Mom & Pop Home School

Funny how things work out. Earlier today I wrote a post about how much progress I’ve seen in Cricket in the area of self-control. It vanished irretrievably in a flash technological flatulance when I tried to post it . This afternoon he flew into a violent rage the likes of which have not been seen around here in some time. Maybe someone was trying to warn me.

Pop says he thinks it might be related to the adjustments in medication we’ve been going through. He may well be right. Pop says impending puberty might also be a factor (Cricket will be ten in a couple of weeks, and has already begun to need deoderant). Pop may well be right. But somehow after spending Sunshine’s entire dance class in the waiting area treating the other moms to a fascinating demonstration of self-defense (or was it child abuse?) dodging flying fists, feet, head, knees, elbows, and stuffed penguin while trying to avoid being spit on or licked, wrestling him to his stomach on the floor, pinning his arms behind his back and sitting on him…I don’t much care what the contributing factors were. I just want it to stop. (more…)

We thoroughly enjoyed conference at our house. I was especially intrigued by Elder Bednar’s parable of the pickle, and enjoyed Elder Ballard’s comments about complaining: “There’s no situation so bad that complaining about it can’t make it worse,” (or something to that effect) and his humorous, “Hit me again, I can still hear you!” (ala Nephi). I also appreciated Elder Oaks’s characteristically blunt comments about marriage and divorce. I’ll post links to transcripts of these and a few other favorites when they’re up on the website, and when I have a few more minutes.

The one downer of conference weekend was that Cricket had another mild seizure. It actually seemed a little less severe than the previous ones, but it does make a mother’s heart beat a little off-kilter for a few years (or seconds, if you go by the clock) until it’s over.

Today we went to the zoo, which was oodles of fun, and he got to see penguins (one of Cricket’s passions)!! He didn’t really have any problems the whole 4 hours we were there except for a brief anxiety attack in the small animal house when we walked into a particular room with….let’s say a “distinctive odor” that turned out to be emanating from a porcupine. For some reason, porcupine scent pushed the ‘completely intolerable button’ somewhere in the back of his brain and we had to buzz through that particular room fairly rapidly in order to avoid a scene. But he held it together pretty well, considering. Especially after I showed him how to breathe through his sweatshirt sleeve to filter the air…lol. You just never know, do ya, what’s going to be a trigger. Porcupine. Who knew? Otherwise, he did great though.

And so did Sunshine, the Energizer bunny. After four hours of frolicking around the zoo (and I do mean frolicking, the child doesn’t know how to just “walk” for more than a few steps) she went to 45 minutes or so of dance class (we were late), and then came home and we put on some music so she could dance some more. She has aquired a new “pet”, a stuffed pink flamingo which she has named “Parakeet”. Don’t ask. I have no idea. What’s that you say? Oh. Yes, well, that’s what I thought too.

Well, as of yesterday morning Cricket is back on meds (see comments on this previous post). I’m glad it was his decision and I didn’t have to force the issue. I’m glad he was self-aware enough to realize that he still needs it. And I’m glad that things went as well as they did; it gives me hope for “someday”, even if “someday” isn’t this week.

Yesterday was a very good day. I think Cricket was relieved to have the decision made, and there weren’t any really unusual overstimulating things going on. Today was Wednesday, and his speech teacher wasn’t there again due to a very ill daughter (I hope she’s better soon, it sounded serious) so that threw him off kilter first thing this morning. Her co-worker did call to let us know, so it isn’t like we went down there and got stood up, it just threw off his view of how the day was supposed to go. He did well at the counselor, but was a little overstimulated by a game they played, and then we went to the school’s book fair, and he couldn’t find a book he liked, and wound up getting quite agitated. So, when we came home he was agitated and Sunshine was lonely, so she wouldn’t leave him alone, and he sniped at her. Aargh! After breaking it up a few times I sent them both to their rooms to cool down. It didn’t help a whole lot on the attitudes, but at least it gave me a little break.

We did get through a little school, at least, today–but I’ve spent a lot of time playing with Sunshine so she’ll leave her brother alone. And frankly, I’m tired of talking on my “invisible telephone” that rings incessantly and can’t be either lost or broken. And I no longer really care that her pink toy cat was killed by a giant invisible insect while she (Sunshine) was trying to herd it (the giant insect) back into the forest while swooshing dramatically around on her glider (Pop’s Ab Roller), and her magic wand is broken so she can’t make it (the cat) back alive again until she finds the queen mouse to re-magic it (the wand), and the unicorn princess’s villiage is being ravaged in the mean time by the giant insects. I just don’t care. I’m maybe even starting to be a little bit on the side of the giant insects.

Don’t tell.

Today has continued the theme of grouchiness from yesterday. At church today Cricket spent most of the first and third hours running away, melting down, and/or hiding. Pop had him out in the hall during sacrament meeting (the first hour). Well, first he pitched a fit about the chair he was being asked to sit on in the chapel, and ran off to the very back row to sit by himself. We thought he might cool down if left alone, so didn’t pursue. But a little while later I looked back and he was gone, so I went and tracked him down. After hunting all over the building I finally found him wedged in a little niche at the back of the chapel overflow where a folding room divider goes. He had a huge meltdown when I told him he had to come sit with us if I couldn’t trust him to stay where I could see him,  and I turned him over to Pop while I went and told a helpful neighbor who was helping me look that I had found him. He and Pop spent the rest of sacrament meeting in the foyer melting down. 

He calmed down enough to go to his Primary class, and his teacher said it went fine up until the end when they were decorating rocks for “prayer rocks”. His teacher had painted rocks various colors, and the kids decorated them with stickers and markers in class. She even specially painted one dark green for Cricket, which is his favorite color. But he got upset because she said they were “special” rocks or “rare” or something, and he knew they were just ordinary rocks that had been painted, and that was NOT ok. So he threw his rock on the floor. When it was time to go into sharing time he ran away again. So when I got to sharing time with my class she told me he was on the lam, and I went hunting. Again. At least he was easy to find that time, as he was stomping around looking for me in the hallway. He had another meltdown and we spent the rest of church on the couch in the hallway trying to calm down.

Part of his consequences for all the running away and hiding and whacking Pop with his head and speaking disrespectfully to his parents (and so forth and so on) was that he lost the use of the computer and tv for the week, and also the privilege of having friends over (which is at least a ‘punishment’ now, rather than a reward…sigh). So he read in his room for a while, played with his sister relatively cheerfully (since she graciously allowed him to take over as captain of her in-progress conquest of the planet Mars), and then spent a while plaguing his mother with irritating, pointless questions, complaints, and demands until she sent him to his room to wait for supper.

Sunshine had some pretty stormy moments today too, starting with sitting in front of her breakfast for almost half an hour chattering and not eating despite repeated urging to do so, running away from me when it was time to get dressed, and then spending the rest of the morning complaining that she was hungry. She cried when it was time to go to her class, and wouldn’t let go of me so I could go teach my class. I finally had to have her teacher hold onto her while I escaped–and of course she was fine as soon as she couldn’t see me anymore. I stuck around for a minute to check. She was fairly cheerful at times this afternoon, though inordinately ‘helpless’ (argh…I hate when she does that!!!), and with numerous episodes of whining and general crankiness. She has a hard time being cheerful sometimes when her brother is being a pill. Well, don’t we all.  But she did provide me with one good belly laugh today. After I got fed up with Cricket following me around whining and sent him to his room, she stepped right into the gap and picked up where he left off. I told her she needed to go somewhere else for a while too. She asked if she could watch a movie in the basement, and I said she could if Pop was able to help her start it because I couldn’t just then. She went and fetched Pop and demanded a particular movie. He looked but couldn’t find the one she wanted, so he started suggesting some he could find. After each suggestion she gave a flat, almost robotic automatic response of, “No.”

“How about Strawberry Shortcake?”

“No.”

“Secret of NIMH?”

“No.”

“The My Little Ponies one with the princess ponies?”

“No.”

“Here’s Lady and the Tramp.”

No.”

After going through about fifteen or so of these, Pop was running out of patience. He threw in a fake one to see if she was even listening to the options.

“How about Grumpy and Grumpier?”

“No.”

He turned to me and said, “I think that’s what we’re watching today.”

“Yeah,” declared Sunshine. “THAT’s a grownup movie. It’s boring.”

You can sure say THAT again.

Well, today I feel like a good mom. And even a good homeschool mom, to boot. The day had a slightly less than stellar start, as I slept in–I’ve been doing that a lot lately, but on the up side I’ve been fighting off a cold recently. How is that an up side you ask? Well, I’ll tell ya. It’s an up side because all winter, anytime a germ even looked at me crosswise my immune system just rolled over and surrendered. This time, what with all the sleeping in (and taking vitamins, and trying to get more fresh air, exercise, and sunshine), my body is actually putting up a fight! And I think it might be winning! Anyway, back to my point. I slept in again. And by the time I got up Cricket had eaten two bananas, a bowl of instant oatmeal, and a small carton of yogurt. And Sunshine had eaten yogurt too (but she’s not the same bottomless pit as her brother). So nobody was hungry, but they were whiney. Whining to beat the band. Whining and complaining. And griping. AND it was Saint Patrick’s Day, so Cricket was on pinch patrol; fortunately my nightgown had a small band of embroidered flowers with green stems, Pop was already wearing a green shirt, and we clued Sunshine in before Cricket got her, but then he was mad because there was nobody to pinch. (more…)

4:30 pm- School is “over” for the day. Both kids are currently in the living room building a “castle tent” out of chairs, blankets, brooms, canes, couch cushions, several pop-up Playhut thingamajiggers, and who knows what all. It’s two stories tall, but the top floor is only for stuffed animals, I’m told, and NO GROWNUPS ALLOWED.

It’s been a good day. This morning we went down to the school for special ed (speech teacher had called earlier to say they had an inservice thing today, so we just did counseling today). While Cricket was in there, Sunshine and I waited in the school office and did a little Phonics Pathways. Normally she stays home with Dad while we go to the school but today the school had an assembly that I’d made arrangements for us to attend so she “came tooooooo”. As I had suspected, since we were AT school she wanted to DO school; thus the phonics.

So then we went to the “Mad Scientist” assembly, which was very well done and entertaining, and Cricket came home re-motivated (not that he was un-motivated) to be a scientist when he grows up. We learned some interesting things about air pressure. The “mad scientist” blew big old smoke rings–and had a child use them to blow out some candles–by stretching a piece of rubber over the top of a round waste basket with a round hole cut in the bottom, and securing it with a bungee cord (this was pre-prepped). He then used a fog machine to fill up the trash can with fog, held it sideways, and asked his young volunteer to smack the sheet of rubber like a drum. When he did, some really nifty smoke rings popped out the hole on the bottom and shot across the room. Very cool. He also made a small methane gas explosion in a water cooler bottle (do not try this at home), played some interesting games with vacuum suction, and had a small round hovercraft that one of the kids got to skim around the gym floor on a little. Possibly my favorite, though, was when he stuck a roll of toilet paper on a plunger so that it turned freely, and then used a leaf blower without the long tube thing on it (which he called “the Binford blowdryer”…chuckle) to blow on the roll in such a way that the entire roll unrolled and was streamered all over the gym. Woo hoo! A good time was had by all.

After the assembly we came home and had a “break” because Cricket was a bit overstimulated (crowds do that to him, which I knew, but I thought he could use a little practice coping in a crowd–he did great). During the break Cricket played Zoo Tychoon and lectured me about endangered animals.

Then we had a picnic at the park across the street for lunch, because it’s WAY too nice to be indoors today. We even managed to get Dad to emerge from his computer cave (aka office) long enough to eat a tuna sandwich at the park with us. After lunch, Sunshine played on the playground while I read a chapter of The Story of The World, Vol 1 (history) aloud to Cricket (often he reads them himself, but I like to mix it up). We did the review questions (orally) and the map activity (on a clipboard, which he thought was cool), and the narration activities–for which we used my new homemade fill-in-the-blank pdf notebook pages on my new laptop (because he’ll type much more than he’ll write), and discovered that we could connect to Pop’s LAN and print Cricket’s page in Dad’s office clear from the park (which I thought was VERY cool–I can get internet over there too, but it’s slow). Then we flew kites for a while and came home. Cricket did a page of math, and we called it quits for the day.

Now the kids are done with their castle, and Pop just came to tell me he’s taking us out for dinner tonight. (He’s feeling jolly over a new big client.) So I’d better go.

 A happy day!

(Ok, well, actually Cricket is showing decreased impulse control, and engaging in extended pointless arguments–whether or not anyone else is arguing back–and other forms of verbal perseverative behavior. He was more anxious than usual (usual for recently, that is) during the assembly, was more distractible and had a small melt-down over math–but not like yesterday when a more major melt-down kept him home from Cub Scouts. We can definitely tell he’s off his meds, but on the up side, it’s not NEARLY as bad as we had anticipated. This gives us hope.)

(Deeeeeep breath….)

Ok. So. Ahem.

It’s like this. Cricket has been asking for a little while now whether he can try being off his anxiety meds for a while since he’s doing so much better. And it’s certainly true that he’s been managing a whole lot better since we took him out of school. So yesterday when we went in for our yearly visit with the pediatrician (we can go in more often if there are questions or concerns, but we go in once a year for a chit chat on how it’s going and a new prescription) we discussed this possibility. After asking lots of relevant questions, and checking Cricket’s general health, the pediatrician agreed with Cricket that it might be a good time to give it a try. So starting today he’s off his meds. The kind we have evidently is “self-weaning” due to an extended half-life. It might be six months or so before it’s totally out of his system, but we should get a pretty good idea in a few weeks as to whether this is a good step to be taking now, or a complete disaster.

I don’t mind saying I’m a little nervous about it. He’s been doing SO well, and I just hesitate to mess with what is working. But I do understand his wanting to try life drug-free, and if this can be a good option for him at this point, I’m all for it, and right behind him all the way. And if not….well, at least we’ll all have a good reminder of exactly why it is that we go through all the trouble, expense, and “really bad flavor” of the stuff. And maybe we truly won’t go back to the hyper-anxious obsessiveness…but I can’t help gritting my teeth a little and bracing for impact. (Did you ever see the tv show “Monk”? We’re talking that, but considerably less calm and without the tidiness. And I would be the woman who follows him around with the wipes in her purse–and yes, I have really carried wipes (and sometimes disposable gloves) in my purse for most of my maternal existence in order to tame panic attacks. They have sometimes come in handy for diaper changes as well.) Here. Obsess. http://www.usanetwork.com/series/monk/interactivegames/monkshui/

I hate to break it to you, but there’s a very high chance that you do. Approximately 9625 out of every 10,000 people have NT, though the numbers have been shrinking in recent years. The excellent web site of the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical (ISNT) is packed with excellent information about the disorder, including the official diagnostic criteria, and an online screening test you can take to see if you have NT.
Okay, I know I have a link to this website over there on the right, but I just have to highlight it with a feature spot because I love it so much.

For those who don’t know, “Neurotypical” means that you have a nervous system that functions “typically” (aka. normally), as compared with the portion of the population that falls somewhere along the autism spectrum.

The author of the site writes:

“This site is an expression of autistic outrage.About a year ago I learned I was on the autistic spectrum. Inspired by this discovery, I read everything I could get my hands on about the autistic spectrum. Much of it makes sense– for the first time in 41 years, I had a description, albiet an unexpected one, that fit me.

But a lot of what I’ve found out there, mostly written by “experts” and “professionals”, has been arrogant, insulting, and just plain wrong. My bête noire of the moment is finding my emotions described as “flat”. As someone with considerably greater expertise in my emotions than the “experts”, I can state unequivocally that my emotions are not “flat”. They are different, yes, but they are most certainly not “flat.”

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll be fired up over being described as “lacking empathy”. Or I’ll be outraged at an exceptionally clueless “training” method being inflicted upon autistic kids. Or maybe it will be some new paper written by some “expert” from the perspective that neurotypical perception is correct, and my brain is a genetic mistake.

My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have. I and my experience of life is not inferior, and may be superior, to the NT experience of life.

Hence, this “Institute”. Persons on the autistic spectrum and NT supporters are invited to submit papers to the Institute, and to share your observations in “Current Research” (the guestbook).

-muskie”

So what is “normal” anyway, and who gets to decide? I know my son’s mind to be an amazing “jewel” too. Yes, it is different, but does that make it wrong, or just different? I believe with the last shred of my soul that my son is exactly the way God wanted him to be, and that God has a purpose for giving my son an experience of the world that is different in many ways from what most of us experience. It is a challenge, both for him and for those around him–but really, I think that’s the point. Challenges and differences are what make life so astoundingly beautiful and interesting.

Funny how the two so frequently hold hands. Sunday was wonderful. Today….oh why doesn’t someone just shoot me! (That’s just a figure of speech, btw, for those of you who take language literally.)

First, Sunday. In spite of a definite spiritual bent, church has always been a challenge for Cricket. There are large masses of people moving around, talking to each other, sometimes making sudden noises at inappropriate times, and periodically bursting into song, all at more or less the same time but usually not quite at the same pitch. Let’s just say it’s not a very comfortable setting for a person with Asperger’s Syndrome. And when you’re a Mormon, it lasts for three hours each Sunday.

First there’s (more…)