The Blog of Kwan

Lego kobe

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In the rain at the 2009 Uncorked Mountain Wine Festival

The kids were real troopers and also had a blast. The even had also set up kids activities and bouncy castles. Alessi got a lot of "Awws" walking around in her lady bug raincoat.

Happy Birthday Kobe!

Kobe just learned to ride his bike!

After a long summer with not a lot of progress. We went out this evening and Kobe was able to get it the first time I took of the training wheels tonight!

Visit with Santa

Kobe is reading

Kobe caught us off-guard this weekend by inconspicuously showing us that he had started reading simple words.  On Sunday morning we were up early enough to play a round of dinosaur bingo, and he was showing the pictures of dinosaurs as usual.  But this time, he kept trying to read their names, and he was actually doing a great job of sounding out the names.  Even Paola was pretty impressed.  So tonight I had him try out reading some early reader books that they also use at his school, and he was able to read the three letter beginner books to Marcus.  He was so proud of himself, and we were so proud of him.

I am embarrased to note that is shouldn't have been such a surprise.  The last few weeks it seemed like he had read "cat," and had been much more interested in how words were spelled often noting the first letter of words. He had even spent a bunch of afternoons sitting in his room "reading" to his stuffed animals.  And he even said earlier last week that he had sat with a teacher Mr. Nathan to look at some books with three letter words, but that day we were dealing with some roughness issues at school that I unfairly glossed over his statement.   I guess as much as I try not to, I tend to base my expectations on what we experienced with Paola.  With her, she knew a lot of sight words before she actually read, and would pretend to read books since she had them memorized.  Kobe hasn't really done either, so I just assumed it would be a lot longer before he started sounding out words.

We will have to make a big deal about it tomorrow as we did with Paola (when she made sure we knew how important it was!) especially since he is so timid about publicizing his accomplisments.

Interestingly, it was almost exactly two years ago that I posted that Paola started reading, and since he is 25 months younger than her, he is actually starting to read about a month before she did.  I think this might actually chafe her a little bit, since lately in her revisionist history of her academic life, she started reading when she was 3 (she was actually 4).

Saturday @ the Museum

We are so proud of you Kobe!

Until a month ago, Kobe was in training to be a professional thumb-sucker. He would suck either thumb, at any time, in any place. This not only distorted his teeth and mouth, but also it has created a number of speech pronunciation problems. Since the beginning of the year when we saw a speech therapist, we have been trying to get him to stop through the use of band- aids, bribery, begging, and in desperation some stern warnings - all to no avail.  Finally we gave in and made an appointment to see Sandra Coulson who we heard was a guru at getting kids (of any age) to stop sucking their thumbs.

At the first appointment she measured his mouth in various places and noted where measurements were not within the ideal range (everywhere!), and showed us pictures of before and after mouths of former thumb suckers. Then she went straight into a "contract" with Kobe of what he would do to stop thumb sucking: 1) put a bitter tasting cream on the thumbs, 2) wear band-aids at all times, 3) wear socks or gloves in the car, while watching tv, and at night, 4) put in a firm jelly "spot" at the roof of his mouth and do a number of mouth exercises 3x a day (to train his tongue to take the place of the thumb), and 5) call her everyday to check in.  Ms.Coulson claimed that 99% of her clients stopped sucking the first day and never went back - I was sure that couldn't be the case especially since when we tried band-aids he took them off almost immediately.

Boy was I wrong. Kobe stopped his thumb sucking that day. He excitedly embraced all the rules even telling me right away if his band-aids came off. He was adamant that we followed all the procedures and was glad to share what he was doing with others. We even had to take away his "bobo" or comfort blanket because it went hand in hand with thumb sucking, and he never complained. We initally had some prolonged temper tantrums becuase thumb sucking used to help him calm down, but amazingly he quickly found other ways to comfort himself. 

For the longest time, I balked at having to pay someone to help us and only gave in when we had failed miserably. But now I am so glad we did not only because it has stopped the thumb sucking but more importantly because I have never seen Kobe prouder of himself. Ms. Coulson's program is largely based on a premise of building self-esteem while also giving him an outside authority encouraging the change while the parents get to play a positive role, and that has made all the difference. By taking away the power struggle aspect, Kobe saw it as if he was making the choice to stop on his own, and it has really built up his confidence. It shows so much that even his sisters have tried to get in on the process as much as possible by participating in the daily exercises or wanting to wear the "spot."

This week he finished a chart documenting one month without sucking his thumb, and he got to trade the chart for a prize. He chose the bear pictured above and has loved on it so much. We are so proud of him, and most of all I am so happy to see him so happy with himself.

The kids are going through changes...

Parents Night at MSD