It went very well. We’re going to go weekly. In a small world kind of way, the office manager there is my old nice boss from the bookstore I worked at about 16 years ago.
Category: kids
diaper geekery
So I’ve been changing diapers for eight and a half years. Most of the time I’ve had two kids in diapers and frequently three. What I’m saying is I know my way around, folks.
By the time Gloria is toilet trained I’ll have changed something like fifty thousand diapers. Well, 49,998, I forgot what Sean has contributed.
Regular readers of my blog will remember that I have always used cloth diapers. I’ve used old-school flat diapers with pins and high-tech polyester and microfiber pocket diapers and everything in between. Right now I’m using fitted diapers for Gloria and pocket diapers for Trixie and I am loving our diaper system, hence this post.
Trixie is in Fuzzi Bunz, size L. Recently Fuzzi Bunz redesigned their diapers and so everyone clearanced the old models. Like cars! But I like the old design just fine so I got them at an absolute steal, I tell you. About half what they’d usually be. I bought them over about a two month period, and I have a dozen – that’s enough for an older baby like Trixie if I wash every day. Trixie has eczema somethng fierce and even the softest wool + itchy tummy = sad panda. I was resigned to waterproofed nylon over prefolds, but then she started having breakthrough rashes on her bum too. Hence the move to Fuzzi Bunz with their moisture wicking inner that keeps her skin dry. Love!
Gloria is in Snug to Fit Supreme fitted diapers, snap close. I had used them with Bede and Abby until my stash fell apart. They’re great workhorse diapers, and they are a one-size – they adjust in the rise to fit from about twelve to about thirty five pounds. My mother made me some stay dry liners for them and they are just great. Over them she needs a waterproof cover, and I use wool soakers or the aforementioned nylon ones. I got them at a HUGE discount when a retailer switched hands recently. Again, love!
I’m not giving up my prefolds and pins but it sure is nice to have some quick britches to change. These diapers go on just like paper diapers, zip, zap, zoom. Yay!
And in other news
autism goes to the doctor
I found out recently that our insurance will cover occupational therapy with a referral from our primary physician. I was pleased to learn that because Bede’s never had professional therapists beyond our yearly consult with his psych. But getting the referral required us to go to the doctor. Hmm.
My mom has been very busy for the last month so I waited for her to become available again and then made my call.
Phone lady: Has he been seen here before?
Me: No, you’ve seen his siblings.
PL: OK, we can see you at 3:30 on…
Me: Could you give us a time where we don’t have to wait as much? I mean, I know nobody wants to wait but he’s autistic and he’s going to be screaming pretty much the entire time he’s there.
PL: (nonplussed) Well, um, how about 1:30 on (several weeks away)? And that will be Dr. Name’s first appointment that day, he does afternoons.
Me: Excellent!
So today was the day. Sean went and got the new patient paperwork beforehand and we just handed it in when we got there. Then we waited. Bede tried to turn the tv off and on. He tried to take every magazine out of the rack. He tried to take off his shoes and clothes.
And he yelled the whooole time.
It’s the looks that get you. I understand people looking. Hell, I’d look, hear a kid scream “NOOOOO!! DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE CAR? DO YOU WANT TO LET’S GO HOME? OKAY SURE I GETCHOO LET’S GO HOME!! NOOOOOO!!” but the continual weight of the stares, the shock and disgust and the not looking away part. Well. Urgh.
Then after about 5 minutes in the waiting room we went back to the exam room. Bede was unable to be weighed because he wouldn’t stand on the scale. He’s very tactile defensive especially about his ears so no go on the temperature reading. When we got to the room he climbed up on the exam table and started taking the disposable otoscope covers out of the dispenser. When dissuaded from this he became upset. More yelling. The nurse left and said the doctor would be right in.
When he came in his eyes widened a bit at Bede and he said, over the din “I’m Dave. Nice to meet you!” He sat down (as I detached Bede from the dispenser again) and said “I understand you’re here for a referral for OT. You’ve got it.”
Yay!
Then he wanted to talk about Bede, who was at this point basically insane. He was amazed that Bede could read and write yet not converse and said “He’s like a savant!” He took a history and then left, somewhat shell-shocked. He came back in to ask “Do you immunize?” I got the same general impression I have always gotten from that clinic: no problem, let us know what you’ve decided. We think vaccines are good and safe but it’s up to you. (Regular readers of my blog will recall that we vaccinate very selectively on a highly delayed schedule.) So that was nice to not feel bullied. They also have the individual vaccines there, the nurse told me, for those who want single shots vs. multidisease ones.
Then we left. Bede declared that he wanted McDonald’s so that’s what we got. And that brings you up to date, OT here we come!
place value update!
First of all, thanks for all the comments on that. It was great to get everyone’s different ideas and tips.
Here’s what we did.
I printed out the graph paper I mentioned in the first post. I cut out ten single squares, ten ten-square strips and ten hundred-square squares. After I put bandages on my blistered hands (ha ha, it was a lot of cutting!) I sat down with Abby the next morning, equipped with my bits of paper and a Magna Doodle.
She was intrigued and got it almost immediately. We counted ten single squares and lay them down on the ten strip. She saw that it was indeed ten ones long. Then we lay ten ten strips on the hundred square, showing that it was equivalent to ten tens. Then I said “How many do I have?” and lay down 3 tens and 4 ones. “Thirty-four!” came the cry. I wrote 3 over the word tens and 4 over the word ones and lay the papers under the words. I asked “How many tens do I have? How many ones?”
I swear you could see the lightbulb appear over her head.
It was nothing then to extend it to hundreds as well, and we played with them for a few minutes more before she lit off with a gleam in her eyes, paper in her fists and headed for the markers.
So that’s that!
unschooling, graph paper and place value
As most regular readers of this blog know, I am an unschooler. I think children learn best when allowed to follow their interests. I still feel that way – completely – yet I am asking the girls to do enough math drill daily so that they stay approximately at grade level. It ends up being about ten or fifteen minutes a day. They don’t mind it, and have asked for their “school math” before too.
It’s not that I think they wouldn’t learn it on their own given time. I do think that. But I worry that some Family Court judge wouldn’t feel that way, and the more weird things you have going for you the worse it gets. And I’m pretty weird, I reckon. I know I’m paranoid, but we’ve had an unfounded run-in with CPS before and I know what they ask. Is it legal for them to ask my kids “What’s thirty four minus twelve?” No, it is not. Will that fact keep my kids from foster care if some social worker determines on the fly that they are educationally neglected? No, it will not. Hence the math drill. I also want them to be able to enter school at grade level if they ever had to because of some family crisis.
Everywhere else they stay on grade level. We have subscriptions to Ranger Rick and National Geographic Kids; both magazines are devoured the moment they hit the mailbox. They read whatever they want in the kid fiction department, and read Newberry books or quality nonfiction with Sean at night. We have a subscription to Brain Pop as well, which has hundreds of short videos on every topic you can imagine. They write and draw stories and type on the computer constantly. So they stay in the ballpark (schoolyard?) for everything but mathematics. I know they’d get it on their own if I gave them time. I freely admit that this is all me.
I have officially outed myself as an incomplete unschooler! But not really, do you see? If there was no external timeline I wouldn’t be doing this. It’s all fear based, and I’m okay with that. I hope my unschooler friends don’t hate me now. I know the ones who are really my friends will understand.
So after all that, my point. Ahem.
Abby is having a tough time with place value right now. I just printed out some graph paper to see if that will help, to see that ten ones make ten, and ten tens make one hundred, etc. I looked into buying some Cuisenaire rods but they just look like expensive choking hazards, frankly. Lakeshore Learning has some cute little manipulatives that are the same way.
So what have you done to help your kids “get” place value? That didn’t involve teeny killer plastic or wooden bits, I mean.
Leapster love – ISO Leapster cartridge games
No static, but lots of cling
The Elephant Song
Twenty days later
This is what we’ve been doing this summer. Autistic kids sometimes need lots of repetition to get comfy with new things, much more so than nonautistic children. Bede, who loves water, had that reaction to our new aboveground pool, as follows:
Day One: Pool is set up. Bede jumps in the water, freaks out. Will not come near the pool again that day.
Day Two: Bede refuses to come outside when everyone else swims, cries when shown his swimsuit.
Day Three: Bede wants nothing to do with his swimsuit at first but wears it after much cajoling, and enjoys the kiddy pool.
Day Four: Bede puts his fingers in the big pool and dances away many times. He’s smiling.
Days Five-15: As Day Four. A few times I hold Bede in my arms and stand in the pool, but he becomes very agitated so I don’t press it.
Day 16: Bede puts his face in the pool several times.
Days 17 and 18: Bede doesn’t completely flip out when I stand holding him in the pool, and splashes a little with his hands.
Day 19: Bede gets in the pool! Gets out. In, out, in, out. For about an hour.
Day 20: Bede goes swimming!
my secret to easygoing parenting
I know you’ve often wondered “How the hell does she stay so calm with six freaking kids?”
I have a secret.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Disposable_foam_earplugs.jpg
It’s like a little piece of heaven for my ears. Just enough to make me be able to tend to Trixie screaming her fool head off because someone won’t give her a clothespin or a spoon or some trivial object. Without smacking her, I mean. Cause I guess that would be one way to deal with it but I’m agin it, you know.
Highly recommend them if you have the means.
Happy Independence Day!!
Kewpie Gloria
Aden, Gilbert and the Dinosaurs
not feeling like blogging much
sitting pretty
the look, acceptance and hope
So we’ve looked at a couple houses now. We’ve found one we like a lot, on a one-acre lot just south of Guthrie.
We’ve been taking the kids with us to look at stuff (mostly because we have to, and partly because we like to hear what they think too) and therefore Bede has been getting put in situations where he is expected to behave in certain ways: walk at the side of or very close to an adult, be relatively quiet, wear clothes, don’t touch.
Mostly he does not behave in those ways. He has about 3 to 5 minutes (I am being generous) of relatively compliant behavior before he becomes a puddle of yell on the floor, or a bolt of boy lightning charging for a fence. The houses with actual people still living in them are hard, because he isn’t permitted to examine the belongings of the owners to his satisfaction, nor is he allowed to run amok through the house. However he has kept his clothes on, which is great!
Anyway, he has a a hard time. If I am able to give him my full attention he does okay, even good, but I have 5 other children. Sean and my mother are there as well to tend to the other 5 but they still sometimes need me, so it gets kinda tense. Which is the point of my title: the look.
I think most parents are familiar with the look. You all have kids who behave in ways that others judge as bad in public, and at some point someone has glared at you disapprovingly. I’m used to that look, I’ve gotten it for years (I try never to give it, however.) And I’m pretty okay with it. If my job in life is to give someone else a reason to feel better about themselves, well, so be it. Not my problem.
But when Bede goes farther than a nonautistic child would, then I get the OTHER look.
The pity look.
I hate that look. Sometimes we get it with no introduction, but we usually get it when I say “He’s autistic. This is tough for him.” Then their look goes from anger to “Oh, you poor woman!” laced with “Thank God I’m not you!”
We do not want your pity. We want your understanding.
If you are faced with meeting an autistic child in distress, please don’t look sorry for the parents. You can express sympathy for the child in question, who is having a difficult moment, but please don’t look sorry for the parent. And don’t tell us we’re strong, or that you couldn’t do it, or whatever.
We’re just doing what anyone would do. Parenting our kids.
I guess a lot of this was spiked by the Good Morning America segment on autism acceptance. Diane Sawyer ends it with a bit of untrue treacle: “isn’t it [autism acceptance] a beautiful way of expressing heartbreak?”
No it is not. Acceptance is the other side of heartbreak, Diane. Acceptance is HOPE.
I can has kid macros?
vaccines do not cause autism. autism causes autism.
I am 100% sure that Bede’s autism was not caused by vaccines. Because he hasn’t had any. I don’t think vaccines cause autism. I could believe that they make autistic-like symptoms appear in kids who have underlying metabolic problems, but I don’t think that happens very often. I think that vaccines in this country (the US) are ridiculously overwhelming to young bodies. I’m not stopping to look it up, but I have read that Japan has a later start to immunizations and does fewer than we do. Sounds good.
I myself was vaccinated. I was born in 1974 and I received injections for tetanus, diptheria and pertussis, measles, mumps and rubella, and was given an oral polio vaccine. That’s it.
I’m trying to find a doctor who is willing to work with me on getting those vaccines for my kids – although I do want even less than that. I’d like to go with the Td shot – just tetanus and diptheria – because the pertussis vaccine isn’t particularly effective and is pretty toxic.
I’m okay with the vaccine for measles and mumps, but the rubella is a no-go because it’s derived from human fetal cells, which translates to “made from an aborted baby.” So those need to be given separately instead of as the MMR.
The oral polio vaccine is no longer used in this country because it causes polio, so they’d be getting the injected polio vax – which is sometimes made from human fetal cells and sometimes not. If I can find the one that is not they’ll get that (it’s Sanofi Pasteur’s IPOL.)
I’m kind of tired of reading these angst-ridden posts on message boards that say “I vaccinated my child! She’s autistic! It’s all my fault!” I want to say NO! Vaccines do not cause autism. No studies have EVER shown a link between vaccines and autism. EVER. If you really want to think it’s your “fault,” blame your genes in the sense that they’re your genes that made the kid and her genes made her autistic. But really, that’s silly.
As far as autistic kids seeming to respond to biomedical interventions to reduce the toxins in their bodies by becoming less autistic, well, I’m not convinced. Bede has had no interventions. He has constant access to a computer and to his two loving parents (especially his mother) and to his five siblings. ANd you know what? He’s talking more, playing with us more, learning and growing. If he had been taking supplements they’d get the credit. But it’s just time and life.
And it’s a pretty good life, at that.
spectrum sibling
Faith is so wonderful. As I type, Bede is laying on top of her legs while she lies on her stomach (she is trying to watch TV) and he says “Dah B says…?” and Faith replies “The B says buh!” and so on (now they are up to S.)
She could be shoving him off. She could be ignoring him. She could be complaining to me. But no, she is smiling and happy because she loves her strange little brother.
By request, Bede sings
my biggest and my smallest
singing
bede’s computer…
laptop for Bede – done! 2go pc ftw!
Last week I mentioned that I’d be buying Bede a laptop with his SSI back pay money. I was leaning towards the ASUS eee, but instead I went with the 2go PC, the second generation of the Intel Classmate. It’s designed especially for kids to use and abuse (it can withstand a 6-foot [1.8m] drop, for one thing) and it looks like just what we need. The eee seemed too flimsy for the likes of a 5 year old autistic boy who likes to balance things on his feet while he lies on his back.
Laptopmag’s blog has a pretty good review of it, with a video to show how small it is. It’s about the size of a trade paperback and weighs less than 3 pounds, and it gets around 3 hours of use per charge.
I’m very excited.
cleaning
I’ve been mildly depressed lately. Some of it is postpartum, some of it is just me. But today! Today I cleaned the house, which is so satisfying. Sean held Gloria and fed the other kids basically an entire box of Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies while I cleaned the living room, dining room and upstairs hallway. Ahhh!
It’s amazing how much my mood lifts when it’s tidy(er.) I have PTSD from our run-in with DHS two and a half years ago. (We were maliciously and falsely reported to CPS by a real estate salesman who wanted our home, which we were renting, to be show quality while we still lived in it. CPS came, checked us out for a few weeks of hell, and then said it was unfounded.) So anyway, whenever I see a car I don’t know pull up in front of our house or even just slow down a bit, my heart leaps into my throat, I break out in a cold sweat, hyperventilate and my mind jumps to “It’s CPS!!! Coming to take my babies!!” You can imagine that this is pretty debilitating when it happens every. time. I see a car. Even at, say 2AM.
So the cleaning helps because then if they did show up, my home is what Sean and I (not so) affectionately call “CPS clean.” Yeah.
I’ve been attempting some half-assed cognitive behavioral therapy on myself every time I have those thoughts and you know what? It’s working. Thank God, it’s working! Every time I think “ACK!! BABY THIEVES!!!” I say to myself “That’s a glitch in your brain, Fee. It’s just someone in a car you don’t know.” It’s helping. I will rewire my brain! New firmware, for Feebeeglee 2.0!
Ah, Gloria is fussing a bit, needs nursies. Did you know she was 4 months old yesterday? How did that happen?
airplane
the week in review
So let’s see here.
Gloria rolled over several times and looks like a little airplane on her belly. She holds up her arms and her legs with just her tummy touching the floor and just looks so pleased with herself.
I got approved to use Bede’s SSI back pay to purchase his laptop. This is a big deal because the back pay can only be used for medical and therapeutic costs, so I had to demonstrate that he needed it, not just that he wanted it. Now I get to shop in earnest, as the money should be in his account later this week. ANyone have any recommendations? I’m looking at the ASUS Eee because it is small, lightweight and fairly shockproof, but I want to wait to buy the 9 inch screen, I think, so Bede won’t have to scroll as much. If I buy that one I’ll buy two of them so if one gets crushed I’ll have the other. Hell, maybe I should buy 3. It’s like buying him a voice, after all, and three of them cost as much as one midrange Dell. Hmm.
Faith is thrilled with your comments! I’ll post a detailed version of how to make your own screencaps for kids later. SHort version is, get the screen to look like you want to modify and press the Print Screen key on the keyboard. Open Paint and choose Edit – Paste. Use the select tool to pick the area you want to modify. Choose Edit – Copy. Open a new instance of Paint (i.e., open Paint again.) Then choose Edit – Paste again in your new Paint and go to town. If you mess up more than Undo can help you, go back to the first Paint you opened and select the part you want to edit again.
And now I have tarried long enough.
Faith’s First Fandom – Club Penguin!
Faith’s been having fun modding screencaps of Club Penguin. I’m sure she’d love it if you all took a look.
Had a Bad Day?
The Mom, over at Shoved To Them, posted the video for Bad Day, a charming song. It reminded me to post our favorite Club Penguin version of Bad Day by Kraziiboi498. Enjoy!