First Day Back to School

Well, the Winter Break is over and The Elder went back to school today. I had to work this morning and had my phone to go off in time for me to meet him at the bus and I just barely made it. It was a nice warm day today so they got to play outside on the playground which always makes for a happy preschooler.

I wrote a note to The Teacher this morning seeing if she could observe him at choir because that starts tomorrow but we are not going yet (plus his best buddy is having a birthday party!). She is going to try to clear it with the school board to see if she can. I tell you something, she is so amazing. It would be so easy for her to say, "No, that is outside of contract hours and it is not a contract school." But she is going to try to get it cleared so she can help him. It is so obvious how much she loves the kids. I'm so lucky that mine is in her classroom.

He got Good marks across the board today which is fantastic considering he hasn't been in school for 2 weeks, but am not surprised I suppose because he has been controlling himself very well lately and he is a huge creature of habit and routine. So am I, I suppose because I have had a very productive 2 days now that we are back in our normal routine. I did change my schedule around a bit to make Monday a work day so that I could start the week off right instead of moping around being sad about what didn't get accomplished over the weekend and taking that out on The Younger by trying to make up time cleaning/organizing/fixing etc and totally neglecting him. Yesterday I had BOTH checking accounts balanced by 10:18am and I hadn't entered a single transaction in about a month (well, ok, 2)! Scary I know, but what an accomplishment (*patting myself on the back*)! So now my One-on-One day with The Younger is on Thursdays and I get to take him to the Library and walk around the greenway at the park by the Library! Bonus...exercise!

Speaking of controlling himself, The Elder did remarkably well today as The Younger was being a total younger sibling nuisance and crawling all over him and completely violating The Elder's personal space.

"You're bahvering me....Quit bahvering me...Get...off, please...I said, GO AWAY, PLEASE."

How polite.

It's a Great Day

Well, my schedule got thrown off a tad because The AP is sick, but already had the kids lined up to be occupied, but I just feel really bad for her. I still got to shower on time to greet my customer with mascara and dry hair (and clothes too, of course), but as she was leaving the bus pulled up. Welp, there goes my morning plans to get "it" together.

Updated at 7:01pm
OK, so today didn't quite go as planned. The Housekeeper called and said she was sick. BUT but but she is coming on Saturday while we are gone, so I get to come home to a clean house! Yay! When The Elder got off the bus I said, "After lunch today, you're going to help me wrap gifts."

"You can do it aaaaaalllllll by yourself."

I think he was trying to be encouraging...he eventually helped me and I got some pictures on my camera, but I dropped it so it is broken for now. Great timing. Anyhoo, when I checked The Elder's folder, he got one big circle around the GREAT's. Not only was it his first GREAT mark, but they were ALL marked Great!! I'm so excited!!

The Teacher came and it was just the two of us. It was really good. I'm telling you I am in LOVE with this woman! I was not anxious at all. The Elder gave me opportunity to have to "parent" him and The Teacher actually praised me instead of correcting me this time! One of her philosophies that explains his improvement in behavior this week is that we are taking control away from him and he is freed up to be a kid, have fun, relax, and be happy. As opposed to uptight and anxious and stressed over making decisions as simple as "what do you want to eat for breakfast?" Looking at it that way, I don't feel so mean!

She gave me homework to do - at least one activity a day that is completely parent-driven. He gets no input and no choice but to follow my directions. She wants to keep the momentum going over the 2-week break while he is on the upswing of progress. He also has an obsession of pulling strings, which I've mentioned in this blog on my very first post:

B4. Two things come to mind when I read this. The Elder's obsession with strings - pulling and picking them out of clothing, bedding, throw pillow, furniture. Drives me mad! We have fluff falling out of every pillow and my jacquard comforter is "hairy" from all the broken strings hanging out of it. The other thing is his intense fear of buttons, though his dad and I just realized that it might be the button holes he dislikes. We might have to test that theory.

Her suggestion is to get a cheap towel from Walmart and only allow him to pull the strings on that until it is demolished. She said if it continues in the future, then he must be responsible for replacing his own towel. She predicts that I will have few academic concerns in the future and wants to focus on the behaviors. So in a Gold Star system, I need to pair a task that is simple that I know he can do, like putting on his shoes by himself, with a task that is a little more challenging for him, like sitting at the table for 5 minutes during a meal. A preferred with a non-preferred, and then extend the time/complexity of the task as he gets consistent. The hardest thing she is asking me to do is balance praise. I'm so used to "Thank You"-ing him and "Good Job"-ing him that it is very difficult for me to just sit there. She said praise is GREAT, but to not over-praise. He should not be praised for something that he is capable of doing and is expected to do, for example, sitting at the table during a meal. But to praise him when he does something that maybe he was incapable of doing before, and then raise the bar. For example, the fact that he knew to hug his brother when he slammed the door on his finger. I praise him for acknowledging it and then I pair the emotion to the body language. "That is so great that you comfort your brother when he is sad. I can see you were sad too because of your frown."

Very enlightening session and I hope others will get something from this post too.

Once The Hub came home, The Kiddos had found some microphones and were on the couch stage while we were on the floor audience watching them sing. We have a electric piano with a DEMO mode that The Elder has memorized (classical music) and a Snowman playing Carols on a piano that both have memorized (so cute) and they were performing a duet to the Clav and Honky Tonk demos on the piano playing simultaneously with the snowman singing a "Let it Snow/Jingle Bell Rock/Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" medly. If my camera hadn't been broke, I would've gotten video.

So now it is after 7pm and I haven't finished laundry, nor packed, nor come even close to getting the van ready. But Tulip Mom inadvertently issued a challenge so I'm still going to go for it!! All I need is a little extrinsic motivation to get me going. So what will that award be called?

Turn it back to 2

I'm sure this is a common trait among Aspergians who love music...Track Memorization. The following video of The Elder showcases his singing talent to Track #2 of the They Might Be Giants album Here Come the ABC's. The Hub is a huge TMBG fan and we even got to see them in concert, stageside, at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville. That was pretty awesome. The Hub got to see them again in Market Square. So when this album came out he was quick to purchase it. We have been subjecting The Elder to both the CD and the DVD ever since then. His favorite song at first was "The Alphabet Lost and Found." We had to replay that one over and over again. But now he pretty much has the entire soundtrack lyrics memorized. The difference now is he is singing it (not just letting the words come out of his mouth in some random tune or non-tune, whichever the case may be). I've been trying to capture this on video for weeks now but today The Elder finally got all the way through it (with visual aid for focus - he successfully did not sing my to-do list on the right half of the page), and The Younger wasn't louder than the music. Enjoy the Show! (You may need to turn your speakers up.)

The Alphabet of Nations

The Elder is modeling his paper crown that we made today for our Advent Devotional Activity.

Nice Effort

Well choir teacher called (I missed it though) and wanted to talk to see how she can work with Eric so he can participate. I was really happy that she did that. I'm not sure what I can tell her to do. The Christmas show is just 6 weeks away and the practice is only once a week for 30 minutes.

The song's over

Yesterday Eric was "asked to be returned to his mother" during choir practice. I had an idea of why and I used the Sohn/Grayson strategy to find out for sure....

There weren't any dots.

Need inside story on that? Read this and this.

So I asked Eric if I asked Miss N to bring the dots back out would he go back and he agreed so here is my request:

Sorry for the disruption yesterday. I think I was able to help Eric pinpoint what was wrong. He is used to the dots in the circle and when he looked in the room and didn't see them he melted on the floor (I think you saw that). He just started school and I'm not sure if they have been able to work on his flexibility to what level yet because his OT services haven't kicked in, so I wondered if maybe next week you can go back to using the dots. I know how much he loves music and he was ranting "I don't want to sing" "I don't like to sing" "I don't like the songs" "I don't want to go back again" which all of that I knew was untrue, but after several questions and confirmations he agreed to come back if I asked you to have the dots again. Let me know if this is an inappropriate request.

I won't post her response out of privacy. The dots were taken away because they distracted everyone. But a simple explanation to the "typical" kids that the dots had to go away was enough for them. Can't expect Eric to understand that right away.

"He wants to lay down, roll around, scoot out of the circle, etc." this is something that he cannot help right now since he just started OT today. There is something sensory going on within him that he doesn't know how to communicate that is making him do that. Unfortunately I can't guarantee anything from week to week. My presence may help one day and be the source of the problem the next day.

But pretty much he will have to stop going to choir. It is a sad day for mommy.

Stickies in lieu of Roads

"What happened?"

That was Eric's reaction yesterday when we went for Outside Play time (promptly at 14:00). We have been in drought in Knoxville (behind 12 inches) so the sidewalk chalk roads and pit stops and railroad tracks and parking spaces for the Little Tykes car and the Bicycle have pretty much been a permanent setup on our driveway. We even had a Chik fil A that served gluten-free chicken nuggets chalked in by the house! However, it poured on Thursday. (I could not find my umbrella because I hadn't used it in so long!! It's my favorite and it is still missing!) Our brown, crunchy grass was happy, but alas, the chalk masterpiece was gone. Back to Square One.

I cannot claim to be a master civil engineer to reconstruct the setup (that's Terry's job) so I gotta think fast.....I was walking back to the house from the mailbox going through it when...AHA! Easter Seals! (er, they were probably Christmas Seals considering the time of year.) So we did stickers.

RE: the reference to Eric's "Pattern" shoes was that he was wearing two different shoes. The Wednesday before when we went outside to play (probably at 2:07pm because we weren't on THE schedule yet), I told them to put on their shoes and he, jokingly, put on the two different shoes. Not fazed by it because at least his feet were covered, I looked at him and said "That makes a nice pattern" (because he's into patterns). So on Friday he said that he wanted to wear his Pattern Shoes which is what you see in the slideshow!

OK, stickers are running out - now what? Oh yeah! We got wooden instruments the other day from the Hot Spot in Target for a motor skill exercise. I forgot! Where did we put them? (Ring Terry) They were so excited about these instruments. Noise makers, clappers, and triangles, oh my! They played with them outside and then again inside the playroom (see clip). They even begged to play with them again this morning.



And yes, he did say "Thomas" when he was playing with the clapper. Uh......ok.

I also updated a past post that I had "Coming Soon" for a video that I was trying to figure out how to compress to be uploadable to blogger. Check out the video here.

Where was my camera??

Choir was tonight and in the driveway Eric asks if he could have a snack and I replied that he just had dinner, but if he listened to Miss Nancy today and stayed in the circle, then we would talk about a snack.

He stumbled and stuttered and kept restarting his sentence and then after 3-4 attempts just gave up whatever he was trying to say. "I can't say it." I told him that I was listening and to start again. After a little more stuttering he finally said, "I go to school to sing with Miss Nancy?" "Yes you are?" "With you?" "We'll see. Are you excited about singing with Miss Nancy?" "But the...the little girl...took my yellow dot." "She didn't mean to, but we are getting there early today so that you can pick whichever dot you want!" I see content smiling from the rear-view mirror.

Teacher gracefully told me that maybe I should not volunteer today, which I completely agreed. There were a lot of circumstances last week that could have contributed to his lack of participation and being with the group but I know how it is when me or dad are around. I mean, poor Cris is the only one who can get them to eat at home and thus has inherited the job, because even if we are in the kitchen they will not eat. She is always telling me how they ask for more, and dad and I can't even get them to finish one serving without bribing them with ice cream, and sometimes that doesn't even work!

Anyhoo, we came into the door and he saw all the dots and immediately sat down and claimed his spot. I laughed telling teacher that we came early just for that and she said "I have a closet full of yellow dots!" Keep them handy, is all I can say. I stepped out and heard Eric cry out for me but I followed other moms to the nursery to have an adult conversation. =o) When we came back a half hour later, I couldn't have been beaming brighter with pride when I sneaked a peak in the room. Last week teacher asked if he wanted to be a candle in "this little light of mine" and he hesitated. I could tell that he did. I encouraged him and the stepped back a little so she moved on to another student. Tonight I saw Eric being the candle in the middle of the circle doing his hand motion above his head (the "light") and standing still while the other kids were encircling him, moving in toward him, and then moving back out. He had the biggest expression on his face! I got a little teary. I so wish I hadn't left my camera in the car!

It's like summer again...

I decided to pull both boys out of school. I love the Younger's teachers but I honestly just didn't want him to go there. If anything were to happen to him or BY him, I am not confident that it would be handled properly. We save on the tuition and plus, we can go back to full-time cloth diapers!

Tuesday the WHOLE family went to Eric's evaluation. It took a lot longer than I anticipated but the outcome I believe is going to be very good. His next meeting is October 2 so we are back to our summer schedule for the next few weeks. The school in Karns is only half day and about a 30 minutes drive so I have decided to not find an alternative school for Ryan since it didn't make sense to drive back and forth (Eric would be 7:45 to 11:30 and Ryan would be 9-2. I'm getting dizzy thinking about the back and forth driving) and I decided that I should probably have some good quality one on one time with Ryan because I feel like I'm missing out on him. It always pangs to see them grow up so fast right in front of your eyes, I suppose.

Anyhoo, on Wednesday I had to think of something for them to do since there wasn't school anymore. I HAD to work because I had put off so much in the wake of the Friday Confrontation and I had hired a new lady who was coming in to sign her paperwork and orientation at noon and I hadn't even had her contract filled out yet! So Eric comes in the room, in a very good mood I might add, and I ask him,

"So what do you want to do today?"
"I d'know"
"Do you want to GO anywhere?"
"How 'bout...(index finger to mouth, eyes at the ceiling)...Chuck E. Cheese?"

Well, we hadn't been there since a birthday party last month and we fed them ahead of time because of the gluten in pizza. Terry took them to the party so I'm not sure how they handled not being able to have pizza, so I thought I'd get a feel of why he chose that place (like it isn't obvious!).

"So why do you want to go there?"
"First, you get a stamp on your arm, next, you pick food, next, you pick coins, then you PLAY! That's the rules!"

It was hilarious. He did just say food, not pizza, so I asked him if he wanted carrots and cheese (off the salad bar) or hot dogs (no bun)? He didn't answer but I know he heard me. I told Cris to pack some extra contraband in case the carrots and cheese weren't enough.

That evening, Terry came home and took the Younger to the grocery store and I took the Elder to church for Cherub Choir. When we pulled up to the church, Eric says, "I don't want to sing." Well that made my heart sink. I'm hoping it was because he discovered that when you tear up paper napkins in the sun it creates "fuzzies" and he was hyperfocused on that. The choir teacher needed another adult to volunteer for the class so I volunteered on a rotational basis and so I sat in the class with him. I meant to ask the teacher if his behavior was typical or if because I was in there. But it started off, I think, as little stressful for him.

First, when we walked in there were 5 adults in the room (including teacher) as opposed to just 1 in the previous sessions. I think that made him apprehensive and he didn't want to sit in the circle. I asked if he wanted me to sit with him and he slowly started creeping to the circle. I showed him a yellow dot that he could sit on and I tried to pick him up to put him on the dot and I think I overstepped a boundary and he squirmed out and ran to the back of the room. In the meantime, a little girl came in late and joined the circle - on the yellow dot. Eric's face immediately dropped and he looked at me and said,

"I fink there's no room for me in the circle." My heart is just breaking seeing him feel rejected. "Yes there is, here are 2 dots over here."
"But they are not yellow." I can't interrupt class because it is only a 30 minute class, but I look to the teacher and mouth, he wants a yellow dot. She very professionally says, I don't see any more, and continues singing. I mean what is she going to do? Jerk the dot out from underneath the little girl?

Well he went and got a chair and sat near the back of the room. Several of the songs require "requests" and each child may raise their hands and name a body part or and action or what not to sing the song about. Well Eric had his hand up but because he was leaning over, it was more like it was sticking behind him. I told him she couldn't see his hand. So he slowly inched his chair closer and closer and closer to the circle. He finally gave his hand a full raise (it was beautifully poised) and teacher didn't see it and turned around to start a new song. Again, droopy face and a heart-wrenching "aw" of disappointment came out of his mouth. With a little pout he looked at me and said,

"I fink I didn't raise my hand."
So I encouraged him to sit in the circle so she can see his hand. I showed him a red dot he could sit on and he put it under one of the chair legs! (Of course, not in the circle)

At the end we all did a nice "this little light of mine" walk around in a circle number. We got up to hold hands and I deliberately placed Eric between me an another adult. We are walking in the circle and I keep seeing the other mom getting jerked around because Eric HAS to push and pull. I think he was focusing on the dots on the floor and stepping on them as we walked by each. Her daughter has sensory processing disorder so she and I were on the same page. Afterward she is like "he is SO strong!" One last group circle number and more parents had arrived to pick up their so we just made a big production of it. The other mom got moved to the "inner circle" so Eric was holding on to me and a very small petite little girl who was holding her dad's hand. I got a little anxious thinking he just might pull her tiny little arm out of socket. But instead of asking the dad to exchange places (there was another little girl and her pregnant mom on the other side of me), I just whispered in Eric's ear, "Let's see how gentle you can be with her hand." He did GREAT!!!!!

I praised him like crazy and asked him if he wanted to help clean up the dots. He ran around the room and picked them all up (they are very hullabaloo-like), and I was going to ask him to give them to teacher, but he raced to the table and started unstacking them.

"What are you doing?"
"I gotta make a pattern.....there....ok, bye!"

I can't like that

The intro to Floam was interesting...He was so excited when I showed it to him through the packaging. "What's that?" "It's floam, its like playdoh." "Like playdoh? Lemme see it." His excitement turned into instance disgust. But very pleasant disgust I might add. He just flicked it off his hand with a half-smile (I'm being an optimist here) on his face and simply said, "I can't like that."

So they went outside to play with the playdoh. Oh yeah, and I figured out that he really isn't playing with it. He uses the scissors (from the letter/number kit I just bought) to cut the playdoh into "cookies" and then the last cookie he just mutilates with the scissors. Today I passed by when he was having playdoh time with Cris, and saw him stacking the Playdoh containers into a tower (no playdoh was out except what Cris was playing with). Short lived love affair huh?

So do I dare reintroduce Floam in the same DAY? Why not? He had a decent response. So during my "shift," as I call it when Cris is off duty, I pulled it out and spread it over my hand like a glove, and he stressed out about that. "Gotta take it off, mommy." Then I tried to flatten it to see if I could use the letter stamps, but that didn't work. It crackles a little bit as you mash it and I think that might have been hurting his ears by the way he was shying away from it. Finally I put it all back into the tub, no lid. I started playing with the younger who LOVES playdoh, and he's learning a few letters here and there. All of a sudden I hear, "Look mommy...holes." He was poking his finger into the Floam and there were about 10-12 finger indentions in the tub! So I made a bigger hole and called it a swimming pool, and then I made "stalagmites" and called them trees (which really impressed him by the way). He tried to make trees by picking a little bit and stretching it up (if you've ever played with Floam, that just doesn't quite work). So a little bit was picked off inadvertently and I asked him to roll it into a ball. "It's too small" So I gave him a bigger chunk, and he made a "ball" with it! He still had some stress lines going on on his forehead but he was really trying. Next thing you know I took the whole slab out of the tub and held it to him to let him squeeze it. I finally got this shot of him going "solo" with the stuff.
WOW, what a day!

Another part of today's WOW day was it was his first Cherub Choir rehearsal ever. I took him to his class and they were all sitting in a circle and he comes in and plops in the middle. Ms. N shows him where he needs to sit and he listened (he was still in the middle of the circle but not so obvious-we haven't told anyone at church about his diagnosis yet). I didn't see him again until they were dismissed 30 minutes later, and he came running out saying "mommy!" and ran to give me a hug. I was shocked and elated at the same time. Glad no one knew about his AS because no one would have believed me! On the way home, I tried to get him to tell me about his experience. "I can't say it." Then I went into the detailed questions, "Was Henry there?" "Yeah" "Did you sing a song? "Yeah" etc. He did try to tell me something but I'm not really sure what that might have been. But when we were almost home he said, "I like going to school." Wow wowee!! A clear, complete sentence AND describing an emotion!!!

I'm a happy mommy today!

[Newsflash: The younger just successfully used the potty for the first time! Could this day get any better?]