Magic Marker Monday: A splash of color

Little Bitty brought these paintings home from school. My favorite is the first one - which was titled "Flowers." :)





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Four-giveness

A few weeks ago (the week that Bitty did great in church), his class learned about forgiveness. At the end of the lesson, his teacher had each of the children practice saying the word to help them remember what they had learned about.

She broke it down since it's kind of a big word:

"For-"

"-giveness"

The next week, I wondered if he still remembered so I asked him what he learned last week. He needed a little prompting but then he repeated back:

"for-gibness"

"Good job!" I told him.

Then, with a smile, he continued on:

"Fie-gibness... sih-gibness... sebuh-gibness..."

"Nie-gibness..."

"Elebuh-gibness..."

I couldn't help but laugh, he was counting. I guess it makes sense, if you're thinking the "for" at the beginning is actually a "four," lol. I wonder if he's expecting a follow-up lesson on "twelve-giveness"?





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I tried, I really did...

Have you ever made a mistake, a miscalculation that you didn't realize until it was too late? It's a little embarrassing to admit it, but this happened to me last week at the fishing event. Dh and I split up, with him taking Bitty to rest and wind down for a bit in the shade while I took Bearhug to fish. Cuddlebug was nearby in the bouncy house.

As Bearhug and I approached the fishing area, I saw the cooler filled with bait next to the fishing rods and realized my mistake.

Someone was going to have to bait Bearhug's hook.

That's dh's job, I don't do worms. Ick.

But dh was too far away now to swap. I pondered the best way to handle things as we took our rod and bait over to find a spot to fish.

I know... I'll talk Bearhug through it. ;) He tried, but couldn't quite get one of the wiggly worms out to attempt hooking it. Thankfully, there was another dad nearby who offered to help him. (yay, thank you!)

Whew! Dodged a wimpy-mom bullet that time. We didn't catch anything, so there was no need to hook a second worm.

A while later, it was Cuddlebug's turn. Only this time, there was no one else nearby to help. Again, I tried to talk Cuddlebug through it.



Due to his sensory issues, he didn't really want to touch the dirt. He tried digging for a worm using a piece of dried grass that he found nearby. Unfortunately, dried grass is pretty flimsy so it wasn't working so well.

I took a deep breath and offered to help him. After all, I'm a mom of three boys, I should be able to handle a few little worms, right? (For the record, I have no problem seeing worms, and could probably touch one for a microsecond w/ no problem, but the idea of holding onto a wiggly worm just freaks me out).

I gave myself a mental pep talk, running through a list of "tough" things I have done in my life. I gave birth to three children, for one thing, two in one day even (hehe)! I climbed up and walked on the ropes in the trees with my fellow MBA students (darn skippy I did! heights always look so harmless until you get up there...). I held my friend's boa constrictor in middle school and I wasn't even afraid of him (then again, snakes aren't actually slimy)! You get the idea... surely I could handle a measly little worm, barely the size of my finger. Right?

I steeled myself and plunged my finger into the dirt, wanting to get this overwith as quickly as possible. And I happened to pick the Bruce Willis of worms (yippee-ki-yay!). I'm serious, he came flying out of there (causing both Cuddlebug and me to jump) and landed next to the little tub of dirt, doing a fierce "you-wanna-pieca-me? FREEEEDOM!!!!" worm dance.

Now, I'd like to think that had that worm just flopped calmly I could have handled touching him long enough to hook him. But what self-respecting worm would go down without a fight?

Cuddlebug and I were crouched on the ground, staring at the worm. I was about to try poking it with the hook without actually touching it, when a kind grandfatherly man appeared behind us and asked if we needed help.

YES!! Thankyouthankyouthankyou! is what I was thinking. What I actually said was a little more nonchalant, "Sure, I'm kind of new to this..." Ya think? :)








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Fishing Fun Day

Each year a local organization hosts a fishing day for children with autism and their families. We always have a lot of fun (and last year Cuddlebug even caught his first fish!). This year they also had a pony ride, which Cuddlebug LOVED :). Here are some pictures:

Bitty fishing

Bearhug found a feather :)

Bearhug fishing

Cuddlebug on the pony

Cuddlebug at the end of his pony ride

Bearhug & Cuddlebug fishing

Cuddlebug fishing

Watching for fish :)

Mr. Bitty

More pictures are posted here.





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"Molly was sad"

I recently found myself sitting with Bitty next to a little baby, who was sitting on his grandmother’s lap. Bitty surprised me by taking a mild interest in the baby – typically he doesn’t show much (if any) interest in other children (other than his brothers). At one point, the baby started to fuss a little. Bitty took notice, and looked back and forth from the baby, to his grandmother, to me, with a curious expression.

He looked at me with a mock-sad face and said, “Mah-ee wa’ sad.”

Translation, “Molly was sad,” a line quoted from one of the Thomas stories. Then he imitated the sound of the baby’s fussing (he likes to imitate both words and sounds), looking at me.

I was a little worried that the grandmother might be offended by Bitty imitating her grandchild, but if she noticed she didn’t seem to mind. Maybe she didn’t realize that’s what he was doing, more likely she was too busy taking care of the baby to even notice. :)

For my part, I was impressed that Bitty was showing an interest in other children and that he noticed and correctly interpreted the baby’s fussing. Yay, Bitty!






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Scouts tonight

Cuddlebug and Bearhug attended their first Cub Scout meeting tonight, and it went pretty well :). Cuddlebug was less-than-enthused yesterday when we brought it up, but today he was excited to go. He was really into it and even volunteered to participate in the flag ceremony (carrying the US flag) :).

On the flip side, Bearhug was excited yesterday but a little antsy about the whole thing today. He ended up being overstimulated and having to leave the room for a while, I took him for a short walk outside until it was game time, then coaxed him back into the room.

The parents went into a separate room for a quick orientation / info session, and I was nervous the whole time wondering if Bearhug was doing ok, but when we got back, both he and Cuddlebug were having a blast! They didn't want to leave, and they're excited to go back next week :).





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Full of surprises!

So Sunday we had a rough day at church. Without going into all the gory details, it involved one major meltdown, a couple of smaller ones, a lot of over-stimulation, and a certain little boy almost getting stepped on a couple of times while rolling on the floor.

We also learned that while the seat-belt clip does in fact keep Bitty from unhooking his seat belt while driving, it does nothing to prevent him from squirming his way out of the seat belt altogether. Sigh. We had to pull over so I could jump into the back to keep him in his seat. Oh, and I'm really, really, thankful for child safety locks on car doors.

Anyway, on a brighter note, we had a few minutes at the beginning of primary where Bitty was actually sitting in his chair and semi-paying attention. Every week they have one of the kids read a scripture and then everyone repeats it along with them.

Well, Bitty heard everyone saying the words together so he tried to join in, only I noticed he wasn’t saying the same words. I listened closely and heard "Ameh-ca... un nay-shuh... iddizibul..."

I thought to myself, is that what I think it is?

I listened some more... "justih fo’ aww"

Sure enough, he was saying the Pledge of Allegiance. :) I don’t think anyone else caught it, but I was beaming – he was doing his best to participate and wow, he actually knows the entire Pledge of Allegiance!

I got him to say it again at home for dh and I took a video. He pronounces things in his own way, but I think he's got some pretty good approximations for some of those big words, no? Here it is:









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Magic Marker Monday: Summer

Bearhug brought this home from school last week, just wanted to share because I love the things he thinks of, and that he is not shy about his talents :).

(Click to enlarge)

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Random notes from the week

Bitty is learning to spell! And more than just Thomas character names ;). He's figured out that letters make up words, and he's become very interested in learning the letters for his favorite words. Here's a few:

O-R-E-O (that one took all of 1 minute to learn, he was motivated!)
N-E-S-Q-U-I-K (on the chocolate milk container)
T-A-R (one of his trains is a tar car, I found that one spelled out on the fridge too)

We're working on "water" now. He knows the first letter :).

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I decided to hold off taking the boys to Scouts until this coming week, because last week's meeting was going to be combined with another Scout pack. I was concerned about the large group and overstimulation, and figured we had better odds of having a good first experience with it if we waited until it was just the smaller group. So, the boys will start Scouts this Wednesday.

That reminds me, I still need to sew the pack # patches on their shirts...

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"Go-go-bums" (Bitty's pronunciation of "Golden Grahams") has evolved to "go-gree-brams." Getting closer!

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Cuddlebug & Bearhug told me they know all 493 Pokemon - in order - from studying their Pokemon handbook. I can ask them any Pokemon and they can tell me who comes directly before and after that one in the book. They can also tell me all about each Pokemon's stats - weight, gender, best moves, which other Pokemon they will be weak to or able to defeat in battle, etc.

I am amazed but not surprised... they have always had such impressive memories. Now if only I could learn them all so I could hold my own in conversation :).

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I have noticed Bitty reciting entire scenes from Thomas videos lately. I can't quite make out everything he says, but enough to tell what he's doing. The parts I can understand are word-for-word and I suspect the rest is too. Complete with sound effects :). He's gotten pretty good at imitating sounds.

The other night we were watching the news and he let out a little shriek, imitating a woman screaming on tv (it was one of those home security system commercials). He clearly didn't understand the "scary" nature of the commercial, because he giggled about it. My older boys didn't quite seem to get it either, because Cuddlebug asked curiously, "shouldn't she close the door first?" when she bolted up the stairs to answer the ringing phone (the security guy calls as the would-be intruder runs off).

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After getting in trouble for being disrespectful last night, I gave Bearhug one last chance (he was about to lose his game privileges):

"You can say sorry and keep your game time, or you can go straight to bed. You choose." It seemed like a pretty obvious choice to me, but apparently he wanted door #3.

"Can I be sucked up into the vacuum cleaner?" he asked with an exasperated tone.

?!? "Uh, no. No, you can't be sucked up into the vacuum cleaner."

"Yeah, 'Bearhug,' because you're too big!" Cuddlebug chimed in. (so helpful, huh?)

It kind of went downhill from there. He did eventually come downstairs and apologize though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part of Bearhug's crankiness was over-stimulation from the fishing event we went to yesterday. We all had fun, but we paid a price for it because two out of three boys were ornery all weekend from over-stimulation (Bitty and Bearhug).

More on that later, along with pictures (yay!)...






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SOOC Saturday: Crashed

Friday night we had a huge thunderstorm with lots of thunder, lightning, and pounding rain. Bearhug and Cuddlebug were upstairs playing their Pokemon games, but came downstairs because all the commotion outside scared them. Bitty was already asleep on the couch. Cuddlebug asked me for a blanket and the next thing I knew, he was out. And it wasn't long after that, I noticed Bearhug had gotten quiet and sure enough he was asleep too, with his game still going...


For more SOOC Saturday (straight-out-of-camera, no editing!), visit Slurping Life.





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