MichaelandChrissy.com

Chrissy and I went door shopping over the weekend.  We ordered two Mastercraft steel doors to replace our older double doors in the main entrance.  The new doors seal tight like refrigerator doors, so we shouldn’t get any more drafts in the foyer.  We also got two storm doors with the screen that slides down to replace the window when it’s warm outside.  These will be “cranberry” with brushed nickel handles, and will look nice in front of the “sahara sand” painted front doors.

We also bought new lighting fixtures for the house exterior.  The lights can be motion-sensitive, like the ones that we currently have.  We bought two for the front entrance, two for the garage, and one for the back door.  They all match nicely.  Chrissy is also very proud of the new mailbox that we found.  We chose a cranberry box to match the new screen doors.  Everything should compliment the siding well.  We can’t wait for the work to be done so we can see the finished product!

But we have even more plans!  The next project will be a new deck for the back of the house.  The current deck is just about ready to fall down on its own.  We have already submitted plans for the new deck to Glenn.  The estimate came back pretty high, but we have decided to go with Azek decking (which is better than wood, but much pricier!).  It’s going to be a big deck, too, with two 11′ by 21′ tiers.  Construction should start on that as soon as the siding is complete.

Kraz Construction came over to give us an estimate on replacing our aluminum siding.   Replacing the siding on the house and the garage would run us $18k, down from a starting price of around $30k due to a current promotion.  There was financing available (one year same-as-cash), so we went with the offer.  It turned out that the financing was through Fifth Third Bank, though, and they quickly sent us credit cards to use against our new $25k credit line.

We could have gone with Uncle Glenn for the siding, since he did Chrissy’s parent’s house last summer.  But we had no way of paying for it that way, since  Glenn can’t offer us financing for his work.  We now had the Fifth Third line of credit, however, so we asked Glenn for a quote.  He took some measurements of the house and quoted us $7k.  We promptly canceled with Kraz and offered the job to Glenn.  I don’t like to back out on a contract, but $11k is a LOT of money!

Glenn enlisted the help of Chrissy’s dad, Kevin, and they started work immediately.  Glenn and I went to the supply store and bought the siding.  We ordered the “Canyon Ridge” color, and a lot of it.  Glenn pulled off the siding from the south side of the house in one day.  He also put one-inch-thick insulation over the entire side.  The next day, they pulled down the siding from the front of the house and removed the “A” structure from the entrance.  It’s a HUGE difference already!

On Saturday, I tried to make myself useful, but ended up just getting in the way.  Glenn and Kevin put up all of the siding on the south side of the house by the end of the day.  They had most of the front of the house done by Memorial Day as well.  I was amazed at the scaffolding that ratcheted up and down the side of the wall.  So far, the siding looks really good.  I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s complete.

Aiden will be eligible for pre-school when he turns three years old in August.  We want Aiden to learn social skills and hope that he may talk more if around other children.  Chrissy asked the Mom’s Club members for their suggestions, and The Learning Center in Highland was highly recommended.

Chrissy called TLC and went in for a tour of their facilities.  She was very impressed, and Aiden enjoyed playing there during the visit.  They have several rooms with building and creative activity centers in each.  The children are assigned projects in one room and then move on to the next when complete.

Another good point is that TLC has worked with late talkers before, and there is a member of the staff that is fluent in sign language.  Luckily, they had one AM opening left, so we took it.  Starting the week after Labor Day, Aiden will be attending pre-school for two days a week.  He’s already excited about it!

We had some bad luck with the garage door last week.  By bad luck, I mean that it stopped opening and closing.  It was fine in the morning when I went to work, but it wouldn’t work at all by the end of the night.  I had to open and close it manually for the next few days, which was a pain because it’s a big, heavy door.

Uncle Marve came over to take a look at it, but the motor was shot.  We would have to buy a new one.  The sensors on the old Craftsman model were shorting out anyway, so it was time for a replacement.  Marve and I went to Lowe’s and bought a Genie screw driven system, complete with two key remotes and a wireless security remote.

I didn’t realize that installing the new garage door opener would be so involved.  I figured that we would just remove the box on the ceiling and pop a new one in.  Because we upgraded from a chain drive to a screw drive, we had to replace everything: the box, the rail. the proximity sensors and most of the remote wiring.

The job took most of the day and one more trip to the hardware store (the bolts that keep the rail together broke).  The new system works great though! Marve even wired up a new interior button so we can still open the door from inside the house.  So on top of everything else that we’re doing with the house, we now have a new garage door opener.

We recently found out that the National Conference on Childhood Apraxia of Speech, a conference for speech therapists and parents of children with apraxia, will be held in nearby St. Charles, IL.  Chrissy and I will be going for three days of seminars and networking from July 9th – 11th (and whatever spare time we find will be spent relaxing at the Pheasant Run Resort where the conference is being held).

Seminars include “The Kaufman Speech Praxis Treatment Approach” (which Aiden is currently undergoing), “Planning for Pre-school and School Age Transitions for Children with CAS”, and “Bridging Sign Language to Vocal Communication”.  We’re particularly interested in “Effective Strategies for Your Next IEP Meeting”, since these meetings will determine Aiden’s level of care in the future.

The seminar itself was expensive, but we’re being reimbursed $500 through Indiana’s Family Involvement Fund.  Felice will be accompanying us, and we’ve signed up for about a dozen seminars between the three of us.  We believe that the information that we get at the conference will be very helpful to us and to Aiden.  The downside is that Chrissy and I will be spending our fifth anniversary at the convention (and sharing our hotel room with Felice).

Aiden has completed his first week of potty training, and we were very impressed with the results.  Prior to last week, Aiden was wearing diapers full time and didn’t seem to like the “big boy” underwear (even if it had Thomas The Tank Engine on it).  Chrissy decided that now was the time though, since he’ll need to be housebroken before starting pre-school when he turns three in the Fall.

Persistence has been the key to potty training.  On the morning of Day 1, Chrissy switched Aiden from diapers to underwear.  She then badgered him relentlessly (better you than me, kid!).  Every fifteen minutes: “Do you have to go potty?”  There were some early accidents, but eventually he would respond “yeah” if he had to go.  Chrissy would take him to go even if he didn’t think that he needed to.

Positive reinforcement helps.  We now keep a tupperware bowl of peanut M&Ms in the bathroom.  Aiden gets two M&Ms every time he pees in the potty.  By Day 3, Aiden would expel the tiniest bit of pee every fifteen minutes just to get some candy.  By Day 5, we ran out of brown M&Ms.  He sometimes forgets to pick out his candy now, but we don’t remind him of it unless he asks.

Yesterday, I saw Aiden take himself to the potty.  No prompting, no nagging, he just decided on his own that it was time to go.  Unfortunately, he dropped trou in the kitchen and waddled towards the bathroom that way…  He does know to flush the toilet once his potty has been emptied into it.  He needs help when he’s done though: he can’t pull up his own pants yet.

I’m surprised how much progress we have made in just a week!  The number two step is, of course, number two.  Aiden has only done this on his potty a few times, and we’ve had about one accident per day so far.  I understand that this part is harder to control.  By the time he gets it down, he should also be able to hold his bodily functions through the night.  Then we can do away with nighttime diapers as well!

This year is Gavin’s first Mother’s Day, so I wanted to do something special for Chrissy involving our two boys.   I looked around online for gift ideas that include your children, but I only found a number of options that wouldn’t work for toddlers and tiny babies (like building a photo frame out of popsicle sticks).  The little ones have to participate without actually having to do anything.

The post-popsicle photo frame gave me an idea though.  Chrissy had bought Crayola finger paints for Aiden to play with, so I thought that a hand-painted photo mat would be a good idea.  I picked up some wooden photo frames with double-matting, and then had the boys paint their hand prints on the outer mats.  Grandma, Katie and Cassie helped, since we had to work efficiently.

Painting the mats for two frames was easier than I had hoped.  Originally, I wanted to have Aiden do one and Gavin do the second, but I didn’t have recent photos of them by themselves.  So we had them both paint each frame.  I then put a photo of the family into one and a photo of just the boys in the other.  The framing looks professional (no sloppy glue and sticks here!), yet it’s personalized.

Chrissy loved the frames, wrapped and completed with a card from each of us.  She might take one back to school with her to put on her desk in the Fall.  The hard part will be topping this for next year!  I’m usually good for one or two good ideas, tops.  Hopefully by the time my brain wears out, the boys will be old enough to make popsicle stick art projects for Mother’s Day.

Aiden has been a big fan of Thomas The Tank Engine since his second birthday.  We have lots of episodes on DVD for him to watch and we’ll often build train sets together in the living room.  When we found out that “Thomas & Friends Live!” was coming to the Sears Centre Arena, we purchased tickets in advance.  Aiden had never been to a live show before, so we weren’t certain what to expect from him.

It was a long drive to Hoffman Estates, but Aiden was very good the whole way.  We ran into some traffic on I90, north of Chicago, but we managed to make it to the show on time.  Because of the delay, we ended up eating hot dogs and cheese fries in our seats for dinner, but no one was complaining.  We finished and were settling in just as the show was starting.

Chrissy and I were interested in Aiden’s reaction to what was happening onstage.  Aiden didn’t know what to make of it at first, but he was enamored once Thomas wheeled out onto the stage.  The circus had come to Sodor, and there was apparently no forethought applied by anyone on the island.  To be Really Useful, Thomas had to find both the circus people and a place for them to perform.

There was plenty of singing, including all of the Thomas songs.  Is it wrong to know all of the words to all of the Thomas songs?  I’ve seen them enough on TV…  I think that Chrissy was singing along too.  And the fourth wall was shattered early, since the actors would often call for audience participation (in the form of “I can’t hear you!”).  The characters were colorful and engaging (and energetic!).

Thomas spent a goodly amount of time screwing up, as usual, but came through in the end.  I had commented to Chrissy that if he didn’t get Really Useful really fast, he would end up as a limb on Rail Ricter.  She’s the only person in the world that would get that.  Aiden didn’t get it, but he was busy watching the circus at the end of the show.

Aiden had such a good time, in fact, that he didn’t sleep all the way home, despite it being well past his bedtime.  He was in his booster seat in the back seat of the CR-V, playing with his souvenirs.  He was even talking about it to the family the next day.  We were thinking that we might try a movie or another children’s show, since he handled himself so well this time.

It was a very nice day outside yesterday, so we decided to take the boys for a walk.  We packed them into the double stroller and headed towards the park.  We got to the other side of our neighborhood when we figured that we were very close to the local Dairy Queen.  So, we extended our walk a little to include an ice cream run.

It was almost dinner time by then, but the Dairy Queen by us only serves hotdogs.  I remember back when they had a grill and served hamburgers and chicken with fries.  No fries anymore, either, just chips.  Adding insult to injury, they only had one type of chip: plain Lays potato chips.  Aiden didn’t seem to mind at all.  At least I got chili on mine.

I didn’t know that this was Free Comic Book Day, but there was a big sign outside the local comic book store.  I don’t normally buy comics, but these were free, so I wanted to check it out.  Chrissy and the boys had to wait outside because the double stroller would not fit in the cramped store.  Chrissy paced impatiently outside while Gavin screamed.

I was trying to hurry, but there was a three-comic limit on freebies.  Choosing takes time!  On previous Free Comic Book Days, I was allowed to take one of each free comic, but not at this particular place.  So I got three for me and three for Aiden.  I picked up Wolverine, Aliens/Predator, Transformers/GI Joe, and a few others.

It turns out that Aiden doesn’t do comics.  Gavin tried to eat one.  It’s all mauled and slobbery now.  I read through them pretty quickly and put them aside, which is why I don’t collect Transformers comics (I won’t pay $4 per issue for something that doesn’t transform).  But overall, it was a good day with the family walk and Dairy Queen and free comics.