Jen's Mental Scribblings

I have this wall in my entryway. When we moved in I attempted to create a wall of initialed hooks. Cool idea. The hooks were too wimpy for the job and fell out one by one over the last few years, and in addition I had left several test holes in the wall when I installed them. The plaster was even falling off in some places. It looked awful.

Joe's parents were here for a week over Easter. Before they came out I told Ike that he had a job. He was supposed to ask Grandpa to show him how to fill holes in walls. Specifically the holes in that wall in the entryway. I also told him that if he filled in the holes, painted the wall, and installed the new hook rack I purchased, I'd call it even from when he broke my windshield last year. He took me up on it.

So while Dad was here he showed Ike how to fill in holes...in every room of the house! All the holes they could find are patched up. Ike and I cleaned the wall in question, removed the electrical plate, removed the light fixture, taped appropriate things off, painted it (he's short and I wanted to do the cutting in) (OMG Its so annoying to paint with just a 3 in brush...I couldn't find a roll for the roller or a bigger brush...took forever.), restored everything we removed and finally installed the new hook bar.

And it looks pretty damn good if I do say so myself. No more holes, no more children's artwork. Just plain, blank, clean wall.

My goal is to paint the house over the summer...one room, one wall at a time. Ike will help. I may even pay him.

Here's the finished wall:

In August, after I finished knitting sweaters for Elli and Gwen for their birthday, Ike comes to me and says "Mom, you've never knit a sweater for me. Why not?" I thought about it and realized he had a legitimate beef, I pulled out a pattern for the next sweater I had planned to knit for him and said "How about this one?"

He liked it and we talked about yarn. What colors, etc, etc. Then I remembered that I had purchased a bunch of superwash blanks from Knitpicks 'cause not only do I like their yarn, but the blanks are CHEAP!!! We then talked about what color dye I had. We went back and forth for awhile and Ike made his decision.

We pulled out my canning pot, filled it, and put the it on to boil. We pulled out my dyeing tubs and set them up on the lawn. The water boiled, we poured it into the tubs, mixed in dye, and put the yarn in. And it came out like this:



I was told later that if I had wet the yarn in hot water first the yarn would have opened up and the colors not only would have been more brilliant, but they would have crawled up the yarn and blended in the middle (which was my intention in the first place). Oh well, I think it came out quite nicely.

After it dried, I put it on my yarn swift and used the winder to ball it up. Then I sat down and started knitting.

Monday morning we were leaving the house to do...something, I don't remember, doesn't matter. Ike could not find any shoes as his sisters trashed his room (I'm not exactly sure they actually did, but that's neither here nor there and has no relation at all to the story). He and Joe wandered around trying to find something to go on his feet. They eventually go outside and find his too small rain boots. Ike carries them in his hand out to the car and climbs in. Joe and I say goodbye...yadda, yadda. I climb in the car and off we go.

I hear Ike in the back getting his boots on and then:

"Mom!!!! A toad!!!!"
"What?"
"A toad Mom!!!! A toad!!!"
"Where?"
"On the floor!!!!!"
"Where did it come from?"
"My boot!!! Get it Mom its huge!!!!"

I pull over and park the car and find the toad. It was a beauty! About as big as the palm of my hand. And it was pretty mellow as I picked it up (must have something to do with being squished by Ike's foot), it deigned to be examined. I showed it to the other kids and let it go in a bush of flowers. It hopped off.

What a way to start the day!

Monday morning, we were all zonked due to the time change. Now, normally, I'm up between 5:30 and 6:30 each morning, so that I have time to really wake up before the rest of the house does. It makes the days go much, much smoother. But on Monday, I was wiped out and I didn't wake up until 7:30, which at the time I thought was odd. Why didn't Joe come in to wake me up at 7. He later told me why.

Ike had crawled in with me in the middle of the night, and when Joe came in at 7ish to wake me up, Ike smacked his hand away and said "Mommy is tired, let her sleep"

And Joe decided not to argue about it.

How sweet and thoughtful is that?

Yesterday afternoon I went to take out the recycling to the big can. Ike grabbed the little can out of my hand and said:

"Let me do it Mama, this is a Man's job."

Who am I to argue?

He was very helpful yesterday. Not only did he take out the recycling, when I went to go clean the master bath. He said, he could do it. So I let him. And he did a very good job for someone who's never cleaned the bathroom by himself before.

My little boy is growing up!

Earlier today I took all four kids into the local Lucky's for a couple of supplies to make the Cheesy Bacony Goodness. Not only did the kids behave in the store,when we got out of the store, Ike, without being asked, moved all the bags of groceries into the van while I was buckling Gray into his car seat.

Yea Ike!

Most of the time, aside from some small annoyances, its hard to tell that Ike is autistic. Most of the time, to me, he's just Ike...pretty much like most kids with his own quirks that make him Ike.

Today on the other hand. We just lived through a 90 minute, full on, autistic temper tantrum.

So, after one of these I always look backwards and figure out what in the hell triggered it.

1. Over tired-he had some extensive dental work done on Monday (new crown, but no root canal) and he hasn't been sleeping well because of it.
2. Pain-see above. I'm thinking that there's something wrong with the area where he had the work. His cheek is still (slightly) swollen and is demanding ibuprofen every 4-5 hours. I'll call the dentist tomorrow.
3. Over hungry-he really didn't eat breakfast, had only fruit for snack and went into melt down about 90 minutes before lunch.
4. Over stimulated-he had just gotten back from spending two hours at the gym's childcare...which was probably packed to the gills and "too cold" to take everyone outside to burn off energy.

So basically he was set up to fail. Poor kid. We managed before it got real bad to slip him 200 mg of GABA and 2mg of Melatonin. He's now taking a nap. Hopefully he'll wake up in a better mood.

I thought I might do some writing/musing

Will Development/Weight Management
I am a sugar addict. Oh hell, I'm a food addict. But sugar is the biggest problem of all. I get on that roller coaster of highs and lows and its just awful. I have managed to stay away from sugar for almost three weeks. This is big for me. I want to be healthier, but most "diets" have you cutting everything out at once. And it doesn't work. So right now I'm focusing on sugar. Baby steps will win the race. I don't know if I've lost any weight or not, but my Mom says I'm not as puffy as the last time she saw me. And my scale in the bathroom doesn't automatically go "TILT" when I step on it. It actually has to think about it before it does it. So I see that as a vast improvement.

Sleep
Oh my god do I need some. For the last four nights Gray has gotten up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours. I finally figured out he's probably teething, so I've been giving him ibuprofen. Problem is that it wears off in the middle of the night. So my night is really broken. I'm crispy. Thank god I'm not eating sugar to make it worse!

Homeschooling
Has actually been going well. We do better on the days we stay home all day, but overall school is going well. The other day Ike said to me "Mommy, I love doing school here. J (boy down the street) has to go to school all day, has homework when he gets home, and we're done by lunch! I get a lot more time to play" Smart boy. We are working on American Tall Tales right now and Melisa is right as usual, when you read a book the lesson goes flat. So I will be telling the next couple instead of reading the cool picture books I found. I'll save those for story time (which is something new I've managed to institute. I read to the kids for about an hour every afternoon). He's also found pencils are much easier for him to write with than using crayons. So we are making headway there.

I did a lot of thinking and meditating this summer on how to approach teaching this year. I gave myself permission to not beat myself up because I can't manage a Waldorf School experience at home. I'm Homeschooling! Not Schooling at Home. So I'm not going to kill myself trying to squeeze in everything. I'm working on stories, some writing, handwork, singing, penny whistle, verse memorization, and some painting. Which is still a lot. And I'm not even going to bother teaching Grammar this year. Ike doesn't read! It makes no sense at all to me to teach a non-reader grammar. I'm also not going gung-ho on teaching him to read. He's not frustrated enough yet. He's starting to get there, but he's not there yet. And when that frustration sets in, then I'll work on turning him into a reader.

I also got inspired by another Homeschooling Mama of 9(!) kids. So, in addition to focusing on less things, I'm leaning a bit toward child-led education. I'm giving the kids the option of a lesson (but they have to finish a lesson they start). And if someone expresses an interest in a subject, we'll look at it as appropriate

Steiner did say once that not having to go to school to age 12 would be a good thing...so I'm still schooling them (I'm not that brave to not do "anything" until age 12), but I'm backing off on forcing the issue. There's no rush. Everything will be covered in due time.

LifeWays
I had my first class on Saturday. Awesome, but long day topped off by a Stupid Tax courtesy of SFPD. (Not only was I blocking someone's driveway, I forgot to curb my wheels. Whoops! I'm glad they didn't tow it.) We started the day with singing, then Steiners Ages and Stages (going whole to parts, of course), lunch, sewing, and knitting. My kind of day!

The knitting component was starting on our year long knitting project...the knitted farm yard. I've gotten the first two squares done. I had to rip out what I did in class 'cause it was messy and uneven.  And I didn't like the needles we were given at all! Bamboo makes for really slick needles and it just drives me up a wall! I'm completely sold on my Knitpicks wood circular needles. They are perfect in my book.

Autism
So I'm finally doing some major reading on autism. When Ike was diagnosed a year ago, I just wasn't up for any reading. Now that I'm finally feeling like my head is out of the water since I got pregnant with Gray, I've got the energy to read. (yea, I know I read a lot. But this is a different type of reading. I just wasn't ready). Things I've figured out/found out. Kids with Autism have fewer mirroring neurons. Which is why a baby smiles back at you when you smile at them. The fewer the number the more pronounced the autism. Ike has problems with Executive Processing. Which is not only causal relations (i.e. if I hit my sister, she'll get hurt, then I'll get into trouble) but sequential thinking (i.e. first I pick up, then I dust, then I vacuum). It also impairs his ability to take verbal instructions. He just can't do it beyond a certain point.

I also found its quite common and expected for younger siblings to mimic elder siblings behave. In due time, as they mature, they outgrow it. (Thank goodness!)

Handwork
Oy, am I knitting up a storm. I've been focusing on my shawl. I'm finding I have an urge to make something. I've been cleaning out my work basket. (Where things are put to be repaired) so far in the last week or so I've repaired 2 Heavy Babies and I've finally put together a Gingerbread Man I knitted up last year. Turned out really, really cute! Gray will enjoy it for Christmas!

I'm starting to look toward Christmas and decide what needs to be made by then. I want to make the kids their own Hobby Horses from Santa. I have 5/6 of the material I need (I need to find a co-ordinating fabric for Ike's Horse, which is red of course) I need to set up my sewing machine as I want to make the girls their Halloween costumes on top of everything else.


So that pretty much sums up everything going on with me. How's things with you?

Ike got his cast removed this morning. He is one very happy boy. The tech who removed it was completely appalled at the amount of encrusted sand, tan bark, and dirt on Ike's leg. Ike had a couple of pinpoint open sores from the sand and dirt. The tech wouldn't even let us leave until he'd cleaned up his foot and leg with hydrogen peroxide. Ike's first few steps were wobbly but he went roller blading this afternoon so he's alright.

I just realized that I completely forgot to take a picture of Ike in his cast. Thus keeping my family tradition of no pictorial evidence of such injuries. Which made Joe just a bit upset. I went and got the camera out and downloaded the last months worth of pictures. Although I didn't set out to take a picture of Ike in his casted glory, I managed to find that I did capture the image while at the zoo last week.





And for the fun of it, here's another couple of pictures of other people that day.



Can you tell he just woke up from a nap?



Check it out! Pigtails!!! The girls hair is finally getting long enough to do this again.



Elli masters a Flying Turtle.

I wanted to post a picture of the proud knitting boy.