Jake Wants for Nothing

Jake has been a lucky boy this summer. Let's see... so far since March he has been to the Science Centre (Toronto), the CN Tower - both courtesy of Auntie Boom, the Metro Zoo, the cottage with Bumpy, a trip on the GO Train to a Blue Jays' game at the Rogers Centre with Dad's class, another GO Train ride to Ontario Place with Grandma, the Circus! with Nonna and Pop (with friend, Kyle), sleepovers at Granny and Grandads, a trip across Canada to Alberta (some might think this was torture and not a fun thing), a day in Lake Louise and Banff complete with gondola rides and views from mountain tops, the Calgary Zoo, a dozen trips to the wave pool, days spent on the beach at the lake and last, but not least, two days spent in the infamous West Emonton Mall. Can you say spoiled???? I'll have to make sure that I frame this blog entry and hang it on his wall to remind him that he has never been neglected. :)

Jake on a ride in Galaxyland at the West Edmonton Mall

Jake has been doing pretty well so far with the move. Everyone would say to me, "he's at the perfect age for a move like this, he will adjust fine. Kids that age don't really notice a change like that." Well, for whoever said this to me.. I think you forgot to consider that Jake is not your typical five year old. Some days I'd swear he's already a hormonal teenager. We are very fortunate that it's so easy to communicate with him and things can be explained and rationalised in most circumstances, so that he understands what is going on. But the change has definitely affected him. The first couple of weeks were rough because he so dearly wanted to make some friends. Unfortunately, we live on a street that seems to have a lot of older families, so there are very few kids about. The neighbourhood itself and outside of our street is filled with kids, so it is just a matter of getting out there and meeting people. Which is exactly what Jake and Diane did last week on a walk after dinner. They met a little boy named Sam who is the same age as Jake! His mom was thrilled to know that there would be another little boy living nearby because she is afraid that because Sam only has his little sister and other little girls to play with, Sam's interests seem to be in girl things. Diane was quick to assure her that Sam and Jake would get along just fine. :)

Jake showing off his gifts sent from Emily and Dana

Jake monkeying around at our nearby playground

Jake is not looking forward to going to school in a couple of weeks, but I think it's a case of being afraid of the unknown. I personally think he'll enjoy kindergarten here even more than he did back home. Out here there isn't a Junior Kindergarten.. there is only one, so Jake will have the advantage over the other kids, of having already learned the routines of school. The other difference will be that in Ontario, he was attending full day kindergarten, 2 or 3 days a week, but here, it will only be 2 1/2 hours a day/every day. He will also be attending French Immersion and I think he's going to rise to the challenge. I am constantly amazed at how intelligent and quick Jake is at learning new things (sign language for instance) that I am positive he's going to thrive. I'll try not to embarrass him as my Mom embarrassed me, by making him sing Oh Canada in French for everyone to hear, but I am sure that I will be bragging a little bit...

Jake trying to get close to what we call a gopher, but what Albertans simply call "pests" or ground squirrels.

Will is at home in Calgary

Willy is loving Calgary! I am sure that if Will had the words, he would tell us that he is loving life out here. He is a happy little boy. Still into a lot of mischief, don't get me wrong, but the tantrums have really been reduced. One main reason for that could be the fact that we moved all of the televisions out of his reach so they could no longer be the object of his wrath. This means no more bruises on the back of his hand from smacking the tv screens. Thank goodness.. it was painful to watch.

When we first arrived and unpacked Will's fuzzy Winnie the Pooh blanket from a box, he clung on to that thing like he was Linus. It really was adorable, but it caused a few little fits when we would make him leave it behind before going outside, or into the therapy room. He seems to like the feel of its softness and we'll often catch him stroking it against his cheek. But I have noticed in the past week or so that he doesn't seem to care about it as much anymore, although he does like to sleep with it.

Linus and his blanket

Will seems to love every minute of being with Diane in the therapy room. Not only does he love the reinforcers and the one on one time, but he loves the toys that he has rediscovered since they've all been unpacked. The beauty of this new house is that we have lots and lots of storage space. In particular, we have a closet in our basement that is just perfect to store all of the kids' toys and games. The kids must think that they are in a toy shop because never before have their things been so readily available and not stored up in bins and buried in overstuffed toy boxes.

Will won't let me take a picture without sticking his face in the lens

Will seems to be making great gains and to think that this is happening over a summer without any formalized therapy, it makes me very excited to see what is coming next! Will is really coming along in his imitation skills. This is a skill that is very important (obviously) to assist the boys in learning new skills and especially acquiring speech. One particular example of this is an interaction between Diane and Will. He LOVES to be tickled and often bumps his body against you to request to be tickled again and again. Diane noticed that he has learned how to make the "t" sound so she wanted to teach Will to say the "t" sound as a request for "tickle". By making the sound, she would also point to her teeth to teach Will where the sound comes from. The plan backfired a little, but it proved that Will understands. He now points to his teeth whenever he wants to be tickled. :) One area where Will is not doing so well, is his eating habits. I'm pretty sure it is leaning towards more of a behavioural problem (or at least, it's a choice that he's consciously making) as opposed to sensory aversions to foods, but he is not eating well at all. We were so excited a few weeks ago because he started eating hot dogs (excited because he had entered the meat group.. if you can call hot dogs meat), but now he'll only eat the skin off the wiener. BUT just the other night he ate 4 whole bites of a sirloin burger, so we're happy that he's trying a few new things and we'll try to expand on that. He still loves his nutrigrain bars though. Will is doing a great job of drinking out of a cup at the table. Unfortunately, he will ONLY drink water out of it (not his milk) and he still will not take any juice at all. He's also started to enjoy the habit of dumping the last sip of water on his lap before declaring it finished. He'll never change. You can always name every food item Will has eaten all day by reading the signs from his messy clothes.

All in all, he's doing great. We believe more than ever that we made the right choice to come out here for the boys. Soon, I believe, we'll have great accomplishments to share with you!

Will connecting with Lisa (mom to Owen and Ella)

Owen's Room

It's not much to look at, but here is Owen's bedroom decorated in underwater sea life. We have some fish/dolphin, etc. stamps that we plan to paint on to the walls when we get around to it

Owen, Rainbows and Tantrums

I know, I know! I've been terrible at keeping up with posting. I suppose I'm treating life as if I was on a summer holiday. Which is partly true. We have been really busy just doing all of the stuff that we know will not get done once the kids are all going to school/programs and Jonathan is working. Can you believe we are just a couple weeks away until school starts!!??!

We wanted to send out a thank you to everyone who has sent us such nice housewarming cards. It wasn't necessary, but it definitely has filled our home with reminders that we are not out here all alone. We have really been doing well and Jonathan and I just said to each other this morning, that we can't really say that we've gotten homesick yet. Sure, we miss friends and family, but so far we have really felt that this is home. It's a strange feeling, but a good one. I already feel like a proud Calgarian. We love our mountains, we love our home and we love our community. It will be nice to finally meet some new people, but it will come. Jake has already made a friend who lives a few streets over. We need to schedule a playdate soon.

Owen is doing wonderfully. Diane has been an amazing addition to our family and we will be sooooo sorry to see her go home on Sept 1st. She works with Owen and Will for one hour and a half each, every morning. They do various exercises in the 'therapy room'. More than anything, it has provided the boys with the routine of attending to a task, compliance, focusing, etc. For the first couple of days, Owen screamed blue murder for most of the session, but once he realized that he was stuck, he got used to it.

Owen at the playground with his friend, Owen

This is Owen watching a video called Signing Time/The Rainbow Song. Watch how he has learned to sign the words "warm, frog, sunset and ocean". He won't sign them on command, but it's a start!!! Thanks to Diane's purchase of the video, the whole family has memorized the song after hearing it at least 2000 times in the past week.

For anyone who has been to our home, you know that Owen has a unique routine of drinking his bottle. Immediately following his meal, he requests his milk (by doing a simple sign of putting his hand to his mouth), then he runs off to his favourite chair or spot on the floor and with feet up in the air, he guzzles it down. Normally he would just chuck the bottle aside when he was finished, but now he has learned the routine of bringing his bottle to the table and setting it upright (yaay!). In other routines around the house, Owen is making us proud. When he comes in from outside, he immediately sits down and takes off his own shoes, takes off his jacket or hat and hangs them up. He's sitting at every meal and anticipates mealtimes. It's kind of funny - when we moved here and set up our kitchen table, we set up Owen and Will's chairs so that they could face the windows and/or rec room where we would sometime have one of their shows playing (I thought it might encourage them to sit at the table longer if they were preoccupied). Within one day, both Owen and Will had moved their seats to exactly the same position they were in, in our old kitchen back home. Will sits at the head with Owen to his right. It just goes to show how much they love their routine.

Some other good stuff is that Owen really seems to love his new bedroom. He wakes up and just lounges around in his bed for a bit before coming out to sit at the kitchen table, waiting for his english muffin with peanut butter. He's been eating pepperoni on his pizza and he is eating other types of pizza - not just Pizza Pizza! Owen has been really interacting well with Jake and it's so nice to see. On the downside, Owen's tantrums are not only becoming more frequent, but they are a lot more volatile. He lies down on the floor and kicks his feet with all his might. For a little guy, he's got a lot of force behind those legs and it hurts! We keep going through phases of sleepless nights where he wakes up somewhere between 11 and 1am and he just SCREAMS. He doesn't know what he wants, he's just plain mad. He wants us there to hold him, but he kicks and pushes us away, then pulls us back in to be held.. This can go on for hours and it is absolutely exhausting. It's difficult to decide if we should let him cry it out on his own or not, because that's definitely something that often does the trick. But the risk is that by the end of the tantrum, the whole house is wide awake. It's a never-ending battle.

We are pretty excited for life to settle into a routine in September and I am anxious to see what new things Owen will learn with his new therapists and at Nursery School. I have every confidence that we have chosen the right service providers for him and I can't wait to see how he progresses.

Will Can Brush His Own Teeth!

Jake Singing Milo & Otis

How Lucky Are We?............

That we live so close to this..............................

at Lake Louise

from Banff Springs

view from top of the Gondola facing Lake Louise

While We Were Gone...

While we were doing the drive to Alberta, Owen and Will were well taken care of with Diane back home. We were so fortunate that Diane and her family were gracious enough to welcome the boys into their home for a long 9 days... Owen and Will were able to maintain some sense of normalcy by continuing their therapy every day and Diane was sure to fit in lots of visits with family and friends before the boys joined us in Calgary.

Thanks to Diane, we'll probably have to find a way to buy a piano for our new house to continue Owen's passion for tickling the ivories

Will the Water Bug loved every minute in Diane's pool and impressed everyone with his manic swimming efforts. We've got a future Olympic medalist in our family! Poppa's proud that one of his grandsons have inherited something from him other than his height!

Owen's fear of the water is gradually reducing. He especially loves sitting on the edge of the water.

Jonathan and Greg flew from Calgary back to Toronto on Friday the 21st, after successfully unloading the truck of all of our life's possessions. Thanks to Kurt, a friend of my Uncle Tom's who recently moved to Calgary and his cousin, the unloading of the truck went much more quickly than we thought it would. We owe Kurt a meal as soon as we buy a new bbq to replace the one we forgot behind in Ontario!

Jonathan spent the afternoon with Granny and Grandad before reuniting with Owen and Will at Diane's house. Diane's family (again) impressed us with their kindness and welcomed a whack of people to their home as everyone spent some final moments with the boys. Nonna, Poppa, Gamma, Great Grandad and Grandma were all on hand to watch the boys show off their new skills in the pool and in the backyard.

Bronwyn joined the boys and off they all went to the airport. We had planned for weeks to prepare the boys for the flight: a visit to the doctor to discuss Gravol and how we could best 'relax' the boys, the purchase of new carseats that were permissible on the plane to keep the boys contained and comfortable, conditioning the boys to using earphones so they could be distracted with music and the audio to watch tv, timing the flight so that they could sleep on the flight... all to no avail. I wasn't there so I can't speak firsthand of the experience. But from the shrieking that tore through Calgary Airport and from the looks on the faces of an exhausted Jonathan and Bronwyn, it was obvious that it probably the worst flight that they have ever experienced and one that the other passengers will never forget. Let's move on to something more pleasant...

Cross Country - Alberta Bound

We did it!! Who would have thought that Greg, Jake, Jonathan and I could handle a 4000km drive together, stuck in a mini van? Not to mention the overgrown hamster, Matilda, as Greg calls her. Surprisingly, we did pretty well if I do say so myself.

We saw some stunning sights, we laughed along with Sam Malone and the Cheers gang on the portable dvd player (and I suffered through hearing a Liverpool dvd and thought it would be the end of my trip), we visited more than one Tim Horton's and can honestly say they are all the same, we saw lots of trees, lots of Inukshuks (sp?), lots of rock, lots of flat land, lots of lakes, lots of hills, lots of windmills, lots of dust and haze, lots of sun, no moose, one coyote, one deer, one wild turkey (Greg not included), 2 stunning sunsets, 2 motels and finally..... HOME!
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Day One - we'll skip detailing all of the goodbyes that preceded our trip on the Saturday morning. It was a tough week. What cannot go unmentioned is the fact that someone heard my begging and pleading and Jenny went into labour before her due date (or maybe it was the fact that we put her through a strenuous workout of packing boxes for us??). Beautiful Isabella Jean was born early enough that we got to see this precious little girl before we left. I'll save my more personal thoughts about the addition to our Farm Family in another post once I have some pictures of her to show off.

We had planned to leave Saturday morning at 7am, but as is typical for us, I don't think we actually left Toronto until around 11:30. Our wake-up was a surprise visit-goodbye from Mitch and Auntie Shell at Grandma's place. It was a great send-off. We picked up Uncle Greg, then head over to Auntie Boom's, where Jake had left a few things in her car. We managed a quick breakfast at the Tulip and then we were off. Our good spirits and excitement about the road trip soured the second we hit the 400. We CRAWLED our way up past Barrie (nearly 2 hours in gridlock), but once we got further north, it was beautiful. I had never been in that part of Ontario before (only north-east Ontario), so I enjoyed every minute of it. The weather was perfect for us. While everyone else was suffering from the extreme temperatures and humidity outside, we benefited from the blue skies while sitting in our air conditioning. We stopped at a little restaurant in Blind River, ON then arrived in Sault Ste. Marie by 9pm, where we brushed our teeth in Tim's. Jake nodded off shortly after and we bravely decided that we would drive on through to Thunder Bay. Dumb. Once the sun set after the "Soo", we could only sense that we were climbing through hills, because we couldn't see anything but the moose signs every few kilometers. An electrical storm followed us, threatening a downpour and we passed one poor victim of a moose collision at the side of the road, surrounded by emergency vehicles. It was enough to scare us into pulling over at a motel in White River. I think we all nodded off around 1:30am.

Getting ready to hit the road again in White River, ON at 7:30am

Day Two - We drove hard on Sunday and saw three provinces in one day. Our first stop was at the Terry Fox memorial in Thunder Bay. Throughout our drive and especially from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay, it was said more than once in our van that we all have a whole new respect for that man. How he found the strength to run through that terrain we'll never know. He really is inspiring and after explaining who he was to Jake, he too is in awe of our Canadian hero. He also can't wait to see a picture of Terry in colour because "he doesn't look to interesting as a grey stone person".

We all agreed that the only good thing we could say about some of those towns that we passed after Thunder Bay, was that they produced some decent NHL'ers. I still can't believe that Jody's fiancee Lindsay is from Dryden!!! What do you do in Dryden??? Kenora was absolutely gorgeous and it seemed really full of life and was the perfect advertisement for Ontario's summer tourism campaign. I would love to spend some time there in the summer.

Jake pointing out one of the thousands of miniature, homemade "Inukshuks" that were found all along the highway. "May the Inukshuk be your guide for a safe journey throughout life's travels. Let it always guide you home."

We were making such good time and were feeling really good about the drive that we decided to drive right on through Manitoba, hoping to make it at least to Brandon before finding a place to sleep. After passing through Winnipeg, we didn't realize that we wouldn't find anywhere to stop all the way through to Regina. We were on the lookout for deer for most of that trek.

Our Manitoba sunset

While the sunset was stunning and seemed to last forever, it made the drive a little nerve-wracking because it was so hard to see the road ahead. After a close call where we thought Jonathan may have popped one of the tires in a mini dip into a ditch (we won't talk about that), we arrived in Regina around 2:30am, Ontario time.

Day Three - We left Regina after a hearty breakfast at a Days Inn and started out for another fantastic day of weather. I had no idea that Saskatchewan could be so beautiful. I had heard more than once that by the time we hit the Prairies, we would be ready to hang ourselves with boredom over the sights. They were wrong. Jonathan and I both agreed that it felt like we were driving through a movie set from Regina to the Alberta border. The colours of the fields around us were like nothing I've ever seen and it wasn't all flat like I thought it would be. Rolling hills in many places and a real quiet beauty. I loved it. Can someone please tell me though, what that white stuff is that you see around the little ponds and lakes in Saskatchewan? It looked like snow and we wondered if it was limestone or something? Anyone? Somewhere between Moosejaw and Medicine Hat we saw fields and fields of windmills. They looked like something from another planet.. pretty incredible.

It's hard to find a toilet in the Prairies. Boys are so lucky.

Wind Power at its best

Maybe it was just the fact that we had driven over 3000 km and had had enough, or maybe it was the dusty haze in the air from the extreme heat, but none of us were impressed when we passed the border into Alberta. I didn't get that moment of happiness realizing we were now in our new home, it was more of a disappointing "uh oh, what have we done". The drive into Medicine Hat wasn't much better. I don't want to trash the town too much, because we really didn't see too much of it, but it really isn't a great reflection of the province if you have visitors seeing it first. We were all pretty grumpy by then, but we were in the final stretch and knew it wouldn't be long til we were there!

At 5:00pm we caught our first faint glimpse of the Rockies. We were so disappointed because they were shrouded in a haze, but at least we saw that we were close. We pulled into our driveway at 5:30pm and surprised Aunt Sally when we opened our front door. She and a friend were inside, trying to clean it and stock it with groceries for our arrival, which they didn't anticipate for at least another couple of days. No one thought we would get there so quickly! The house was a sight for sore eyes. The painters did a fantastic job and it looked clean and fresh. I was so happy to show Jake and Jonathan each room, one after the other, because neither of them could believe how many there were!

It's been three weeks since we arrived and it feels like home. I love this house. We all love this house. Our neighbours are amazing - could it be more perfect? Our next door neighbours have two pugs named Stew and Belle and across the street is Al, a teacher and rugby player/coach - can you believe it? Our next door neighbour even brought over an entire meal, complete with cookies for dessert on our second day here.

It was worth every minute of the drive.