Bird on the Street

Magic

10:37 pm

Charlie got off the bus today looking like this:

Boy with painted face and arm turned to the side.

It was field day at school and apparently they had found a way for him to participate. They told me that he had had a great day and I was thrilled. I even called his Mawmaw so she could come over and check out he dazzling face decorations.

Right before bed, I got the idea to open up his communication app (I’m using Proloquo 2 Go now since it produces larger letters than the Notes app). I thought I’d ask a couple questions and see how far he’d let me go. It went something like that:

Me: Did you enjoy Field Day today?

Charlie: n-o

Me: What? I thought they said you had a good time–why didn’t you like Field Day?

Charlie: h-o-t

Me: Ahhhhhhhh Did you like getting your face painted?

Charlie: Y –at this point he tries to stop typing, but I make him do it anyway. e-s

Me: Did you get to say hello to people today?

Charlie: y-e-s

Me: Did you like that Mawmaw came over to see your face paint?

Charlie: y-e-s

At that point I ran out of questions and he ran out of patience, but Holy Moly! a real conversation with my kid. I’ll admit, it was a lot of yes/no, but I really wasn’t expecting him to answer so many questions.

My heart is happy–I had my first real conversation with my son. Who knew how amazing that could be?

Filed Undergood things

An Unusual Discovery

1:37 pm

A few days ago I got it into my head that it’s time to start teaching Charlie about letters. Unlike almost every early childhood program out there, I had opted to start Charlie on whole words and then go back and teach individual letters after we’d built some sight words. I had my reasons and they were based on scientific research and all that, but I won’t bore you with all the details.

So, out of nowhere I decide it’s time to start talking about letters. I sit Charlie down in front of his iPad, and bring up the Notes app (not the best choice, but fine for the moment). I start a new note which brings up the key board and then go into my nifty teacher mode.

“So, Charlie, today we’re going to talk about letters. Can you see all the letters here? Tell me–do you know which letter is the first letter in Charlie?”

I take his hand and hold it in the pointer position–he’s come a long way in this area, but he’d still rather have someone else do his pointing. I wasn’t really expecting him to answer. I was doing that obnoxious thing that teachers do where they ask you something that they know you don’t know, and then they just go and give you the answer.

Imagine my surprise when his little arm immediately pecked on the letter C. He did it so quickly that I had a feeling we were going over old territory for the little guy. I went ahead and asked him the next letter feeling pretty confident that he wouldn’t be able to do this one–whenever we study his name, we use a lower-case h and the keyboard features an upper-case one.

Yeah, he got that one in about five seconds as well. This is the same moment that he got very, very bored with the activity and began trying to close the application. I pushed on. He had some trouble with the letter i, but other than that, was able to spell his entire name. Later, my MIL, who teaches Kindergarten, explained that i on the keyboard looks completely different than the i that we teach children–no serifs or dots on the keyboard. She said it’s a pretty common problem for small children. Charlie and common are two words rarely used together.

Over the next few days I have discovered that he can spell Charlie, Mommy, Daddy, Max (our cat), red, and Rude Boy. That last one is a horror show of a Rhianna video that I wish I had never downloaded because he loves it and it is SO not for children. He cannot spell Buster, who is the family dog. Basically, he can spell most of the words that we’ve studied in reading. He also seems to know his letters already–he taps those out quickly if you say one out loud. Don’t know if it’s every one, but it’s plenty.

I’m pretty thrilled. I’ve done a lot different things to try to teach Charlie and it’s unbelievably good to know that at least a small part is sinking in. My husband was completely skeptical–he didn’t even want to watch Charlie work–but I made him sit down and see for himself. Afterwards, he said to me, “Mind. Blown.”

Not exactly sure where to go next with this, but I’m happy none the less. I decided a while ago that Charlie’s best bet for communication would be something computer-based. Will it be typing? I have no idea, but I do know that spelling and reading are the building blocks of communication for him–the keys to expressing what he’s thinking and feeling. Seeing it in front of my eyes is downright amazing.

boy in stroller listening to iPad with headphones

Just listening to music, but maybe one day he'll be able to tell me things.

Filed Undergood things, special education

A Week (or two) In the Trenches

12:54 pm

OK! Charlie and the twins spent the last week and a half passing around some sort of throat virus. That meant doctor’s appointments, days of missed school and the twins went for about a week where one of them was up every hour. I love my sleep very dearly and getting up every hour is my personal hell. I spent many, many moments wondering what in world I was doing being pregnant with another baby when I was so clearly not able to handle the ones I already had.

Luckily, things have returned to normal, and here is my long-overdue Week in the Trenches Post. So overdue that it actually covers more like two weeks.

boys sitting on a porch

Every year in Louisiana, we have a few weeks of perfect weather. We’ve been enjoying them to death by sitting on the front porch as much as possible. Even my busy-body Louie likes the porch because he’s fascinated by the cars driving by.

three pictures of vintage serving ware

I had one of those magical weekends while thrift store shopping–I found some milk glass and some really great vintage Pyrex pieces as well. That’s the thing about thrifting–some days you find a ton and other days you find nothing. I’d been in a very long dry spell, so this was real treat for me.

boy in stroller wearing headphones and holding an iPad

My first sickie at the doctor’s office. He was diagnosed with a virus of the throat. In no time flat he had passed it on to pretty much everyone else in the house.

pink liquid in a glass

Now this is about the coolest thing ever. You guys know that I’ve been pregnant for what feels like forever. Well, I’ve had no fun cocktails in about as much time. The sadness! Well, I heard that Crystal Light had introduced a bunch of mocktails to their line and I was tweeting about how I desperately need to try some and guess what? They offered to send me some samples to try!!! Ahhhh. . . so nice to have something pretty in a glass besides water. If you have a pregnant friend, you should totally buy her some.

As a total aside here: Crystal Light has another product on the market called PURE. They’re aimed at sports drinkers, but I think they might appeal to special needs parents as well. They’re clear, so no nasty dyes and they’re sweetened with a Stevia/sugar blend so that’s nice too. My kids don’t drink anything but water, but I think they’re pretty tasty.

group of men and women smiling for a picture

Me and some other blog/twitter types at the Coaches v. Cancer event. This was one of the honorees, Coach Dale Brown–a very famous LSU basketball coach (that’s my alma mater!). From left to right you’ve got Aura Fedora, Me!, Linzy Cotaya of Crawfish Tales, Dale Brown, Bridgette of The Experimental Mommy, and Cara of Peanuts are Evil. We look pretty hot, right?

two cribs next to each other with one baby in each

The twins have discovered that they are next to each other–they’ve also discovered how to get into each other’s cribs. This, of course, means that we’ll have to find other sleeping arrangements for the two monkeys. In the mean time, every night is a baby slumber party in this joint with yelling, giggling, babbling, and tons of baby shenanigans.

Whew! That was a lot–no wonder I’m so tired!