Be A Good Mom

You know what’s fun? Painting with bingo daubers. My kids love it. Once, about 18 months ago, BAGD and I played Bingo at the VFW hall on a date night. We brought our daubers home and showed them to the kids. Now, they request them frequently. Pookie likes me to draw a large outline of his name and then he takes the Bingo dauber and makes dots to fill in the shapes. Geetle likes to use them like markers, sometimes dragging across the page, sometimes making random dots that she tells me are birds or clouds or flowers. We did not win a big cash prize at Bingo that night, but we did come home with something that the kids liked better.

Miss Stephanie has a whole set of daubers, sold thru an art supply catalog. I think I will get these for Christmas. The kids will love it.

Emily the life guard is Pookie’s one-on-one aide during swim lessons. Pookie loves her because:

1. she lets him jump off the edge of the pool
2. when he asks her to dunk her head underwater (which he finds funny) she does it
3. she has these rubber squids that she throws into the water and he gets to chase them
4. she smiles alot
5. when the rest of the class is doing something interesting, she takes him to rejoin the class. If they are doing something boring like waiting their turn to practice kicking with the teacher, she takes him off to the side and they practice their swimming arms.

We love her beacause:

1. Emily is not afraid of Pookie or his responses
2. if he wants to jump off the edge of the pool a few times, she first makes him practice his floating
3. she smiles alot and takes her job seriously
4. she never takes her eyes off him in the pool and knows when to give him a little space to practice his form of swimming and when to rein him in because he is trying to make a break for the waterslide.
5. she always brings him over to us after class and tells us how well he did. She helps him transition.
6. she understands that she is there to help him during class not to babysit him during class. If she does her job right, he will get alot out of the class. She does and he does. She modifies the lessons to make them more Pookie-freindly, but does not treat him like a baby or assume he cannot do what the other kids are doing.

When evaluating the success of a classroom or program aide, these seem to be the things that you should consider.

BAGD showed me how to use statcounter to see who is visiting my blog and why. It shows what search engine terms people used when they found my blog. Its a good way to see what people are looking for on the internet. I thought it might be fun to speak directly to some of the search terms that people have used and ended up on my website recently. Now, BAGD tells me that due to the peculiarities of the search engines, someone might search for something like “monkey waterslide” and my blog will pop up, because I once wrote about Pookie’s stuffed monkey and mentioned a waterslide in a totally separate post. So, some of these search terms do not really define my blog, but they are interesting anyway. So, here we go:

• “bikini top water slide pic” : I did wear a bikini to the waterpark, so maybe this search was meant for me. I do have a picture, but I am not showing it to you.
• “how to be a good mom”: I know I get alot of search traffic like this, so I did write a post on this topic a few weeks ago.
• “menards locking bedroom door knob”: I did not buy our door knob locks at Menards, but I am sure they have them.
• “homemade duck costume” : I get this one about once a week. Sorry. My post is not about a real duck costume. People are probably really disappointed when they get here.
• “infant carseat carrier flying falcon”: No way! Someone is going to buy this thing?
• “pee cubs T-shirt”: not sure I can help you. I am not even sure what you mean by this. But Pookie and Geetle have Cubs T-shirts (one of his favorite “blue shirts”) and I do talk about pee alot.
• “Winnie’s Birthday”: I did not know our hamster Winnie had fans outside the immediate family.
• “what do kids eat at kindercare” : I don’t know.
• “why do my feet itch so much”: I think mine was chiggers.
• “autistic wardrobe malfunction” : I mention autism alot. I think the reference to wardrobe malfunctions was in reference to my formal maternity dress at Shel’s wedding. I did not have a malfunction, but I was worried. Not related to autism at all. Most of our life isn’t. The big-A is like our hamster. We have to take care of it every now and then, but it does not really affect what we do on a daily basis.
• “stroller boogie board”: I am not surprised that I get this search term alot. I promise, when I figure out which of the 2 boogie boards I am getting, I will post the answer. I am getting a new stroller that is supposed to be compatible with both, but I want to see the stroller in person before I order the board. I placed my order Sunday, so the stroller should be here soon. When I have the whole system put together, I will post a definitive answer to the question “which boogie board and stroller combo is best for a family with an infant who uses a Graco Snugride carseat and a 45 lb preschooler who wants to ride on the boogie board.”
• “wet shorts poop”: I have already apologized for the sheer number of times I talk about pee and poop on this blog. But its like our religion, I have to preach it. Pookie is doing so well that we can’t help but talk about it.
• “I should have danced all night maternity shirt”: does this exist? If so, I can’t help you find it.

BAGD gets even better ones that I do. Recently, he was found by people searching for:

• “pledge of allegiance in navajo language” : Yeah. He does not speak navajo. He does speak Arabic.
• “how to give injections in the butt”: He does know how to do this. Its an IVF thing. And we had to do it alot. He also gets alot of searches for “jennifer lopez IVF”.
• “autism meal portions”: I was not aware that the big A’s influence was so pervasive that it even affected food portion sizes. I should search for this one and read what he says on the topic. Most likely he was commenting on the fact that he now has to make 2 boxes of Macaroni and Cheese because Pookie and Geetle eat too much and he does not want to share with them anymore.
• “morton high school hammond in school supply list”: if he tells you that he knows the answer to this one, don’t believe him.
• “do twins start their periods at the same time”: not only does he NOT know the answer to this question…he is plugging his ears right now (lalalalalalalala)
• “famly gud you tude”: ah, excuse me?

On Saturday Geetle was a pistol.  She was defiant, telling us “nope” and “I’m not gonna do it” when we would ask her to do things.  She refused to hold BAGD’s hand crossing the parking lot, because she was a girl and girls are supposed to hold Mom’s hand, girls stay with girls.   She told BAGD “you can do it for me” when he told her to put her bike away.   She took a stand against hearing “Fuzzy and Blue” from the Sesame Street CD in the car.  She told us that she could not put her own shoes on, walk like a normal person or keep her fork from falling out of her hand at lunch.   BAGD dragged her out of Bakers Square for a talking to in the lobby before she was allowed to come back to the table and finish her lunch.  She screamed because I “brushed her neck” while combing out her ponytail at bedtime.  She was clearly in a bad mood, because we are pretty certain we heard her say “Oh craps” when something did not go her way.   It was a long day.

On Sunday, we tried to set her on another path, knowing that Saturday just snowballed and should not have gone on so long.  On Sunday morning she announced she wanted to make a card for her friend’s birthday party on Saturday.  I said great and got her out a bunch of supplies.  Somehow the card turned into a book.  Before you know it, she was making more and more paper books.  She said she needed them for her book sale.  Great.  Lets go with that.  She made books for an hour. I helped staple the pages together and cut pictures out for her to glue inside.  When she had enough books, she ran downstairs for her cash register and said she was ready to set up the book sale on the porch.  Two problems…it was pouring rain and we were due to leave for a tour of the birthing center at the hospital.  She was willing to wait until we got back and discuss it then.  That would have been a major incident on Saturday.

When we got back from the hospital, she made 1 or 2 more books.   I suggested she set up her book sale on the table in our library.  She agreed.  When they were all laid out, she said she would need a sign; we made one.  I asked her if she needed bags, she excitedly said yes.   Before long, she had bags, a sign, a display, change for her register and a name tag to wear when she rang up the purchases.  We even added a cup full of bookmarks, free with purchase.  She named her store; (it is called “The books are for sale and you come buy them”) and waited for customers.  BAGD and I each bought a few books.   Pookie browsed, but did not buy.

She was very pleased.  She reopened her store Monday morning and sold a book to Mamaw and one to Papaw.   We will keep it open until Aunt Kel comes to visit on Wednesday.  On a walk today, she found some acorns and gathered them up.  They are also free with purchase of a book.

The moral of the story here is that she was not at all sassy on Sunday or Monday.  I think it was because she was so fully engaged in this project.  We talked about it all day, she made even more books with Mamaw on Monday.  When she was not making books, she was looking for magazines to cut up or practicing putting the prices into the cash register, pushing each button very carefully.   She worried that she would run out of bags and decorated a few more.  She sold me a book when I came up from the home office at lunch time.  When I came back upstairs an hour later to go to the bathroom, she asked me how I “enjoyed” my book.

I always knew that diverting my kids attention could help improve their behavior.  But this project was the best example of that in a long time.  All she wanted was some mind candy.   She must have been bored on Saturday and she showed it by being naughty.  I do not believe in constantly entertaining my kids, they need to learn to do that themselves and that sometimes life is boring.  But I do think its a good idea to engage them in everything they do.  On Saturday we could have set her on a better path by giving her a shopping list to check off as we ran our errands.  We could have let her push the cart.  We could have let her carry the money and pay the clerk at the post office.   We were in such a hurry to get our errands done that we just expected the kids to follow along behind us.  Usually they do OK at that, but on Saturday she was in a touchy mood and that was just not going to work.

I am glad that she got so interested in her book store.  After such a long day on Saturday it was nice to see her happy and having fun.   I am also glad that she found a creative project that held her interest for so long.  I know she is more like the Sunday/Monday girl than the one we saw on Saturday.

For the past week or so, I have been getting a 5:45am wake up call.  Every morning Pookie comes into our room and crawls into bed with us.

Literally…5:45 every morning.  He cannot tell time.  There is no clock in his room.  The whole house is asleep.  No alarm clocks go off.  No dogs bark.  Nothing.  So how does this kid know when its 5:45 every morning?  I wish I knew.  But I can tell you he is as predictable as that atomic clock in the desert (see www.time.gov for the official US government’s time right now!)

Even weirder, I have started to wake up *just* before I hear him leave his bedroom and head for ours.  What is going on!

I am going to the doctor every 2 weeks now.   I did not realize I was getting that close to the end of my pregnancy.  Every 2 weeks is so frequent!  I will admit it…I am inconvenienced by the sheer frequency of these appointments!  I don’t remember it being that way the first time.  But then, I went on house arrest (not quite bed-rest) at 30 weeks and I had no other kids, so I was bored silly.  When those doctors appointments came around, I was excited!  BAGD would come home at lunch and drive me to the doctor; sometimes he would take me to Portillo’s on the way home for a hot dog or slab or ribs.  Sometimes if the appointment was late in the day, he would be done at work and he might take me to Babies ‘r Us to look around a bit.  Sometimes we even got to go to the actual hospital for one of those fetal heart monitor tests (routine twin thing).  It was big fun!

But now, I have alot of things to do!  I don’t have time to drive 20 minute and wait 20 minutes in the waiting room…all for a 10 minute appointment.   I have not been taking the kids with me to the appointments, just because I do not want to have to keep Pookie from using the speculum as a telescope or peering deep inside the biohazard garbage can.   And while I think Geetle would enjoy it, I worry that it might scare her a bit.  Just fear of the unknown, and all that.  So, I have to arrange for a time I can leave them at home.  Esentially, I am looking for that brief calendar overlap in which the doctor, BAGD and I all have availability.  Its stressful…and now its every 2 weeks.

But, I am glad that my pregnancy is going well.  So, I am not really complaining.   Well, I am complaining, but not with any real sense of righteousness.  I just need something to complain about.  Its also a pregnancy thing.

We got the Kolcraft Contours Options 4 wheeler. Now I am going to order the boogie board I think will be compatible and see if this plan finally comes together. I gotta tell you, even if it does not work….I think I still love this stroller. It fits the Graco Snugride carseats (which we have from our last babies) as well as many others. That was a big deal, as we have 3 of those Graco Snugride bucket infant carseats and bases. And I could not confirm that any of the boogie boards I am considering would fit on a Graco stroller. One of the boards said it was a “compromised fit” and that did not sound good.

But the coolest thing about this stroller so far is that it has one really cool feature. The entire baby/child seat lifts out and turns around in a snap. So, you can have the baby face you or face the direction you are traveling.

We got a good deal too, at Baby Center . Like $132 after tax. Geetle gave Baby Shrek a ride already. Pookie thinks it looks comfortable and tried to sit in it once. Wait until he sees his boogie board! I am going to have my engineering staff (BAGD) look over the boogie board specs on the internet and then order that in the next week. I should have the whole system together by Labor Day. Then I can finally confirm which lightweight stroller that accommodates Graco Snugride carseats also works with a large weight capacity boogie board for older preschool kids, not just toddlers. Trust me, I did alot of research on that very question and found no answer. So, I may be about to answer the only unanswered question left on the internet.

So, I was minding my own business sitting at the computer writing a few blog posts when Pookie entered the room.  He dawdled around on the thinking chair for 15-30 seconds, tried to type on BAGD’s laptop (in use at the time) and then made his way over to me.  I saw him coming, so I turned my head to see what was up.  The only thing I saw was a grubby little finger coming right at my eye.   He got me.  My contact shot out of my eye.  BAGD and I had to spend the next 10 minutes on the floor under the computer desk looking for it.  We finally found it, stuck to the bracket which supports the arm of the computer chair.

I still am not sure why exactly Pookie was coming over to my chair in the first place.  I know that he did not intend to poke me in the eye, I sort of turned into it.  I assume he was coming over to poke one of my moles or something (he thinks that’s funny.)   He has been very affectionate and touchy-feely lately.  He comes into my side of the bed every morning at 5:45am-ish.  He crawls on top of my body pillow and lays on it like a life raft.  He wriggles until he is comfortable, sometimes insisting that our noses touch on the pillow.  During the day, he will come up and hug me on the leg, for no apparent reason.  He asks me to “cuddle close”  and always wants to sit on “mama’s couch”  (like I am the only one who uses the couch!).   We had lunch at Baker’s Square today and he spent most of the meal full-body wrapped around my right arm.

So, because we knew he did not mean to hurt me, we did not give him a talking to.  He would not really understand it and his intentions were good.   We’ll save that lesson for another time.

I want to apologize to all the people who have tried to have meaningful conversations with me lately.

Truly, I find you fascinating, but I am not understanding a word of what you are saying.

Blame it on the baby. Blame it on the fact that I am extremely tired lately and could easily be lulled to sleep by the cadence of your speech. Either way…sorry. I am doing my best, but some things just aren’t sinking in. If you write it down for me, I will try to read it later.

Pookie is almost done with his summer tutoring.  He spent 6 weeks in Summer School, but then had a separate 3 week session with a tutor which came to our home.  We fought long and hard with the school district to get this summer tutor and were very excited to find out that she would be Miss Stephanie, the aide from his classroom last year.  So while we were pleased with his progress during summer school, we were even more excited for the tutoring to start.  Its almost over and I think it was my favorite part of the summer.
Miss Stephanie comes to our house every morning for 90 minutes of “school,”  just her and Pookie.  They do circle time, message of the day, art, story time…all the regular preschool stuff.  I give Miss Stephanie alot of credit, because sometime she is the only one dancing or clapping to the music.  And when you teach autistic children, sometimes no one answers your questions at circletime.  But she dances and asks the questions anyway.  And we appreciate that.  She gives 110%.

Pookie on the other hand…no wait!  What did you expect me to say!?  Of course he gives 110% too!  I peak around the corner sometimes, and what I see makes me happy.   Occasionally, he refuses to do the dances, but usually he does them.  During my corner peaking I have seen him

1.  answer direct questions (Miss Stephanie:  “What color do you want to use to color the flower?”  Pookie:  “Red.” )

2.  follow multi-step directions (Miss Stephanie: “Pookie, put the scissors in the box and then get your markers out.”)

3.   engage in pretend play (Miss Stephanie, Pookie, Monkey, Chicken and Snake had a tea party every day for a week)

4.   use several school skills (cutting on a line, using stencils, putting stickers in a row, glue beans to a page, etc)

5.   practice social play skills (For 10 minutes a day, Miss Stephanie invites Geetle to join her and Pookie in playing a game.  They practice taking turns mainly.  Geetle waits anxiously on the stairs until its time for her to join them, she loves it.)

6.  become Miss Stephanie’s friend.  (Pookie lets Miss Stephanie play Connect Four and Bowling with him.  These are games he usually likes to play alone, because he loves them so much he cannot wait for someone else to take a turn.   Pookie trusts Miss Stephanie and truly likes to play “school” with her.)

Pookie and Miss Stephanie are quite a pair.  We’re sad that Miss Stephanie won’t be returning to the district next year.

Originally, we wanted Pookie in a class room all summer.  The district refused and we went into negotiations.  They eventually offered 6 weeks of class room and 3 weeks of home tutoring.  We thought it was a good offer, but not originally what we wanted.  Now, I am glad we had this opportunity.  In fact, we are considering a home tutor for during the school year too.  I am not even sure who we could get, or how it would work, since Pookie already has 5 days of school a week, 3 hours a day.  But it is something we are considering.  We are seeing how much it helps him.  The one-on-one time is awesome for him.  He listens.  He responds.  He participates.  Its great.   I can tell you one thing…we are getting home tutoring next summer…watch out School District!   We know Pookie’s rights and now we KNOW what we want!