Archive for February 20, 2012

20 Feb 2012
Autism • Moms • real life • Special Needs

Stella, the steam cleaner, saves the day!

by Jennifer Dyer

My Bissel steam cleaner

Stella, the great

Stella, the steam cleaner, has saved many a day around our house. With an autistic child and an elderly dog, Stella comes out to help almost daily. She should have a cape…

Yesterday, while caring for eldest who was experiencing another bout with strep throat, I discovered that the elderly dog had … confused the carpet with the great outdoors. To make matters worse, Rachel, my sweet 8-year-old with autism, had decided that if the dog gets to do it, so can she… Meaning, my poor carpet had a bad day.

Anyway, I wasn’t happy about the multiple messes, not to mention that the house was beginning to smell like an old privy carpet. Plus, I had JUST steam cleaned carpet the day before. Why was I having to do it again? Not only that, but I was tired and I had work to do, and I was so sick of messes taking up all my time and energy. It wasn’t fair! Blah, blah, blah…

Yes, I was being a big whiny baby and making the mistake of comparing my life to other’s, along with feeling quite sorry for myself… When I pulled out Stan (he is Stella’s twin brother that belongs to my parents–Stella is out on location saving another house from a naughty dog), I let the not-so-soothing motor drown out my whiny thoughts. That’s when I FINALLY started to pray. Wow, was I making it all about me, or what? I had been about to throw myself a pity-party.

Instead of whining and why-me-ing, I knew I had to focus on being thankful. Either that or lose IT. Even though it was hard at first, I started with the basics. “Lord, thank your for Stan and Stella. Thank you that my parents bought us a steam cleaner in the first place then lent us theirs. Thank you for carpet. Thank you for our house. Thank you that I have enough towels to clean up these messes. Thank you that I have a washing machine to wash my towels…” I kept going from there, thanking the Lord for more and more things. My heart lifted with each little thank you.

I can never thank Him for everything. There is not enough time (and I mean that literally) to thank God for everything He has ever done, but I can start small and keep going from there. Whenever my heart-itude gets hardened by stress, anger, defeat, or even piddle spots, I find my spirit uplifted and renewed more with each thank-you to the Lord.

May you find a bright spot of thankfulness in your day, my friends!

And, in case you have some of the same steam cleaning needs, here is a link to Stella’s sisters and brothers… Bissell

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17 Feb 2012
Autism • crafts/organization • Parenting • real life • Special Needs

Indoor swing set.

by Jennifer Dyer

Indoor net swing

Several years ago, I attended a conference on sensory issues both for continuing education hours and learn more ways to help our autistic daughter. While there, I bought this wonderful doorway swing kit. It has since been re-marketed by bigger toy companies, which is great. It is called the Rainy Day Indoor Playground We have used it for YEARS. If your child has lots of energy or needs extra sensory input, I’d highly recommend this. I followed the instructions to screw it into the door frame to give it extra stability, but it can be portable, too.

Attachment of swing equipment--it's that easy!

This is the doorway to Rachel’s room. Behind this, you can see another swing we set up and the closet, which contains her ball pit. :-)

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16 Feb 2012
crafts/organization

Easy Star Wars toy trunk

by Jennifer Dyer

I’ve had these two steamer trunks for over two decades. They’ve served as coffee tables, storage, and benches. I have covered them with fabric to match rooms and even put bench padding under the fabric to make them more comfortable. With this last move, I needed a place to store my Star Wars toys–I mean the kid’s Star Wars toys… I thought, why not make it obvious?

So, I bought two yards of Star Wars fabric from JoAnn Fabrics and went to work. This latest project took me less than an hour.

Basic steemer trunk covered in Star Wars fabric

The front of the Star Wars trunk

Starting on the lid, I glued fabric along the inside seam using Mighty Mend It bonding agent (see pic below). (I’ve also used a hot glue gun.) Think of wrapping a tricky present or making a bed. The fabric goes around the sides and front, with small triangles in the corners to gather the extra fabric.

Inside rim of trunk lid

I then glued the fabric down by putting lines of glue around the edges of each surface, starting with the front of the lid. For the lid’s part of the clasp, I put glue around the metal section of the clasp then locked the trunk down so that the glue would bond the fabric to the trunk. (see pic of trunk clasp below.) After this bonded, I worked my way across the the top of the lid, the backside of the lid, then the back. (Think of outlining each rectangular surface on the trunk with glue and pressing the fabric down.) I kept going around the bottom and back up to the front.

Trunk clasp

The clasp on the front side of the trunk was a bit tricky. I had to cut a slit into the fabric so it would go around the metal clasp. Instead of cutting a rectangle out of the fabric, I cut a slit in the fabric the same length as the clasp and cut little snips to the left and right of the top and bottom of the slit I’d cut. (My cuts made a shape like a capital letter I.) This helped me get the fabric around to the backside of the clasp so I could glue it down. I made small triangles of the excess fabric at the corners and glued those down too.

Fabric glued to inside of the trunk.

Inside the trunk

The sides gave me a bit of trouble until I decided to wrap them like a present. I made triangles from the top and bottom sides of the fabric then glued them to the side of the trunk. (If you need more visual, I linked to this video. At 2:08, starts wrapping the ends of the boxes, using the method I used on the trunk.) I then cut a rectangle of fabric and glued a seam all the way around the sides, so that no ragged edges showed. I glued this over the edges of the triangles and under the trunk handle, so that trunk could be easily moved. (The last time I covered the handle, but didn’t like that as much.)

Side of trunk

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07 Feb 2012
Parenting

Telling time–a fun way to teach.

by Jennifer Dyer

Trampoline

Telling time--the trampoline is not just for jumping.

A few years ago, when eldest was in kindergarten, she was having trouble remembering how to tell time and count using the clock. One day, while jumping outside, I had an idea. Our trampoline was round, just like a clock. So, we started at the zipper for 12 o’clock and went from there. First, we jumped around counting to 12, one jump per hour around the trampoline’s circle. One o’clock, two o’clock and so forth. Then we marked off the minutes. Jumping in the same 12 places around the circle, we counted by fives.

After she mastered that, we moved on to telling time. We took turns calling out a time: 12:35. The other person had to jump to that time. So, the first landing place for the hour, 12, would be near the net. We had to count the hour points as we passed them. If we started at 6 then we counted to the 12 mark. Then we had to jump around until we got to the minute mark. We went forward and backward from the 12 spot. So, 55, 50, 45, 40, 35. OR 5, 10, 15…

When we got tired of jumping, we used our arms and legs as the clock hands. Legs, the minute hand because they are longer, and arms the hour hand. Obviously, this got quite silly as she tried to come up with times that would contort me in the greatest way. It was fun!

After those few hours on the trampoline, she had it down, plus her adding by fives had improved dramatically.

Fun times!

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06 Feb 2012
Autism

Ball pit–making home a sensory experience.

by Jennifer Dyer

With Rachel’s autism, I’m always looking for ways to improve and/or stimulate her sensory system. One thing she has always gravitated to in the therapy clinics was the ball pit. So, I thought: why not?

Rachel's ball pit

Ball pit in a closet

All I did was buy a 10 inch wide sheet of white shelving from Home Depot. I had pre-measured the distance between the closet door frames. I bought four “L” brackets and some wood screws. Home Depot cut the board to size for me. All I had to do was attach the board using the L brackets to the door frame.

the L brackets used to attach the shelving to my closet frame.

"L" brackets used to attach the shelf.

It took about about 800 balls to fill this up, but the closet is about three feet wide and seven feet long. Rachel and her sister and cousins have enjoyed this new addition to our sensory home environment!

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