Handsome Bitty

Couldn't help myself, here's another picture of Bitty in his hat (it's reversible). Is he super-duper handsome or what? ;)








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SOOC: Fungus-among-us

Mr. Bitty has had ringworm on his scalp for almost two months now. We've nicknamed it his "fungus-among-us" (yes, we watch too many cartoons).

He's been taking medicine and it is S-L-O-W-L-Y getting better, but he still has a bald spot. It used to be a big yucky-looking red bald spot, but now it's a smaller, pale (not red) almost-bald spot with a little peach fuzz growing back :).

He has a baseball cap that he wears when we're out and about, and we got him this cute little hat to wear to church. Took a little while to get him to leave it on, but he's become a pro at it now :). I usually flip the front part up a little so he can see better, but he likes to flip it back down.




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Pokemon apprentice

Cuddlebug and Bearhug gave me one of their Pokemon games a couple of weeks ago "in case you want to try it."

It wasn't optional, lol. They asked me the next day how far I'd gotten in the game, and I had to admit I'd been too tired to play. Not wanting to disappoint them again, I made a point of starting the game the next night.

Turns out it is actually pretty fun :).

Although it's hard to play when you have two people hovering over you, both talking at the same time (such that you can't understand either of them, happens all the time so I'm used to it but it's frustrating b/c I really do want to hear what they have to say and no matter how many times I tell them I can't hear either of them when they both talk at once they truly seem oblivious to the fact that anyone else is talking to me at the same time).

I catch bits and pieces, they are both rattling off statistics of the various Pokemon, advising which I should use against which foes, what moves are best, when they will "level up" and what new moves they will learn when they do, and have I been to XYZ city yet?

They are eager to help, even showing me how to trade Pokemon with them. They accepted some of my low-level Pokemon in exchange for some higher-level ones that are apparently hard to find on your own in the game. What they forgot to tell me is that traded Pokemon won't necessarily do what you tell them to do in battle until you have earned at least two gym badges. I only had one, so I learned the hard way when I gave instructions in battle only to see "Jirachi is goofing off." Wha?!

Anyway, I have my second gym badge now so it's all good. :)

So yesterday the boys were telling me "you've learned so much about Pokemon, you're even smarter than Albert Einstein when it comes to Pokemon!"

Me, flattered that they are impressed with my meager Pokemon knowledge, "well I wouldn't go THAT far..."

Bearhug: "It's ok, Mom, Albert Einstein was born WAY before they even invented Pokemon."

Cuddlebug: "Yeah, so he knows absolutely *nothing* about Pokemon."

Me (laughing, so they are not so impressed after all, lol): "So in other words, it doesn't take much to know more about Pokemon than Albert Einstein?"

Boys: "Yeah"

LOL






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Spring Break - pictures

Playing catch-up... here are some pictures from our trip over spring break.


Exploring at the park:

so cute how CB and BH are doing the same thing, each with one knee up and one elbow up :)

Sliding together...


...didn't work out so well (LOL)


Love those happy smiles :)


Bitty opening his birthday presents from Grandma and Grandpa


Little Bitty bowler :)


Visit to the zoo:

Bearhug and Cuddlebug took their "Poke-walkers" everywhere they went, it counts their steps and searches for hidden Pokemon in the area (don't ask...).


Checking out the turtles


Bearhug


Cuddlebug


Feeding the ducks and catfish in the lake (always a highlight!)




Children's Museum:




Nature walk:











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What happens when...

...you fall asleep and a Little Bitty gets hold of your phone? He starts taking pictures.

I wasn't feeling well a couple of weeks ago and went upstairs to bed, Bitty followed me. Dh was downstairs with Cuddlebug and Bearhug. I guess Bitty entertained himself, because when I woke up I found these on my phone, lol.

Several pictures of his animal cards:



A few pictures of his feet (if there was any doubt as to the perpetrator, these would be incriminating evidence, lol):





And a little photo tour of my bedroom and his bedroom.

Our dresser (missing all the handles, lol, obviously replacing it hasn't been a priority).



My bedroom window - I actually really like this one, it has an artistic feel to it.



My bedroom door



Bitty's bedroom door



Bitty's toybox, with his finger blocking most of it, lol



There were several other, more blurry ones, and a few totally black ones where his finger was entirely in the way, but it made me smile to find these on my phone :).

Well, that is, after I figured out that he didn't actually break my phone, he just somehow replaced my wallpaper with one of his totally-black pictures that made it look broken. Ack!

Time to put a little Bitty-security on my phone...





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Salutatorian with autism gives graduation speech

Thanks so much to Jean for sharing this, I LOVE it!! :)

This is the story of a high school student with autism who graduated as his school's salutatorian. It tells about some of the challenges he overcame growing up, and shows the speech he gave at graduation. Absolutely awesome :).

As Jean mentioned, it is especially touching to see the acceptance he has from his fellow students, who share in the joy of his achievements.

Because no matter what our children may accomplish, or where life's path may take them, isn't that something we all want for them? Acceptance.

I loved seeing how he talked about having to learn emotion ("a smile can go a long way," and he flashes a grin), that made me laugh and cry (happy tears) at the same time, it reminded me of Cuddlebug. He and Bearhug continue to work on their social skills, and at our last iep meeting his teacher commented that Cuddlebug doesn't quite get why he is supposed to do certain things in social situations, but he'll do them anyway. Bearhug is starting to "get it" more but being his stubborn self, he is more resistant to doing something just because he's "supposed" to if it doesn't make sense to him.

And my favorite quote is this one, "My parents were told... I would most likely end up in an institution... Today I stand before you accepted into every institution of higher learning that I applied to, so I guess, in a way, the experts were right about the institution thing."

Watch the whole thing, it's great (it'll make you watch a brief commercial first, but it's worth the wait).




Read the whole thing here. More here.





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SOOC Saturday: Mystery man

Who is that mystery man?  :)

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Adventures in autism: balloon edition

A nice man at the store offered Bitty a balloon.

What could possibly go wrong? Let me count the ways...

I wanted to run screaming from the store. "Nnnooooooooo!!"

But that would probably be perceived as less than polite, so I didn't.

Instead, I repeated the question to Bitty, "would you like a balloon?"

"You wan' pink bawwoon?"

I looked at the man. Pleaselettherebeapinkballoonpleasepleaseplease.

He shook his head, "Sorry, we don't have any pink ones. How about orange?"

"You don' wan' da oweng one?"

"We have yellow, would he like a yellow one?" the man is probably regretting ever bringing up balloons by now, but this is just the beginning.

To my surprise, Bitty deems yellow an acceptable balloon color, so the man goes to get it for him.

When he brought it back, he offered to put it onto Bitty's wrist so it wouldn't fly away.

Strike 2. Bitty HATES tying anything on his wrist and squirmed away, refusing to take the balloon.

I offered to carry it for him, and peace was restored. Temporarily.

Yellow was not so acceptable once the balloon was in hand (or in mom's hand).

Bitty started getting agitated.

"Yewwow iss not good one. You don' wan' da yewwow one. You wan' to make it goner? Yeh, yewwow iss not good one. Iss time to keep it goner. You don' wan' da yewwow one. Da yewwow iss for goners!!"

And on and on. So I offered to "keep it goner" and went and found the man to give it back. Yeah, a little embarrassing but it was worth the look of relief on Bitty's face.

Things went ok from there, until we were checking out and Bitty saw the box of balloons behind the counter. He ran back there and started helping himself, sifting through them to see what colors they had.

Another guy was there and offered to blow one up for him.

Oh yeah, the whole color fiasco again. We were about to leave with no balloon when Bitty decided a white one would be better than nothing, so he ran back to ask for a white one.

He smiled and said thank you.

But then he decided white wasn't so great either.

He was getting more and more frustrated by this point.

"You don' wan' da WHITE one!!! Da WHITE-EEEEE iss not good!!"

We were finally done with what we needed, so I took the white balloon and started guiding Bitty toward the door.

He wanted to go back for an orange one. And a yellow one. I told him no and kept walking. I could see we were headed for a meltdown no matter what color he got, and wanted to get OUT of the store before that happened.

On the sidewalk outside, he started crying. "You wan' two bawwoons?... (counting on his fingers) ... you wan' seben bawwoons?"

Oh yeah, first the colors and now the numbers. Everything has to be seven. Or seventeen. Or twenty-seven. There is NO WAY I'm going back into that store.

As we got to the car, I put the balloon in first so it wouldn't fly away and he started screeching.

"If I don't put it in the car it's going to fly up to the sky. Do you want to let it go up to the sky?"

He immediately calmed down and nodded, "yes!"

So I handed him the string and he promptly let it go flying.

Not two seconds later he was crying again, "Nnoooooo!! Get da bawwoon!! No to da sky!!"

Ugh. I got him into the car and there we sat waiting while the meltdown ran its course.

He really wanted a pink balloon. And I really didn't want to deal with what was likely to be an evening-long cranky episode on a Friday night. I know the grocery store near our house sells balloons in their flower shop, because I've gotten them for birthdays before. I'm pretty sure they have all colors, so we should be able to find a pink one there. I offered to take him to get one if he'd calm down and buckle his seatbelt so we could leave.

Before we went in, I made him repeat several times, "ONE pink balloon. Just one. ONE pink balloon."

He repeated it the whole time we were there. "ONE pink bawwoon. Juss one! You ca' hab ONE pink bawwoon."

And whadd'ya know, we found out that the grocery store actually offer free balloons for kids (I would have paid whatever they asked at that point), and not only that, but they had the free ones available in PINK.

You know I was totally doing a little happy dance in my head when I found that out.

One happy Bitty... PRICELESS!! :)





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