board games for kids – Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs..

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well this morning! I am feeling relief this week, and could start singing the Hallelujah chorus; Wyatt has not been sick from his meds in the morning for six whole days, and I am hoping and praying that we turned the corner!

We actually had a visit with his epileptologist on Tuesday morning, which went pretty well. Wyatt has medication resistant epilepsy, which means that despite trying multiple medications, they are not able to get them under control. Wyatt’s seizures are focal/myoclonic so right now he is not having those full body, clonic seizures like everyone immediately thinks of when they think of seizures, and hopefully he never does. We learned that he is not a candidate for resection surgery, due to where his seizures originate, but there are still options out there for us to try. There are still medications to try (after giving this poor kid a break for a bit! After a month of vomiting he deserves some time off), and something called a vagus nerve stimulator. This is sort of like a pacemaker that zaps his vagus nerve which dispels the electricity that is gathering to create a seizure. It is something we are very seriously considering in the future. Overall, I left the appointment feeling pretty hopeful.

He was so funny at the appointment too, despite it being super early. He rolled up to sit right next to the doctor like he was conducting the appointment too, and was just chilling with her. Sometimes he takes to people right away, others he needs to warm up too. He absolutely adores Dr. Reed though, which gives me a very good feeling about her.

Last week Devin (my brother) and his fam met us for pizza and then we all headed back to our house for games with the kids. It was hysterical. We played a game called Castle Feud, where two teams each set up their castle and the other team shoots a tiny catapult to knock the other team’s castle down. We spread out between our den and family room and tried to take each other’s castles down. The adults might have made it a bit too exciting, with the Game of Thrones music playing, hyping up the rivalry, because both big kids – Wyatt and Mermaid girl – got a little too excited and ended up getting in a wee bit of trouble. Lol. Nothing too much, they are good kids and just needed a reminder but I think they were a bit overstimulated. The wee one was funny, wandering between rooms like an attacking giant. We of course made sure she was seated and protected before firing the catapult each time! She enjoyed looking at our fish tank too. She would point to Moon swimming around and then turn around and look at me in wonder. It was really neat to experience it with her.

Speaking of Moon, he and his tankmate Sunny the snail are doing well. We took our water to be tested at the aquarium store and the woman working said we were doing awesome. We had A+ water, phew. Sunny is doing so well that she even left us a gift of a clutch of eggs… I don’t know what to do with them honestly because I can’t raise 200 baby Mystery snails! We had fun looking around at the crazy fish types they have there, like this Lionfish. They also have the cutest little cherry shrimp! I didn’t know what those were until we visited that store and they are adorable. I won’t get them as I have nowhere to put them but they are pretty cute.

Other than that, we have been living pretty quietly over here. With our easier mornings (Wyatt is now just super tired after his meds, which is an improvement) I have had time to catch up on some of the things I had to let slide for a month due to his being sick most of the morning. I caught up on Cub Scout stuff I needed to get done, bills.. you know all those fun things….

And that is it for this week! I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

Just some random photos…

Wyatt is always asking me what I am doing when I blog. I tell him I am blogging but he better understands it if I refer to it as “work”. So I am working. Lol. I thought it would be fun to ask for his input on what I should blog about, and his response was games. He is really into playing games right now, so it was not a big surprise. Books and games, that is what we do these days! It works though, it has been such a weird summer for us.

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Anyway, back to games. These are Wyatt’s current favorites! Some of them are super simple, that pretty much even the youngest child could play, but they work really well for Wyatt’s occupational therapy and speech therapy goals. Good thing he loves the games she chose – so much, that we had to buy them for home. One especially has grabbed his attention… Pop! the Pig

I can’t tell you how often everyone, and I mean, everyone, in our family has played this game with Wyatt. His speech therapist introduced this game to him, and we have all had to play it a million times. But it helps him so that is good! We have him follow the same requirements his speech therapist wants from him, multiple words strung together, so every time we play, it is just more speech! Win! Basically, you roll the dice, find the burger that matches the color, read the number on the back, feed the pig, and push down on his hat that number of times. As you feed him and push on his hat, his belly gets fuller and fuller until his belt pops! Then you just push his head to deflate him. (I wish it were that easy for me to flatten my belly!) I told his therapist that we had to buy this game because he loved it so much in her office, and she told me that so many other families have told her that as well!

He loves Pop! the Pig so much, that last weekend Billy and I picked up a similar game, Chompin’ Charlie. This one is actually a little better at honing his fine motor skills, because the acorn game pieces are pretty small, and it’s a little difficult to stuff them in the squirrel’s face. He loves this game, but misses the more physical part of pushing down on the pig’s head from the other.

Next is Pop-Up Pirate – a variation on a theme here. Another simple game but one that allows him to work those fine motor skills. You stick the pirate down in the barrel, and take turns shoving swords into the barrel in the slots until the pirate pops out. And he really pops up, higher than you expect so don’t have anyone’s face over the top! We actually bought this for Wyatt for Christmas because he loves pirates so much. It was more about the pirate than the game, then it became a favorite. Wyatt loves the anticipation and when the pirate pops, and we like it because first, he loves it, and second, it is a quick and fast game to play when you want a quick and fast game!

This next game was a reward for summer reading, in June. It is called Ghost in the Attic from Peaceable Kingdom and it is so fun! The best part is that it glows in the dark, so it is super fun to play at night, or camping. We are going to take it on our family trip at the end of the month so that Wyatt and Mermaid Girl can play together. It is a cooperative game, which means everyone plays together toward the same goal. We are actually big fans of all the Peaceable Kingdom Games, even though Wyatt is sort of outgrowing some of his earlier ones. We play them now mostly because they are old favorites.

Outfoxed is another favorite! He got this for Christmas and it is a cute “whodunit” type game for kids. This is another one we are taking with us on our trip!

Finally is the game My First Dragon Adventure, an adventure fantasy type game by the company Jumping High Five! They are a brand new company just getting started, and they are so sweet! We also have another game by them called Candy Train, which is also fun, but Wyatt just happens to love the dragon more, even though he is a huge train fan these days.