Taking the Scenic Route

The last time I will have an architect at the preschool Gingerbread House party.  As usual, Jennifer (the lead Clinical Educator for the preschool), went all out making each of the gingerbread houses.  They all include a light inside.  She bakes and assembles all of the houses herself.  That is commitment.

Designing the decorations is very serious business.

She included a hose on the back of the house.  

Another Semester Ends.

Working on a Lego project together.

Last time for Friendship group with Corissa & MacKenzie.  Zane showing the completed project.  We will see the twins again next semester, but both of the student therapists are moving on.

The kid’s Christmas Pageant was great. Zane was “Wise Person #2″ and had lines, Zora was “Angel Chorus” and just stood there looking cute in her crooked halo.

The pageant was called “Backwards Christmas Pageant” and was a “play within a play” type thing.  The plot:  a group of kids are putting on a Christmas pageant and one of the Wise People has to leave early for a soccer game.  Since his part isn’t until the third act, they do the play backwards, so the Wise People go first, then the shepherds & angels, then the whole Elizabeth/Mary get pregnant & angels.  They all gather at the manger in the Epilogue.

Our first victory was to get Zane to stop saying “And then I say…” before each line.  Then we had to get him to understand that it was not the time to replace words for comic effect.  He got a kick out of the script and got the giggles, even when we were just running lines, especially the part where the Wise People show the gifts they are taking:

WP#1:  Gold

WP#2(Zane): Frankincense

WP#3:  Myrrh (but holds up a soccer ball instead, then corrects it with the right prop).

He thought that was so funny.  Apparently he still thought it was funny during rehearsals and would still be giggling 10 minutes after the exchange.

He was also greatly amused at the lines about a “Herd of Sheep”, where his next line was “Of course we’ve heard of sheep”, followed by a herd/flock exchange.

He actually had all of his lines memorized, but carried the script on stage with him (a  lot of the kids weren’t off scripts, so it wasn’t a big deal to carry it on stage).  He did a decent job of following the blocking, and didn’t stim as much as I thought he might.  (he did rock back and forth, but he was grinning ear to ear and obviously paying attention, just made him a blur for photos most of the time.)  The best part was that he so obviously was having a ball, grinning happily and very “in the moment” through it.

Zora did a good job too, but she was upset that she had no lines and that it was “boring” having to wait backstage.  She looked so adorable in her costume and did a good job of following the blocking.  You could hear her singing (they had mics set up backstage so that all the kids could contribute to singing the songs), so I know she was doing a good job of paying attention and participating.

Some pictures from dress rehearsal

Waiting backstage (unseen from audience)

The production:

We didn’t get a picture of the ending, but we wish we would have gotten video.  Instead of being nearer to the edge of the stage, like he was in rehearsal, he ended up next to the manger.  As they sang the last medley/finale, he opened up his box of Frankincense and”grabbed” stuff out of the (empty) box and, to the beat, “threw” it into Jesus’ manger.  As the song finished up, he upturned the box and shook it out, as if to make sure all of the contents were given to baby Jesus.  :laughn2:  It was hysterical.  (and a big deal to us, when we weren’t sure if he would ever do “pretend play”, to see him pantomime this with total spontaneity and showing a sense of humor)

I do have to give props to all the kids in the church.   I am so impressed by them and how generously they help my kids.  They treat them respectfully and are just very sweet.  There isn’t a bad attitude in the bunch.  The older kids all help the younger ones and make ventures such as these enjoyable.  I also appreciate the adults who do such a great job of including Zane and giving him the best chance of success.

After the last dress rehearsal for the Christmas Pageant and before church I decided to attempt a picture of the kids in their Christmas outfits.  It was marginally successful.

Gingerbread houses completed! Yay! I think I am going to try and buy some gingerbread house molds this year so that the kids don’t have a box to reference…Mr. Literal thinks that the end result should look EXACTLY like the box and mom & dad end up doing a lot more work than they should.

Happy that we finally got Zane to stop saying “Then I say…” before each line in the Christmas Pageant script.  Progress!

[Zane] “Sorry, guy”
[Zora] “I’m not a guy; I’m your sister!”
[Zane] “Sorry, gal”
[Zora] “I’m your SISTER!”
[Zane] “OK. Sorry, Zora.”
[Zora] “Better.”
[Zane] (a little later) “Stop it, Zora”
[Zora] “You’re supposed to say, ‘please stop doing that’”
[Zane] “Stop doing that, Zora…please.”
[Zora] “OK”

In the new “Christmas Pajamas” from Grandma.  Zane surprised us by being totally excited by the slippers.

For the first time the kids didn’t need grown-up help to put the tree together.

Zora put the angel on the top of the tree, but the tree top bent funny and the angel took a nose dive. Luckily, Zane caught her before she hit the ground. Twice.

Dad had to fix the tree so the angel would stay there.

Done! Let the season commence.

Zora is at that stage in learning to read where she writes out a “word” and wants us to read it to her.  Usually, no big deal, but when presented with this word, I hesitated before I “pronounced” it, because the first pronunciation that flit through my brain was not something I want her to repeat.  Like, ever.

“phpp hoor aasso” 

After a week of the kids being sick and grumpy, missing everything on our schedule from Sunday to some of the Thursday events, by Friday everybody was totally stir crazy and the kids were poking at each other. It had progressed to “witching hour” insanity by 3 in the afternoon and it was looking to get even worse. I knew there was a respite event tonight, but we hadn’t signed up for it. I called them to see if there was any chance of dropping the kids off, and they had space. THANK GOODNESS! Zane was so ready to go he started getting dressed when he overheard me asking, and both kids were totally dressed, on their own, within 10 minutes. Then I made them go outside to kill some time before we went. I don’t know that I have ever seen Zane so ready to get out of the house before.

Zach and I first went to Walmart to get some much needed windshield wipers, and decided we really needed to do something “nice”, needed a break so badly. We ended up going to Il Vicini’s, sitting in the window seat, sipping coffee. As we sat there it started snowing, which added a feeling of otherworldness to the evening. It was so nice and peaceful. Eventually they stopped bringing us coffee refills, so we went home and snuggled on the couch and talked. By the time we picked up the kids we were feeling better and the kids were happy and worn out. Zora went to sleep about half an hour after we got home, and Zane another hour later.

Respite care is such a God-send.