Adultish!
I apologise in advance for this one. There is something about the wiring of a speech delay and they way they think that just cracks me up.
1.
1.
2.
3.
Cheers dears
16 hours ago
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Mass exodus
I spend an inordinate amount of time creating bite sized, bone-free fish balls. They contain attractive flecks of delicate chives, a high percentage of caramelized onions and the smoothest consistency that the Magimix could manage. I decide to play fair and tell them that they are indeed made of fish. The victims look at them with an air of despair.
“I think I’m gonna be a vegetarian startin……right now.”
“No….I am bein dah vegetarian in dis family,” he says sputtering cracker crumbs, exempt from this particular experiment.
“But you like fish fingers.”
“Sticks mom, they’re called fish sticks out here.”
“Sticks, fingers, balls, they’re all the same. You like them. These are just round sticks without the crumbs.”
“Dah crumbs I like. Dah fish is……..?”
“Diabolical,” adds his little brother with glee and not a jot of sympathy.
“Just think of it as brain food. I can’t think why you don’t love fish. I love fish. All fish, any fish. I think I’d drop down dead if I couldn’t eat fish.”
They both look at me awaiting my downfall with pleasant anticipation. They wait silently. “Just give them a try. Be brave. It’s good to try new things, new food, you never know you might just like them.” I fizzle out as my script is over-used and tatty at the edges.
“I wan……can I have…….is…..dere any ketchup?”
I stomp off to the fridge in defeat. He empties half a bottle of sauce over one fish ball and sniffs.
“We’re going to have fish once a week, at least, from now on.”
“It is being dah new rule?”
“Er…yes…..good point. The new rule is ‘fish on Friday.’”
I beam, smug. We shall join the ranks of the majority at last, by hook or by crook.
“Dat’s good!” he cooes as he stands, turns on his heel and wanders off with his sister close behind him, “hey, hang on a minute you two. Just where do you think you are going?”
“You said Friday Mom, today’s Thursday,” she mutters over her shoulder. I pout at the one remaining child left behind, still munching his way through several tonnes of Goldfish Crackers, “I am love,” he beams.
“Yes…….I know you love Goldfish dear."
“I am have a huge brain.”
“Indeed.”
“I am have fish on Friday. I am have fish every day. I am love my new food.”
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Wordless - Special Exposure Wednesday=Boo!
I never notice what a fine pair of pins he has, apart from the bruises of course.
I do have some words over at my other site, "Alien in a foreign field" called "Fashion fiend."
If you enjoy caption competitions and photographs, you may wish to nip along to"DJ Kirkby" over at "Chez Aspie" and test your brain power.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Tackle it Tuesday - Rewards and awards
You have nothing to lose by going green
***
***
Everyone needs a pat on the back sometimes. As the nights draw in and the schedule comes under pressure, it can be hard for children to stay on track. This is where motivation is key. We all respond well to praise, recognition and rewards and this is a way of helping our children realize that we not only notice their efforts but we appreciate how hard they’re trying.
First it’s important to narrowly taylor your reward to your particular child. For example, many struggle with homework. It may be that you want to award them for completing their homework in a timely manner over a period of time, such as a week or a month. However, that may be setting the bar too high. Maybe an award for their best efforts is more appropriate or perhaps an award for remaining calm and having a better attitude towards homework time.
The awards can be configured to fit your family, different ages abilities and talents. The most important element is that each child should be able to achieve a realistic goal, otherwise the whole exercise will bring further disappointment and discouragement.
Once you have narrowed down who will be rewarded for what, it is then time to make the awards. It may be that you can encourage your children to take part in the creative process so that they are more involved if they participate positively. Hopefully, making the awards will provide a crafty play time for at least one of your children on a rainy afternoon and perhaps a little one on one time.
Currently, everyone is strapped for cash and some of us are trying to ‘go green’ at the same time. Whilst it would be fun to see if we can create our own green backs and get away with it, it is probably safer to stick to materials that we already have in our possession.
Under no circumstances should you go out and buy anything new, instead troll through the piles of broken toys and tat that you already have piled up in every corner of your home, or maybe that’s just us? You may, however, buy additional supplies of glue.
Assemble your creations and add a blob of Velcro to the back. Aim for lightness so that they will be able to remain in place in a vertical position. Attatch the opposite Velcro blob to a sheet of poster board and arrange your awards. Fix the awards board to a wall in a prominent position at a child’s eye level.
The beauty of this project is that you can include private family jokes that mean nothing to the population in general but will tap into your own child’s perspective adding an extra layer of insight. For instance one of my sons is very keen on drawing Y-fronts on his figures. No matter what he draws there is always someone lurking in the picture sporting a pair of Y fronts.
Hence:-
I do hope you get the chance to try this one out and reap the rewards yourself!
Cheers dears
Backstory
It is difficult for a parent to actively treat children differently in some situations. For example, when a child has achieved a new goal it is natural to praise them, you can’t help yourself. However, some children react negatively to praise. Some children are so enraged when they receive praise that they destroy the object that they created.
The reasons for such a reaction are complex. Some people, myself included, find it very difficult to button a lip and not praise the achievement, especially when the praise flows to the other children. Such differential treatment seems absurd. I would note that this is not the sometimes fatuous praise, a general touchy feely, no content kind of praise, but a specific identifiable praise in the nature of ‘you did a great job with that straight line,’ ‘I really like the colours you chose,’ ‘his expression is really funny.’ Since positive words provoke a meltdown, I’ve learned to curb my words, remain silent and bite my lip. I could expound at length but I have yet to find someone with similar experiences.
Your award ceremony can be as elaborate or as simple as you choose. For us, the weekend is the best because I am better able to pick a time when they are more receptive.
Involvement and active participation is key but also difficult to engineer. We need a time where there is nothing else more interesting competing for their attention so that they are better able to engage in the here and now. Joint attention to one communal activity is more likely to be successful when other needs are met, other distractions have been eliminated and there are no other impending interruptions waiting in the wings to derail their attention span.
As with all things around here, this project has been brewing for a long time and was broken into small steps. Preparation in advance was primarily concentrated on ‘this is what will be happening in the future / this will be fun.’ Some children take longer to adjust to new concepts, they cannot be hurried or harried, they need time to adjust. The ‘gallery’ transition was in the summer. The awards appeared over two months ago. The ‘ceremony’ was a last week.
Once the awards were made, we placed them in a prominent position for a couple of weeks, discussed, examined and handled them until they became more familiar. We would admire their gallery of pictures and debate which award seemed most appropriate to which drawing. This was in part to gauge their own expectations to see if they had already decided which picture matched which award. By being better able to match their expectations it became more likely that we would able to pick the correct award for the right picture during the ‘ceremony.’
This helps address another on going hurdle, the issue of choice. Without getting buried in the details, every positive choice necessarily means a lost opportunity, if you choose one, you lose the other[s]. Choice therefore induces stress and anxiety. It is one manifestation of OCD and perseverance over missed opportunities. Or, to put it another way, the pleasure of one positive choice is wiped out by the stress induced by all the ones that you have not chosen which might be better. Hence an extended exposure to the new thing, makes it less new, less valued and therefore sometimes easier to choose as the ‘cost’ of making a mistake is lessened. The trick it to time the exposure so that the new thing does not become so familiar that it merely blends in with the wallpaper and has no value at all.
Of course some other children would experience a long period of exposure as more anxiety inducing, longer to agonize over, longer to perseverate upon, as there is usually an equal or opposite effect with any one issue.
Since words can still be a little hit or miss, physical involvement, eye tracking and the kinesthetic connection helped reduce stress, increase their personal investment and advance them to a point where it was possible to try out the ceremony. For our children, we kept this as low key as possible because around here, quite often, actions speak louder than words.
What, if anything, might this mean? For me, this gives me some perspective.
When my children were first diagnosed, the kindly experts told me that they were unable to give me an accurate prognosis for the boys’ future. Being of a fundamentally pessimistic nature, I took this to mean that the future was dire. Being of a fundamentally contrary nature, I also set out to prove them wrong. As a direct result, I have actually inadvertently proved that they were right.
I should have listened to my pal, "It's all Okay," not "look through a glass darkly." Suffice to say that this is a tremendous leap forward.
First it’s important to narrowly taylor your reward to your particular child. For example, many struggle with homework. It may be that you want to award them for completing their homework in a timely manner over a period of time, such as a week or a month. However, that may be setting the bar too high. Maybe an award for their best efforts is more appropriate or perhaps an award for remaining calm and having a better attitude towards homework time.
The awards can be configured to fit your family, different ages abilities and talents. The most important element is that each child should be able to achieve a realistic goal, otherwise the whole exercise will bring further disappointment and discouragement.
Once you have narrowed down who will be rewarded for what, it is then time to make the awards. It may be that you can encourage your children to take part in the creative process so that they are more involved if they participate positively. Hopefully, making the awards will provide a crafty play time for at least one of your children on a rainy afternoon and perhaps a little one on one time.
Currently, everyone is strapped for cash and some of us are trying to ‘go green’ at the same time. Whilst it would be fun to see if we can create our own green backs and get away with it, it is probably safer to stick to materials that we already have in our possession.
Under no circumstances should you go out and buy anything new, instead troll through the piles of broken toys and tat that you already have piled up in every corner of your home, or maybe that’s just us? You may, however, buy additional supplies of glue.
Assemble your creations and add a blob of Velcro to the back. Aim for lightness so that they will be able to remain in place in a vertical position. Attatch the opposite Velcro blob to a sheet of poster board and arrange your awards. Fix the awards board to a wall in a prominent position at a child’s eye level.
The beauty of this project is that you can include private family jokes that mean nothing to the population in general but will tap into your own child’s perspective adding an extra layer of insight. For instance one of my sons is very keen on drawing Y-fronts on his figures. No matter what he draws there is always someone lurking in the picture sporting a pair of Y fronts.
Hence:-
I do hope you get the chance to try this one out and reap the rewards yourself!
Cheers dears
Backstory
It is difficult for a parent to actively treat children differently in some situations. For example, when a child has achieved a new goal it is natural to praise them, you can’t help yourself. However, some children react negatively to praise. Some children are so enraged when they receive praise that they destroy the object that they created.
The reasons for such a reaction are complex. Some people, myself included, find it very difficult to button a lip and not praise the achievement, especially when the praise flows to the other children. Such differential treatment seems absurd. I would note that this is not the sometimes fatuous praise, a general touchy feely, no content kind of praise, but a specific identifiable praise in the nature of ‘you did a great job with that straight line,’ ‘I really like the colours you chose,’ ‘his expression is really funny.’ Since positive words provoke a meltdown, I’ve learned to curb my words, remain silent and bite my lip. I could expound at length but I have yet to find someone with similar experiences.
Your award ceremony can be as elaborate or as simple as you choose. For us, the weekend is the best because I am better able to pick a time when they are more receptive.
Involvement and active participation is key but also difficult to engineer. We need a time where there is nothing else more interesting competing for their attention so that they are better able to engage in the here and now. Joint attention to one communal activity is more likely to be successful when other needs are met, other distractions have been eliminated and there are no other impending interruptions waiting in the wings to derail their attention span.
As with all things around here, this project has been brewing for a long time and was broken into small steps. Preparation in advance was primarily concentrated on ‘this is what will be happening in the future / this will be fun.’ Some children take longer to adjust to new concepts, they cannot be hurried or harried, they need time to adjust. The ‘gallery’ transition was in the summer. The awards appeared over two months ago. The ‘ceremony’ was a last week.
Scatological jokes are always appreciated.
Once the awards were made, we placed them in a prominent position for a couple of weeks, discussed, examined and handled them until they became more familiar. We would admire their gallery of pictures and debate which award seemed most appropriate to which drawing. This was in part to gauge their own expectations to see if they had already decided which picture matched which award. By being better able to match their expectations it became more likely that we would able to pick the correct award for the right picture during the ‘ceremony.’
This helps address another on going hurdle, the issue of choice. Without getting buried in the details, every positive choice necessarily means a lost opportunity, if you choose one, you lose the other[s]. Choice therefore induces stress and anxiety. It is one manifestation of OCD and perseverance over missed opportunities. Or, to put it another way, the pleasure of one positive choice is wiped out by the stress induced by all the ones that you have not chosen which might be better. Hence an extended exposure to the new thing, makes it less new, less valued and therefore sometimes easier to choose as the ‘cost’ of making a mistake is lessened. The trick it to time the exposure so that the new thing does not become so familiar that it merely blends in with the wallpaper and has no value at all.
Of course some other children would experience a long period of exposure as more anxiety inducing, longer to agonize over, longer to perseverate upon, as there is usually an equal or opposite effect with any one issue.
Since words can still be a little hit or miss, physical involvement, eye tracking and the kinesthetic connection helped reduce stress, increase their personal investment and advance them to a point where it was possible to try out the ceremony. For our children, we kept this as low key as possible because around here, quite often, actions speak louder than words.
What, if anything, might this mean? For me, this gives me some perspective.
When my children were first diagnosed, the kindly experts told me that they were unable to give me an accurate prognosis for the boys’ future. Being of a fundamentally pessimistic nature, I took this to mean that the future was dire. Being of a fundamentally contrary nature, I also set out to prove them wrong. As a direct result, I have actually inadvertently proved that they were right.
I should have listened to my pal, "It's all Okay," not "look through a glass darkly." Suffice to say that this is a tremendous leap forward.
Get the code:-
Cut and paste
from this little
boxy thing below
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from this little
boxy thing below
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Magic Marker Best shot Monday
Hosted by "Tracy" at "Mother May I," but the photo-picture below will whizz you right there with one click.
Just call me snap happy.
The artist at work! [Elder daughter]
Whilst she worked late into the night on her latest project, I was inspired to scribble a quick cartoon to my son. I left one at the foot of the stairs where I knew he would see it.
I left the other seleotaped over the computer screen, just to make sure that he received my message.
By the time I staggered down the stairs at 5:25 a.m. I was greeted with his own rendition.
This from my neophobic.
Oh the irony!
Oh the irony!
p.s. it may be that you are also interested in entering the "What are you Like?" competition endorsed by Roald Dahl, where you enter pictures that represent significant elements of your life. My "elder daughter" has her entry. I have "mine." We're hoping to persuade my younger daughter to participate too. Now what do you suppose we need to do to persuade "Nonna" to join in? Three generations of women seems like a good idea.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Horrid Henry Annual Review by Francesca Simon
Annual "Review" - Horrid Henry by Francesca Simon, illustrated by Tony Ross
The great thing about a blog isn’t the "memories" but accurate "20-20" recall. Not so long back the primary swear words around here were 'Barnacles' and 'Fishpaste,' from Spongebob Squarepant.
I listen to my American children and their strong accents as they abuse each other.
“Don do dat Poopy head!”
“Leave it out Nappy face!”
“Worm!”
“Pongo pants.”
“Yur mean.”
“Yur a Walkie-Talkie-Burpy-Slurpy-Teasy-Weasy Doll!”
“That’s it you two ! Stop being horrid!”
Thanks for the accompanying CD mum. It really helps with their aural processing. You'll be delighted to know that they now swear with perfect English accents.
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Ghost of Garfield?
I stand in the middle of the kitchen listening to NPR tell me that my brain, just like everyone else’s brain is incapable of multi-tasking. I happen to agree with them even though my behaviour betrays me. The implication, is that people positively choose to multi-task, rather than having multi-tasking thrust upon them. Personally, I can think of few things finer than having the luxury to devote all my attention to just one thing.
Maybe I should pass the message on to the next generation.
I know he likes to read these........
I know he likes to ride this.........
But rarely have I seen the two combined so determinedly.
*
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Thursday, October 09, 2008
Opposites attract - a snippet
My ‘silent’ son has a sudden burst of chat. I beam as he chats, as it’s one of those monologues that I don’t want to staunch. Interruption generally equates to stall. I know more facts about Pokemons that I could ever once imagined. I am so impressed with his ability to sit stationary on a chair whilst his legs pump beneath him, a performance worthy of any cyclist on the Tour de France. As he chats his fingers shred the paper on the wax crayons and snap their little necks into fragments as the words flow in an endless stream. My facility of speech seems positively feeble by comparison. If any parts of my anatomy were as busily frenetic as his, I should have no choice but to remain silent. 
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Thursday 13 - 165 Spotting the evidence
 |
2. I know who unraveled the toilet rolls from the partial square stuck on his foot. 3. I know who hid the toothbrush, next time hide your sister’s. 4. I know you can use scissors now because of the evidence in the trash. 5. I know who was on U-tube as you have a history. 6. I know who has a secret wound and who was brave, from the Band aid wrapper, the scissors and the blood. 7. I know who can use their brakes from the squashed tomatoes in your bike tyres. 8. I know who read after lights out, from the Garfield quotes this morning. 9. I know where you got that phrase from, because I checked your U-tube history. 10. I know who cut off the shoe laces and why. Full marks for using the trash. 11. I know who stole the chocolate, a pity it was the baking variety. 12. I know who failed to flush the toilet from the footprints on the seat, one size does not fit all. 13. I know who have a "sweetheart" and I even know her "name." Next time use a pencil, as love can often fade, Tattoos do not. I'd add a photo, but the evidence on the culprit has been scrubbed with soap and water! I need a CSI to check the red patch for trace. |
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Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Wordless - Special Exposure Wednesday
Do the math! Who needs words?
1
+ 2
= 3
I do have some words over at my other site, "Alien in a foreign field" called "GMT"
If you enjoy caption competitions and photographs, you may wish to nip along to"DJ Kirkby" over at "Chez Aspie" and test your brain power.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Tackle it Tuesday – freshen up
Several kindly persons have seen fit to remark about the vast quantities of art work that bedeck the walls of our family room, but to all things, there is a season.
Every summer at the end of school, I remove them all, pack them up into a bundle for each child and pop them in the attic. This is why the attic is not only a fire hazard but in danger of collapsing in upon us all.
Hence, I decided that the room was in need of a makeover, an inexpensive one in line with my frugal Scottish heritage.
Some me time in August the art work was subject to the annual bundle and my naked filthy walls were revealed. The tide line above the L-shaped sectional couch was all too obvious. The art work was first attached to the wall to hide the original tide line as well as multifarious cracks and holes. I had no choice but to get busy with the 409, a scrubbing brush and a Mr.Muscle Eraser for the truly desperate.
Once the wall were clean, or at least cleaner, they also seemed stark and cold, not an ideal vision for a family room. However, as always, Target came to the rescue with a dozen dollar box frames. I slipped a new art project into each one and mounted them on the walls with push pins at strategic points. Strategic points are perfect for achieving that ecletic look and far easier than attempting a straight line. Because they are so light there was no need to fight with tools and ‘beam detectors’ buried in the garage or hidden with spurious spousal care.
So have a go and transform a dingy wall.
Here endeth the tackle.
Here starteth the true tackle.
It was my children’s habit to run along the top of the sofa, before leaping onto the trampolene and then back onto the sectional for another circuit. Should anyone be wondering why any sane person should permit such disgraceful behaiour in their own home I would respectfully point out that ‘self regulation’ is a beautiful thing and infinitely preferable to any number of far more egregious behaviours.
This wasn’t behaviour I was anxious to curb, merely contain in one room.
No, the true tackle was the transition. Which transition? The removal of their art work, the change in the appearance of their tatty but homey, family room. They had coped well with their sister’s "bedroom transformation," but the family room would be more personal.
Those walls were buried but it started innocently enough. Bear in mind that the boys both abhorred anything remotely resembling a writing tool and one loathed the texture of paper. As a result the half a dozen pictures on the wall were my daughter’s cheerful enthusiasms. A delightful collection of sunny days and cute animals. Nothing from the boys.
This is why their first tentative efforts, not matter how mangled, no matter how babyish, years later than might have otherwise been the case, were works to be celebrated. Not art but real tough graft.
At first there were only a few but as the weeks and months passed there were more. What started with the occasional and reluctant daub, became more frequent. Each and every one was added to the wall. Layer upon layer, it grew and grew and so did they.
I could tell you about the first time my son accepted a genuine compliment from me without a meltdown. I could tell you about the first time he gave a genuine compliment to his brother, without prompting. So many tiny huge steplets piled higher and higher.
Over time, they too began to appreciate their efforts and take pride in them, as we did. Hence to strip it all away would be a monumental transition. I had warned them about the plan when they left for school. I had warned them that when they returned it would all be different. I dreaded bringing them home as I feared that this would be too much and too soon, that I would be unable to repair the damage. Many of our fears are exaggerated, as experience has taught us to expect the unexpected from the ordinary. Many of our fears are unwarranted, but we have learned to be hyper-vigilant ourselves, to anticipate pitfalls and adopt a whole host of coping strategies.
It is to their credit that the change was adopted, welcomed and celebrated.
An over protective parent may seek to wrap up their children in cotton wool, but next time I think I’ll try wallpaper.
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