Just trying to be a Good Mom, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. But blogging about it anyway.

When you see me pushing a cart thru Jo-Ann Fabrics and Giggles is in the basket watching “Dora” on my iPod….do you think:

a. I am incredibly smart and you wish your kid would sit still like that so you could pick out some fabric too.
b. I am doing incredible harm to Giggles.

I would really like to know. People stare and I don’t know whether to be offended or not.

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One of Pookie’s latest creations:

Pretty Cool, huh?
Wait, it gets better.
When he makes this creature, he starts by drawing every single component on different sheets of construction paper. He draws every single piece, quickly, flipping between different colors of paper. He’ll draw 3 yellow ovals, 2 green squiggles, a big blue circle, a small blue circle, 2 white circles, a small white oval, etc until he has them all. Then he cuts them out one at a time. Then he puts down a dozen spots of glue and begins to assemble the creature piece by piece. He always has the right number of glue spots. He always has exactly the right number, color, shape and size of construction paper pieces. He always has a completed creature when he is done.

Remember, Pookie thinks in pictures. That’s an Autism trait. He sees this picture as a completed unit. He can break it down to assemble it, but he will always see it as a single unit. That means he is able to know exactly what he needs to make it. And he can do it in a nontraditional order. You or I would probably cut the red face first, then glue it down. Then we would cut out the eyes and glue them down. Then, we would do the hair and glue it down. Not Pookie. He can do all the drawing first, then all the cutting, then put down all the glue spots, then stick on all the paper pieces. And he will be accurate, every time. He will not miss a single piece. Cool huh?

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Geetle has 3 school reading projects going right now. One earns her a ticket to Great America, one earns a ticket to a minor league baseball game and the other is required “at home” reading for class.  Its hard to keep track, so she reads her “at home” reading each night as part of homework.  Any leisure reading she does before bedtime goes towards the Great America ticket. The reading she does in bed each night goes towards the baseball ticket. Sounds like too much, but she is keeping track of it all by herself and she reads that much each day anyway.

In order to keep the Great America and baseball reading logs separate, we taped one to her homework planner and the other is hung by astring on her dining room chair. Each morning at breakfast she takes the pencil that also hangs there and records what she read the night before in bed. So far, she has not forgotten.   Having it right there, in a place she sits at least twice a day, is key.

Recording the entries herself makes her very proud.   Rather than hound her each day to see if she logged her reading, we gave her this tool so that she can succeed on her own.  It seems to be working.

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I am sure Spring will get better, but here is what I have done to mark its glorious arrival, so far:

1. spent 45 minutes draining and disinfecting our 3 humidifiers for storage.
2. picked up bottle caps, straw wrappers, Matchbox cars, orphaned mittens, month-old newspapers, a frisbee and half a snorkle mask from the yard, where they were once happily buried by snow.
3. discovered that we failed to rake up ALL the leaves and dead flowers before the snow fell last winter.
4. spent $40 on new rainboots for the kids.
5. changed Giggles pants every day after we walk Geetle to the bus, because she slipped and fell in the grass, getting 2 wet/muddy knees.

Yay. Spring.

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There is a song called Downtown, by Petula Clark.  Its a catchy little number.  From the 1960’s, I think.  When I was in high school, a group of girls did a retro lip-sync version for the school talent show.

Whenever anyone says they are going downtown, I hear it in my head.

Unfortunately, now when I hear it, I think of poop.

Giggles asked me where the Poopies were going when we flushed them.   I told her they went downtown to the water cleaning plant.

Mistake.

Now I hear the song in my head every time I help Giggles in the potty. And I think of poop every time.

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Giggles is fully potty trained now. She goes by herself at home and will go at public places too. We just wait for her to tell us she has to go and we go.  Unlike alot of early trainers, we are not really bugging her every 10 minutes with “do you have to pee?”  Maybe its because she is so good. But maybe its because she is our third child and we are getting lazy.  Either way, its working.  She rarely has accidents.

Pookie is a reluctant reader.  He is good, but he does not like to do it.  Last night I went into his bedroom at bedtime and told him to get a book and read it to me.  Usually he would say “Mom will read it” and push it in to my hand.  Last night he quickly grabbed  “Who Took the Cake?” opened it up and read it to me. Proper cadence. Proper volume level.  Proper enthusiasm.  As soon as he was done, he closed the book and dropped it over the side of his bunk bed with flair and told me “Good Night.”  I waited until I was in the hall to laugh.

Geetle enjoys a game called “Don’t Say it!”  She is getting very good at describing things without using the forbidden words.   Also, its a good game for playing with Mom and Dad when they are a little distracted.  She describes things to us as we unload groceries or as BAGD does homework.  We guess the answers and she loves it.  I bet it would be fun in the car too. She comes up with very creative clues.

Pookie continues to insist that Nixie sleep in his bed. In fact, he won’t go to bed without her. He is afraid to pick her up, but the other night when he thought I was taking too long bringing her to his bed, he came looking for her and tried it.

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