Fun!

My weighted blanket tutorial was featured on ohdeedoh today! How fun. :)

I can't be the only mom in the world who gets excited about decorating their child's bedroom. It was time for Dill Pickles to move out of the crib and down the hall to his big boy bedroom. Of course I had the perfect bedroom planned out in my head. I searched in catalogs, stores, blogs and on-line to find the best themed bedroom for our little Dill. Finally- perfection found in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog. I was able to find this set gently used on Craigslist. Excellent! It even came with a matching area rug. Daddy Pickles and I put together Dill's new furniture and washed his new blanket and sheets. I was so excited to see what Dill Pickles would think of his bedroom. He liked it I guess. Well, as much as a 17 month old can tell you they liked it.


Dill stayed in his crib for a while, but within a few months he was climbing out. Not just once or twice, but CONSTANTLY. We quickly converted the crib to a toddler bed and it worked for a while. Getting Dill Pickles to fall asleep was a big problem. Huge. Finally I resorted to rocking him to sleep. I had an infant and I was exhausted. I did what I needed to to to get him to sleep.


Then one night I thought I heard furniture moving. Seriously? Who is moving furniture? Daddy Pickles was at work and there was no way that Sweet Pickles was moving furniture. I opened the door to Dill's bedroom and found his crib, which was not on wheels, pushed all the way across his bedroom. For a while I had suspected that Dill had some issues, but everyone told me that he was just being a boy. Or as a special education teacher I had too much knowledge and I was making myself think that I was seeing things wrong with my child but really, he was fine.


One day I said forget it all. There is something wrong with my kid and I am taking him for an evaluation. Dill Pickles and I went for a 15 minute screening at a private therapy clinic and within minutes of meeting him they assured me that I was not making things up and yes, there was more to it than just being a boy. Dill Pickles most definitely had major sensory issues.


So what does all of this have to do with the really cute Pottery Barn Kids toddler set I got on Craigslist for a steal? Have you ever seen a weighted blanket for sale in the PBK catalog? Me neither. The ones in therapy catalogs cost an arm and a leg and are usually made for institutional use at a school or therapy clinic. Know of any catalogs that sell a weighted blanket made out of fireman material? Didn't think so. I wanted what was best for my son, but I didn't want a blah blanket for his bedroom. He was going to be using it every night to sleep and I was going to see it every time I walked past his bedroom. What was I to do?


I called my mom. Isn't that what everyone does when they need help? My mom and I sat down and thought and tinkered. We drew and we calculated and here is the results of our labors.

Here it is- the very first weighted blanket I ever sewed. Well, with my mom's help of course. It doesn't match the rest his bedroom exactly, but at least it's not institutional blue or some other boring color. Since sewing this one nearly two years ago I have sewn countless others for friends, friends of their friends and for my son's teacher and classmates. I love sewing and I love sewing things that really help someone out. I've just finished sewing another weighted blanket for my friend's daughter. Want to sew your very own weighted blanket personalized for your child? A tutorial is coming soon. I promise. It's my first tut ever so I want to make sure I get everything right.

Dill Pickles had a really tough day yesterday. That meant Mommy and little Sweet Pickles had a rough day too. I was trying to get Dill calmed down to take a nap or at least stop bouncing and crashing all over the house. He was sitting, errr.....no, he was jumping and climbing all over me while I was sitting in the rocking chair trying to get him wrapped in his weighted blanket. I was really at the end of my rope and really tired because I didn't sleep well the night before. Out of no where Dill grabs my face with his two hands, looks me in the eye and starts singing "Two, four, six, eight! Who do we appreciate? Mommy! Mommy! Yeah Mommy!" I started crying. Where on earth did he learn that I asked. My teacher he replied. Now you have to give me a high five and sing my name! I sang and gave him a high 5, then I tossed him into his bean bag with his weighted blanket to take a nap. The nap didn't happen, but somehow we managed to have a peaceful, meltdown free afternoon.

Is is sensory or is it behavior? Isn't that a question we're always asking? I know I am constantly pondering that in my head. Earlier this week I went to conference given by Carolyn Murray-Slutsky and Betty Paris who wrote the book Is It Sensory or Is It Behavior? Let me tell you it certainly made me think. It made me thing about a lot of things. Of course Dill Pickles constantly popped into my head while we were watching short video clips of students. We had to figure out why the child was acting the way they were and what they were trying to tell us. I could only think is this how it's going to be for Dill once he gets into first and second grades? Are his teachers going to understand his sensory needs? Are they just going to think he's a bad kid who can't sit still and pay attention? Sometimes it was all I had to keep from crying. But who knows what the future holds. For now I just have to live in today and only think about one tomorrow at a time.

With 2 weeks of great days at school under the belt for Dill Pickles, I think I can finally post about what was causing his crying at school. We usually call Dill Pickles by a nickname, for the sake of the blog, let's call him DP. He goes by DP almost all the time, except for when he's in trouble. Then it's most certainly the full name Dill Pickles. At school last year, Dill just wrote DP on his morning sign in card. This year his teacher wanted him to try writing Dill instead. She felt it was important to learn how to spell his full name. I agree. There are going to be formal times when he will need to write his full first name. Apparently Dill was not ready to make the switch from writing DP to writing Dill. All he had to do was trace over the letters, but it was too much for him and he just didn't know how to say it, so he cried. And cried. And cried.

One day on the way to school I asked Dill for the 9 millionth time why he was crying and he blurted out, "I don't like school because writing Dill is too hard. I just want to write DP." Wow. I thought about it and you know, Dill is still only 3. Writing his full first name might be too hard for him right now especially since he does have fine motor skill problems. I told him I would talk to his teacher.

Dill has 2 teachers in his classroom, a regular ed pre-school teacher and a special ed pre-school teacher. Since it was the special ed teacher who told me at the beginning of the year that she wanted him to write his full name, I figured I would talk to her. She was with another parent. The regular ed teacher walked up to Dill and handed him his name card with his full first name and a marker. He started sobbing. This confirmed for me that he was just not ready to write his name. The special ed teacher came running over and I explained everything to her. No problem she said. We can switch back to DP. Since that day **KNOCK ON WOOD** we have not had any crying at school. I wish just wish we could have figured it out sooner so Dill didn't have to be stressed for so long. It was only a week, but I'm sure it felt like an eternity to him.

Daddy Pickles and I both attended Catholic schools. We wanted our children to do the same, but I just can't see a Catholic school being a successful place for Dill Pickles with his sensory issues. We unfortunately know that the school closest to our house wouldn't be a good match for him based upon talking to others in the neighborhood. This saddens me, but this will just bring us to do something better for him ourselves.

Starting in a few weeks Dill Pickles will be attending Children of the Lord at my mom's church. It's a Sunday School-like program that goes on during 9:30am Mass. I taught Children of the Lord when I was in high school. It makes me smile to now be sending my son there.

While I am confident that Dill will learn a lot, we will still be doing things at home as well. I was so excited to read a post by Lacy at Catholic Icing announcing that she would be posting a Catholic pre-school curriculum weekly she is using at her child's co-op pre-school. I'm sure I could have come up with things like this myself, but it will be so much easier to use the bulk of what someone else has come up with and tweak it a bit for my own. I think we will do her activities on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I still have to decide if we will do them right away when Dill Pickles comes home from school or in the afternoon after naptime. We will just have to see what will work best for us!