End of April Ramblings...

April has been a busy month. Soccer has started up, Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts are still going strong, Bryce has his weekly therapies and school and Brad's been super busy at work. I've been busy here at home trying to keep up with the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, the shopping.

Brett finished his 1st ever science project. The science fair was last night and from all reports it was jammed with people and Brett was happy with his blue ribbon. He's been enjoying soccer because he's on a team with kids from Kindergarten, so it's nice for him to hang out with them. He starts baseball next week; they overlap the month of May, and then baseball goes through July. Whew! His most recent report card was excellent and overall he's just doing great.

Bryce can add fractured finger to his list of "stuff". He got it caught in his play kitchen yesterday and in trying to get it out, caused the whole thing to tumble down on him. Luckily the treatment is: nothing. You do nothing but buddy tape, but since he won't leave it on, the Dr said it was no big deal. Like when Bryce broke his leg, this finger fracture will heal VERY quickly and he'll be good as new.

His speech therapist comes weekly, he attends a preschool class once per week and has OT once per month. I can't say that all of this is making changes in his speech or eating abilities, but is certainly can't hurt. He actually ATE pretzels the other night! This is a huge step for him. He's been gumming them and sucking off the salt for over a year; never actually consuming them. This was a big step. Precipitated by the latest interventions? Hard to say.


Brendan has been busy preparing for his Michigan You Be The Chemist State Final tomorrow. He's been studying and going to a tutor one day per week. I'm his main quizzer here at home so I've learned, well, re-learned, some chemistry, too. We'll let you know how he does. It's being recorded at the local PBS station for rebroadcast later! Very exciting stuff.

He had a huge band concert the other night with the other elementary that feeds into his middle school, the middle school band as well as the high school band that the middle school feeds into. I have to say, I was impressed with the overall sound of both the middle school bands and the various high school ensembles. There were probably 500 kids on the floor and I can happily report that of the 25 flutes in the 6th grade band, 7 were boys. Whew. There were boys in the middle school flute section and at least one in the high school marching band.

I've been slowly changing how we eat here at home and it's been a hard process. I'm trying to cook only whole foods and also trying to sneak in 2 servings of veggies per meal while cutting out high fructose corn syrup and additives. Organic happens when I can. The bonus of changing our eating/cooking is that more meals I make are safe for Bryce. We're getting a new freezer next week courtesy of Brad's folks and I'm excited to try out freezer cooking. Google it and you'll find lots of good sites to check out.