Everyday Adventures

So aware, we're UNaware

2013-04-06T12:43:00.001-04:00

Have you ever seen the movie, "The Three Amigos"? It's a *really* cheesy movie from back in the 80's, and there's a scene where the amigos say something along the lines of "he's SO famous, he's IN-famous!" (if my mom is reading this, and she may be the only one still checking my much-neglected blog, she's cracking up right now because she totally remembers that quote)

That's kind of how I'm feeling about autism awareness at the moment. We've been living it for almost 12 years (although we've only known it for almost 9). We're 3 for 3 when it comes to children on the spectrum, so it's all we know. We're SO aware, we've become UNaware. And by that I mean, autism is so deeply woven into every aspect of life that it is hard to distinguish unless you're looking for it. We know it's there, we just don't notice it that much anymore.

It's in the choices we make as a family - where we go, where we don't go. What we do, and what we avoid doing.

It's in our home. The furnishings we never accumulated because our boys need open space and minimal hard corners, the furniture we no longer have because it crumbled under the strain of three very exuberant boys using it for a playground, a canvas, a railroad, a trampoline, etc. The ongoing home repairs (thankfully dh is good at that kind of stuff) because things it never would have occurred to me could get broken, do indeed get broken. Like the towel rack over the sink that was ripped out of the wall when someone climbed up there and STOOD on it.

It's in our interactions, because it's an integral part of how my sons perceive the world and communicate with those around them. It's in the way my older boys often talk to us in numbered lists ("I have three things to tell you, number one is..."), how they prefer to quantify things ("I'm 82% done with my homework") and offer detailed dissertations to eventually say what technically could have been summed up in 2-3 words (ironic considering the time and effort involved in trying to get them to use words at all when they were younger). It's in the way my youngest has developed his own unique brand of "pretend play" in which he pulls everyone into his world whether they want to be or not (lol, certain big brothers who have never really enjoyed pretend play and are very literal thinkers protest their little brother's forays into fantasy every step of the way).

All of these little fingerprints of autism are a part of what makes my family, MY family. It doesn't define us, but it is a part of who we are. My precious boys, our quirky conversations, the eardrum-defying noise level that signifies that everyone is home and accounted for (and awake). I wouldn't change any of it.

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This is what autism looks like at our house... pretty darn handsome if you ask me :).

Special Olympics ~ Basketball

2012-11-18T00:01:00.000-05:00

Little Bitty's class gets to participate in various Special Olympics events during the year... a couple of weeks ago was the first one of the school year - basketball :).

1 in 8 babies is born to soon...

2012-11-17T07:58:00.000-05:00

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day.

To learn more, visit the March of Dimes.

Click here to read our NICU story (Cuddlebug and Bearhug were born 6 1/2 weeks early due to severe pre-eclampsia).

Here's a repost of my earlier prematurity awareness post (slightly edited):

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Did you know that 1 in 8 babies is born prematurely in the U.S.? In approximately 40% of cases, the cause of premature labor is unknown, and it can happen to anyone. I have shared our story before about Cuddlebug and Bearhug's premature birth, but I think it's worth examining what a difference it makes when a baby is able to be born full term. In contrast with his brothers being born 6 1/2 weeks early, Little Bitty was born 1 1/2 weeks late. Being pregnant with him a full 8 weeks longer felt like FOREVER in comparison, lol, but of course it was well worth every minute because I knew he was where he needed to be (and unlike the situation with CB and BH, it was safe for him to remain in the womb).

What a difference those 8 weeks made! Here is a comparison of their footprints:

I scanned them all together so they would be proportionally accurate. Every time I look at these I'm just amazed at how tiny Cuddlebug's foot was compared with Little Bitty's. The size disparity between Cuddlebug and Bearhug was due to TTTS.

In addition to their sizes, here are some other differences we experienced between our twins' premature birth and the full-term delivery of our youngest. I only have my own experience to draw from, so this may not be applicable to everyone, but I'm sharing it to highlight some of the benefits of full-term delivery and why prematurity awareness is so important.

1. Being able to hold your baby right away. We had to wait 8 days before we could hold Bearhug for the first time, and 2 days before we could hold Cuddlebug. I was able to hold Little Bitty within the first few minutes after he was born. It was an amazing experience!

2. Being able to bring your baby home with you. Cuddlebug and Bearhug spent 22 days in the NICU before we were able to bring them home. Some premature babies stay much longer, depending on how early they are born and their health. Some preemies have medical challenges ranging from mild to severe, while others just need a little extra time to grow.

3. Getting a little more sleep at night. Like most newborns, Little Bitty woke up to eat about every 3 hours when he first came home. Because of their small size, Bearhug and Cuddlebug couldn't hold enough food in their stomachs to last 3 hours and needed to eat about every 1 1/2 hours. Add to that the fact that the effort they had to put into eating often wore them out before they were full, and sometimes we didn't even make a whole hour before they needed to eat again. That's a recipe for exhaustion for mom and dad (although well worth it of course!).

4. Less susceptible to illness. Cuddlebug and Bearhug needed 6 months of RSV shots as a precaution since they'd had respiratory distress early on. We had to be very careful about taking them out and having visitors. We were cautious with Little Bitty also, but the risk level for full-term babies is generally not as high.

The March of Dimes has more on why getting at least 39 weeks is best for babies if at all possible. Did you know the March of Dimes is responsible for leading the call to develop Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU)? They also funded the research that led to the use of surfactant to treat respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). They have had many other successes as well, but for those two reasons especially, I will be eternally grateful to them!

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Creeeeper and aliens

2012-11-01T21:28:00.001-04:00

Quick update on our Halloween:

Bitty wanted to be a Minecraft creeper so I resized Cuddlebug's costume from last year:

Bearhug and Cuddlebug didn't want to wear a costume, so they went as "aliens pretending to be humans."

And of course, any self-respecting alien pretending to be human would want to be a Longhorn fan, am I right? ;) (hook 'em!! \m/ )

This is Bearhug (that stuff all over his arms is paint from art class). Cuddlebug ran off before I could get his picture :(

Bitty actually trick-or-treated the entire neighborhood for the first time. This is his third time going (he wasn't interested prior to that), and the last two years he has gone to just a few houses and then decided he's done. So I was surprised when he was getting into it and wanted to keep going until we made it all the way back around to our house (granted, we live in a small neighborhood, but still).

Sometimes he remembered to say trick-or-treat, sometimes he didn't. He usually remembered to say "thank you" but it was always "Thank you, Edward!" (if you guessed he's referring to Edward from Thomas & Friends, you got it! lol). He's been doing a lot of scripting from Thomas episodes lately.

Anytime we came across a pile of leaves (a lot of houses had leaves piled up on their front porch from the wind) he had to stop and "chug" his way through it. When he finished at a house, he came running back to me yelling "wheeeesh!!!" (engine sounds). Whenever someone asked him what his costume was, his answer varied.

"I'm a creeper!"

"I'm a small green engine!"

"I'm Percy the small engine!"

"I'm a creeper engine!"

LOL, he was so cute, and it was kind of funny to see the looks of confusion on people's faces wondering what exactly is a creeper engine? A lot of the neighborhood kids recognized his costume though, since many of them are Minecraft fans too.

Cuddlebug and Bearhug beat us home, and we arrived to find dh decked out as a zombie and the house full of fog from the fog machine, and zombie sounds echoing through the house from the speakers. He had a fun time handing out candy, but may have been just a little bit too scary because we had a lot of leftover candy!

Little Bitty Director

2012-09-19T20:00:00.000-04:00

I shared previously some of Bitty's work creating short movies with series' of still-shots of his trains.

He has since moved on to borrowing my camcorder (and tripod) and taking short video clips of his trains, or his characters in Roblox (an online building game where you can design your own "world"). He plays music (mostly his new favorite-evah song - "Break My Stride") or narration from YouTube in the background.

Home

2012-09-19T19:30:00.000-04:00

A Close Shave

2012-09-17T19:30:00.000-04:00

Bitty acting out a scene from "A Close Shave for Duck" (from Thomas, of course), with a bubble beard :).

His favorite episodes are the ones with crashes (of course!) and his favorite line, which we hear repeated often as he throws himself to the floor, is "... but it was TOO LATE!!" lol

Have I mentioned how much I love seeing him pretend play? :D

Handsome x3

2012-09-16T13:36:00.001-04:00

We got the boys some new dress clothes for church :).

When Cuddlebug and Bearhug were little, we had a hard time getting them to wear anything other than their usual day-to-day clothes, largely due to their sensory issues. Church was enough of a battle without adding to it by forcing them to wear uncomfortable clothes - and so we have always let them wear polo shirts and khaki pants to church (with the exception of their baptism day).

But, as they are quickly approaching an age where they will be more young men than little boys, we thought it was time (again) to try having them wear dress shirts and ties. Actually tucked in and everything. With a belt (so that's what those loops are for!). And dress shoes. And we figured as long as we're getting our big boys some dress clothes, we'd do the same for Bitty.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that nearly all of the rampant complaining that day was NOT from Mr. Bitty. But by the time we left church both Cuddlebug and Bearhug had decided it wasn't SO bad after all.

"Behind the scenes" of how I managed to get a picture of actual smiles ;). Doesn't matter what they're wearing, these two never pass up a chance for a play-fight. This one is actually relatively mild :).

Peter Sam (the engine, in his best "most interesting man" voice) says, "I don't always go to church, but when I do, I go with Bitty." :)

Taken outside before church... I tried to get one of all three boys together, but as you can see that didn't work out.

Splash pad!

2012-09-16T12:30:00.000-04:00

A little water-fun downtime after the first week of school. Those smiles say it all, right?

Bearhug as zombie. Be afraid... be very afraid!

Leavin' on a jet plane...

2012-09-16T11:53:00.000-04:00

This summer I took Bearhug and Cuddlebug on a trip to visit family. Bitty and dh stayed home, mostly because we're not quite ready to try air travel with Bitty just yet.

This was Cuddlebug and Bearhug's second trip on a plane, and they did great with the airport procedures, etc. It helped that we took the earliest flight possible in the morning so it wasn't too crowded when we went through security.

The lady checking ID's asked Cuddlebug how old he was and who he was traveling with, then asked him where he was going. He answered the first two questions just fine with one-word answers, but on the third one his expression went blank as he stood there thinking for a minute, then finally he turned to me and asked, "Hey Mom, where are we going again?" Awkward.

Next it was Bearhug's turn. She asked him how old he was and that was about as far as she got since he gave her the long version, "Eleven, same age as 'Cuddlebug' except I'm just two minutes younger and I'm going to the same destination as him and my mom..." he would have kept going, but we managed to move, thankfully there wasn't a long line behind us :).

(Most of the pictures below are new, a few I have posted before but I wanted to have them all in one post)

Waiting in the airport

Playing Angry Birds on the plane :)

Train surfing (trying to balance without holding on)

Visiting the Air Force base, where they signed the gigantic post card :)

Swimming with cousins (note: I typically try to be careful not to post pics of other people's kids on my blog, at least not where you can see their faces, without permission... in case you're wondering why there are not many pics of their cousins, it's not because I didn't take many!) :)

How many boys can you fit inside a stack of floaties? (anyone else remember "how many guys in bunny suits can fit into an H&R block"? hehe)

Race!

Love those smiles! :)

Helping their little cousin onto the floatie...

...and all three of them riding together :)

Love this one too... my little niece kept asking me to take her picture while she jumped :).

Looking rather Jason Bourne-esque, no?

uh-oh... ;)

At the airport with Grandma and Grandpa - the boys were sad to be leaving :(

Sunrise viewed from ~30k feet (pilots feel free to correct me if my estimate is way off base)

Waiting for the train to take us to our gate for the last leg of our trip

I am so proud of how well they both did travelling, and had a great time with my big boys! I missed my little guy though (and dh of course) so it was nice to get home too and have the family all together again :).

Sensory coping success

2012-09-10T00:19:00.004-04:00

The slightest hint of a popping sound in the distance.

The sight of them boxed up at those tents that start springing up about a month in advance.

Even a mention of the word "fireworks" is enough to bring on a screaming fit of terror.

(leave it to big brother Cuddlebug to notice that and start trying to work the word "fireworks" into his conversations just to get a reaction from Bitty... and leave it to me to tell him "stop saying the F word!" before I realized that came out wrong... dh got a chuckle out of that)

For most of the month of June, Bitty frequently expressed his disdain for any and all holidays that involve the lighting of celebratory explosives. Namely, the 4th of July and New Year's Eve. He was even less happy when a few people in the surrounding area starting lighting them a few days early, and kept lighting them a few days afterward.

The good news is that this year he was able to tolerate it better than in years past. Partly with the help of these:

Those are the kind that shooters wear to protect their ears from the noise, so we figured it would help muffle most of the sound. It helped, and we were able to spend the afternoon relaxing with several of our neighbors at a "barbecue party" as Bitty calls it :).

Bitty was able to handle the fireworks going off in the surrounding area here and there throughout the day with his headphones, but when it started getting dark, he knew we'd be lighting them up close in our neighborhood and he didn't want to stick around for that, so I took him inside while dh stayed outside with our older boys so they could enjoy the celebration (unlike Bitty, they LOVE fireworks).

I turned on the tv and cranked up the movie "Independence Day" about as loud as we could stand it to help drown out the noise outside, and Bitty kept his headphones on too.

He cracked me up because at one point I realized we were coming up on a scary part of the movie so I tried to cover his eyes. He just looked at me and said, "Das not scary."

So... slimy aliens attacking - not scary. Slightest hint of a firework - terrifying.

Got it.

I was really glad we found a way to help him cope without a meltdown, and proud of him for being willing to give it a try.

We'll definitely be pulling out the headphones again for New Year's Eve!

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Cuddlebug and Bearhug, taken earlier in the day :)

Chicken

2012-08-27T20:30:00.000-04:00

Painting by Little Bitty.

I LOVE it :)

Two weeks in...

2012-08-19T17:56:00.000-04:00

School started two weeks ago.

First day of 2nd grade:

First day of 6th grade (middle school!):

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Two weeks in, we are slowly getting into a new routine. Bearhug and Cuddlebug seem to be adjusting well to middle school overall. It's a challenge with so much being new - the school itself, lockers, separate teachers for each subject, electives, etc. and it's a lot to keep track of, but I'm really proud of how well they're doing.

We requested that they be in the same classes as much as possible, and they ended up being scheduled for all the same classes, which is great at least for this year. They've been in separate classes before but have been together for the last two school years and they work well together. They have enough changes going on this year without adding being separated for much of the day on top of everything else. And let's be honest, it also helps us to keep track of homework assignments, projects, etc. when they have the same teachers :).

Both of the boys decided to join the orchestra at school. They each chose to play the cello. I'm really excited for them and hope they enjoy it. Both dh and I played music growing up and hope it will be a good experience for them. They get to start with instruments tomorrow :).

Bitty is doing well so far at school, and he's been great about getting up and ready in the morning. He still complains about going to school every day though :(. His teacher said he is doing well. She said she's been pacing his academic work to parallel the general ed class and he's keeping up just fine so that is good. However, during the time that he actually *goes* to the general ed class, there are a couple of areas where he's struggling and it sounds like it's more in terms of the approach being different. So we may need to adjust his IEP. Already. We're going to talk about it this week. Hopefully whatever changes we make will help him feel better about school...

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Here is some of what the boys brought home their first week of school:

Bitty's class worked on how to draw cats (which I'm sure he LOVED!). He adores cats. And as you may recall, one of his first drawings from a couple of years ago was of a cat. :)

Bearhug and Cuddlebug were each asked to fill out a "getting to know you" questionnaire. Here's an excerpt from each.

Cuddlebug:
#4 made me laugh as he clearly demonstrates his point, and his answer to #15 is just so sweet! :)

Bearhug:
love how he states the obvious in #4, and his reply to #7 is just so... him :)

The questionnaire was two pages long and the last question from the teacher was "do you have any questions for me?" so this was Bearhug's response (LOL):

Where did THAT come from?!

2012-07-22T23:26:00.000-04:00

So thankfully it's been a while since bathtime was a full-on battle.

Which is why I was totally surprised the other day when I went to give Bitty his bath only to have him not only refuse (yeah, that's not so rare but usually he gets in even while he's complaining and saying he's not taking a bath) but actually start to have a meltdown over it. A screaming, flopping, fit.

When he jumped into the tub specifically to pull the plug, I took the opportunity to very quickly start scrubbing him down. Because I could tell this wasn't going to be one of those times where he fights it and eventually goes along, he was digging in for the long haul. And I just wanted to get it over with, because he needed to go to bed earlier than usual to get up for a dentist appt (checkup) early the next morning.

(As an aside, gotta love this little exchange with dh:
dh: "who scheduled their dentist appt for 8am?"
me: "you did."
dh: "are you sure?"
me: "yes. you scheduled it when you were there for their last appointment."
dh: "oh yeah... why would I schedule it so early?"
me: "I have no idea."
dh: "oh wait... I was thinking of their school schedule, I forgot they wouldn't be in school."
(in July, hehe)
me: "hehe")

Anyway, so I quickly grabbed the soap, blocked his exit from the tub as best I could, and did the fastest wash-down I have done in a long time. As you can imagine, he screamed at the top of his lungs and tried in true linebacker style to push his way out of the tub.

He eventually succeeded, but luck was on my side. The drain was still plugged, and for whatever reason, he just couldn't leave it alone so he jumped back in to pull the plug again.

I had just enough advance warning that he was going back in to grab the shampoo and do a quick scrub of his hair (good thing he's sporting a buzz). I had to get him back in there a couple more times to actually rinse it sufficiently, all the while he was screaming and going ballistic, but we made it through and then I got out of his way and let him out.

In typical Bitty fashion, the end of the bath didn't calm him down in the least. He was so mad he tried to kick the bathtub (to "break it" although I was more worried about his feet than the tub), still shrieking about the injustice of having a bath.

It took him a while to calm down, and he got upset all over again when I told him it was time for bed.

He pointed indignantly out the window, "but it's still BLUE out!!!"

I tried to argue the point, but quickly conceded since I could tell it would only be a continued meltdown in his bedroom and totally defeat the purpose of going to bed early (for him to actually get some rest). So I told him he could stay up until it was "black" out.

And he was fine after that, aside from a few more muttered complaints about the bath ("do I want to take a bath? I don't, do I!! I don't look happy about dat bath!"). And it dawned on me that the whole reason for the bath fiasco could have been the fact that I started bathtime before it was totally dark out.

What was I thinking?!

In hindsight it seems obvious, but it wasn't at the time. With some effort we've managed to convince him that baths are needed every night and we've more or less gotten into a routine of baths right before bedtime. It's not always at the same time (but now that I think about it, it is pretty much always after dark), so I didn't really consider the time factor and didn't think about the fact that the sky turning black is apparently part of the whole bath / bed routine for him.

We have two weeks to undo that particular part of the routine, because school is about to start and it's going to be a while yet before it gets dark early enough to wait for dark on a school night.

Wish us luck!

(p.s. the dentist appt went well, no cavities, yay!)

My sweet baby

2012-07-18T19:20:00.000-04:00

Impromptu photo session in the front yard. He humored me to a point, and then he went back inside to play.

Birthday party landmines

2012-07-17T18:54:00.000-04:00

Bitty was invited to a birthday party a couple of months ago. He's not a big fan of birthday parties even though I have taken him to a few (he gets a fair amount of invites for a guy who rarely talks about his classmates outside of school). This one was from a boy that he has known since preschool and is also on the spectrum, one of the few people he does talk about every now and then, and so I wanted to take him. I knew he'd have fun since it was a local indoor playground with lots of foam things to play on, etc.

He was anxious about the whole thing and refused to go until I stopped calling it a "birthday party" and started calling it a "pizza party" (not entirely inaccurate, considering the invitation specifically said there would be pizza). We started off on a good foot because as soon as he saw the birthday boy and his whole family were wearing Angry Birds t-shirts, he smiled and relaxed as he admired their shirts :).

Not long after that though, he went to play in the play area only to come running out SHRIEKING as if he'd seen a ghost in there. After I managed to calm him down, I went to see what had scared him so much and found the culprit.

(not the actual balloons, I was too busy comforting my little guy to take a picture at the time and didn't think to do it afterward)

Oh the horror. You couldn't see it from where I'd been standing because there was a little half-wall but when I got up close, I could see the floor inside was covered in these.

Covered.

Much scarier than any ghost could be, right? I mean, those things could POP at any moment and it's loud when they do. Even a lone balloon far away but still within visual range is cause for anxiety, so you can imagine the reaction to unexpectedly finding himself surrounded by several of them.

Seriously, considering my little guy's balloon issues, it is truly a miracle that he didn't INSIST on leaving right then and there. He actually managed to get back in control and go play in another (balloon-free) area. Oh yeah, I was a proud mama. :)

He kind of kept to himself, as he often does. Not in a shy way, rather in a "I'm going to do my thing and you're welcome to play alongside me, or not I really don't care" kind of way. He's generally not much for interactive play, although his brothers are tenacious enough to force it on him at times (when they're not too busy doing big kid stuff) :).

When it was time for pizza and cake it took me a few minutes to coax him away from the foam blocks so we were the last ones in. He found a spot at a table in the middle but then he saw the cake.

An Angry Birds cake.

He didn't care about any of the birthday goings-on, all he wanted was to play with the birds and the slingshot on that cake. He kept jumping out of his chair and running up to "look" at it. Finally, frustrated with his inability to look with his eyes and not his hands, I told him he could look at it from his chair (which was halfway across the room).

Without missing a beat, he ran over and started dragging his chair over to sit next to the cake.

Sigh. The boy is too smart for his own good. One of the dads at the party chuckled at his ingenuity, "you did say he could look from his chair." I was glad no one seemed too put out by Bitty's antics... but I was relieved when they finally blew out the candles and the mom discreetly put the cake toys out of sight. After that, Bitty was fine. He covered his ears when everyone sang the birthday song, but he enjoyed some pizza and cake and then joined the other kids to play some more before it was time to go.

When it was time to go, I slowly made my way to the exit to give him time to transition and it helped. After a few preliminary attempts, he broke away from the foam blocks (again) and went on his own to get his shoes and we headed out. I asked if he had fun and he said yes. It was worth it for that :).

June, in pictures

2012-07-16T20:07:00.000-04:00

Aside from Cuddlebug and Bearhug's birthday, here's a recap of what we did in June.

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Dh and I celebrated our 19th anniversary last month. We took the whole family out to dinner to celebrate, here are my four handsome dates for the evening :).

Bitty is very particular about his drink and insisted on a big cup like the rest of us had, so the waitress brought one out clearly labelled for him :).

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Bearhug and Cuddlebug defended the house against zombies with super-soakers, lol. Bitty wanted to join in, so they "volunteered" him to play the part of zombie. He didn't care though and didn't really try to play the part, he was just happy to be outside playing with his brothers :).

After the zombie-hunt, Bitty put his watergun to use watering the plants :).

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I took Cuddlebug and Bearhug on a trip to visit family. I'll have a separate post on that but here's a preview.
In the airport:

Swimming

It was brutally hot... although to be fair this was taken right after we started up the truck and it cooled down after that. If by "cooled down" you mean, all the way to a chilly 110°.

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The lazy cat was, well, lazy. Every day. He loves this window cat bed we got for him, which gives him a great view of the birdfeeders outside.

From the garden

May, in pictures

2012-07-15T13:51:00.000-04:00

Catching up, wanted to share some of what we did in May (separate post coming soon for June).

Little Bitty's class participated in Special Olympics soccer. I was able to take time off from work to go cheer him on with dh :).

I'm glad my big guys aren't too big for this yet :). They've been doing this for years... their typical way to pass the time while we are at the checkout :).

Bitty lost his first tooth. He kept trying to put it back in until I finally put it in an envelope, out of sight, to go under his pillow. He seemed a little weirded out that a mysterious fairy would be willing to give him money in exchange for his tooth. What does she do with all those teeth? Still, he tried to stay awake so he could see her and whenever I told him to go to sleep he answered, "I AM sleeping!" lol

Cuddlebug's science fair project, in which he and Bearhug were the test subjects. He measured their heart rate after various intervals of playing different types of video games, to see (1) whether video games raise your heart rate, and (2) whether different types of games have a different impact on heart rate. Or more specifically, does playing a zombie-attack game raise your heart more than, say, playing an adventure or puzzle game? Hint, the answers were (1) yes and (2) yes and he had the charts to prove it :).

These two have been at each other's throats more and more lately, so when there was a peaceful moment of video game mentoring going on, I had to snap a picture. You know, in case it didn't happen again for a while...

Never too big for a kiddie pool (also, nothing encourages brothers to put their differences aside than a little water fun!)

From the garden

In his own words

2012-07-14T02:20:00.000-04:00

"i like thomas and freinds and i like spongebob i have thomas toys i also like angry birds"

~ found on Bitty's "user information" on the flipnote website. Too cute (and quite fitting, no?) Just had to share.

:)

On a related note, here are a couple of his latest flipnotes.

He figured out how to take sequential pictures and make movie-style flipnotes with them. These are all pictuers of his toys. Pretty creative if you ask me!

This one he narrated himself, I love his voice (and wow he is speaking more and more clearly)! He's quoting a lot of it from "Oliver the Western Engine" in which Oliver gets stuck in a turntable well. I have to give him credit, he couldn't find his wooden Oliver train so he improvised and used another one to play the role of Oliver in his pictures. I was impressed that although he was a little stressed out about it (and keeps asking me where Oliver is, unfortunately I don't have a clue), he was able to come up with his own workaround.

(he changed his username to "spike fan," I don't really know why...)

Overheard...

2012-07-08T19:10:00.002-04:00

Various conversations and comments from the last couple of weeks:

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Cuddlebug (reading billboard): 'Red Bull gives you wings'... I wish that was true, because I really want to fly...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bearhug: Time machines won't be invented in my lifetime, because if they were I would've come back to say hi to myself by now. I would do it at this time because right now is when I'm interested in time machines.

Hard to argue with his logic, huh? :)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bearhug: "Do you know where I can learn telekinesis?"

me: No...

Bearhug: "Daaaarrrnn!!"

lol :)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuddlebug: "I recommend you don't ever lick the bottom of my shoes. (pause) I don't use my hands to flush the handles of public toilets, I use my shoes."

Good thing I don't make a habit of licking the bottom of his shoes... not sure why he thought to tell me that. Eewww :/

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bitty's latest thing is "are you just kidding?" whenever we say something he doesn't agree with or answer a question in a way that he finds unacceptable. Sometimes we just can't convince him otherwise, so we finally have to go with, "uh, yeah, we were just kidding..." ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bitty: I wike Thomas, do I? Because he's awesome!!! But [CB & BH] don' fink he's awesome do they? Is Thomas awesome? Am I seven to wike Thomas?

Cuddlebug and Bearhug have been giving him a hard time about the fact that he likes Thomas ("Thomas is for babies!" "I not a baby! I'm a big boy!") but as I keep reminding them, they were really into Thomas when they were 7 too, so Thomas IS for big boys.

Biology, according to Bitty

2012-07-08T18:42:00.001-04:00

Bitty often asks me out of the blue what certain words mean. Because of his language difficulties, he doesn't always pick up on "context clues" and he has a strong preference for concrete, easy-to-visualize explanations.

I do my best, but my walking-dictionary-on-the-fly skills sometimes fall short.

Bitty: What does "born" mean?

me: You mean like when babies are born?

Bitty: When I was born.

me: It means you came out of my tummy. Babies are in their mommies' tummies before they are born.

Bitty: I was in your tummy?

me: Yep

Bitty: Did you eat me?

(groan, HOW did I not see that one coming?!)

me: No, honey, babies grow in their mommies' tummies and when they are big enough to be born, they come out of the tummies.

Bitty: I don't want to go in your tummy.

me: That's ok, because you're already born. You've been out of my tummy since you were a little baby.

Bitty: Was I born?

me: Yes

Bitty: So I not in your tummy anymore?

me: No, you're a big boy now, way too big to be in my tummy.

Bitty: Do mommies eat da babies? To put dem in da tummies?

me: *NO*, no one eats the babies, they're in the tummies to grow.

Having been through some of these discussions w/ Cuddlebug and Bearhug, I had my explanation all ready to go as to how babies get IN and OUT of tummies, but he wasn't having it (after all, when you're convinced you already know something, who needs mom trying to explain it to you, right?). So I tried to change the subject.

I had a lightbulb moment yesterday when I realized that his coming to that conclusion probably had something to do with this little chat earlier that same day as we were eating lunch:

Bitty: Does my tummy have a mouf?

me: No, the food goes from your mouth, down to your tummy.

Bitty: Where does da food go after da tummy? to da WEE-WEEEE??

(yeah, I'm sure the elderly couple behind us enjoyed that little anatomy lesson, lol)

Two completely unrelated topics in my mind, but in hindsight I guess I can see how he put two and two together... :/

He's asked me about it again a few times since then, at random moments:

Bitty: Mom? I don't want to be in your tummy.

me: I know, don't worry you're not going to be in my tummy anymore.

Bitty: Because I was born, was I?

me: Yep.

Bitty: Are you gonna eat me? To put me in your tummy?

me: NNOOO, no I'm not.

I'm thinking maybe I should have dh add a little biology to the mix for his summer homeschool lessons - to illustrate the difference between the digestive system and the reproductive system. Maybe the visuals will help.

In the meantime, I just hope he doesn't decide to start asking questions like that the next time he sees a pregnant woman (sigh).

Happy birthday America!!

2012-07-04T16:54:00.001-04:00

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
...
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

~ Excerpt from the United States Declaration of Independence

As we celebrate our nation's Independence Day, please take a moment to remember the brave souls who fought (and many died) to establish a nation founded on liberty, as well as the sacrifices of patriots through the years since that time to defend and protect our liberty. May all of us as Americans today "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" and do our part to preserve liberty for the generations to come.

Happy 4th of July!

Birthday boys!

2012-07-01T21:38:00.000-04:00

I know I ask this every year, but seriously, where does the time go?!

Cuddlebug and Bearhug celebrated their 11th birthday last month.

The big 1-1. And they are already acting like they're teenagers, ack. They keep telling me things like "teenagers like (fill in the blank)" and "you don't understand teenage humor." (you mean they've already figured out my sense of humor is more along the lines of a 9-yr-old? haha). To which I remind them that they aren't teenagers. YET. heh.

Anyway, so when we asked them if they wanted to have a party or a nice dinner out (to the restaurant of their choice) they chose dinner. Being that's it's summer and I had taken the day off from work, they were treating it like Christmas morning and weren't too pleased that dh thought they should wait until at least noonish to open presents. Of course, that was partly because one of their presents hadn't arrived yet and we were expecting it in the mail that day (talk about cutting it close, right?).

It did arrive, and I was able to wrap it quickly without them seeing, and then we got the party started :).

I love the cooperative effort here. They are so awesome that way :).

Checking out one present while opening another.

Enjoying their dinner out :).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy birthday Bearhug and Cuddlebug!! Every day that you have been a part of my life has been infinitely better than any day up to that point. I love you both SOO much and am truly blessed to be your mom. xoxo

The graduates

2012-06-09T11:49:00.000-04:00

Cue Alice Cooper, because as of a couple of weeks ago, it's official... school's out.

Two of my babies have graduated from 5th grade, bringing their elementary school days to a close.

I can't believe they are growing up so fast, but I am SO proud of them!

They each earned awards for being on the A/B honor roll all year, and all through elementary school. Awesome job, guys!!

On the last day of school, I took the day off so we could go to their 5th grade graduation, and later that day was Bitty's end-of-year class party.

His class is fairly small (it's a self-contained ASD class) so the teacher let each of the kids get up to read a poem that they've been working on.

Here is Bitty's poem, I love it!

And the drawing (of himself) that he did with it:

After we got home that day, Bitty celebrated the beginning of summer with - what else - Angry Birds :).

He's been getting more creative and building "structures" for the pigs. We put them on a blanket so it wouldn't be so loud when the birds knocked the structures down (dh was taking a nap).

"Level complete!"

Da Moves

2012-05-19T19:44:00.000-04:00

We kept seeing this song on tv...

...and Bitty kept singing it to himself.

Then one day he got curious:

Bitty: Does Elmo got da moves?

me: Yeah

Bitty: Does that mean Elmo can dance?

me: Yeah

Bitty: What is da moves?

me: It means you can dance.

(he stops to ponder that)

Bitty: I don't got da moves.

me: Me either :)

Angry Birds

2012-05-12T19:37:00.000-04:00

Bitty asked me to help him make a slingshot.

Turns out this is what he had in mind:

Yep, we made a slingshot out of old pantyhose, lol. I set up the pigs at the bottom of the stairs for him, and Bitty had the birds lined up behind the slingshot (just like on the game).

He's really into Angry Birds these days... he asks me almost every day, "Do you wike Angry Birds? I wike Angry Birds. Do you wike da bwoo bird? Is da bwoo bird cute?" (note: the correct answer is yes, the blue bird IS cute!)

He has even expressed some interest in the plot line of the game, which I thought was pretty cool:

"Why are da birds angry?"

"Because the pigs stole their eggs."

"Why did da pigs stoled da eggs?"

"Because they like eggs."

"Do angry birds attack pigs?"

"Yep"

"Who do angry pigs attack?"

"That's a good question... birds?"

He recently made this flipnote which I thought was pretty creative (although obviously I'm quite biased!)

On IEP's, speech, and girls

2012-05-06T20:17:00.000-04:00

So last month we had the IEP meetings for Cuddlebug and Bearhug to set up their transition-to-middle-school IEPs. The ASD resource teacher from the middle school was there, which was great because we were able to get a lot of our questions answered as to how things work in middle school, both in general and specific to the autism program. I am feeling a little better about the whole thing now that we have *some* idea of what to expect.

This week there is a field trip for the 5th graders to visit the middle school, and also an informational meeting for parents.

While they will have an open house in the fall, the resource teacher said she is happy to set up a separate time for her students to come when it will be quiet so they can take their time to get familiar with where everything is without the huge crowd. That is AWESOME, and we will definitely be taking her up on that!

One of their electives will be a social skills class, which also includes spending some time tutoring kindergartners at the elementary school which is connected to the middle school. I think that will be a great experience for them (and who knows, may even help them develop a little more patience for their little brother... a mom can hope, right?). The teacher said that both her students and the kindergartners really enjoy it, and it's a great learning experience all around.

And... (drumroll please)... Cuddlebug and Bearhug have now officially "graduated" from speech therapy. :) There are still some articulation issues but it's either things that they physically can't help or they know how to make the right sounds in a therapy environment and it's just a matter of remembering to do it in conversational speech which is something we can work on at home. When I told the boys about that they were pretty happy, poor Cuddlebug seemed really relieved. He seemed to like it more when he was younger but not so much anymore... I felt bad when he told me, "a lot of other kids finished speech a lot sooner than me and 'Bearhug.'" He's never said anything like that before so I didn't realize he was noticing (although I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he notices everything). I just told him it's different for everyone depending on what they're working on, and that's ok. I also told him how proud I am of both of them because I know how hard they have worked in speech as well as at school.

His current resource teacher told us they've been talking to the 5th graders about middle school, and letting them share what they are nervous about and excited about regarding middle school.

On both of their lists (both boys and both nervous and excited about) was "having a girlfriend."

Oh my.

Which reminds me of a recent conversation we had in the car.

Cuddlebug: "We're starting to be interested in girls."

me: ('wha?!?!' on the inside, cool as a cucumber on the outside or at least I think so) "Really?"

Bearhug: "Yeah, or at least the girls are starting to be interested in us."

(Now that I already knew, but I didn't realize that THEY knew it yet)

me: "How do you know?"

Bearhug: "A girl gave me a love letter."

me: (still cool on the outside, crying incoherently about how my baby isn't old enough for this stuff yet on the inside) "A love letter? What did it say?"

Bearhug: (totally nonchalant about the whole thing of course) "It said, 'I love you.'"

me: "Wow... what did you say?"

Bearhug: "I didn't respond."

me: (ok, now I'm starting to feel sorry for the poor girl) "umm... you know she had to be pretty brave to give you that. You don't have to say it back, but you should say *something*"

Bearhug: "Oh, I did say something."

(pause to see if he was going to continue but he didn't)

me: "What did you say?"

Bearhug: "I said, 'Aren't we a little young for that?'"

That's my boy ;).

Spring Break

2012-05-06T19:22:00.000-04:00

This year we stayed home for spring break, and my parents came to visit. We had a ton of fun going somewhere different each day. For the most part, we went to places that were familiar to the boys but we did try out one new place which turned out to be a lot of fun.

We spent a day at the park. We let the boys bring their scooters to ride on the trails, and we also brought bread to feed to the ducks.

Bearhug's typical "camera face" lol

He surprised me by actually smiling for a picture :)

Cuddlebug

Bitty feeding the ducks

I love Bearhug's expression in this one... Cuddlebug and Bitty are into feeding the ducks but Bearhug looks so bored. He managed to find his own fun sooner after, building a dam in the little stream that leads to the lake.

What a face!!

My mom and I

I never get tired of all the green - it's beautiful!

Hanging out at the house later that day. I gave Bitty my old camera a while back because he loves to take pictures, he was having me clear off his memory card so he could take some more.

We heard about a local trampoline playground so we went to check it out. Can I just say - PERFECT sensory activity!! Bitty complained that he didn't want to go (because it was new) and usually it takes him anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to relax and get acclimated when we go somewhere new, so I was afraid it would be time to leave before he even got started, but once he saw the trampolines it was only a few minutes before he decided to join in the fun :).

After that we went to the park (a different one this time).

Bitty loves the swings... (I love his smile in these pictures)

...but he was willing to share :)

It was great to see all three boys playing together. Cuddlebug and Bearhug even took turns pushing their little brother on the swing.

Grandma and Grandpa had a fun time too :)

Love their smiles! The tire swing is perfect for twins, no?

And one day we took a little drive into the mountains to see the waterfalls. It was weird to have to wear coats and pants, but it was cold and rainy that day. And foggy! But the fog cleared up while we were there.

Flipnotes

2012-04-28T18:10:00.000-04:00

I didn't really plan to take a blogging hiatus, it just kind of happened...

I didn't think it had been THAT long, but I came back and blogger has totally changed... ack!

I have some stuff to post about but in the meantime thought I'd share some of the boys' flipnotes :).

Bitty got his own Nintendo DSi for his birthday so he's been eagerly working on his animation techniques, mostly by copying his brothers which drives them crazy (they accused him of "copyright infringement," lol). I keep telling them he will start to do more of his own original stuff once he gets the hang of it (and he has been).

Here's one that makes me smile every time I see it, it's just sooo cute :). This is Bitty's character "Hatdude" dancing. For the record, Hatdude is not a stick figure. According to Bitty, he's a "triangle figure," which makes sense because his arms and legs are triangles, not sticks :). Bitty's username on the flipnote site is "Roblox" so that last part is his signature. (make sure the sound is on, it's great with the music) :).

UPDATE: So Bitty decided to delete his flipnote and he reposted another one but I managed to download the original before he deleted it, so here it is :).

Bearhug has two original series that he created, one is a couple of spiders named S and X. That's him doing the sound effects / music :).

The other is about two characters named Wacko and Weirdo :).

Cuddlebug also has a series called Dino and Allen Dino (although he told me recently that Allen Dino was originally supposed to be Alien Dino but he spelled it wrong and it stuck.

This one features Dino and his friends, and a song about broken glass (don't ask, I have no idea where it came from but I wish it didn't get stuck in my head so easily).

And another one of Cuddlebug's, with stick men. That's him doing the sound effects (and a little help from Bearhug too, lol).

Pinewood Derby bound

2012-02-12T18:58:00.000-05:00

It's almost that time of year again.

A couple of weeks ago, we picked up some supplies for this year's Pinewood Derby cars.

Yesterday, we headed to Home Depot to cut out our car designs.

Bearhug actually got into it and let the guy show him how to use the sanding tool.

Bitty supervised (with M&M's).

Cuddlebug wasn't as hands-on, but he did do some of the sanding and showed me his car when he finished.

Bitty decided he wanted in on the action (and he had a car too, even though he's not old enough for Cub Scouts yet we always buy him a block to make his own car along with his brothers). I wasn't about to let him try the power-sanding tools but he was content with the sandpaper, especially when he saw Bearhug using it.

IEP season is off to a rough start

2012-02-12T17:16:00.002-05:00

Last Friday we had Bitty's IEP meeting. Seems like we just had one (oh wait, we did), although that was just an IEP review to update his placement to one that would be more effective for him. We didn't update any of his goals at the time.

So this was his regular IEP to update goals for the upcoming year.

I have always had mixed feelings about IEP meetings... on the one hand, it tends to be a bit of a reality check on where my kids are developmentally, relative to their peers. Since I don't really have that much experience with children other than my own, it can be easy sometimes to get into the "this is our normal" groove and not really think about it that much until there it is, all spelled out.

The upside though, is that the IEP meeting also generally serves as an opportunity to see just how much progress they have made over the last year. For the most part my boys have always mastered at least most of the their goals by the time the IEP year has passed, and while we might carry over a few that they are still working on, the rest are either replaced with new ones or stretched / expanded to the next level.

Until now.

We reviewed the measurements of how Bitty is doing on his current goals, and my heart sank a bit when I saw he was still struggling with most of them. I mean, I know he's had a challenging year but I guess I wasn't quite mentally prepared for that.

Then we started going through his goals for this year's IEP. I actually felt tears welling up (and I don't cry that easily) when I realized we'd been through several and the only change we'd made so far was to lower his reading level in order to (hopefully) help with his reading comprehension. He is hyperlexic (pretty much taught himself to read at an early age and reads beyond his grade level) but still struggles to answer even the most basic questions about what he's read (who, what, where, why, when), even when given the opportunity to look in the book for the answers. He has a visual chart for the "W" questions that shows what kind of question is being asked, and that helps a little but it still takes a lot of prompting.

So that's how it went. For the most part, his goals for 2nd grade will be the same as they were for 1st grade. The notable exception being his handwriting - he still has issues with pencil grip and hand strength but you really wouldn't know it to see his handwriting, it's quite good. We just need to keep working on it so that as he starts having to write more, his hand won't get tired too fast.

The main reason for his difficulty on the rest of his goals still comes back to the language delays, which impacts pretty much everything. His speech / articulation has improved considerably, and his memory is pretty phenomenal so he can recite entire episodes of his favorite shows. He has a pretty good handle on the typical day-to-day interactions (through much practice, and still with a fair amount of effort). But anything new or out of the routine that requires language (receptive or expressive) is such a challenge for him. And educational learning, by definition, tends to be a lot of new information (with some review of course).

It's really hard to see him struggle so much, but I'm so proud of him because no matter how hard it is, he keeps trying and with a positive attitude. Everyone who works with him comments on what a joy he is to be around (seriously they do, that's not just me being biased!) :).

Next up (later this spring) will be the IEP's for Cuddlebug and Bearhug. The ones that will transition them to middle school (ack!). I'm open to suggestions if there are things you think we should consider or make sure to include.

December adventures (better late than never)

2012-01-29T18:29:00.000-05:00

The last month of 2011 was a blur, but here's my best effort to remember the highlights (probably not in order, but close enough).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Little Bitty got into a fight with a wall and lost. Ok, really he was running one direction and looking in another direction (as he often does, despite continual reminders not to run in the house at all), and cut his head when he ran right into a corner on the wall. So we spent one chilly Friday night at the urgent care clinic and Bitty had to get two staples in his head (they couldn't use the glue since the cut was in his hair). It was a little traumatic, but he calmed down pretty quick once it was over.

When Bitty and I got home from the doctor that night, Cuddlebug took one look at Bitty's head and said, "ewww, can't you make him wear a hat?" Bearhug asked me how long he'd have to have the staples in, and when I told him two weeks he groaned and said, "aww man! now I have to be nice to him for two whole weeks!" LOL, brotherly love :).

For the most part, Bitty handled it well over the two weeks he had the staples in, although at one point he got tired of feeling them there when he touched his head and asked me where the staple remover was... I made sure it was somewhere he couldn't find it, just in case.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuddlebug and Bearhug discovered Chuck Norris jokes. You've probably heard some of them:

Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.
All men are created equal, except Chuck Norris.
When Chuck Norris cuts onions, the onions cry.
The GPS asks Chuck Norris for directions.
The boogeyman checks his closet and under his bed for Chuck Norris every night.

You get the idea :). I love that the boys find these so funny, and even downloaded an app full of these jokes so I could tell the boys. We've had a lot of fun trying to come up with new ones to make them laugh too :).

On Christmas Eve when I was trying to get them to go to sleep, I told them Santa can't deliver anything until they are asleep. They told me "Santa doesn't deliver presents, Chuck Norris does!" Well, Chuck Norris can't deliver anything until they are asleep either! ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last few years Bearhug and Cuddlebug have made a tradition of bringing their blankets and pillows downstairs to have a "sleepover" by the Christmas tree, but this year we had to talk them out of it because we got them a computer and a desk that we needed to bring in and set up for them and we didn't want to risk them waking up and seeing it. We had it at our neighbor's house (he doesn't have kids and offered to let us store presents there so they wouldn't find them) and would have to walk right by them if they were in front of the tree. So we made them a deal, if they would agree to sleep in their bedroom, we'd agree to get up as soon as they woke us up in the morning, without the usual stalling ;).

They agreed. And we were prepared to wake up at the crack of dawn.

So we were surprised when Christmas morning came and Bitty was the only one up (he's always the first one up). We slept in a little, and then finally decided to get up and take a shower, figuring CB and BH would be up any minute. But as it turned out, we had plenty of time and were hanging out downstairs waiting when they finally came downstairs. Lucky for us, Bitty was content to go about his usual vacation morning routine (he likes to play games on the computer before his brothers wake up when he can play without being bothered) and he didn't make a fuss about opening the presents or trying to wake his brothers up (if he had, we would have let him wake them up... after all I don't think they would have minded). I guess that's what happens when you stay up almost all night waiting for Santa (er, Chuck Norris).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a Lego Christmas at our house. In fact there was one particular train that Bitty asked for (at the last minute of course) that we had to jump through flaming hoops to actually get (long story) but we did manage to pull it off just in time. :)

The Lego instruction books are great - no words, just pictures that show step by step what goes on next. Bitty was able to follow them pretty well by himself, although all of us (including Cuddlebug and Bearhug) were more than willing to help :). It was like a Lego party, with everyone building together. Very fun :).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We made cookies :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bearhug and Cuddlebug made a time machine for school. It was part of a group project on persuasive writing where they wrote and filmed a commercial to sell an item (they chose to sell a time machine).

School / IEP update for Bitty

2012-01-08T20:06:00.000-05:00

A while back I posted about some of the difficulties Bitty has been having in school.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, we had a meeting with the school to review his IEP and discuss changes to help better meet his needs. We learned that he was basically requiring almost constant one-on-one support from the resource teacher / parapros in his class which isn't really what they are set up to do. The challenge comes down to communication - if the subject is straightforward and doesn't require much verbal explanation he does great. Spelling, for example. He is a spelling kung fu master :). On the other hand, any subjects or new topics that require verbal explanation are quite difficult, not because he can't understand the subject matter, but because he struggles with language. He's a fast learner and that has helped him to keep up as well as he has, but the whole situation was really stressing him out because he recognized that most of his classmates did not share his struggle to understand what was being said, or what was being asked when the teacher would ask questions.

His teachers suggested he might do better in a smaller class setting, at least for the core subjects, and we agreed to put him in a self-contained ASD class for part of the day (almost half the day when you add up the hours) for math, reading, and writing. For the rest of the subjects he is still in his regular ed class with resource support. It's a much smaller class where all the kids have similar issues and the teachers have the flexibility to tailor to the kids' pace and individual needs much more than in the larger classroom. They also do activities like morning yoga since the physical activity helps the kids focus for learning (honestly, I think all kids would probably benefit from something like that, not just kids on the spectrum). We'll reassess later this year when we update his IEP for next year.

He started in his new class after the Thanksgiving break and so far it is really working out well. His anxiety level is considerably less, he no longer cries about having to go to school and he is doing well academically. He's back to getting all 1's on his daily reports (they have a scale from 1-4 for how he does at staying on task and following instructions with minimal reminders, etc.). It's been hard to see him struggle so much, and although I wish it wasn't so hard for him I'm grateful he's getting the support he needs and relieved that he's back to feeling positive about school.

Little Bitty and Talkin' Santa

2011-12-26T11:54:00.000-05:00

Dh found a talking Santa app for his phone, basically it repeats back whatever you say and Bitty LOVES it. I love his laugh, and the way he pronounces "talkin'" :).

End of November: Getting ready for Christmas

2011-12-26T11:46:00.000-05:00

Found this in my drafts from 11/27, apparently I left it unposted until I could upload the pictures to go with it, and then forgot about it. Can't believe it's been a month since I posted!

----------------------------

Sometimes it's nice to get a break from the routine, even if we do pay a price for it (it's always such an ordeal to get back into the routine once it's been disrupted, especially for Bitty).

The boys had the whole week this past week off from school, so I took some time off from work too. We already had Thursday and Friday off, so I took an extra day and a half so I could spend some time with the boys.

We mostly spent the time getting ready for the holidays, both Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had a few days of really nice weather (for November anyway) so dh put up all the lights outside and picked up a few new decorations for the yard. He gets something new every year, and I'm starting to see how people can end up with their yard and house literally FULL of decorations... somehow I have a feeling that will be us at some point if he keeps this up :).

Tuesday night we planned to pick up our tree, but it started pouring rain, so we waited until Wednesday. We opted to skip the tree farm this year and keep it simple, so we went to Lowe's.

Bitty actually helped us pick out a tree:

Meanwhile, Bearhug and Cuddlebug were wired and couldn't stand still long enough. They ran circles around the tree section...

...and played with the big carts while we looked for the perfect Christmas tree.

Like father, like son... both wearing jackets with their shorts (it wasn't all that cold in the sun, but a little chilly in the shade)

They actually stood still for this one... is it just me, or are they getting big way to fast?!

We found some new Christmas CD's on sale so when we got home with the tree we put those on and blasted Christmas music while Bitty and I decorated the tree. Dh was outside putting the finishing touches on the yard, with the door open so he could hear the music (it was chilly but not too cold to leave the door wide open). Bearhug and Cuddlebug helped him a bit but then returned to their computer games (having "suffered" an afternoon at the stores rather than playing, lol).

It was wonderful having my family all at home, even if two were busy with their games, listening to the same Christmas music from my childhood, appreciating all the adorable handmade ornaments the boys have made over the years as we unpacked them. Bitty even let me sing along, which is R-A-R-E. If you'd ever heard me sing, you'd know why none of the boys ever let me sing out loud (haha), but Bitty is particularly vocal about not wanting to hear anyone sing so I was pleasantly surprised when he didn't start screeching for me to stop. Maybe the CD was loud enough to drown me out :). Maybe he was too busy thinking about the Christmas train that was waiting in its box... I told him we'd set it up as soon as the tree was done.

I was busy trying to put hooks on the ornaments fast enough to keep up with Bitty, and I had to laugh when I looked up to see this (despite the ladder which he has no qualms about climbing up on):

It got to be bedtime, so I finished the ornaments after he went to bed (spreading them out just a bit, lol). We also set up the much-awaited Christmas train so it was ready and waiting when he woke up the next morning.

Of course the first sound we heard the next morning was the little train's engine as it circled the tree. :)

He did express his disapproval of dh's ornaments though, which we put on after he was already in bed.

But dh and I are quite the nerds when it comes to Star Trek, so the ornaments are staying whether Bitty approves or not, and he (thankfully) decided to let it go :). (that second one is a Borg cube that says something along the lines of "Enjoy your holiday, resistance is futile" LOL)

Bearhug loves them, I joked about having almost the entire Federation battling it out on our tree and he got this huge grin and started in with the sound effects :).

And of course no tree of ours would be complete without Longhorn Santa :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, I miss everyone and am hoping to catch up soon!

Sweetness

2011-11-19T22:56:00.000-05:00

Little Bitty actually sleeps in his own bed these days (that was a several-years-long process) but he likes for me to stay with him until he falls asleep. On the rare days that I try to just tuck him in and not climb in next to him, he reminds me, "you wan' to sweep wif me." He's just too cute, and I know I'm going to miss this time when he's older (I already do with Cuddlebug and Bearhug) so I just go with it :).

Anyway, so tonight I was laying there next to him, waiting for him to go to sleep when he reached over and put his little arm around me, patted me on the back and said, "I wuv you."

Heart MELT!!!!

It is SOOO rare for him to say that out of the blue like that, every now and then he says it back when I tell him (which of course I tell him all the time, his response is usually a smile).

I hugged him and told him, "you are SO sweet!"

To which he responded, "I DO wook sweet!"

I couldn't help but laugh because it was so cute the way he said it (reminded me of when Bearhug used to respond to my telling him he was cute by saying, "I AM cute!" lol).

Not sure how to interpret my laugh, he asked me, "aww you jus' kidding?" (he asks that because we joke a lot at our house and he knows that laughter is a cue that someone is kidding).

"No, I'm not kidding. You ARE sweet."

He smiled and rolled over, snuggling in his blankies.

He's sleeping now, I definitely wanted to write this down right away because it's one of those happy moments that I want to always remember in detail :).

Backyard photo session

2011-11-19T22:41:00.000-05:00

We took the boys to have their pictures done (we haven't done that in two years, because it is such an ordeal).

Despite talking with the photographer ahead of time to give them a heads up about the boys' issues and the fact that it generally takes some extra time and patience to get some decent pictures of them, it didn't go so well.

She tried, but made it kind of a chore and the boys ended up having an "off" day and weren't being particularly cooperative.

I decided to try taking some myself instead. I have friends who do their own photo sessions with their kids around town and was inspired by their pictures. I knew we probably couldn't anything so elaborate as actually go somewhere to take pictures, but we have some pretty trees out behind our house so I figured that would work with minimal time and effort (not that I mind spending the time, but I'm trying to work with the boys' attention span which is especially short for stuff like pictures).

Cuddlebug and Bearhug really don't do well with "posing" for pictures, they are constantly in motion. I typically use the "continuous shooting" mode on my camera to take several shots in a row as they are doing their thing, and hope that one of them turns out with decent focus, nice expressions and looking in the general direction of the camera (you might be surprised how often they are looking at the sky or everywhere BUT the camera!).

Narrowed down from the MANY that I actually took, here are a few of my favorites :).

Bearhug

Cuddlebug

...and some of the sillier ones, lol :). I love the pure joy in their faces, and that they have so much fun together.

In exchange for their cooperation, I agreed to take a picture of Rex too :).

Bearhug and Cuddlebug weren't up for doing pictures together with Bitty, so I did his separately. He refused to wear his white shirt (I got them all matching shirts for pictures and thought the white looked good with the colorful trees in the background) so I let him wear what he had on rather than push my luck. It was at least a nice shirt that he'd worn to school, and not one of his Thomas shirts with the chewed up neckline...

He is a little more mellow (at least when he's by himself) so I didn't need to shoot rapid-fire to get these. I did try to say funny things to get a more natural smile (his "cheese" grin is cute but intense, lol).

I have a lot to learn about photography (both taking pictures and editing them), but these guys are my motivation to keep trying :). I really like the fall colors, but the evergreen trees nearby made a nice background too, I'm thinking I might try to get some pictures of all three of them by those trees to send out for Christmas :).

Sibling stuff and autism

2011-11-15T08:18:00.000-05:00

Things have been a little rough these last few months on the sibling front. Cuddlebug and Bearhug are quick to get frustrated with Little Bitty, and for his part, Bitty has a tendency to "egg on" their frustration at times.

Some of their frustration is legitimate. They don't understand why he often doesn't seem to listen to any of us and just goes about doing whatever he wants. He often has little regard for consequences as he doesn't always make the connection to his behavior. They don't understand why he ignores them when they try to teach him things, or why he asks them the same questions over and over (and over).

Some of it is just typical sibling stuff - like most little brothers he wants to be like them and do the things that they do. At the same time, many of his interests are "immature" from their perspective and they love giving him a hard time about liking Mickey Mouse or Olivia (not that he cares).

Although his pretend play skills were a long time in coming, he has developed quite a knack for incorporating pretend into his daily life, even if most of it is scripted. For example, when he needs something he'll say, "Eveebuddy say, 'Oh TOOO-DLES!' Oh TOOO-DLES! We nee' some MOUSKETOOLS!!" Just like on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (one of his latest favorites).

Meanwhile Bearhug, and especially Cuddlebug, are not particularly fond of pretending in general, with few exceptions. One of which is their dinosaur pillow-pets, they have created an entire mythology / history around where their dinosaurs come from and actually the two pillow pets often represent a whole collection of dinosaurs (but of course we can only ever see one of them at a time) :). They are constantly harping on Bitty that Mickey Mouse isn't real, there's no such thing as Mouseketools, etc.

If Bitty happens to say something that isn't 100% technically accurate, they will correct him to no end, which he readily ignores and that only makes them more ornery. They get upset with me if I don't continually correct him. I try to remind them that he is only 6... that he likes to pretend and that he doesn't understand as much as they do.

And let's face it, the frustration isn't all undeserved. Bitty tends to get physical with them (he can be a bit of a bully, and has no regard for the fact that they're twice his size), and he screeches loudly anytime they do anything he doesn't like (or if he even THINKS they're going to do something he doesn't like). Sometimes when they are actually trying to help him with something he just screams at them.

We've talked about the fact that he has autism, just like we've talked with them about their autism. One time when I reminded them of that and said something along the lines of "kind of like both of you" and they got indignant with me, "NOT like US!!" I tried to explain that it affects everyone a little differently and that he is more affected by it than they are but they were skeptical.

I didn't bring it up again, mostly I just remind them when they complain about how he's not doing this or that, that we're working on it and that it takes time. They love to point out that they were doing XYZ (fill in the blank) when they were his age, at which point I acknowledge that yes, they were further along at his age in some ways, but that everyone learns in their own time.

Fast forward to more recently... and I overheard this conversation in the back of the car:

Cuddlebug: "'Bitty' has WAAAYYY more autism than us!"
Bearhug: "yeah, but everyone has a little bit of autism."
Cuddlebug: "yeah, we told 'P' that she has autism too because everyone has a little bit of autism but she didn't believe us."

LOL. I asked where they heard that and they said Ms. D. told them. I told them she's right, everyone does have "a little bit of autism" in some ways, but that not everyone knows that, so people may not always believe them if they try to tell them that. I didn't discourage them from talking about it with other kids though, I want them to feel comfortable and open about doing that so they can advocate for themselves as they get older.

Anyway, I've been struggling with how to handle this. I want Cuddlebug and Bearhug to feel comfortable expressing their frustration rather than keeping it all inside. I don't discourage them from expressing their frustration (to a point) because I worry that may only lead to resentment. At the same time it hurts to see them so hard on him and him so indifferent. I want them to all be close, but I know I can't force it and need to let them develop their relationship in their own way.

Dh had another talk with them the other day and it seems to have maybe clicked this time. Leave it to him to find a way to explain the same thing I've been trying to tell them in a way that apparently makes more sense :). He told them that because of Bitty's developmental delays (pretty sure he didn't use that exact term) that Bitty's behavior and understanding of a lot of things is more like a 4-yr-old. So he's "like a 4-yr-old in a 6-yr-old body." THAT made sense to them, and they repeated it back to me when I got home (dh had already given me a heads up about their conversation).

While I'm not sure I love the idea of them going around telling people their little brother is a 4-yr-old in a 6-yr-old body, and I'm not sure how Bitty feels about that (or if he understands it, because I'm sure he's heard it now that his brothers have repeated it several times) the concept does seem to be helping in terms of his brothers being more patient and understanding toward him.

We'll see how it goes.

I'd love to hear any ideas you may have. How have you explained autism to your children from a sibling perspective, especially if you have kids who fall into different "areas" of the spectrum?

Snippets

2011-11-13T23:08:00.001-05:00

Just a few brief updates from the past few weeks, mostly from FB / Twitter, to keep them all in one place:

11/13/11
when we took the boys to the store last weekend CB & BH were complaining LOUDLY about all the Christmas decorations being out and wanting to know why there weren't big Thanksgiving displays. Cuddlebug just shook his head and told me, "I guess Thanksgiving just isn't what it used to be" LOL

11/10/11
21 yrs ago tonight I went on a 1st date with my secret crush... pretty sure it's not a secret anymore :)
that would be dh, in case it wasn't obvious ;)

11/6/11
I'd like to thank the shampoo company for featuring the word "body" in big letters on the bottle... Bitty noticed tonight at bathtime and before I could stop him was using it to wash his body. I tried to show him it's for HAIR not body but oddly enough, the word "hair" is nowhere to be found on the bottle, not even the fine print. References to volume, style, shine, and of course BODY, but not one mention of "hair." Good luck convincing him that's what it's for... he probably questions whether Mom can read at this point... (sigh)
...
grateful for pretend play skills - had to remind myself of that as Bitty was engrossed in re-enacting Garfield and Looney Tunes today at church... not the appropriate time or place, especially since he kept loudly announcing his intention to live in a trash can (Garfield episode with an alley cat) but the desire and ability to engage in pretend at all was a long time coming! :)

11/5/11
told Bitty he should wear pants today b/c it's getting chilly out, he didn't believe me so I said it's November, that means it's winter, and big brothers were quick to correct me, the first day of winter is in December. sigh. technically they are right of course.
...
thankful for dh, he is the best! ♥

11/4/11
today I am thankful for teachers who "get" autism and go out of their way to help our boys

11/3/11
I am thankful for my family, they are my life! I am thankful for the Savior and His atonement. thankful that I am mostly resisting the leftover Halloween candy so far (I said MOSTLY, lol)

10/29/11
Costumes are done, boys are happy, it was SO worth the effort to see them so excited! Now it's naptime for me :)

10/23/11
Just got to cuddle with Cuddlebug on the couch for a few min, so glad he's not too old for that... happy tears :)

10/22/11
overheard a little boy ask Bitty his name at the park today. It took him a second but he actually answered him with no prompting from me (yay!)... and with his real name (double yay!). of course a second later he changed his mind and told the boy his name was Mickey (latest fav character is Mickey Mouse, lol).

10/21/11
we saw a family of 4 deer this morning :)
...
Bearhug: "I think the moral of the story 'Don't Cry Wolf' is don't live in a place near where there are wolves..." hehe
...
proud of Bitty, he's been struggling at school lately but he had a good day today

10/20/11
battle of the pants going better this year... battle of the coats? not so much :/
...
only a little over a week to finish sewing Bearhug's Halloween costume... ack! hopefully will get a lot done this weekend.

10/8/11
asked Bearhug to come upstairs... instead Cuddlebug appeared, told me BH was busy killing zombies (game) so he came instead. lol

9/25/11
Helping Bitty make booklets on PowerPoint... he loves it :)

9/24/11
Bearhug: "I read that 'Zombie survival guide' and now my heart is beating very rapidly!" I love the way he phrases things :). Guess he found it on the bookshelf and read a little bit of it. I assured him zombies aren't real and he asked, "how do YOU know?!"

(he and Cuddlebug have since read more of the book and Cuddlebug informed me, "It's saving our lives!" I guess they'll be ready in the event of a zombie apocalypse...)

9/16/11
dh said ppl keep asking him if he's on twitter so they can follow him. his response "I don't get twitter...follow me where?" ROFL

Honor

2011-11-12T23:53:00.000-05:00

I realize I'm a day late for Veterans Day, but every day is a good day to honor those who serve, or have served, in our military.

I saw this video a while back and have been looking for it, finally found it on YouTube and wanted to share it here.

I'm proud to be the daughter of a veteran, as well as the daughter-in-law of a veteran. I'm thankful for their examples of courage and sacrifice, as well as the examples of other family members, to share with my sons.

To all those who have or are serving, and to their families, THANK YOU for all you do. Thank you for making freedom possible. Please know that you are remembered and appreciated.

The scene where the girl is running to hug her dad as he returns home chokes me up every time... Dad, I hope you see this and know that I love you!

Language barrier & school struggles

2011-11-06T19:17:00.004-05:00

We had teacher conferences last month. All in all, it went well, especially for Cuddlebug and Bearhug. They are working really hard and doing great - all A's and B's (mostly A's!) :) and they are thriving in their accelerated classes.

Bitty is also working really hard but he is struggling more with school this year than he has in the past. I'm grateful that his teachers "get" autism and understand the source of his difficulty is language related and not cognitive or attention related.

His teacher shared her concern that he is really struggling with anything that requires verbal explanations or verbal interaction. It's something we've been aware of for long time (obviously), but in 1st grade there is more of a need for language skills to be able to keep up with the class. His teachers have all noted that he is very bright and catches on quickly with anything that is not language-intensive.

The best analogy I can think of is someone who is going to school in a foreign country, and they aren't exactly fluent in the native language... they have the added challenge of trying to keep up with conversations and translate instructions so they can understand what is expected.

That's pretty much where Bitty is at. The good news is, he is not being disruptive or having behavior issues when he runs into difficulty following what the class is doing. The not-so-good news is, he is basically zoning out when that happens. They're working with him to raise his hand and ask questions when he doesn't understand something, but often he just tunes out and ends up either not responding, repeating back the question, or saying "I don't know" when asked a question (the "I don't know is fairly new, he's been working on that as a more appropriate response than repeating back the question since last year).

He comes home with a daily communication sheet with the day broken out into the various activities and subjects that they work on every day and feedback on how he did during each. There's a 4-point scale, with 1 meaning he was able to work independently or with minimal reminders and 4 meaning he need LOTS of reminders to follow instructions and stay on task. He started out getting mostly 1's and 2's but as the school year progressed we started to see more and more 3's, and then 4's.

His teachers often write in the comments that his behavior is fine, it's just a matter of not seeming to understand what is expected or not being able to appropriately respond to questions (eg. answer questions about a book they read during reading time). He tends to do better earlier in the day (but not always) so I think to some extent it just takes a lot of effort and his capacity to put forth that level of effort starts to wear thin as the day goes on. But beyond that I have come to believe that there are situations where he truly does not understand what is being taught due to the language barrier.

He has started asking us on a regular basis what words mean. It's great that he can do that now but I am sometimes surprised by the words he asks about, having assumed he already knew them. And I find it difficult sometimes to explain what one word means without having to define it with another word he doesn't understand. When you think about it, in order to understand the dictionary you have to be starting from a basic understanding of the language.

Anyway, so dh and I discussed and decided that since we know that both his regular ed and resource teacher are well aware of the issue and are working with him on it, we'd see how he did over the next few weeks and if things didn't improve we'd approach them to see if we may need to consider adjusting his level of support.

Well, we didn't end up needing to suggest that, his resource teacher called me last week to say that she and his speech teacher wanted to schedule an IEP review to consider increasing his services at school to better meet his needs.

This is why I love our school - we've been fortunate that most of the teachers we've worked with over the years so far understand autism and they are proactive about meeting students' needs. (it's also a big part of why I'm nervous about the transition to middle school next year - a whole new environment, but keeping our fingers crossed).

We're scheduled to meet next Monday, I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, we're working with him at home also and trying to use visuals and hands-on learning as much as possible. That's nothing new as all of our kids learn better that way, but we're kind of in new territory with Bitty as his delays are more pronounced. Suggestions welcome.

Quotes & silly conversations of the week

2011-11-05T01:02:00.001-04:00

Little Bitty: "Dude, iss cold ou'side!"
me: "Did you just call me dude?"
Bitty: "yeah"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuddlebug (complaining about having to go to bed): "but I'm not even tired!"
dh: "when you're an adult, you can stay up as late as you want... are you an adult?"
Cuddlebug (slouching with a grin): "I'm not even 11 yet!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bearhug (hearing Cuddlebug calling him from the other room): "I'm busy! Mom, tell 'Cuddlebug' I'm busy."
me: "Why don't you tell him?"
Bearhug: "because I'm busy..."
I game him a look
Bearhug: "...I AM!"
(busy playing video games, lol)

So I went to tell Cuddlebug that Bearhug was busy.
Cuddlebug (also playing video games): "Tell him I made a great fort and the creepers can't get me!"
me: "Bearhug, Cuddlebug made a cool fort."
Bearhug: "tell him I made a magna-coil!"

Sigh... really?! so I told him and then managed to disappear before I could be asked to play carrier pigeon again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were saying bedtime prayers and it was Cuddlebug's turn to pray. After he finished, Bearhug asked if he could say one too, so of course we said yes.

Bearhug: "P.S. we hope me and Cuddlebug's fears go away. Amen."

(their 5th grade class did a language unit on the Greek origin of words, with a whole list of phobias as the vocabulary list and they have since "diagnosed" themselves with many of the phobias they learned about...).

dh: "P.S.?"

Bearhug: "yeah, Cuddlebug forgot that part."

dh: "P.S... Personal Secret"

I laughed, thinking he was making a joke, and then realized he was serious.

me: "Personal Secret?" hehe
dh: "yeah." (in his "what else would it be?" tone)
me: "that's not what P.S. means."
dh: "what does it mean then?"
me: "Post Script"
dh: "hehe Post Script, why would anyone say that?"
me: "because it goes after the end of a letter. Post. Script."

Bearhug: "then what does P.P.S. mean?"
me: "post-post-script."
Bearhug: "P.P.P.S.?"
yeah, you can see where that one's going... finally got him to stop and go to bed ;)

dh: "Nooo... it's a secret that people stick in at the end."
me: "hehe... it's not a secret anymore if they put it in a letter."
dh: "If that's what it means, why wouldn't they just go back and put it in the letter?"
me: "it's from when people didn't have word processing, if they forgot something they had to put a P.S. at the end and add it."
dh: "if that's true, then why do people still use it? that doesn't make sense! see, it's Personal Secret!"

LOL, I suppose there's some logic to that. Kind of reminds me of when he thought "liar liar pants on fire" was supposed to be "liar liar pacifier" (because you'd put a pacifier in their mouth to make them stop lying, of course). seriously he cracks me up!

To be fair I'm sure he has some of these on me, but conveniently I can't think of any at the moment. When and if he decides to write his own blog he can share and have a giggle at my silliness too :).

$1 and a dinosaur is ALL it will take to help a family in need!

2011-11-04T08:34:00.000-04:00

I first saw this on Danette's S-O-S blog (not me, another Danette, lol) and felt compelled to do what I could to help. Circling back now to spread the word!

Visit OUR Journey Thru Autism for the details, here's an excerpt:

Kim Laing of of Dauphin County, PA has been a die hard autism advocate over the years. She has supported families with IEP development and through child study team meetings. She created Hoops Basketball, so kids with autism in her community would have an opportunity to play a sport while developing social skills. This is a woman who has selflessly given of herself over the years to support the autism community of which she is a part of.

Her 13 year old son has Autism.

Sadly, on October 12th, Kim and her family lost their home to a fire. Her husband, 2 sons and dog, Mikey made it out safely. Henson, their beloved cat, unfortunately did not survive. All personal belongings have been destroyed. They are currently residing in temporary housing.

Read the rest of their story and find out how you can help!

Creepy creepers and other spookiness

2011-11-01T23:24:00.024-04:00

Every year dh gives me a hard time about waiting "until the last minute" to start making costumes. But every year, at least one of the boys changes their mind at the last minute, and that's why I wait. This year was no different.

When I asked back in September what they wanted to dress up as, Bearhug and Cuddlebug didn't want to dress up at all. Although Bearhug told me if anyone asked, he'd just tell them "I'm an alien pretending to be a human." lol

Bitty wanted to be Kirby. Then he changed it to Jigglypuff (a pokemon).

Somewhere in mid-October, Cuddlebug and Bearhug rec'd an invitation to a Halloween party hosted by their friend who lives in our cul-de-sac. The invitation specifically said costumes required so we tried to help the boys come up with ideas. Bearhug finally decided to be a black cat. Cuddlebug still didn't want a costume and said "I'll be a robber pretending to be a regular guy." Such creative non-costume ideas, haha. He eventually settled on being a "Rex-tamer" (Rex being his pillow-pet dinosaur) which basically involved putting a leash on Rex and taking him to the party.

As soon as Bitty heard that Bearhug was going to be a cat, he wanted to be a cat too. I reminded him he still had a cat costume from last year when he dressed up as Pilchard, and asked if he wanted to be Pilchard again. He said yes (which is awesome considering the effort that went into that costume!) Turns out it actually fits him better this year :).

And then about a week before Halloween, Cuddlebug decided he wanted to be a creeper.

What's a creeper, you ask? They're from a video game (of course), they walk like zombies, look kind of like swamp creatures, and blow stuff up. The boys discovered them while playing Roblox (they're really into Roblox at the moment).

I already had the pattern for Bearhug's cat costume so I used the same one for Cuddlebug's creeper costume, with some modifications :).

These were taken Saturday before the party (I had literally just finished the creeper costume when it was time to go). Cuddlebug wanted Rex in the pictures (with his "costume" of a red ribbon leash), but he left him at home rather than taking him to the party. :)

I'm not much on masks and wanted to put the creeper face on the costume chest, but Cuddlebug (who isn't much on pretend) was ADAMANT that the creeper face had to be on his face... so I made him a flap with the face that he could easily lift up out of the way.

These were taken on Halloween:

Had to get at least one picture with Cuddlebug's handsome face, sans creeper face :).

Bearhug and Cuddlebug took off running, they told me they did NOT want to trick-or-treat with Bitty so they were made a point of getting ahead of us.

Bitty tried to keep up, but I talked him into staying with me :). This was his second time trick-or-treating, and we made it to about half the neighborhood this time before he decided he was done. Which was great, because we ended up with WAY too much candy as it was.

Bitty was so cute, I kept trying to remind him to say "thank you" at each house by saying "what do you say?" and he'd say "trick or treat!" again, lol.

He also kept asking people "Do you hab M&M's? Do you hab pink Starburst?" and after the first guy offered the bowl so he could pick what he wanted, he kind of expected that at every house. We're still working on Halloween "etiquette" but all in all he did great and had a fun time :).

The boys were really wired yesterday though so it was nice to have a more "back to normal" day today :).

We're on SPD Blogger Network!

2011-10-31T17:30:00.000-04:00

My recent post on bathtime battles is up on the SPD Blogger Network if you want to check it out.

As for me, I've gone "dark" the last couple of weeks for my annual dusting off of the sewing machine to make costumes for the boys. There's always at least one of them who waits until the last minute to decide what they want to be. On the flip side, this year one decided to wear last year's costume (and it still fits!) so there were only two costumes to make.

Thanks to my recent work schedule, it required some middle-of-the-night parties (if, by parties, you mean sewing like crazy amid bundles of fleece and flannel and lots of pins) but the costumes are DONE and IMHO they turned out good :).

Of course, my opinion really doesn't matter, but the people whose opinions DO matter, think they turned out good too :D. hehe

Pictures coming soon.

Bathtime battles

2011-10-16T23:33:00.002-04:00

Little Bitty has a love-hate relationship with bathtime. Usually somewhere in the realm of "strongly dislike."

Any mention of the dreaded bath and he's likely to screech "I not get WWWEEETTTT!!" and take off running. We'll be in for a wrestling match to get him into the tub and keep him there long enough to accomplish some semblance of cleaning. Somehow it seems like we end up soaked even more than him (I say "we" because he's getting bigger and when he goes ballistic dh and I have to tag team - one to try to keep him from climbing out of the tub while the other tries to wash him).

We've been through the battles of him not wanting to get wet at all, and got to a point where he could tolerate it. Sort of. Even a few drops of accidental water on his clothes and he starts stripping, but when it's on his terms, he actually enjoys the water. He loves to fill up the sink with water and play in it, and he loves to play in the swimming pool.

But bathtime? Not so much. At least not the actual *bathing* part. Because despite all the hysterics of trying to avoid getting IN the tub in the first place, once he's actually bathed and can get OUT, he suddenly decides he wants to stay in to play or "swim" and it takes just as much effort to get him out as it did to get him in. Sigh.

In our attempts to avoid the battles on the front end, we tried all kinds of things - bath toys, bubbles, even the occasional bribe (gasp!). What? I know we're not the only people who've tried to offer Thomas gummies in exchange for a wrestle-free bath. Not that it worked :/. For his part, he actually tried to climb into bed claiming "I tired!" rather than resign himself to a bath.

And then dh came up with one of his famous ideas. He gets full credit for this one because it never would have occurred to me.

Calgon.

I don't know if it's the scent, or the way it makes the water feel extra soft and smooth, or what, but suddenly Bitty actually likes taking a bath. In true dh-fashion, once we found that Bitty liked the Calgon, dh came home with pretty much every "flavor" they have. So now when it's bathtime we just ask him which Calgon he wants to use this time, he chooses one and helps us pour it into the water, and proceeds to climb into the tub, happy as a clam.

"Calgon take me away." lol (yes, Bitty actually read that on the container, guess they haven't changed their slogan over the years).

Dh also got Bitty a loofah in his favorite color (red!) to wash his body with. He likes the feel of it and is happy to scrub away. He still doesn't like having his hair washed, but thankfully he doesn't have much hair so I can do that in well under a minute. Short enough to say "oops I didn't mean to wash your hair, let me rinse that for you..." and be done with his face toweled dry again before he can get too worked up over it.

We've been down this road before so I'm not expecting that the bath battles are necessarily over for good, but am enjoying the reprieve while it lasts :).

Mic-er-scoff Office Pow-point

2011-10-14T23:23:00.002-04:00

Cuddlebug and Bearhug have been using MS Powerpoint at school, so they were excited to discover that we have the same program at home.

Cuddlebug was especially eager to try out all of the "Microsoft Office features" on the computer :) and proceeded to put a shortcut to every. single. one. of them on his desktop. In Powerpoint, they made slideshows using clipart found in the clipart gallery that comes with the program.

And of course, Bitty follows his big brothers around watching them, and loves to do whatever they're doing.

So he started playing around with "Mic-er-scoff Office Pow-point" too. He pulls in pictures, either from the clipart or from his own photos that we've uploaded from "his" camera (I let him use my old one since he likes to take pictures). More often than not he makes his slideshows with either 7 or 17 pages (his favorite numbers). He loves to print them out to make booklets or just cut out the pictures (great fine motor practice!).

Thought I'd share some samples of their work here. I changed the boys' names on the Butterfly one but otherwise left it all as they had it.

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Cuddlebug and Bearhug:

This one is only two slides, but keep clicking - they added animations :)

Butterflys

More PowerPoint presentations from Danette

This one reminds me of the comics they like to draw, lol.

Dinosaur

More PowerPoint presentations from Danette

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Bitty did these ones (with a little help from Mom but the ideas and most of the work were all his):

A collection of pictures he took of several of the Mii's from the "Check Mii Out Channel" (Kevin Henkes is apparently a children's author, Bitty put his name on several of his booklets and I had no idea who it was so I looked him up). As you can see, he mostly likes the Miis with the pictures where their faces should be (creeps me out *shivers*)

Mii's

More PowerPoint presentations from Danette

One of many "Shape" books - the object is to identify the shapes in each pictures

Shapes

More PowerPoint presentations from Danette

More shapes - he added his own words in this one (typed it all himself too).

FYI - on slide 6, "GAW" stands for "Game and Watch"

Shapes (with words)

More PowerPoint presentations from Danette

He figured out you can make the pictures move... this is where I had to help him a little but I basically just did what he told me (he was *very* particular about how he wanted each picture to move). As you can see he especially liked making them spin :).

You may recognize Kirby and the clown from Baby Newton on the cover :).

Just FYI - when it says "the end" it's actually not, he decided to keep going after he put those in.

Shapes (with motion)

More PowerPoint presentations from Danette

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Sometimes I have to do some work at home and lately he's taken a keen interest when he sees me working in PPT.

"Are you using Pow-Point?"
"yes"
"Do you wike Mic-er-scoff Pow-point?"
"Love it."
"Are you putting pichers in you Pow-point?"
"No, no pictures in this one, baby."
"Can you go to slideshow?"
"Not yet, I'm still working on it."
... he pauses to look at the graphs I'm updating.
"Iss dat a picher?"
"It's a graph."
"Are you gonna make it spin???"
(I admit I had to laugh at the prospect of sending my boss a presentation with spinning graphs, lol)
"Umm... no, I'm not going to make it spin."
"Do you want to make you graph spin?!" (he's persistent)
I was eager to finish so I could spend some time with him doing something other than discussing the possible rotation of graphs, so I managed to change the subject.

I suppose next time I'm going to have to make the graphs spin and show him in slideshow mode so he can check it out ;).

National Sensory Awareness Month

2011-10-08T23:57:00.002-04:00

October is National Sensory Awareness Month!

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is a neurological disorder in which the brain and the senses (all 8 of them!) don't work together as they should. Some examples of this include frequent sensory overload (when the brain is unable to filter out irrelevant sensory input), motor difficulties (when the brain isn't able to coordinate the muscles to respond appropriately to stimuli), and difficulty interpreting sensory input (when the brain doesn't recognize the body's signals, such as hunger).

Individuals with SPD may be under-responsive or over-responsive to sensory input. Some may be sensory avoiders, overly sensitive to certain textures or sounds. This can have major implications for daily living, as they may find only certain types of clothing or food tolerable, and may find some places too overwhelming to be comfortable there. Some may be sensory seekers, crashing into everything, climbing or hanging upside down all the time. Sometimes it depends on the situation, and it's possible to have both sensory-seeking and sensory-avoiding responses depending on the type of sensory input.

Most of the examples I gave are part of our experience with our boys - all three of them have SPD along with autism. It's quite common for people on the autism spectrum to also have sensory issues, although it's possible to have one without the other and there are many people with SPD who are not on the autism spectrum. Sometimes SPD symptoms may be misinterpreted as ADHD, for example when a sensory-seeker is in constant motion, running and crashing, in an attempt to get the sensory input they need, or has difficulty staying on task because they frequently need to be up and moving around.

One of the most helpful books I've read on the topic is "The Out-of-Sync Child" by Carol Kranowitz. I read it soon after our twins were dx'd and it really helped me to get a better idea of what they were going through, which in turn helped me to be more patient with some of their more challenging behavior.

If you're looking for (or want to share with others) some insight into what it's like to have SPD, I highly recommend this article. An excerpt from it quotes Stanley Greenspan:

"Imagine driving a car that isn't working well. When you step on the gas the car sometimes lurches forward and sometimes doesn't respond. When you blow the horn it sounds blaring. The brakes sometimes slow the car, but not always. The blinkers work occasionally, the steering is erratic, and the speedometer is inaccurate. You are engaged in a constant struggle to keep the car on the road, and it is difficult to concentrate on anything else."

I've included some links below, feel free to share additional resources in the comments.

Helpful articles:
What is SPD?
How does it feel? - a short but very insightful look at what it's like for those who have SPD
SPD Signs and Symptoms
SPD Red flags

Resources:
Sensory Processing Disorder
SPD Foundation
The SPD Blogger Network

Hiking trip

2011-10-06T23:41:00.004-04:00

We took the boys on a hike, which involved some fun trails, some pretty waterfalls, and a lot of stairs going up the mountain.

Bitty: "What iss hike-een?"
me: "Walking in the woods."
Bitty: "Are we walk-een in the woods?" (I can't figure out how to type the way he pronounces "walk" but it is so. darn. cute!
me: "Yep, we sure are."

These two practically ran up the mountain, but were nice enough to stop and wait for the rest of us here and there. In this one, Bearhug is showing me the waterfall, in case I was too busy huffing and puffing my way up the stairs to have noticed :).

Meanwhile Bitty wanted "uppers" most of the way, thankfully dh handled that although at one point he got tired of carrying and told Bitty "I'll carry you but you have to catch me first!" And Bitty took off after him, yelling "CAAHH--RRY!!!" lol

Leaving proof (I wish I had three arms!)

We continued on to the top. Of course Bearhug and Cuddlebug beat us by a mile but they were waiting at the top to give us a high five and congratulate us for making it (I think I heard them congratulating pretty much everyone else that made it too while they were waiting, lol).

They weren't even the slightest bit winded or tired. I sooo wish I had just a fraction of their energy! I took some "victory" pictures of them at the top of the waterfall :).

The view was beautiful, worth the climb.

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The park where we went hiking is close to the pumpkin farm, so we had planned to visit the pumpkin farm again for a while before heading home. Unfortunately, the hike was too much overstimulation and Bitty wasn't up for anything else that day. We tried since we had told the boys we'd go, but we only lasted about a minute at the pumpkin farm before Bitty started kicking pumpkins and yelling angrily at them (something along the lines of "I don' WANNA SEE A PUH-KIN!!!") :(. We showed him the sign that says "no stepping on, kicking, sitting on the pumpkins" etc. and he yelled "I don' WANNA WEAD DA SIGN!!!" so we knew it was time to go and try again another day.

We did manage to pick up a couple of pumpkin pies before we left (because it's a long drive and we were already there) only because I offered to give Bitty "uppers" (carry him). Thankfully Cuddlebug and Bearhug were ok with leaving early, and we did make it out before Bitty reached full meltdown mode. Once we got into the car Bitty started to settle down.

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This post has been submitted for this month's S-O-S Best of the Best Blog Carnival. The topic is "share a moment from your family life, whether it’s funny, loving, or just special." Our hiking trip gave us some much-needed family relaxing time and it was a fun activity for the boys. Even though we did end up having to cut the planned activities short and spend the rest of the day decompressing we made some good memories that day :).

Conversations with Bitty

2011-10-02T18:26:00.002-04:00

Bitty asked me one evening as I took him upstairs to tuck him in for bed, "does me hab schoo tomowwow?"

I couldn't help but smile, his wording is too cute but it is also an indicator of just how far he's come with his speech and communication skills. You may notice that he didn't say, "do YOU hab schoo tomowwow?"

After a LOT of time and effort, he uses the pronoun "you" correctly most of the time now, meaning referring to the person he's speaking to and not to himself.

It didn't occur to me that there would be a "next step" of differentiating between I and me (is the English language complicated or what?!) until we started hearing sentences like the one I started this post with:

"Does me hab schoo tomowwow?"
"Iss me sick?" (he had to stay home from school a couple of days this week as he was running a fever, he's feeling better now).

Other times (usually at the beginning of a sentence now that I think of it) he does great:

"I don' WIKE DAT!" (we hear that one a lot, sigh)
"I not hungry"

However he decides to word things, I remain infinitely grateful that he is (mostly) willing and able to communicate with us. It means the world to have some insight into what he's thinking (even though sometimes he still leaves us guessing).

He often likes to ask questions that we think he already knows the answer to. Maybe he likes the reassurance of hearing the answers again, maybe he's just making conversation.

For example, he drives his brothers crazy asking things like "do you wike Pokemon?", "wha'ss you fay-brit cuh-wer? Iss wed you fay-brit cuh-wer?" or "do you wike Kirby-right-back-at-YA?" (a cartoon that apparently went off the air years ago but still lives on YouTube).

If he deems the answer "unacceptable" he can be very persistent (ie. when Cuddlebug tried to tell him he doesn't have a favorite color). That can lead to some funny conversations, like Cuddlebug making up random names for colors that don't exist because he refuses to just pick a color and Bitty refuses to stop asking until he gets a satisfactory answer.

Bitty still tends to ignore us at times, and it can take a LOT of effort and repetition to get any kind of response when we are trying to ask him something or initiate a conversation with him. Or (gasp!) trying to get him to do something.

But other times he will actually seek us out and I am loving these little interactions:

Bitty, to me: "Iss Kirby a pink ball?" (grinning)
me: "Yes, Kirby is a big pink ball."
Bitty: "Does Mom wike Kirby?"
me: "Of course I love Kirby, he's one of my favorite characters!"
Bitty smiles in response.
me: "Do YOU like Kirby?"
Bitty smiles even bigger, nodding his head emphatically with a huge grin. Priceless :)