Getting to know you, Christmas edition

Tagged via email by Melissa

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both

2. Real tree or artificial? Artificial, and as glitzy as possible as the girls are the ones to decorate it.

3. When do you put up the tree? After Thanksgiving, early December.

4. When do you take the tree down? After Epiphany.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes!

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Commodore 64

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, but we don’t put it up. Later years.

8. Hardest person to buy for? I don’t have a real hard time with anyone.

9. Easiest person to buy for? See above.

10. Worst Christmas? Can’t think of a bad one.

11. Mail or email Holiday/Christmas cards? Mail, if I did.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? It’s A Wonderful Life.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? After Thanksgiving.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I bet I have.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Cocktail shrimp and queso on Christmas Eve.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored

17. Favorite Christmas song? Probably God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, but I also like Good King Wenceslas.

18. Travel for Christmas or stay at home? Home! And my extended family will be coming here, for the first time.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Yes.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Eve for extended family, morning for Gleesons.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Icy roads and knife-like winds.

23. What I love most about Christmas? Family!

Tagging everyone who’s feeling Christmas-y!

heavy work

Trixie is pushing the dining room chairs around the living room. She likes them to be resistant to her pushing, so she lines three of them up together and pushes them like a train. She also likes to lift the futon mattress. I got a couple bags of yarn from a friend who got them at an estate sale, and Trixie is also dragging them around.

Ladies and gents, we have another sensory sort of kid in the family.

Bede’s our prime example: dislikes clothing, loves water, craves muddy/slimy textures but hates dirty hands, runs in circles, likes jumping and rough and tumble play. All of those things to a great extreme not seen in a typical four-year-old. Mostly sensory seeking with some avoidance.

Then there’s my sweet Abby: mildly claustrophobic, hates tight clothing, closing her eyes, kisses and other light touch, hair washing. Likes being held, but not restrained. Mostly avoidant.

And now the Trix. Wonder what else will pop up? Ah, parenting…

fft

I keep sitting down to make a new post and get about one sentence into it and think Bleah.

So I’ll come back when I have something more worthwhile to add.

ExpectNet!

So go guess when the new baby is coming!

snowing

It’s snowing. Big fat flakes. Melting as soon as it hits the ground, but still, snowing.

Yay snow!

Oh, and Bede’s just fine today. It was too much eggnog, I think.

Bede is sick

Intestinally. Poor guy.

I’ll be in the laundry room if you need me.

christmas, oh, christmas…

So Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat.

I’m going to list some kid gift ideas here. It’s tougher this year because no China, thanks.

• Unit blocks. Melissa and Doug make a nice set.
• Playmobil will be making the bulk of our little figure play toys. They don’t guarantee China-free, but less than 2% of their toys are made there, and they own the manufacturing facilities.
• Faith wants a bead kit. Not Aqua Dots, thanks. Hmm. Ah! These are made in the US. I think we have a winner.

I’ll be updating this one throughout the day.

lovely Thanksgiving day

Well, our Thanksgiving was wonderful. Our dear friend Kenny came down from Wichita and along with my parents were our guests for our first Gleeson House Thanksgiving.

We decided that it would be too stressful for everyone to go to my parents’ house, which is what we’ve always done in the past. First of all, there are seven Gleesons (at last count) and only two Harrises; simple math shows that it’s easier for them to get here than for us to get there (although “there” is only a 20 minute drive.) Secondly, one of the seven Gleesons is autistic, and two others are aged three and one, which are factors that make a sit-down semiformal meal in a non-childproofed house very daunting. Add in the fact that the autistic boy prefers nudity at all times and you have a recipe for a possibly resentful, tiring and unfun time.

All taken with all, it was much better for them to come here. So they did, with pleasure. Chef Sean made roast turkey, stuffing, potatoes, giblet gravy, Kenny brought chocolate cake, Fat Tire beer and wine, I managed cheese, veggies, fruit, green bean casserole, my mother brought pies and deviled eggs… probably more that I am forgetting. Everything was delicious and the company was superb.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

baby, it’s cold outside

We just got a cold snap. Yesterday it was in the 70s. Today it was in the 40s, lows in the 20s. That’s 5 degrees either side of zero Centigrade for those who prefer to think in that scale, by the way. It will continue to be that cold for the next week, at least, maybe colder, maybe longer.

Guess whose furnace broke?

Guess what part would not be available til Monday?

Brrr!

(It’s fixed now. Thanks to our heroic furnace repair guys and our noble landlord. Hear, hear!)

Autism and “low functioning”

Last night, Anderson Cooper had a segment about autism. I didn’t get to see it, but it featured two autists who could possibly be described as “low-functioning,” “retarded,” “slow,” “feeble-minded,” etc… but for one thing. One wonderful, beautiful thing.

They know how to type, and knowing that, know how to communicate.

Now, before there was such a thing as typing, (or, frankly, before these people learned to type), they would have been written off (no pun intended.)  But they were just as smart before they typed – the basic intelligence was there whether or not they could figure out a way to share it with anyone.

It brings it all down to this: presume competence. Presume understanding. Autistic people are not empty shells, or “normal” people trapped inside autistic walls – they’re quite simply autistic people. When offered the right tools and help they can navigate the world. After all, we all need help and tools. It’s just that the tools autistic people may need are different.

I’m told Anderson Cooper will have another segment on Friday, on CNN.

Random bits

You can download entire episodes of Super Why! from iTunes, for free. Search Super Why.

Gilbert is asleep on my foot, like a puppy. Aww.

I’m 31 weeks! Wow!

I’m off merino unless I know exactly where it came from – no NZ or Oz wool for me please. Mulesing is just too brutal the way it’s commonly done. I’ll leave you to google.

Hmm. Had some other stuff, but Trixie is crying. Ta!

tired me, tired babies

Too tired to post much! Going to bed. Ate delicious Indian food for dinner.

insightful girl

“He doesn’t want to see you make changes.”

Faith said that, about Bede. They were playing in a dim room, and I flipped the light on. Bede immediately ran over and turned it off, with a disapproving glance at me.

Smart kid.

Floortime, all the time

This is a post for my favorite special needs support forum, to answer the question “How much Floortime do you do with your autistic child?”

Our day looks something like this:

• 8AM: Wake up, usually by Bede crawling into bed with me.
• 8AM-8:20: Bede and I Floortime play in the bedroom together while the other kids eat breakfast with Sean.
• 8:20-9AM: Bede and I make our way downstairs to join the others and eat.
• 9AM-12PM: Sean works upstairs in his office and I do householdy chores like dishes and laundry while playing with the kids, checking my email, etc. Sometime in there is…
• 10AM-10:20: More Floortime with Bede.
• 12PM-1PM: If Sean isn’t teaching an afternoon class, he comes downstairs and fixes lunch for everyone.
• 1PM-5PM: Trixie and sometimes Gilbert nap for an hour or more. If the big girls are gone (on Wednesdays) I play with just the littles, and have 2 Floortime sessions with Bede. Also do more household stuff.
• 5PM-7PM: Dinner is planned, cooked and eaten.
• 7PM-10PM: Children are bathed as needed, if I’m lucky I might get to watch some PBS or knit for a while. Bedtime is at 10 or so. Bede loves bathtime Floortime, and we do that.
• 10PM-11PM: Winding Bede and Trixie down – they are the real night owls – and 20 minutes more of Floortime where we usually play on a free font site or wander through Google Images.
• 11PM-??: I attempt to stay awake. Hardly ever happens.

So we end up with something like 2-3 hours of focused Floortime every day, and lots of smaller Floortime-style interactions throughout the day. It works really well with our ‘lifestyle’ such as it is.

rough and tumble

Bede, Gilbert and Faith have been playing bumblepuppy together for the last few minutes. As usual, Faith is the glue. She’s so great with them. She said a bit ago “I’m glad I have an autistic brother and a regular brother because both kinds are fun to play with!”

What a great kid she is.

it’s all about the joy

Today I gave Bede the lid to a Pringles can. It’s made of transparent plastic and feels like HDPE, but I don’t know if that can be transparent? Anyway, it’s see-through.

Bede loves see-through things. Last year for Christmas I got him the water blocks by Plan. He loves them, and frequently carries one around and peers through it at the TV or the computer, or lays it down on a book and reads through it. He also likes to get our playsilks wet and compare how things look through the wet, translucent silk and the dry, opaque silk. My point is, the boy likes to look at stuff. Optics. It’s all about the optics.

So, back to my original point. I finished off the last of the Pringles (hey, I’m pregnant. I get a pass) and was about to chuck the can and thought to myself, “Bede would really like this lid.” So I went in to the living room where he was at the computer, and said “Hey Bede! Look here what I’ve got!” holding it up. His eyes widened and he jumped off the computer chair, ran over to me, took it from my hand and laughed! He immediately dropped to a squat, grabbed a magazine (it was November’s Smithsonian) and chuckled happily as he read to me through the lid for about 30 minutes.

So what if he couldn’t care less about action figures? He’s one happy and unique little guy.

Gil again

He’s got a cute smile here.

Gilbert’s haircut

Cut Gil’s hair for the first time in months and months.

Here he is. So cute!

flexibility!

We just got Ratatouille today. Well, last night. Really like it, btw. But that’s not why I’m posting.

First of all, we only have it because my mother bought it for the kids for a Christmas present. Then she said “It’s silly to make them wait for CHristmas, especially the younger three. Here!” My mom is so great.

Second of all we actually got to watch it! Now, that calls for some explanation. Usually when we get a new movie we don’t get to watch it for weeks, or even months. Bede refuses to let it play downstairs, so it doesn’t get played. The big girls and Gil watch movies upstairs in the girls’ room on the tiny TV, so nobody gets deprived, but we’d all rather watch on the nice TV downstairs. When we tried to watch Chicken Little, Bede screamed through the first 15 minutes and fought whoever was holding him so he could go eject the disc. Same with Brother Bear. So, I’d given up, really… but! I thought, hey, try again. He’s changed a lot recently, maybe he can handle this.

HE DID!

I gave him the box to look at while he ate lunch, so he’d know we had it. Then, I started it. He was very upset at first, but responded to “Bede, stop!” when he ran for the player. He also tried to offer other solutions, to watch other movies instead (Toy Story 2, Mickey’s Twice Upon A Christmas, Cars) which let me know he was in touch with his language. At that point I took him upstairs and let him play in the shower for a few minutes. WHen he came back down, he made one lunge for the DVD player and then just lay down on the sofa and watched (and enjoyed) the movie. When it was over he played it again.

I know if you don’t have an autistic child you might think this is no big deal, but really, it is.

Anyway, cute movie!

Directions

Tonight Bede followed the directions in a kids’ activity book! My mom called me a few minutes ago to tell me about it. We ate dinner at my folks’ house as we usually do on Sundays and Bede was writing one of those books for quite a while. She was flipping through it and looking at what he’d written, and came to a page that said “Draw two wheels on each car. How many wheels are there?”

Bede had drawn two wheels on the five cars on the page (which is new, he doesn’t draw as much as he writes) and then wrote “TEN” next to them.

!!!

While he’s had those cognitive skills for some time (Bede has no noticeable cognitive delay) he has never followed directions like that before, ever. Maybe all this poop sensory seeking stuff is due to some new neural pathways a-forming.

I think it’s time for some fun social stories.