Playdates

You know, my oldest daughter is six and a half years old, and the whole idea of a playdate still seems kind of silly. When I was a kid, my mom just booted us out the door, and we sometimes wouldn't come home until dinner. She didn't have to keep sharp tabs on us, or watch us as we went to the park or anything. It's such a pain. And my poor, socially-deprived children are suffering for it, because I'm too busy/lazy to set them up.



We had our first-ever arranged playdate (I'm not counting babysitting someone's kids, or getting together with a friend that just happened to have kids, too) just before the Christmas holiday. The two little girls in Bethany's carpool, Megan Hall and Macy Hansen, came home with us. It was actually kind of fun. I'd made sugar cookie dough that morning, and they all gather around the kitchen island on chairs and stools and picked out cookie cutters and made their own cookies. I had enough aprons for all the girls (my Meagan included), but not Sean. It didn't bother him, much, though. He had a blast playing in the flour.



After they'd all cut out about 6-8 cookies each, I put Sean down for a nap, sent the girls to the basement and finished up the baking the cookies. Then I made several colors of frosting and set out most of the various sprinkles and colored sugars we had. They all had fun, I got to do my sugar cookie decorating for the year, and didn't have tons of them left over for me to eat.



Well, ever since then, Bethany has been begging for another playdate. I've kind of waited until it was my turn to drive kids home from school again before arranging much. We're finally going to have another one this Friday with the same girls. Unfortunately, I have now Set the Bar. Bethany wants to do cookies again. I wouldn't do anything as elaborate as last time, of course, but I was thinking of snickerdoodles (they could roll the dough into balls and put them in the cinnamon sugar) or peanut butter cookies (they can roll the dough and them smash them with a fork). If I do this, though, I may just be setting myself up for the expectation that every time we have a Playdate at the Terry's, there will be some kind of activity like this. Part of me thinks that could be fun, and then there's the practical side of me that says I could get tired of it awfully quickly. Especially once Meagan starts kindergarten this fall and wants to start having playdates of her own. Hmmm...decisions, decisions.

I promise to obey

Meagan came home from church with a cute little card she'd colored. On the back it said, "I promise to obey my parents." I was thinking, "That sounds good to me!" I thought I'd reinforce her lesson, and asked her what it meant to obey your parents. In a very confident voice she said, "It means you can pray and read your stories and color in the morning and sleep well." Yeah, so much for that lesson.

Then a few minutes later, she said, "If you get in the water, your dress will get all baptized."

At dinner she offered this nugget of wisdom: "Jesus said we should share our toys, and then someone else will be happy." I notice she didn't say she would be happy.

I guess she's picking a few things up, if not quite right.

Homeschool Preschool

I realized the other day that my baby girl is growing up. It's hard to believe, but I registered her for kindergarten. She starts August 15th. She's so excited to go, and get to ride the bus like her sister.

I realized something else, though. She's nowhere near as prepared to start school as Bethany was. Bethany had two years of preschool before kindergarten, since we ended up delaying kindergarten a year for her. We had planned to put Meagan in preschool when we moved here, but with the uncertainty of selling our old house and settling in and everything, it never happened. By the time we were settled enough to do it, many preschools were full. That, and I didn't want to just start her in the middle of the year without knowing what they'd been doing all along. She only knows about a third of the alphabet, she can count to ten, but not beyond, and I'm not sure how many numbers she can recognize. I didn't want to send her to kindergarten like that--even though I'm sure there will be others who will be in the same boat--because I want to smooth out the experience as much as possible for her. So I decided I would teach her myself.

My first attempt was before the holidays. She couldn't even spell (let alone write) her name at that point. I admit I kind of messed up to start with. I tried to do too much at once. I tried to teach her all the letters of her name, how to spell her name and how to write it all at once. I got frustrated and she got frustrated, and I kind of abandoned it for a while.

I wrote to Nate's sister Tabitha for advice, since she used to teach preschool. (That's when I figured out I'd done too much at once). She told me to introduce one letter a week. Oops. So this time around I am more prepared. I found a couple of websites with free worksheets I could print off. I've also set some clear goals for myself. My current plan is to have "preschool" three times a week. We'll have it right after I clean up breakfast and wash dishes. I want her to be able to write her name, know all the letters of the alphabet (upper and lower) and be ablt to use scissors. Each lesson will consist of name writing practice, something about one letter, and some other worksheet/activity. I've got a bunch of worksheets now on scissor use, concepts like big and small, matching, colors, etc. I thought today that doing a puzzle might be a good idea, too. I'm sure I'll come up with more stuff as we go.

We've been at it for about a week now, and so far it's gone well. Meagan is somewhere inbetween loving it and resisting doing things my way. For example, I'll ask her to trace a letter or something, and she wants to color or do something else first. I'm trying to help her understand that she has to follow instructions, and she needs to learn things to get ready for kindergarten. I think she's getting the idea.

She picked up more from my aborted attempts than I'd realized, too. She can already spell and write her name. We're still working on legibility and forming letters properly, but she's already doing very well, almost as well as Bethany does now. I might have to start Bethany on handwriting practice, too. Their school uses a font called D'Nealian, which is almost a blend inbetween normal block letters and cursive. It supposedly makes learning cursive a lot easier. Bethany had to pretty much learn a new way of writing. I decided to just start Meagan off on that right away, and she's doing pretty well so far.

Our biggest remaining obstacle is Sean. He wants to sit down and do whatever it is that we're doing. I've started making a second copy of whatever worksheet we're doing, and giving him one to just scribble on. He learned the word "neatly" today. Meagan was boasting that she was coloring neatly (she wasn't really) and Sean picked it up. I doubt he has any idea what it means, but he kept saying it over and over as he was scribbling. He seems to be a bit jealous of the attention I'm giving Meagan, too. About halfway through our lesson today, he shoved his paper over in front of me, climbed off his chair and came around the table and climbed up in my lap, demanding I color with him instead of looking at Meagan the whole time. It worked okay today, but last time he was a real distraction. I've thought about doing it later in the day while he's sleeping, but there are so many other things I try to do during his naptime that it would never work. Hopefully I can train him to be more patient, and figure out a way to give him more attention.

I never pictured myself doing anything like this, but it's actually been kind of fun so far. I hope it stays that way.

Is she or isn't she?

A friend of mine told me yesterday about a Love and Logic series of seminars at our local library that she was going to attend, starting tonight. I've heard of the Love and Logic books, and I've been curious about them, so I thought I might want to go, too. But when I went to the library website to try and find out a little bit more about it, I found that there was an Asperger's support group meeting tonight at the same time at a different library. That caught my eye because of Bethany. It's been suggested a couple of times before that she has Asperger's, and after her failed kindergarten entrance tests about a year and a half ago, I even brought it up to a pediatrician. They ran her through a basic autism exam, decided she was not autistic, and told me she was probably just a late bloomer. I've not been able to let go of the thought, though. For years now it's plagued me. Not constantly or anything, but every time Bethany does something a little odd, or that just doesn't feel quite right, I start fretting again. Nate says it's just my anxieties, and he really isn't worried at all, but I just can't get past wondering if she is or isn't. I'd already decided about a week ago to pursue having her tested, and then I saw this support group listed online. I felt like I needed to go.

Nate came home a bit early from work so that I would be able to make it. The group was listed as starting at 6:30pm. I got there and the room was dark and empty. I started to wonder if anyone else was going to show up. The Love and Logic seminar started at 7:00, but much further north. I decided to wait until 6:45, and then try to make it to the Love and Logic. A few minutes before my deadline, a few people started showing up. Apparently, the group had reserved the room starting at 6:30, so they'd have time to set up, but the actual meeting didn't start until 7:00. There was quite a turnout, maybe 30 people. Many of them were adults who had Asperger's themselves, and most of the rest had children with Asperger's.

I honestly didn't know that much about Asperger's before the meeting, except that it is a form of autism, but not as severe. When I'd tried to find specific symptoms before, I got frustrated because there is such a wide range, so it's difficult to pin down. I get the feeling that it's still a relatively new thing--at least, people are still learning about it. One mom there said when her son was diagnosed, she realized that she had it herself. The majority of the people there had only recently been diagnosed or were still in the diagnosis process. I was impressed at how relatively normal many of them seemed. Many had gone to college and gotten married. Of course, just the fact that they were there means they were some of the higher functioning ones, though.

When Asperger's was first suggested to me, I admit I had a bit of a meltdown over it. Not where anyone could see, but I pretty much cried the whole afternoon. It's difficult to pin down why, but there was a lot of denial there, the not-my-child attitude. I'd worked a bit with some handicapped children, including a severely autistic child, in high school, and I'd always felt that I would never be able to handle an autistic child. So to have it suggested to me that my precious daughter, my firstborn, was somehow damaged, was pretty traumatic. I didn't do much about it that first time.

But things just didn't seem to add up with Bethany. She wasn't quite like other children her age, even though it's been hard for me to pinpoint, since she is my first and I'm not around many other kids her age, so it's hard for me to compare, or know what is "normal". So when it was suggested to me the second time, I decided to go ahead and bring it up with the doctor. That's when we got the autism test. Asperger's isn't like regular autism, though. It's much more subtle, so I can concievably believe that she could have a negative autism test, but test positive for Asperger's.

Even after attending tonight, I'm not convinced that that's what she has. The things people talked about tonight sounded familiar, but much less intense that what I deal with. For example, many of their kids have a difficult time with new situations and people. They don't transition well. That is kind of true of Bethany, but she's much better at it than she used to be. Last year when she started preschool at a new school, I was extremely worried about her adapting to the new school. This year with kindergarten, I took her to meet her teacher and see her classroom at a back to school night, and I also accompanied her to school the first day (all the parents did), and then I didn't worry anymore. You can't just throw her into a new situation, but with a bit of warning, she's okay. I've been telling her already when kindergarten is going to end, and that in August she'll be at the same school, but in first grade. At first she was resistant to the idea, but now she's getting used to it. It sounded to me tonight like the other parents have a much harder time with that. One mom is homeschooling her son rather than send him to middle school, because she doesn't think he'll be able to handle the constant change of teachers and subjects. I think Bethany will be able to adapt by that age.

I also got a long list of books and websites to look at to get more information. There are a couple of books written by adults with Asperger's and how they've dealt with things over their lives that I want to read. Even if none of it specifically applies to Bethany, I think they'll make interesting reads.

I think the greatest benefit I got out of tonight, though, is the sense that if Bethany actually is diagnosed with Asperger's, that it won't be the sentence of doom that I once felt it would be. She won't automatically be barred from a good life, unable to attend college or hold a job or get married and have a family. I saw so many people who were completely functional, even if they did have difficulties that other adults don't have. And that's okay, because we all have some trials in life. Some just have bigger trials than others.

I also had a very long talk with Nate later after I got home. I found out more of the reasons why he isn't so worried. It's because he sees many of her behaviors in himself, like the inability to sit still, and the lack of desire to talk, for starters, and he turned out just fine. I think some of those things bother me more, because I don't think that way. It was a very good discussion, one that helped me understand him a bit better, too.

So while I still plan to have Bethany tested, just to put the question to rest once and for all, I'm pretty at peace with it now. I'd like to find better ways to help her learn and grow, and deal with life, but I suppose that's true of my other children as well. She may have some more difficulties, but she's a very sweet, loving individual. She's my child and I love her no matter what.

"And I looked..."

For a long time, we did "scripture reading" with the kids with storybooks about the scriptures, thinking that was a good level for them. Recently, though, I read a talk in the Ensign that said even little children could feel the Spirit through reading the actual words, so we've altered our reading. We're now reading straight from the Book of Mormon. I read a phrase at a time, and the kids repeat it back to me one at a time. They each do about a verse every night. Obviously, progress is slow. We're still in 1 Nephi, not too far past the vision of the Tree of Life. After reading this way for a while, Bethany decided she wanted to take a turn "reading" a verse to us, which we'd repeat back to her. Here's how it went:



"Yea...(they love to say this word)

behold...

and it came to pass...

look!...

and I looked...."



At this point I was feeling pretty good, thinking that she was picking up more of the scriptures than I thought she would. Then she continued:



"and I saw...

a vampire."



Say what??? I'm pretty sure there are no vampires in the Book of Mormon, nor do I think she's talked about them at church. It was so random. I didn't even know she knew the word vampire. I guess we have a little more work to do than I thought.

My dirty little secret

I've been trying to declutter my house over the past couple of days. I wonder sometimes if clutter isn't somehow related to tribbles--it just breeds on its own, and there's no stopping it. While I was wading through yet another mound of papers, I found several documents that made me realize something: tax season is once again upon us. And here's my dirty little secret: I actually like taxes.

Okay, let me clarify. It's not that I like paying taxes, I like preparing tax returns. I discovered this almost ten years ago when we were stationed in Oklahoma. I wasn't too fond of my job at the time, and my squadron was deployed so it was kind of slow at the office. I was looking for valid reasons to get out, so I volunteered for the base tax office. We had about a week of training, and then we went at it. I didn't do anything very complicated the first year--no schedule A's even, mainly 1040EZ's. It was actually a lot of fun, so I volunteered again the next year, and learned more complicated returns. I quit volunteering when I started having kids, but the experience has stayed with me. It's made me wonder if I'd had a similar experience while still in college, if I would've chosen to become an accountant instead of majoring in biology. (As if I didn't have enough trouble making up my mind as it was--I bounced from computer science to linguistics to biology. Accounting would kind of round that out, wouldn't it?)


This year's return will be the most complicated we've had so far, what with three state returns (Nate's NY return, then OH and CO), and our regular federal return, plus rental income and sale of some stock. I'm sure I could figure it all out if I tried, but I'm feeling kind of lazy this year. I may just cheat and get some kind of tax program to do all the math for me. It's the figuring things out that I like, not the computations.

But before I can get to that point, I have to sort through my clutter and collect all those documents and receipts. Hmmm....anyone want to borrow some kids for a week while I manage that?

Don't shunk the baby!

This is a post that I've been wanting to record for a long time. Meagan is our creative little girl, she always has been, and especially lately, she makes up words if she doesn't know a proper one for the situation. For example, several weeks back we were singing Rock-a-bye Baby to her for her goodnight song. Nate was swinging her in his arms as we sang. When it came to the end, where you sing, "and down will come baby", he put her down on the floor. She got up and screamed, "No! You don't shunk the baby!" It took us a while to realize she meant that she didn't want to be put down, she just wanted to be rocked to the end of the song. But now that she's established this word, she's applying it to other situations. Today she was jumping on the mini-trampoline and half-fell off and pulled the power cord out of the TV. The kids came upstairs and told me the TV turned off. I couldn't figure out what was wrong at first, all I could get out of them was that Meagan "shunked" the TV.

She also creates words when describing things that she's unfamiliar with. It's a real chore figuring things out sometimes. The other day I was reading them a story when she described one of the pictures as "pag". You got me. I haven't a clue what that one is supposed to mean.

The only bad thing is that when we do figure out a word, like shunk, it becomes part of her normal vocabulary. I haven't said anything to her about it, because I think it's cute/funny and I want to encourage her creativity. The problems may come when she goes to kindergarten this fall and get frustrated/angry when people don't understand what she saying. I guess we'll see what happens.

I'm baaa-ack!

Okay, okay, it's been a really long time since I've posted here--almost six months. But they've been difficult months for me, getting situated in a new house and area and dealing with multiple health problems. But I'm climbing out of my hole and hoping to get back into the blogging. I have a bunch of photos that I want to backdate post (is that even a phrase?), so in the future it may look like I've been blogging all along. If I delete this post down the road, my posterity won't even know the difference, *evil cackle*.