Peace Builder Pledging

Last Monday, I received a letter from Ryan's school stating that he would be leading the "Peace builder Pledge" in a front of the school on Wednesday. So, we had practiced for the last two days before the speech. He practiced at home, speech and in his mainstream classes. Everything was all set to go!

Boy, my mind was racing with excitement for Ryan. Can you image how far he has come within one year? You bet, I was so proud of him for memorizing the "Peace Builder Pledge" without looking at the paper perfectly.

I am a Peace Builder.
I pledge to praise people,
To give up put downs
To seek wise people
To notice and speak up about
hurts I have caused.
To right wrongs.
To help others.

I will build peace at home, at school,

and in my community each day.

On the very day he was about to give the pledge in a front of 800 students, I had my camera ready to show it off. In the office, just shortly before he was to go out in front of his audience tears began to roll down his face. His mainstream teacher, Ms. Harting and I thought that if one of us stood next to him it would help with his confidence to speak. He only stood up until it was his turn to lead. He spoke softy into the microphone, "No, I don't want do this"to the principal. Dr. Parson was kindly handed the microphone to the boy who was standing next to me. Still, he was confident to tell the principal on how he had felt.

I felt like we put so much work into today for him to back down was a disappointment, but at least, he stood it up in a front of 800 students. Perhaps in the future, his self-confidence will change for better.

What's Better Than Ice Cream?

It's getting a professional school picture of my son, Dylan. A picture of him is more precious than having a bowl of delicious ice cream.

Dylan got the picture early in March. The professional capture him smiling and the background beautifully.

His brother, unfortunately, was ill on school picture day. Hopefully, the Life Touch Inc. will have a heart to let me bring Ryan for a make-up picture. I have a faith with a professional photographer that they will capture him beautifully, too.

Am I correct having a picture of Dylan (eventually Ryan) is far more better than eating your favorite ice cream?

Needs a Name

Have you ever name your own car? I sure did when I had my old red Chevy car. I named her "Scarlett" because it was red. Also, it was because I was the only ones who owned the car.

Since my husband and I traded our old, poor green van to a brand new silver van, Town and Country Touring. He and I own this new car together. However, I am the ones who drive this van frequently to work and home daily.

I was going to name something like "Shiny Lady" but it can not be an obvious gender.

Lady Lancelot (both are equal female and male?)
Phantom
Silent Stranger

At this moment, my brain is foggy and couldn't come up with a brilliant idea. In order to sympathsize me, I desperately need your brilliant ideas for our new van's name.

Miss??

Do you remember when you first learn to use "Miss, Mr. Mrs" appropriately when you write your name? I don't actually remember when I finally learned to use "Miss. Laura." But I believe it was sometimes when I was in a second grade writing a letter to my tooth fairy.

But today's society, many schools expect children to learn at younger age in writing, reading and so forth. I have witnessed both of my sons learned at an early age including knowing their full names. Dylan had learned to spell his entire name when he was in pre-school. Ryan just learned to write his full name when he was in Kindergarten.

However, who ever thought about teaching the young kids to write such as "Miss, Mr. or Mrs.?" Dylan already knows the difference, except for Ryan who is confused to know the difference between these three formal signature names.

With my knowledge, he spoke his name out loud before writing his name out on a paper. When I saw what he had written, I thought it was too cute to share it with you.

I immediately knew why he was confused . It was because his mainstream Language Art teacher is not married. He probably assumed everyone is "Miss." In fact, I had tried to explain it to him. He firmly declared it to me, "Mom, you are wrong!" So, I wrote a small note to his teacher because I know he would listen to her better than me. Let's hope he eventually will learn the correct way of using the formal signature instead of using "Miss."

New Ownerships

Believe it or not, David and I are proud to announce that we are the new ownerships of our BRAND NEW Chrysler Town and Country Touring Van for trading our old Mini Van, 1999. That was nearly ten years difference! It was a really long, dreading and agonizing decision whether to buy a brand new or a second hand car due to financially involvement.

Actually, we had hoped to afford to buy both cars for me and my husband. Getting two new cars were IMPOSSIBLE especially at today's economy. Without being able to afford getting two new cars, David always thought of me and the kids first before him due to our safety. Isn't that sweet of him for having a soft part of him getting me a new car instead for himself? Initially, he had hoped to get Dodge Journey 2008 from his dad's company. Perhaps next time will give him a rewarding gift.

After we finally purchased a brand new van, it was quite way past our sons' bedtime. They were immediately knocked out once they were on their own bed. Even with a few hours of sleep, I had lot of pondering to do something special for David such as getting him a new car. He deserves the best, too. Can you help me? (Winks)

Within a few hours of sleep, the boys were amazing for being good sportsmanships with me by getting out of bed at an early dawn, getting dressed, eating breakfast and arriving school on time. Even better, they did NOT give their teachers or us any problem during the day.

By the time, we got home from school/work. We decided to explore more further in our van. During our investigation, the boys decided to goof themselves off: enjoyed being in vain. Not only trying to be cool, David and I did our experiment by turning the CD music (for the boys) and DVD/TV shows. They were enthusiastic to be able to watch their own shows while driving on a short and long road.
It also included navigators and screen savers. We were pretty amazed to learn that there were more features than we had thought while we were focusing our important part of the features: DVD movies and automatically doors.

The best part of getting the van is that we don't have to use our power by opening the doors or windows. Everything is automatically. Aren't we being spoiled ??

Isn't our baby grand?

Game Boy

A few months ago, we bought Game Boys Advanced SP for our two sons. My husband thought it would be great for the boys developing their skills: in theory. I assumed it would be impossible for the boys to be good at the game because I never did well in logic!

They had proven me 100 percent wrong. I was pretty amazed to see how fast they had learned to play the game without reading the instruction. (Pretty typical of men, huh? They got the traits from their dad.) Even though, I only allowed them to play for a short period of time, and use other skills wisely.

Dylan especially likes to play with any teenage games such as: That's So Raven and Kim Impossible. After he played a couple of times, he requested for a new game called, "Cory in the House" Game Boys Advanced. I must admit that I had a doubt that any store would have "Cory in the House" Game Boy. I definitely was wrong while I was browsing through by Internet. How would he know what kind of the game they had out there? He must have listened to one of his friends at school talking about the Game Boy.

Dylan was not the only ones who likes to play with the Game Boy. His younger brother also likes to play Game Boy. But he prefers to play other kind of games such as Super Mario Advance and Sonic the Hedgehog. I have seen him laughing while playing with the Game Boy. I especially know he would be surprised to see when we get him a Game Boy of "Hot Wheels" for his upcoming 6th birthday. He is the kind of a person who likes to see anything that goes fast.

The system is more than just a game. It helped to entertain themselves or kill their boredom on a road. It does capture them into a climax when they were striving for a target, or jumping on the ladder while focusing on their own game.

Rules

While I was in the kitchen, Dylan caught his brother, Ryan chewing Dylan's erasers. I then told Ryan that "eating eraser is not good for you." He ran toward to his dad because he had hoped he would get away from the problem.

I then walked to the office where Ryan and his dad were in the same room. Ryan signed toward me, "I'm angry at you! " Of course, I signed it back to him without using my voice, "You know what you did was wrong."

He declared to make his own three rules in a front of me. The rules of what he said the whole thing in verbally were:

"The Number One Rule is Don't tell me what to do."
"The Number Two rule is to take a deep breathe."
"The Number Three rule is to back off."

He then marched it out of the office in an angry mood. Oh boy, I will have a lot more to deal with him and his older brother, Dylan who created their own self-determinate personality.

Spur Of The Moment

Would you ever believe that one of my good friends, Ginny and I actually dressed up as play boy bunnies? We just thought it was great for our entertainment to think about being youths! It seemed fun thing to do. The truth was that she and I had a spur of the moment to pose ourselves, not dressing it up as Play boy bunnies for money, last weekend.

If you just dressed up just for fun last weekend, how would you feel if someone had asked you a question, "How long ago did the picture was taken?" Frankly, it happened to me. Oh well, at least, I was not offended. I just simply smirked myself. There was no question that I had a good time with one of my good friends, Ginny. It was one of my precious moments in my life.

Expressing New Emotions

When I first was told about Ryan's diagnosis, I did the research excessively about emotions and moods in Autism. Many of the articles mentioned, " Children with autism often have difficulty labeling and understanding emotions and moods." However, I made my own determination to work on his emotions and moods skills.

During the first year after he was diagnosed as Autism, I started teaching him by using his emotions in a front of mirror daily. He started showing his expression in basic feelings without using in a front of mirror: happy, sad, crying and hurt in signing. This also came from reading a book to him at night, "The Way I Feel."

Eventually, he was able to show his emotions easily. He had the ability of telling me both in signing and verbally when he was hungry, tired, thirsty, or sick. The way I taught him was to capture the moment if he was looking for a drink, then I would encourage him to tell me, "I'm thirsty," or "I'm hungry" if he was looking for a food. Frankly, I discovered teaching my younger son the emotion was a lot easier at the moment that it happen than showing the pictures of emotions.

The next step was to teach Ryan angry/mad, excited or lonely. It was not an easy task. When Ryan was so mad at us, I kept forgetting to teach him to tell me, "I'm angry at you." But this time he did something I did not expect him he would say out loud in a front of my father in law when I asked him to stay away from the dirty waterfall in their backyard. "You have ruined my life. I'm angry at you" shouted by Ryan out loud perfectly. Then, he stomped back to the house. Both my father in law and I laughed, but I honesty was pleased that he FINALLY used the most difficult word I wanted to teach him, "angry."

Apparently my teaching methods are more effective by showing him at the moment than showing the labels alone. Who knows I will become a famous for the Autism article???

Amatuer Photographers

Just shortly after the boys finished reading their book for the night, they wanted let to do their own experiment by using our camera. I was pretty amazed when they took silly to good pictures.

This is Dylan's 1st experiment to take a picture of us. Ryan is a camera shy.

Dylan decided to pose himself.

"Oh my goodness, is Dylan going to take a picture of me?"

Who do you think that took a picture of us? It was Ryan! Pretty good, huh?

After I seen these wonderful pictures, I think I will buy a simple camera for them. It would be a great experiment to use their camera.

Smoochers

Just before our bed time, the boys and I decided to goof ourselves off. We decided to spoil our pretend animal, The Jaguar our good night kisses. It was fun to image to kiss the biggest animal in our house.

Giving my another baby a kiss. Dylan took this picture of me.

Dylan pleaded me to take a picture of him after I had kissed my another baby.

Ryan was another copy cat. That is his all time favorite animal to sleep with for the night.

Fluffy's Belated Birthday

Happy Belated Birthday, Fluffy McClellan! As of a week ago, Fluffy has now been on this earth for two years. He was brought it home from Petco during our Spring Break. To mark of this special occasion, he has taught us the love for him. Fluffy is a really loving and gentle guinea pig.

At two months old, he was like my third baby in our household. From the start, he has learned to love us by getting tons of attention. Our boys adore him dearly.

Every time, my mom visited us. She always went to Fluffy's pen and hold him. She loved to hear the sounds he had made. Lucky, my mom has interpreted what kind of sounds he had made. For example, my husband, David and I did not know Fluffy purrs. The translation says: "Oh yea, baby! That feels good!" Another time, she heard him saying, "Tweet, Tweet." It means: "Thanks Mommy!"

After learning Fluffy does make a variety of sounds like a real human, we had wished we could hear what he was saying to us. But we did not mind because he loves to sit on our chest. Since we couldn't hear what he was saying, we discovered from reading a magazine about Guinea Pigs.

Here are the few examples I discovered from the magazine:

1) Low whistle( or low"wheek'): "I think I hear dinner!" Fluffy does that a lot whenever I cook a meal. He would stick his head out of a cage and waiting for us to serve him a meal.

2) Whine: "Okay, I've had just about enough of this!" He probably has done while we were holding him.

3) Drrr: "I'm trying very hard not to panic but it isn't working!" He probably has made this kind of noise while we were vacuuming the house.

On his second birthday, he grew bigger and fatter! He loved to get all of our attention whenever we picked him up out of his cage, and being spoiled as well.

Happy Birthday, Fluffy! We love you.

Look at this...

Look what I found this morning when Ryan came up to me.

There's more for what he has done this morning.

Lucky, he didn't use the pen on his face!

Handy Men

This afternoon, David was so excited to buy some woods, nails and small hammers for the boys. He actually wanted them to start using their wood skills at young ages. So, he went to lumber store to purchase the supplies for the boys.

Once the tools were all set it up for the boys, they were confused to see their dad putting the woods on the standing table. It did not last long until David demonstrated the nails and hammer. Dylan started it off banging the table. As soon after Dylan started banging the nails, Ryan walked up to the table.

After a couple of banging, Dylan surrendered! He was looking for an easy way out, and walked away with a bad attitude. David did tell him that, "NO ONE succeed for the first time. It took a lot of practices just like writing." So, I ordered him to go to his room until he apologized his dad, or he would have gone to bed a half hour early.

Ryan was the ones who dedicated his success. While he was trying for the first time with the hammer, I considered it was pretty good. He did concentrate the task for a couple of minutes. Actually, his destination was making, "Rocky's Town for the Hot Wheels" when he announced.

A few minutes later, Dylan came downstairs to apologize his dad for the nasty attitude he had it earlier. He proceed to practice hammering the nails. Dylan seemed to realize that it took him a couple of minutes to get the entire nail down. He was pleased he made it!

Let's hope their attitude will continue until they keep their skills up throughout by his dad being a handyman from wood to electricity. Wouldn't that be nice to have my three men helping me around the house for me?

I'm Just Waiting

Have you ever had any experience of putting you on hold?

It applies to me that I just have been waiting for so long.

1. Bring the sunshine out in San Diego. The weather has been like a roller coaster. I really wanted to plant tons of flowers in our front and back yard. Perhaps, my name will be recognized in Home Garden Magazine for San Diego.

2. Get fit as a fiddle while working on my tan during my meditating time: swimming. Literally speaking of getting tan, I may be able to beat my Sister in Law, who is working on her tan, before going on a Disney Cruise in Summer 2009.

3. Waiting for my husband to heal 100 % completely from a surgery, so I would not have to be burden around the heavy duty house chores and handling the kids all by myself. Wish I could afford to hire a maid... or someone else can spoil me either by hiring a maid or coming over to clean the house for me.

4. Waiting for my younger son Ryan finally stop using his night pull-up diaper. (Dylan did not stop until he was 6 1/2) I know they are late bloomers. That's when sleep walking would have come in handy: meaning go to the bathroom.

5. Looking forward to having Dylan's first tooth fall out before the Tooth Fairy arrives. Too bad, Ryan does not know how to use karate, or he would have knocked his first tooth out.

6. Eager to decorate my long lost classroom back in the Fall for the Pre-School to First Graders. I am looking forward to being a ham with my talent in the color matching world.