The End

Making the Play, originally uploaded by cheryl.\

It was a good season. Connor had a great time, and he, along with the other boys, actually improved over the last two months. Fall t-ball was a good choice.

Yesterday was his final game of the season. He had lots of fans last night. Grammy and Pappy came out to cheer him on. Grandma and Grandpa came up from the lake to see him in his last game and to take us out to dinner afterwards (along with Uncle Brian and cousins Austin and Kyndal who met us at the restaurant).

Of course, now Connor is asking us how long until Spring.

You know, when baseball starts again.

Days he understands. Weeks he sort of gets. Months are a bit less clear. We tried explaining it several times, but I still don't think he gets how long he's going to have to wait. Not even saying after Halloween, after his birthday, after Christmas, after brothers' birthday, after Daddy's birthday and even after Buster's birthday - when it's cold outside! Time is not that clear to him yet.

Let's just say Spring is a really, really long time away right now. And he's not happy about it.

In the short term though, it will give him a chance to be a kid again. It won't be rushing home from school to try to squeeze in homework and dinner before or after practice or games. Or worrying about him falling asleep and not wanting to wake back up. He can maybe have a play date or two with friends. Or enjoy some back yard fun. Or even a visit to the park that isn't rushed into practice or game time.

It was fun, but we're all ready for the break. The twins, especially. Have they mentioned how much they hate and despise baseball? Because they do. You have to go past the park - past the swings and slide that call to them and make them scream at you when you do, in fact, go past - they have to stay contained in the stroller, and they are unimpressed with watching the game. All the drinks and snacks and suckers you can possibly offer are not enough to make them enjoy it. Not in the least.

They would have done a happy dance after yesterday's final game if they only knew. That, of course, and if we actually let them back out of the stroller.

Homework

It sucks.

As in, really, really sucks.

Just ask Connor. Or us, too, for that matter. Because we're the ones who have to help him. And he doesn't like it. Not one little bit.

Every week he gets five new sight words to learn. The goal is to help them obtain pre-reading skills - recognizing single words in print so that they can start to learn words in a sentence. Right now we have about forty sight words in his little storage box. He knows about 10 off the top of his head. He can sound out about 10 more with help. And the other 20 he just looks up at you and smiles. You know, hoping you will just tell him what it is and he can be done.

This part takes the longest. It can sometimes ruin the whole session, because if he doesn't cooperate, we stop where we are and start all over again. With all 40 words. Truth be told, the kid would rather be put in bed at 5 o'clock in the afternoon that finish them.

Next is a poem each week that you read together and do little activities with - things like circling big and small letters, counting words in sentences and finding the shortest or longest sentence. There's also activities with rhyming words or words that have similar "hunks and chunks" to get them to start recognizing that once they learn parts of certain words, it will open up a whole bunch of other words.

Last is reading. They track how many minutes you read with them each night, and do some kind of total at the end of the semester or the year. This is the hardest part, because we usually do story time right before bed. And with the whole I'd rather go to bed than do homework mindset, there are a lot of nights where he goes to bed with no story. We have to fit it in some other time.

I've actually started beginning our homework sessions with a book - his choice - because it seems to ease him into it a little bit better. Next we do the poem. And then we end with sight words. This is just opposite of the homework list that comes home every week. But it seems to help for Connor. At least we're finishing two out of three if he gives up on us during the sight words.

Homework takes anywhere from 30 minutes on a good day (very rare) to an hour (much more likely, when you're fighting with him for every word or activity).

Connor likes school. He's actually pretty bright. But he's picked up something from his little brothers. He only tries when it's something that he likes to do. Apparently with ALL of my children, it's about motivation. Give him an activity he likes, Connor is all for it. Give him sight words ... well, he'd rather just go to bed, thanks.

Sigh, good times. And we can't wait for next year. Homework for three boys, two in kindergarten and one in first grade.

A Boy & His Balloon

"There He Is!", originally uploaded by cheryl.

One of the things you will notice about kids with autism is that much of their life is about love and hate. There is no middle ground. Something is either good or bad. It can occasionally be tolerated, even if it's bad, but things will never just be okay. It will simply be something bad that has to be tolerated until they can get to something good. Trust me on this, I know.

My twins are no different. They are persistent when they want something. They are compulsive in the way they play with certain toys, ALWAYS doing it the same way. They are obsessive about things they like.

Take Xander, he LOVES balloons. The highlight of his weekend with Daddy was this helium-filled yellow balloon in this photo. It stayed with him all afternoon. If someone dared to touch it, he screamed bloody murder. It was HIS balloon. All his.

He walked around with it all day. He would let it float up, dance a minute, then pull it back down with a big giggle. He would hold onto it while he watched television. He would take it into his room when he played on his bed. He would let it float up beside him while he climbed on the desk to play computer games. It was always within reach.

And everywhere he went that day, he would point up to the balloon and say "There He Is!" and want you to say it back to him.

It's what we do with balloons. Whether it's one just blown up at home with air to bounce around, whether it's a helium-filled one like this one tied to a string, or whether it's one he sees in a store or even in a book.

Have you read Goodnight Moon lately? You know, that red balloon. We can't make it through any page that doesn't have that balloon. Because once Xander sees the balloon isn't on the page, he's scrambling to turn to the next page that has the balloon. And guess what he tells you.

"There he is!" And he wants you to say it right back.

Because that means all is right in the world, as long as that balloon is there and someone says "There he is!"

Balloons are definitely one of the good things, at least as far as Xander is concerned.

Without Words

Shoes = Outside, originally uploaded by cheryl.

People often ask me how I know what my twins want with their language delay.

One of our twins has words. Xander actually has a lot of words, especially compared to even a year ago, when he had only a handful of words you could understand. His communication is much more verbal than it once was, and he uses his words consistently and appropriately most of the time these days. His words still come in short sentences, but they are there and they are functional.

Sawyer, on the other hand, is mostly non-verbal. We hear more sounds and an occasional word mixed into his vocalizations, but it's not consistent. The words we often hear are appropriate, a random identification or repetition of something that he sees or something that has just been said to him. But it's infrequent at best. Words are not part of his communication just yet.

With Sawyer, it's still gestures and actions. Leading you by the hand to something he wants. Like the pantry for a snack, or the refrigerator for some juice. To the cabinet where the DVDs are if he wants to watch a movie. His communication is very functional at this point, just not verbal.

One of his more recent actions always makes me smile. When he wants to go outside, he usually goes to a door. But that wasn't getting the response he liked, at least not often enough. Now he takes it one step further. He goes to the bench where we keep all the boys' shoes stored, pulls out his red Crocs, and puts them on all by himself. And then he goes to the door. And the look on his face is priceless. It's as though he's saying, look, surely you can't be so dense as to miss both of these clues. Shoes plus door equals outside. Like right now.

It's cute. And he usually gets his way. Though last night he didn't try it until about 8 o'clock in the evening, which is kind of bed time. So he didn't get his way.

And to punish us, he took up his favorite past time of late. He hides himself behind the curtains (in that tight space between the window and the curtain where only his feet show through at the bottom), then backs all the way out until the curtain starts to fall, then dances up and down as it gently floats back in place. He can do it over and over and over again, for what seems like hours if you will let him. Tight space, check. Motion, check. Light and shadows across the floor, check. It's all good, he says.

Not Well, Again

This time it's the other twin.

It never fails, especially this time of year. It's like the boys play musical sickness. One will be sick for a week or so, and then the next a week later, and the next a week after that. This time that probably isn't the case, as Xander had an ear infection and I don't think those are contagious.

This time Sawyer is the one down for the count. He started not feeling well last Friday, when the twins were already out of school for teacher work days. Low-grade fever, lack of motion or energy, lack of vocalizations. He didn't feel well again on Saturday, passing on the fun activities of Saturday (see below). Sunday he wasn't completely himself, but the fever was gone and he was eating and drinking again. It's like a phantom illness that comes and goes. And it's really annoying.

This morning he seemed fine. He was eating, drinking and playing as usual in the sun room. When I pulled out the twins' backpacks and said time for school, he came running. He climbed willingly into Daddy's truck (I was trying to catch up on a freelance work project) and off they went.

The phone call came just after lunch. Seems he had fallen asleep about 10 minutes after he got there, slept until noon, and then passed on lunch. Lunch that included popcorn chicken and rolls - his favorite school lunch ever. Yeah, that's when they knew he wasn't feeling well. The fever that had been gone since Saturday was also back.

Fun times.