do you really want me to read 12 pages?

SJ usually doesn't have much homework.  His teacher allots plenty of time during the day for the students to complete it.  Occasionally, he brings home his reading book.  He is to read the story out loud to us.  SJ hates reading.  He has a lot of trouble with comprehension.  He misses many of the details of the story (an unfortunate problem for many children with PDD).  Last year, we let him take turns with us reading pages.  We decided this year that he can read all of the pages himself.  When I went through his backpack, he neglected to bring home his reading book.  It wouldn't have been such a big deal, but he needed to complete one page from his grammar workbook.  You needed the story to answer the questions.  If he was a typical student, he may have remembered the details from the story and would have been able to answer them without the book.  SJ is not a typical student, so I started to panic.  I tried to find the book on our school's website, but it wasn't there.  I tried to find it directly on the publisher's site.  There were some books, but not the series that our school uses.  I decided to drive back to school in the hopes that someone was still there.  Fortunately for me, there was tutoring after school.  I was able to borrow the book from another 4th grade teacher.  SJ was on the trampoline when I pulled into our driveway.  I showed him the book and he started to flip out.  He got off the trampoline and began to demand that I take the book back.  I told him I wasn't taking it back and we needed to complete his work.  He was crying so hard when he came in the house.  I sat down in the dining room with him to begin his reading.  He kept yelling that he could not read 12 pages "all by himself".  "I need to read it with a parent," he yelled.  I told him that I was there and he could read it to me.  After 20 minutes, we had only gotten through 2 pages.  My husband came and sat with us.  He joked with SJ telling him that he wasn't going to die from reading a few pages.  "It is not a few.  It is 12," yelled SJ.  My husband showed him a book that he had recently read.  He showed him how many pages it had (about 400) and he didn't cry when he read it.  He told SJ that they would focus on one word at a time.  He told SJ not to worry about how many pages there were in the story.  He kept telling him that he wanted to hear what interesting things were going to happen.  After 45 more minutes, SJ finally finished the story and the questions.  My husband said, "See you read 12 pages on your own and you are fine."  I know we are going to have many more days like this one, but hopefully the crying periods will get much shorter.  I would be fine with that.

after school speech part 3

On Thursday, SJ had his afterschool speech session.  We went home for a few minutes before we made the drive to the therapy center.  He seemed to enjoy having the small break at home, so he could have a snack and grab some plushies for the drive out.  He was in a great mood when his therapist greeted him in the lobby.  They were working on Cause and Effect.  The therapist began by showing SJ pictures that gave him a situation, such as a mom giving her kid a new toy.  He had to choose between a sad kid and a happy kid.  He did very well with this exercise.  Next, she had him do a worksheet that used words and pictures.  The first sentence was "Grandma forgot to water her plants."  Underneath the sentence were two pictures.  There was a picture of healthy plants and one of dead plants.  He had to circle what would happen when Grandma didn't water her plants.  He did very well with this exercise too.  The third worksheet he did gave a picture and then asked a question.  There was a picture of a boy adding chocolate powder to a glass of milk.  He had to verbalize what effect that would have.  Again, he did well with this exercise.  The last of the Cause and Effect worksheets was more difficult for him.  This worksheet gave the ending effect and SJ had to decide what the cause would be.  There were no picture cues to assist him.  The first one was Tara opened the refrigerator door.  “Ick!  Something sure smells,” she thought.  “Dad must have forgotten to clean out all the leftovers from last week."  It had a blank cause section and it said the effect was that something in the refrigerator smelled bad.  SJ had trouble deciding that Dad should have cleaned out the refrigerator.  His therapist needed to prompt him to look at the sentence to deduce the cause.  Since he had trouble with this exercise, we are to practice this for homework.  On a different positive note, she told me that SJ was chatting away with his old Occupational Therapist while he was waiting for me to pick him up.  He hasn't been her patient in a few years, but it was nice to hear that he was comfortable conversing with her.  I am glad that he had a good session!

is it too early to wear your halloween costume, even if it is September?

After speech last week, we stopped at Target.  After SJ decided on his toy purchase, he had an immediate need to look at the Halloween costumes.  He LOVES Halloween (I do too, so I guess he gets that from me!)!  He started to look through the racks of kid's costumes.  He found some Mario Bros. costumes.  He started to decide between Mario, Toad or Waluigi.  I told him we had to see which one came in his size first.  Obviously if the costumes were too small, that costume would be eliminated.  They didn't have a Mario in his size, but they did have Toad and Waluigi.  He chose Waluigi.  I know it is early to buy a Halloween costume, but I learned my lesson from last year.  Last year, I waited until 2 weeks before Halloween to look for costumes and his size was hard to find.  He was so excited over the new costume!  It was $20, which was not a bad price for a costume.  He wanted to open it in car, but I told him to not put it on until we got home.  He did, however, where the hat that came with it on the ride home.  I kept laughing to myself as I saw his reflection in the rear view mirror.  As soon as we pulled in the garage, he ran upstairs to his room to put it on.  Thank goodness, it fit.  His smile was so big!  He was so happy.  Every day last week, he wore that costume in the house.  I told him he couldn't wear it outside.  I am afraid it will get ruined before he gets to wear it to school for their Halloween party.  So I calculated how much it is costing me per wear so far.  It is about $3 a wear as of this week.  By the time Halloween rolls around, it will probably by about $0.25 a wear.  Maybe it is too early to wear your Halloween costume, but seeing his happy face makes all that logic go right out the window!

is it worth ALL of my allowance money?

After speech on Thursday, we stopped at "The Circle Store" (or Target).  I had a few things to get and SJ wanted to use some of his allowance money.  SJ never really wants anything.  I am not exaggerating.  When we see something we think he will like, we will ask him if he wants to get it.  He usually responds with "I don't know" or "Maybe next time".  He is so hard to buy for!  Recently, he has shown an interest in the K'NEX Mario track system.  He was looking at a set that was $24.99, but then Bob saw a bigger set that was $49.99.  It had two motorized carts (one for Mario and one for Luigi), lots of track and some obstacles.  Bob kept telling SJ that it was the "best value" (something my mom always is saying...she is a bargain shopper).  SJ kept looking at it, but was unsure if he wanted to use all of his money.  He walked away a few times, but he kept coming back to look at it.  After 20 minutes of this back and forth dance, he finally decided to get it.  As soon as we got home, the two of them started building it.  Within 30 minutes, I could hear the carts running.  I could also hear the sweet sound of my boys laughing and playing like brothers.  I would say it was definitely worth it!

after school speech part 2

SJ had "outside" speech after school today.  I am happy to report that there was minimal complaining about going.  He did say that he wished it was on Fridays.  After I told him that wasn't possible, he really didn't complain again.  We stopped at McDonald's for his regular order (hamburger Happy Meal, no pickle, with a Hi-C orange).  Bob only wanted water, which was fine with me.  We arrived at speech a few minutes early, so SJ ate his food in the car before he went in.  When his therapist came out, I told her he was in a better mood and he quietly walked back with her.  After his appointment was over, she told me that he had a very good session.  They continued to go over synonyms.  She said he did very well with that activity.  They also went over a worksheet that was on inferring feelings.  There were three statements and SJ had to decide what feeling matched up with the statement.

For example:   _________You can sit with me.                                        a. shy
                       _________Quit spraying me with water!                             b. nice
                       _________I don't want to sing in front of the family.     c. annoyed

She said he was able to match up the correct feelings with the statements easily.  I was pretty impressed with that.  She said he did struggle to orally describe what some of the feelings were.  He had trouble with annoyed, nervous, guilty, embarrassed, frustrated, alarmed, puzzled and moody.  She assigned us to go over these feelings and have SJ try to remember a time when he experienced these feelings.  Annoyed and frustrated should be easy, but moody, alarmed and puzzled will be a little more challenging. 

I am glad that SJ was not as agitated about going to speech again this week.  It makes everyone's job a little easier when he accepts something that is frustrating to him.  I guess I have one feeling example out of the way!

are you ready for a rumble?

The more typical SJ becomes the more "boy like" behavior I am seeing.  It especially comes out when he spends time with Bob.  Bob is a typical older brother.  He likes to tease SJ.  When SJ was more stuck in the autism world, he didn't seem to care what Bob was saying.  Now that he is in our world more than his parallel autism world he is much more aware of what Bob is saying.  Bob will take his things or tell him things that are not true.  He does all of this to get a reaction out of SJ.  Bob is just doing what all brothers do, so it is hard for me to constantly be on him for this.  If a reaction is what Bob wants, that is exactly what he is getting now.  
Two days ago, Bob was teasing him about a video game that they were playing.  SJ couldn't take it anymore, so they began to fight at the top of our stairs.  SJ is fairly strong and the boys are practically the same size.  (SJ is actually a little taller and slightly heavier.)  SJ pushed Bob into our banister and then Bob pushed SJ into our linen closet door.  We broke up the fight and sent each of them to their rooms.  I was so upset about this fight, but my husband assured me that this is "normal" boy behavior.  We had a talk with them and told them neither one of them should be touching each other in anger. 
We had another incident yesterday.  They were jumping on the trampoline and Bob threw SJ's Crocs on the trampoline.  Why would this bother, SJ?  Who knows!  He started yelling at Bob to take his Crocs off of the trampoline.  Bob wouldn't.  He kept saying he wanted to see how high they would bounce.  Well, SJ was so mad he couldn't see straight.  He pushed Bob off the trampoline and he hit his nose on the metal frame.  Bob came into the house crying and Mom and Dad referee had to step in.  We sent SJ to his room and checked out Bob's nose.  It wasn't swollen or red.  We told him to put some ice on it, but he refused.  He is very stubborn!  (He gets this from me and my father)  We told him SJ shouldn't have hurt him, but he shouldn't be touching his stuff.  When SJ was allowed to come out of his room, we had a talk with him about why it is not acceptable to hit someone just because they touched his things.  He has a quick temper and we are trying to find strategies to help him defuse his temper.  (A trait passed onto to SJ from my husband's mother.) 
I will say that the nice thing about brothers is they move on quickly after the fight is over.  Maybe an hour after the trampoline rumble, they were outside tossing a ball back and forth.  I would much rather play referee for two "typical" acting boys then watch my two sons play in two different worlds.

i am not going to speech today!!!!

After school, SJ had his first "outside" speech appointment today.  Outside speech is the same speech that we attend in the summer.  SJ has "inside" speech at school.  It was a beautiful day and there were tons of kids outside playing.  I dropped off Bob at a neighbor's house.  As we drove away, SJ burst into tears.  He started telling me to turn around.  He wanted to go home for "just a couple of minutes".  I knew if we went home A.  We would be late and B. He wouldn't want to get back in the car.  I continued to drive to the speech place while SJ continued to cry and yell.  SJ was yelling that it was not fair.  He didn't want to have speech twice in the same day.  I asked him if he saw his speech therapist at school today and he just replied that he did not know.  I kept trying to calm him down while we were headed to speech.  He was having none of it.  When we arrived, he didn't want to get out of the car.  He said, "I am not going in.  It is not fair.  No speech on Thursdays.  Cancel it, Mom.  Please cancel it."  I told him to dry his eyes and we were going in.  After a moment or so, SJ got out of the car.  We entered the building and SJ hid under a chair.  Fortunately, no one else was in the waiting room.  Otherwise, I would have been extremely embarrassed.  His therapist came out and he said to her, "I don't like speech on Thursdays!"  She told him they had a little work to do and then they would play a game.  I told her sorry.  She smiled at me and said it was okay.  Thirty minutes later, he came out in a totally different disposition.  He was no longer sad.  In fact, he was quite happy.  I unlocked the car so that he could get in.  She told me that he settled down after a few minutes.  They worked on synonyms.  He did very well on that and she seemed pleased.  They also worked on sequencing. He did fairly well describing what happened when he was shown visuals.  He had some trouble when he had to describe what was happening when the middle step was eliminated.  She gave us a worksheet on this, which will be his homework.  I spoke to his school speech therapist today and sure enough he did have "inside" speech Thursday morning.  She said he did fine with her that morning.  I told her this story and she said she couldn't switch days.  I will just tell SJ that he will get both speech sessions out of the way in one day.  Maybe that will satisfy him?  Hopefully, it will.

samurai sj

On Monday, it was Labor Day.  We didn't have school and we didn't have any plans.  I was looking forward to a do nothing day, except for some minor housework.  We did our normal breakfast thing (pancakes) and I was deciding what chore I was going to tackle first.  Then, I heard small feet running down the stairs.  It was SJ.  He ran into the kitchen in his samurai costume.  He was practicing some kicks and yelling "high ya".  He had on a red bandana wrapped around his forehead and a white karate uniform.  We have several friends who kids practice Tae Kwon Do.  He appeared to be doing his version of his friends' exercises.  I tried not to laugh as he was in the zone.  Then, he set up his plushies as if they were his students.  He began to "instruct" his students.  It was quite a show to watch.  He wore that costume most of the day.  I didn't mind, since we weren't leaving the house.  My parents came over for dinner and he was still wearing the costume at dinner.  My parents are so used to SJ and his costumes that they didn't even react to it.  It was some comic relief to an otherwise boring day!

Labor Day weekend...lots of fun and parties

We had a lot going on this Labor Day weekend.  The boys were invited to swim in a neighbor's pool (lots of fun for both SJ and Bob) and we attended a few parties.  On Sunday, we went over my mom's house to visit with my out of town relatives.  My aunt's youngest son, Scooter, is only a few years older than the boys.  We went over to spend some time with him, his brother and my aunt and uncle before heading to the first Labor Day party.  The boys really enjoy spending time with my cousins.  After a couple of hours, we went over to Isaac's house (his mom is my cousin) for the party.  My aunt was having a surprise party for her youngest son at Isaac's house.  The boys enjoyed being in on the surprise; however Scooter didn't seem too surprised when he got there.  The boys were having a great time playing hide and seek and video games with Scooter and Isaac.  After dinner, we all sung to Scooter.  In the past, singing to the birthday person can be problematic for SJ.  He will scream at people to "shut up" or to "be quiet", since he is very sensitive to the loudness of the singing.  We have had to "whisper sing", which is usually enough to not upset SJ.  Surprisingly, he didn't yell.  He did plug his ears with his fingers, but sang along with everyone else.  Great progress for SJ!  The boys got their treat bags from Scooter and continued to play with him and Isaac until it was time to go.
We had a second picnic to go to in our neighborhood.  It had started to rain.  SJ didn't want to walk up to our neighbor's house in the rain, but I told him to put on his rain jacket.  We got our dessert and walked up to the neighbor's house.  There were a lot of people there and there was a band.  I thought the live band would bother SJ's ears.  He surprised me once again!  He was sitting in the garage with his ears plugged.  He was smiling and dancing in his chair.  That is what is so puzzling about Autism.  Sometimes, I think SJ will be extremely agitated in a situation.  Then, he is completely fine.  Other times, he is bothered over the smallest of things.  I am glad that this day he surprised me in a good way! 

one more pool day before Labor Day

Yesterday, it was very hot and very humid where we live.  This weather is only welcome when you want to hang out at the pool.  All four of us went to our local pool yesterday afternoon.  The water was perfect!  It was just cool enough to be refreshing.  There weren't too many people there, but enough of SJ and Bob's friends to keep them occupied.  My husband got right in with the boys.  They loved this.  They were "attacking" their dad in the water.  I eventually got in the water too.  Since it was possibly the last day, I even got my hair wet (this was a BIG deal to the boys!).  SJ spent most of his time in the pool.  Bob bounced between the pool and playing in the park with friends.  SJ decided to join Bob and the kids for "kickboard baseball".  They use kickboards for bases and the bat.  It was going okay for a while, but then SJ started to get upset over being out.  My husband and I saw him crying, so he went to see what was happening.  Bob was trying to pull SJ off of a base (since he was out) and SJ was yelling he was safe (he wasn't).  My husband talked to SJ and he seemed to calm down after a few minutes.  SJ decided to leave the boys and continue swimming.  I asked my husband what happened and he told me Bob was embarrassed by SJ's behavior.  Fortunately, the other boys didn't seem to notice or care.  I know it is hard for Bob sometimes to have a brother on the spectrum.  We try to reassure him that even if SJ was typical he would still do things to embarrass him.  I remind myself that Bob is just a kid and it is hard position for him to be in.  As he gets older, I hope that he will appreciate what SJ has to offer and forget the negative traits that he possesses.  Other than the small meltdown during the kickboard baseball game, the day was lovely.  Bob joined us in the pool for the remainder of our time there.  They were playing together in the water even after my husband and I had gotten out.  Tantrum aside, it was a great family summer day!

it is raining...so no school today

Thursday morning, I was awoken by loud thunder and bright lightening.  I knew what was going to happen when I woke up SJ at 7 a.m.  SJ hates the rain!  It is not that he doesn't enjoy getting wet in the pool or the tub, but he hates getting wet from rain.  No one knows why.  It is just one of his special quirks.  I woke him at 7 and he heard the thunder.  Here is how the conversation went: 
Me:   SJ, time to wake up.
SJ:  Oh no, it is raining.
Me:  I know, but you still need to get up.
SJ:  It is raining, so there is no school today.
Me:  No, they don't cancel school for rain.
SJ:  Yes, they do.
Me:  No, they don't.
Twenty minutes later, he came downstairs to eat breakfast and was very whiny about the rain.  After he ate and took his supplements, I told him to go upstairs and brush his teeth.  "It is still raining, Mom," said SJ.  "I know, but we have to leave soon," I told him.  I knew he would want to wear his rain jacket, so I suggested that he do just that.  It was 80 some degrees out and he is putting on a rain jacket.  I tried not to laugh.  When we arrived at school, he had taken his glasses off and had his hood up.  "Where are your glasses, SJ?"  I asked him.  "Under my jacket,” he replied.  It takes not even 50 steps to get from my car to the school.  He runs as fast as he can, so that he will remain dry.  Fortunately, he does or this could have been a very LONG school day!