Out of Town

My family and I decided to do something wonderful on Friday and Saturday. That means we decided to skip one day of work and school. I guess I am a real human, instead of being a workaholic.

Can you guess where will we be heading? The answer will be given by the time we get back on Sunday night.

Cursive Writing

This year, Ryan has finally started learning to write his own name without help. That also including memorized the spelling of his last name ! Writing cursive is not easy for him. His cursive are loopy and large when he writes his name. It was due to that the researchers prove, " Autistic children often have unusually large handwriting" may be due to with cerebellar lesions or basal ganglia dysfunction.

This evening, he remembered the basic rules to keep his name on the line. He only did it once on the board, but not on his homework. Still more importantly, his print is legible. We will see how months go on. If it is all failed by the end of this year, I will teach him to use keyboard skills. Though he already learned a little bit by playing "Cars" on a computer. He is still young enough to learn to use his typing skills. Who knows he will become mastered in typing when he gets older? Or even who knows he would be mastered in Excel? (I admit I know NOTHING about Excel especially Spreadsheet.)

Actually, I am grateful for living in today's technology. Otherwise, he might have suffered a lot even he has learned, "Handwriting Without Tears"in his first year of both Special Education and General Education classes. Not only being suffered, he and I would have lots of power struggles if there's no miracle technology. Using the keyboard, this will bring Ryan a lot easier to complete his homework assignments, taking notes in class, and complete long-term assignments.

Even at 5 1/2 year old, Ryan reads at a high grade level such as "The Mittens" on his own, but writing and drawing pictures are not easy for him. Ryan still has the advantage for having me because I recognized and knew he has to start learning to draw pictures at early age. It was due to that I have met several Autistic teenage kids at my work site, who could put their thoughts beautifully in their journal though their penmanships were not great, and some of them drew awesome pictures. Their models had encouraged me to teach my son, Ryan at an early age. I started off the basic pictures such Tree and Sun. (You can see the model of my right picture, and Ryan's pictures of Tree and Sun were on the left side of the white board.)

Another purpose of teaching him is to master one language concept. Let's wait and see as the time goes on. If it is all fail, it would not matter because the computer does provide lots of pictures to do his homework assignments. Nothing can stop me from teaching him to become independent after he gets a lot of tutoring by me.

Cheating the Game

This Tuesday evening, Dylan and his dad played a Memory Game after they had completed their dinner. Dylan was the ones who put the cards down on the table. While he was setting the cards down, he set the matching cards down next to each other on purpose. Actually, he was hoping he was not being caught while his dad was getting his bottle of water. Dylan did not know that his dad knew he was cheating the game.

His dad played along with him until he was not looking at the memory game. David took an advantage to confuse him by mixing the memory cards. Wasn't' that funny?

Dylan won the game: 20-6 at the end of the game. In our astonishment, Dylan used the gesture word, "Loser" in front of us! We were stunned. I then inquired him where did he learn this language. Can you guess ? If you had guess, it was from the kids at school. Nope! That was not the only place he had learned. It was from one of the "teenager" Disney shows. That was something I didn't expect to have any Disney shows would influence a child to learn this kind of language. Guess, we will have keep our eyes open for Disney shows!

Suspenders

My husband has started wearing suspenders since he started having a hernia pain. Wearing suspenders helped to loosen his belt, and the pain. Both of my boys have seen their dad wearing daily.

On Sunday evening, Dylan saw an opportunity that his dad left it on the top of the dresser. I found Dylan putting the suspenders on Ryan's. Of course, it was not in proper place until both boys went downstairs to show their dad's suspenders off. But, seeing them wearing suspenders brought us smiling.

Aren't they adorable with their new outfit?

Say "Cheese"

Ryan, the little sweet boy, likes to jump with a camera. He would then say, "(your name) I want to take a picture of you. Say, "Cheese."

He knows how to make you smile even if you had a tough day!

Rainbow

On our way to work/school, we saw one of the most beautiful rainbows. Even better, there were two rainbows! Every time I see a rainbow, I often think this would bring me something good thing happening to me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

What is the first thing it comes to your mind when you see a rainbow?

Dear Abby

Dear Abby,

This past week, I realized my older son, who is bright and perfectionist, is being obsessed about food daily. He is only 6 1/2 years old, 50 inches height, and weigh 65 pounds, stocky with heavy bones. I have watched what I put it for his variety of lunch: sandwich, fruits or vegetables, and fruit drinks.

On the same week, I received a note from school's cafeteria saying that I owe them a money. It left me puzzled because I have been faithful for making my children's lunches every single morning. Once I found it out, I confronted my son with two question, "Can you explain me why do I owe a school lunch money when I made you lunches? 'Did you buy lunches without my permission ? (Though, he occasionally got chances to buy lunches with my knowledge.) First, he would not reply to me until he gave it up when I waited for his answer. He admitted that he threw his home made lunches away. From that point, I gave him a grounded for NOT allowing him to buy lunches until the end of the month. He apologized and accepted the consequence.

However, three days later, I received an email from his teacher stating that he took another student's snack. She did suggest me to leave extra food for snack which I did. By the time, we arrived home from work/school, I discovered he did not eat his Fruit Snack. I commended him to give me valid reason for taking someone's else lunch instead of his own snack. His response was, "My friend gave me sugar cookies. I like those cookies." He knows that the school does not allowed to have sweet food since the school cafeteria also had adopted to provide healthy food for students.

Last, I just spoke with his teacher at the convention center. She stated that she overheard him talking to himself in a classroom that " I am so sick of my mother giving me the same lunch. " It was not true that I gave him same lunches. She and I agreed that I gave her a privilege to talk with him because I knew he would listen to her better than me as a mom.

Just this evening, we had a chicken noodle soup, a stalk of celery with peanut butter, and a small bowl of fruit cocktail. At first, he refused to eat either stalk of celery nor a bowl of fruit cocktail. I honesty was puzzled why there was no celery with peanut better in his lunch box today. He admitted he gave it to his friend at school. So in order, I made him to eat either a stalk of celery or fruit cocktail. He was struggled for the first few minutes until he accepted my order to start off a small bowl of fruit cocktail.

Of course, I had shared my concern with his teacher and my older son that I worry about his obsession over the food and his future bad habits. Now, I am in desperate of giving me ideas on how to convince my older son to accept eating healthy food.

Concerned Mom