Time flies!

Goodness, how did a month go by already?

Since my last post I have logged ten knitting/crochet projects totaling 1,640 yards of yarn (nearly a mile!), and made more progress on my sweater (which often gets set aside to complete something with a little quicker gratification).  There have also been a few projects started that weren't going to work out right so they were undone.  I don't consider that a waste of time, though - there is always something I can learn about using different yarn or needles, or whether it's really the kind of knitting I wanted to do.  Sometimes I'm so captivated by a knitted item I decide I must do it, without taking into consideration that it incorporates a style or method I really don't care for.  Here is one that I couldn't resist, even if it does get a bit fiddly: a Norwegian baby hat that I knitted for a new great niece.  DW has been a great model for some of my projects and she always shows things off to great advantage :-)

Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap

Both kids are doing all right, alternating between sailing along and struggling in rough seas depending on the day or issue.  Girlie will get to ride in the equine therapy program through December (which she loves) until they quit for the winter.  Boyo is busy with preparations for The Nutcracker and looking forward to starting basketball.  This will be the first time he has been involved in an organized school sport and we hope for the best.

My mother's live-in caregiver left unexpectedly so there was a bit of a flurry trying to decide how best to handle it, and several meetings and long emails/phone conversations with siblings.  At this point I think I'll call it 'so far, so good', and leave it at that.

We are preparing for an IEP meeting next week with Girlie's team and I'm sure a lot of the focus will be on how best to work on transitioning her toward high school (eep!) next fall.  That, and the holidays fast approaching with extra rehearsals, tech week, gift and charity knitting, and starting basketball practices is quite enough to be going with for the moment!  We'll concentrate on the good parts because, after all, time flies whether we're having fun or not!

Little Reminders

Sometimes, life takes us in so many different directions that I end up not being in the right place to catch one of the endless balls in the air. Keeping a calendar helps, and sending myself text and email reminders has been a great technological advantage. Appointments, rehearsals, meetings, classes, work assignments - there are very few days when at least one of us doesn't have to be somewhere, or have a deadline to meet.

Pie safe, with a new lease on life!

There are other reminders that serve to keep us on our path, and help us remember what's important. Dearest recently 'rescued' the pie safe that I grew up with; cleaning, refurbishing, and tightening all the joints after it spent several years gathering dust and falling to pieces in my mother's garage. It's a piece of furniture that has always given me comfort, because it was there when I was too young to know about the very hard things in life. It came out of an old house when Dad was working in demolition, before I was born, and he just couldn't bear to toss it aside. Hard to believe that glass has survived all the roughhousing when us kids were growing up! My brother took it when my parents moved, and stripped the old black stain to reveal the warm oak color. He gave it to me when my big kids were little, and I felt as though I was welcoming an old friend.

Lately, with Carey and her family moving, there has been a flood of reminders wrapped up in the house next door. The house where Dearest and I decided we'd have children, first through fostering, and then adoption. Where Girlie came to us only weeks after we'd made the decision. Where we said 'hello' to a brand-new-born babe that we thought was going to be our own, and then - with only two hours notice - 'good-bye' six weeks later (I choose to believe his story has a happy ending, because with confidentiality laws I will never know for sure). Where Tall Boy and Carey finally came to live with us full time, then Boyo came - and through one thing and another we ended up with two more for a total of six children in that little house (four of them teenagers), for eight months! The pie safe was there then, but had to be moved a few years later due to a severe case of us bustin' out at the seams in that house. Considering there was one person in particular, not to mention any names (coughBoyocough), who literally climbed the walls, and a couple little people who threw things during meltdowns, the pie safe was no longer safe in my care in such a little house.

No matter how many times I thank him, Dearest can't completely know the importance of this gift. Just a piece of furniture? No. In fact, although the photo shows it empty, it never was. The pie safe has always been full of reminders of comfort, safety, and the assurance that we can endure. ♥

Ready.... BREAK!

The second week of June is typically pretty busy around here, as it is the last week of school and the week before recital. Might sound "same ol', same ol'", but no - in fact, this week we have more going on than we do in some entire months of the rest of the year!

Boyo has marching band practice every day, leading up to the local annual parade Saturday morning, and extra rehearsals and class photos for the ballet recital Saturday afternoon. Since the parade happens in the morning he will miss the dress rehearsal in the performance venue, but hopefully get oriented to the stage when we take him in a few minutes early for 'call'.

There are field trips this week, my regular monthly meetings with agendas beforehand and meeting minutes after; and a new, exciting project that I'm working on for a friend's non-profit organization. Girlie has a terrible cold, and some of us are struggling against terrible attitudes - and I'll admit I'm the first person I need to take strongly in hand, here!

Blogging will be taking a back seat for a while - likely at the very back of the bus - but I'd like to leave you with something.  A dear friend (thank you, Ione!) posted a link to an amazing video, which I'll share:

...and here is another that mentioned the same wondrous premise forty years ago.

We ARE all connected. So can I borrow some of your energy to get us through the next week? ;-)

An Interesting Reaction...

...but what does it mean? (Jack Skellington, The Nightmare Before Christmas)

We are still having real difficulties with morning behavior in our house. Boyo is a morning person and launches himself from bed. He gets things done in a loud, busy way, and can't seem to stop his mouth from making comments guaranteed to annoy any older sister. Girlie is a slow starter and always has been, and it doesn't take much input for things to break down - it's not uncommon for there to be screaming, crying meltdowns at our house at 6:30 in the morning, and she is still sometimes yelling and crying on her way out to the bus.

We had a talk again one day last week. The upshot was that Dearest and I had outlined a couple scenarios and she could choose how she would handle things: she could be completely left alone with no reminders, in which case she would most likely not be ready for the bus and Dearest would drive her to school; or she could get up half an hour earlier (5:30!) to give herself more time. Girlie chose a different path, and said she would keep things the same but have a 'restart' the next morning.

Wednesday went pretty smoothly, and Dearest was surprised at how well Girlie kept things together. Thursday, however, was a different story. When Dearest described to me what happened, I told him what I thought was the catalyst. When Girlie got home from school and we discussed it, she described to me exactly what I had imagined and told Dearest. An innocent question from him completely confused her, and that was enough to put things right back to square one! Girlie agreed that she could have handled it better and said she'd apologize to her dad.

Dearest and I had a talk, too, and I explained further what I thought had gone wrong. He needs to learn more about Girlie's style of literal thinking, for one thing. The part that was so amazing, for me, was that I had seen the problem so exactly from Girlie's perspective. Wonderful, and helpful, and kinda scary, in a way! Hopefully, this new understanding will lead to more peaceful mornings.

Everyone knows I love to knit socks; they are an easy and portable project. Recently I decided to knit a pair of tube socks and learned a bit about the construction, and why many knitters (and wearers) don't favor them. The pattern I found was from a 1941 "Knit For Defense" pamphlet, and hosted by Sarah (the designer of the Mini-Mania scarf I've been working on) on her Exchanging Fire blog. The socks are knitted in a spiral rib pattern, which means the fabric will draw in to the contours of the heel and ankle. I used a completely round star toe (not what was called for in the pattern) so there would be no direction in which the toe fabric would bunch or be uncomfortable. Anyway, Girlie chose the sparkly blue yarn, they were quick to knit, and I'll be interested in knowing how practical and durable they are in the long run.

Spiral Sock No S-111, knitted with Berroco Sox Metallic

You Wouldn't Think It...

It may surprise you to know how very, very powerful I am. Apparently I'm even in control of time, and use it solely for the purpose of making Girlie miserable.  :-(

Honestly, no matter how - or how many times - I explain it, she just isn't understanding that if she does not get out of bed when her alarm sounds, she will run out of time and have to rush to get ready for school. She can't get past being angry about it, and thinks it's my fault if she hasn't finished her breakfast.

Dearest and I have tried to explain the concept of the passage of time in every way we can think of, so I'm hoping to find a new idea. Oh, I think I just got one - really, just in that moment when I finished typing the sentence!

What if we draw the clock face and approach it with a math concept, showing the time as chunks? So, if the alarm goes off at 6:00 and Girlie doesn't get up 'til Dearest calls her again at 6:05, I draw the wedge of time as a triangle from the center of the clock to 6:00 and 6:05, to show her that five minutes are completely gone. That only leaves her with twenty; if she doesn't get up 'til the second time he calls at 6:10, she's down to fifteen, etc.

All right, we have a game plan, so I'll let you know how that works out. Just let me grab my cape...

Busy, Busy, Busy!

This is a busy week for us, as Boyo is preparing for a ballet recital on Saturday - that means rehearsal every day except Wednesday.  Dearest changed schedules this week, so we're in adjustment mode for that, as well.

After last week, we had a talk with Girlie about our difficult mornings.  I have it on good authority we are not the only family that has trouble getting a kiddo on the spectrum moving in the morning, but we must have some improvement.  The rules we had established gradually fell by the wayside until Girlie would still be sitting at the breakfast table without socks on when the bus showed up, after spending much of the previous half hour in a nasty, vicious mood, then heading out to the bus crying because she'd been hurried.

Because of Dearest's schedule changing, he won't be rushing to get ready for work, so that should help keep the situation more calm in the morning.  We talked with Girlie about our expectations in the evening before bedtime, too.  I'm not holding my breath, but I am feeling optimistic.  Of course, I always do :-)

Boyo worked on math all weekend.  After missing out on a chance to stay after school to play floor hockey last week due to a failing grade in one class, and being told he will be staying after school for homework help in math this week, he's making an effort.  In exchanging a few emails with teachers, it seems Boyo is having trouble keeping things organized and turning in assignments in a few of his classes, and his grades are beginning to reflect the problem.  One thing in his favor is that the grades provide some motivation for him, unlike with Girlie, who either couldn't see the connection or couldn't be bothered to care.

So, we have some specific things to work on this week, places to go, people to see, the arts to appreciate.  I have a couple of requested items on the needles at the moment, one of which is a dog sweater.  Better get busy!*

Another great ecard from Lion Brand!

*Just so you know, I can never think of that phrase in the same way since I learned it is always the code phrase when training guide dog pups to relieve on command :-)

Out and About

Both kids were out and about on Saturday.  Girlie had a training event with the Guide Dog Puppy Raisers Group.  The area coordinator is a wonderful woman who has a lot of experience working with kids, including kids on the spectrum.  This was the second time she has taken Girlie without having a parent along, and she said it went very well. Boyo went to his grandma's house to do a little outdoor clean-up and then was allowed to watch cartoons with  her caregiver (a big treat, as we don't have cable!).  They weren't being taken care of by babysitters; they were out excercising their independence and acting responsibly, adjusting to what was expected of them.

Dearest and I had a lovely afternoon date that included lunch, a little shopping, and a lot of laughs.  It was wonderful, and a great chance for us to reconnect and enjoy each other on a social level; something we don't get to do very often. This problem is familiar to so many folks who have children with challenges.  One of the first things we are told as parents of kids with special needs is to make opportunities to have time away from the children. When one has been a parent as long as I have - nearly twenty-eight years - it's easy, right?  No; in fact, it's great advice, but can be so difficult to achieve!  When one has children with challenges, it is much more difficult not to be a 'helicopter mom'.

It has taken me a while, but I have become brave enough to ask folks outside the family to supervise the kids.  Besides attending the dog training events, Girlie has spent the night with a young lady who is in her social skills classes.  The two of them have the same favorite author and they've been great friends (at least on a once-a-week basis) for over a year.  When the other girl's mom asked to have Girlie spend the night I set my concerns aside and let her go - she had a great time!  When Boyo started getting more involved in ballet, his instructor suggested we let Boyo ride with him to some of the events because rehearsals and multiple performances mean a much longer day for us, as we live out of town.  Because the people involved as so familiar to the kids, and understand their issues for the most part, these excursions have been successful and we always hear the kids behaved well.

Sometimes it's hard to remember I need to be myself - my own person - even though I'm a parent of children with challenges.  It can be difficult to retain my own identity if I don't occasionally separate myself from them.  By the same token, how can we ever know how effective our teaching is if the kids are never allowed to sit for the exam?  If you have a similar situation, think about how you can give yourself the gift of personal time, time with your spouse or significant other.  Then do it. Ask.  I really have found people are willing to help.  Go on, get out and about!  :-)

Helicopter mom or not, in this photo I am in a helicopter - knitting, as usual!

A Matter of Time

Girlie found it a bit difficult to learn to tell time.  Most of the clocks in our home are analog because it’s what Dearest and I prefer, and they are a great help with teaching math concepts.  Girlie admitted yesterday she prefers to look at digital clocks.  It doesn’t really matter, though, because whether she can tell me the time or not, she has no concept of what it really means.  She doesn’t understand the passage of time.

This is another aspect of Girlie I have found very challenging.  Because humans live largely by the clock, (too much, I think, but that’s a different subject) we’re used to giving ourselves time limits and learning to pace ourselves accordingly.  But not Girlie.  She is unable to estimate if something happened 5 minutes or an hour ago; if an event was a week, a month, or a year ago, because she can’t perceive what periods of time feel like.

A nifty little gadget called a Time Timer - an analog timer face with a red disk that disappears with the passage of minutes - helps a little bit, but we can’t have them everywhere.  Girlie's OT has been using them for several years, and we have a wrist model, but Girlie doesn't like wearing it because it's rather large.  We also have a timer that looks like a tape measure; the metal 'tape' is pulled up showing the desired number of minutes, and it lowers back down into the casing as the minutes elapse.  It doesn't matter what they look like; timers are all the same, right?  No; in fact, these timers are different than most because they show a tangible decrease in the size of what is left, rather than just a smaller number.

Another technique we use is showing Girlie, on our huge dining room clock, exactly how many minutes she has to finish her meal or complete her homework.  We do this by pointing to the beginning and end times and using a finger to follow the path the minute hand will take.

It is difficult to know how much is sinking in, or whether Girlie will ever fully understand the concept.  We'll keep at it for however long it takes, though, because when it comes to teaching – or learning – any time is the right time!

The free pattern for this knitted clock can be found here!