My course has a facebook group!! YAY! So exciting!! I'm connecting with people all over the world! The coolest part is seeing how other countries teach evolution. All of you from the United States know that it's taught VERY carefully in public schools as to not offend anyone. It's Creationism VS Evolution. Many people are complaining that they didn't sign up for a religions class. I explained to them why for so many in the United States Evolution and Creationism go hand in hand. It's impossible to discuss one without the other.

I have to admit that prior to this first week of lectures I felt the same way. How can I believe in Evolution when it completely contradicts my faith? But you know what? It doesn't really. You can believe in both Evolution and God. I wish more people in the United States would stop getting their panties in a bunch about things like this.

I wish that Evolution had been taught like this in high school!

Coursera.org Part 2

Well, I've finished my first week of class, and I have to say I'm very impressed with the set up. This is my professor, Mohamed Noor, http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/Biology/noor

So, some of my fears before starting this course were:
1. That I would be totally lost and not have a CLUE what was being taught
2. That the course would be based on atheism (that they would try to disprove the existence of God by proving evolution)
3. That I wouldn't have time to listen to the lectures and complete the quizzes each week

What I've found is that:
1. I'm not lost, everything that has been taught so far is building upon basic high school biology, or was previously addressed in my high school biology classes.
2. The teacher is neither trying to prove or disprove the existence of God. He even brought up examples of biologists who have a strong faith in a religion and explains of biologists who are atheists. Professor Noor stated that the proof of evolution itself neither proves or disproves the existence of God. I've also decided (as prior to this I was unsure) that I believe 100% that the theory of Evolution should be taught in ALL public schools. As well, the theory of evolution does NOT explain HOW or WHY life arose. It also doesn't state that humans evolved from chimpanzees, but that all things alive today evolved from a common ancestor. This doesn't directly disregard Creationism.
3. So far I have had enough time. This may change week to week depending on what we have going on. This week was particularly difficult as we had appointments on two afternoons AND a three day weekend. This next week may also be difficult as all day tomorrow (Monday, we have appointments) and again on Wednesday afternoon we have another appointment.

I'm very excited to see where coursera takes me. I doubt that any of the courses I plan to take will ever be useful in my life as far as employment, but they satisfy my love of learning without the added cost of taking random courses at a local college.

I'm sure that many people will find courses through coursera.org that WILL benefit their employ-ability making them more desirable to potential employees. My husband has found several offered courses that offer certificates that he could use for potential employment.

For me, this is just a way for me to have ME time; something MANY moms neglect. I can't always afford a night out with my girl friends, I can't always afford to go to the salon, or other activities to relax. And to be honest, 95% of the time I'd probably prefer to learn something new.

Keep an eye out for part 3 after mid-terms (around November 19th or so)

Coursera.org, free online college level courses Part 1

Well, just like the title says, Coursera.org  is a website that offers free college level courses online. I'm starting my very first course this week, I've chosen Introduction to Genetics and Evolution. My professor works at Duke University. I haven't even had time to watch the first week's lectures. I'm not sure if it was the best idea to add one more thing to my already over-full plate, but I really wanted to do something for me. So much of my time is spent on others.

Now, don't get me wrong; I really do love focusing on my family. I love my husband and I love my kids. But, I don't want to be JUST a wife and mother. I've always enjoyed learning, especially random things that really have no useful basis in my life; coursera works out perfectly for that. However, I've just realized that I've signed myself up for a minimum of 90 minutes of lectures each week, who knows many many minutes/hours of research and reading, one quiz every week, a mid-term, AND a final. The plus side is, if I can earn 80% of better in the class I receive a certificate of completion.

What in the world will I do with a certificate in Introduction to Genetics and Evolution? Absolutely nothing. It's purely for my own enjoyment.

I plan to blog again after I watch the first week's lectures and take the first quiz. I'm signed up for several courses:

Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning
Introductory Human Physiology
Introduction to Philosophy
Introduction to Sociology
Women and the Civil Rights Movement
The Ancient Greeks
Nutrition, Health, and Lifestyle: Issues and Insights
Why We Need Psychology
Fundamentals of Human Nutrition

Some may end up useful in some way or another; but mostly I just wanted something fun for me to do in what little spare time I have. I'm so focused on the kids, their educations, their appointments (therapy, specialists, checkups, etc) that there really isn't a lot of time left over for me. Well, this week I change that. We'll see how it all works out :)

Repost: New job for my wife

Morgan and I have been talking about how to make money at home, and came up with some great ideas. I want everyone to know that my wife loves her family and she's dedicated to making something work so we can get more income, like most struggling families. That being said, I am concerned about her motivation to find the time to make this happen for herself. Please help me in encouraging her and letting her know she can do it. I think she needs all the motivation she can get! Have you seen the previous posts about what she has to do everyday? Wow!

For the article I posted about this on my site, please click the link below.

Repost: New job for my wife - RepeaterSignal.com

Acencephaly and a dear friend

A good friend of mine was recently told that her unborn daughter will not survive long, if at all, out side of the womb. Her daughter has a neurological defect called Anencephaly. 3 weeks ago she found out, through an elective ultrasound that she was having a girl. At her 20 week ultrasound just this week she was given the devastating news.

My heart is broken. My friend has suffered so much loss already in her life. The loss of both of her parents before even reaching adulthood herself, and now this. There are no words of comfort, no actions that can be taken to help her through this. Thankfully Emilee and Will have great friends who love them dearly, and who already share that love with their daughter.

There is no cure, there is no direct cause. Anencephaly just happens. Most often babies are born stillborn, some live for minutes, some for hours, rarely for days, and even more rarely (only 1 case that I've heard about so far) one little girl lived for 3 months.

Here is the blog my friend has started for her beautiful baby girl, Leila Grace. http://babyleilagrace.blogspot.com/

Please pray for Emilee, Will, their sons, and their precious daughter.

Updates for the girlies!

Brooklyn: We saw the doctor today. We discussed Aspergers, and he said my notes and research are impressive and will be very helpful for him. We said that he thinks we're doing a great job between the behavior therapy and OT. He wants us to give OT at least a month and see how that effects Brooklyn's behavior.

He also said that he agrees we may want to pull back on the medications. So, we're going to start slowly removing the guanfacine starting tomorrow through next week. On Thursday we're going to touch based with the doctor about how that's going and then discuss how we want to go about backing off on the Adderall. We'll see how she does and if we have any behavior concerns, especially with OT as if the behavior issues are related to the sensory stuff.

He also said that he thinks we should consider an IEP for Brooklyn. Mostly because her being withdrawn in school IS an issue that needs to be addressed. And that the OT at school should be able to help with the twice a month private OT. He suggested that we consider requesting one-on-one teaching for at least an hour a day, and one-on-one reading groups and more very small group activities.

So, that's the plan for now. Still unsure about the Aspergers testing, but if we can rule out ADHD once and for all (which we may be able to do with everything we're working on) we can then push for Asperger's more easily as we've already begun ruling out other things.

Also, the OT who did Alayna's eval (which will be explained below) is the same OT who will  be seeing Brooklyn starting next week. This is great because she got to see Brooklyn in action. Brooklyn was completely well behaved in the first half, but went crazy once they went into the gym and Brooklyn could swing, slide, spin, and jump to her heart's content.

OK, onto Alayna. OT went great. Alayna did very well in the fine motor part of the evaluation process. I filled out a sensory profile during that time. After that we went to the "gym" where the girls got to play on th mats with swings, slides, a ball pit, trampolines, and larger shape foamy things. Brooklyn was in her element there, LOL. Alayna, not so much. It's so interesting to watch the girls as their sensory issues are EXACT opposites. What Brooklyn is always seeking, Alayna is always avoiding. While the OT worked with Alayna with all the sensory things, an intern asked me more questions.

After everything the OT and I discussed what our main goals for Alayna are. We both agreed that Alayna's sensory issues with spinning, behind upside down, and being off balance aren't really enough to effect her in life. She will be able to avoid those things without interfering with her day to day life. Our biggest concerns are in the goals are in the areas of personal responsibility and self care. We discussed that our biggest goal is helping Alayna reach her full potential in life.

We are heading out for Alayna's initial IEP meeting. We've written up our main concerns, and some suggestions of modifications that can be made for her. I think we're also going to request Brooklyn's IEP assessment on Monday.

We have the OT report FINALLY!

I spoke with Brooklyn's therapist today about the OT report as well as all of my notes about Brooklyn and how they related to Asperger's Syndrome. I also spoke with her about the medications Brooklyn is on, and my desire to have her off of them, especially considering that Brooklyn's behavior at school is no different on or off her medication. So, I have to talk it over with Joe and then talk it over with Brooklyn's psychiatrist about taking her off of the Adderall but keeping her on the Tenex/Guanfacine, and having her take it at lunch and again after school when she gets home.

I'm going to try to observe Brooklyn at school, both in the classroom and out on the playground. I want to see how she interacts with the other kids in both the classroom environment and out on the playground.

Well, we FINALLY got the OT report from Brooklyn's evaluation.

Here's the results:
Brooklyn has officially been diagnosed with Sensory Integration Disorder (AKA Sensory Processing Disorder).
She's in the 1st percentile for personal responsibility and the 14th percentile for adaptive domain.
I don't know exactly what all of the numbers mean, but basically a score outside of typical performance shows a difference between her and her typically developing peers.
The rest of the scores are a bit weird, basically the higher the "score" the more "typically developing" she is.

Factor
Sensory seeing: 21 out of 85 (definite difference)
Emotionally reactive: 55 out of 80 (probable difference)
Low Endurace/Tone 45 out of 45 (typical performance)
Oral Sensory Sensitivity 45 out of 45 (typical performance)
Inattention/Distractability 24/35 (probably difference)
Poor Registration 28 out of 40 (definite difference)
Sensory Sensitivity 20 out of 20 (typical performance)
Sedentary 17 out of 20 (typical performance)
Fine motor/perceptual 11 out of 15 (typical performance)

Sensory Processing:
Auditory Processing 30 out of 40 (typical performance)
Visual processing 37 out of 45 (typical performance)
Vestibular Processing 37 out of 55 (definite difference)
Touch processing 56 out of 90 (definite difference)
multisensory processing 20 out of 35 (definite difference)
oral sensory processing 50 out of 60 (typical performance)

Modulation
Sensory Processing Related to Endurace/tone 45 out of 45 (typical performance)
Modulation related to Body position and movement 28 out of 50 (definite difference)
Modulation of movement affecting activity level 22 out of 35 (probably difference)
Modulation of sensory input affecting emotional responses 15 out of 20 (probable difference)
Modulation of visual input affecting emotional responses and activity level 14 out of 20 (probable difference)

Behavior and emotional responses
Emotional/social responses 60 out of 85 (probably difference)
Behavioral outcome of Sensory Processing 19 out of 30 (probably difference)
Items indicating Thresholds for response 9 out of 15 (definite difference)