Jaguars and Tree Frogs

Here are some great pictures assembled by tearing paper. This was a Kindergarten project last spring. I'm sure there was a model to copy, but Mr. Busypants did a fantastic job re-creating, don't ya think.

Tree Frog

Jaguar

Grembe, Inc. and the iCommunicate

In July, I purchased an iPhone and wow am I obsessed. I use it for everything: contacts, calendar, to-do lists, social networking, email--everything. I've re-organized my household life with the Shopper app and the All Recipes app. I catch up on my Reader, listen to Grammar Girl podcasts, and got motivated to re-download all the music I lost when my hard drive crashed last August. I even use a Bible study app to follow along with readings and take notes in church. If you've got a need for some assemblance in your life, the iPhone has an app to help you out with it.

I stay current with new iPhone apps and other social networking updates on Mashable and I befriend fellow social networking junkies on Twitter. Recently, Lisa Johnson at Grembe, Inc. chose to follow me @mamabusypants. As always, I clicked onto her page to see if I'd like to reciprocate. That's when I discovered Grembe, Inc., a wonderful app created specifically for families with special needs.

Below is the story of GRaham, EMma, and BEn's parents, who put mom's physical therapy experience with dad's software engineering genius to work to create iCommunicate, an iPhone app. Mother Lisa Brandolo Johnson shares her story about how creating an iPhone app changed her family's mission.

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The favorite part of my day as a stay-at-home mom is taking my three children out to a morning activity. They play with other children, and I have the opportunity to socialize with other parents. That all changed when my middle son Graham was 24 months old. Suddenly, taking him out became impossible. He didn't want to leave the house, and when we did go out, he just tried to escape.

I wasn't alarmed when he qualified for early intervention services at 19 months because he had a delay in expressive and receptive language. I did become alarmed when he didn't want to leave the house anymore, and developed a bald spot from pulling his hair out. All of these problems were huge red flags for autism, but the waiting time to see specialists was lengthy. I wondered what we could do in the meantime.

My early intervention (EI) specialist began a small playgroup in my home. She would bring pictures that visually explained to my son what we would be doing during the group. The EI specialist routinely used the visual cues to help keep my son and the other children engaged. The pictures were an integral part of the playgroup, and helped all of the children with waiting and turn-taking. And best of all, the children liked them.

Because the pictures worked so well, I spoke with the EI specialist about whether I should use them during outings with my son. However, the software was expensive, and creating the pictures would have been time-consuming. Additionally, I didn't want to draw attention to my son every time we left the house by carting around a book and lots of pictures to assemble.

I began drawing stick-figure maps and creating storyboards. When I showed pictures to my son of where we were going, or what we would be doing, he became less anxious, and was able to leave the house. These storyboards changed our lives!

After extensive testing, my son was not diagnosed with autism, but continues to display autistic traits that make social situations challenging. I wanted to find a way to use the storyboards in the home as well as in the community, as they had proven to be the most successful tools in allowing him to participate socially. An iPhone app seemed like the perfect solution!

iCommunicate provides storyboards in a portable, convenient format. My three children all benefit from this app, and our lives have become easier because of it. We are once again able to enjoy a morning activity as a family!

Lisa Brandolo Johnson and her husband Jeff developed the iCommunicate app to help families with children with developmental delays and autism as well as typically developing children using storyboards that are quickly, easily and conveniently created using this app. To learn more about this app, go to http://grembe.moonfruit.com/. You may also follow them on Twitter @Grembe.

Back-to-School Shopping Mr. BP Style

Mr. Busypants hasn't exactly been excited about going back to school. For weeks, any time I mentioned it, he'd rage and yell, "How 'bout 100 beds, then school."

Although he is pretty attached to the backpack he used two years ago (blue and green with soccer balls), I suggested we go to Target to pick out a new backpack and lunchbox. What better way to get a kid suckered into willingly going back to school? I even threw in that we'd get a new water bottle. That got his attention. So a couple days ago, we headed to the store.

It's funny how kids with autism tend to enjoy order and synchronicity, yet Mr. Busypants chose a light-up GI Joe backpack, Transformers lunch box, and Spider-Man water bottle. Miss Chattyshoes, on the other hand, grabbed a princess water bottle and Barbie lunchbox (which I left at the register when she wasn't looking.) She's starting "school" next week, so she deserved a new water bottle, but we're set on the backpack and lunchbox.

At checkout, Mr. Busypants realized that he put down his water bottle and left it somewhere; it was gone. Not wanting to put all our stuff back into the cart and haul ourselves halfway across the store, I negotiated, promising we'd stop by Walmart and get the water bottle later.

The next evening, I continued to soften the back-to-school blow by having Mr. Busypants help me label and sort all his school supplies--a task that would have been a thousand times easier had I gone solo. But I really enjoyed working with him; he's matured so much. He was all about sharpening his pencils until they were pointed enough to stake through a vampire's hearts. No dull tip would do. As our crumby, $4 sharpener weakened, Mr. Busypants told me "Sorry. It doesn't work anymore. We're all done mom, okay!"

A couple mornings ago, we walked over to Walmart, which is just a couple blocks from our house. Whenever we walk, I put Miss Chattyshoes in a stroller and Mr. Busypants walks beside me pushing a little white shopping cart like we live in a trailer park--it's quite popular with the employees and other customers.

Last year, he'd only let me put HIS stuff in his cart, but recently he's gotten into filling the cart with most everything. After we found the water bottle, we picked up some miscellaneous food items and got in line. Miss Chattyshoes was pretty much done in the stroller, so I let her stand in line. As she started to unwrap a pack of Fruit-Striped Gum, I traded her for a box of fruity Tic Tacs. After all, they're only 1.5 calories per mint. On the way home, she'd ask for "moy candy peeze." I bought some time.

As we walked home, I couldn't help but marvel at how big my little man has gotten. He wore the free T-shirt I got at an Angels game in LA when Mr. Busypants was just 8 months old. I remember wondering "when will my little noogie EVER fit in this shirt!"

That day has come. He's starting first grade today. When we got home, I joined a couple neighbors in front of my house. As we chatted, Mr. Busypants brought most of the groceries in and unpacked. I bought two, $2 collapsible laundry hampers that he unwrapped and put in their intended locations. He installed the batteries in the new pencil sharpener we bought. He even put the laundry detergent and ice cream away.

Meanwhile, after about a 10 minute conversation, I look down at Miss Chattyshoes emptying the last Tic Tac into her little trap. Not only does time fly as our kids grow up in an instant, but it most assuredly flies when you're talking with the neighbors.

She had been so quiet and relaxed in the stroller. I should have known.

Not-So-Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

Jorie was quite a character in California and she knew how to draw a crowd. There were two particularly memorable incidents that stood out, however: the great Target protest, and ice cream at Foster's Freeze.

What started in Jorrible Behavior has become a regular occurrence when she's not interested in doing as she's told: the classic lay down. It can happen anywhere and it has happened everywhere:

She will lay down on the floor

Even in a Target store

She will do it in the zoo

Restaurants, museums, the Bat Cave too.

On one of our many trips to Target on this trip, Jorie wowed Target customers with a quiet, yet grand exit. She stood up in the cart. As I tried to bend her chunky knees and seat her, she straightened her entire body at an angle. People pointed, chuckled and stared as I pushed the cart out with little Jorie not-so-light as a feather, but definitely stiff as a board, lying horizontal across the front of the cart, completely unmovable. It had to be the most uncomfortable position ever, yet her stance was clear: "I refuse to listen as you wheel me out of here."

Days later we stopped at Foster's Freeze, a California-based ice cream walk-thru shop. My aunt and I ordered different variations of a root beer float, while Jorie and Alex dug their faces into vanilla ice-cream cones. At one point, Alex desperately had to go to the bathroom, so after getting rejected at the ice-cream place, we ran next door to a Thai restaurant where I begged to use the can even though there was a distinct sign that said "Customers Only."

The owners were gracious.

After taking care of business, we returned to Alex's half melted cone and my little chunky monkey sipping away at my root beer float. The people at surrounding tables were thoroughly amused as Jorie went from her cone, to my float, to Alex's cone, all the while eyeing my aunt's shake. On the way home, my aunt had to covertly finish her drink, all the while watching Jorie from the rear view mirror, peering to the side to see if she could get a glimpse of the remains of our ice-cream stop.

This girl is a bottomless pit.

Rainforest Drawings

We're baaaaccckkkk!

We returned home from California on Tuesday. I feel guilty for not posting much in August, but as I've been cleaning out my reader I've noticed many of you aren't posting much either.

TGIM! Magic Marker Monday is a relatively easy and fun post to start the week off. As I type, I'm also scanning in numberous future MMM scans. Below are two drawings from Mr. Busypants about one of his recent topics: the rain forest. While we were in California at the LA Natural History museum, we checked out their rain forest exhibit.

I love the tiny detail.

Now that I'm done planning for my classes for the fall (mostly), I'll be planning some awesome posts about our adventures in California, some reviews of iPhone apps for special needs, and much much more.

Lately Mr. Busypants has been drawing, then cutting the drawings out and pasting them onto another canvas. As dictated by Mr. Busypants: this is Aiden's house. The sun is coming up very soon. Above it are stars.

This is the birthday party with my family. That's my birthday, says Mr. Busypants. His birthday is in January, so he has quite a bit of waiting ahead of him.
Last year, we started birthday talks in mid-October. We created a schedule to deal with this:

First Halloween

Then Thanksgiving

Then Christmas

Then Alex's Birthday Party.

I even threw in:

Then airplane

Then Marker (Marco) Island

Then he added that after Marker Island, he'd write Roller Coaster book. And that is exactly what he did.

Crocodile Book

In May and June we went down to University of Illinois, Chicago to participate in a genetic study on autism. There were four visits: 1) Parent visit to answer questions for about three hours (it went pretty fact); 2) Mr. Busypants visited and completed some one-on-one, play-based tests; 3) A visit with the developmental pediatritian for the medical part of the study, which was followed by a blood draw for every member of the family over the age of four; and 4) a final meeting with the psychologist to discuss the preliminary results. It was a great experience. We helped with much-needed research and they gave us a detailed, updated diagnosis and $100.

During the visit with the pediatritian, Mr. Busypants sat at the doc's desk and whipped up this book.

Crocodile Book, by Alex

We look [at] crocadile.

The crocodile is coming.

Go swim [in] worer (water).

Adventure City, the Jurupa Mountain Cultural Center, and One Corn-Filled Diaper

Thursday

Around 9:30 we headed south to Adventure City, a miniature amusement park for pint-sized patrons. For those of you from Chicago, you might remember the Dispensa's Kiddie Kingdom; it's a smaller version minus the incredible Dispensa's Castle of Toys, fewers rides, and every ride is not a quarter, nor are they six for a dollar. (It was more like $14 a person--still a bargain.) The place is like a time machine back into the 70s. It's great! I had long thought such places had been extinct from popular culture.

Jorie was a little unsure about some of the rides, but she totally got into the hand-powered trains--although the hands that powered this little train were mine; she was just along for the ride. Toot toot. Highlights included the mini rollar coaster with Alex, eating Push Ups with the kids, and the stall in the women's bathroom that had a mini toilet next to the main toilet. How cool is that!

We stayed there for about 3 hours, then headed to the Jurupa Mountain Cultural Center, which was a highlight in and of itself. Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered they only do

tours on Saturdays, so we resolved to hang out in the gift shop, which was full of really cool and reasonably priced dinosaur stuff. This rustic and simple center--equipped with brown shag carpeting (are you sensing a 70s theme), a back room that may have been used in a scene from an Indiana Jones film, and pre-historic plastic trinkets of all shapes and sizes--delighted the kids to no end.

Then something AMAZING happened. The director, Mary, was kind enough to offer to take Alex on a quick tour via golf cart. With my aunt and Jorie in the front seat, and Alex and I holdin

g on from the back, we ventured up the moutain, mesmorized by the private, guided tour of these incrediblely artistic metal renditions of various species of dinosaurs, most of which I'd never heard of. Just before we left, Alex took a quick trip to the bathroom. There was a little doggie-like door that he crawled through because that's way more fun than using the actual door.

We drove through Ontario on the way home, when Jorie announced that she

had pooped. Not wanting her to sit in it for the long haul, we found a small park to change what turned out to be the rankest pile of undigested corn-filled load I'd ever seen. It was truly offensive. We dumped it in a local car-repair shop's garbage, something the garbage collectors of Ontario did not deserve, and headed home.

It certainly was a fun-FILLED day, from the flashback to my Dispensa's Kiddie Kingdom days, to the metal reproductions of the pre-historic extinct, to my daughter's own rendition of exSTINKed.

California: Airplane Travels and Kidspace in Pasadena

The kids and I left on Tuesday for a two-week trip to California. First we're spending a week with my aunt, and then we're spending a week with my cousin (who I haven't seen since I was a teenager; I reconnected with her on Facebook.)

The flight out here was actually pretty good. But even on their best behavior, traveling with kids is exhausting. Things started out hectic: I nearly forgot my laptop case at the check-in and Miss Jorie dropped a pint of chocolate milk in the terminal. It's really fun trying to find someone to help clean up when you have your purse/bag, diaper bag, a rolling computer case, a stroller, a chunky two-year old, and an airport-savvy-nonetheless-someone-flighty, autistic 6-year-old with a rolling Elmo suitcase and his own agenda to boot. But we managed.

Thankfully there was a "family" bathroom across from our gate, so I was able to finagle everyone and everything into what is blissfully known as a private place to contain the kids. It bought me about 15 minutes.

On the plane, Mr. Busypants fluctuated between looking out the window and sleeping on the floor while Miss Chattyshoes watched Elmo and Inspirational Baby aka Baby Jesus as she refers to it. I had two options: set her up on the iPhone and risk her shutting it off every 10 seconds or setting her up on the video iPod and having to put the headphones back on her every 15 seconds. I opted for iPod/no sound. She was happy.

Wednesday

Mid-morning we packed up our snacks and such and headed to Kidspace in Pasadena, which is an amazing children's museum with cool attractions for the kids to climb on, manipulate, build, and feel throughout. Miss Chattyshoes was a fan of the little ant cave (which she forced me to climb through many, many times). If crawling up this confined, dark space a gazillion times wasn't enough fun, bonking my head multiple times along the way certainly was. My paranoia would set in and I'd think of Natasha Richardson and wonder exactly how hard I'd made contact.

In the building area, Mr. Busypants led a group of foursomething year olds in building what turned out to be a pretty cool little house. It's hilarious to hear 4-6 year olds command each other to "stabilize it" (the walls).

There was also a bike area where the kids could ride along a path. I have a brief video of Alex going all Damien from the Omen with Jorie riding on the back like a little biker princess that I'll post after I get home. I can't seem to transfer it from my iPhone right now.

Coming Soon:

Adventure City, the Jurupa Mountain Cultural Center, and One Corn-Filled Diaper

California Science Center and Alta Dena Eaton Canyon

Jorie Hart Wears Her Sunglasses at Night

Don't mess around with a girl in shades, oh-no.

"I Wear My Sunglasses at Night" by Corey Hart

Click here to see original MTV video.

Ocean Addition and Dinosaur Action

Artful addition. Let's go fishin'.
Dinosaurs are going for a walk.