing to go to public school--or at least a charter school. I was having the hardest time getting him to read (in the time-frame I had neatly scheduled for it to happen in, of course), and so I thought I was the worst for teacher on Earth.

I prayed again to know if I was reaaaaaally supposed to homeschool (because, you know, I may have read the fifty other signs I was sent completely wrong), and what I should teach Mason.

My answer this time: yes--here's how.... 

It seems silly now, but it never crossed my mind that when I was told by the Lord to homeschool, that He would also tell me how to do it. I just needed to ask. But I can see now that at every dead end, and every crossroads, He has shown me what to do. He has told me what to teach, when to teach it, and helped me to understand why I need to teach it. We are so blessed! I am really looking forward to this next school year--potential mistakes, and all.


Catch you at the next annual checkup! ;)

Adventures in Headlining

This is the project I spent my Saturday afternoon on:

 It's called a headliner, and it's the buffer between your head, and the hard, sharp, metal roof of your car. I never thought I'd see the inside of a car like this, but I can tell you--I'm intrigued. Cars are u-g-l-y without all the trimmings, but it was fun to take one apart.

This particular headliner has been peeling ever since it was bought a few years ago. The fabric had been almost completely peeled off, leaving behind nasty dark yellow foam. Anytime anything accidentally scraped across the headliner (including, you know, HAIR), a shower of golden dust would rain down. It was horribly annoying. And ugly. And it got in your eyes. I seriously wish I had thought to take a before picture, because this was a nightmare. 

This is NOT my photo (photo credit), but is the closest I could find to what it looked like. The white part is the fiberglass shell (mine was green, with yellow underneath), the yellow stuff is the foam, and the empty space on top is where the fabric should be, but isn't.

One day I finally got around to checking if it was possible to reupholster it. IT IS! So I watched some Youtube videos, and took a trip to Joann's to get some headliner fabric (foam padding with fabric attached, which gives it that soft look). 

And so began my andventure into car land. I broke some stuff. And the car looked like this after I had taken the headliner out:

 I unscrewed everything that was holding the headliner in, removed the plastic covers at the corners of the car, let it drop, then pulled it out. 

It looked like that second picture, with the shell covered in foam. So I took a palm sander to it, and sanded it off as gently as I could. It worked really well, and ended up looking like the 5th to last picture in this guy's post...only more, uh, broken in from years of use. My brother helped me spray it with glue and apply and smooth out the headliner fabric. This is where my first picture comes in. So nice and smooth!

After it dried we had to get it back in, which was much easier than taking it out. Putting everything else back in place was hard though. My other brothers ended up helping, and finally it was in! Looks nice, doesn't it?

I still have the visors off, since I'm finding a way to fix them. They suffer from the same problem as the headliner did, although I can just pull the foam off since it isn't glued to it.

I definitely broke one of the plastic corner covers (rookie mistake; the glue to fix it is drying as I type), and I may have trouble getting the right visor in (that hole was made bigger by one of my attempts), but I'll take any of that over what it looked like before. So glad to have it done!

Home Speech Therapy Roundup

I've noticed for a while now, that Mason is having trouble articulating his /t/ and /s/ sounds, as well as pronouncing /i/ correctly, in the middle of a sentence. I was hoping he would grow out of it, but it seems he isn't. I've been planning to take him to the the elementary school to be assessed by a speech-language pathologist for the past month, but this winter has been tough on the immune system. We've both been sick with one thing or another since the beginning of December, and it feels like we'll be sick forever.

So I did some research and thanks to the wonders of Pinterest, I  found an amazing wealth of information online regarding speech therapy. While we're waiting for our immune systems to battle it out with our current illnesses, I'm going to try some things at home to see if we can make some progress. 

Here's a roundup of the best that I found:
Click the photos to be taken to each post.

Probably the most useful source, Mommy Speech Therapy goes into detail about the process of articulation therapy that she goes through. She also provides free downloads of worksheets you can use as support material to go along with it. This post was SO helpful in understand why each part of the process is important for the child to learn, and how to go about teaching it.

Communication Station's post helps you determine if your child is a 'tipper' or a 'dipper,' and explains the different ways you would teach 'tippers' or 'dippers' to make the /s/ sound.

Let's Grow Speech's post has good tips and exercises for getting kids to articulate the /s/ and /z/ sounds.

The Speech-Language Therapy Blog Posts group board on Pinterest is constantly updated by over 60 speech-language pathologists with links to their posts on the subject. It's a really good place for information.

Adventures in Speech Pathology has lots of articulation board games you can download, along with articulation cards, a list of language resources, and speech resources. There are games for all the sounds and blended sounds.

IF you happen to own an iPad (I don't), this Speech Tutor app by Pocket SLP is pretty cool. It has lots of video demonstrations that you can use to visibly show kids where their tongues should be placed to make the different sounds. I really wish it were available for Android!

From Speechy Musings, this list of freebies on Teachers Pay Teachers has lots of great games, activities, and other stuff for articulation and reinforcing (plus some for other parts of speech-language pathology).

I'm posting this one, even though it isn't free, because it was SUCH a find. Mason adores trains. This train articulation game is perfect for him!

This last one is an awesome reference list from Playing With Words 365, that includes links to posts on the different ages that children develop sounds, the difference between speech and language, definitions of speech terms, definition of different speech and language problems (stuttering, lisp, dysarthria, etc.), and things to watch out for.

Two Years Ago, Today

Two years ago on this day, my son was diagnosed with cancer. Can you believe it? I can hardly believe it. I had planned to hold a "thank you" party today, to thank everyone who had any part whatsoever in helping and supporting Mason. I began planning it a month ago, and then...well, I realized this wasn't the day I wanted to celebrate it on. The day I found out my son had cancer is nothing to celebrate. So I'm saving that for next year, when we celebrate the fact that he'll have been cancer-free for a year.

But back to the point: 

Since that day back in Nov. of 2010, it was a very long time before I ever felt like I could look to our future with any surety. My son's chances were grim, and even after he received a miracle that pretty much doubled his chances, I still felt cautious. We were thrown into a world that no one wants to be in, but one that everyone seems unable to leave. 

Even after Mason finished treatments at the beginning of this year, and his body began to gain weight and finally grow (including hair!), I felt attached to the one thing I despise the most, unable to let it go: Cancer. The word was like a vine that took root in my body, unwilling to let me forget the hardships I had witnessed my son face. He was finished with treatments, yet I was still explaining to people that he had had cancer, and what had happened to him. Germs were still horrible creatures lurking on every surface, ready to cause yet another trip to the hospital with a fevered child. I was still protective of him, and wary to let him just play and be a child. Minor jostles were still heart-stopping moments for me. 

As the months passed, each of these fears were slowly taken from my mind. His hair grew in and his body was no longer skin and bones, and he didn't look like a cancer child anymore. People stopped staring, sad looks were weren't passed around a room, questions became rare. The minor illnesses came back--the small things we hadn't dealt with since diagnosis like a simple cold, a runny nose, or the flu. And they were just that: colds and flus, and nothing more. His body had adjusted, and germs no longer seemed to be quite at the level of ultimate super evils that they once were. We went swimming in the mucky lake (complete with an impromptu mud bath), and his body didn't even respond to whatever I'm sure lurks in the lake. We went swimming again and again. He played rough with his uncle and his cousins, and they could finally stop holding back (no more chest port--yay!). He got punched (in  play) in the chest by his roughest cousin, and instead of coming to me crying, he finally just punched him back. 

And the last thing--the very last thing--to change is that our minds have finally begun to feel like cancer is a thing of the past. As I said before, it was a long time since I felt like I could look to our future with any surety. But now I know I can. Cancer is no longer the first thing I tell people about my son. In fact, he's in a weekly music class and his teacher has no idea that just 10 months ago, he was battling cancer. You have no idea what a struggle it was in my head, to decide whether that was something she needed to know, or not. It was a big deal when I finally realized that cancer no longer defines our lives, and that it was okay for people to not know about it. That maybe they didn't even need or want to know about it. 

And Mason...well, Mason asks me to tell him stories about the time that he had cancer. He asks to see his cancer blog, where he looks at pictures and asks questions, because he's already beginning to forget. Not all of it; sadly, he'll never be able to forget it all. But the biggest sign that cancer is a thing of the past, is that his mind is no longer filled with it. And if he's able to let go, I am definitely able to as well.

Two years ago, my son was diagnosed with cancer. It changed our lives. 

Today, I didn't even remember the significance of the date until someone else mentioned it.

That's what I call progress.