In his own words

"i like thomas and freinds and i like spongebob i have thomas toys i also like angry birds"

~ found on Bitty's "user information" on the flipnote website. Too cute (and quite fitting, no?) Just had to share.

:)

On a related note, here are a couple of his latest flipnotes.

He figured out how to take sequential pictures and make movie-style flipnotes with them. These are all pictuers of his toys. Pretty creative if you ask me!





This one he narrated himself, I love his voice (and wow he is speaking more and more clearly)! He's quoting a lot of it from "Oliver the Western Engine" in which Oliver gets stuck in a turntable well. I have to give him credit, he couldn't find his wooden Oliver train so he improvised and used another one to play the role of Oliver in his pictures. I was impressed that although he was a little stressed out about it (and keeps asking me where Oliver is, unfortunately I don't have a clue), he was able to come up with his own workaround.




(he changed his username to "spike fan," I don't really know why...)

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Overheard...

Various conversations and comments from the last couple of weeks:


~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuddlebug (reading billboard): 'Red Bull gives you wings'... I wish that was true, because I really want to fly...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bearhug: Time machines won't be invented in my lifetime, because if they were I would've come back to say hi to myself by now. I would do it at this time because right now is when I'm interested in time machines.

Hard to argue with his logic, huh? :)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bearhug: "Do you know where I can learn telekinesis?"

me: No...

Bearhug: "Daaaarrrnn!!"

lol :)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuddlebug: "I recommend you don't ever lick the bottom of my shoes. (pause) I don't use my hands to flush the handles of public toilets, I use my shoes."

Good thing I don't make a habit of licking the bottom of his shoes... not sure why he thought to tell me that. Eewww :/

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bitty's latest thing is "are you just kidding?" whenever we say something he doesn't agree with or answer a question in a way that he finds unacceptable. Sometimes we just can't convince him otherwise, so we finally have to go with, "uh, yeah, we were just kidding..." ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bitty: I wike Thomas, do I? Because he's awesome!!! But [CB & BH] don' fink he's awesome do they? Is Thomas awesome? Am I seven to wike Thomas?

Cuddlebug and Bearhug have been giving him a hard time about the fact that he likes Thomas ("Thomas is for babies!" "I not a baby! I'm a big boy!") but as I keep reminding them, they were really into Thomas when they were 7 too, so Thomas IS for big boys.

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Biology, according to Bitty

Bitty often asks me out of the blue what certain words mean. Because of his language difficulties, he doesn't always pick up on "context clues" and he has a strong preference for concrete, easy-to-visualize explanations.

I do my best, but my walking-dictionary-on-the-fly skills sometimes fall short.

Bitty: What does "born" mean?

me: You mean like when babies are born?

Bitty: When I was born.

me: It means you came out of my tummy. Babies are in their mommies' tummies before they are born.

Bitty: I was in your tummy?

me: Yep

Bitty: Did you eat me?

(groan, HOW did I not see that one coming?!)

me: No, honey, babies grow in their mommies' tummies and when they are big enough to be born, they come out of the tummies.

Bitty: I don't want to go in your tummy.

me: That's ok, because you're already born. You've been out of my tummy since you were a little baby.

Bitty: Was I born?

me: Yes

Bitty: So I not in your tummy anymore?

me: No, you're a big boy now, way too big to be in my tummy.

Bitty: Do mommies eat da babies? To put dem in da tummies?

me: *NO*, no one eats the babies, they're in the tummies to grow.

Having been through some of these discussions w/ Cuddlebug and Bearhug, I had my explanation all ready to go as to how babies get IN and OUT of tummies, but he wasn't having it (after all, when you're convinced you already know something, who needs mom trying to explain it to you, right?). So I tried to change the subject.

I had a lightbulb moment yesterday when I realized that his coming to that conclusion probably had something to do with this little chat earlier that same day as we were eating lunch:

Bitty: Does my tummy have a mouf?

me: No, the food goes from your mouth, down to your tummy.

Bitty: Where does da food go after da tummy? to da WEE-WEEEE??

(yeah, I'm sure the elderly couple behind us enjoyed that little anatomy lesson, lol)

Two completely unrelated topics in my mind, but in hindsight I guess I can see how he put two and two together... :/

He's asked me about it again a few times since then, at random moments:

Bitty: Mom? I don't want to be in your tummy.

me: I know, don't worry you're not going to be in my tummy anymore.

Bitty: Because I was born, was I?

me: Yep.

Bitty: Are you gonna eat me? To put me in your tummy?

me: NNOOO, no I'm not.

I'm thinking maybe I should have dh add a little biology to the mix for his summer homeschool lessons - to illustrate the difference between the digestive system and the reproductive system. Maybe the visuals will help.

In the meantime, I just hope he doesn't decide to start asking questions like that the next time he sees a pregnant woman (sigh).

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Angry Birds

Bitty asked me to help him make a slingshot.

Turns out this is what he had in mind:



Yep, we made a slingshot out of old pantyhose, lol. I set up the pigs at the bottom of the stairs for him, and Bitty had the birds lined up behind the slingshot (just like on the game).

He's really into Angry Birds these days... he asks me almost every day, "Do you wike Angry Birds? I wike Angry Birds. Do you wike da bwoo bird? Is da bwoo bird cute?" (note: the correct answer is yes, the blue bird IS cute!)


He has even expressed some interest in the plot line of the game, which I thought was pretty cool:

"Why are da birds angry?"

"Because the pigs stole their eggs."

"Why did da pigs stoled da eggs?"

"Because they like eggs."

"Do angry birds attack pigs?"

"Yep"

"Who do angry pigs attack?"

"That's a good question... birds?"


He recently made this flipnote which I thought was pretty creative (although obviously I'm quite biased!)

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On IEP's, speech, and girls

So last month we had the IEP meetings for Cuddlebug and Bearhug to set up their transition-to-middle-school IEPs. The ASD resource teacher from the middle school was there, which was great because we were able to get a lot of our questions answered as to how things work in middle school, both in general and specific to the autism program. I am feeling a little better about the whole thing now that we have *some* idea of what to expect.

This week there is a field trip for the 5th graders to visit the middle school, and also an informational meeting for parents.

While they will have an open house in the fall, the resource teacher said she is happy to set up a separate time for her students to come when it will be quiet so they can take their time to get familiar with where everything is without the huge crowd. That is AWESOME, and we will definitely be taking her up on that!

One of their electives will be a social skills class, which also includes spending some time tutoring kindergartners at the elementary school which is connected to the middle school. I think that will be a great experience for them (and who knows, may even help them develop a little more patience for their little brother... a mom can hope, right?). The teacher said that both her students and the kindergartners really enjoy it, and it's a great learning experience all around.

And... (drumroll please)... Cuddlebug and Bearhug have now officially "graduated" from speech therapy. :) There are still some articulation issues but it's either things that they physically can't help or they know how to make the right sounds in a therapy environment and it's just a matter of remembering to do it in conversational speech which is something we can work on at home. When I told the boys about that they were pretty happy, poor Cuddlebug seemed really relieved. He seemed to like it more when he was younger but not so much anymore... I felt bad when he told me, "a lot of other kids finished speech a lot sooner than me and 'Bearhug.'" He's never said anything like that before so I didn't realize he was noticing (although I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he notices everything). I just told him it's different for everyone depending on what they're working on, and that's ok. I also told him how proud I am of both of them because I know how hard they have worked in speech as well as at school.

His current resource teacher told us they've been talking to the 5th graders about middle school, and letting them share what they are nervous about and excited about regarding middle school.

On both of their lists (both boys and both nervous and excited about) was "having a girlfriend."

Oh my.

Which reminds me of a recent conversation we had in the car.

Cuddlebug: "We're starting to be interested in girls."

me: ('wha?!?!' on the inside, cool as a cucumber on the outside or at least I think so) "Really?"

Bearhug: "Yeah, or at least the girls are starting to be interested in us."

(Now that I already knew, but I didn't realize that THEY knew it yet)

me: "How do you know?"

Bearhug: "A girl gave me a love letter."

me: (still cool on the outside, crying incoherently about how my baby isn't old enough for this stuff yet on the inside) "A love letter? What did it say?"

Bearhug: (totally nonchalant about the whole thing of course) "It said, 'I love you.'"

me: "Wow... what did you say?"

Bearhug: "I didn't respond."

me: (ok, now I'm starting to feel sorry for the poor girl) "umm... you know she had to be pretty brave to give you that. You don't have to say it back, but you should say *something*"

Bearhug: "Oh, I did say something."

(pause to see if he was going to continue but he didn't)

me: "What did you say?"

Bearhug: "I said, 'Aren't we a little young for that?'"


That's my boy ;).

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School / IEP update for Bitty

A while back I posted about some of the difficulties Bitty has been having in school.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, we had a meeting with the school to review his IEP and discuss changes to help better meet his needs. We learned that he was basically requiring almost constant one-on-one support from the resource teacher / parapros in his class which isn't really what they are set up to do. The challenge comes down to communication - if the subject is straightforward and doesn't require much verbal explanation he does great. Spelling, for example. He is a spelling kung fu master :). On the other hand, any subjects or new topics that require verbal explanation are quite difficult, not because he can't understand the subject matter, but because he struggles with language. He's a fast learner and that has helped him to keep up as well as he has, but the whole situation was really stressing him out because he recognized that most of his classmates did not share his struggle to understand what was being said, or what was being asked when the teacher would ask questions.

His teachers suggested he might do better in a smaller class setting, at least for the core subjects, and we agreed to put him in a self-contained ASD class for part of the day (almost half the day when you add up the hours) for math, reading, and writing. For the rest of the subjects he is still in his regular ed class with resource support. It's a much smaller class where all the kids have similar issues and the teachers have the flexibility to tailor to the kids' pace and individual needs much more than in the larger classroom. They also do activities like morning yoga since the physical activity helps the kids focus for learning (honestly, I think all kids would probably benefit from something like that, not just kids on the spectrum). We'll reassess later this year when we update his IEP for next year.

He started in his new class after the Thanksgiving break and so far it is really working out well. His anxiety level is considerably less, he no longer cries about having to go to school and he is doing well academically. He's back to getting all 1's on his daily reports (they have a scale from 1-4 for how he does at staying on task and following instructions with minimal reminders, etc.). It's been hard to see him struggle so much, and although I wish it wasn't so hard for him I'm grateful he's getting the support he needs and relieved that he's back to feeling positive about school.

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Language barrier & school struggles

We had teacher conferences last month. All in all, it went well, especially for Cuddlebug and Bearhug. They are working really hard and doing great - all A's and B's (mostly A's!) :) and they are thriving in their accelerated classes.

Bitty is also working really hard but he is struggling more with school this year than he has in the past. I'm grateful that his teachers "get" autism and understand the source of his difficulty is language related and not cognitive or attention related.

His teacher shared her concern that he is really struggling with anything that requires verbal explanations or verbal interaction. It's something we've been aware of for long time (obviously), but in 1st grade there is more of a need for language skills to be able to keep up with the class. His teachers have all noted that he is very bright and catches on quickly with anything that is not language-intensive.

The best analogy I can think of is someone who is going to school in a foreign country, and they aren't exactly fluent in the native language... they have the added challenge of trying to keep up with conversations and translate instructions so they can understand what is expected.

That's pretty much where Bitty is at. The good news is, he is not being disruptive or having behavior issues when he runs into difficulty following what the class is doing. The not-so-good news is, he is basically zoning out when that happens. They're working with him to raise his hand and ask questions when he doesn't understand something, but often he just tunes out and ends up either not responding, repeating back the question, or saying "I don't know" when asked a question (the "I don't know is fairly new, he's been working on that as a more appropriate response than repeating back the question since last year).

He comes home with a daily communication sheet with the day broken out into the various activities and subjects that they work on every day and feedback on how he did during each. There's a 4-point scale, with 1 meaning he was able to work independently or with minimal reminders and 4 meaning he need LOTS of reminders to follow instructions and stay on task. He started out getting mostly 1's and 2's but as the school year progressed we started to see more and more 3's, and then 4's.

His teachers often write in the comments that his behavior is fine, it's just a matter of not seeming to understand what is expected or not being able to appropriately respond to questions (eg. answer questions about a book they read during reading time). He tends to do better earlier in the day (but not always) so I think to some extent it just takes a lot of effort and his capacity to put forth that level of effort starts to wear thin as the day goes on. But beyond that I have come to believe that there are situations where he truly does not understand what is being taught due to the language barrier.

He has started asking us on a regular basis what words mean. It's great that he can do that now but I am sometimes surprised by the words he asks about, having assumed he already knew them. And I find it difficult sometimes to explain what one word means without having to define it with another word he doesn't understand. When you think about it, in order to understand the dictionary you have to be starting from a basic understanding of the language.

Anyway, so dh and I discussed and decided that since we know that both his regular ed and resource teacher are well aware of the issue and are working with him on it, we'd see how he did over the next few weeks and if things didn't improve we'd approach them to see if we may need to consider adjusting his level of support.

Well, we didn't end up needing to suggest that, his resource teacher called me last week to say that she and his speech teacher wanted to schedule an IEP review to consider increasing his services at school to better meet his needs.

This is why I love our school - we've been fortunate that most of the teachers we've worked with over the years so far understand autism and they are proactive about meeting students' needs. (it's also a big part of why I'm nervous about the transition to middle school next year - a whole new environment, but keeping our fingers crossed).

We're scheduled to meet next Monday, I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, we're working with him at home also and trying to use visuals and hands-on learning as much as possible. That's nothing new as all of our kids learn better that way, but we're kind of in new territory with Bitty as his delays are more pronounced. Suggestions welcome.

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Conversations with Bitty

Bitty asked me one evening as I took him upstairs to tuck him in for bed, "does me hab schoo tomowwow?"

I couldn't help but smile, his wording is too cute but it is also an indicator of just how far he's come with his speech and communication skills. You may notice that he didn't say, "do YOU hab schoo tomowwow?"

After a LOT of time and effort, he uses the pronoun "you" correctly most of the time now, meaning referring to the person he's speaking to and not to himself.

It didn't occur to me that there would be a "next step" of differentiating between I and me (is the English language complicated or what?!) until we started hearing sentences like the one I started this post with:

"Does me hab schoo tomowwow?"
"Iss me sick?" (he had to stay home from school a couple of days this week as he was running a fever, he's feeling better now).

Other times (usually at the beginning of a sentence now that I think of it) he does great:

"I don' WIKE DAT!" (we hear that one a lot, sigh)
"I not hungry"

However he decides to word things, I remain infinitely grateful that he is (mostly) willing and able to communicate with us. It means the world to have some insight into what he's thinking (even though sometimes he still leaves us guessing).

He often likes to ask questions that we think he already knows the answer to. Maybe he likes the reassurance of hearing the answers again, maybe he's just making conversation.

For example, he drives his brothers crazy asking things like "do you wike Pokemon?", "wha'ss you fay-brit cuh-wer? Iss wed you fay-brit cuh-wer?" or "do you wike Kirby-right-back-at-YA?" (a cartoon that apparently went off the air years ago but still lives on YouTube).

If he deems the answer "unacceptable" he can be very persistent (ie. when Cuddlebug tried to tell him he doesn't have a favorite color). That can lead to some funny conversations, like Cuddlebug making up random names for colors that don't exist because he refuses to just pick a color and Bitty refuses to stop asking until he gets a satisfactory answer.

Bitty still tends to ignore us at times, and it can take a LOT of effort and repetition to get any kind of response when we are trying to ask him something or initiate a conversation with him. Or (gasp!) trying to get him to do something.

But other times he will actually seek us out and I am loving these little interactions:

Bitty, to me: "Iss Kirby a pink ball?" (grinning)
me: "Yes, Kirby is a big pink ball."
Bitty: "Does Mom wike Kirby?"
me: "Of course I love Kirby, he's one of my favorite characters!"
Bitty smiles in response.
me: "Do YOU like Kirby?"
Bitty smiles even bigger, nodding his head emphatically with a huge grin. Priceless :)

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Redirect... FAIL

We were at church Sunday and Bitty was wired, running up and down the halls with the occasional screech. He's been really having a hard time at church lately, but that's another post.

I took him for a walk and he was finally starting to settle down but I sensed he was on edge and would soon take off running again so I tried to distract him with the paintings on the wall.

"Who is that a picture of?" "What are they doing in the picture?" etc.

He wasn't really interested but as we passed the bulletin board I tried again.

"What does that say?"

He shouted, "I KNOW DA SCWIPTURES ARE TRUE!!!"

So much for trying to distract him *quietly* (sigh).

"Ssshhhhh... not so loud, angel."

He looked at me and pointed to the exclamation point at the end of the phrase on the board as he patiently explained, "Dat means WOUD or excited."

Oh... the exclamation point means loud or excited... of course (smiling now and stifling a laugh). He's learned all about punctuation at school.

"How about if we try an excited whisper?"

He did his best excited "whisper" which was not really a whisper but wasn't an ear-piercing yell either.

"I know da scwiptures are TRUE!"

...

Note to self: next time you try to distract Bitty with reading something, make sure there are no exclamation marks in sight.

!!

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Blog Gems: An event to remember

It's time for Blog Gems again :). This week's topic is to share something about an event (any event) from our archives.

I decided to share a post about a spontaneous event that is one of my happy memories :). Here's the link:

He said it!!! (tears of joy)



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Communication tip #318: Expressing displeasure

Let's say your mom buys you a new package of underwear. She was careful to buy Thomas ones (and was happy to find them in your size). Unfortunately the only ones available have a different design than the ones you currently have, rendering them UNACCEPTABLE.

How do you convey your displeasure to your mom so that she thoroughly understands, with no room for doubt, just how unacceptable said underwear are?

Do you:

(a) toss the entire package out the front door and slam the door shut
(b) throw the package into the refrigerator and slam the door shut
(c) open up the package, take the offending underwear out, and bite them
(d) all of the above

If you answered (d), congratulations!! You've successfully made your point! Ok, you made your point after (a) but now you've DEFINITELY made your point. There is NO possibility of misunderstanding. None.

~~~~~~~~~~

In my defense, I was aware that different Thomas pictures might be a problem, but that's all they had. I decided to live on the edge and give it a try. Crash and burn!

Sigh... I was actually going to take them back until that last one, but once the underwear has been slobbered on, there's no taking them back. Let's hope he changes his mind.



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Things I want to remember about this week

Bitty is really into shapes lately. So ice cream sandwiches are "rectangles," hot dogs are "cylinders" and the new block toy he found at a yard sale yesterday is a "cube." :)

~~~~~~~~~

Cuddlebug and Bearhug are into old-school video games ("into" is putting it way too mildly, lol). They've been obsessing over the dates various systems and old games were first published and they are constantly asking me questions about which video games I played as a kid (umm, I didn't have any video games when I was a kid... so deprived!! hehe). They've been asking for weeks for an old Nintendo 64, because "we like old things, Mom, because they're new to us!" We lucked out and found one at the same yard sale where Bitty found his "cube." Dh, who is a major technology geek, is pulling his hair out trying to figure out why they want to play Nintendo 64 when they have a Wii. LOL

~~~~~~~~~

When Bitty asked me for ice cream the other day, I asked him if he'd eaten all of his dinner. He got annoyed and huffed,

"I not a dinner friend!!"

hee hee :)

Side note: he's using "I" appropriately more and more now, instead of saying "you" when he means "I." Not all the time, but we're about 50/50 now. Yay! That goes a long way toward making it easier for people outside of his immediate circle to understand him.

~~~~~~~~~~

I've been looking everywhere for Bearhug's Christmas list (technically it was for both Bearhug and Cuddlebug, but Bearhug was the one who actually wrote it all down)... I wanted to scan it to share because it was so cute. #7 on his list was "a Christmas hug"... how sweet is that?

~~~~~~~~~~

The number fascination that Cuddlebug and Bearhug have always had lives on... it's just taken on a new dimensions. They can tell me the number of pages in their books (and sort their book series by # of pages). Bearhug is into copyrights and makes a mental note of the copyright year of any book or tv show he sees (I didn't even realize tv shows had copyright dates until he started rattling off a list of them for all of Bitty's cartoons one day). Cuddlebug can tell you the release date (year) of every Pokemon game ever made and a whole range of other games too.



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Autism Fair

We took the whole family to the Family Fun Day this year. Dh took Cuddlebug and Bearhug to the inflatables, where they spent most of their time bouncing :).


Meanwhile, I took Bitty on the train ride (he wasn't quite sure what to think of it at first, but he was enjoying himself by the time we finished).


After that we went to the petting zoo, Bitty loved it and we spent the rest of our time there.




One of the volunteers struck up a conversation with Bitty and I was really impressed that with only minimal prompting he engaged in a really good back-and-forth dialogue with her. He has come such a long way! He got "stuck" on a couple of phrases, like "ee's stuck in da old oak twee" which we couldn't figure out (I'm guessing that one came from something he read in school), but he was able to answer his name, age, favorite color (pink), favorite number (7), favorite letter (after some very deliberate pondering over that one, lol), and tell her all about our cat. He did tell her the cat's name is Martha (like the dog in Martha Speaks), which it's not, but he has taken to renaming our cat with whatever his favorite animal character of the moment is. Right now it's Pilchard (the cat from Bob the Builder).

We met back up with dh and the (big) boys and were all going to ride the hayride together but Bitty refused to get on.


He wanted to go back to the petting zoo :)




Flashback: Autism fair 2008



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A love of reading

I love that my boys all love to read :).



Dh and I love to read, and we've always made sure to have lots of age-appropriate books around for the boys since the time they were babies. I love that they look forward to new books as much as toys or games.

Bitty has a bag that he always keeps filled with books to take with him wherever we go. Here's a video of him reading one of his new ones, "Martha Speaks: Farm Dog Martha." This was taken the first time he read it, so some of the words were new for him.



(If you're familiar with the book, you'll notice that the video skips some parts. The whole thing was around 8 minutes long so I edited some parts out to make it a little shorter.)


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Encyclo-bitty-a

Little Bitty can often be heard rattling off all kinds of animal facts and figures.

"Sea turtoos... way eggs on wand!" (sea turtles lay eggs on land)
"Da anaconda... is wuh-da wargest snakes... in da wer'd" (the anaconda is one of the largest snakes in the world)

I have lost track of how many different animal flash cards and books he has. A couple of weeks ago, he was playing with the Wii and kept clicking on the "photo channel" and getting upset that there were no pictures. I offered to download some animal pictures for him so he'd have something to look at (we look them up together on Google Images). Ever since then he wants to look up new ones every day, and our "Wii ah'mals" collection now includes over 400 pictures.

He has branched out from farm animals and household pets, and he's developed an appreciation for all animals - woodland animals, desert animals, ocean animals, arctic animals, jungle animals, insects, the list goes on. He's asking me for pictures of animals I'd barely heard of before - a "Ura-peeya adder" (European Adder, a snake for those who are like me and had no idea what that was), "free-toe swoff" (three-toed sloth), "ekih-na" (echidna) are just a few of them.

I love the way he gets excited about seeing them... even the most, um, unattractive (to me) animal pictures are met with a huge grin and a "ee's berry cute!" from Bitty.

~~~~~~~~~

On a related note, Bitty is not only a walking animal encyclopedia, but sometimes he's a very cute little dictionary too. When dh and I went to visit his class for their end of year party, the class sang a couple of songs they'd learned and then joined the parents to watch a slideshow of pictures from the school year. As Bitty walked up to me, he said (looking around at all the parents), "a cwowd... iss a wahj gwoop of peepooh"

It took me a minute before it clicked.

"A crowd is a large group of people?" I asked him.

He looked back at me and nodded.

"Do we have a crowd here?"

He nodded again with a shy grin :).






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"Outrageously"

Cuddlebug tends to use certain words and phrases over and over (sometimes repeatedly in the same conversation). Like stopping every 20 seconds to say "and guess what?" before continuing on with what he was saying.

His latest word is "outrageously." For example, T-rex's are "outrageously powerful." (he and Bearhug are really into dinosaurs right now).

One night as I was tucking them into bed, Cuddlebug told me, "heyMomguesswhat?... silly bands are outrageously poplee-ar. Everybody at school has at least one. Some people have LOTS of dem."

For those who don't know what silly bands, er, silly bandz are, they are basically rubber bands made in different shapes - animals, musical instruments, fruits... you name it, there is probably a silly band for it.



He and Bearhug have been bringing silly bands home from school, most of them earned from the "treasure box," and some traded with other kids I think. When I finally got around to looking them up on the internet (because the boys REALLY want the dinosaur ones) I found out that apparently these things are "outrageously poplee-ar" around the country, not just here.

I have to say I was really impressed to hear him say that. Usually our boys are into whatever THEY are into and if other kids like it too that's fine and if they don't, that's fine too. Nothing wrong with that, I rather like that they are individualist in that way, and not following the crowd. :) But I thought it was great that he had *noticed* a trend at school, and even more so that he actually cared. That's quite the social awareness IMO :).

And I will admit, I am also relieved that the "in" thing at my sons' school turns out to be relatively inexpensive too :).





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Supposed to be stuck

Bitty seems to latch on to certain phrases. We have a couple of flags hanging on the wall in our garage and he told me once, "da fwag iss stuck." I replied, "it's supposed to be stuck" (knowing he wanted me to "unstick" it by taking it down and not wanting to do that). For weeks on end after that, he commented on EVERYTHING that was "supposed to be stuck."

"Da bear iss stuck, iss suppoh-ta-bee stuck." (the bear on his blanket)

"Da circle iss stuck, iss suppoh-ta-bee stuck." (the door-stopper on the wall at the doctor's office)

"Da cat iss stuck, iss suppoh-ta-bee stuck." (the cat-shaped cookie jar that I purposely put out of his reach)

And my favorite:

"Da Mama iss stuck!" (when he was trying unsuccessfully to push me out of bed to get him some chocolate milk). My reply? "Iss supposed to be stuck!" haha

I think this is a form of language "practice," testing to see what other situations he can apply his favorite phrases to. He can usually figure out from our responses (granted sometimes exaggerated for his benefit) whether he used a particular phrase appropriately or not, and then he'll adapt his use of it in the future.

This particular phrase seems to have faded. Maybe he managed to categorize pretty much everything in his environment now on the basis of whether or not it's "supposed to be stuck" and so has moved on?





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Project 365

I've decided to start up a series of 365 pictures, one a day, over at my photography blog.

I'm cross-posting the first one here since there's a story behind it :). Feel free to check out the rest and let me know what you think.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Day 1: January 1, 2010



Bitty got these Baby Einstein animal cards for Christmas and he loves them :). He carries them around wherever he goes and loves to line them up. Sometimes instead of a line, he makes a pattern like this.

When I told him, "look at all your cards!" he replied, "wookuh aww yoh puzzoos."
He typically repeats back what we say, so the fact that he changed the last word was significant.
"Did you make a puzzle?"
He nodded. "Joo make-a puzzoo."
Pretty creative if you ask me :).






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You and I

It is feast or famine around here, huh? Weeks of little to no posting and now, with a few days off around the holidays, I have time to write and post pictures :).

I think I will schedule some posts to kind of space them out a bit (I do that sometimes, so if you see new posts but no comments or visits from me for a few days that is why), but I really want to get all of this down before I forget because my memory is not so great (the boys definitely get theirs from dh, not me).

I took today off from work so I could spend the boys' last day of vacation with them, but tomorrow it is back to the usual routine of school and work. I know dh is looking forward to it ;).

Anyway, so a little backdrop - I've posted a lot about echolalia and Bitty's slow progress with learning to speak by repeating what we say.

This means he speaks with his "you" and "I / me" pronouns reversed.

"Yoo-wah chwocka miwk?" means "I want chocolate milk."
"Why yoo cwy-een?" means he's upset and looking for some comforting.
And so on.

We've been trying to work on it, modeling what it should sound like but so far with no luck. Until this morning, that is.

Out of the blue, Bitty told me, "Ah nee hep!" (I need help, said in his cute southern drawl).

Not "yoo nee hep?"
Not "yoo nee-ta-put yoh undu-wea-uh on?"

He actually spoke in the first person as he held out his Thomas underwear to me. He can put them on himself, but if they're inside out from the laundry he needs help to straighten them out first, which was the case this morning.

I asked dh (who was still in bed but might have been awake enough to hear) excitedly if he heard that. He mumbled, and Bitty told me, "Da-ee's sweepee."

Yeah, I know he's sleeping :) (how sweet, not to mention observant of Bitty) But that was too cool not to share!

As with most things, it's not like he's just made the switch to speaking in the first person all the time. Just now he told me, "yoo cween-up da daw-ter sooss" which was meant to tell me that he just cleaned up his Dr. Seuss (Cat in the Hat game).

But now that he's used the term "I" instead of "you" appropriately once, I know we'll see it again sooner or later. :)

~~~~~~~
As another aside (just one of those random things I don't want to forget) he's pronouncing Dr. Seuss correctly now but first read it as, "Dr. Sauce" lol :).





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Window to Bitty's day

If we ask Bitty directly, "What did you do at school today?" or "Did you have a good day at school?" we are likely to get a repeat of the question in response. "Skoo today." or "goo day skoo." (I generally assume that last one is an affirmative response, but I could be wrong).

However, he has started to give us much more detail in his own way. The "tape recorder version" as I have come to think of it, because it's kind of like having a tape recorder in the classroom and listening to it later.

Out of the blue, and talking to no one in particular, he'll talk as he plays.

"Wittle dots, 'Bitty,' dass too much gwoo. Wittle dots."
"Dih I say wun? No wunning, you nee to walk."
"Don' tuh-uch, dass foh teachers!"
"Housekeepee! Iss time foh housekeepee."
"'Bitty' yoo iss be da door hoh-der."
"You nee to caln down, 'Bitty,' iss tine to caln down."

All said in his best teacher voice. The one-liners are what I can remember, but he often goes on to relay extended conversations, activity instructions, and so on. He repeats what his teachers say to his classmates also. Months later he still says, "uh-oh, 'J' iss wet." I have no idea if it was a bathroom accident or spill or what, but poor 'J' is never going to live that one down with Bitty repeating that over and over for months on end... (sigh).

I love to just sit and listen to him. Sometimes if he pauses, I might ask him about it.

"What did you glue today?"
"You were the door-holder today? How fun!" (he loves to be the door holder)

Maybe he does the same thing at school? (repeats conversations he heard at home). Sometimes he puts on his best "Mama" voice and I hear an echo of myself.

"No scweemee, 'Bitty,' dah hurss my ears."

I told him that ONCE when he screamed right into my ear (I was holding him at the time) and now he screeches just so he can cover his ears and repeat it over and over.

I'm amazed at the level of detail he can remember. He once spent about 20 minutes repeating every detail of a group activity his class had done, including who was assigned to which groups (listing all the names and telling them which teacher to go see).

For whatever reason, he doesn't seem to repeat what the kids in his class say, just the teachers. He does pick up on what the teachers say to his classmates though, not just what they say to him. (So we know all about who's been running in the hallways or touching things that are "for teachers," lol).

What's more is that sometimes he takes it a step further, not just repeating the words but actually acting out the "scenario." For example, running a few steps and then coming to an abrupt halt as he tells himself, "I seh no wunning!"

It's great to see him not only practicing his words, but pretend-play skills too :). I am so proud of him!





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