Summertime Blues

Summer has historically been a difficult time for GL. With the longer hours of daylight, he has even more trouble sleeping than usual, and it's often in the summer that his meds become less effective or stop working altogether.

This summer, he has been getting up in the night, usually for an hour or more at a time, and often multiple times in the night. Then he's up by 5:30 am, (some days as early as 4:00) wanting help, attention, or company, and frustrated that we aren't up and ready to start the day. During the day, he has that tired look in his eyes, not to mention dark circles, and is irritable and demanding. By 3:00 pm, he is screaming and pounding on the walls. He continues screaming and pounding on and off until bedtime, and often until his bedtime meds knock him out. Some days, he starts the screaming and pounding at 2:00 pm or noon, and some days, it starts first thing in the morning, and continues all. day. long.

I try to keep it real here, the good and the bad. While he's had plenty of better times, we have also seen much worse. Some people think I should focus on the positive, and if I'm having a bad day / week / month, shut up, I guess. I see both optimism and pessimism as dishonest. If people come here to give or receive moral support, pretending everything is always fun, or even always okay, is not helping. So I feel like I should blog more. I've had things to blog about, good things, bad things, even a remarkable number of funny things have happened. But I'm tired, I have a seemingly never-ending to-do list, and most days, blogging just feels like one more thing.

What do you do when you get too far behind on your blogs?

I've been too busy IRL to spend much time online lately. At best, I jump on long enough to see if I have any urgent emails, and save the rest to (hopefully) read later. Blogging has been rare to non-existent. And I almost never have time to read blogs. When I do find time, I can only read one or two posts if they're short, and then I'm off again on the run. But since I subscribe to 122 blogs, the posts just keep piling up.

I would just mark them all as read, and I may do that on some of them, but on others, I'm afraid I'll miss a great post from one of my favorite bloggers. The bloggers who post very frequently or very infrequently take care of themselves: after a certain number of unread posts, older posts drop off the unread list on Google Reader, and of course, if they don't post often, the posts don't pile up.

When certain bloggers post, I drop everything and read their latest. These tend to be those who post infrequently and always have something good to say. Those who post somewhat infrequently and whose content is hit or miss, I generally try to catch up on when I'm less busy. Those who post frequently, and usually have exceptionally good content, I try to keep up with, but it's a struggle. If you post every day, I'm sorry, but I just can't keep up.

I know I can't keep up with every good blog, or even every good autism blog out there, but how do I choose? So far, the process seems to work something like this:

1. I run across an interesting blog. I read a few posts, maybe dig through the archives a bit to get the overall flavor, and decide I'd like to read more. I subscribe on Google Reader.
2. As I add blogs, my list of subscriptions gets longer, but I manage to keep up.
3. Life gets hectic, I get busy, and I fall behind.
4. As a backlog of posts accumulate, I start to feel anxious about not keeping up.
5. I start dreading and avoiding reading my blogs because I feel so far behind, so they pile up even faster.
6. I give up on following so many blogs, and decide to thin my subscriptions. I start looking for blogs that, for one reason or another, just haven't been as enjoyable lately.
7. That doesn't eliminate many, so I start scrutinizing those that post the most frequently.
8. I repeat steps 6 and 7 until the total number of unread posts starts going down instead of up.
9. I engage in some marathon blog-reading sessions, trying to bring that total down slowly. Along the way, I usually find a few more blogs to eliminate. Usually these are the blogs that seem to post on a regular schedule, whether they have something to say or not.
10. Repeat steps 1-9.

How do you stay on my list?

1. Favor quality over quantity. I know some kind of regularity is important to building a brand, if that's important to you, but content is king.
2. Post at a rate I can keep up with. I can't read every blog every day. If inspiration strikes, and you come up with five terrific posts in one day, post one, and save the others for a dry spell. 
3. Short posts are generally easier to keep up with than long posts. Exception: If you're posting a recipe, instructions for doing something, or photos of an event, put the whole recipe, set of instructions, or event in one post. Better yet, tell us about the recipe, project, or event in your post, then link to the recipe, directions, or photo page. This makes the post quicker to read, and the information quicker to find again when we need it, especially for those of us with slower Internet connections.
4. What's the balance between regularity and rate? Every day is too often. Less than once a month with no good content added, and readers may lose interest. For the average blog post, once or twice a week is ideal. If you publish something longer, like a newsletter, once every two weeks is ideal.

How do you keep up with your blogs, and what do you do when you fall behind?

Autism Dad Blogs

I'd been thinking about posting about autism dad blogs and asking people to list the ones they know of. Sunday Stillwell, who blogs at Adventures in Extreme Parenthood, beat me to it. Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Sunday. And since you have way more followers than I do, I'm hoping the word will spread far and wide. Everyone else, go read her blog (it's one of my favorites) and post links to any autism dad blogs you know of. And while you're at it, could you post the link to her blog, and ask your readers to post any autism dad blogs they may know of in the comments?

Some autism dad blogs I follow:
http://www.stuartduncan.name/
http://www.adventuresinaspergers.com/
http://blogginglily.blogspot.com/
http://anotherautismdad.blogspot.com/
http://www.bothhandsandaflashlight.com/
http://happytrbl.blogspot.com/
http://lebelinoz.blogspot.com/
http://lous-land.blogspot.com/
http://otscomic.blogspot.com/
http://bigdaddyautism.com/

What goes around, comes around

Kelly from Unplanned Trip To Holland has just given me the Liebster Blog award. So of course, I had to go look up the rules so I could break them. Except she didn't post them. She did, however post her answers to a list of questions that I assume were part of the award process. They were the exact same questions that were part of the Sunshine Award. Which I just got last week. In fact, she tagged me for this award in the comments on that post. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Tracing it further back, I did find one rule about limiting the award to bloggers with fewer than a certain number of followers, but there was some disagreement about whether that number was 20 or 200. Wait a minute! I can't even keep up with reading all my blogs, and now I have to keep track of how many followers they have?

Hmm, I do kinda like the idea of an award for the little guy. Especially since some  new bloggers come along, follow my blog, post comments, and within a year have WAY MORE FOLLOWERS than I do! But I really do like her blog. It's like, one of my favorite favorites. And she probably didn't know that I had just answered these questions because I was a smartass and just posted my answers without the questions.

Italia what Ima do. I'll post my answers again, this time, first the answers, then the questions. I usually just say, "Read the blogs in my sidebar." I started a long post saying something nice about each of the blogs in my sidebar, but it was getting so long no one would read it all, assuming I ever finished writing it. Instead, I'm starting a new feature where I choose a "Featured Blog" from time to time, (basically, whenever I feel like it) and post nice things about the blogger, along with this random logo I stole off the internet.

(I typed "random logo i stole off the internet" in Google Images, and this is the first thing that came up.) They can come claim the award, copy and paste the logo, and do whatever they want with it. Or if they don't want to post it on their blogs, they can just leave a comment here, so I know they read my post. K? If they don't see it, serves them right for not reading my blog!

The answer is:
Cyan.
The question is:
What is your favorite color?

Mama Bear.
What is your favorite animal?

I agree with Dee's answer.
What is your favorite number?

Coffee.
What is your favorite drink?

I've never Twittered. I was about to quit FB when Social Fixer came along and made FB tolerable. Now I can keep up with all my friends if I want to, but I hardly ever check FB. I have 491 FB friends, and it's just the same people posting the same kind of stuff over and over.
FB or Twitter?

Reading.
What is your passion?

Giving presents. To myself.
(Do you prefer) Giving or receiving presents?

July 4, 1776.
What is your Favorite day?

Freshly ground whole wheat.
What is your Favorite Flower?

Coming Soon: Featured Blogs

Continuing the Conversation Re: Perseveration

I love it when blogging turns into a conversation. Kelly, from Unplanned Trip To Holland, left some excellent comments and questions on my last post. I started to answer in the comments, but my reply grew long enough, I thought it would work better as a blog post. With comments like these, I'll never lack for post topics.

Kelly, I think your comments were 100% on-topic, and I totally agree. I think communication with the school merits its own post. I thought about pointing GL's teacher and classroom aides (we had hoped for a one-on-one, but there are 3-5 aides for the classroom, plus student volunteers) to this blog, but I need a place to vent about the school where their interpretation of what I said won't come back to haunt me.

Perseveration seems to have two components:

1. It's a barometer of his overall stress level. We do what we can to reduce his stress level and try to adjust his meds to help him cope, but being on the spectrum is stressful, and our kids seem to find more things than average to stress out about.

2. It functions to make something happen that he wants to make happen.

a. Sometimes it's partly related to anxiety about an upcoming event. GL's perseveration usually takes the form of repetitive questions. Sometimes he's just trying to grasp the situation. We try to explain, with varying success. Other times, he knows the answer, he's just seeking reassurance. In those cases, repeating the question back to him and letting him answer gives some reassurance, and eventually reduces the repetition somewhat. Why he thinks he needs us as the middleman in this process I don't know, but that's what he seems to think. Simply answering his question when he knows the answer does NOT help. He has never asked us to ask him a question, but I suspect he thinks that is what he is doing when he asks the same question repetitively. I arrived at this conclusion by trial and error.

b. If he has something to say that he finds funny or interesting, he likes to say it. The fact that he has already said it 794 times in the last hour is irrelevant. We try to redirect him. I think you know about how well that works. Other tactics are even less successful.

c. His sense of humor works something like this: If saying "boogers" was funny the first time he said it, (I meant the first time, when he was three) it is 3,472,963 times as funny when he says it the 3,472,963rd time. See above.

d. It pisses his brother off. Sometimes he just wants attention. He doesn't always know how to interact with his brother in mutually enjoyable ways, and he either doesn't understand or doesn't accept that BB sometimes has other things that he wants to do (read a book, play by himself) or needs to do (homework, chores) so he picks a fight to force interaction.

e. It produces an emotional tone he can understand. Subtle shades of emotion annoy him because he can't interpret them. The only way he managed to learn how to interpret facial expressions and emotional cues at all was by rote memorization of indicators via Gaining Face. (If your child struggles to interpret facial expressions, I strongly recommend this program.) But if an emotional state is not on their list, or a facial expression does not match what they demonstrated, he usually can't interpret it, and this annoys him. He usually attempts to elicit an emotional response he can interpret. Anger is one of the easier responses to elicit.

So yeah, in most cases, there isn't a whole lot we can do to reduce perseveration, and what does help doesn't reduce it all that much. So how do we cope? School gives us some respite. Oops, I just realized that could sound like our district was providing respite care beyond the school day so Mama Bear and I could spend some time alone together. Ha! ha! ha! Right. Like that will ever happen! I only meant that he is in school 2-3 hours a day during school hours. MB is at work during this time. We are still fighting to get him a full school day.

After school, BB sometimes goes to the library for some peace. It's two blocks from home, and GL can't cross the street by himself. Mama Bear and I tag-team it. Monday nights, BB and I have Civil Air Patrol.  Sometimes I hang out at the library and use their Wi-Fi. One or two nights a week, I go into town and wander around Menards (a regional chain similar to Home Depot, but with better prices. I call it my toy store.) or even Walmart.

We stop at the library every day after school, and GL checks out DVDs. We used to limit both boys' screen time pretty severely, but I've decided it's no great sacrifice to let GL rot his brain. He's very much into Disney and Pixar (of course) and lately even more into Blue's Clues and Bear in the Big Blue House. He has a portable DVD player and, for my sanity, I make him use headphones. This Christmas we got a second-hand Wii. (From an anonymous giver. Not something we could have afforded, even second-hand.) That at least gets him a little more active.

We have a pair of ear protectors (The boys call them "quiet headphones".) from Walmart's sporting goods department. Marksmen use them on the target range. We bought them to help GL deal with sensory issues, but now BB uses them to block out noise when he does homework. I have a pair of earbuds. I never liked earbuds before because I found them uncomfortable and the sound quality was terrible. This time, I got some with three sizes of ear cushions, so I get an exact fit. (Ear Pollution Ozone. a good compromise between quality and cost.) They are more comfortable than any other earbuds I have owned, and because they fit, they make a seal that actually blocks out most noises even without playing anything on them. Playing music makes GL completely inaudible.

Oh, and about that snow? People were overreacting. We got 3-4 inches. The only place in our county that posted a cancellation last night took it back.

Sanka, Are You Dead? Yah, Mon!

I haven't had time to read blogs in a while, much less post. Even when I check my email, I only scan my inbox for items that require my immediate attention. Yesterday was the last day of what GL's school calls Winter Break in order to avoid offending hundreds of imaginary people. So I thought today would be the day we could begin getting back to our routine. I'm glad Christmas Vacation was only eight days; disruption to routine is bad enough, but GL always thinks everything is permanent. He asks about school many times a day, but he keeps insisting that he was expelled from school and can never go back.

Yesterday we all woke up with sore throats. Last night, GL started throwing up. I think I'll be sitting on the couch a lot today; the laundry can wait. Enough spreading the sunshine!

Which brings me to the award I got this morning. Rules are here.

1. Thanks, Dee.
2. http://www.snippetsnstuff.com/2012/01/how-lucky-am-i.html
3. Cyan. Mama Bear. I agree with Dee's answer. Coffee. Neither. (I didn't log in to Facebook for two weeks and didn't miss it. Logged in to see what I'd missed. Nothing. And I'm not a Twit.)  Reading. Giving presents. To myself. July 4, 1776. Freshly ground whole wheat.

Read the blogs in my sidebar. They each deserve an award.

And in this corner... Voltaren!

So many big things have been happening that I haven't had enough time to write about them, so I try to post the occasional little thing when I get the chance. I woke up one morning with a sore left wrist. I'm not sure why, maybe I rolled over on it in my sleep. I figured it would feel better in a day or two. It didn't. In addition to the continuous dull pain, I started feeling a sharp pain whenever I turned that hand palm up. Turning a key was especially painful. I never realized how many times a day I unlock a door with my left hand, usually because I'm carrying something with my right. Bending my wrist toward the pinky side also produced a sharp pain. That sounds like an easy enough movement to avoid, but lifting anything heavier than a coffee cup apparently causes my wrist to droop enough to that side to hurt. This was all inconvenient, but I figured I could live with it, and it wouldn't last long.

After two weeks of it not getting any better, I decided to see my doctor. I said, "Doc, my wrist hurts when I bend it this way." She said, "So don't bend it that way." She did take X-rays to rule out arthritis or fracture. (Maybe a stress fracture? or an old fracture that didn't heal properly? But I've never had a fracture.) So that leaves tendonitis. She gave me a brace to remind me not to bend it that way. I already had the pain to remind me, but the brace reminds me before I bend it far enough that it hurts. Presumably, that reminder also prevents me from doing further damage. I'm supposed to call her if it's not better in two weeks. She gave me a prescription for Voltaren Gel, which sounds like the name of a comic book super-villain. Or possibly a pro wrestler. Or as Dave Barry would say, "That would make a great name for a rock band."

One Incredible Dad

That's what Mama Bear said to call this post.

The cake is peanut butter ice cream sandwiches covered in whipped cream and chocolate syrup, and decorated with fondant. Brother Bear came up with the idea, and Mama Bear executed it. No, she is not a professional, but it looks pretty good, wouldn't you say? And she cooked steaks for dinner.

I also got cards from the boys, and a copy of Big Daddy's Tales From the Lighter Side of Raising a Kid With Autism, by one of my favorite bloggers, Big Daddy Autism. He blogs about life with his son, who is about the same age as ours and who, like our son, has autism. I'd say I have one incredible family.

Question of the Week returns

I participate in several Yahoo groups related to homeschooling, disabilites, and other topics. One of the group moderators had started posting a "Question of the Week" as a discussion starter. I enjoyed reading the questions, responding, and reading the responses, but it took time away from blogging. Since the topics were generally related to the topics I blog about, I decided to post some of my responses here. Shortly after,   the moderator found herself busy with other obligations, and the Question of the Week fell by the wayside. She's back, and has given the Question of the Week its own Yahoo group.

Usually the question is a single sentence, but this week we have some background story:

I am having a day where I would like to scream, yell, and cry all at the same
time. My kids are fighting non-stop--actually escalated into a fist fight and
school is completely unproductive today.

I have older teens, so I run into great difficulty when it comes to coming up
with disciplinary measures. My kids have activities almost every day and
evening--and I would love to remove them--but other people depend on my kids to
participate in them, such as being Cub Scout Den Chiefs. So I feel that taking
those things away would really be more of a penalty to the others that depend on
them. I have thought about removing computer, cell phone, electronic games, but
I am not sure how effective that would be.

I don't take the approach that "boys will be boys"--and I do generally
discipline them; but apparently what I have done in the past is not working; and
I am really frustrated today with my kids.

I don't know if they just need a break from each other as they do spend so much
time together and do nearly all of the same stuff. I can't figure it out; I
just know that I feel like a parental failure today.

I need some creative ideas.

What do you all do for disciplinary measures in your home?

You can read the responses there. Here's mine:

My boys are 14 and 12, and they excel at annoying each other. When one of them wants attention or is just bored, he finds his brother and tries his most effective annoyance techniques, one after the other, until he gets a response. Despite hundreds, perhaps thousands, of repetitions, he is still surprised when his brother finally gets mad and yells at him. It just never seems to occur to either boy that:

1. Although these behaviors get attention, it may not be the kind of attention he wants.

2. If he annoys his brother enough, his brother will get mad.

3. When his brother gets mad, he will yell at him, and possibly hit him.

4. This will make Mom and Dad unhappy.

5. Mom and Dad are already unhappy with him, because his brother is supposed to be doing schoolwork, and even if his brother has kept his temper so far, he is distracting him.

6. If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

7. He started this whole process, and could have avoided it by leaving his brother alone. 

The brother who started it thinks the other brother started it by hitting him. To him, bringing up what he did is only changing the subject. If we keep bringing the conversation back to what he did, he will finally admit that he did something, but minimize it: "All I did was tickle his neck."

Neglecting to mention (even refusing to admit, if it's pointed out) that:

1. Brother hates having his neck tickled.

2. He knew this, and did it anyway.

3. He had already done 47 other things specifically designed to annoy his brother.

Punishment has not been effective, since each boy believes he is entirely innocent, and we are punishing him for his brother's actions. We do point out the above-mentioned facts, and maybe, with time, repetition, and maturity, they may begin to sink in. Perhaps the boys will someday allow the possibility that we might be right on one or more points.

In the mean time, they have work that needs done. If they are both working, I put them in separate rooms where I can keep an eye on them, but they can't see or hear each other. If one of them finishes before the other, he is allowed, and on most days required, to find a quiet activity in a place where he can't bother his brother, and his brother can't bother him. 14 yos usually goes to his room to watch a DVD (with headphones). 12 yos usually goes to the basement to play LEGO. We've recently discovered (with his concentration issues, who'd have thought?) that 12 yos can take his schoolwork to the public library (two blocks away) and actually be focused and productive. 

Once they have both finished their schoolwork for the day, they usually get along better. If they don't we separate them.

Woo-Hoo! I've caught up on my blogs!

I have an addiction. And addiction to reading blogs. An addiction to subscribing to blogs. And when I read a blog, if it links to another blog, I have to follow the link. And if I enjoy it, I'll most likely subscribe to that blog, too. And if I really, really like it, I'll start reading through the archives. And I'll almost certainly check out the blogs that blogger reads, and end up subscribing to some of those. Google Reader makes it so easy to subscribe. When I log in, I don't have to visit all my blogs, looking for new posts. All the new posts are sitting there waiting for me. I enjoy reading my favorite bloggers; they add humor, happiness, and encouragement to my day. It only takes a few seconds to read the average post. Very few take longer than a minute to read. And did I mention it's free?

But my blogs have a dark, insidious side. As much as I like to subscribe, I find it very hard to unsubscribe. After all, I like this blog. I signed up for it, didn't I? And so they accumulate. Then I have a busy day or two, or a week, and I can't read them all. Like The Newspaper That Shall Not Be Named, if I don't read the posts or throw them out, they pile up. And when I return, I have not only the day's new posts, but the backlog, which I may not have time to deal with. But I hate to delete any post unread. What if I miss some vital piece of information, insightful comment, thrilling narrative, or a joke that may put me in danger of inundating my unmentionables?

They not only accumulate, they sit there accusingly, like an unopened bill or report card, like undone homework or tax returns. The longer they sit, the less I want to think about them, so they pile up faster and deeper. By now the guilt of the messages I should have just deleted is added to that of the messages I  could have enjoyed, if I had only taken the time to read them. Some old posts drop off the list if they aren't read. I haven't figured out the rules—they seem to be different for every blog—but I worry about the posts that have disappeared. Somewhere around 500 unread posts, I feel an urgent need to catch up. I clear some time, and start reading as fast as I can. About then, several of my favorite bloggers go on a posting frenzy. Even swimming upstream as fast as I can, the current rushes me down the river. Something has to give. I don't want to abandon my favorite bloggers, but I can't read the entire Internet, or even keep up with the parts I find interesting. I even forget which blogs I love to read, and which I have lost interest in.

I spent nearly all my free time for the past two weeks reading and thinning my blogs. I was far enough behind that a representative sample of posts had accumulated on nearly all of them. If that sample didn't enrich my life, I unsubscribed. If there were fewer posts I liked than didn't, poof! If one post really irked me, bye-bye! As much as I may have enjoyed each and every blog, I had to cut somewhere. When I was finished, I had cut my subscription list nearly in half, to 108. Some of that number were abandoned by their writers months ago. Some writers post rather infrequently. Some have not posted in so long, I'm waiting to see whether they have abandoned their blogs. So I have a relatively manageable number of regular posters whose posts I really enjoy. That means I won't put off reading blogs because I dread the backlog. Over time, I may trim the list further. In the process of all this reading, I found several new blogs that look quite promising. Oh, the temptation!

Pinky, We're Going to Take Over the World!

Today's post is reprinted with permission from Boarding in Bedlam. I tried to find the original comment Arby quoted, but decided I had better things to do. I assume it's buried somewhere in the 777 (and counting) comments.

Arby is a stay-at-home, homeschooling, father of General Mayhem, Major Havoc, and Captain Chaos. He is happily married to The Boss. They live in Apathy, Kansas, with The Big Fuzzy Dog, several chickens, a few fish, and Reggie the Rent-a-Dog.


Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Pinky, We're Going to Take Over the World!
Well, it’s almost time to begin the new day. In a few minutes I will gather my hand-picked students, chosen for their unique gifts and abilities, and start them on their daily lessons. That is the position of Tracy, a teacher writing on a Wall Street Journal community forum. In her post, Tracy wrote:

Homeschooling - I have no problem with homeschooling, but please don't compare that with my job. There are VERY FEW similarities. If I had only 3-4 self-selected students to educate in the comfort of my own home with any bathroom/food/physical activity/food break and could set my own hours and discipline appropriately, etc. etc. etc ------ I could get even better results than those parents. If you don't believe me, then please fund that study and I will be happy to participate. I will even take 10 students.

She discovered our secret. Homeschoolers self-select only the best students. This self-selection process skews the results of home education unnaturally higher than those of our public school counter-parts. Tracy is such an incredibly talented teacher that if she would do the same, her homeschooling performance would be better than the rest of us teacher-wannabes. I’m stepping up today to raise my hand and admit, “Guilty as charged!”

I self-selected only the best students for my homeschool. I did not simply accept the children that God gave me. I self-selected a girl with a congenital heart defect. She’s a stroke victim with learning delays that caused us to hold her back one year in school to better prepare her to complete the first grade. It gave us time to help her gain the ability to hold and manipulate a pencil. Nothing screams “academic success” like repeating kindergarten! I self-selected OCD Boy. He’s the child that must ask the same question three times in a row before hesitantly accepting the same answer given three times in a row and gingerly moving forward through his exercises. If he had his way, I would be holding his hand through every question on every task that he completes. His ability is high. His self-confidence is low. I even self-selected Walter Mitty, my teenager whose hold on reality is tenuous on his best days. I wanted him to possess a genuine talent for mathematics coupled with a genuine loathing for the subject that allows him to stretch even the simplest math assignment into a five hour marathon.

I’m a bit of a sadist that way.

I’m fairly certain that if I asked my homeschooling friend Daniel, he’d admit that he self-selected autism for his oldest boy. Teaching a non-autistic child would be so…mundane. I’m quite certain that most of the thousands of the parents who homeschool their special needs children would agree. And those homeschooling parents who chose “normal” students? Selfish bastards. All of ‘em. They could have self-selected special needs children, but nope, they opted for normal. And we all know that normal homeschooling children never act up, disobey, sass, fail to complete their work, fail subjects, miss deadlines, lose assignments, daydream, lollygag or repeatedly make the same mistake that their parent-teachers have explained to them over and over and over again until they are banging their heads on the refrigerator in frustration. It never happens because those traits have been self-selected out of normal homeschooled children.

It’s time to let the world in on a little secret. Homeschoolers hold all the secrets to manipulating DNA in order to produce only the best possible students.

Pinky, we’re going to take over the world!

Or maybe…just possibly…Tracy has no idea what she is writing about.
Posted by Arby at 10:15 AM

http://boardinginbedlam.blogspot.com/2011/02/pinky-were-going-to-take-over-world.html

Papa Bear said...

I thought you must have a hidden camera in my house. Did I mention that, along with autism, GL has OCD? And after he asks the same question 20 times, I ask, "What did I say?" He repeats my answer verbatim, then asks the same question again.

And your "Walter Mitty" describes BB to a T!

I must have forgotten to fill out the girl with a heart condition page. Either that, or they're so popular, they're backordered. I seem to remember requesting twelve little blessings who were all candidates for Mensa, Mr. / Miss Congeniality, Most Diligent, Most Likely to Succeed, and sainthood. Ability to run a 4 minute mile while still in high school optional. Instead, I got my kids. I wouldn't trade them.

Whose Job is it, Anyway?

I love it when blogging turns into a conversation between people with similar goals, but varied experience. I've been discussing curriculum planning both here and in various online forums. I've had a number of helpful answers to various questions, usually about what I expected: I was looking for a way to teach x, and people replied that a, b, or c worked for them. Rebecca Miller surprised me with a blog post of her own in response to one of my more general questions,  What is not working in our homeschooling?

While her post was about her family's experience, it led me to consider some related questions we're dealing with. Every year as I prepare to select the materials we will use, I look over the past year and ask, "What worked? What didn't? and Where do we go from here?" The "What worked?" is obvious; let's build on our successes. The "What didn't?" can mean a variety of things. Maybe a book just didn't live up to its reviews. Maybe it just wasn't a good fit for my child's learning style. Maybe it was just too much to try to cram into our already overstuffed schedule. But there is always the possibility that, much as I'd like to, I can't blame the book. Sometimes my kid didn't put in the effort he should have, or I didn't.

That last one has been a struggle lately. Since my older son has autism, if he isn't putting in the effort, it's up to me to figure out a way to get him to do the work. But my younger son is twelve now, and needs to start learning how to take responsibility for his own work. Yes, it's a gradual process, but he usually doesn't see a need to focus because he has no idea what should be expected of a sixth grader. If it doesn't come naturally, if he has to work at it, he thinks it's too hard, and doesn't see the point of trying.

He has a vague idea that he is ahead in some subjects and behind in others (true), but no clear idea of where he should be in any given subject. We talked about it today, and I asked if he would like a chart of what needs to be done at each grade level between where he is and high school graduation. He said he would. I typed one up this afternoon. It's only a rough outline, listing the subjects he needs to study, and which books we have used / are using / are planning to use, and is subject to revision: As I see his effort and progress, I get a clearer picture of his abilities and what I can reasonably expect of him. I plan to go over it with him tomorrow. We can check off what he's already done, and I hope it will give him a more accurate picture of what he still needs to do. Then we can look at both the knowledge he needs to acquire and the skills he needs to develop, and strategize what to do when.

But I also need to observe him carefully and evaluate when to coax, support, and lead him along and when to let him stand or fall on his own. The ultimate goal is for him to take complete responsibility for his education, labor, and vocation, but what is the best method to foster this independence, and what does it look like at any given moment? How can I best model the ethic I'm trying to teach? As he learns to work more independently, what should I be doing while he's working? Folding laundry?  Reading a worthwhile book? Building model rockets? (educational, but he'd feel I was having all the fun!) Researching curriculum? Randomly browsing the Internet?

And I, too, had found something I could do a few hours a week that brought in a little money to help stretch the family budget, and even cover the costs of some CAP activities. It was only a few hours a week, but it did cut into school time. That opportunity ended, so I'm looking for a replacement. But how to fit it in without school suffering? I'd like BB to start earning some money to pay for his activities, too, and more than I could pay him, but how best to fit it in?

Most teens like to sleep late. Conventional wisdom says they should go to bed earlier. Our boys go to bed early almost every night, and they still sleep late. I don't think many teens or preteens are getting all the sleep they need, but how much is too much? Our school day runs well into the evening. I could get them up earlier, but would they finish earlier, or just be less productive due to a lack of sleep? What is the ideal amount of sleep for these boys, and at what time? How can we find time for the physical exercise they and I need? And what subjects do I cut back on, and how much, when we need to focus in another area?

Don't be discouraged by my having more questions than answers. We are making good progress in many areas. It's balance that's difficult. And I welcome your stories of what worked well for you in a particular area, or how you keep up in one thing without falling behind somewhere else. Because with so many things that need doing, it's hard to know how much of what to do when.

365

That was the number of my last post. Since starting this blog on January 3, 2009, with the post Contradiction, we've posted, on average, almost one post every two days, despite occasional silences. Not bad for wondering if we had enough to say to maintain a blog. I might go back and repost some highlights on occasion. I've found blogging a good way to stay in touch with friends and family, and made some online friends along the way.

My Turn

Now I'm guest blogging over at Bigdaddyautism.com.

The Good, the Bad, and the Truth

I linked this article because I think it demonstrates an important truth: optimists don't have a monopoly on inspiration. Put another way, pessimism and inspiration are not mutually exclusive. I began composing a reply, but I was interrupted interrupted by my son screaming, pounding on the walls, and tearing down pictures. Why? Because he suddenly decided he needed an "adventure" by which he means someone getting in the car with him, taking him someplace, and buying him some food. (And no, this wasn't about hunger. He'd just eaten half a pizza.) No one would drop everything immediately and do that for him just because he demanded it, so he started his screaming and wall-pounding. This was not a meltdown. A meltdown is much worse. When I said no, he began alternately threatening to keep pounding on the walls until I took him on an adventure, and briefly stopping his pounding to demand an adventure as a reward for stopping. I told him that no means no, and I will not respond to manipulative behavior. That meant we had no choice but to ride it out. So we did.

That's life around here. I tell it like it is. When something good happens, I celebrate. I don't mope around whining about my miserable life as the father of a boy with autism. When things are hard, I don't put on a counterfeit plastic smile and spew some saccharine platitudes about the glass being half full when it's darn near empty. I'm 100% real 100% of the time. Some people can't handle that, but at least I know they're rejecting the real me, not some synthetic version of me manufactured to please the public and failing to.

Have you noticed how a sanitized, Disneyfied version of a great story, whether a true story or a classic work of fiction, is never as satisfying as the original? Tame the fear and the sadness, and you tame the joy as well. I have no choice but to face anger, fear, and sadness untamed. I intend to embrace wild joy. That's what I like about Understanding My Son, Kicking Kittens, Life is a Spectrum, Big Daddy Autism, Both Hands and a Flashlight, On the Spectrum, Autism Herd, etc. The laughter is sweeter and the tears more poignant because they are real. I'd rather have real sadness than fake happiness. I will not allow other people, nor other parents, nor even other autism parents tell me how to interpret and experience my life in their funhouse mirror. It is what it is.

A few months ago, I visited an online homeschooling forum. Several moms were--let's call a manually-operated digging implement a spade--bitching. And there's no bitching I find quite so irritating as euphemism-clad Christian bitching. So what were they bitching "sharing" about? It seems that each mom had at least one kid (usually a daughter) who was a pessimist or, at the very least, whose optimism wasn't up to snuff. Here's the deal-breaker: they were not content to demand an honest assessment of events from that child; they demanded that she put a positive spin on everything. They were going to train this pessimism right out of her and make her a bleeding optimist! Their methods ranged from the absurd to the cruel. Have you ever felt the urge to do the impossible, reach through the computer screen and slap someone? If a positive attitude were so good and powerful and holy, and a negative attitude so rotten and weak and reprobate, how did they expect their negative attitudes and actions to inspire optimism? I immediately began composing a rebuttal in the form of a satire, titled "Optimism is a Serious Character Flaw." I wasn't foolish enough to send it. In fact, I never finished it, though I might one of these days.

Yes, we all have our good days and bad days. Yes, we all have moments when we tend toward excessive pessimism and others when we tend toward foolish optimism. If you choose not to talk about one or the other, you have the right to remain silent. But when you tell someone else they have no right to speak the truth because it makes you uncomfortable, and especially when, by speaking, that person inspires another to take righteous action, you can just go where liars go. I refer, of course, to Washington.

Coming Soon: Autism Parents: Two Camps, and Why I Don't Fit in Either One.

Special Needs Blog Hop

I'm slowly working my way through the list of blogs on the Special Needs Blog Hop. I'm seeing some familiar and well-loved pages, and discovering some great new (to me) blogs, too. But I'm also finding quite a few blogs on the list that appear to have no other purpose than advertising goods and services for sale. In my book, that's SPAM. Since I didn't start this blog hop, I don't know how to remove these without removing the whole list. I guess the only thing to do is let them both grow together until the hop is done (I believe they plan to start a new one every week), then go through the list and harvest the good blogs and make my own links list in another post.


So to all the real people who found my blog through the blog hop, Welcome. To my regular readers, we now return to our regularly-scheduled blog.

My Favorite Autism Blogs

It's easy to feel lonely when your child has autism. And sad and angry and just plain tired. But especially lonely, because no matter how you explain what it's like, 99% of all the people in the world just. don't. get it. How could they? Most of them don't even know anyone with autism. Even if it affects a family they know, people with autism can be hard to get to know, and they have a hard time getting to know others. And autism takes so much of a family's emotional resources that there's little time or energy for a social life.

Even those who do get close to people on the spectrum and their families, whether professionals, volunteers, or dedicated friends, get to go home at night. For eight, ten, twelve or more hours a day, it's not their problem. Not that they aren't appreciated and even loved, so long as they remember that their empathy is necessarily limited. When they insist that they really completely understand, they prove that they don't.

So the only people who really get it are others who live with it. I wouldn't want to limit my friendships to only such people, but it's nice to know a few. I like to read their blogs, and have them comment on mine. But I have only a limited amount of time and energy. Reading and commenting on blogs, and writing my own, however therapeutic, have to fit around taking care of GL's needs, not to mention occasionally getting a little sleep and maybe even a little exercise myself. Some blogs and web sites, whether arguing for a particular treatment, or in favor of "acceptance", whether pushing a political agenda as the solution or advocating a complete withdrawal from some nonfunctional system, or just collapsing under the load in a puddle of misery or self-pity, take time and energy I can't afford, and in the end, give nothing in return.

Then there are the exceptions. The people who live this life without despair. Who tell their own day-to-day stories, not sugarcoating anything, but somehow managing to find humor, joy, peace, goodness, faith, hope, love. When I check my blogs, these are the blogs I read first. These are the ones that refill my cup and give me the strength, the grace, really, to keep on giving. I try to give back what little thanks and encouragement I can in comments, but I don't think it's possible to repay them for what they've done for me.

I hope you'll enjoy them, too. If you are affected by autism, I think you'll find them encouraging, inspiring, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. If you're not, I think they'll give you a new appreciation for this life, and help you be an encourager to those who live it. And maybe if we spread the word, they'll inspire more blogs like themselves.

autismherd
Big Daddy Autism
Both Hands and a Flashlight
kicking kittens (Don't be put off by the title. It refers to the attitude of some people that finding joy or humor or happiness in the middle of disability is as offensive as kicking kittens. This is a place where people can post positive and funny stories.)
Life Is A Spectrum
On the Spectrum

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

The Accidental Expert, over at Raising Complicated Kids complains, and rightly so,

"Whoever said 'God only gives you what you can handle' has clearly never stepped foot in my house.  If they had, they would have just shut up.  At least I wish they would."  

When someone says that God won't give me more than I can handle, I look them in the eye and say, "I believe God does give me more than I can handle, and He does it intentionally." I let them squirm a minute, and then explain, "Because if He didn't, why would I need Him?"

Fall Cleaning

October is here, so it's once again time for Fall Cleaning. 

"Don't you mean Spring Cleaning?" you ask, "and isn't this the wrong season?" No, I mean Fall Cleaning. After you've been cooped up in the house all winter and are beyond cabin fever, ready to go stir crazy if you have to spend one more minute within these four walls with these impossible people, can you think of a stupider way to use the first warm, sunny spring day than inside, cleaning house? And who's going to notice, anyway? As the weather improves, everyone wants to spend more time outdoors. By the time you're back inside for any appreciable time, the house is already dirty again.

Now on cold, rainy days in October and November, when you just had all summer, and usually some good weather in September to be outside, you don't miss being out there; you've had your fill. It's not that cold out yet, but it's wet and windy. Your domestic environment is showing signs of months of lick and a promise housekeeping. You have summer clothing and equipment for summer activities to put in storage. You have stuff that has somehow multiplied when you weren't looking and is beginning to crowd you out of the house. The look of the place has gone from lived-in to depressing. And you'll be spending the majority of your time indoors for the next few months. 

 One of the advantages of doing school all summer is that we can afford to take time off when we need it. We're taking a week off school to clean house. Before we made this decision, BB had to agree that if he was going to get the time off, he was going to have to help clean. And Mama Bear made me promise that I would spend the week cleaning and not just blogging about it. That goes for reading blogs, too. So I've been trying to catch up on my blogs this week, and linking some good stuff. (Don't tell Mama, but I'll try to sneak back and report on our progress, too.)

The Universal Amalgamated Journal Sentinel Tribune Post Dispatch News-Free Press Sun Chronicle Daily Planet Democrat Observer

Compiled for your enjoyment:

Part 1 How Dumb Can People Get?

Part 2 Busy, Busy, Busy!

Part 3 The Countywide Universal Amalgamated Journal Sentinel Tribune Post Dispatch News-Free Press Sun Chronicle Daily Planet Democrat Observer, continued.

Part 4 The Countywide Universal Amalgamated Journal Sentinel Tribune Post Dispatch News-Free Press Sun Chronicle Daily Planet Democrat Observer, continued.

Part 5 The Countywide Universal Amalgamated Journal Sentinel Tribune Post Dispatch News-Free Press Sun Chronicle Daily Planet Democrat Observer, continued.

Part 6
The Countywide Universal Amalgamated Journal Sentinel Tribune Post Dispatch News-Free Press Sun Chronicle Daily Planet Democrat Observer, discontinued.

Part 7 You Can Run, but you Can't Hide