My Winter Home

Much of the snow has melted, but there is still enough left for Patrick to make a little snowman.

Household Happenings.

Here's what it looks like outside right now.  That could change in a little while as we are expecting another big snowstorm.  We have stocked the fridge and are (I hope) well-prepared.  I'm hoping this will be the last snowstorm as state chess tournament comes up in March and right after that?  Another stupid hernia surgery for me.  My third.  It was a relief to hear that, actually, because my regular doctor thought I had a huuuuge tumour for a little while there.  No worries.  Just my guts falling out again.  :/

In homeschooling, Emperor has just read through Silas Marner and Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  I think he enjoyed Silas Marner much more and found the other book a bit disturbing.  His new math curriculum is all graded on the computer (sample lessons here!).  Here I am teaching him by doing absolutely nothing.  He ran into a bit of a problem because he forgot how to multiply fractions.  So then he spent today reviewing with Khan Academy.  There is no excuse not to homeschool because you don't know all the answers when the internet is out there, right?  Changing the subject, I bought this little house at the thrift store; I don't know why.  I just like it.  It is a "handpainted Delft."  I think it is a salt shaker because of the little holes in the chimney, but it sits on my windowsill.

Rose can read simple words and do matching games and easy games like Candyland.  She also helps out around the house frequently.  I found this little girl looking over my shoulder while I was watching Hoarders the other day.  She would like you all to know that garbage goes in a bag.  Poopies go in the potty!  And as she watched, she wondered, "Why is she doing that?  That's disgusting.  We don't throw trash on the ground!"

When Woodjie has the sniffles or is just not feeling himself, I will give him a "hairbow" so he can look like a little unicorn.  He will lie down with his blankie and twist his hair for a little while.  He is starting to use full sentences most of the time and can count up to 42.  He is just so cute, isn't he?

All About Woodjie.

It's NO fun around this house when Woodjie is ill.  The kid still  doesn't blow or wipe his nose properly.  And he is so, so crabby.  But he won't go to sleep.

It's time to run all over the house!  And jump on the furniture and run some more and run.  It feels as though we're constantly redirecting him and finally?  It's just time for a time-out. 

He runs around some more, and we have to redirect him to take the stupid time-out already.  Woodjie was very crabby and snuffly and said he doesn't want to be with this family any more, he'd like to live at school with Miss Flower where they are nice to him.  Dad is mean.

Oh good grief.  Ordinarily it's hard to get three words out of him, but we just got an entire monologue.  I had no idea he even knew the word "family."  It is still time-out time, though.  D asked him if he were going to take that time out Dad's way, or the hard way.

"No!" he protested.  "The 'I rule the world' way!"  He sat down with his arms folded and kept a big scowl on his face.  But he did it.

I sure hope I don't have another crabby day from this kid tomorrow.  It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't have so much grumpy *energy* but would just mope on the couch like a regular person...

Dinner Pics

 Ahhh, dinner at our house.  The children go to dinner right after their after-school baths.  Woodjie did a great job getting all his smileys in school today, so he got some pudding (see it on his face?  Lemon.) and is able to play his LeapFrog games tonight.

I gave him this Pop-Tart Hat of Happiness because... well, I'm going to recycle it anyway and he looks pretty cute in it.

Rose came home and got mad that her dad wasn't giving her her bath quickly enough (he was finishing Woodjie's at the time) and she called him a stupid, stupid dad and said she didn't love him any more.

So much for her game time tonight!  Here she is after much crying and gentle coersion to the table.  She said she doesn't love anyone, ever again.  We all told her we were sorry to hear that but we still loved her.

"NO!  Not," she pouted.  Ok then.  Later I gave her some pudding anyway and told her telling Mommy she is stupid and "no love you" hurts her feelings but she did a good job calming down.  Rose apologized and she got some kisses too.

I was just chatting with a friend today about making mealtimes pleasant and here all poopie-land broke out tonight.  Ha ha!

Christmas Elves

I cannot believe this.  Elf is upset that Woodjie brought home a Christmas Elf hat from kindergarten.  Only he is the Elf.  Woodjie says, "Now I a Elfie, TOO!  There TWO elves!"  Rose had to jump into the picture and G... well... what a goof. 

Flower, Leaf, Tree, Cloud

Woodjie wanted to write some things and with a lot of help, he is telling us what he could see this morning.  It seems Woodjie is either really ready to learn, or really NOT ready.  There's just no in-between or good method to coerce him into digesting the information on your agenda.  Not sure I am ready to blog about what is going on in school.  Just pray for him, wouldya?  And for his teachers as well.

Firefighting Woodjie

* ***** Guess who visited Woodjie's school today?  Woodjie wants to tell you about how he is going to be a firefighter.  He also got "all mileys" today in school.  He's actually had several days running of all smileys.  Yay!  Can you tell that he is starting to put words together and come up with unique sentences that convey ideas?  Yep.  It has taken him a bit longer than the average bear, but he is making a ton of progress.

Woodjie Update

I don't know what to say.  Woodjie's a good kid.  But.  Just about every day, I get notes home about how he "hit a friend" a couple times during the school day.  Or he "ran away and didn't want to join the class."  Or he "got so upset and angry he threw up a little."

I've chatted with his teacher a few times, have given what few suggestions I could for calming him down (which don't always work at home, but hey), and have sent in his weighted vest.  We are all of us trying/struggling to figure out what is going on.

His teacher and aide are working on charts about his behaviour.  You know, ABC type stuff. 

A - the antecedent.  What happened that caused the behaviour?
B - the behaviour that we'd sure not like to see.
C - the consequence of the behaviour (had to sit in time out, or whatever)

Right now, there seems to be no particular time of day and no rhyme or reason we can discern that causes Woodjie to flip.  I'm thinking if I were in that kindergarten class?  I wouldn't want to sit near Woodjie.

And the thing is, he's not perfect here at home, but he's not flipping out puking mad and hitting his "friends" all the time, either.

I would ordinarily be very, very distrustful of teachers, but this is Miss Flower, who was Elfie's kindergarten teacher.  She was lovely and sweet to Elf.  Things went downhill with a thud when she was no longer his teacher in first grade.  So for Woodjie?  It's so odd that we have the same (wonderful) teacher.  Because Woodjie is in a specialized autism class across town.  Hey, who knows, maybe working with super-great kids like Elf inspired her to take that job.

Yesterday I was very discouraged about Woodjie's behaviour chart.  I made D sign it because I don't always want to sign the bad stuff, and maybe if they saw that a man was signing these things they'd know we're really, really taking things seriously and are not personally endorsing playground violence and bla bla bla (insert silly argument here).

So D took the paper, scrawled his signature on the line and then wrote "A MAN" underneath.  I just left it because... I have no clue why.  Sometimes you have to laugh at stuff for no reason or you'll cry.

The good news is that today, Woodjie got all smiley faces on his take-home chart for the second time this school year.  So I'm rejoicing that yayyy... things went ok today.  Or at least well enough that the Zootsie Wumble got to play on the computer this afternoon.  Woot.

Hoping for many more days like this, but you can imagine how frustrating it is for Miss Flower, for Woodjie's aide, for me and for Woodjie.

Happy Weekend!

Emperor is speeding along in this photo.  He was quite determined to learn to ride his bike today, but it didn't quite go according to plan.

Elf is in seventh grade, but hasn't mastered that whole riding about on his own thing, either.  For whatever reason, this skill is elusive to them both.

Solution:  no training wheels!  Emperor will pedal and steer, and Elf will keep his feet on the ground.  Everyone wins!

Woodjie and Rose got their little trikes out as well. 

Woodjie will get a fruit snack for each smiley face and as a bonus for getting all smileys, he'll get some computer time tonight!  Have a great weekend, everyone!

Hanging Out This Afternoon

Rose is supervising Woodjie's creative process.

I'm teaching Rose "ladder checkmate."  The second queen is an upside-down rook.

I'm also in the process of teaching Rose how the knight moves.  If your knight starts on a star, he'll have to hop over to the other star.  If he starts on a smiley, he ends on a smiley.  Two up, one over.  He always winds up on the opposite colour from which he starts.  The confusing thing about it is that this is true all around where the knight starts.  In the center of the board, there are eight squares to which the knight can move.

After Rose does a chess exercise, she gets to pick out a sticker and put it on her new princess. 

Gooood Morning!

Wake up in the middle of the night because Woodjie is hopping about.  Sure enough, he has to poop. 

Good wiping and hand-washing are foreign concepts to this kid, so I have to get out of bed.  Tonight Woodjie is explosive, runny, messed up all his clothes and about half the floor... smelly bad. 

Aaaaand there is NO WATER.  Just air when I turn on the faucet. Ew ew ew ew.  I dragged up an entire mega-mega Sam's Club size of baby wipes and just did what I could.  Changed clothes.  Can't even flush toilet or wash clothes.  Ew. 

Repeat this scene about four different times in the night.  This morning we had a trickle of water so you betya we flushed/ washed/ bathed Woodjie and changed him AAA-gain.

*pa-yeeww*

Laundry.  More washing.  The air is just... heavy with this stuff.  I'm about to get breakfast for littles when an important phone call comes in.  Emergency level.  I MUST, within the next hour, dig up every known financial record I have for the state.  Including burial plan policy numbers, amount and account numbers of savings accounts, worth of the real estate I own, bla bla bla.  SURE, I just did this a few months ago, but that's not good enough.  I need to drop everything and get it done again, NOW.

 Kids are hopping for breakfast and I tuck them in bed (as if that's gonna work, but this was really urgent). 

I sure hope my paperwork is coherent.  Ever have to dive for stuff like this because someone made you JUMP?  First thing in the morning?  I sure hope it is done well...

Called city utilities after digging their number up to ask if the water is safe to drink.  This answer I swear is almost an exact quote:  Well, nobody told US it wasn't.  What?  Did we test the water?  We've been BUSY.  I guess we'll test the water... just that... thing is, we never got a chance.  So.  I think the water is safe to drink but I don't want to say yes or no about a thing like that on the record.

REALLY???  How much money do these people earn each year?  Make me feel safe.  Today we are drinking bottled water.   Also?  Woodjie is wandering about in nothing but underwear today.

Poor Woodjie.

His left knee is so swollen and hot that he is crying occasionally.  He's been to the doctor and has antibiotics.  Now we just have to wait for them to work.  The area feels hot.  We were told it is probably a bug bite the got infected.  :(

Summer School Update.

So my tiny blondie boy can apparently take down a kid twice his size on the playground, sit on him, pummel him and rub his face in the dirt.  Here I had missed the school's phone call and was sad for Woodjie yesterday when he got off the bus that his knee was dirty and he didn't get his "lining up nicely after recess" sticker.  Not getting that sticker was really a big deal and Woodjie was pretty sad about it.  He also was telling me about the horror of having a dirty knee, very upsetting.  Not a word about the fight.

The school says "maybe they need to give Woodjie more support on the playground," which is a nice way of saying, "We cannot leave this kid alone for ONE STINKIN' MINUTE or he's going to run off or otherwise cause trouble."  Which.  I agree with.  I live with him. 

I love this little guy very much, but he can't tell us what started it all.  His speech isn't even very understandable to family.  I don't know.  The other kid could have said or done about anything before he got taken down.  Or it could have been a misunderstanding.  Or (unlikely) my kid coulda just decided it would be an interesting challenge to try to bully someone the size of a fifth grader.

I am into the autism acceptance thing and all that but realllly wish I could more fully communicate with Woodjie.  I don't know how to make him completely understand that this is not ok and to get an adult.  Maybe it doesn't matter because now?  He will be under constant supervision anyway.  Which.  I want.  But.  Wish I didn't have to want.

A Picture Post!

This was Patrick's "ghetto racket."  He bought it (in better condition) at a thrift store for $3 and was too cheap to spend his money on a new one.  His team-mates kinda made fun of him for it.  I finally bought him a new one, but everyone remembers Patrick as the "ghetto racket" guy.

Elf got a magazine from Hy-Vee grocery store in the mail and tried their strawberry-banana recipe.  He added a bit of topping as well.

"Aaaaaaammmm!"  Too bad the pic does not have sound effects.  It's part of the whole dessert experience.  Elf demanded I take this photograph and share it with you.

Woodjie's first day of kindergarten/summer school was Monday!  Woodjie is now a SHARK because that's the mascot of this elementary school  He is in their "integrate the disabled kids and hopefully not spend any money on them next year" program.  Ok, it has a nicer name than that.   But hopefully he does well!  I have no idea... there are no notes home in elementary.  I suppose I will call his teacher in a couple weeks and say "hi!" after the class is well-established.

Miss Rose is Vogue-ing a shirt I lengthened with a bit of fabric.  The pic doesn't do it justice; the shirt flares everywhere as she walks about and is really quite cute.

I hemmed in/made narrower a medium T-shirt I bought at the thrift store for a dollar.  I'm thinking to make the shirt more "dress" like that I will need a ruffle or something at the bottom.  Or.  With a little less smiling and the right footwear she can just be Emo.

Braces Are On!

This is what is going on inside Emperor's mouth AFTER the tooth extraction.  Imagine a huge pair of teeth there with roots that go way up.  Ok, it's still a mess, isn't it?  I have a feeling poor Emperor is not going to be finished after his crossbite is alleviated.

But yay!  The braces are on and Emperor chose purple covers for his brackets.  He goes back at the end of the month for a tightening-up.

Woodjie got a vaccine.  He is very angry about it.  He said it hurt and "it not nice!" that they did that to him.

Rose can write part of her name!  This is an excerpt.  Note the typewriter-style lower case "a."  Emperor still writes like that.  I don't know why that isn't taught in schools but is mostly a teen girl thing.  To my mind, lower case "a" and "o" are too similar when printed by hand most of the time.

Woodjie @ The Kansas City Chess School

He needed a lot of help with his moves.  He tried to go to the bathroom in a closet but couldn't find the potty.  He wasn't quite up for a tournament-level game.  But hey.  He went and he had a nice time.

Obnoxious.

I sure wouldn't appreciate if YOU took my picture while I was sleeping and posted it on the internet.  Somehow, though, the cuteness factor makes it all morally OK.  Miss Rose no longer falls asleep on the couch downstairs with Woodjie and has Dad carry her up around 11:30 pm.  Mom insisted:  new room, new routine.  (Bad enough Woodjie has such horrific troubles with bedtime; we had gotten into the habit of letting Rose do what Woodjie does.)  But now, we brush her teeth, read a book, and then Rose is free to read books in her own bed and turn out the light herself when she is ready.  :)

Happenings at Home

I don't like yelling and I find singing at my children when they are naughty to be three times as obnoxious anyway.  I thought I knew for sure that I would be damaging any love for music that they would have otherwise developed.  Not so!  Elf wants to transcribe my angry song into something for EVERYONE at his school to enjoy.  He envisions the entire orchestra playing the "Mad at Kids Song," originally sung by his mother but properly composed by a very small Elf.  When it is finished, he will show it to his music teacher and she will love it for the masterpiece it is.  Elf also wants to be sure to have some sort of memory of my song after I am dead.  Nice, huh?

Woodjie!  I just luv Woodjie.  He was able to tell us that "ear hot" and fuss a bit so that we could take him to the doctor.  Sure enough, ear infection, in the ear he indicated.  Poor lil guy.  NOW he is almost done with antibiotics but has a cough bad enough that I would start to suspect whooping cough were it not for the fact that there is no outbreak here presently and also he had just gotten his booster vaccine on Friday.  I have sort of a love-hate relationship with those vaccines.  I feel like I am taking horrible risks if I do vaccinate, and also if I don't.  I hate that feeling of doing the wrong thing no matter what ya do, don't you?  It isn't just the vaccines.  Woodjie loves to play video games but gets VERY UPSET when his character dies.  I think if I didn't have a boodle of other children who are already into them that all game systems would disappear from the house.

Rose can "poo poo in a potty."  And is a "pwincess."  And had her birthday.  She lost her three!  She is now four, and that means pink PRINCESS cupcakes.  She has all the sparkly rings from the top of these storebought concoctions (schools don't let you bring homemade... and as there were 13 children in the class and I had to buy cupcakes in dozens... sigh).   I couldn't find a good present for her and D said yesss, we don't have to spend any money!  Ha.  Nooo, that just means that because Rose doesn't realize she is missing out and therefore won't pester me, I have lots more time to research expensive gift ideas on Amazon.  I'm thinking lifesize pink pony. 

Woodjie is FIVE!

Yep.  This year, Woodjie learnt to say, "My name Aziah!" and to use the potty.  He can also almost write his name... and it isn't "Aziah."  I suppose Aziah is close enough that if he were missing but introduced himself around town, that he would be returned. 

I took him out to lunch today and as we were pulling into the parking lot, Woodjie told me yay he's hugwy!  I don't know how, but he remembers the place from the last (and only other!) time he has been out to eat... at least five months ago.  And it's just a generic strip mall.  I sure wouldn't be able to tell this place from any other.  How did he do that? 

And.  He remembered the fish in the Chinese restaurant.  We had to get a table by the fish so he could watch them swim while he ate.  I didn't get picky about what he ate, just this once.  I gave him as many mini donuts and french fries as he wanted.  I think we spent nearly two hours there before he came home and told everyone "I eat a donut!"

Tomorrow I will give him some Star Wars action figures and a Pokeball that will probably break in two weeks but he will love to death until then.  Happy birthday, Woodjie! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!