j.bo design

I finally got my website off the ground!

www.jbodesign.com

Enjoy.

Rochester

This past weekend I took Peter to Rochester for a check-up with his Autism specialists. The appointment on Friday went well. Peter was an outstanding boy at the Doctor's office. He loves the elevators and the fish in the waiting room. At Mayo, everything is so kid friendly and they truly make it an enjoyable experience. He is 3 feet 4 inches tall and 42 pounds. Last time I weighed him he was 39 pounds, so he is definitely growing!

Dr. Barboresi and I talked a lot about discipline strategy, potty training and therapy. Peter is progressing pretty well. He has hit kind of a "rough patch" lately as our schedules have been pretty chaotic and nobody's routines have settled down yet. He loves his new daycare, but he is afraid of the bathrooms there which isn't very condusive to productive toilet training. He has tantrums when he can't communicate what he wants. We are patient with him but some days are difficult. It was good to hear the doctor's point of view. He gave me some potty training tips and ways to discipline Peter the best possible way where he will have a consequence AND learn the proper way to go about expressing himself -- as opposed to hitting or throwing.

Our next trip to Rochester will be late Winter. Peter will go through the entire gamut of tests -- a repeat of all the tests he had last year right before his diagnosis. This round of tests will help the doctors know where he lies on the Autism Spectrum at that point in time. The doctors will help us decide if we will be enrolling Peter in Kindergarten next fall (2010) or wait another year. So far he is good to go on to the 4 year old program at Sacred Heart this fall. Hopefully we can get the potty training under control by then. Please pray about this everyone!

Bye for now.

Very exciting couple of weeks!

Well it's been awhile once again since I have posted...however, for very good reason! As assistant coach of the Sacred Heart Eagles softball team, I have been very very busy.

On May 28th, we won the Section 8A tournament for the 4th time in school history! We were playing up in Kelliher, MN on the 27th and 28th. Then, we left town on Tuesday, June 2nd and headed to the State Tournament. We had mass and a send-off on Tuesday morning and then drove to Minneapolis for a Twins game. The Twins beat Clevelend 4-3. That evening we drove on to Mankato and arrived to our hotel about midnight. Wednesday morning we practiced, did a service project at Kids Against Hunger, had mass (presided by our good friend, Fr. Tim!) and lunch, then back to the hotel for some rest. Wednesday evening we attended the State Tourney Banquet. Thursday morning I scouted games all morning with the head coach and then our team played at 3:30pm (it was supposed to be 1pm but the games before ours went into extra innings). We beat Hawley, MN with a score of 2-0. We were in the winners bracket for the first time in school history! We played our second game at 7pm and lost to Maple Lake. The score was 4-2. After a good night's rest we got up and played for 3rd place on Friday and beat Silver Bay with a score of 1-0. We scored our only run in the top of the 7th inning. It was so awesome! Placing 3rd was the best finish in school history! No SH softball team has ever gotten 6th or better at the state tournament so our girls sure made us proud. The best season record was 21 wins and 4 losses -- from 2001 (when I was a senior) -- and it has finally been beaten -- 22 wins and 3 losses is the new record! It was a fantastic season and I feel so blessed to have been apart of it. Ben and Peter came down on Thursday and watched all of our games. Here is a photo of the 3 of us with the trophy. (The parents are getting a whole bunch of pictures together for me from the season because I was too busy coaching to take any photos!)

We stayed until Saturday morning and then headed to Randolph, MN for Ben's sister's high school graduation. The ceremony was on Saturday night. Rebecca was Salutatorian and gave a joint speech with the Valedictorian. They did great! We are very proud of Rebecca! I got to be there long enough to see her speak, but then Peter had an accident so I took him out and left early. We went to mass with some of Ben's family on Sunday morning and helped prepare the house for the party on Sunday afternoon. We only stayed for about an hour of the party and had to leave to head home. We got home about 11pm on Sunday and were exhausted to say the least! Here is a photo of us with Rebecca (Can you tell Peter had run around the farm in the rain all day??)



Tonight we have a "welcome home" celebration for the softball team and then the season is officially over. It's finally time for me to get back on a normal schedule! I am seriously thrilled! And so is my family!

One last thing, Peter has another appointment in Rochester on Friday so my mom and I (Aunt Marsha too!) are leaving on Thursday to do some shopping on the way down. The appointment is just a check-up at Mayo. We will stay overnight on Thursday and Friday too and maybe get a little more shopping in on Saturday morning. I think my schedule will THEN return to normal...

But then again, I don't think it's ever been normal, has it? :D