Tackle it Tuesday - Boo

Just a wee little tackle, just in time for the holiday. Which holiday?
Why Halloween of course?




As with most things American, when this first happened to our family, I wondered what on earth was happening? But over the years I have learned not to psycho-analyze these things and instead join in the fun.

What you will need:-
Copy the text and picture from the bottom of the post, and print out two copies
Two little bags
treats that will fit inside the little bags
Embellishments and decorations to meet your little people's needs

Assemble

Now you and your offspring decide who your victims shall be. Wait until dark. Dash up to the victim's front door, ring the bell as if the bats are on the way, drop the bag and leg it behind the nearest, largest bush to hide. Spy on your victims through the branches and watch their state of confusion. Leave safely when the coast it clear.


Is that clear?

Need any additional information or do you get it?

I got it, once I ignored the psychobabble.

It should bring a great deal of childish glee to your household and someone else's.

Here are the sheets to copy:-

They are available from this site "here."

So any lingering doubts, queries, questions or confusions?

Good, I'm glad it's all perfectly clear to you.

Enjoy.

Backstory-

First of all I should like to point out that this year, finally, we did manage to complete this activity.

Secondly, I would stress that on balance, I would have to admit that it involved a greater degree of hilarity and a lesser degree of angst and confusion.

How can this be?

Well they're bigger of course.

Why would such a simple activity be anything less than delightful?

Ah, well, that's the real question isn't it.

One of the cardinal rules of child rearing, any child, is consistency.

If we gloss over the standard difficulties of completing anything which vaguely resembles 'a craft,' then there are a whole slew of illogical inconsistencies to address. It is a social skills nightmare. For instance, generally speaking, ringing people's doorbells and running away, is a habit that we would choose to discourage in our children as responsible parents, yet for some reason, the Boo reason, this is suddenly o.k.? How bizarre is that?

Additionally, it is an additional purposeless trip in the car. Ideally we would have walked but time constraints, darkness and walking, are never a good combination mid-school week, so I had to cheat and keep some variables at bay.

Normally I drag my children with me into the store or the post office muttering, "no you can't stay in the car, it's illegal to leave you unsupervised." But for this exercise one child accompanies me to Boo, the other two wait in the car, in the dark, alone and unsupervised so that they can watch the fun. How come the cardinal rule changed?

Fun. Well of course that it something that is almost impossible to explain, because as we watch the parents and children come out of their houses to collect their Boo, they have the nerve to look confused. Confused is an expression that we now recognise. Why would we wish to wantonly cause confusion to complete strangers? Why have the rules changed.

Talking of which, how come it's suddenly ok. to commune with strangers? Who changed the rules?

If it is ok to commune with strangers, why don't we have to use our nice words and say hello to them? Who changed the rules?

Fall out

What has been the result of this activity, overall, now that the dust has settled? Any long term effects?

Well the short term effect is that my son is now mesmerized by the 'confused' expression. He can mimic it exactly and copies the little boy on the doorstep, chin to chest looking at the floor with the accompaniment of 'he looked like dis!'

The long term effect?

"Faster dan dah kids in Narnia! My mum is run like lightening!"

Bear in mind that the 'kids in Narnia' movie, run in slow motion.

Get the code:-
Cut and paste
from this little
boxy thing below

<a href="http://www.lazyorganizer.com/"><img src="http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q158/mmcewen/tatuesday-1.jpg" /></a>

Best shot Magic marker 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.

[Elder daughter]



How to recycle your envelopes and send a message at the same time!
She's so diligent and tries to get off junk mailing lists, maybe this will work?





[Younger daughter]

Can't resist a theme when I spot one!

Mono Metamorphosis - sex education required

“I am unisex, I am unisex, I am unisex,” he chants for no particular reason that I can fathom.
“What do you mean dear?”
“I am meaning dat I am being part cat.”
“Oh yes, I remember the ‘part cat.’”
“He is being dah part dog.”
“Is he indeed. I wondered why he was growling. What’s the er......‘unisex’ bit?”
“Uni is be meaning one.”
“Gosh yes, I know that too. But…..er…….?”
“Only one part is being dog or cat, so it be ‘uni.’”
“Yes true……I was just wondering…..about the…..which part……bit…….er….?”
“Dah mouth is dah sex part.”
“Really……that is a surprise.”
“Yes coz his dog mouth eats bones only bones, uni.”
“Ah, I see….and?”
“My mouth, my cat part only eats dah goldfish.”
"Ah!"
"Um.......I fink I am have dah wrong word."
"Oh good. I mean.....really?"
"I am not mean 'sex' I am mean 'species'!"
"Wow, easy to get those two muddled."
"I am uni-species!"
"But if you're part cat and part human wouldn't that be duo?"
"No."
"No?"
"Bye, bye, bye, bye......." shrieks as he runs away before he pops back to clarify, head around the corner, "I am bi-species......dats what I am?"

He grins hugely before disappearing just like a Cheshire cat.

I sometimes wonder?

My child is seemingly "monophagous" upon Goldfish crackers.

I should take him over here:-








"Andrea" over at "Andrea's Buzzing About:"

[I got it right in the end! What a pain in the colon!]

SOOC

Opinions differ but there is a common misconception that autistic people do not enjoy a sense of humour, or alternatively that their sense of humour is hybrid. Personally, I think it's a little more complicated than that. Slapstick is easy. Words and their nuances can be a little more tricky.

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They might not be the words I would have chosen but I certainly recognize the feeling of debilitating exhaustion, well spent.

Get the code:-
Cut and paste
from this little
boxy thing below

<a href="http://www.lighteningonline.com/"><img src="http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q158/mmcewen/smiley-saturday-1.jpg" /></a>

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.

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Cheers dears

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.”

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.

Tackle it Tuesday - Rewards and awards

You have nothing to lose by going green

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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.

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

<a href="http://www.lazyorganizer.com/"><img src="http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q158/mmcewen/tatuesday-1.jpg" /></a>

Daily Daub - possibly weekly

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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!

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.