Taking the Scenic Route

Wednesday January 31, 2007

31st January 2007

Wednesday January 31, 2007

GrabberXT_500

I have a serious love/hate relationship with this thing.  I love that it helps Zane and keeps him from chewing holes in his clothes or chewing his fingernails bloody, but dang I hate the thing too.  I went ahead and bought them in bulk so I wasn’t tearing apart the apartment in search of the one that he had whenever he would put it down and start putting holes in his shirt again.  They are everywhere now.  Fortunatly, he is learning to modify his behavior away from self injury and property damage, but I hate that he needs this so bad.  Ugh.  As if we weren’t getting enough “looks” when out and about anyway.  Oh well. 

At least his teachers and therapists are supportive and are working with him on learning when he needs to pull it out of his mouth (like when he needs to speak, especially when working on articulation issues) so that is a plus. 

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31st January 2007

Wednesday January 31, 2007

Zane made some craft projects at preschool.  These were to go with the Tacky the Penguin book.  He loves that book.  I think we are going to get more in the series.  Tacky was the first book where he was able to answer questions about what happened in the story. 

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I at least got a few shots of his “Tacky the Penguin castle” before he ate it.  lol.  I am pretty sure Tacky doesn’t actually live in a castle, but hey, it is still very cute.  He carried it around for a while before eating it and was quite proud of it.  After he ate the castle, he put the little penguin sticker on his gameboy.

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Ok, when did she get that little Buddah Belly?

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Playing with Daddy on Zane’s Rebounder (for OT)

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30th January 2007

Tuesday January 30, 2007

an article about an artist with autism and his website with his artwork.

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29th January 2007

Monday January 29, 2007

Right now Zane is totally overwhelmed with all the changes in schedule and is actually crying and not wanting to go to either school or therapy.  Thankfully, the ST he has been going to a while is being pretty gentle and understanding about it and backing off a bit until he gets used to the schedule.  I knew this week was going to be like this, but you just forget how hard it is.  (and you hope that *this time* it will go better/be different)  The first week back to school is the honeymoon, the second week it is horrible, the third week it is a bit better, and by the forth week he is excited about life again.  I am counting the days until the forth week.  *sigh*

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29th January 2007

Monday January 29, 2007

Mom and I both forgot our cameras (oh, the horror!) so there are no pictures, but my birthday celebration was really nice.  We went to Carrabas for some great Italian food and then came back to our place for a while.  As soon as Zane was handed paper and crayons at the restaurant he started drawing purple P’s, like he was learning in the literacy playgroup.  (they are doing phonics awareness, this week was the P sound, where they read a story about Polly the Panda who parachutes to school where she draws purple P’s on pots and pans)  We have been doing lots of “P” stuff at home (wishing it would include using the Potty.  lol).  He sat fairly well during the meal and snuggled with Grandma when we got back to our place.  Zora, as usual, ate everything except what we put on *her* plate.  lol.  However, if we put it on Grandpa’s plate, it was suddenly much coveted.  She had Caesar salad, chicken, pasta, bread, mushroom raviolis…basically a little bit of everybody (except Zane’s) food.  She got a bit cranky at the end of the meal and Grandma took her out to let her walk a bit.  I wasn’t expecting her to spend time outside, so I didn’t have her in her full blown winter wear, so mom put her gloves over the ends of her arms.  When we came out it made a hilarious sight to see a tiny little person in a pink coat and hands appearing to be the size of her head toddling around on the porch of the restaurant.  (it wasn’t freezing or anything, just a bit chilly to be out there for long without gloves for a little person) At home she showed off her dancing and clapping to music.  A little charmer, that is for sure.

Dad took the utility carts that had been used as end tables that used to hold my computer.  The carts were about 14 years old, as far as we could figure, and have been used as everything from tv stand to microwave cart to end tables over the years.  It was time to retire them because they were looking pretty gnarly for a few years already.  They were cheap to start out with and well used.  They will conclude their lives in dad’s shop at home, where looks don’t really matter.  The reason they were finally able to go with dad is because I finally got a DESK!  Yeah!  A real desk (ok, so it is still a Sauder put together thing) that looks nice and is functional and everything!  We had to move the loveseat out of the living room in order to fit it in, which created about two hours of drama as it got stuck in the hallway trying to get it into Zane’s room.  lol.  It almost lost it’s legs, but we eventually managed to get it back there.  Now there is comfortable seating for adults in the playroom, which is nice. His mattress got stuck up on end since he doesn’t sleep on it anyway.  He is more likely to sleep on the loveseat anyway, and the mattress can be pulled out and used if we want to.

It was a nice birthday.

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29th January 2007

Monday January 29, 2007

Interesting video and statement of an autistic person:  In My Language and her comments when somebody told her the video was on youtube.

eta: Since I first posted this, I found out she has a blog:  http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/ 

and maintains a website:  http://www.gettingthetruthout.org/

 

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28th January 2007

Sunday January 28, 2007

tax info for special needs:  http://www.schwablearning.org/articles.aspx?r=1130

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28th January 2007

Sunday January 28, 2007

Law & Order + Sesame Street = Law and Order Special Letters Unit

Star Trek vs. Star Wars

The Two-Hour Star Wars Holiday Special in only Five Minutes!

 

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28th January 2007

Sunday January 28, 2007

A smile when he realized where we were.

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second student there.  All new student clinicians this semester

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28th January 2007

Sunday January 28, 2007

I saw a post on a SN board about a parent celebrating that their child finally figured out “no”.  I know that most parents take the ability to say yes or no for granted, but I can tell you that the difference it makes is major in day to day life.  It is so much easier since Zane figured it out. 

I thought I would share some books that have sort of helped with some of the yes/no things.

Who Hops and Who Hoots  The Hoots book is the sequel to the Hops book.  The Hoots book has the phrase “no they don’t” as the punchline, and Hoots has the phrase “yes they do” as the punchline.  There are good descriptions of the books on Amazon, so I won’t try to do that here. 

The book Excuse Me!: A Little Book of Manners is a lift the flap book.  Now, normally I wouldn’t advocate a lift the flap book because most of them are disasterous at our house.  This one seems to be surviving, but I think it is largely because the flap is pretty much the whole page and doesn’t look like something is hanging off the page.  The book itself is very similar to a social stories book in a lot of ways.  Gives a simple situation, and a simple solution.  It is really straight forward.  One word of caution:  if your child eats peas, don’t get this book…the example for what to say when your mom serves peas for breakfast is “no, thank you”, which would be a disaster if your child actually will eat peas willingly.  Since we have an aversion to green food in this house, the value of the phrases outweighs my desire to get him to eat peas.  lol.

 

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  • Zane's age

  • Zane is 22 years, 2 months, and 23 days old
  • Zora's age

  • Zora is 18 years, 2 months, and 27 days old
  • Random Quote

  • Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. — Martin Luther King, Jr

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