Play Tunnel = Sensory Heaven

Well, we have had quite the busy week.  We started the week off with a much needed break-type field trip.  We took the kids shopping to spend their remaining Christmas cash from grandparents and then took them to McDonald's Playplace to reward my eldest for doing such an awesome job at the dentists office last week.  Now of course the kids had a blast.  And we actually came out of it all with a new sensory therapy item, a play tunnel.  Now I had contemplated buying one before for my eldest but it never really happened, so when my little guy had some Christmas cash I decided to pick one up for him since he really isn't old enough to do much picking anyways.  Well when we got home and opened it up, everyone loved it.  All of the kids had a blast crawling in it, and Little Guy loves to take his stuffed animals in there and curl up and chill.  Even my eldest has been crawling in there and laying down to chill.  I wish I had gotten one a long time ago because apparently play tunnels are some kind of sensory heaven for my kids!

First Cavity and NO TEARS!!

Okay so my seven year old had his first cavity.  I discovered it two weeks ago while brushing his teeth.  Now of course I go into full mommy panic mode because he has Asperger's syndrome doesn't have a history of handling pain well.  We're talking about the kid who used to scream bloody murder whenever a doctor touched him.  Thankfully we have found a doctor he really likes that he doesn't do that with any more but dentists are a whole new territory.  He visited the dentist last year but panicked when they put the cardboard things in his mouth to do the X-rays.  So naturally I am worried sick and wondering if we need to find a special dentist that will use sedation.  I already called around and couldn't find any in our immediate area.  So, I spent two weeks mentally preparing the Little Man telling him literally everything I could think of that would happen.  I also promised him that if he was super brave, we would go to his favorite place in the whole world next week which is McDonald's with a play place.  


We get there and get to go back right away.  I let him hold his favorite purple blanket while they worked.  And shock of all shocks, he didn't even flinch when they gave him the Novocaine shot.  He looked terrified right before but he did super awesome.  They were great with him too.  They gave him sunglasses so the light didn't shine in his eyes and explained everything to him.  I think he was most nervous about the suction thingy at first but he got used to it.  That thing is pretty loud after all.  I am so relieved and the dentist didn't even make him do the dreaded X-rays, which apparently in the Little Man's world are worse than any of the other dental horrors I hated as a kid.  Go figure, my mommy worries were unfounded.  

Snow Day 2011--Winter Science and Dairy free chocolate ice cream

Well, we decided to take a homeschool break since everyone else in the midwest is taking a break from school. However I thought I would squeeze a little.  I thought about making snow ice cream since that recipe is floating around on facebook right now and I know I have seen it on some other blogs too.  BUT, the kids really wanted to try out the ice cream maker ball we got for Christmas so we went with dairy free chocolate ice cream in the ball.  Now I don't know if you've seen them before but we got this ice cream maker that is basically a plastic ball with a container hooked inside.  You put the ice and salt in one end and your mixed up ice cream in the other, and then you let the kids go crazy with the ball until it turns into ice cream.  We decided to try coconut milk ice cream so Little Guy could have some.  Here's my recipe.

1 can coconut milk
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbs coco

We combined all the ingredients in a bowl and took turns stirring with a wire whisk.  (yes we are making ice cream in our jammies).  :)

Then we packed snow in one end of the ball and added table salt since we didn't have any rock salt.  Then we rolled it around stirring every ten minutes until the ice cream was firm.  

The finished product was very creamy and rich.  You could definitely taste the coconut so don't try if you don't like coconut.  But we ended up with a very tasty science product that was yummy and dairy free!

And of course you can't go wrong with sprinkles!