My Blog World and Reality Intersect!

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Sharon, whose blog is The Skates Family 7. She graciously agreed to bake one of her specialty cakes for my oldest son's 11th birthday. We live about an hour's drive from each other, but we met each other about half-way. We were able to talk for a few minutes and I also met her two lovely daughters. I wish we could have visited together longer, but it was already well into the evening and we both had families to get home and take care of (plus, I found out just today, Sharon has a lot going on right now!)



Here is a picture of the cake. My son was very happy with how it turned out and so was I. Not only was it gorgeous, but it tasted yummy too! Everything you see on the cake is edible: the number 11 track, the cars, the Happy Birthday banner, all of it! The frosting is buttercream and the rest is fondant. The cake itself was fudge chip, and it was delicious! (Sharon has a picture of it on her blog too).

My special thanks go to Sharon!

One other thing.. Sharon has a cool bumpersticker on her car "Today's autistic kid is tomorrow's genius." I like that!

Some day I hope I'll get to meet other blogging friends too!

How Much is Okay?

This very thought-provoking video was put on You Tube by CS. He has several videos on Vimeo, check them out! I initially saw this on Andrea's blog, "Autism Unplugged."

Are you comfortable with your autistic child rocking, flapping, and displaying other "autistic" behaviors? I have always tried to let Samuel do these things (and I'm talking about rocking and flapping as well as scripting) as much as possible, but I will admit that as he gets older I am trying to develop the awareness in him that these behaviors are different and that it might be a good idea to do them in private if he can. I do this not because I want him to appear "normal" but because his stimming behaviors seem to get in the way of other things he needs to do. I'd gladly let Samuel rock his way through his school work, like Bill Gates was rocking in his meetings in this video. Right now, however, Samuel repeatedly tunes in and out of his work and his involvement with us as he scripts. I'm moving very slowly in talking to Samuel about this. As far as I'm concerned, I have his whole entire childhood (and maybe longer, if necessary) to educate him and help him learn to cope with life!

I appreciate the opinions that autistic people are making public about the importance of behaviors that convention has held as being "non-functional." That seems to not be the case. They ARE purposeful and functional and we parents should be careful when we try to limit them. We have so much to learn about autism. My gosh, we're still just coming out of the days when autistic people were thought merely to be mentally deficient. We're just beginning to understand that they have a different way of experiencing their surroundings and that they have a different way of learning. Let's be patient and try to understand them better before we go trying to change them in ways that are harmful!

Between School Years

I have mentioned before that school is an ongoing, year-round endeavor in our household. We take breaks when there are special events, holidays or vacations. We also run on a relaxed schedule during part of the summer. That is where we are with school work right now. Samuel is participating in a "speech camp" this week and his older brother is participating in a "history camp." Both of these occur in the morning. In the afternoon, after we have had our lunch and taken a rest, I come up with a bit of work for the boys to do. Samuel has been filling in his calendar, writing in a journal, finishing up his religion book. I also found some workbooks at a wonderful teacher supply store up in Maine.



The store where I got the workbooks is called Play and Learn Toys and Teaching Resources and it is located in Freeport. It has become a family tradition to visit while we are on vacation here. My children love it for all the cool toys. They have a fun Thomas the Tank Engine display and it kept them entertained while I took a long look at the teacher supplies. I am always so tempted to buy all kinds of posters, workbooks and bulletin board supplies, but this year I restricted myself to just a few workbooks and stickers. I will have Samuel work on the two books shown in this photo during the month of August. They are both from Carson-Dellosa Publishing. I really like the "All About Me" book. It is 64 pages long and in it he gets to draw all kinds of pictures and fill in blanks to tell about himself. It's a pre-k to grade 1 level and it is perfect for Samuel. It's easy, the pages are visually "do-able" for him (no color or distracting pictures) and the assignments are short. Also, there is a sticker chart built in to the back cover of the book. I am hoping that Samuel will enjoy filling it in and feel a sense of accomplishment. I'm looking forward to him completing the pages where he tells us what his favorite color is, and what he wants to be when he grows up. He doesn't usually talk about these kinds of things on his own. (In the past he has answered "firefighter" when he is asked what he wants to be when he grows up. I'm curious to see if he'll say that again. It's hard to know if he really means it. He never demonstrates that outside of being asked that question. I wouldn't put it past Samuel to just say an answer to get people to stop asking him the question.)

The Scissor Skills book is also very easy, at least it starts off that way. It looks like it will get much more appropriately challenging as he works through it. I ended up getting scissor skill books for Samuel's younger brother and sister as well. I never would have allowed my two oldest boys to try scissors at age 2, but I am comfortable letting my little girl, age 2, do so now. I make sure she only tries it while I am close by at the table with her. She just loves "working" at the table like her big brothers do!

My big job for the month of August is to write up a new IEP for Samuel, choose and order curriculum materials for him, and organize work for my two other sons. I already have their books. This is the first year that I am using a pre-organized curriculum for both of his brothers, in which I "enrolled" both boys and will send off some of their work for grading. I may end up ordering some of Samuel's workbooks from the same place, but there is no way that he can follow a packaged curriculum.

Maine Vacation 2008

We returned this summer to Midcoast Maine, to Bristol. It is about an hour's drive north of Portland, along Route 1, which goes right up the coast. We stayed with the same friends we stayed with last Christmas. They have an 1800s house with plenty of bedrooms and space for us to relax. They acquired a few animals this spring and my children had a few opportunities to help feed them. I don't think Samuel ever helped with the feeding, but my oldest son helped feed the geese and my youngest son enjoyed gathering eggs every day.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera! I really wanted to take some photos and share some more of the sights up there. On this trip we took a drive north from where we stayed to Lincolnville. We crossed a narrow stretch of Penobscot Bay over to Isleboro, a small town on an island. We were there for a very quick visit with our friend's son, who is currently working there. The views on the ferry ride were just lovely. We could see some areas to the north where we have driven to and stayed in the past. Nowadays we don't go up that far because the kids don't have the patience to endure the long car ride.

We also visited Fort William Henry. This was an English settlement in the early 1600's, but did not remain inhabited for more than a few decades because the territory was in dispute between the English, French, and Indians. A stone fortification was reconstructed at the site in the early 1900s. It looks like a castle turret, so that makes it fun for the kids to look at. We were able to go to the top of it and from there you get a good view of Pemaquid Harbor. While we visited there we were able to see local author James Nelson's re-enactment presentation of Dixy Bull, a pirate who raided the area in the 1630's. We all enjoyed that.

It rained almost every day of our vacation but we still got few good beach days in. My favorite trip to the beach was our last evening there. We got there as the sun was setting and, in typical tourist fashion, combed the beach for pieces of drift wood and rocks. (I just cannot believe I forgot my camera!)

Now we are back in Virginia and I'm wondering where our vacation went, it passed so quickly!

We took a break from Samuel's visual schedule this trip. I didn't even bring it along, though I did bring a marker board, just in case there were any emergency situations that a schedule would have helped. We did bring along a portable DVD player and a select few videos and DVDs. We also had a DVD player and VCR available at the house we stayed at, so these were all helpful reinforcers to get Samuel through his day and some of the things he needed to do. He did get a bit homesick. Our second night away we stayed in Freeport. As we went into McDonalds to get sundaes (for those of our kids who didn't want a dish of Ben and Jerry's ice cream), he started bawling, "I want to go home! I miss Virginia!" I had to take him out of the restaurant and we took a little walk. We had a conversation about how he felt and that helped calm him down. As we did a bit of gift shopping in the various places we stayed, he was determined to find videos. He went up to several clerks and said, "Woman, do you have any videos?" Sometimes he would be a little more specific, "Woman, do you have any Columbia-TriStar videos?"

Lastly, our friends have decided to rent out their house for vacation rentals. I told them I would post information about it, so here it is! This would be a unique vacation opportunity for anyone who wants to experience a bit of life in coastal Maine that is off the typical tourist path. Kurt and Andrea Rauscher, the owners, also live on the property in an electricity-free home they built several years ago (the rental home DOES have electricity). We have become very good friends since we met them on a previous trip to Maine ten years ago. They are wonderful friends and I know will make terrific hosts to vacationers who stay with them!

Coastal Maine Farmhouse Vacation
Rental
call 207.563.2437
Rent a circa 1800, five bedroom,
1.5 bath house located on a very private 20 acres smack – dab in the middle of
the beautiful Pemaquid Peninsula. This house is located in rural Bristol
within 10 minutes drive of Round Pond harbor, New Harbor, Pemaquid point, South
Bristol, Damariscotta and a host of other Maine attractions. Just an hour
and 15 minutes drive north of Portland takes you to the heart of coastal
Maine. Rate $900.00 per week or longer terms available.
Also
available on this property are the following:
An introduction to living
without electricity (rental house has electricity)
Gardening and preserving
food for the family
Animal husbandry – goats, chickens, geese
Woodworking lessons
Boatbuilding lessons
Sailing lessons
Bronze
casting lessons (view our video on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFOo5EWNl8M
Learn how to
heat your house with firewood

The photo at the beginning of this post is of Muscongus Bay. I obtained it from FLICKR , where it was posted by CA. Thank you, CA, for allowing this photo to be shared! Most photographers on FLICKR have now copyrighted their photos (which I completely understand!), so it was much harder to find things I could legally share on my blog this year. That's okay, I just simply need to remember my camera in the future! Anyways, if you are interested in seeing more scenes of where my family vacationed, you can go to FLICKR, in the "Search" field enter "Pemaquid Harbor", "Pemaquid Point", "Round Pond," "Fort William Henry, Pemaquid, Maine" and you will see lots of terrific photos of the area we stayed at!

The photo of the house is where we stayed, and is the house available for vacation rental. The goats belong to the Rauscher family. They acquired them this past spring and have plans to increase the herd.

John Adams Mini-Series

One of my birthday presents last month was the new John Adams mini-series DVD set. My husband and I were both disappointed that we did not have HBO back in March of this year when it was first aired, so I was thrilled to receive it the day after it was released on DVD.

We are both history enthusiasts and we have ancestral links to the Adams family through my husband. His "branch" of the Adams family left Braintree, Massachussets, and settled in the town of Riga, New York. There is a tombstone in the family cemetery there that references the same nobleman (a knight, if I remember correctly) from Somersetshire, England, who is mentioned in David McCullough's book about John Adams, on which this mini-series was based. We're not sure of the exact link we might have to John Adams or Samuel Adams. Some family members are trying to better establish the family tree so hopefully we'll find out someday! Three of our four children share the names of characters from this miniseries. We also share John and Samuel Adams' strong beliefs in personal liberty.

My children enjoyed watching this series as well, though my oldest son was the only one to watch it in its entirety. There are a few spots that I would not recommend allowing children to see. Among them are the tarring and feathering scene (distant nudity and somewhat violent), the scene where a man's leg is amputated, a scene showing Benjamin Franklin sitting in a bathtub with a woman he's not married to, and we skipped over the scene showing Nabby Adam's mascectomy because it looked like it was going to be on the graphic side.

I would say that Samuel's favorite part was the theme music, which he was singing within a few days after watching it! I may get the soundtrack as everyone else in the family seems to like the music as well. Samuel also got a kick out of watching Samuel Adams. What child wouldn't find it interesting to see someone with their name on-screen?

A particularly interesting feature of this series is the ability to select, in the special features menu, a way to watch it with historical facts shown on the screen. It's similar to "pop-up video." We did not use it the first time we watched it, but have been going through the series a second time with it. I found it to be very helpful in answering some of the questions that I had after watching it the first time.

I really like the actors who play John and Abigail. I had seen Laura Linney in "You Can Count on Me," which I didn't particularly like, but I didn't realize all the other things she has been in and the critical acclaim she has received. I really like how she portrayed Abigail in this series. I had never heard of Paul Giamatti, who played John Adams. I think both actors did a superb job and I look forward to checking out both of them in other films they have been in.

I also look forward to reading David McCullough's book about John Adams. My husband got it a few years ago but I have not read it yet. Some neighbors of ours read it out loud together as a family. I think that's a great idea and I think we'll give that a try after I finish reading the kids some of the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Wrapping up the School Year - An Immense Relief!

Oldest son's standardized testing is finished, ready to be sent off for grading. Samuel's work has been evaluated and I have the evaluator's summary letter in hand. I don't yet need to send in any "numbers" for youngest son's work, that begins at age 6 in Virginia. Best of all, I think everything went well this year. My first year homeschooling three children is over and I can still say I think I made the right choice to take Samuel out of school so that I could teach him at home. Not that everything is perfect, we have lots of room for improvement (who doesn't!?), but I'm happy having all my kids at home right now.

I recently went through the exercise of actually writing out the goals and objectives we were working on for Samuel this year. I feel so much more organized now in what we are aiming for with him. The plan I have developed for Samuel is so much more accurate than the school's plan in terms of what we really want him to achieve. Seven out of ten of his goals are related to his life skills. His previous plan only had buttoning, zipping, and controlling his behavior that addressed these things. There is so much more that he needs to accomplish than that, and I have found that educating him at home is the best way to tackle these goals. It was hard to narrow down everything to just 10 goals, there are so many things we are working on with him!

After our vacation I'll be coming up with a new IEP for Samuel and will be busy checking out all the curriculum recommendations I got from the education consultant. All of this on top of still checking out RDI, and everything else I want to do! There aren't enough hours in the day!

Mom's Taxi Lifestyle Revisited!

We've had a busy busy week! Samuel is taking part in a "camp" at the practise where he used to go for Speech Therapy way back in the days before he went to public school. It is only for a few hours, so while he is there the three other kids and I have been hanging out at a park nearby, since it's too far to come home. Then, for a couple of the afternoons we have also had parties going on and in the evenings I have had grocery shopping and a meeting to attend. Every day I have been in and out of the house two or three times. Some people live like this all the time, and I used to back in the days when Samuel went to school. I went crazy then and I am going crazy now. I have gotten used to being a homebody! Not that I want to be a recluse or anything, I just can't take the multiple trips in and out of the house all day. At least it's just for this week!