Oh, my Alexa!

For my birthday, I decided I wanted to splurge just a little and got myself an Amazon Echo. Now at the risk of me about to sell this thing to you –because that’s how impressed I am with this thing –I have to tell you the awesome and positive changes it has brought about in the two days I have owned it.

Mr. J thinks Alexa is the neatest thing since sliced bread. He tries to have his own conversations with her, mainly trying to get her to repeat what he says, but he has inadvertently set timers, unknowingly pulled up the news and unintentionally mixed my music. He absolutely loves the “Simon Says” feature where you say “Alexa, Simon Says ____________” and she will repeat what you say back to you.

The latest phrase being him trying to say “Turn on Mommy’s laundry” has Alexa spouting back “Turn is says why love me”  I am finding this HIGHLY entertaining and my husband and I are having a good laugh. The even funnier thing is that Alexa responds better to J’s gibberish than to Bud. Bud likes trying out the funny Easter Egg questions.

As for me, I am loving the idea that I can add things to my shopping and To Do list just by saying it right when it pops into my head so I have a lot less Squirrel going on, like: “I have to write milk on my list” and then get my list from the other room and search for the pencil and then with pencil poised over the paper “What was I adding again?” I squirrel that bad. (getting older really sucks!)

So it would appear that I have found that new thing that J really likes and I use it as a positive reinforcement.  I also see it as an awesome tool for getting him to enunciate his speech. This will help so huge when he speaks and hears it spoken back to him.

So yes, if you haven’t gotten yourself this little doo-dad yet, you need to! It’s only been two days, and how the heck did I manage without her before?! I also highly recommend purchasing the remote that goes with it –you can use the “Simon Says” function on it from another room and blow people’s mind.     Example, Mr. J needs to stop “pestering” Alexa, so from the other room, I say into the remote “Simon Says, ‘J please leave me alone now’    J hears Alexa say “J, please leave me alone now.”   Just imagine the mischief you can get up to in having Alexa telling your kids to turn off the TV and do their homework! (haha)

 

#AmazonEcho #AlexaRocks #SimonSays #LessSquirrel

Best. Week. Ever.

Wow. This is one of those instances where I wish I didn’t have to leave my family behind to come home from Spring Break. Sure, we drove each other pretty batty, but as far as Mr. J was concerned, he was having the best week of his life to where I’m so proud of him, I could just cry!

Usually when we visit, Mr. J wants very little to do with his cousins, aged 5 and 8. They get so excited when they learn that we are coming for a visit and then so sad that he doesn’t return the hugs or the excitement. But this time, it was a complete 180.  He was so excited himself, calling them each by name (oh, the girls just couldn’t get over that!) and giving hugs back, so excited to see Nana and Pappy! He was immediately playing with his cousins!

Who was this child?

It so happened that when we visited on our break, the girls were back in school, already finished with their break. So every morning before they went off to school, the girls would come in to say goodbye and Mr. J would send them off. When they returned home from school, he would joyously greet them at the door—you’d think daddy was coming home! Then they would hang out and play until dinner time. Every night when the bath was done and the pj’s were on, he’d go looking for the girls so he could say goodnight to them.

He never talked so much or played so hard! The only phenomenon I had issue with was sleep. He would be so tired to where he wouldn’t know which way was up, and he would go down at bedtime, easily fall asleep by 8-ish as is his usual, but be wide awake and ready to go BEFORE 6am!  Uh, no.  This I do not understand. As tired as he was, I was hoping for a little sleep in, like 7.  Of course I’m up so I can keep him from waking the house. I kept him occupied, trying to get him back to bed with the logic of “The sun is still sleeping!” No, too smart for that.

It would be 6:30 when I could allow him to go running into Nana and Pappy’s bedroom to wake them with his cute and sweet “Good morning Nana! Good Morning Pappy!”  Seriously, you cannot wake up in a bad mood when you are greeted like that!! Even I get greeted every morning with that melt-your-heart-adorable-sincere “Good morning mommy!”  Oh, how I love to hear it!

He is FINALLY talking so much more now!  Still, I think I will shock myself on the day I finally say “Can you just be quiet for five minutes?!?”

Cwarents

Oh, da cuteness!  Sometimes that boy floors us.

Last night just before bedtime, the boy decided he wanted a particular thing. He turns to me and starts with something that sounded like “Cwarents?”  Of course I did not know what this meant at first. Super Mom went to work on it in her mind, running it through the usual filters, trying to decipher this sound.

“Cwarents?” he asks again. My gears are turning, running down possibilities.  Clarence? No….     Parents?….. I’m looking to Bud who is also trying to decipher. Maybe he wanted to be on the couch with mom and dad on either side? So we try that. Nope, that wasn’t it.

“I want Cwarents pweese!”      Uh oh. If I can’t come up with it within the next 30 seconds, I court the frustrating wrath of Mr. Fussy.

“Cwarents? I want Cwarents pweese!”

Only God knows how I managed to make this leap.  “Clam-bulance?”  (as in Bubble Guppies –“Call a Clambulance!”)

He excitedly flaps with a crystal clear “THAT”S IT!”

And the day is saved!  (Go Warrior Me!)

Awesome.

Have All the Sauce You Want!!!!

The end to yet another short school week thanks to a holiday of some kind. But it wasn’t a bad thing! We’ve had some adventures in bowling and breakthroughs!

Our adventure in bowling went relatively well. Mr. J had never been before, and we wanted to get out of the house. And being in Henderson, there’s a nearby casino within reach with a HUGE bowling alley. There’s 70+ lanes. Huge, loud, and just full of input! If you’ve seen the 80’s film “Short Circuit”, Mr. J was #5, taking in all the input and was pulling me in every direction to go check things out. We decided on a game to see how he’d do.

It was just too cute! He knew which ball was his, pick it up, take it to the line, sit down on the ground and let the ball go. This meant that t took 20 years for the ball to reach the end and knock anything over, so I tried to help out where I could. Mommy’s help was not wanted, thank you very much. Justin DO! Awesome. He was LOVING it! So excited!—but I knew that it was excitement that was too much excitement, because once the game was over and we were done, he didn’t want to stop. So we very calmly packed it up and picked up a squirmy, screaming Mr. J and simply walked out to the car. Oh sure, we got the usual looks of “Aren’t you going to do something about your kid?” but we were leaving, so what did I care? Once we had gotten to the car, everything was right with the world again as he was in his seat, the familiarity of the car and landscape he was more familiar with. On the overall, I called it a successful outing. However, when we do try bowling again, we will look for a much smaller alley.

And then for yesterday, I finally got a breakthrough in Mr. J’s communication. He has been extremely vocal lately. He’s mimicking a lot, trying to talk along with the TV, read the stories out loud and just go with his own narrative—and at the moment, hardly any of it is very clear, so it’s a lot of gibberish and babble. I take that as a good sign. In school they have been working with Mr. J to do things for himself, and at home Mr. J still tries to get me to do it all (and I don’t). I was sitting on the couch watching the games when he comes up to me, starts pulling on my hand and being fussy, wanting me to get up and get him something. I told him “No, no. You have to ask nicely. Say ‘Mama’ can you come with me? ‘Mama’ I’m hungry. What is it you need?” And then he stood there, looked me in the eye (that’s huge!) and said:

“Mama, sauce.” (Meaning, “Mama, I want applesauce”)

I couldn’t get up off that couch fast enough. “YES!! You can have sauce! You can sauce all you want! You can have sauce by the bucket load!”

It didn’t really hit me until I started telling everyone else I could get a hold of.

Hey, WORLD! Guess what Mr. J did?!?!?!?

I told his teacher this morning. So everyone was ecstatic. He’s doing so awesomely in school right now—the teacher wants to keep him, the aides want to adopt him because he’s doing so well and acting all cute.

So yes, Mr. J you can all the sauce you want!!!

Valentine’s and Being “Justin’s Mom”

When he’s good, he’s fantastic!

I get blown away a lot more often now that things at school are going so well! This last week we celebrated Valentines Day. Not that Mr. J understands what that is, but it was still a lot of fun.

I bought the Valentines to be passed out to the class. And yes, I was “that mom” who decided to bake cookies. It turned out I was the only mom who did. I had decided that I would come to the class and see if I could be a “fly on the wall” for a little bit while the Valentine’s Day party went on. So I got there and was greeted by Mr. J, who was overjoyed to see me. The class was watching some Sesame Street and going over the alphabet that Mr. J proudly showed off. Then after the show the kids were going over their sight words for the week. Mr. J left me to go and sit on his letter on the letter mat (his is W). So I got to watch from the back of the room as he did everything that was asked of him, following simple directions. Then we got to the party. The kids sat down at their tables in their designated spots and the snacks were passed out—cupcakes, cookies, pretzels, cheetos and juice. (That Mr. J ate none of—that’s where I came in) Then after snack the kids took their spots back up on the letter mat and each kid passed out their Valentines. I thought Mr. J would be a bit overwhelmed, but he did great. He gave each kid in his class a card and a cookie and seemed happy to do it. I was very surprised that the new little girl in the class was actually curled up on the rug off to one side sound asleep. She slept through the whole thing! A dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant wouldn’t wake this kid!

Of course I was something of a novelty in the class. Despite my low profile, the kids loved having me there. I was “Justin’s Mom”

“Hey Justin’s Mom! Guess what?” “Justin’s Mom! Could you get this for me?” “Justin’s Mom! We’re having a party!”

So I’m Justin’s Mom. I tried to get them to call me Miss Laurie, but it just wouldn’t stick. I found it to be very amusing, actually.

So after the party hub-bub I decided to just bring Justin home since there was only an hour to go and me leaving him there would have resulted in a melt down. So when it was time to go he proudly went to his cubby, pulled out his backpack, put his lunchbox in it, zipped it up and put it on himself and proclaimed “Ok! Let’s Go!” (although not quite as clear as that) But clear enough for the teacher to say “Did he just say ‘Let’s go’?” Big smile on my face. Why, yes. Yes he did.

So I get him home. We are relaxing on the couch, having a cuddle and I say “I love you” After we did our “I love you” forehead touch he says “Say it! I love you!” I had to bust up laughing because I’m always saying something followed with “Say it! Say it!”

I am hoping that he will be talking soon. He does very well with simply directions. I can tell him to close a door, get a spoon, have a seat, stop, give it and so much more. He’s so VERY smart! He repeats a lot of what he hears—so watch your mouth! He really does understand what you are saying to him, but he just can’t talk too well. I know he’s getting better and better all the time.

Another thing I FINALLY got out of him was “Mama”. He sometimes winds up on the wrong side of the gate at the bottom of the stairs. When he can’t get something to work right, he tends to start whining or throwing a fit and sounding very frustrated. I wouldn’t get him out of his fix until he calmed down and called for me to get him out. So after a small battle of the wills I finally hear a nice and calm “Mama!” That was pretty awesome. Score!

So there we have it!