November Song of the Month

With election day and Veteran's Day this month I thought that we'd feature The Star Spangled Banner.  The national anthem is something that we will feature every year until all the children can sing it easily.

DIY Pencil Grip

Bear does not have a good pencil grip which makes it really hard for him to write.  I was going to let him watch a video to see how it is don, but I found this great idea for a pencil grip.  I made it yesterday afternoon and his grip was automatically perfect.  Enjoy!

October Song of the Month

Every month the kids learn a song in addition to the Hymn that they learn.  In poreparation for All Saints Day the children have been learning "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Kids with Limb Differences are Awesome!

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50157784n

A 17 year old with one hand will play basketball for the University of Florida.

Hymn of the Month- Sing to Mary

Every month the children and I work to learn a hymn.  I want them to be  literate and knowledgable about the richness of their faith.  Over time I hope that they will be able to sing some of the beautiful traditional hymns of the Church.

This month our hymn is "Sing to Mary."  It is beautiful, simple, and easy to sing.

Sing of Mary, pure and lowly,
Virgin mother undefiled, 
Sing of God's own Son most holy,
Who became her little child.
Fairest child of fairest mother,
God the Lord who came to earth,
Word made flesh, our very brother,
Takes our nature by his birth.

Sing of Jesus, son of Mary,
In the home at Nazareth.
Toil and labour cannot weary 
Love enduring unto death.
Constant was the love he gave her,
Though he went forth from her side,
Forth to preach, and heal, and suffer,
Till on Calvary he died.

Glory be to God the Father;
Glory be to God the Son;
Glory be to God the Spirit;
Glory to the Three in One.
From the heart of blessed Mary,
From all saints the song ascends,
And the Church the strain reechoes
Unto earth's remotest ends.

Little Bear's legs and feet have the possibility of causing him great pain.  In fact, I'm surprised that he can walk without a great deal of pain.  He does complain of pain, but often it is when he has to do something boring like walk through a store.  In the past I've thought that he was just fussing (like when Jophus is "too tired" to participate at mass).

I've been reevaluating that after reading that children with attachment problems can be disconnected from their physical pain.  I also realize that we've kept Little Bear in a stroller much longer that most children just because he is all over the place.

The last few days I've been watching him.  He really can't walk very far.  I don't know if he just get tired or if there is pain, but someone showed me a great tool called "Oucher" that I'm hoping will help.


It's a visual pain scale, and I'm hoping that it will help us evaluate what is real pain or just Bear avoiding unpleasant tasks.  If he really is having a lot of pain we will have to re-evaluate treatment options for Bear's feet, something that I'm not really keen to do because we will have to make some very hard decisions.

http://oucher.org/