Three Christmases Down, One to Go

We're a week and a half into a two-week Christmas holiday, and all things considered, it's going pretty well. The biggest "considered" is that all four members of the immediate JoyFamily have been feeling less-than-healthy. JoyDad and I have had colds; Rose had an ongoing bout with abdominal pain that made us think "appendicitis" and also made us think "stressing out" but cleared up with a course of antacids; and Joy had fever & upchucks on the Tuesday before Christmas, followed by a week of -- well, let's call it "bowel disregulation." Merry, merry.

But, as I said, things haven't been too bad for all of that. We made it through a snowy drive on Christmas Eve to AuntieS' place for the first Christmas celebration: JoyDad family fun, and Chicago pizza from Lou Malnati's, and a big pile of gifts. Then we went home for a nice quiet Christmas Day. Here was the scene before we dug into the pile for Christmas #2:


We had been very careful not to bring out any presents before that morning, nor to even hang the stockings, because that living-room space is very much Joy's territory and we worried whether the stockings would survive. Funny enough, after the unwrapping was done, we hung the stockings back up just to be a little festive, and Joy let them hang. They're still up! as is our tree, which she's tall enough to bring down with one grab if she wanted to! as are the Christmas cards on the back doors which she can easily reach and hasn't even touched!

Christmas #3 came with Grandma Joy and GrandpaJ (my side of the family), who drove up from Kansas on Monday. The girls hadn't seen these grandparents since we went to Kansas for Easter, but Joy remembered, all right. She ran up and gave Grandma Joy a huge smiling unsolicited hug. Ahhh! We had yet another round of gifts on Tuesday morning, followed by a sledding outing. Both grandparents took their turns on the sleds going down the long hill, perhaps not surprising when you consider that Grandma Joy celebrated her 70th birthday earlier this year by going sky-diving...

Anyway, we've got a couple more days of visit from the Kansas grandparents, and then will have Christmas #4 just after New Year's with the grandparents on JoyDad's side. It will be hard to go back to the post-holiday existence after all these treats.

Here is Joy with a few of her treats -- a new Christmassy Joy-outfit, and a lovely stimmy fleece boa that I made her, and a set of mis-keys that I had carefully selected in hopes of coming "close enough" to my own car keys that they could serve as a substitute. (Who was I kidding? When is "close enough" ever good enough for our kids when they've got their obsession on?)


Another favorite gift with a Joy-tag on it came from AuntieS on Christmas Eve -- another stimmy delight, a pin-art toy. Joy has had to share that one, though. Here is Rose demonstrating some dramatic faces:

The Scream

The Grin


Even JoyMama got into the act, demonstrating here her dissatisfaction with a lip-enhancement surgery gone just a little too far:


(I kid, I kid!)

Product Hits and Misses: Sensory Seeker Edition

As with the autism-insurance post -- it's been a while since I've done one of these!

I'm really excited about a new goodie that has come into my sensory-seeking daughter's life lately.

I posted briefly at one point about Joy's home-concocted weighted vest. Unfortunately I never posted a photo, and now it's been disassembled and discarded, alas! But I'll re-describe it, and then tell you about the newer-and-better version.

Foy Joy, a weighted vest helps give her some of the sensory input she so seems to crave. While she's wearing it, it seems to help her get to a place of being calmer and more focused. The theory would have it that the effect should last after the vest is removed, which doesn't actually seem to be the case with Joy. (If you've seen one person with sensory issues, you've seen one person with sensory issues!) Here's a page with a little more information on weighted vests.

Commercial weighted vests can get pretty expensive, and so one of Joy's occupational therapists set her up with a homemade vest based on one of those swim vests with removeable floats. Looked kind of like a pink barrel. Take all the floaties out, replace with weights, and there you go! Add as much or little weight as you need, in consultation with your OT. Weights can be bags of rice or beans or fishing weights or shot, either plastic baggies swathed in duct tape or homemade cloth beanbags. Since they're removable, you don't have to worry if the weights can be gotten wet in the wash. We even added weight with a couple of duct-taped door-hinges!

The floaty/weighted vest worked well but had some disadvantages. First, it was obviously not a standard piece of clothing (see barrel comment above), so it sets the wearer apart and people do tend to gawp or ask questions. Second, it was made of polyester-ish material, liable to snags and runs. The weights in particular tended to poke out of their pockets eventually.

Our new improved replacement is a kiddie fly-fishing vest from L.L. Bean! We have to credit Joy's kindergarten staff for introducing us to this. Price is $34.





The vest is breatheable and durable, woven cotton instead of the snaggy knit. It looks like a real garment, and comes in khaki or pale blue or pink. It has rings on the front to clip chewies on, and one in the back for a caregiver to grab. It has a clip over the zipper in front to keep the vest on. And, it has pockets all over the front for weights, plus a big flat zippered pocket for weight in the back!

We're using the weights from the old vest. It's working out really well so far. This one's a hit.

[Update: I just remembered a post from Both Hands & a Flashlight a while back, about their adventures in homemade weighted vests, that you might want to peek at as well.]

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Another hit with Joy, in general and specifically, is keys. Real keys, none of your plastic fakes, thank-you-very-much. She loves to handle them, clink them, carry them around, stim on them. Mama's ring of keys is the ultimate prize -- Mama's got to be very careful not to bring out the keys when Joy might request them and have to be told no, or great unhappiness ensues.

So, we've come up with a replacement.


These are keys from the hardware store. They're "mis-keys" -- keys that got flubbed up in the process of cutting and had to be discarded.

Different hardware stores have different policies with mis-keys. One store near here cheerfully gave us a whole handful for free. Another said sorry, but they return them to the manufacturer for some sort of refund. Yet a third tosses all their mis-keys and metal shavings into a big ol' bucket that you can dig through and choose the keys you want for twenty-five cents a pop.

The ring of keys pictured above is connected to a mega-chewelry bracelet from National Autism Resources. I'd initially bought a cheapo curly-bracelet keychain at the hardware store, but when Joy started chewing on it, the teeth marks stayed and the bracelet got deformed very quickly. The real thing is worth the extra money.

We've also recently acquired a ChewEase Clip-on Chewy Tube from National Autism Resources. The product has a plastic clip at one end, attached to a chewelry-type coil with a key-ring and a chewy-tube at the other end. Yes, I did say "key-ring." You could see how this product might work together with our keys obsession...

Just be careful to track the keys when your kiddo is carrying them about. We've lost two sets on the prairie, one because she dropped them when I wasn't looking, the other because I apparently hadn't fully joined Joy's key-ring to the ChewEase key ring and it wiggled off. I do hope that, if anybody found them, they didn't knock themselves out trying to find the poor soul who's been locked out of a non-existent home & office & car!