When Irish Eyes are Smiling!

Here's a picture of the rainbow that is presently decorating our dining room wall!  You can't see it because the room is so small that it is hard to shoot the wall, but there is a leprecaun at the bottom with a "pot" of gold. It was a lot of fun doing it, easy and relatively low mess.  I sent a copy of the picture of it to Fiona today so that she could see how it came out.

Today I took the boys to a barbershop to get their hair cut.  We usually do this ourselves but that is easier in the summer when it is  warm and they can sit or stand outside.  They came out looking great and very proud of themselves.  It is funny to me how opposite KC and Rob's hair patterns are.  KC has this really high forehead and his hair line starts way far back.  Rob's hair grows low onto his forehead and really needs to be clipped back to open up his handsome face.  Course you can't even mostly see the haircut as these days his fashion statement is wearing those skater caps all the time!

Homeschooling KC

I love homeschooling.  It is a good thing, because the schools in my community are over crowded, over burdened and fundamentally incapable of effectively teaching  children who have different needs.  Different learning styles?  So what, they have to teach to the test and to the myth of "no child left behind." 

But this post was not really intended as a rant.  It was more about how fascinating it is to me to watch how differently kids learn.  Now I think I have mentioned before that in many ways KC is an easy kid to teach.  He taught himself how to write.  He essentially taught himself how to read.  I take credit for reading tons of books to him and playing with squishy letters on the floor when he was a baby. The rest of the credit pretty much goes to him. 

He is great at math, he wants to "get" stuff, so he will make himself practice as a general rule. He loves science and poetry.  And since he reads above grade level, I thought spelling would be a cinch.  Hear that sound of screeching brakes?  That would be the educational train de-railing!  LOL  That's right, my son who can read and comprehend a good  year or two above his school grade is the.worst.speller. on.the.planet. 

The first week we did spelling words we gave him 10 words.  Age appropriate first grader words.  We practiced them with copying, finding them in word searches, filling the correct word into a sentence.  He did all of those things wonderfully.  And wrote 8 of them incorrectly on the first quiz. 

Thankfully the other benefit of homeschooling is that such a situation doesn't carry social stigma.   But Kirsty and I spent plenty of time figuring out how we could teach spelling words differently.  KC is a chatterbox so I decided to have him also spell them orally to me in the mornings, and to say them aloud as he wrote them. This improved things greatly.  Quiz scores became about 80 to 85 per cent accurate.  We have a "train" of the words that he has correctly spelled in railroad cars going around the top of our dining room and there are steadily getting to be more box cars on the train. 

However though this was better than average, and definately better than where we started, we continued to hunt for the holy grail of successful spelling.  Kirsty hit upon it one morning as he was struggling to remember how to spell  "table." T-A-B-L-E she sang as she walked through the dining room.  He sang it back, swaying a little with his body as he did.  Ever since, we sing the words that are hard to him.  He loves music and it resonates for him in a way that nothing else seems to.  I noticed today when he did his quiz that the two words that were hard for him this week he sang softly to himself as he wrote them. The others, he could just say and write.  And his quizzes have all been 100 per cent correct since we did it this way!

The only predictable thing is unpredictability!

Hmmmm.  Work life has been interesting lately.  Also exceedingly stressful.  We are owned by a new company and they operate very differently from our former company.  I don't really have a problem with that and I am totally on board with learning new things and increasing the goodies that can go on my resume.  But the method of imparting data is sketchy and there is a lot of back and forth with people contradicting themselves and countermanding each other.  Add to that a tendency of micromanage and my immediate boss who I have worked for for many years has become so nervous that he is positive I am out to get him.  Truthfully whenever he gets stressed he thinks this.  But it has reached new levels of the absurd.  I am just doing what I am told and have showed him the emails that prove that.  But suffice it to say this is most definately a work for the money situation and not a work to feel good about what you do in life situation.

While I also am a pragmatist and believe that work doesn't necessarily equal fun, it would be nice not to equal misery! LOL  Today I spoke with someone in a similar line of work. He knew we had been bought and has a tangential relationship with the place where I work.  I also interviewed for a position with his organization when KC was an infant.  The only reason I did not take the job at that time was because my former company made a huge effort to keep me, giving me some great perks and a raise.  But it was close. I was really really ready to jump to the other organization till they sweetened the pot. 

G called me today about some business that we share in our work and then said "OK I have a question.  Are you miserable enough yet?"  I asked what he meant and he said that he knew my new bosses were really tough to work with and that the person who took the job I interviewed for 6 yrs ago was leaving.  So would I be interested?  He has not put the ad in the paper yet, but wanted to give me a heads up.

Hmmm.  I am not sure his organization can come close enough to my present salary to make it possible, but it is attractive and interesting.  And flattering, truthfully to be asked.

Tis Shamrock time (nearly!)

OK so maybe I am rushing the St. Patricks Day decorating a wee bit. But I am desparate for a bit of green after the long cold bleak winter.  We are still covered in snowpack, though now it is a mere 18 inches or so.  Down from the 28 or there abouts that we had a few weeks back.  I feel less like I am taking my life in my hands when I approach intersections as bankings have shrunk so you can see oncoming traffic again.

But I was still eager to decorate and on Monday the kids and I got together and put up a bunch of glittery shamrocks and such.  Then I put paper on the wall of our dining room and roughed out a rainbow.  Last night we started working on the rainbow while we waited for Fiona to call.  Instead of painting the bands on the rainbow we took colored paper and cut shapes.  The red band was all hearts, the orange was diamonds.  Those were the only 2 we finished because she called part way through. The good part though was that we were stumped on what shape to use for green (yellow will be stars incidently).  KC was voting for squares.  I am not sure why LOL but squares didn't speak much to anyone else.  However green is KC's most favorite color and he clearly felt that he should be the person choosing the shape.

When I was wrapping up the call with Fiona I told her what we were doing and how we were trying to decide what to do for the green band.  I asked her if she had any ideas. She thought for a minute and said "what about those green things they find in the grass?"  Shamrocks!  Perfect!  Everyone loved the idea and I love the fact that even though she is not physically helping us with the rainbow, she is a part of it.  When it is all done we are going to send her a picture of it to put in her room.

Happy Balance

Sunday was a busy day.  My wife had the day off to do as she wished so she left home mid day and we would not see her till nearly 8 last night.  I am a good planner and typically a day with just the kids and I is no big deal. But Sunday had a bit of a twist to it. 

I had committed to helping with a 9 a.m. multigenerational service.  Then weeks after that commitment, the Religious Ed committee that I co-chair had to change their meeting to that same day.  At 12:15.  As my church is 30  minutes from my home, going home and then coming back would be a waste of gas and not an option.  Also I felt I needed to find something that broke things up for the kids in a way that made the day see fun.

Luckily for me, my kids love Friendlys restaurants for breakfast.  Though we had breakfast at home at 6:30ish, we had "brunch" at 10:30 at the restaurant.  The venue was much closer than my home, it re-fueled the troops and they were so thrilled to be there. They ate like steveadores, even KC who is my picky eater and has been somewhat off his feed ever since he got sick a couple weeks ago.  Rob enjoyed being able to order coffee with his meal.  This is his new "grown up" thing that he does on occasion.  He asked if he could have coffee once in a while.  I'd rather coffee than the energy drinks that have significant health concerns, so I let him have coffee once or twice a month.  It seems to be enough to seal the "coolness" factor for him. It tends to be a lot of creamer and sugar with a little coffee LOL which cracks me up as I drink my coffee black with nothing but caffeine in it.  I have also explained to him how coffee has different brews and different places will make it differently so he will likely develop a favorite place for it.

After the brunch we got back to church close to the second service ending and giving just enough time to clean up the kids and do bathroom breaks before I had to get into the meeting.  The little kids play with Rob and his best friend at church when I am at the meeting. (Rob's friends mom serves on the committee with me) The fellowship room is large and they have ample space to play games there.

I love when finding a balance between needed activities and fun activiites work out well!

Non NT Happiness

My eldest is my most noticably non-neurotypical of my children.  On the autistic spectrum, I have spent his whole life trying to help him "get" social cues, with decidedly mixed results.  Some days I feel like watching his behavior, one would think that he was raised by wolves.  Other days, the kind and generous spirit that is within him glows forth.  Then there are times when you can see the spirit but there is all this murk from his lack of correct responses and interactions that make it hard on all of us.

Tonight I was cleaning up from supper as Chet finished his supper. He offered to "help" clean the fridge by eating the last pudding that i had made.  Not a big deal to me, I tend to make smallish portions of things as my kids are for some reason all about the number of things.  (they would seriously rather have 5 small cookies than 1 or 2 large ones for instance.)  So I agreed to his request even though he had technically all ready had a dessert.

As I cleaned he began to play with his pudding. Yup, that behavior that jumps out at you and screams "this is NOT a 25 year old is it?"  I have learned ignoring Chet just makes him up the ante, so I calmly told him he could eat the pudding or not but he could not play with it.  He made some very silly comment about the why of his choice of playing with it, and frankly I can't remember what that was that he said.  But it was the kind of comment that makes a parent arch their eyebrow and give their kid the look.  The look that NT kids learn early in life means, "I have gone too far.  Whoa, mom is gonna blow! "

Chet has never "gotten" the look, though I confess I still do it.  I just can't stop myself I guess. Or I am a glutton for punishment perhaps.  Till today, when miraculously, he did get it.  He looked up  and sort of grinned and said "it was just a joke. . . but I guess you didn't think so."

Writing this out, I know most people won't get why that was so exciting.  But Chet's biggest impediment in his life is his challenge reading social situations.  We work on it constantly.  So him yanking my chain with the pudding--it was worth it.

Getting testy with the social worker!

D's social worker that is--Rob's bio brother.   I have been trying for about 7 weeks now to get a mailing address for D from her.  It started with wanting to send him a birthday card.  His birthday is in January.  I started a week ahead.  I didn't realize this was like applying for a passport and one should start 8 months ahead! And I figured a birthday card was that kind of innocous thing.  But I got the feeling when he was here visiting and saw Rob's scrapbook that there had not been a lot of parties and such in his life and thought a card would be a good thing., I sort of figured someone would ANSWER my email.  Then I thought, well heck maybe they would answer a phone message.  Or ANOTHER email.  Amazing Jane even wrote two emails to this social worker on my behalf.  She also gave me the social workers supervisors contact info which sort of makes me wonder if she has had a few go rounds with this person. 

But today, work was crazy. I am manning (womanning?) our office alone for a few days and so it is even more crazy than usual. And I am working longer hours which is not delighting my children here at home.  So it made me testy enough to write a really curt, very professional and clinical sounding email to this woman.  Must have scared the be-jesus out of her too becuase in 20 minutes I got an email back from her!!

She said that she would suggest contact to D at their next meeting. I hate being a B&*ch.  It really isn't my nature, but I guess sometimes being nice is not the best course of action.  She also implied that D would not want contact because of his own issues.  I hope that is not the case and that contact with Rob and perhaps friendship with us could be something good in his life. He is always friendly when we manage to connect on FB. It is just that neither of us is on consistantly so contact is sporadic at best.