Game Night

Yesterday was Game Night at the kids' school. Game Night seems like such a quaint idea, the perfect opportunity to enjoy community time at school! Right? Right?!?!

Here’s what I imagine happens for parents of neurotypical kids at events like this: the parent and kid come in together, find friends (for both parent and kid alike) and then keep a loose eye on one another as they enjoy conversations with their peers. I guess that the occasional warning or reminder happens and that at some point the kid begs for food, and I imagine that the parent might wish they could be somewhere besides a school gym on a Friday night. This is all speculation of course because I’ve never actually gone to one of these events as the parent of all neurotypical kids.

My nights at events like this go a little differently. Stow was the target audience for this event, so we went together. Fortunately Sky and Pink volunteered to help run events because it turned out that I needed multiple pairs of eyes to get through the night. Nothing catastrophic happened, you guys, but two hours felt like an eternity. 

First he ran to the back gym to play basketball, which essentially consisted of throwing the ball wildly in the direction of a basket before weaving in and out of other players. Friends from his class tried to say hi and engage him in play, but he didn’t notice.

Jenga

Without warning he ran out of that gym and crashed a giant Jenga game that a mom and her son were enjoying together quite peacefully. I reminded Stow that he needed to ask if it was ok to join their game. He mumbled and they told him he was welcome to play, but, really, did they have a choice? After a few rounds, during which he broke every possible Jenga rule, he decided to take out the last remaining piece holding the tower in place, sending the tower crashing loudly to the ground. Before we could pick up the mess, he was off to interrupt another calm mother-son duo who were playing cornhole (aka “bags” depending on where you’re from). They were less accommodating to his interruption; it seems they didn't like how he insisted on taking all the bags and repeatedly throwing them into the hole as he stood directly over the board.

At about this time the “cake walk” started, and Stow became determined to win a prize. Each round, fourteen people could cake walk, while the rest of us stood in line. No matter how many rounds we did, Stow couldn’t accept that he had to go to the back of the line after each turn, and it took some wrestling to get him there. It’s hard to wrestle without making a scene. As we waited in line over and over again, I found myself trying to calculate the number of rounds it would take for one of us to win. I couldn’t work out the role variability played in the calculation, though. It’s been awhile since I’ve calculated probability. 

On our eighth try, Stow won and quickly chose a 2-liter bottle of lemonade as his prize. That meant, of course, that we had to find a place to drink it. The only empty tables happened to be in the board game area. After a brief game of “Ants in the Pants,” Stow decided he would play “Kerplunk.” It didn’t bother him that someone else had already started a game. He sat and tried to join in. 

“Do you remember what I told you to say when you want to play?” I prompted him.

“I want to play!” he responded.

“No, remember it’s nice to say, ‘Can I join you?’”

He looked at me but didn’t bother trying again. The game had already started. The other pair was a parent and a preschooler. It amazed me how well the preschooler listened and kept it together, even when Stow started spinning the tube around as fast as he could in an attempt to launch the marbles. Soon there were marbles rolling in every direction at once, and he was off again.

“Thanks for letting him play,” I said over my shoulder as I chased after him. Before I could catch up with him, another parent I hadn’t seen in awhile stopped me to say hello. Five minutes later, conversation done, I realized I had no idea which direction Stow had gone. Sky, who was working concessions, hadn’t seen him run past, so I sent Pink in one direction and headed off in the other.

Ten minutes later, we hadn’t found him, despite both checking all the rooms. Had he made his way into one of the deserted hallways of the school? Had he gone outside? His preschool and first-grade special ed teachers were working the event, and I was pretty sure one of them would have stopped him before he got out the door, but where WAS he? 

Found him!

Here. He was here. In the corner, hidden behind the table and some cafeteria storage units, playing bingo. Once I determined he wouldn’t wander off (primarily because I had Pink stay with him but also because I knew he wanted to win at bingo), I thought it would be safe to go to the restroom. It was my first break all night.

When I walked out of the restroom, I almost crashed into Stow who had won a prize at bingo and was running back to the gym so he could throw himself on the floor and tear open the new game. Pink followed behind carrying the 2-liter bottle of lemonade. She handed it to me and ran off to play with her friends.

I slid down to the floor and sat next to Stow, hands full of three bags of half eaten popcorn, a partially-consumed bottle of lemonade, and Pink’s jacket. There were still 45 minutes to go.

Once he realized the new game needed batteries, Stow abandoned it to dance and run around with the other kids. I put all the game pieces back into the box, picked up the pile of things and made my way to the bleachers. Around me groups of parents chatted, their kids checking checking in from time to time before heading off to dance or play basketball again. I watched Stow bounce around the gym, running in and out. Occasionally a classmate would invite him to join them, but before long, he was off running again.

The mom from "Kerplunk" wandered in my direction. For the first time, I noticed she was pregnant.

“This is exhausting,” I said to her.

She laughed and pointed to her stomach, “Especially with this. Twins.”

“Thank you for your patience with my son,” I said. “I’m sorry he wasn’t a better example for yours.”

“He was great!” she replied. “Before he invited himself to play with us, my son was too scared to talk to anyone, but now look at him. Your son helped loosen him up!”

Sure enough, her son was jumping around with his classmates having a grand time. We chatted for a few more minutes before the kids pulled us in separate directions. Stow was throwing cornhole bags at a friend. 

I called him over.  “That will hurt him. I think he doesn’t want you to do that,” I said.

“No, he likes it. He did the same thing to me,” Stow replied earnestly before dashing off again. In the middle of the gym, a group of kids about Stow’s age had formed a conga line and were dancing to the Macarena. 

Stow walked toward the light array next to the DJ stand. After staring at the lights for awhile, he turned and stared at the DJ. Then he got down on the ground to see the lights and the DJ from that angle. By then, the last song, had been announced.

Stow bolted over and grabbed his game.

“We need to find your brother and sister,” I said to Stow as he dashed off again. Next Pink found me, “Go get your brothers,” I said, thinking that Stow had gone to get Sky at the concession stand. A few minutes later, Pink and Sky came back to the gym.

“Where’s Stow?” I asked.

“He’s outside. Says he’s going to walk home,” Sky replied.

“Then why are you both in here?” I asked, pushing my way through the crowd to try to get to Stow before he set off in the dark.

“You told us to come find you,” Sky said matter-of-factly.

When we found him, Stow was standing on top of the half-wall regaling people with stories of his victorious evening. This seems to have distracted him from his plan to walk home. I corralled the three kids into the car and drove home.

“How’d it go?” Ren asked when we walked in. He was sitting with the cats, reading a book on his iPad.

“Stow won prizes,” I said and then silently retreated into our bedroom and sat in the quiet darkness for a long, long time.

Into the Vortex

Our first winter here five years ago, it snowed in early November and didn't melt until March. That was the winter of Ren's first spine fusion, so he didn't leave the house those four months except for the occasional doctor's appointment. In the meantime, as a novice to the ways of the Great White North, every time it snowed, I managed to make the entrance into our driveway smaller and smaller until I could barely fit the car between the two massive piles of snow I'd created and feared would never melt. (Here's a blog post about the various sensory bins I made to cope that winter). That we didn't pack up and move south after that first winter kind of blows my mind now. With Ren out of commission and the kids five years younger (so 9, 6, and 2), the polar vortex of 2014 was a long winter of snow shoveling and single parenting for me.

In the intervening five years, winters here have been pretty mild and the kids have become more self-sufficient. Sky loves to snow blow and Stow loves to shovel, so the snowfall we've had has been utterly manageable. This week that all changed, though, because in the last 10 days, we've accumulated more than 18 inches of snow and find ourselves staring down another polar vortex, one that looks to be worse than the last one. With windchills expected to get down to -50F or lower, schools are closed; work is closed; even the US Postal Service is closed. After a few dumps of snow and temperatures too low for any of it to melt, this place is starting to seem a lot like Hoth. I'm thinking about trading one of the cars in for a tauntaun. Tauntaun's seem somehow warmer. And, fuzzier.

Started our polar vortex "party" on Tuesday night with an indoor cookout.

Our main goal, this go around is to keep everyone in the house, especially Stow who likes to wander when stressed and who often refuses hat and gloves. To that end, we started by making a list of things we could do once homework and morning jobs were done.

The list they created for Wednesday.

Same sensory bin, five years later.

Car World, apparently.

By 10 am, we'd gotten through most of the list, endured three meltdowns, and broken up one brawl. So, then we stepped it up a notch and started to use the cold to our advantage, if it's possible to do that when it's -26F with a windchill of -50F.

Freezing boiling water.

Freezing bubbles.

Waiting for water to freeze.

Almost frozen and joined by pineapple.

Welcome to the Arctic!

I was so busy trying to keep Stow occupied that I totally forgot to put the chili in the crockpot, so all hands helped. Stow manned the can opener while Sky cut veggies and Pink browned the ground beef. Ren did some magic with onions.

Browning the beef.

Demonstrating how to cut a pepper.

It's not even noon on the first day yet (school and work are cancelled through Thursday). I started this post last night and squeezed in these sentences while the kids play "Don't Rock the Boat" and "Quick Cups." I have no idea how we will get through 36 more hours of this, but at least we have heat and a kotatsu.

Catan and kotatsu

If you don't hear from me again, you'll know I didn't make it.

Update: From Glue to Stressed Balls

The water beads came in the mail on Tuesday. The description on Amazon assured me I could make two whole gallons of water beads. What arrived was a tiny ziplock bag full of balls approximately the size of a pin head. I can't tell you how happy I was to see they were called Stress Balls.

Stress balls.

The instructions noted that a single teaspoon of balls would yield a quart of filled water beads. So, I did the math. My fancy Voss bottles hold 11.5 ounces of water, and a quart is 32 ounces, so I needed to put enough beads to fill a third of a teaspoon. Easy.

Except, a 1/3 of a teaspoon of beads was only, like, 10 tiny balls (or so it seemed to my giant eyeballs eyeing that giant Voss bottle). Surely, I needed to put more into the bottle. So, I upped the amount  to 1/2 a teaspoon, and when that looked like it wasn't enough, I put in another 1/2 a teaspoon. Then I added water and the kids gathered around the bottle to watch the beads do their thing.

The instructions said it would take 6-8 hours for the beads to fully hydrate, so after checking them at bedtime, I promptly forgot about them. The next morning, Pink came dashing in to see how they looked. They LOOKED cool, but no matter how much she shook the bottle, they didn't budge.

Obviously, there were too many balls in the bottle. I took off the lid and about ten beads came shooting out onto the floor. After I dumped some more into a plastic bag for Stow to squeeze, I added more water. When all were sufficiently satisfied with the way the balls moved, I super glued the lid on.

Hours later, when I got home from work, the balls were crammed together and stuck in place again. That's when I realized that my morning intervention had only provided enough space for the balls to keep growing. So, I pried off the lid and dumped out another 1/3 of the bottle, putting the newly freed balls into the plastic bag with the others.

I added more water and glued the lid, leaving us with this.

Finally.

Oh, and a ziplock bag full of smashed stress balls. In the trash can.

I guess the moral of this story is that I should probably just follow directions and trust my math. Sigh.

The Glue that Holds Us Together (Or Drives Us Apart? You Be the Judge.)

Many months ago, several how-to pinteresty-type blog posts for DIY sensory calming bottles popped up on my Facebook feed. The bottles looked so fancy and so calming and so incredibly easy to make, so I resolved to make some for the kids....eventually.

First, I had to acquire some "Voss" bottles.  A rational person would have gone to her local grocery store to pick up a few of these bottles and just gotten the job done. But, I'm not rational. I'm also extremely forgetful. For months I forgot to check out the bottled water aisle when doing my grocery shopping. Then one day, a 12-pack of Voss water popped up on sale on my favorite online shopping site, so I bought it.

Two days later, my twelve bottles of "artisan" water arrived. Ren was not impressed. In fact, Ren was downright hostile about the fact that I'd been so easily duped into paying a high price for water just because the packaging was pretty. I pointed out that I'd only paid 89 cents a bottle. This only confirmed his deepest regrets about my life choices. I thought about explaining the glitter and the glue and the little floating diamonds, but I knew he wouldn't understand.

The arrival of the Voss bottles was unheralded, and it led to a lot of commotion at our house. What were these fancy bottles, and what in the world was artisan still water? The kids didn't believe me when I told them it was just water and that I just bought it so I could use the bottles. They remained convinced that somehow Voss water was better than our usual water and fought each other over the right to drink the water for dinner and at snack time. (Note: This just goes to show the power of packaging. I feel a bit like a failure because my kids were SO taken by these bottles.)

Soon, I had eight empty Voss bottles. But, the shape of the bottle and the narrowness of its neck made it difficult to dry them out (plus I'm forgetful), so they sat for days on the kitchen counter. It seems the Voss water on our kitchen counter and the empty bottles in the drying rack served as a constant reminder for Ren of my my gullibility.

The last four Voss water bottles still sitting on the counter.

Eventually Ren had a mini-meltdown about the bottles drying eternally on the counter. So, I put them all in a plastic bag and stashed them in a desk drawer. It took me three more weeks to find time to shop for the glitter and the glue. Which brings us to yesterday...

Finally, all the pieces came together (in other words, I got 45 minutes to myself so I could run to the craft store and stock up on bottle fillers), and Pink and I made our first calming bottle. We used rainbow glitter glue, rainbow glitter, and about three tablespoons worth of clear Elmer's Glue. Then we super glued the lid on (and four of my fingers).

Attempt #1--The glitter separates from the water and falls quickly to the bottom of the bottle.

Pink and I deemed this attempt a success. Sky pointed out that the large, coarse glitter was too heavy for the extremely fine glitter glue glitter, and that the whole thing flowed way too fast. Without using the precise word, he was talking about my problem with viscosity.

So, when the kids went to bed, I tried again. This time I used two tubes of glitter glue and about 10 tablespoons of clear glue. I didn't use any of the coarse glitter, but I did add some plastic fish in an attempt to make it a sea-themed calming jar. The kids agreed that I got the viscosity right on this one, but no one was sure they liked how the plastic fish "swam" through the bottle. No matter how thickly I applied the glue, it couldn't slow them down.

Attempts #1 and #2. side by side.

I decided to try smaller do dads together with two tubes of glitter glue, 8 table spoons of clear glue, and 1/4 of a container of coarse glitter. The letters work a little better than the fish, but they are still not light enough. The next time I get to the craft store, I think I will pick up some themed confetti to try. I'm still waiting on my water beads. They should come in the mail soon.

Big sea creatures and small letters. Both are still too big.

Three of them with the same time lapse. The middle one is the least viscous while the green one has the most glue.

Once I put these three bottles together, Ren FINALLY seemed to understand why I was willing to pay 89 cents for a bottle of water. And, in theory, these are a great idea. In practice, though, the small Voss bottles are ideal projectiles in the hands of a rambunctious 5 year-old. And Ren really, really, really hates glitter. I think we all know how this is going to end. Ren has already told me that he fully expects to replace all the carpet in the house when one of these bottles spills. Here's hoping these bottles have more going for them than their good looks!

Squeeze On

When we moved three years ago, Ren and I decided to get rid of the ratty, old couch that we'd been moving back and forth from rentals to storage sheds as we relocated here, there, and everywhere during the final years of grad school. It was uncomfortable, the edges were frayed, the cushions were torn, and it had holes in the bottom that allowed things to fall so deeply into the springs that it required all sorts of contortions to retrieve them. The couch looked like it fit better at a frat house than our living room, so selling it to a bunch of college kids made a lot of sense.

Except for one thing:

Where's Sky?

Sky loved this couch with a capital L.O.V.E. When the world around him got too overwhelming, he'd bury himself under the seat and back cushions and get his sister to pile on the pillows before jumping on top (not pictured, obviously) to give him some serious compression. (An old post about the Sky's couch is here.)

Understandably, Sky protested our sale of this, his most prized sensory intervention. So, when we decided to sell the couch, we promised Sky we'd find something just as good or better. Of course, I had no idea how hard that would turn out to be. For one thing, the nicer, new furniture we bought doesn't have a lot of removable parts to enable children to burrow into them. 

And, even though I made two quick purchases-- a weighted blanket

and a crash pad--

as soon as we got to our new home, they didn't work nearly as well as the old couch even though I probably paid more for each of them than I did for the couch, which we bought used from a fellow grad student. (They work great for other things--like sleeping and crashing--but not for compression.)

For the past couple of years, then, we tried to make due with what we had on hand--mostly this has meant Sky comes bouncing up to me when he's overstimulated and demands that I squeeze him as hard as I can. There are two problems with this approach, though. First, he's getting bigger and bigger, and soon I won't be able to squeeze him very effectively, and second, if he has to depend on me to help him self regulate, he will never learn to actually self regulate.

So, this Christmas, I broke down and bought a Giant Peapod XL.  It's been perfect for getting Sky to independently pursue sensory intervention when he starts to feel overwhelmed. He willingly climbs into it when he feels he needs a good squeeze. And, not only does it squeeze, but it also rocks back and forth, which is very helpful feature for a kid trying to self-sooth. 

There are a couple of downsides, though. Whoever named this product wasn't lying; it IS giant. Think inflatable life-size canoe. In your living room. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a big as the couch we sold. Also, it's inflatable, so it just begs for kids to come jumping. When we aren't using it, we store it on its side and against the wall, and we've put some pretty clear rules into place for its use. Still, I imagine its inviting puffiness will attract some unwanted jumping. ***

But, Sky loves it. 

Exhibit A--Little Sister demonstrates.

Heaven.

Blissfully buried.

In fact, all three of the kids like climbing in and relaxing. This is one of their favorite places to read books, and if they sit, two of them can use it at the same time. So far, the benefits far outweigh the inconvenience of having a large pea green canoe taking up space in the basement. I guess the moral of the story is that you shouldn't sell your ratty old couch, even if it does have tears and holes. But, if you do, you can always get a giant pea pod.

***Even without the jumping, our OT tells us these usually only last a couple of years before springing an unfixable leak. The first one we got came with leak in it, and Kelly at autism-products.com was amazing. She got another one in the mail to me ASAP, making the whole exchange fairly stress-free. I will definitely keep using autism-products.com for all future ASD-related purchases (and, no, she didn't pay me to say this). The peapod comes with a repair kit and instructions for fixing leaks.

Sensory Bins on Steroids

Every year about this time, you know, when the weather turns cold, and I start to contemplate being trapped in the house for hours with stir crazy kids in the midst of an eternal winter break, I write a post about sensory bins (click here for the 2014 one or here for the 2013 one). You might call my sensory bin obsession a compulsion (albeit, a compulsion brought about by the real fear that the cooped-up kids might finally get the best of me). It's not like we don't use the bins in the summer months. We still do, but, for a number of reasons, they get a lot more play once the weather turns cold and the leaves fall off the trees. In the crush that is the birthday-Thanksgiving-birthday-semester end-Christmas combo, I do a lot of my shopping online. This is especially true when Ren is down and out with his back. This year, two online impulse purchases (they were SO cheap, I couldn't resist) have added hours of new life to our old sensory bins.  First, I found a set of 16 very cheap-looking Star Wars figurines on sale for 50% off, and I decided to throw the set into my cart at the last minute thinking they would be just enough to reinvigorate the Star Wars bin.

I had no idea how well this would work. Since I put the new figurines into the old bin, Stow has played with them practically nonstop. No, really. Take a look:

Old Star Wars sensory bin with new Star Wars characters added.

Day 1, 7:30 pm

Day 2, 6:30 am

Day 2, 8:40 am

Day 2, 1 pm

Day 2, 7 pm

Day 3, 7:15 am

Day 3, 3 pm

Day 3, 8 pm

I could keep going, but I think you get the point. Stow is obsessed with this thing. He asks for the bin the first thing in the morning and goes back to it all day long. He even invites his siblings and Ren and I to play with him (though I still haven't figured out how to be the good guys without making him mad). 

At about the same time I bought the Star Wars guys, I also bought a "Mystery Pack" of 10 Schleich figurines, again for more than half off. With three kids of varied interests, I figured there would be at 3 or 4 things in the pack that at least one of them would like. When the package arrived, I found this inside:

The biggest most unnecessary fairy tree ever.

Needless to say, I was kind of miffed. Where were my 10 unique figurines, and what in the world was I going to do with such an excessively large tree?!?!  I tucked it into my closet and tripped over it for several days as I waited for an opportunity to pass it on to someone who might actually like and use it. Halfway through day 2 of Stow's Star Wars bin obsession, however, I decided to give the tree and the old fairy sensory bin to Pink, just to see what would happen. 

Big-a** tree + fairy box = hours of fun.

Day 2

It turns out the fairy trees are pretty cool, especially if you already have a box full of fairy stuff. Pink is not as obsessed as Stow is, but she's been engaged with the sensory bin on and off for two days now, too. My favorite times have been when the Star Wars guys and the fairy guys get together to fight the forces of evil from the fairy tree.  

The moral of this story is a universal one, I think:

When making impulse buys, sometimes you will get an unexpected fairy tree that takes up half your living room. That's okay, though, because it is worth it just for a few hours of uninterrupted, cooperative play. 

No? Not universal enough? Okay, how about this one?:

Impulse buys are stupid even if they sometimes work out in the end. 

You know what? Forget it. You just take from my story whatever you will. I have a feeling that's what you've been doing all along anyway!

Remember October 2015

And suddenly it’s November 1st. The kids have been up and asking questions since 5 a.m. because, you know, Daylight Savings Time (All those people thrilled to “gain” an hour at the end of Daylight Savings Time, probably didn’t get to enjoy an extra pre-dawn hour of kids playing loudly and asking about Halloween candy every five minutes). Still, I'm glad to be to November!

The good news, I guess, is that I am learning to roll with the punches after a very hairy month of October. It started in late September, actually, when Ren was suddenly hospitalized for a week. He’s okay now: meaning, he’s out of the hospital. The less-than-good news is that the ongoing health issues related primarily to the spine problems are really no closer to being resolved. To say it’s frustrating doesn’t even come close conveying how our lives are impacted by all of this, and since I haven’t figured out a way to put a positive spin on it, most times I choose not to write anything (one reason for some extended silences—sorry!).

Six days after Ren came out of the hospital, I left for a 10-day trip to Japan. I love going to Japan and taking students on field excursions and meeting with folks at our exchange partners, and it IS getting easier for Ren to manage the kids while I am away. Still, ten days is a long time to single parent. And, with the added variables of bad back, food allergies, and sensory issues, ten days can seem like eternity.

Sky carving his first pumpkin.

Into this mix came Halloween. Halloween has traditionally been the beginning of the behavioral downhill slide that leads to the new year. Kids with sensory processing and social skills issues don’t handle change in routine well, and nothing kills routine like Halloween, birthday, Thanksgiving, birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s at 2-week (or less) intervals. I’ve come to dread Halloween and what it represents in terms of the falling-apartness of our lives. 

Besides the disruption to routine, there are also the food allergies. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are not terribly conducive for kids who are gluten, dairy, nut, and everything else free, and the end result tends to be a lot more cooking/food buying by me. This year, for example, for class Halloween parties,  I sent separate bags of allergy-friendly candy to each class so none of the kids felt left out. I don't mind doing this, but the logistics can be hard as I have to communicate with each teacher in advance, buy enough of the right kinds of candy, and get it to each school and classroom on time. I also have to remind each teacher that each kid has his/her own candy AND, in the case of Stow anyway, go to the class during the party to make sure that all of the other parents have some of his candy to give especially to him.

Halloween also offers the added challenge of costumes--costumes that go on bodies that may or may not be able to handle the extra sensory input or the uncertainty of so many people not looking like themselves. Last year, Sky had a very public meltdown about the fact that he’d forgotten the gloves to his costume, and when he ran back to the house to look for them, he was too panicked to be able to find them. Worse, the rest of the group (which consisted of about every kid in the neighborhood) had continued trick-or-treating without him, and he was a) too nervous to go to the houses he’d missed alone, and b) unwilling to miss those houses. That year, he had to quit after three houses. Two years ago, I paid $30+ for a cardboard Minecraft head and pixelated sword only to have Sky refuse to wear all of it, and when I saw him at the school Halloween parade (which I’d left work early and parked about a mile away and walked to see), he skulked behind his classmates with his hands jammed into his pockets and his eyes to the ground. Halloween can be really hard, you guys.

This year, miraculously, everyone wore their costumes and made it all the way up and down the street before agreeing that they had gotten more than enough candy. Sure, there were hiccups. Even though I explained that we could do a candy swap once we were home, for example, Stow had a hard time not announcing to every house that, “We can’t eat that. We’re allergic to peanuts and chocolate!” And, he struggled a lot with impulse control once he had a bucket-full of candy. All things considered, though, this year went MUCH better than any year previous.

Personal victory: I managed to put two buns into Pink's hair making her look like a pretty convincing Princess Leia (I mean, if you don't count the fact she's wearing cowgirl boots).

In other words, October turned out okay. The hospitalization, the trip to Japan, and even Halloween, everything went fine. Maybe this is a sign that the rest of the November-December gauntlet will be okay, too. I don’t know, but  I’m working on chilling out and accepting that some parts of our life probably aren’t going to get any easier but other parts may well surprise me and be amazing.

Clearly This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

A friend (who isn't on FB and who also doesn't read my blog so never knows I talk about her quite regularly in my posts) told me about the calming buckets she'd made for her kids to use whenever they just needed to chill out. In each bucket is a collection of fidgets and art supplies for each child to use for as long as they needed in order to become human again after a meltdown or argument. I liked this idea a lot. But, I also knew that, since I am not nearly as organized as my friend, there wasn't enough room on top of the refrigerator or in my closet for three whole buckets of stuff and that if I didn't put them in either of those places, the items would disappear almost immediately into the flow of toys, books, papers, and pens that always seems to be migrating around the house.

Still, I liked the idea of giving the kids an emergency kit to use BEFORE their behavior devolves into a big fat mess of screaming/crying/fighting, which is what seems to happen most evenings just about dinner time. So, last weekend, while I was waiting for Pink P to finish at a friend's Chuck E Cheese party, I went to the dollar store and bought a bunch of tactile balls. Then I went online and ordered a couple of liquid timers, some stretchy string, and a glitter wand. Altogether, I spent about $15.

One shining moment: the box of stuff.

When the stuff arrived, I threw it into a box that was both smaller and a different color than all of the other sensory boxes. Then I sat the kids down and went over the ground rules. "THIS," I declared, "is our emergency sensory box. When you feel like you want to yell or cry or hit, I want you to get this box, take it to the couch, and spend as long as you need to calm down." They were rapt with attention--you know, when they weren't trying to fight jockey with each other to be the first to grab one of the bright shiny sensory balls. "But, WAIT," I continued. "There are some rules. First, you can only use this box when you are sitting on the couch. Second, you cannot throw the balls, and third, everything must go back into the box when you are done."

They seemed to understand. They really did.

But then all of the balls disappeared and the stretchy strings were turned into lassos and the whole thing fell apart, It turns out that missing emergency sensory box balls are perfect triggers for mom-sized meltdowns. Who knew?

Winter's Coming: Sensory Bins Revisited

Here in the upper Midwest, our pleasant autumn with its golden leaves and bright orange pumpkins turned into cold, colorless, and eternal winter over the course of a couple of days (much to my chagrin and to the chagrin of our neighbors who probably really wanted me to mow one last time). In the blink of an eye, the kids went from riding bikes and scooters up and down the street and playing in the backyard, to being inside All. The. Time. 

I'm already tired of it, and it's not even December, yet.

Such dire conditions immediately triggered my survival instincts, so I turned to our stash of sensory bins. (Click here for my original post on sensory bins). Stow has been playing with them on and off for most of the last year, but Pink had all but forgotten about them. So Saturday morning, I pulled out the fairy box and suggested she make a fairy garden. Twenty minutes later, she had this:

Kids playing quietly together for 20 to 30 minutes while also using their brains and being creative is the goal for any toy/craft that finds its way into our house. Pink's garden was enough to inspire me to go ahead and put together another bin I'd been contemplating for awhile, Star Wars.

Whenever I make a new bin, I try to recycle stuff we have around the house as much as possible. For this bin, I used the following:

Empty medicine bottles turned escape pods.

An egg carton space station.

Abandoned marbles make great planets. Some of them even have their own cloud cover (which, according to Sky, makes them much more convincing).

My original plan was to use Sky's old Star Wars figurines in the bin, so all I would have to buy is a bag of black beans. But, when Sky went to get his Star Wars guys, they were GONE!!!!!!!! (EDITOR'S NOTE: The only one surprised by this was Sky. We all know that no one stole his Star Wars guys. He just can't remember where he put them). To avert the meltdown that was bound to happen each and every time I reminded him to look for the Star Wars figurines, I decided it made more sense to just buy the cheapest possible set of plastic Star Wars pieces to complete the bin. 

I couldn't find a cheaper-looking collection of Star Wars things if I tried, and these STILL weren't all that inexpensive. It's amazing what this one mom will do to avoid unnecessary meltdowns (Plus, Stow had a leftover gift card from Target, so that enabled me to pretend these guys were free).

In the end, I bought a two-pound bag of black beans (for $1.97) and a collection of junky plastic Star Wars guys (for more than $1.97). But, I wound up with this:

On the bin's inaugural mission, Stow played with it for 40 minutes while we made dinner and begged for it again after breakfast the next morning. Those little plastic dudes are going to pay for themselves in no time!

UPDATE:

Day four, and this is still the first thing he asks for in the morning...