Summer Reading: Senior Year

 It's summer. I love reading. I loved getting my kids into our library's summer reading programs. James prefers to be read to and only certain books. Like many activity, he prefers to not do this with me any more, but will do so with others.

Our beloved, local independent book store is having to close. I chose two books for James, and he seems to like including them with his ABA sessions (in addition to the eternal Matilda, by Roald Dahl).

Bad Kitty Gets A Bath

HiLo - The Great Big Boom

As someone who started a voracious reading habit at age 7, it's hard to have kids who are not the same. That will not stop me from offering it, and trying to engage them in the fun that can be had. Reading is reading, no matter the level.

Kangaroo!!

Kinesiology Exercise Programs for Parent and Child

When James was younger, we were lucky to participate in some great programs at Sonoma State University (SSU): the CATS program, Saturday Sidekicks, and Cycle Without Limits. 

Now the Kinesiology folks, who created the Saturday Sidekicks program, have a couple of new programs: Family Fun Run and At Home Exercises.

Neither James or I are up for running at this point, but paired exercises at home sounded great. I answered the email and we signed up. 

As this is a study in progress, I am going to keep it simple - we did some basic tests at the beginning for basic medical information and (for me) dexterity and mobility exercises. Now, each day at home, James and I together perform a practice and then coordinated exercise at home and take a photo at the end. The exercises are introduced by a video and a video game concept. 

Today's theme: Kangaroos!

Not gonna lie, it was fun. Stay tuned.

Summer Solstice 2018

It's officially summer! It's hard to make plans this year, with all the family health issues and our first serious summer sessions with middle school, high school, and the local JC. I keep having to use my PTO for my family instead of my, more so than usual. Nevertheless, summer is still going to be good. So far we've had:

Our local Raley's is closed for renovation. Goodbye 80s/90s decor ... hello???

Annual Hot Air Balloon Festival! Winds this year prevented launches, but still had fun with friends.

We picnicked on the Town Green, catching up while the teens ran about and had a gleeful spree through the candy store.

Boys and Girls Club again puts on a great series of summer activities. James has signed on for two field trips again.

Another get together with friends by a pool, with California rolling hills in the background, under blue skies.

Visiting local parks and exploring the outdoors. Happy summer, y'all!

More About Summer Camps at BGC

Our local Boys and Girls Club has an ideal location, in between a park I used to take the kids to and James' current school. This means he can walk there after school and they can use the park so the kids can run around outside. James can even sign himself in. The staff is great with all the kids. I like what I've seen about reinforcing safety, respect, and caring. While I've received a couple of phone calls and requests to talk with the director when picking up James, any issues regarding behaviours are dealt with as calmly as possible, and they include James in the process, which is great.

Homework time and loud levels in the Teen Room can trigger behaviours. We are working on addressing this with James being more mature in requesting a break and the Staff doing what they can to accommodate us while keeping track of all the kids present. 

Summer camp is fun time! While I'd love to drop James off for a full day, so far it seems to work best to give him some quiet time before hitting camp. Every week has a theme. This week they are making films on an iPad with a partner. I can hardly wait to see what he's done.

One week they focused on cooking, and James made his own pizza and ate it for lunch. Wow. My picky eater, making and eating his own lunch! I swoon. James is eating lunch with his group! Again, I swoon. I hear tales (albeit brief and a bit garbled) about touch football games, goofy friends, and club staff nicknames and news on our ride home. It feels so good.

It makes me feel happy that James is not missing out on summer, fun things his peers are enjoying, and opportunities to learn new things. James seems pretty happy too!

Movie Review: Peanuts Movie

Wrapping up a long holiday weekend after a super-stressful couple of weeks. We wanted a family movie, and considered The Good Dinosaur. When I looked up the movie times, I saw a reminder ad for the monthly Sensory Sensitive Films. For November, it was the Peanuts Movie. Sold!

What is a sensory sensitive movie showing? It's:

• Leaving the lights partially up ...
• Turning the soundtrack much lower than regular showings ...
• Creating a welcome environment for families with members who cannot tolerate loud noises, sit still through a movie, or have verbal stims to help get them through something exciting like a movie out in public.

Our local theatre provides this on the last Saturday of each month at 10:00 am, and I salute the heck out of them for this!
Back to the movie ... James knows the Peanuts gang. He may not have grown up reading them in the newspapers the way I did, and we don't have TV, so he's missed the TV specials on holidays, but the Vince Guaraldi soundtrack is a perennial favourite at home and on car trips. Every week on our shopping trip, James looks for Peanuts character dolls in our local Trader Joe's -- James has friends among the crew members, who "help"him look -- he loves his lollipop reward for finding their hideout in the store. We've visited Snoopy's Ice Arena, toured the Charles Schultz Museum (which also sponsors traveling Science Exhibits for our schools), and cursed the Red Barron in the skies overhead during our annual air show at the Charles M. Schultz airport -- of course we wanted to see this movie!

Two thumbs up for a well-done tribute to the series and characters. I was not sold on the 3D-ish animated treatment until I saw it onscreen -- it's a simple (to look at), charming mix of old and new that I think works very well. The characters look, sound, and feel very true to what I grew up with. Snoopy, who I feel became much larger and complicated than originally intended, was, to me, very recognizable. All his personae were there: good dog/Charlie Brown's ally, WWI Flying Ace, Joe Cool, Dark & Stormy Night writer, and Woodstock's friend. Charlie Brown's honesty, compassion, and staying true to himself despite all his bad luck shines through in a very refreshing way that I think has been missing from recent Peanuts animations.

The plot is simple, like Peanuts was written/drawn for the newspapers, and the kids are refreshingly kid-like and timeless, without being cloying or too mature. A lot of familiar and well-loved themes are woven into the simple story in a way that feels like snuggling down in a familiar patchwork quit that visually cues happy memories. If you like the Peanuts gang, you should definitely see this movie. If you are looking for modern re-imaginings classics, like Cat In the Hat, The Grinch, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or the Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, this is probably not for you.

Speaking as a parent of sensory-overloaded kids, having the soundtrack down low was a big help. I really liked the way the dogfights were not too loud or chaotic and the planes sounded realistic, but reproduced on a muted level. While James squirmed and started asking if the movie was going to be over before we hit the 2/3 way through mark, the vignettes were short and attention-getting. I enjoyed being able to redirect James by connecting his local experiences with the Peanuts characters to the characters onscreen, without feeling like I was detracting from the movie experience of the rest of the audience. Twice, James had to use the bathroom, and because the lights were partially up, this was not a big deal. A couple times we heard verbal stims from other audience members, and felt right at home.

Definitely, I give the movie, theatre, and film series two big Thumbs Up. We plan to return for next month's movie: The Good Dinosaur.

Sports Challenge

James needs more regular exercise. He has low muscle tone to begin with. His extreme weight loss last year has made his already skinny frame more frail. He is also growing like a weed.

Because James is happiest in a familiar environment that is quiet, and happiest yet when online, incorporating physical activities are tough.

At school, James will use a foam football to interact with other kids and toss the ball around. His adaptive PE coach has been super encouraging him to jump rope with others and his regular PE class had a great week of bikes. James' sister takes him on walks around our neighbourhood or to a local park. I try to take James with me on weekly grocery shopping runs and swim play sessions at the pool.

James's Dad gets him out to parks and took him to the always fantastic Wonder League baseball program. This year saw some wonderful changes to the program, including earlier start times, warm up practice, and great groups of Buddies for all the players. While James was reluctant to play at times, he loved the attention. He started switch hitting and running after grounders. He actually started to hit pitches near the end of the season, and the week cheer section showed up, he ate up his personal rooting section as he rounded third base.

I wish we could find a local, affordable sports activity for him that he would enjoy. It's always good to have options outside the Xbox.

Rise and Field Trip

Guess who got me up at 5am?

It's Field Trip Day. James, his 4th grade class and I are headed to the Lawrence Hall of Science, a little over 60 miles away from us. So we do need to be up early, but not *this* early.

We did have some talking time on the sofa, over his breakfast of blueberry waffles and milk. I tried to do a social story for where we are going, but I haven't been inside the LHS for years. Decades, even. We lived about 10 minutes away and when I was his age it was one of the cool new local places to go check out.

My strongest memories were from the early to mid 70s. I told him about some of the experiments I remembered: the oscilloscope, the ball drop on a spilling plate, a zoetrope. I remember going downstairs to the cafeteria, passing the UC Berkeley radio station and several classrooms. I wonder if any of these will be there still and what we will see today.

Meanwhile, I am coffeeing up, and James has offered to help me take photos.

Undone By One Piece

So James and I are now both sick with a head cold. I *finally* found a way to get him his OTC cold meds & melatonin that will help him get to sleep and rest through the night (which gives me a chance to recover too). Now I am trying to keep him from being on an electronic device all day while I limp through some chores and try to rest.

The usual good solution, working on a puzzle, resulting in a whining stint because (horrors) ONE PIECE OF THE PUZZLE IS MISSING! He's put this puzzle together many times. I have no clue where that missing piece is. The puzzle came from the Dollar Store, so it's unlikely it's still in stock.

On a whim, I Googled "Missing Puzzle Piece" and ... wowsers - multiple web pages, two with links to the jigsaw doctor, who replaces missing pieces for a fee. Um ... no.

Usually James is very good about putting his puzzles away, so I really I hope I find that blasted piece.  I will probably end up making a new piece, the way his Dad did when he obsessed over the alphabet puzzle and THE LETTER U WAS MISSING.

Meanwhile, we played the SpongeBob Memory Game until James called a break.

I so want a nap now.

Third Grade: Allegro Tempo

Another school year is not so much winding down as it is rushing to the finish line: field trips! Plays! Open House! Teacher and Staff Appreciation! All the field trips we wanted to take this year but couldn't because we were cramming for the state exams!

And for James' school district: Campus tours! Because our home district is almost completely cluster schools. This will be my first campus with NO prior experience. If I wasn't so busy, I'd be a wreck (but I'd probably have already toured the campus and requested a teacher). Open house for this campus is this week. I am so there.

Extra topping for James: Transitional IEP. OMG, I cannot believe they actually brought to the table the suggestion that he go straight to the special day class. I was, however, gratified that most of the room  shot it down decisively. Very politely too.

The rest of the meeting was spent going over his aide's notes,  me advocating for his wonderful aide for next year and reminding the group that all the wonderful First Grade notes were completely ignored with disastrous results during the last campus transition to Second Grade. It was a pleasure to hear how each person talked positively about James, and I have food for thought for the coming Fall IEP, as well as some serious academic homework.

I feel so incredibly lucky that he had a strong, creative, and supportive teacher for this entire school year. His classmates have been a mom's dream come true: inclusive, inquisitive, energetic, and generous. His aide has been an essential partner to James' success in school. She gets that he's a visual learner, smart, and wants to engage with his peers. She's a fun person to be around, and all the kids love her. In consequence, James has really grown socially this year, and I loved discovering more of his personality coming out.

Still advocating for my guy, who learned from those around him and is still most motivated to be with and doing the things kids his own age do. Hoping for the best for next year. And enjoying this one, while it's still here.

Using Our Parks Pass

The big holidays and James' sister's birthday have come and gone. We're all In a bit of a letdown.
Finances are still tight but the weather is gorgeous, especially compared to the rest of the country. A kind of Christmas present to the family was an annual parks pass to our Regional Parks. So far we've been to the ocean twice, but today I wanted to be closer to home yet really get outdoors band unplugged.

We came to Riverfront Park. After some initial grumbling, it was great. We waked 10 minutes in the shade of the redwoods and emerged at pond#2. Clear skies and no wind in a protected shore meant temps at almost 70°.

It was quiet too. Far from the background noise of the rods and leaf blowers that had sent James into our back bedroom closet earlier.

For close to an hour now they've been happily busy digging in the moist bank with sticks for rocks to throw. We'ved been visited by ducks, horseback riders, dads teaching daughters to fish, and walking groups. For the most part, it's us in the outdoors: sun on our faces, and simple pleasures.

The Power of Blankets

Every since he was old enough to track familiar things, James has been attached to his Bear Blanket. It was a hand-me-down gift from a cousin. What a wonderful gift it's been!

That Bear Blanket has seen Disneyland, ER rooms up and down the state, traveled through Oregon and Washington and visited the MIND Institute at UC Davis. It has soothed him through many an illness and helped him go to sleep at night at and away from home. It must always be positioned just so, with the red border tucked under his chin at bedtime.

While James does not carry his Bear Blanket around as much as Linus did his, he does like to wrap it around his head, and sometimes drape a chosen person with it for a big hug session.

I know most 8 year-olds don't carry their blankets around anymore. But really, when I see him smile like this, I just don't care.

And you know what? Blankets are awesome. The people behind Project Linus know that. We've made a couple of fleece blankets from a kit for them. Check them out, and spread some comfort and cheer.

A Lazy Week

We have about a month to go before the kids start back to school, but my summer vacation is at an end. Monday I start work at a new job. My first in-an-office job in about 10 years - wish me luck. I am hoping this will work out.

Meanwhile, kids and I enjoyed a last lazy week together. As the weather was a bit cool and James seemed to be teetering with coming down with something, we stayed very close to home, and we didn't even try his morning swim lessons, which is a shame, but he needs to stay healthy.

Here is some of what we did:

James is starting to like the suspension bridge at the Ranch.

As James was feeling a bit peakish, he stayed on the Barn's porch instead of his usual trampoline marathon.

A trip to the fish store cheered both kids.

Our grapes are ripening! Kids like picking the ripe ones, although James won't eat them.

Farmers' Market! We still love the freshly baked French Baguettes.

We did persuade James to take a quick dip in the pool on our one hot afternoon.
He liked riding the tube & blowing water out of it at his sister.

Big Sister had her swim lessons. She is getting rather good, especially in backstroke - just like her Nana!

"Uh, hellooooooooo!"
James tries the party line at the old Healdsburg Library, which has a really nice exhibit on Fred MacMurray & his ranch.

Special Exposure / Wordless Weds: Bowling

We had one weird hanging chad (remember those?) Monday of a Spring Break day left this week. Guess what James wanted to do?

Yes Bowling. Go figure, it is literally across the parking lot from his school.

What is bowling like, with an 8 year-old boy on the autism spectrum? Well, it's a ton of fun!

This guy was into the entire bowling experience 210%. He took to the bowling shoes like they were his beloved Crocs. This is the same kiddo who pitched a small fit in Payless Shoes when I suggested he try lace-up and velcro shoes. While we did play with bumpers, he tried bowling on his own (not using a special ramp) for the first time. I suggested he try bowling with his left hand and he did well.

Every roll brought the same level of excitement, hand flaps, jumps, and big grins. I think James loved playing a sport that let him cheer loudly and often.

Boom! Cur-ash!! He took the noises of a busy lanes well, yet he still can't take a leaf blower.

We only played 10 frames, but they made James' morning. He had so been looking forward to this -- he even dressed specially for the event, and wore his hat his Dad found for him:

For more images from the heart and to share some of yours,
visit Special Exposure Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Special Needs.






               and ... Wordless Wednesday

We Are Reading in North America!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss, and all you other cool cats who share a birthday on March 2! I love having the kids take part in Read Across America programs. It was fun to be able to do this with James' big sister, 5 years ago, and we've kept on with special reading activities since then. Having James be able to read, especially out loud to us, is quite the gift. This is because by age 3, they weren't sure he'd be able to talk, and we were advised he might never read, let alone write.

What did we do? We went to a book fair at the kids' old school, where James managed to shift focus from buying the one book he wanted (but was not for sale there) to another with a minimal fuss. He got to see some familiar people, who commented how nice it was to see him and my goodness, hadn't he grown?

James and Grandma Cille

We wrote a paragraph about our favourite holiday (Halloween) and read it out loud.

James checked out four books from his classroom library (one for each school night of the week) and we read them together at home.

His whole class got to go to school in their pajamas and read books on Friday.

And there was cake eating, but as James doesn't usually like cake at parties, that was my contribution. Well, that, and wearing hats.

What was the book James picked and has been delighting him these past 3 days? The latest Pete the Cat book:

SOOC Sunday: Waving at Summer

Scenes from the ranch, as we wave good bye and thank you to summer. The kids explored the creek, bounced like jumping beans together on the large trampoline, and used the zip line like a crew of stuntmen. Baths and early bedtime once we got home. And some really nice images as souvenirs:

Singing as they tumble along on the Austrian fire truck.

On safari.

Relaxing after all the fun.

Sundown and gold in the grass.

Beautiful mystery plant.

2012 was a really good summer. Au revior, mes amis.

Linking up once more with Murrieta 365 for some SOOC show and share, where it's all straight-out-of-camera (SOOC).