Happy Thanksgiving! Letter to Santa

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! We had two guests and enjoyed our traditional dinner: steak! One of our guests loves to help prepare food. He has been a guest for holidays with our family for years. As the day went on we kept crossing off things from our menu! I gave up on making pumpkin soup, he gave up making a Bernaise sauce to go with the steak and he also gave up making some bread pudding. Just as well, we had plenty of food otherwise.

Samuel does not care for beef so he had his old standard entree, chicken nuggets! He has not been as cooperative with trying new food as he was about a year ago. I need to strategize a bit. Last year a taste of soda in a cup was enough of a "reinforcer" to get him to try sampling new food. That is not the case anymore.

This is the first year that Samuel will be writing a letter to Santa with a specific request that is his own. He has been wanting an X-Box 360 for a while. We told him, "Maybe you can ask Santa for one at Christmas." Now he goes around saying, "I can't wait to get my X-Box 360 for Christmas!" Here's the problem, we are a Playstation Family! We have a PS2, a PSP, and quite a selection of games to go along. While I am thrilled that Samuel has requested something on his own, I just don't see how "Santa" could bring something that is a whole new system to deal with! We are trying to steer his request for a Wii game instead. He has been using one at occupational therapy and his brothers have tried one at a friend's house. Yes, Wii is a new system, but one that the entire family could get some use out of. (I'd love to try Wii Fit!)

My Helper and Current Happenings

My daughter, who just turned three, is in "potty training" mode right now. About all she wants to do to "train" however, is put on a pair of underwear and then sit on her potty chair in front of her "Once Upon A Potty" DVD. Yesterday she wanted to watch it and she asked me to help her find the DVD. I looked in two places it could possibly be and it was not there. She started to panic and I was about to (because there were about 10 other things I should have been working on then and a DVD hunt in our house can be a real undertaking!) but then I remembered that I now have a helper in that regard, Samuel! Lately I have found that his memory for the location of things in our house is quite extraordinary. Before I went any further, I asked Samuel, "Do you know where her DVD is?" He walked right over to where it was, picked it up and offered to put it in the DVD player for her. Crisis averted!

A little over a month ago I became the new Vice Chairman for our county's Special Education Advisory Committee. Cut and paste this site in your browser if you want to find out more about what the role of the advisory committee is (it is copyrighted so I don't want to do a direct link): http://www.peatc.org/Fact%20Sheets/seac.pdf There is a bit of a story behind this which I will not bore you with here except to summarize it briefly. Our committee was in need of a new chairman and I helped to nominate someone that I know for the position. I was quite surprised when the previous chairman then nominated me for the position of Vice Chairman, a position that I didn't even know existed.

Here I am, a homeschooling Mom, now in the position of advising the local public school system regarding special education! This is not a place I expected to find myself in. However, this is a good thing. I am still trying to get used to the idea and am slowly learning what all is expected of me. One of the first projects I am working on is getting together some kind of a website or yahoo group that will contain information and provide a means for parents to share information and get questions answered. Nothing like that exists for our immediate local area yet. I already have a group in place for the support group at my church, but this new group will be able to reach a wider audience. Recent events have shown that this could really be helpful for parents whose children are now reaching the age of "transition" out of the public school system to adulthood. I also think it will be a valuable resource for the parents of children who are newly diagnosed, no matter what their "special need" is.

In the last 6 months I have also come across two other support groups in our area that I am hoping to become more involved with. One is run by a Christian Church. The t-ball league we participated in over the summer was run by them and they are sponsoring a bowling league. What I particularly have enjoyed about this group so far is that Samuel's siblings have been able to come along and participate. That is so helpful! I don't like to "segregate" Samuel from his siblings to participate in things, but sometimes it is necessary. I wish that I could attend more of their support group meetings for parents, but have only made it to two of them so far.

The second support group I have come across is for autism. They run 8 week parent education groups that I have not been able to participate in yet. I am hoping to be able to participate in the session that will begin this January. A social group for children goes on while the parents attend the meetings and I am hoping that Samuel will be able to participate in it, along with his younger brother. This is the closest group to me geographically that I have found for autism so far. I am already on their yahoo group and have enjoyed getting to talk to other people in my area. I attended a Sensory Integration seminar that this group hosted this past Friday and finally got to meet a few people in person! It has been awkward for me having so much to say to these folks when I haven't even met them yet. I was particularly glad to meet the facilitator of the group, who up to that point I had only talked to on-line and on the telephone.

I am trying to have Samuel involved in Special Olympics basketball as well. We attended the first practise two weeks ago. Since I did not have a physical done yet for Samuel we could not go last week. I tried taking him for a physical this week but he would not cooperate completely with his pediatrician so the form went unsigned. We will try to complete the exam the week after Thanksgiving. That reminds me, I better call the coach to inform him that we will not be there today!

I am always complaining about how busy I am and how there aren't enough hours in the day, and now that is more true than ever! I'm being forced to learn time management skills, and am trying to exercise patience more than ever. It's not easy, but I should not complain. I have opportunities before me that I should be grateful for and should take advantage of.

Halloween 2008

A princess, Indiana Jones, Samuel is Darth Vader (this is the first year he wore a mask!), and a Colonial Patriot messenger/soldier (he didn't have a musket here, so he was carrying his pack full of copies of the Declaration of Independence!).

I'll tell more about Halloween later, just wanted to post this photo before it's Thanksgiving!

A Glimpse Into My Life Long Ago

A little off the topic of autism here...part of the long life I had before living with autism and all the other things I deal with these days.

Free time in my late summer and autumn days between the age of 19 and 22 was consumed by my participation in the marching band at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (located in the town of Indiana, Pennsylvania). I was priveleged to be a piccolo player in this great marching band.

Our season started in late August at a week long camp. Then, we practised for two hours 3 nights each week. We had an amazing amount of music and drill work to memorize! We played at IUP football games and various exhibitions in Pennsylvania throughout the fall. During my last years we travelled to eastern Pennsylvania and also to Maryland. The ending of the season depended upon how far the football team went in the division playoffs, usually some time around Thanksgiving (end of November for those of you not in the U.S.).

When I started at IUP in the fall of 1982. I had no idea what I was in for by joining the band. I did not grow up in Pennsylvania, and my knowledge of marching bands was quite limited, having gone to high school for two years over in Europe and then attending my last 2 years at a school in a small town in Rhode Island. I was blown away, this wasn't the typical marching up and down the football field which had been my only knowledge of marching bands up to this point!

This first video clip was one of my favorites of all the excellent numbers we did. This was our opening number the last year I participated: Camille Saint -Saen's Symphony No. 3 in C Minor (Organ Symphony). I was a drill instructor in the band by this point and I remember how amazed we were in reviewing the drill sheets for this number at the beginning of the season. It took LOTS of hard work for us to pull it together!

This marching band went on to do some cool things after I left IUP:

In 1987, the ensemble was the official band at the US Constitution bicentennial
celebration. The attention IUP received there led to an invitation from Jacques
Chirac, the mayor of Paris, to perform at the America's day celebration of the
French Bicentennial in the summer of 1989. In September of that same year The
Legend toured Washington, D.C., with performances on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial and the Soldiers and Airmen's Home. In 1996 IUP made it's debut
performance at the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City,
performing not only in the parade but also putting on a show in front of the
Statue of Liberty. ..from the IUP Marching Band website

This second video clip is of the band playing what I believe is still its signature song to this day, Amazing Grace, while they were in Paris. Later versions of this (which I found on You Tube) just don't sound the same as how we played it back in my day, but as of the Paris trip it still sounds what I remember it sounding like.

We had a terrific percussion section in this band and they usually had some kind of feature each year, with some amazing drill work for the rest of the band (it was interesting learning to march to Ravel's Bolero!). Listen for some popular Classical music themes in this next clip, from 1983 .

Keep in mind while viewing these videos that they were recorded back in the days before digital technology was widely available!

This is all so far removed from my life now, but I'm grateful to Jared, my fellow band member who did the recording and posting of these video clips to You Tube. It's great to be able to see video of the band again after so many years of not having any access to it. Like I already said, this was before the age of digital recording, and was even before the age where too many people had camcorders.

I'm also grateful to Dr. Charles Casavant, who gave so many IUP alumni the wonderful experience we had in the marching band under his direction. This band is now called "The Legend", "The Pride of Pennsylvania," and "The Beast of the East," all names well deserved!

I'd love to hear about what you all did in your younger days!

Incessant Teasing!

Samuel has taken to teasing his "baby" sister! Well, I guess she's not really a baby anymore, she's almost three years old. Just about every time he sees her he gets this devious grin on his face and either says her name (also in a devious fashion), or he reaches out to her with his hand kind of like a "claw" and "growls" at her. The whole time he does it he's just grinning and giggling away. Why? Because he is "rewarded" with shrieks and screams from her!

I'm trying to make her understand that her reaction is what he is really after, it's not so much that he wants to physically go after her. However, in her defense, he has pulled her hair and pushed her down enough times that she does see the need to fight back. How do I convince her that the best way for her to "fight back" to his teasing is just to ignore him?! So far it's not working. Instead, she screams bloody murder and then one of her other two big brothers plays knight in shining armor and some kind of wrestling match or brawl ensues!

We're having countless outbursts of this throughout our days at home right now!

Thank you Maddy!

I have been given an award by Maddy at Whitterer on Autism! Thanks so much! I love Maddy's blog as well, I can't think of another with so much humor and fun!

I would like to pass this award on to Sharon at The Skates Family 7. I enjoy the stories and terrific photos she shares about her children and family, and her cakes are terrific!

I would also like to pass this award on to Miss Nelson at Meaningful Outcomes. I greatly admire teachers who take the time to share their knowledge with parents like she does on her blog.

Additionally, I would like to award Mother of Many, at A Blog on the Spectrum. Hers is one of the first blogs I started reading, going on 2 years ago. She shares lots of fun photos and pictures. I also enjoy reading about her family and the multitude of other entertaining things she talks about!

An Award

Mrs. C gave me the Perfect Blend of Friendship Award. As she described herself when she was given this award, "to claim my fabulous prize of four cyber coffee cups full of mysterious liquid, I must answer the following questions and provide links to five unsuspecting victims:"

1. Do you have the same friends since childhood? I moved 15 times growing up, and somehow I have managed to keep in touch with one person! I have a friend from way back in third grade. We knew each other in Monterey, California, for the year that our Dads were attending graduate school. The last time we saw each other was when we were twelve years old, back in 1975. I lived in Philadelphia, PA and she lived in Doylestown, PA. We still send each other birthday cards and Christmas cards every year. She has been back in California now for over 25 years while I have stayed on the East coast.

2. What do you value most about your friends? Their dependability and trustworthiness.

3. Are your friends your sounding boards? I always thought being able to be a sounding board for each other was a part of friendship, but I've learned a very hard lesson about this in the past few years. Actually, I think my problem had more to do with thinking certain people were better friends than they actually were. I find it difficult to balance being cautious and freely sharing my thoughts. I'm still learning and trying to grow up!

4. What is your favorite activity to share with your friends? Chatting and going out for lunch or coffee.

I would like to share this award with:

Kaber

Tammy

Sharon

Chris

The Bishops Wife

Thank you Mrs. C! My first award!