Cowboy Number Two

For the last few months we’ve had a second cowboy in the house.

Will began taking riding lessons during Ben’s lesson at Enchanted Acres with Ms. Trish back in August.  He really really enjoys it and loves his lesson horse, Splatter.

The cool part of it all is that that both Ben’s and Will’s teachers work together for part of the lesson.  Both horses are in the ring and the boys get to play games while in the saddle.  Many of the games are “hide and seek” sorts of activities where they have to maneuver their horses to different parts of the ring to look inside different containers for objects (puzzle pieces, different colored balls, play fruit/veggies…).  There is turn-taking, information exchange, and social interaction involved all while learning how to ’steer’ with the reins, communicate with the horse, and stay in the saddle!

We love that Kelly and Trish offer up this combined experience for siblings.  It’s great for Will who loves to do anything Ben does, and it’s also great for Ben to have a partner to interact with.  I love that the combined lesson doesn’t require me to be in two places at once, and that the relationship piece we work so hard for in Ben’s remediation can be supported in this, one of their favorite activities.

There are parts of the lesson that are not combined and it’s so amazing to see your children interact with other adults, apart from you.  Will listens intently to instructions from Trish and seems eager to please.  He is much more reserved and almost shy during his lesson, using a voice so soft and low that he needs encouragement to ‘use a big voice’ so the horse can hear him.  Trish has Will change positions in the saddle in order to strengthen muscles and encourage proper technique.  This jumping pose, however, sort of freaked me out.

I’ve been assured there will be no jumping for many years, yet–that three-year-olds only practice position.  Phew.

Ella Rose enjoys having me all to herself while we observe the lessons, and even felt brave one afternoon and requested to ride Star–Ben’s really tall lesson horse.  Thank God she’s too young for lessons.  I don’t think I could handle three of them in the saddle.   At least, not yet.  She is pretty darn cute in her boots, though.

More on Casey

We’re over the moon about Casey, the Wonder Dog.  She really is just a fantastic addition to our family.   We always knew we’d have a family dog, but we were waiting for the ‘right time’.  When Mark was serving in Iraq, I was overwhelmingly pregnant with Will, Ben was a toddler not walking or even close, and we had just moved from our big yard house to a teeny yard house–that time–was *not* the right time.  Thank God for Aunt Patty and Uncle Jim who adopted our first pet, Max.  Here they all are visiting us on their spring break last week: 

Having Max stay with us confirmed how ready we were for another pet.  There’s so much to be gained in the way of learning and enrichment for the kids–taking care of another being, responsibility, respect, loyalty.  Max was a puppy when we adopted him from the shelter.  Training him was a lot of work.  We knew we didn’t have the kind of time needed to train a puppy this time around.  We had agreed to get an older dog, but not too old.  We wanted an active dog that would run and play, but would not have to pee every 10 minutes nor chew things that would make us unhappy.

I had also been doing some research on therapy dogs for children with autism.  It’s probably not much of a surprise to dog lovers, but early “research” is showing that there are more than physical needs fulfilled through interaction with a trained therapy pet.   This study is looking specifically at development of social interaction with the help of animals.

Solomon hypothesizes that interactions with well-trained therapy dogs—which are simple, predictable and very rewarding social partners—help autistic children practice social interaction and fill gaps in social behaviors that didn’t develop earlier in childhood. In the future, she hopes to study the results of adding animal therapy to existing clinical programs for people with autism.

“Dogs could be like a catalyst in a chemical reaction,” she said.

I liked that the article spoke in terms of remediation, a la RDI.   Going back for a ‘do-over’ is a simple way to think about it.  Could a dog help in our RDI efforts with Ben?  Who couldn’t use a catalyst?

Enter Casey.  The craisglist post proclaimed her “the poster child for the perfect family pet”.  After 3 days with her, we really cannot argue that claim.   We’ve witnessed great affection and “private” moments between both boys and Casey that are worth any cost of having her.  Already.  How cool is that?

Here are some photos of the boys doing some training work with Casey.

“Casey, come!”“Sit.”“Lie down.”

And then there’s Will’s technique…

“Casey, come and eat this yummy treat.”

“Lie down like me.”“Have another yummy treat.  Good girl.  She likes me!”

Welcome Casey!

We welcomed a new furry family member to our household this week.  Casey is our new dog.  She’s a four year old yellow lab who came to us via craigslist.  Her owner was reluctantly looking for a new home for her.  He is newly married and poor Casey does not get along with the new wife’s toy poodle.  We’re thrilled to have her, though.  She’s an awesome dog so far–well mannered, affectionate, playful, and gentle.  She has responded very well to learning the ‘house rules’ and is loved to bits by the boys.   Ella Rose is taking her time warming up to Casey’s wet nose and generous “kisses”.  She enjoys her mostly from a distance right now.

These photos were taken yesterday.   We seem to have caught a spring cold and all the kids had a fever.  Will was pretty warm when these were taken.

And, yes, that’s her *on* the bed.  With Will being sick and so snuggly with her, I didn’t have the heart to make her get off.  I may regret this decision later.  So be it.  Sick kid trumps dog hair-ed quilt.

Plumbing problem

We woke up this morning to a sink full of dishes.   We skipped doing them last night in favor of getting to bed early.  Not unusual–the sinkfull, that is.  Since, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post,  the boys are on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, I pretty much make everything we eat from scratch.  That makes for lots of dishes and pots and pans and utensils.  We have a dishwasher (other than myself, heh) but I try not to run it more than once a day.  I also tend to need things that would otherwise be sitting in the machine, by the next meal, rather than the next day.  So, we do lots of dishes by hand.  Mark, actually, does lots of dishes by hand.  I love to cook, but have someone else clean up.  Mark likes to do dishes.  Well, I don’t know if he really “likes” it, but he often says he doesn’t mind, that it’s a ‘mindless’ job.  Hey, whatever–it’s working for me.

So, this morning when Mark dives in to the stack of pots and pans and bowls from last night, there is, strangely,  some sounds of frustration, banging of silverware, huffing about from Dear Husband.  I know the trouble is real when he stomps out of the room, then reappears with the sink plunger.  He attacks it mightily, takes apart the pipes, makes two different runs to Lowes for two different size drain snakes, but alas, we’ve got a clogged pipe.

Mark goes to work.  I call the plumber who is supposed to try and make an appearance “sometime” today.  I ignore the pile of dishes, pots, and pans as they accumulate over the course of our day–scrambled eggs, beef patties, squash fries, green beans… Finally, at around 3, the plumbing guys arrive.  (Two workers!  One, two! says Ben) Unfortunately they can’t find the blockage.  They think it must be in the line that runs around the house, further away than the 25 feet they can check with their equipment.  We’ll have to wait until tomorrow when the other guy can come with the “big” equipment.  Ugh.

So, in lieu of going to the library (our original plan for the evening), we did the dishes.  Like this:

It’s sort of like camping.  Dirty dishes in the laundry basket, tub full of suds.

The boys didn’t want the fun to end of course.

“I want to bang, Mama.” says Will.

So, they did.   It was an encore performance from the Charleston Chickens All Percussion Band. 

Let’s hope the plumber gets here soon tomorrow.  I’m going to need to wash all the “instruments” again.