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...)

Read More >>

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.

Read More >>

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).

Read More >>

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!)

Read More >>

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 ;).

Read More >>

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.

Read More >>