Current Video Favorite

One of Samuel's current favorite activities is watching film company "identifications" (is that the right word?) on You Tube. These are the short clips you see at the beginnings of movies. He really likes the "Pegasus" on Tri Star's logo. I found this image of Tri Star with Columbia, the company it merged with in the late 1980s.


Samuel has made his own Pegasus with a toy horse figure. The wings are Lincoln Log pieces. I have seen him use other toys to represent the woman in the Columbia image.

Mommy Wasn't Herself Today!

I woke up today without very much of a voice. This has been coming for the past few days in the form of a stuffed-up head. By this morning I had developed congestion in my throat. I sounded much worse than I felt. If I whispered or talked in an unnaturally high pitch my voice didn't crack, but otherwise I sounded just awful.

Samuel was quite upset by all of this. I think he thought I was angry or upset by the way my voice sounded. Everyone kept reassuring him that I was okay, but periodically tears would well up in his eyes when I tried talking. He would ask, "Are you okay?" He also said a few times, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

This made it difficult when I had to challenge him today to get through school work. We had lots of trouble getting through the first session of work. He had to "take a break" up in his room because he got a bit rough at the table. I finished his school work up in his bedroom that time and the next time we sat at the table he was fine (except for having to hear my awful voice).

He thinks I'll sound better tomorrow, but at this point I'm not so sure.

Overheard from the Boy's Room

Poor Samuel. He's extremely tired this evening but is being engaged in conversation by his brothers. They are in their bedroom and the lights are out but they are still talking. I'm not exactly sure when Samuel woke up this morning. My husband couldn't sleep last night so he got up in the middle of the night to do some work and to call co-workers from his company headquarters over in England. Anyways, my husband's activity woke Samuel up, possibly as early as 4:30 this morning. Samuel had a rough day getting through his school work. He got upset during his first session of work so I had him take a break up in his room. He almost fell asleep as he lay on his bed. The rest he took helped and he was a bit more cooperative the rest of the day.

As I listen now, my oldest son is trying to entertain his brothers. The conversation he is having with Samuel has to do with an activity he did today, playing with his Lite Brite. I'm trying to figure out if my oldest son is pretending to be a detective or a reporter: "So Samuel, I understand you did an activity at the dining room table today, what was it?" Samuel answers (sounding half asleep) "Lite Brite." "Now I also understand that you only had to put a certain amount of pegs in it, how many?" (Yawn) "Five." "And what was it that you were making on Lite Brite?" "Patrick" (from Sponge Bob)

I love that Samuel is putting up with all the questions and carrying on a conversation with his brother like this. I also like that big brother noticed what Samuel was doing today and could ask him about it!

Since Samuel wasn't so eager about Lite Brite the other day, I attached some strategy to it today for his personal attendant to use. I wrote out .."You are going to play with Lite Brite two times today. Each time you will put in five pegs. Make a tally mark for each peg you put in." Samuel's attendant helped him make the tally marks, and the "strategy" seemed to work. Samuel cooperated much better with his Lite Brite today. I'm sure it was much easier for him knowing he only had 5 pegs to put in, as opposed to looking at a screen with dozens of spaces for pegs to go in.

What on Earth?!

Today was about the craziest day that we have had in quite a while. It started with a bit of a different twist, Samuel's personal attendant came a little earlier and was only scheduled to stay for a few hours. Samuel had asked for Banana Bread yesterday, so I thought he would enjoy helping me make some this morning. He likes cracking eggs, so I let him do that (silly boy, he said "ouch, I'm going to die!" when he cracked them!), he mashed the bananas, and got to measure out flour (which he played with more than he measured!).

Anyways, with the different start to our day perhaps Samuel took this to mean that he would not be doing school work today. I didn't put any school work on his schedule until his personal attendant was due to leave, and Samuel had a fit when he saw the "work time" icon on his schedule. I had scheduled "Lite Brite," a toy he has recently taken an interest in before "work time" which I had thought he would enjoy. No such luck, he protested that too and was caught up in some major scripting during this activity. I cut it short and we gave Samuel lots of run around and playing time down in the playroom. Samuel requested a "break" before I started his school work and he spent much of it crying and talking as though he was depressed. Sometimes when Samuel is in a mood like this he will borrow a term from one of his favorite TV shows, "Wow, Wow, Wubbzy," and he will say "I have the bluey blues!" He didn't say that today, but he was sure acting it!

The second session of school work was preceded with another break, equally as teary for Samuel. I got out his Wilbarger Protocol brush, something I haven't used in a long time, and tried brushing him. He was a bit sensitive to it, ticklish, but he seemed to like it and that calmed him down a bit.

I saved Samuel's favorite subjects, Religion and Reading (from his reader) for last late this afternoon. It took longer to get through the work, but we eventually did it. Good news, I have been able to use the Religion textbook with Samuel recently, and haven't had to re-type the lessons on "Writing With Symbols". That is such a big help! It takes lots of time to re-type lessons. Samuel was in a much better mood tonight.

I have told Samuel we are going to take a vacation from his videos and DVDs in a few weeks. He is scripting them way too much and he is just way to absorbed with them. When this happens he gets very ornery and doesn't want to be "bothered" with anything. Before we start the "vacation", I'll start putting some of them away. He has collected over 20 of them and tries to look at them throughout the day.

Oh, in between dealing with Samuel today I had the "pleasure" of an equally ornery 5 year old boy, son number three. He is very particular about the clothing he will wear these days. He protests everything except for shorts and short sleeve shirts, in the middle of the winter?! He was also very unhappy today when I sat him down for some school work, at a time he wanted to go play with another of Samuel's personal attendants (who he thinks are there to play with HIM, not Samuel!).

My oldest son was a little tired today. We let him stay up late last night to watch "Life After People" on The History Channel. I watched a portion of it as well. It was fascinating, but kind of creepy, watching how all signs of human civilization would decay and slowly disappear if men were no longer on the Earth. I got caught up in wondering, "Well, how would all people disappear?" They did not get into that on the show, people were just already gone.

I'm glad today is over, this was a rough one!

"I Don't Want to Do Five Things!"

We're slowly returning to our "normal" school routine, the one we had before we left for our vacation. Our first week back I unpacked, last week we had visitors and it was Samuel's birthday, and yesterday I had to take my daughter for a doctor checkup. So, today was one of our first days back to work!

I made up an ambitious work schedule to start Samuel's morning. I had his token board ready with the reinforcer of raisins after each time he earned four tokens. I figured Samuel might balk at the schedule and, sure enough, he did. He pulled out his negotiation tactics and said, "I don't want to do five things!" I wasn't about to bend first thing in the morning so I replied, "Yes, you are going to do five things, they're easy things!" I knew I was stretching things a bit for Samuel. We often start the morning with only 3 or 4 tasks. My goodness though, he got to sleep in this morning and I gave him some TV time before breakfast, he needed to be challenged a bit! I had to coax Samuel here and there, and had to wait him out a bit, but he got through all five things!

Challenging Samuel in his negotiations doesn't always work. In this case if it had not worked out and he had a meltdown, I would have sent him with his personal attendant up for a "break" in his room. Taking a "break" was a strategy introduced to us by the in-home helpers we used to have. It is a means of letting Samuel cool down a bit before he returns to the task that he is expected to do. A "break" icon sits up in the corner of his visual schedule for him to remove whenever he needs one. We had to teach him how to remove the card (we would model for him, "I need a break," hand-over-hand have him remove the card, and assist him in going up to his room).

The going was a little rocky this morning, but I was happy he got through the work without requesting a break! Five tasks, that's great for first thing in the morning!

Travel Challenges

I would not be painting the entire picture of our recent trip to Maine if I did not share some of the challenges we had with Samuel and our other children. Travelling with children, any children, takes some planning, preparation, and spontaneous creativity. That's all part of our travels and it's nice to know we have the ability to take our children on certain trips without too much difficulty. That doesn't mean, however, that I am willing to travel any time the opportunity comes up. I have yet to take my three younger children to go see my oldest son race his go-karts. I know that my husband will be busy with my oldest son and I cannot take care of the other three children on my own in a racing environment right now. Even though there might be other people who could help, I know that the conditions would be too difficult for Samuel to manage right now. I don't think my 2 year old daughter would be very tolerant either. I'm pretty confident that within a few years, however, we'll all be able to go together.

As far as our recent trip, we had a few challenges while riding in the car. Periodically Samuel would get bored and want to stop or have a snack (which would then turn into repeated requests for snacks). If he did not get his way immediately he would sometimes scream, unbuckle his seatbelt, or try to kick and hit his siblings. I attempted to deal with this by scheduling snacks. I would pick a time and tell the boys that there would be no snack until that time and I would remind them that it would be only ONE snack at that designated time. This helped Samuel to accept the restrictions a little better. To reduce boredom, I asked Samuel to pick a few things that HE WANTED to bring, and I asked my oldest son to pick a few things he had seen as recent favorites. Oldest son kept the bag of toys (which included toys for the other 2 younger children as well) in the middle row of seats and he would hand them out when necessary.

While in other people's homes it could be challenging to keep Samuel out of trouble. In our close friend's house, he kept trying to get into flour and oatmeal canisters in their kitchen. We also had to hide sweets because he would "raid" them if left unchecked.

At another house we visited, Samuel couldn't keep his hands off their television and DVD player. We thought he might have broken the DVD player, but it ended up being okay. These friends were so nice and understanding, but my husband and I really should have taken more effort to set some limits with Samuel and follow through. We got too caught up in interesting conversation while Samuel was in a basement playroom. Their children were playing with our other three children while Samuel was by himself with the television.

While at home in town, I try to have one of Samuel's "personal attendants" accompany us when we visit others. That is so helpful! My husband and I can socialize and Samuel is encouraged to play with other children and can be kept away from the computer, VCR etc.. Samuel got a portable DVD player for his birthday. We will be teaching him how to use it and will try to take it along when we go somewhere so that he won't be so tempted to get into other's property.

Christmas in Maine!

Samuel in front of our Christmas tree, which my husband was able to cut down on our friend's property. They lent us some ornaments and the kids and I made the paper chain. My friends goats will get to eat this tree when they are finished using it!

We did something very different this year for Christmas, we went to Maine! This is the first time that we have ever gone to Maine twice in the same year, we were just up there six months ago.

We had a terrific time up there, the whole trip was a real adventure. Who would have thought we could load up ourselves, 4 children, Christmas gifts, and winter gear for all of us in a mini van for such a treck and be able to say we had a great time!?

Here are some highlights from the trip: We left most of the visual schedule behind. I took along a dry erase marker board in case I needed that. I only used it one time to let Samuel know what we would be up to. I also took along the mini-schedule with 3 or 4 icons that we use in church. Other than that I verbally let Samuel know what was going on and for the most part it worked out okay.

Samuel was allowed to take some of his videos and DVDs to look at. The plan was for there to be NO TELEVISION, NO COMPUTER, AND NO VCR/DVD PLAYER for the entire week. We took time each day the week before we left to discuss this (during our morning "circle time"). This worked well but then a few days into our stay our friend's son kindly offered to lend Samuel his television/DVD player. Samuel picked up on that and repeatedly asked for it until he finally got it a few days later. Maybe I shouldn't have let him have it, but he did so well and accepted limited time on it. It was nice for him to have something to occupy himself while we socialized with our friends.

I was very proud of Samuel for not trying to get onto the computer that was in one of the rooms we stayed in. He accepted that it was off limits! My little girl, on the other hand, found it harder to stay away from it!

We "stayed home" a lot more while up there and the kids had lots of time to play in the snow. There was about a foot of snow on the ground when we arrived and we had snow, rain, and sleet during our stay. I was glad that the kids had good packing snow to make snowmen and snow forts. It took a lot of doing the weeks before we left, but I managed to have snow pants, jackets, hats, gloves/mittens, and boots for myself and all the kids! They came in handy!

This was my first trip to Maine in the winter. My other 6 or 7 trips were all in the early summer or late spring. It is our hope to one day live up there, or maybe New Hampshire, and after this trip I can say that I wouldn't mind the winter, even if it's long and the weather is difficult, though I would have to learn how to be able to drive in icy and snowy conditions!

We had to cut our stay there a day or two short because of the heavy snow forecast. We were originally planning to drive home today, instead we left this past Sunday. Good thing we did, they have gotten over a foot of snow the past few days! As it was, the last 6 hours of our 13 hour drive home were in snow, rain and sleet. I'm so glad my husband is a good driver!

Second photo is of Samuel playing where we stayed. Our friend built a bonfire one afternoon and while the kids played and sledded we ate soup, roasted lamb, and drank hot chocolate and mulled wine in the barn where his sheep and goats live!

Third photo is of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. We went there on a dark snowy day and it was just lovely!

The fourth photo is a view from Pemaquid Point. Imagine the wind and snow hitting my face as I took this photo! The only sound besides the wind and the snow hitting me were the waves crashing on the rocks!