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.