The Mommy Furies..

So my kid has reached a new level of infuriating today. She's developed the ability to throw purposeful fits in an attempt to get what she wants. Fits have been a longstanding problem for us. BAD fits. HOUR long, horrible fits. They are a symptom of our issues and are usually symbolic of a larger, unresolved, issue that sometimes SHE isn't even sure of. Usually she gets out of control of herself. She literally cannot cognatively control her behavior until we hit a breaking point. I can brush her and it helps and then we hit the crying portion and at some point we talk and I can play "Let Guess The Problem". After that a solution is come up with and after some bouncing and more brushing, the world is once again happy.

TODAY, that is sooo not what we had. Today she had a willful fit in an attempt to get out of something - specifically subtraction. The truly awkward part? She LOVES math. Adores it. Then decided she wasn't going to do it. She then attempted to mimic her "normal" pattern. But, given that she's.. HER.. it was an epic fail. Not even a close representation. She told me what she was going to do, ie "I'm going to run of in 3 seconds, Momma, I'm  going to ruuuun off. Momma. 1. 2. 3." Then was surprised when I told her to sit herself back down!

So after a rather lengthy ordeal that went on, and on, and well.. on. I talked to T1 about why she would suddenly think it was ok to try to have a fit to get what she wanted or get out of something. She then told me that she has her therapists (her OT and behavioral) convinced that it should work that way. Apparently, this coming week when I see these ladies (who have been working wonders with her) and asking them to STOP catering to these little "episodes".



But you know what fixes most bad days, even when they keep going and going?? Cuddling with a Super Puppy :)

Fishing, Frogs, and Ticks! Oh My!

We went fishing up in Slick with Grandad today. The weather was great. *I* thought the fishing was good - but I caught 6 fish and T1 broke her line and Grandad and T2 both caught 1. C well. Lets say he was playing support staff too often to spend much time actually fishing. T1 actually spend a lot of her time catching little frogs. Since we are coming up to the amphibian portion of our science, we brought several home with us in an empty container.

The cats are surprisingly happy about this and we've had to bungie the lid closed because Molly figured out how to pop the lid off. Since I already let one loose in the kitchen and played a riveting game of hunt the frog, we went ahead and just made it hard for him to let them out.

Then, when we got home I discovered we brought home some unexpected "friends". If your friends are parasitic bugs, and really don't we all have some?? I had 1 on my leg and T1 had one on her forehead. The boys had none. NONE! How that's fair, I don't know.. But eeeewwwww.... Now I get all itchy then get paranoid about being itchy.. Aww well!

Reading

So I did reading level tests with 1 & 2 this morning. T1 is showing that she is proficient at a beginning 5th grade level. T2 is showing he is proficient at a 1.4th grade level. Must say I'm proud of both of the little monkeys. T1 never has had trouble learning to read. She's never struggled at all. T2 has. He and I battle with it almost daily, but he's clearly learning how to read. Though he would have been starting kindergarten this year at public school, he's clearly RIGHT where he should be.  It makes me happy that we've made the right decision for him. I think everyone who homeschools worries about that at some point. Is their child learning? Are they better off at home than at school? I like to occasionally do things like reading assessment tests (even though we don't do TEST tests) to make sure they ARE at a minimum level of where I put our goals - which I hope are more lofty that TPS's.

Oh.. *Sigh*

Sinus Boy has returned with a vengeance. It's a looooonnggg ongoing problem. But he's got another sinus infection to go along with the hole in his ear. (We DO already have a hearing test scheduled later this month and they are going to see if we need to go get it patched.) Not to mention, he's not feeling well.  That - on top of catching the microwave on fire while trying to make foam with Ivory soap. And. Also. ALL instant potato flakes are flammable, NOT just Potato Buds. It's a good thing to know, trust me.


T1 did the best thing this weekend.  We were going to Sam's and saw our elderly neighbors out. We don't really KNOW them, but see them out. When we got to Sam's and passed the flower isle, she asked if we could get them a small bunch of flowers to make their day better. I said sure, why not? We got home and I helped her cross the street and she went over and rang the bell and talked to the lady herself. The woman asked me if we would come in for a minute and give them to her mother because it was her mother's birthday! Her mother was turning 102 and had just arrived for a party yesterday. We didn't stay long, but T1 was SO proud of herself (not to mention I was too) for making the ladies day. T1 had never met someone over 100 and she was just so happy to see the old lady beaming!

Lego Club

In about an hour, we are leaving for our first visit to our Homeschool Group's Lego Club. It meets once a month and while we *could* have gone last year, we never actually made it. There was the broken foot, the torn tendon, bronchitis a bajillion times, therapies, mood issues and whatever else. BUT. Here we are. It's at a time and a place we CAN and ARE going to. T1 is vibrating with anxiety. Literally vibrating.  I know there will be some people we've met before and probably a person or 2 we haven't. Most likely, it will be small and fairly quiet - which makes it a perfect first gathering for us to go to for the year for the Homeschool Group.

This is also one of those time when brushing is really, REALLY, *really*, (can I stress **REALLY** again), handy. I have no idea exactly how it works. (Something about deep tissue then compression of the joints helps delay endorphin release..) She went from vibrating to being able to sit and color. Wiggling - Yes. Literally bouncing off walls with anxiety, borderline uncontrollable so she will spin into "fit" mode - No! Score! We will have to do it again in an hour when we are getting ready to leave, but I'm willing to do that if she can control herself after it.  *THIS* is why we homeschool. We (*I*) can give her the therapy she needs when she NEEDS it, as she needs it. And it's starting to work. Brushing is one of the biggest control techniques we've introduced so far. The listening program was HUGE. I need to reintroduce that right about now too though. She starting to become more sensitive again. Brushing, though. It's HUGE. It's been worth every miserable day of doing it every 2 hours with that insane timer (that we still have beeping every 2 hours BTW). It means we *may* actually be able to get through Lego Club without a complete meltdown.  I'll still bring earplugs, her brush, her ish (her lovey that she rubs across her face), and the normal things I bring in case we need them, but hopefully we can go out for a 2 hour low key club with "normal" homeschool kids and be unscathed.  Maybe, I can talk to another grownup without having to stand nearby and be ready to catch my kid getting ready to leap at something in a full fury because the other kid changed a "rule".  Ok. That may be a bit ambitious still. But, maybe, she can come and ask what's going on and let me explain that the "rule" is different BEFORE she gets to fury land.

Aspergers and Learning

I must admit that trying to teach a kid with aspergers is both easier and harder than "normal" kids. T1 learns quickly. VERY quickly. Too quickly. I can throw things that a 6-1/2 should have no idea how to go about tackling and she gets it. Her logic is complicatedly sound. It's not a simple process like it is for T2. He just sits, looks at it, and KNOWS the answer. She looks at it, studies it, ponders it, and then some how makes these odd judgments that I can almost never figure out to get to the same answer. But she gets there.  This is true for all logic, math, science, and any similar problem that has definitive rules.  When you get to things like morality it gets a little dicey. There isn't a single "rule" for ALL situations for her to follow.  It's a big part of the reason she is homeschooled actually. The difference between when it's ok to defend against a bully and when it's best to walk away is a big example. There are SO many different situations that's really impossible for us to role-play all of them. We try to get as many as possible, but even within that there are so many different variables you can't account for there by making the "rules" void. The "rules" in her mind, are only good if the situation matches.

T2 and T1 make a great pair in most ways though. T2 gets people. He can read them, play them, dance away and never be bothered by any of it. T1 can't. She just.. Can't. She can't tell if they are kidding, serious, mean, kind, rude, sarcastic. Then gets into quite a tizzy about it because it's thrown her off kilter or something will happen and she won't notice ANYTHING has happened. A work in progress my T1.

We have 1 full week left of brushing every 2 hours (so we are on day 53). It's an annoying process. The benefits we are starting to see are ENORMOUS. It calms her almost instantly after joint compression. It helps her regain train of thought. She has been able to keep herself from throwing massive, uncontrollable, hour-lasting fits. So. Pain in the rump - YES. A worthwhile pain to have? YES. She has never really "warmed up to" the brushing, but does tolerate it which is the best I can expect.

I'm going to get the kids to work on Super Puppy with me here in a bit. The pictures are Hilarious! I may actually have to do an 2 sets of Super Puppy. 1 where they create the story and one where *I* do because the pictures are really JUST that good. Plus I need to figure out how to make little tabs at the top of blogger here. I'm not sure I know how just yet, but that would be a way for the whole story line to stay together.. Humm.. My and technology are just not always friendly..

Coming Soon.

Coming Soon: The first installment of Super Puppy. Just wait. It's worth it. It's been in creation for a while, we've been working on it and we are ALMOST there, just a little post production work left. Now keep in mind, this is being created by a 5 and 6 year old as part of a disguised homeschool task. I'm teaching them how to train a puppy, create a story line, edit a story to be clear and have a cohesive beginning, middle, end (in a followable way). Show them that they can have long term projects and story boards. Plus. It's a puppy. Who doesn't want to have a super puppy. And the puppy aspect comes into play as well. Those little buggers are temperamental, at best, some days.  But. Hopefully, the first installment will be ready by the end of the weekend as a debut to Timmy, the mild mannered beagle as well as SUPER PUPPY!



:)