Tuesday, June 23, 2015

First Swim Meet!

I thought it was time that Hamslice join a team of some kind, after his outright shunning of soccer, nature explorers, gym class, and all other social clubs.

I settled on swimming because Hey... you always need to know how to swim.

We have had Hamslice in the "learn to swim" program for about a year, and he was getting pretty good. I then probably skipped a couple of steps by putting him right into a "fun/competitive" swimming program. The goal is fun, but it is a bit competitive.

Hamslice has risen to the occasion beautifully. In real life he can't swim 25 yards without stopping, but put him in a race, and here you go - 25 (ish) yards right off the bat.

After the swim meet, Hamslice then proceeded to learn how to jump off the diving board, swim to the bottom of the pool, and run/jump off the side of the pool in ONE DAY. So... something is working...

Here is a video of Hamslice's first competitive swim:

 here.

Thursday, June 04, 2015

DAS BOOT - 2 years in photos

Okay everyone, I have finally created a photo book out of all of the pictures we took of the house during construction. I am surprised all over again how big of a deal this was. Upon reviewing this book, it seems that Shutterfly has scrambled up my pictures in the "view full screen" version to keep this from being actually that interesting, but you can at least see some of the messy piles of debris during the demo process.
Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Progress!

Dare I say it...I think we are going to be all right.

Since my last post, Hamslice has blossomed into a really great kid. He has finally figured out the benefits to being well behaved, and is motivated to be BETTER than the kids around him. Gone is his idea that the funnest thing is to be the worst kid in the class.

The turning point was in April (ish) after he threw a particularly ripe tantrum about how his Egg Mc Muffin was put together with the ham lopsided. We had to turn the car around and go home, which underscored our eventual discussion about how he is now too old to have any more tantrums, and that he needed to find another way.

And he HAS.

No more tantrums at all. Let me say that again... AT ALL. It feels so good to be able to say that about him. NO MORE TANTRUMS AT ALL. YAHOOOOO

Plus, he has been working with a writing tutor who has done amazing things with his handwriting. We are no longer worrying that we will need to create an IEP or 504 plan. He is solidly in the pack of his classmates, and I think he's going to make it.

I'll drink to that!