Grandma Millie

This is Grandma Millie.  She passed away on June 23.  She would have been 97 in August.  She was the sweetest little grandma ever.  She was a snowbird who spent her summers in Idaho and her winters in Logandale.  We met her right after we moved to Logandale in 1994.  She lived in a camp trailer on Delmar and Joan Leatham's property.  Delmar and Joan took care of her and everyone called her Grandma Millie.  I actually was her visiting teaching partner right after Connor was born.  She drove an old, big, red Buick and she would drive when we went visiting teaching.  Connor would usually be fussy when we would go and she would hold him and talk to him to help him settle down.  Connor and Grandma Millie had a special bond.  Last year when he was home schooled he would go over to her house and do chores for her like pulling weeds or planting flowers.  He spent many an afternoon playing Skipbo with Grandma Millie and Linda Bohn.  Grandpa Don got permission for Connor to be his home teaching partner and they got to go to Grandma Millie.  Connor was even mentioned by name in her obituary.  The kids remember that when they would go to her house she would always give them a piece of cinnamon gum.  Even Cody remembers that.  Since Logandale only has 2 seasons, we would judge them by when our snowbirds were coming and going.  Winter was over when they came back and we knew that in October, it was winter again because they would leave.  Grandma Millie was a sweet, kind, gentle and loving lady and we will always be grateful that she was part of our lives.  We love you Grandma Millie and we will miss you.

Classic Connor

Happy Birthday Caleb

Caleb turned 12 on Monday June 21.  He wanted German Pancakes for breakfast and Cheesecake Factory for lunch.  At Cheesecake Factory they sang to him and he got a little ice cream sundae THEN we had cheesecake.  Caleb got his favorite, vanilla bean, and I got a delightful Key Lime.  Delightful!  Later that night we had Skor cake.  Can you believe it?  The stupid store could not make me a cake AGAIN!  Apparently there is only one cake baker and she was off AGAIN!  For presents Caleb got a groovy orange Lava Lamp, a cool new Lego set, a new IHome with alarm clock and some new books.  With the cash and gift cards from his aunts and uncles, and grandmas and grandpas, he bought some DS accessories.  The Wednesday after his birthday he got to go to Young Men for the first time.  They started a new merit badge so the boys wore their scout shirts.  Connor and Caleb will be in the Deacons Quorum for about 6 months together.  Caleb is such a good kid.  He has always been the peacemaker in our family.  I have always loved the name Caleb and it is a good fit for  him.  His latest scout leader gave him the nickname "Hollywood" and a teacher at school called him "shades" because he always wears sunglasses (this is not to be "cool" but because he has sensitive eyes). Caleb is really tall and the only one of us with blue eyes.  He is very helpful and kind with Cayden and his little cousins.  He is very responsible and smart.  We love you, Caleb!!

Dad's Day

For Father's Day Don did not get breakfast in bed because we have 9am church.  We are lucky if the kids get a bowl of cereal on Sunday mornings because noone wants to get up.  After church I made homemade pasta sauce (with tomatoes from our garden) with spaghetti, sauteed zucchini and squash (from our garden), and garlic bread.  We gave Don his presents that I did not wrap because I hate wrapping.  He got a Fry Daddy, a new razor and aftershave, and the book called "Agent Bishop" about the FBI/mormon guy.  We sort of got a Sunday nap and then we hardened our arteries a little more with some french fries and fried zucchini.  Later in the evening after a quick visit to grandpa Don to tell him that we love him, we had snake bites.  Don is such a good dad and husband.  We all love him lots and lots.  I could not asked for a better guy!  We love Granddaddy Larry who has been part of our family for 13 years. I did think about my dad today who has been gone for 16 years.  That is a long time!  Also, Pawpaw who has been gone for almost 12 years,  and Grandpa Gessel who has been gone for almost 14 years.  I don't have any pictures of any of them on this computer and I am too lazy to go to the other one.  They were all great examples to me and I am sad that my boys don't get to know them in this life.   I hope they are watching from heaven sometimes and especially that my daddy knows I miss him and love him. 

Boy's State

Cody left at 3:00am last Sunday morning to go to Boy's State.  This is a leadership program that is sponsored by the American Legion and was held at the UNR campus in Reno.  Cody and 3 other boys from our high school (Haydn Waite, Chase Witter, and Josh Thompson) were chosen to participate and were able to attend the week long event.  They rode a charter bus for the 9 hour ride and then stayed in the dorms on campus.  That was probably the longest Cody has ever been on the road and the longest Cody has been away from home.  They were super busy from 7:00am to 11:00pm and  he had no time to chat or even communicate with us other than a few texts to say that he was still alive.  He was elected as the District Attorney for his "city" and spent many a midnight hour working on his cases.  The group was able to go to Carson City and see alot of the government offices and Cody got to lounge for a few hours in the Secretary of State's office.  He also got to argue his case in the Supreme Court with some of the actual clerks and others who work there.  Apparently less than 5% of the entire state's attorneys gets this privilege. Cody had a great time even though he has never gotten so little sleep in his life. I tried to wake him up for church 3 times today but  he just rolled over.  He got up somewhere around 5pm and came in to ask if we had tried to get him up for church because he did not remember.  I have no pictures of  him but he has a few that I may be able to hijack.  Don and I went and picked up the boys from the American Legion post in Las Vegas last night.  It was great to hear all about their experience and we are glad that they got to do it.

Tell Me Something I Don't Know

Well it is practically official.  We have been wondering and diagnosing it on our own for a long time now but it has been made official by a psychologist and an occupational therapist.  It's not like WE did not pretty much know already but now that someone else agrees with us we can say-Cayden has Sensory Processing Disorder.  If you want some light reading then feel to peruse this HUGE website at your leisure but for those of you with limited time and much more interesting things to peruse on the internet.  In a nutshell:
"Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD,  is a condition that exists when sensory signals don't get organized into appropriate responses"  The inappropriate or negative responses interfere with every day functioning and the ability to live a normal life.
 For Cayden this means that he is hypersensitive with some of his senses and hyposensitive with some others.  Some of it is conflictive and kind of overlaps each other.  Here are some of the the issues that are evident in Cayden.

1.  He has an overdeveloped sense of smell to the point that when he smells oranges, or chlorine he will literally gag and sometimes to the point of throwing up.   We can't walk through or be in an indoor swim area without him gagging.  The last few weeks when we have been visiting the Mesquite pool alot, one of us waits outside with him and walks him through the outside gate so that he does not have to smell the chlorine.  He wants to shower immediately after we get home from the pool and he won't eat anything until he cannot smell chlorine on his hands anymore so we have to have lotion or hand sanitizer or something to cover up the smell.   The other day he got water in his mouth at the pool and he started gagging.  Luckily Don was right there and noticed the signs and pulled him out of the pool just in time for him to puke on the cement.  We are not quite sure if that was a taste thing or if it was a smell thing but whatever it is very debilitating for him.
2.  Along with the sense of smell is the sense of taste.  Cayden has always been a very picky eater.  When he was a baby he would only eat smooth foods.  He did not eat meat until he was 5 or 6.  When the family would go for hamburgers we had to stop at Taco Bell and get him a quesadilla.  He has only been eating chicken nuggets for about a year and a half now.  The kid practically lives on peanut butter.  He has a hard time swallowing big chunks of food and we end up telling him alot to spit out some it or we are constantly cutting up his food into little pieces.  He does like steak now but it has to be really little pieces or again he will gag to the point of puking.  Brushing his teeth and the whole orthodontic experience is not pleasant.  We have to sing songs and make up stories about green pigs to help him keep his mind off the toothbrush or orthodontist in his mouth. Thank you SPD.  
3.  Cayden is hypersensitive to sounds.  He constantly covers his ears at movies, plays and parades.  Even though he loves fireworks he is terrified of them too.  He even covers his ears at church when he anticipates anything being too loud like the organ or a musical number.  In an odd contrast though HE is always making noise.  He is either humming or singing or even clicking his teeth.  The specialists we have seen have said (even though I pretty much figured it out on my own) that he does that  as a defense mechanism to self sooth and to block out some of the surrounding noise.  I had an epiphany during the month of March.  Cayden had been coming home from school everyday with a full lunch box.  He was not eating anything or even drinking his juice or water bottle.  Everyday I would ask him why he did not eat his lunch and everyday he would say the same thing.  "I don't know".   He would be starving of course after school and if I did not give him something or ask him if he wanted something to eat or even set his lunch out for him to eat, more often than not I would find him mowing down chips and crackers and even hamburger buns.  Poor baby!  So while doing some reading I wondered if his not eating had anything to do with sensory issues because I knew that he was hungry at lunch time so there had to be more to it.  One afternoon I asked him to come and talk to me in his room and I asked him why he was not eating his lunch at school.  Again he said that he did not know.  Then I asked  him if he was hungry at lunch and he said that he was.  Then I said to Him "Cayden, if you are hungry at lunch, why can't you eat your lunch?"  Finally with a little prodding and coaxing on my part because I had been doing my research he said that he could not eat his lunch because he had to cover his ears because it was too loud in the lunchroom .  HALLELUJAH moment!  Well momma bear called the school the very next morning to talk to his teacher and tell her what I had learned and we put a plan in place for him.  She did tell me that she had noticed that he sort of shut down in the afternoon and now we know why.  He basically got his own table in the lunchroom away from the hubbub and he got to pick a lunch buddy from his class.  They would get to sit together at his table and it was their job to help each other finish their lunch.  It worked out really well and will definitely be a part of school next year for him.  I just wish that I had figured it out sooner or someone else would have.  When we went to Disneyland the last time in May, we took ear plugs for him to block out some of the noise around him.  We also try and remember to let him wear them at the movies or anywhere else he may feel overwhelmed.  I have resorted to keeping earplugs in my purse with me but even that is not enough some times.  We have to rethink our activities and how they could possibly have an adverse affect on him.    
4.  Cayden also struggles with two to other areas that are not that well known or associated with our senses unless you are familiar with them.  The first is vestibular which has to do with balance and the other is proprioception. Proprioception manifests itself as kids who are clumsy, uncoordinated, and have difficulty performing basic normal childhood tasks and activities.  These two kind of go hand in hand. That is why it is hard or even impossible for Cayden to ride a bike, ride a scooter, climb the jungle gym, and even play sports.  It is also part of his timidity and why he does not want to try new things or even "normal" things. 
All of these things present special challenges for him and our family.  He needs to go to therapy with an occupational therapist to help him with these challenges.  He has been receiving some services at school but the problems persist and he needs more than what the school can offer.  Of course there is not anyone local that can do this for him so we will be going to St. George atleast once a week to see an occupational therapist.  Sensory Processing Disorder does not ever go away but it can be managed and skills can be learned but it just takes longer.  In addition to the therapy for the SPD, he will be getting some extensive testing to determine if or what specific learning disabilities he has.  I guess we just don't have enough to do around here.  If you have any extra change laying around feel free to send it to the Jen's Sanity Fund. 

Now Back To The Real Me

After consuming copious amounts of this cookie dough, Cayden and I made a serious boatload of chocolate chip cookies to counteract all the vegetables in our systems.  We should be back to normal any time now.