Saving Memories Forever Review

April 29, 2013 Review No comments

I recently had the chance to review the iPhone app Saving Memories Forever. I received the premium subscription, which is $3.99 per month. Saving Memories Forever has both a free version and paid version of the app. The main difference is how many people you can add to the app, and the ability to download files to your computer. You can see a comparison of the paid versus free version here.

This app is basically a tool for recording memories, learning about your family history, and hearing stories of other family members. It’s an easy to use system that goes step by step through the different stories you can share and helps you build your (or someone else’s) life history, one story at a time.

To learn a bit more about how their system works, you can go their website and see video tutorials on how it works and how to get started. It’s easier than I thought it would be to get signed up and going.

My Thoughts

I have to admit, when I first heard of this app, I kind of wondered what the point was. I already have a video camera on my phone. Why would I pay money for an app that records your voice? But then I realized that there’s much more to it than that.

It’s especially awesome if you’re recording your life history or capturing a family member’s history. The app gives you questions you can ask your interviewee (or yourself). You can also add photos, stories, and descriptions to your videos, personalizing them as you choose. Here’s a screenshot of some of the different questions you can work on:

Once you select a question, you’re taken to this screen where you can record your answers:

I love that it gives you simple questions to answer. It makes it much less daunting to create a life history. While we don’t have any family living nearby to record their stories, I think it will be awesome to work on recording our own. Someday, this effort would probably mean a lot to our kid(s). I also think it would be neat to record some of my son’s stories. He’s not a big talker, especially about himself, but these pointed, easy questions might work for him.

If you have a premium account, you can download the mp3 files to your computer as a zip file, so you’ll always have them. Overall, I really like Saving Memories Forever. The only thing I wish it would have is a way to easily transcribe the voice files into a readable document. I’m very big into reading things and having them written down. I consider voice recordings priceless as well, but it would be awesome to be able to transcribe with the click of a button. However, this product is something I would use and plan to continue using in the future.

Spanish for You Review

April 24, 2013 Homeschooling, Review One comment

I recently received the Spanish for You curriculum to review, and we were really excited to check it out. My son is only four, but he has shown an interest in Spanish since he’s been old enough to talk. (It helps that my husband is 1/2 Hispanic and speaks the language.) I took Spanish in high school, but my Spanish-speaking skills are fairly lacking, so I was happy to have a tool to help my son learn Spanish better.

I was sent the Estaciones (All about the weather) grades 3-8 curriculum package, which retails for $64.95. I also received the teacher guides, which retail for $12.95 or $14.95. You can purchase the grades separately, which brings the price down to $39.95.

The curriculum came with a workbook, a PDF of flashcards and worksheets, audio files of the lessons, and audio of native speakers. And also the teacher guides, which tell you what to do each week.

 My Thoughts

Since Buki is only four, he wasn’t really ready for the full curriculum. He doesn’t really read yet, and is mostly only ready to learn a few Spanish vocabulary words. So while we didn’t make thorough use of the workbook, we did look through it. It looks great! I can’t wait until he gets a little older and is ready for the lessons.

We did use the flashcards. I printed them out, we colored them, and then I laminated them (I am addicted to laminating things!). He enjoyed learning the names of the month and had a good time coloring the pictures as well.

The audio files are awesome, especially the ones with native speakers. Since I’m not a native speaker (my husband isn’t native but…kind of is), it’s nice to have that extra pronunciation help. For anyone without a background in Spanish, this is perfect.

I also like that you can teach multiple kids in different age groups at the same time with the same curriculum. I don’t need that feature, but for someone who does, it’s very useful and makes it inexpensive if you’re buying for multiple age groups.

The only potential issue I see is that the curriculum jumps right into the Spanish lessons at what seemed to me beyond a basic level. I had trouble understanding a few of the lessons. It would be great if there was an introductory course (whether a free download or a course you can purchase before you get into these lessons).

Overall, we really enjoyed the Spanish for You lessons. If you’re looking for a foreign language curriculum, it’s worth checking out. And if you want to get a feel for what the program is like, check out their free printable mini lessons and see what you think.

We Choose Virtues

April 8, 2013 Behavior, Review No comments

The We Choose Virtues program is designed to help parents (and other adults, teachers, friends, etc.) help their children to develop character and virtue. The curriculum works for ages 3 through 5th grade. I’m part of the Mosaics Review Team and received the following items for free from We Choose Virtues:

  • Virtue Flash Cards for Families
  • 1 sample Parenting Card
  • Teacher’s Handbook
  • Kids of Virtueville Coloring Pages
  • Butterfly Award
  • Memory Verses, Bible Heroes and Truths
  • Family  Character Assessment

This is a subset of the Homeschool Kit, which retails for $98.99.

My Thoughts

The virtue cards are simple and easy to understand. The parent card gives helpful advice and ways of approaching the topic and helping your child understand the various virtues. I especially liked the user challenge. I’m not in love with the illustrations on the cards, but my son liked them, and that’s what matters.

My son enjoyed reading the cards, though he’s fairly young. We talked about each of the cards and what they mean. The cards were positive and motivating (I am perseverant. I can do it even when it’s tough.), though I kind of ignored the negative aspect of the cards (I am NOT going to give up or complain and I don’t say “I can’t” or “it’s too hard”!). I prefer learning to be positive and avoid framing things in the negative.

We had fun talking about each virtue, using the cards like flash cards, and coloring the pictures that went along with each virtue. Overall, my son enjoyed this product. And I’m kind of a “loosey goosey” type person, so I didn’t create or do any formal program with the cards, and that’s partly what I liked about it. You can go as in-depth with it as you want or just use it as a supplement when you want to talk about a specific virtue with your child.

In general, this company (and its products) has a religious focus, which is great for any one who is Christian. However, they also sell “secular” versions of the products as well, so it can work for just about anyone who wants to teach virtues to their child.

If you want to try the We Choose Virtues program, you can use the following discount codes. Through the end of April, you can use “HOME20″ to get a 20% discount when you purchase the Homeschool Kit. You can also use the code “VIRTUE15″ to get a discount on any product they sell. This code has no expiration date.

Blog Planner Review

February 27, 2013 Review No comments

I am a big fan of lists and organizers. Not that I always use them, but I do love them and find that I’m much more productive when I do use them. I had never thought about a blog planner before, but now that I’ve tried one, I love it.

It’s clear that I need a blog planner, since lately my blog hasn’t had many updates. So I decided to try out The Flourishing Abode’s blog planner and see how it worked. I liked that it was short and simple; always a good thing for me. I have several blogs, so I liked that I could use it for multiple blogs if I wanted to.

I like that the planner is simple, because I actually laminated mine and use a dry-erase marker to plan out the week. Then, when the week is over, I erase and start over again. I do that for several reasons, one of which is cutting down on paper, ink and other costs, but also because I really love laminating things. :) If you want to have a record for what you did on your blog for any given week, then laminating probably isn’t a good idea, but it works for me.

When I used it, I was much more productive and focused on what I needed to do for my blog. If you’re a blogger, I definitely recommend trying out a planner. And I give a thumbs up to The Flourishing Abode for creating a good (and free!) one.

The Kindergarten Question: To Send, or Not to Send

February 6, 2013 Autism, School System No comments

My son is currently in a blended classroom preschool program in the school district. I really love it, and they tell us he’s doing very well there. I love the special ed teacher who co-teaches with the regular classroom teacher. I feel like he is safe there.

In August, my son turns 5. So next year, he’s not eligible for preschool anymore; he would have to go to kindergarten to get services. And with his needs (the school lists his disability as autism, even though we still don’t have answers as to whether he actually does or not), along with the fact that he will be one of the very youngest in his class, my husband and I are thinking strongly about “red shirting” him for the year.

However, when we mentioned this to his preschool teachers, they gave us some of the reasons why they wouldn’t recommend it:

1. He needs services (We don’t know for sure yet, but they will probably recommend a regular classroom with some pop out resource support.), and if we enroll him in a private preschool classroom, they will not have the resources and support that the district can provide him.

2. If we red shirt him, then he’ll be a year older, and at age 14, his special ed services are no longer the elementary school district’s responsibility but the high school district’s responsibility. So in junior high, when he turns 14, they would have no choice but to transfer him to the high school because they wouldn’t have the funding to provide services anymore. So he’d skip from 7th to 9th grade, essentially. Not good.

3. They think he’s ready and can handle it and will actually thrive there.

One of my main concerns is that it’s all-day kindergarten. So 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. That’s 7 hours at school and away from home and mom and dad. And frankly, he’s kind of a homebody like me, so that could be rough on him. (Not to mention boring and lonely for me! Not that my feelings are a factor, but…still!) If it were half-day kindergarten I wouldn’t be nearly as concerned. His preschool is 2.5 hours a day, after all, and he handles that just fine.

So I’m kind of torn. I guess I really have four options here:

  • Send him to all-day kindergarten. This would ensure that he has the supports he needs in school.
  • Send him for a half day. Our district gives us this option, but it’s not really optimal, as the rest of the kids will get a full day of instruction and he would miss out on that.
  • Move to a different school district that has half-day kindergarten. I don’t know where this would be and don’t know if it’s a real option at this point.
  • Homeschool him. I’ve often thought about the homeschooling option, but I know he would miss the social interactions, and I’m not sure I could get through the day without crazy coming out if I didn’t get a break from my boy!

At this point, we’re not sure what we’re going to do. I would love to hear from other parents who have been in this situation or have any experiences, good or bad, with full-day kindergarten or sending their young 5-year-old to kindergarten. Leave me a comment if you wouldn’t mind weighing in!

Photo by woodleywonderworks

Traveling is a Special Kind of Hell

November 3, 2012 Autism, Behavior, Daily Life No comments

Travel was invented by someone who wanted to torture people with kids. And people with special needs kids? We should just never travel. Ever.

Actually, the travel part of it isn’t so bad. Buki (who is four now) does really well on the airplane or in a car. No sweat. But once we get to our destination? That’s when it all begins.

Once we get where we’re going, he freaks out because everything is different. He cries to go back home, especially at night. I always feel so bad, because it’s clear that he’s distressed and feeling very out of sorts.

But there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re on a trip, and the flight home can’t be changed. So we listen to him cry to go back home, to drive in our car, to use his own car seat, to leave a cousin’s house, to leave grandma’s house, etc. We do our best to love and console him, but all he really wants is his familiar things and schedule again.

We spent all our nights at my sister’s house so that at least it became a little familiar by the end of the trip. My parents came to her house to visit one day, and my son immediately started crying and ran to our bedroom to hide. The low point of the entire trip was watching my son sobbing behind the air mattress because he was afraid to see his grandparents.

He warmed up eventually, but it took a while and several crying spells before he spontaneously got over it. And the icing on the cake? By the end of our trip, he was familiar enough with everything that he cried and cried because he didn’t want to come home.

So we get the tears and distress both going and coming. And all we can do is hope for the best and swear we’ll never go anywhere again (we always swear t, and it’s never true for long.)

I guess traveling is good for him? At least it helps him practice going outside his comfort zone. And once he’s settled in, he has an amazingly fun time with his cousins. So I guess the pain it causes his parents is worth it!

Sleep and Meltdowns

June 25, 2012 Behavior One comment

I’ve decided that sleep (or lack thereof) is a major component of Buki’s meltdowns. I’m sure that’s the case for most kids, but it’s especially true for him. And since he hasn’t really napped since he was 18 months, you can bet he gets overtired a lot.

Tonight was one of those times. We went to dinner at a friend’s house, and there were several other guests including a friend Buki’s age. He had a great time, shared with his friend, and even played Mario Kart for the first time!

But then fatigue set in. (I didn’t realize it, but it was 8pm.) And his little friend didn’t feel like sharing anymore, and this caused Buki to completely melt down. And he couldn’t stop the meltdown, even when his friend gave him the toy he wanted.

I realized it was time to leave, so I scooped Buki into my arms, said goodbye, and went out the door (prying my screaming son’s fingers off the door frame as I went). He screamed. Screamed! At the top of his lungs down the stairs of the apartment building. And then screamed as I carried him down the street to our car. He screamed and cried and tried to get away from me. Holding a 40-pound writhing child is not easy. And were I an observer of the scene, I would have assumed I was kidnapping a child!

It was terrible. I remembered again why I dislike leaving the house with my son (even though I feel guilty when we stay home all day). And then he was asleep in the car not five minutes later, sweet and innocent as ever.

He just needs his sleep, even if he doesn’t like it.

 

Our Son Had Asperger’s Syndrome…

June 4, 2012 Asperger's syndrome, Autism, Behavior, Evaluations No comments

And now, apparently, he doesn’t. We had the unofficial diagnosis from the school district for about 6 months before the developmental pediatrician told us he doesn’t meet the criteria. The school still uses the diagnosis as a basis for his services, but they have voiced their uncertainty to us as well. He’s three years old, so we don’t really know if any label will eventually stick.

Having the ASD diagnosis was scary and uncharted territory for us, but having the diagnosis taken away six months later makes the territory even less charted! Our son still presents with many of the signs of Asperger’s. He’s getting OT, sees a social worker, and will begin a speech group as soon as we can afford it. His behavior at home is troubling, frustrating, and we don’t know how to deal with it. We don’t even know if there is a “cause” for it – such as Asperger’s (or something else).

I know that labels don’t mean anything and that my son is complex (as every person is) and can’t be completely described by a single word like Asperger’s. But in some ways, labels do matter. Labels get you more services. And labels get you acceptance into a group. I don’t fully fit in with the “typical” moms; the issues we deal with are not the ones they deal with. But I kind of feel like we’re on the fringe of the ASD community – are we in that group? Do we need to be? Does it matter?

Who knows. All I know is that my son has struggles. And we are going to help him with those struggles however we can and for however long it takes because we love him and we know how much potential he has. And I guess that’s what really matters in the end.

 

Evaluation by the Developmental Pediatrician: Not on the Spectrum…For Now

April 20, 2012 Evaluations No comments

Buki having fun with a photo app

Back in February, we went to a developmental pediatrician to have Buki evaluated for Asperger’s. That’s what the school told us was going on, so we decided to do an official eval.

I wasn’t super impressed with the pediatrician, but she came highly recommended. She did a test with a book and then played with Buki. I know she has to stay a little removed to see what his reactions would be, but the play session was painful to watch because of her, not my son. She made no attempt to make him feel comfortable, and as a result, he just stared at her when she attempted to engage him. I remember thinking that it seems like she’s never spent any time around kids, which can’t be true, as she does this for a living.

At the end of the assessment, she told us that her initial feeling is that Buki is not on the spectrum, but she wanted to do a more thorough evaluation with the help of a psychologist. So we made an appointment to come back.

Our second appointment was more of the same. More testing, more awkward playing. This time a psychologist did a test. I liked her even less than I liked the pediatrician. She made no attempt to make my son feel comfortable. She wasn’t all that friendly. And then after the test was over she tells us that our son has anxiety. Well … that may be true, but part of it was her demeanor toward him.

After everything was over, they told us that he is not on the spectrum. They see several behaviors and symptoms of Asperger’s, but not enough to call it Asperger’s. He’s close to the line, but apparently not on the spectrum. Though it’s a close enough call that they want to see him again in six months.

I should have been happy about it, but I wasn’t. I thought they were wrong. They don’t spend time with him day in and day out. I thought he had Asperger’s and that they were wrong.

Now? I just don’t know. He may or may not be on the spectrum, and we may not have a definitive answer for several years. But the important thing is to treat the symptoms and get him help, and the pediatrician agreed. We now have prescriptions for occupational therapy and speech therapy. Choosing a therapist is another story, but at least we’re moving forward.

Early Symptoms of Autism: What You Need to Know

February 10, 2012 Asperger's syndrome, Autism, Evaluations, SPD No comments

Photo by hepingting, Flickr

This topic is near and dear to my heart, as we have been struggling for nearly three years to discover if our 3-year-old has autism or not. It’s been a long journey that isn’t over yet (we still don’t have answers), but because we knew some of the early symptoms of autism (and didn’t take no for an answer), we were able to get early intervention help for Buki that made a big difference for him.

If you are a parent wondering if your child has autism: welcome. You are among friends. It can be scary and daunting to think about the possibility, but your child will remain your amazing wonderful child, whether there’s a label like “autism” attached or not. But the thing about autism is that the earlier it is treated, the better it is for your child. So it’s best to know and do something about it as soon as you can.

I’m going to first list the more “obvious” early signs of autism that you might find on any website. But then I’m going to share some of the more subtle signs we saw in my boy that clued us in that something was going on. I hope it helps!

If you see some of these signs in your child or you have worries about your child’s development, please take action! If your child is under 3-years-old, contact the Early Intervention program in your state (if you don’t know what yours is, this Early Intervention Contacts page should help). If your child is over three, contact your school district. These two resources will test your child free of charge and then help you treat your child if it is warranted.

Here are some of the main symptoms of autism in toddlers and babies:

  • Not smiling or happy expressions by age 6 months
  • No interaction back and forth with caregivers by sharing smiles, sounds, or facial expressions by 9 months
  • Not responding to his/her name by 12 months
  • Not speaking words by age 16 months
  • Not using two-word phrases by 24 months (repeating words back to you doesn’t count – it must be a meaningful interaction)
  • Doesn’t make eye contact with you
  • Doesn’t point at objects or wave goodbye
  • Doesn’t try to get your attention or respond to your attention
  • Doesn’t imitate your facial expression
  • Has a loss of speech or social skills

 

So those are some of the big indicators. But here’s the thing. My son, did most of those things listed above. He was, in fact, hitting milestones early. He was talking up a storm by the time he was 15 months old. And he did interact with us and smile and make eye contact with us. But we still knew that something was off. Here are some of the things we did notice about our boy that clued us in to the possibility of autism:

  • He did eventually learn how to wave bye bye, but we had to work with him pretty strongly on it, and it didn’t seem to come naturally to him.
  • He ignored us a lot. He did respond to his name, but only after calling it several times.
  • At around age 1, he stopped smiling. Before then, he was the smiliest baby in the world. But at age 1, he became serious and austere.
  • He had some “sensory” issues: He was deathly afraid of anything that made noise – the vacuum, the blow drier, the blender. This lasted LONG after most kids get over it (as in, he’s 3 now and still runs from the room when I pull out the vacuum). He also had to touch anything that looked like it had a texture. He climbed all over us and banged into us, so much so that I could tell he needed to do it.
  • He could speak a lot of words (by 18 months he was saying over 150 words), but we noticed that he wasn’t really interacting with us verbally very much. We would ask him a simple question and he would totally ignore us.
  • We also noticed that he was memorizing books and cartoons. At around 20 months, he could repeat back verbatim a Sesame Street skit he saw a few days ago.
  • Also around 20-22 months, we noticed that he had memorized the entire alphabet and could not only recognize each letter, but also knew some of the sounds they made. We never taught him or coached him on this.
  • His obsession with numbers and letters became…all-encompassing. At about 24 months, I would take him to a grocery store, and he pointed out every single number and letter he saw.

 

These are some of the main autism symptoms in toddlers that we saw in our boy. We weren’t at all sure that these things meant autism, but we didn’t want to take any chances. Early Intervention came and evaluated him at age 2, and although they didn’t diagnose him, they provided us with speech therapy, occupational therapy, and a lot of support. We saw many improvements in his speech and development that year, and we’re very thankful we called the Early Intervention team – despite what my doctor said, “He’s fine.”

Don’t listen to friends, family, or even the pediatrician if you suspect a developmental delay in your child. Listen to yourself. Nobody knows your child like you do. And the earlier you seek intervention, the higher chance you have of making a huge difference for your child. If you suspect your child may be showing some of the early symptoms of autism, seek help immediately. Call the Early Intervention program in your state for under 3 years old, and call your school district for 3 and up.

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