Da Moves

We kept seeing this song on tv...


...and Bitty kept singing it to himself.


Then one day he got curious:

Bitty: Does Elmo got da moves?

me: Yeah

Bitty: Does that mean Elmo can dance?

me: Yeah

Bitty: What is da moves?

me: It means you can dance.

(he stops to ponder that)

Bitty: I don't got da moves.

me: Me either :)

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Angry Birds

Bitty asked me to help him make a slingshot.

Turns out this is what he had in mind:



Yep, we made a slingshot out of old pantyhose, lol. I set up the pigs at the bottom of the stairs for him, and Bitty had the birds lined up behind the slingshot (just like on the game).

He's really into Angry Birds these days... he asks me almost every day, "Do you wike Angry Birds? I wike Angry Birds. Do you wike da bwoo bird? Is da bwoo bird cute?" (note: the correct answer is yes, the blue bird IS cute!)


He has even expressed some interest in the plot line of the game, which I thought was pretty cool:

"Why are da birds angry?"

"Because the pigs stole their eggs."

"Why did da pigs stoled da eggs?"

"Because they like eggs."

"Do angry birds attack pigs?"

"Yep"

"Who do angry pigs attack?"

"That's a good question... birds?"


He recently made this flipnote which I thought was pretty creative (although obviously I'm quite biased!)

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On IEP's, speech, and girls

So last month we had the IEP meetings for Cuddlebug and Bearhug to set up their transition-to-middle-school IEPs. The ASD resource teacher from the middle school was there, which was great because we were able to get a lot of our questions answered as to how things work in middle school, both in general and specific to the autism program. I am feeling a little better about the whole thing now that we have *some* idea of what to expect.

This week there is a field trip for the 5th graders to visit the middle school, and also an informational meeting for parents.

While they will have an open house in the fall, the resource teacher said she is happy to set up a separate time for her students to come when it will be quiet so they can take their time to get familiar with where everything is without the huge crowd. That is AWESOME, and we will definitely be taking her up on that!

One of their electives will be a social skills class, which also includes spending some time tutoring kindergartners at the elementary school which is connected to the middle school. I think that will be a great experience for them (and who knows, may even help them develop a little more patience for their little brother... a mom can hope, right?). The teacher said that both her students and the kindergartners really enjoy it, and it's a great learning experience all around.

And... (drumroll please)... Cuddlebug and Bearhug have now officially "graduated" from speech therapy. :) There are still some articulation issues but it's either things that they physically can't help or they know how to make the right sounds in a therapy environment and it's just a matter of remembering to do it in conversational speech which is something we can work on at home. When I told the boys about that they were pretty happy, poor Cuddlebug seemed really relieved. He seemed to like it more when he was younger but not so much anymore... I felt bad when he told me, "a lot of other kids finished speech a lot sooner than me and 'Bearhug.'" He's never said anything like that before so I didn't realize he was noticing (although I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he notices everything). I just told him it's different for everyone depending on what they're working on, and that's ok. I also told him how proud I am of both of them because I know how hard they have worked in speech as well as at school.

His current resource teacher told us they've been talking to the 5th graders about middle school, and letting them share what they are nervous about and excited about regarding middle school.

On both of their lists (both boys and both nervous and excited about) was "having a girlfriend."

Oh my.

Which reminds me of a recent conversation we had in the car.

Cuddlebug: "We're starting to be interested in girls."

me: ('wha?!?!' on the inside, cool as a cucumber on the outside or at least I think so) "Really?"

Bearhug: "Yeah, or at least the girls are starting to be interested in us."

(Now that I already knew, but I didn't realize that THEY knew it yet)

me: "How do you know?"

Bearhug: "A girl gave me a love letter."

me: (still cool on the outside, crying incoherently about how my baby isn't old enough for this stuff yet on the inside) "A love letter? What did it say?"

Bearhug: (totally nonchalant about the whole thing of course) "It said, 'I love you.'"

me: "Wow... what did you say?"

Bearhug: "I didn't respond."

me: (ok, now I'm starting to feel sorry for the poor girl) "umm... you know she had to be pretty brave to give you that. You don't have to say it back, but you should say *something*"

Bearhug: "Oh, I did say something."

(pause to see if he was going to continue but he didn't)

me: "What did you say?"

Bearhug: "I said, 'Aren't we a little young for that?'"


That's my boy ;).

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Spring Break

This year we stayed home for spring break, and my parents came to visit. We had a ton of fun going somewhere different each day. For the most part, we went to places that were familiar to the boys but we did try out one new place which turned out to be a lot of fun.

We spent a day at the park. We let the boys bring their scooters to ride on the trails, and we also brought bread to feed to the ducks.

Bearhug's typical "camera face" lol

He surprised me by actually smiling for a picture :)

Cuddlebug

Bitty feeding the ducks

I love Bearhug's expression in this one... Cuddlebug and Bitty are into feeding the ducks but Bearhug looks so bored. He managed to find his own fun sooner after, building a dam in the little stream that leads to the lake.

What a face!!

My mom and I

I never get tired of all the green - it's beautiful!

Hanging out at the house later that day. I gave Bitty my old camera a while back because he loves to take pictures, he was having me clear off his memory card so he could take some more.

We heard about a local trampoline playground so we went to check it out. Can I just say - PERFECT sensory activity!! Bitty complained that he didn't want to go (because it was new) and usually it takes him anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to relax and get acclimated when we go somewhere new, so I was afraid it would be time to leave before he even got started, but once he saw the trampolines it was only a few minutes before he decided to join in the fun :).

After that we went to the park (a different one this time).

Bitty loves the swings... (I love his smile in these pictures)

...but he was willing to share :)

It was great to see all three boys playing together. Cuddlebug and Bearhug even took turns pushing their little brother on the swing.

Grandma and Grandpa had a fun time too :)

Love their smiles! The tire swing is perfect for twins, no?

And one day we took a little drive into the mountains to see the waterfalls. It was weird to have to wear coats and pants, but it was cold and rainy that day. And foggy! But the fog cleared up while we were there.

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Flipnotes

I didn't really plan to take a blogging hiatus, it just kind of happened...

I didn't think it had been THAT long, but I came back and blogger has totally changed... ack!

I have some stuff to post about but in the meantime thought I'd share some of the boys' flipnotes :).

Bitty got his own Nintendo DSi for his birthday so he's been eagerly working on his animation techniques, mostly by copying his brothers which drives them crazy (they accused him of "copyright infringement," lol). I keep telling them he will start to do more of his own original stuff once he gets the hang of it (and he has been).

Here's one that makes me smile every time I see it, it's just sooo cute :). This is Bitty's character "Hatdude" dancing. For the record, Hatdude is not a stick figure. According to Bitty, he's a "triangle figure," which makes sense because his arms and legs are triangles, not sticks :). Bitty's username on the flipnote site is "Roblox" so that last part is his signature. (make sure the sound is on, it's great with the music) :).

UPDATE: So Bitty decided to delete his flipnote and he reposted another one but I managed to download the original before he deleted it, so here it is :).


Bearhug has two original series that he created, one is a couple of spiders named S and X. That's him doing the sound effects / music :).



The other is about two characters named Wacko and Weirdo :).



Cuddlebug also has a series called Dino and Allen Dino (although he told me recently that Allen Dino was originally supposed to be Alien Dino but he spelled it wrong and it stuck.

This one features Dino and his friends, and a song about broken glass (don't ask, I have no idea where it came from but I wish it didn't get stuck in my head so easily).



And another one of Cuddlebug's, with stick men. That's him doing the sound effects (and a little help from Bearhug too, lol).

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Pinewood Derby bound

It's almost that time of year again.

A couple of weeks ago, we picked up some supplies for this year's Pinewood Derby cars.

Yesterday, we headed to Home Depot to cut out our car designs.

Bearhug actually got into it and let the guy show him how to use the sanding tool.

Bitty supervised (with M&M's).

Cuddlebug wasn't as hands-on, but he did do some of the sanding and showed me his car when he finished.

Bitty decided he wanted in on the action (and he had a car too, even though he's not old enough for Cub Scouts yet we always buy him a block to make his own car along with his brothers). I wasn't about to let him try the power-sanding tools but he was content with the sandpaper, especially when he saw Bearhug using it.

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IEP season is off to a rough start

Last Friday we had Bitty's IEP meeting. Seems like we just had one (oh wait, we did), although that was just an IEP review to update his placement to one that would be more effective for him. We didn't update any of his goals at the time.

So this was his regular IEP to update goals for the upcoming year.

I have always had mixed feelings about IEP meetings... on the one hand, it tends to be a bit of a reality check on where my kids are developmentally, relative to their peers. Since I don't really have that much experience with children other than my own, it can be easy sometimes to get into the "this is our normal" groove and not really think about it that much until there it is, all spelled out.

The upside though, is that the IEP meeting also generally serves as an opportunity to see just how much progress they have made over the last year. For the most part my boys have always mastered at least most of the their goals by the time the IEP year has passed, and while we might carry over a few that they are still working on, the rest are either replaced with new ones or stretched / expanded to the next level.

Until now.

We reviewed the measurements of how Bitty is doing on his current goals, and my heart sank a bit when I saw he was still struggling with most of them. I mean, I know he's had a challenging year but I guess I wasn't quite mentally prepared for that.

Then we started going through his goals for this year's IEP. I actually felt tears welling up (and I don't cry that easily) when I realized we'd been through several and the only change we'd made so far was to lower his reading level in order to (hopefully) help with his reading comprehension. He is hyperlexic (pretty much taught himself to read at an early age and reads beyond his grade level) but still struggles to answer even the most basic questions about what he's read (who, what, where, why, when), even when given the opportunity to look in the book for the answers. He has a visual chart for the "W" questions that shows what kind of question is being asked, and that helps a little but it still takes a lot of prompting.

So that's how it went. For the most part, his goals for 2nd grade will be the same as they were for 1st grade. The notable exception being his handwriting - he still has issues with pencil grip and hand strength but you really wouldn't know it to see his handwriting, it's quite good. We just need to keep working on it so that as he starts having to write more, his hand won't get tired too fast.

The main reason for his difficulty on the rest of his goals still comes back to the language delays, which impacts pretty much everything. His speech / articulation has improved considerably, and his memory is pretty phenomenal so he can recite entire episodes of his favorite shows. He has a pretty good handle on the typical day-to-day interactions (through much practice, and still with a fair amount of effort). But anything new or out of the routine that requires language (receptive or expressive) is such a challenge for him. And educational learning, by definition, tends to be a lot of new information (with some review of course).

It's really hard to see him struggle so much, but I'm so proud of him because no matter how hard it is, he keeps trying and with a positive attitude. Everyone who works with him comments on what a joy he is to be around (seriously they do, that's not just me being biased!) :).

Next up (later this spring) will be the IEP's for Cuddlebug and Bearhug. The ones that will transition them to middle school (ack!). I'm open to suggestions if there are things you think we should consider or make sure to include.

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December adventures (better late than never)

The last month of 2011 was a blur, but here's my best effort to remember the highlights (probably not in order, but close enough).

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Little Bitty got into a fight with a wall and lost. Ok, really he was running one direction and looking in another direction (as he often does, despite continual reminders not to run in the house at all), and cut his head when he ran right into a corner on the wall. So we spent one chilly Friday night at the urgent care clinic and Bitty had to get two staples in his head (they couldn't use the glue since the cut was in his hair). It was a little traumatic, but he calmed down pretty quick once it was over.

When Bitty and I got home from the doctor that night, Cuddlebug took one look at Bitty's head and said, "ewww, can't you make him wear a hat?" Bearhug asked me how long he'd have to have the staples in, and when I told him two weeks he groaned and said, "aww man! now I have to be nice to him for two whole weeks!" LOL, brotherly love :).

For the most part, Bitty handled it well over the two weeks he had the staples in, although at one point he got tired of feeling them there when he touched his head and asked me where the staple remover was... I made sure it was somewhere he couldn't find it, just in case.

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Cuddlebug and Bearhug discovered Chuck Norris jokes. You've probably heard some of them:

Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.
All men are created equal, except Chuck Norris.
When Chuck Norris cuts onions, the onions cry.
The GPS asks Chuck Norris for directions.
The boogeyman checks his closet and under his bed for Chuck Norris every night.

You get the idea :). I love that the boys find these so funny, and even downloaded an app full of these jokes so I could tell the boys. We've had a lot of fun trying to come up with new ones to make them laugh too :).

On Christmas Eve when I was trying to get them to go to sleep, I told them Santa can't deliver anything until they are asleep. They told me "Santa doesn't deliver presents, Chuck Norris does!" Well, Chuck Norris can't deliver anything until they are asleep either! ;)

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The last few years Bearhug and Cuddlebug have made a tradition of bringing their blankets and pillows downstairs to have a "sleepover" by the Christmas tree, but this year we had to talk them out of it because we got them a computer and a desk that we needed to bring in and set up for them and we didn't want to risk them waking up and seeing it. We had it at our neighbor's house (he doesn't have kids and offered to let us store presents there so they wouldn't find them) and would have to walk right by them if they were in front of the tree. So we made them a deal, if they would agree to sleep in their bedroom, we'd agree to get up as soon as they woke us up in the morning, without the usual stalling ;).

They agreed. And we were prepared to wake up at the crack of dawn.

So we were surprised when Christmas morning came and Bitty was the only one up (he's always the first one up). We slept in a little, and then finally decided to get up and take a shower, figuring CB and BH would be up any minute. But as it turned out, we had plenty of time and were hanging out downstairs waiting when they finally came downstairs. Lucky for us, Bitty was content to go about his usual vacation morning routine (he likes to play games on the computer before his brothers wake up when he can play without being bothered) and he didn't make a fuss about opening the presents or trying to wake his brothers up (if he had, we would have let him wake them up... after all I don't think they would have minded). I guess that's what happens when you stay up almost all night waiting for Santa (er, Chuck Norris).

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It was a Lego Christmas at our house. In fact there was one particular train that Bitty asked for (at the last minute of course) that we had to jump through flaming hoops to actually get (long story) but we did manage to pull it off just in time. :)

The Lego instruction books are great - no words, just pictures that show step by step what goes on next. Bitty was able to follow them pretty well by himself, although all of us (including Cuddlebug and Bearhug) were more than willing to help :). It was like a Lego party, with everyone building together. Very fun :).

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We made cookies :)

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Bearhug and Cuddlebug made a time machine for school. It was part of a group project on persuasive writing where they wrote and filmed a commercial to sell an item (they chose to sell a time machine).

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School / IEP update for Bitty

A while back I posted about some of the difficulties Bitty has been having in school.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, we had a meeting with the school to review his IEP and discuss changes to help better meet his needs. We learned that he was basically requiring almost constant one-on-one support from the resource teacher / parapros in his class which isn't really what they are set up to do. The challenge comes down to communication - if the subject is straightforward and doesn't require much verbal explanation he does great. Spelling, for example. He is a spelling kung fu master :). On the other hand, any subjects or new topics that require verbal explanation are quite difficult, not because he can't understand the subject matter, but because he struggles with language. He's a fast learner and that has helped him to keep up as well as he has, but the whole situation was really stressing him out because he recognized that most of his classmates did not share his struggle to understand what was being said, or what was being asked when the teacher would ask questions.

His teachers suggested he might do better in a smaller class setting, at least for the core subjects, and we agreed to put him in a self-contained ASD class for part of the day (almost half the day when you add up the hours) for math, reading, and writing. For the rest of the subjects he is still in his regular ed class with resource support. It's a much smaller class where all the kids have similar issues and the teachers have the flexibility to tailor to the kids' pace and individual needs much more than in the larger classroom. They also do activities like morning yoga since the physical activity helps the kids focus for learning (honestly, I think all kids would probably benefit from something like that, not just kids on the spectrum). We'll reassess later this year when we update his IEP for next year.

He started in his new class after the Thanksgiving break and so far it is really working out well. His anxiety level is considerably less, he no longer cries about having to go to school and he is doing well academically. He's back to getting all 1's on his daily reports (they have a scale from 1-4 for how he does at staying on task and following instructions with minimal reminders, etc.). It's been hard to see him struggle so much, and although I wish it wasn't so hard for him I'm grateful he's getting the support he needs and relieved that he's back to feeling positive about school.

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