Well I dont have any holiday pictures sorry, was not feeling it lol. But I hope everyone was having a great time. We are all well and cant wait for Brandons up coming Birthday. Sunday we are having his MAKE A WISH party so i think I will post something good then. Love everyone have a great week.

Ok today my confessions

1. ” This week has been a weird week for me!”
2. ” My knee has been hurting to bad !”
3. ” Sometimes family members can get on my nerves but I love them anyway!”
4. ” I will miss my two older babies when they go away for a week next week!”
5. ” It will just be Lance, Brandon, and I next week WOW what will we do?”
6. ” Ready for this Make a Wish party to begin on the 11th so I can see what goodies Brandon will get lol”
7. ” My oldest son Trey is really growing up, and really got a smart mouth on him Wonder where he got it :)”
8. ” I have let go of alot people in my life that caused to much drama and I feel better about it is that bad?”
9. ” Times are hard for us but we pull through because we are strong.”
10. ” I have come across some old friends on face-book that I haven’t thought about in a long time and kind of forgot about but its nice to catch up.”

Brandon and his teacher Rhounda he loves her so much and she is wonderful with him. Thank you for taking such good care of my son during the day.

 Sometimes I just go online and try to find books that I think will be awesome for the kids, and today this is the one I found. Good thing is this lets me share which ones I will be getting for my kids and help give other ideas also. So I hope you enjoy today’s book I know I will.

;’The Tickle Monster book by Josie Bissettis sure to be a classic. A loveable monster has just flown in from Planet Tickle. His mission is to tickle any child who happens to be following along in the Tickle Monster book. Parents read aloud and do the tickling, while children laugh and squirm with delight. This limited-edition copy is hand-signed by author Josie Bissett.

Hello everyone how are you all doing today? Me and Brandon are doing well we have been doing lots of neat stuff lately and just keeps getting better. On this day we had OT and PT  and we did EXECLLENT!!! I have videos and pictures to share. I love the improvement that we have seen with him. Its always nice to hear the praises form people who havent seen him in awhile. His PT said that he has grown sooo much and that she can tell from the last time she saw him that he has improved on head control and the fact that he is trying to bend his leg and move his arms to crawl. I hope that the more we practice on this the more head control he will get and the better that he will be able to crawl. 

We also got to visit with the deafblind project and we worked on computer stuff. He was able to reach and push the button, because she didnt have a switch, and turn on the music. He loved it she is going to send me some links soon for the sites I can use with him. I have a few ideas of things he will need for this but they said that they will help me find out what suits him the best. I am excited because he is very smart little boy and he might be able soon to communicate with his mommy isnt that cool.So I hope you enjoy all of these and I hope that you have a wonderful Monday.

I was so happy to see these pictures come to me from the school. i have been wanting these to post for awhile. So here you go this is him at his daily routines lol.

Water Play at the school

Brandon painting and him smiling as always.

Brandon talking to one of his friends and playing house with some in the class.

Misc pictures of him  having a wonderful time at school.

Brandon and Mrs, Rhounda at the park when they went to a field trip.

Brandons favorite person in the whole wide world!!!!( well besides mommy )

Well let see Brandon is doing GREAT!!!! No sickness in a long time except the occasionally constipation. He is having a great time in his new hot tub he is loving the mommy time and brothers sister daddy time to but nothing is better than mommy time lol.  I am now officially back home with the kids this summer no more work for me yay, the school loves it because now I can come and learn more stuff with Brandon.

We had a lady from Little Rock come out yesterday and see him from the Deaf Blind Project to see what we could do to help him more to communicate. She is sending me pictures of our meeting because I did not have my camera(which I left at moms) lol. Then I will post more on what we did with him and the computer and how well he did. I am excited to be able to post more I have a few things I have in mind for postings so hopefully I can get those up soon.

One of the things that was said yesterday , and not exactly how it was said, was that Brandon is very alert, aware, and able to identify with his surroundings. We just have to position him right to be able to see better. They could not believe that he was so active in who was around him and how he responded to different things. Some of the things Brandon does are as follows:

1. When at home and school he knows what bed or nap time is and does not like the fact he has to do it. So what does he do Scream if you put him in his crib, mat,or bed ……..but if you lay him on the floor with no pillows, no blankets, no mat he is fine.
2. When he has to move from one chair to another and he don’t want to he is upset.
3. He knows when mommy leaves, or comes in and will cry or hush to her voice.
4. He knows certain people and how to get his way with them.Example : If it is mommy or Mrs Rhonda he knows he better listen because we aren’t going to deal with crying over nothing lol. But if it is someone else he will scream till they pick him up!
5. The minute you pick him up he hushes ( can we say SPOILT!!!)
6. He lets me know and his teacher EXACTLY when its feeding time… I mean on the dot alarm clock!
7. When he gets into a routine he knows he sticks to the time schedule like when I use to get up at 4:30 he would hear my alarm and wake up to. Well now that I am not working he thinks he has to be my alarm and every morning he wakes up at 4:30. Hopefully we don’t have to do that much longer when he sees mommy doesn’t work lol.
8. If he wants to be around his siblings and I bring him into my room he will throw a fit till I take him in there with him and then he is as happy as he can be.
9. He know when we are heading to Little Rock and that he doesn’t want to go throws a fit about 15 min before we get there, but on the way home never crys.
10. He knows smells, colors, sounds, textures, kisses, hugs, animals believe me he is very aware I am very blessed.

So you tell me is he smart? Does he understand what is going on around him? Or am I and others imaging all of this?

Lets look for yourself and travel down memory lane and see what you think…….

Sittin up like a big boy ! He is to cute read his shirt lol.

I am going to try to do a update tomorrow for all got some good info coming.

I hope I am back up on my blog for Brandon since I am back off work lol. I love being home again. So today is Tuesday so it  Read a book day so what am I reading right now the last of my Riley Jenson series but that’s ok I am sure I will find something new soon.

 http://www.keriarthur.com/books/riley-jenson-guardian-series/moon-sworn/ this is from her site …

  I have a wonderful friend and the other day she sent me her research paper about Child Care in Rural areas, I was loving how she talked about all the issues we as parents cant see all the time. So I asked her if I could post it her so everyone could read it and maybe get the word across that we need more attention in these rural areas.

This was wrote by Jodie Sexton, from De Queen, Arkansas.

            ”  Rural Child Care Centers for the Disabled are Forgotten

                Arkansas’ rural child care centers that service children with disabilities seem to have been forgotten. There are a few reasons why this seems to be true: one is quality training for child care staff, two is lack of therapy for the children; such as, speech, occupational, and physical therapy, which is very vital for disabled children, and three the child-staff ratio for these children which doesn’t allow adequate time to care for and teach each individual child. Dianne Lollies, who is a licensing specialist for the child care licensing unit said, “The Arkansas department of human services is who handles the developmental disability services for the state and they only require that child care centers, who service the disabled, to follow minimum licensing requirements (Lollies). Child care centers and other agencies, who service children with extreme disabilities such as: Cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, Muscular dystrophy, Autism, and some behavior issues should have quality ongoing training to better serve these children, not just the states minimum requirements. However, there seems to be a few issues that get in the way of this quality care like government and state funding, lack of medical professionals in rural towns to service these kids, educated and well trained staff and there are not enough centers or room to service all the children in the rural communities.  Many times there is one small child care center that is trying to service children in their county and surrounding counties.

                Providing well trained staff for these child care centers should be top priority! Unfortunately, in many states, including Arkansas, this is not the case. Research shows that over half the states require no early childhood education or experience before being hired at one of these facilities and then some states, Arkansas included, only requires ten hours of training each year after employment (“NCCIC”). A lead teacher should be required to have a Child Development Associate certificate, when hired or with in one year of employment. This certificate can be obtained in just twelve credited hours at most colleges. This degree educates people in how to set up different centers in the classrooms, how to do curriculum that will implement developmentally appropriate programs for the children, how to help children with cognitive, gross, and fine motor skills, how to work with disabled children, and many other aspects that can be applied in the classroom. Instead, we are sending in uneducated and inexperienced people to try and give these disabled children quality care, because the state of Arkansas says, “Teachers  [only] need to be over the age of eighteen years to apply and have a G.E.D. or a high school diploma” (Arkansas Department of Human Services 14-15). However, this training is difficult for small town child cares to provide, because of lack of funds, and finding the right teachers, who want to stay and work with these special needs children on a long term basis. It definitely takes special people to stay and work with these disabled children; however some of the staff members feel that they are the ones blessed enough to care for and love these precious children.  An Administrative Director for one child care center said, “Arkansas does fortunately require that a child care center’s director/service coordinator and special education teacher be highly educated “(Edwards).

                The Arkansas Department of Human service does provide occupational, speech, and physical therapy to these children through the Arkansas Medicaid program. Once again; however, the rural daycare facilities lose out on these services. Rural communities have little or no therapists working in their area and if they do have them, well then the therapists simply won’t provide services to the pediatrics (Hill). This is absolutely detrimental to each child’s individual developmental and physical needs. Ms. Hill stated that, “she does provide speech therapy to one child care center, but that she has another full time job that doesn’t allow her much time to work with every child in the center.” The larger cities have all these therapy services readily available to each child care center, because there is no shortage of therapists in the larger cities. In Hot Springs, Arkansas there is a large child care center for the disabled called First Step and this center has full time therapists there during all operating hours to provide services to the children at all times (Kitchens). So, what this means for the children in rural areas is that their parents are the ones, who will have to drive these children  about and hour away for all three types of therapy and lets face it some of these parents don’t even have transportation, let alone have the money to drive back and forth several days a week.  Many of the parents depend on the childcare centers to provide their kids with transportation to and from school. The “No child left behind act” is leaving these children behind in rural America.

                The developmental disability service of the Department of Human services also sets a child to teacher ratio. This ratio seems to be highly unreasonable, considering some of these children’s conditions. According to Arkansas law [an untrained] teacher can take care of seven children that are three to five years of age all by his or herself (Arkansas Department of Human Services 38). Now, if the state would come out to these child care facilities and monitor more than once a year, they would see that this ratio is next to impossible if they are expecting these children to get all the service that they desperately need. However, that’s not the case; the states sit up in their offices in Little Rock and hand down all these policies and standards for the directors and administrators to follow and to pass on to the teachers. Then, the state rarely ever shows up to monitor and make sure that these policies and standards are working in the best interest of the children. One teacher, who is educated in early childhood education stated, “That herself and the teacher’s aide have a tremendous amount of trouble trying to accomplish all that they need to do for these fourteen children on a daily basis” (Reynolds).  Furthermore, some teachers feel that they don’t have enough quality time to spend with the children, who are in wheelchairs; so unfortunately, the children in wheelchairs spend a lot of time just sitting in their chairs a big portion of the day. This is absolutely tragic that these children come to preschool to learn and to develop, but instead they sit in a chair because the staff is overworked. The child -staff ratio should be no more than one teacher to every four to five children, so that these children get the quality care they so deserve. Child care centers for the disabled children are not meant to be one big babysitting club; they are supposed to help children meet their individual goals for their on personal, social and physical development. The system for these disabled children in rural America apparently needs to be overhauled.

                The National Association for the Education of Young Children, also known as NAEYC, is a national accreditation program for high quality child care centers all over the nation. This program only licenses child care centers that can meet their high quality standards. This program also has a code of ethics for all child care centers to follow. The state of Arkansas and probably many other states need to follow this code of ethics and implement it in all child care centers through out the state.  In this code of ethics is also a commitment statement to children:

                                Basing our work with the children on knowledge of child development [and learning];

                                Respecting the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of each individual (child, family member,

                                and colleague); and helping children and adults achieve their full potential in the context

                                of relationships that are based on trust, respect, and positive regard (Bredekamp and

                                Copple 7).

This code of ethics is for all children through out the United States not just the children, who are in larger cities and towns. These children need our help. So, please step up Arkansas, America and parents to help these disabled children, who are being forgotten in rural America!  “

Now after reading that dont you think its time that some important people get the idea we are not getting what we need for our children?

So if you know someone who is in one of these rural areas remember they need us to speak for them…because they cant speak for themselves.