Author: Melissa

Oh, hi!

Melissa

I sort of disappeared, eh?  A few things have conspired against me in the last almost 2 weeks…1) I had a birthday and Monkey gave me The Sims 3, which is incredibly addictive; 2) Work has been very, very busy and my co-workers have been out of work leaving me to man the ship solo; 3) I am leaving for vacation myself on July 2 and there is way, way too much to be done before I feel comfortable doing so; and 4) It’s summer and our weekends disappear at light speed!

So, what have we been up to?  Monkey had his last normal school day of the year last Thursday.  His class put on a end of year performance for all the parents and siblings.  It was incredibly cute but I’ve had the lyrics for “Toe Knee Chestnut” stuck in my head ever since.  Let me tell you, I hate Toe Knee at this point.  Monkey will start his summer session next week, he’ll be with the same class but he’ll be in a new classroom (with a guinea pig!) for the summer.  The new classroom will stick after the regular fall session kicks in but I think the guinea pig will go back to whichever class she belongs too normally.

Little Cupcake has turned 2 and we went to her birthday party.  Cupcake looooves Monkey, she and Monkey yell to each other from the windows when the other is outside.  Sometimes Cupcake yells from her bedroom window when Monkey isn’t outside (her bedroom window faces our dining room.)  A while back, I forget if I’ve mentioned this, Monkey began greeting our neighbor (and now just about every man he sees) with “Yo mon!”  I have no idea where he picked up the Jamaican accent but it’s stinking cute.  Now Cupcake has started yelling “Yo, [Insert an incredibly cute mispronunciation of Monkey’s name]!” whenever she sees him.  The cuteness is just about deadly. Monkey has also picked up something from Cupcake… “Mine!”  Fortunately, he’s only used it in response to her claim that something (everything) is “No! Mine! No!”  He has also discovered that he can use his height to his advantage and he will just hold whatever she is trying to take from him over his head until she gives up, lol.  He won’t resist her if she gets her hands on it but he will now try to keep her from getting that far.

What else?  We’ve been gardening.  Our snow peas are coming on full steam and I can’t wait to have a big plate of them very soon.  Our strawberry patch has been producing very well this year and we’ve even managed to get a few despite the squirrel who thinks taking a single bite out of each ripe berry is funny.  Our garden experiment in Maine was mostly a failure.  Nothing sprouted but a single stalk of corn (which is useless, lol) and our potatoes.  We’re very excited about the potatoes though and we did toss in a few bush bean seeds and some squashes yesterday in hopes that we’ll get a bit more.  We’re really just trying to figure out what we can grow up there at this point.  The two late frosts really put a crimp in the, already short, growing season.  Duhdee is planning some sort of primative irrigation system for next year to continue to experiment with.

OK, I do believe that catches mostly up to speed.  I’ll have to post about Father’s Day tomorrow, I am just out of time now!

The trickster.

Melissa

This AM Monkey and I took the bus to school.  While we were waiting at the bus stop one of my bus friends ((someone I see and talk to almost every time I ride the bus but I don’t know his name…kinda weird but it’s a bit awkward to ask him his name after 5 years, lol)) approached and greeted us.  Monkey used his favorite diversion tactic and left me very confused.  I had to translate each of these for the gentleman.

“Look!  Bus!”  (He looks at the school bus across the street.)

“Look!  Truck!” (He looks at the truck driving by.)

“Look!  Elephant????” (He looks over his shoulder and then snaps his head back around with the most confused look on his face.)

All I could do was shrug and laugh.  That kid!

Oh, so tired.

Melissa

We’ve been rather busy this weekend!  On Saturday we took Monkey on a playdate with another little boy with FX who lives nearby.  The other little boy took a 4 hour nap ((I am SO jealous!)) so the adults sat and chatted while Monkey amused himself with all the toys.  It is so nice to sit and talk to people who speak our language 🙂

Today was spent in Maine.  We stopped to check on and water our garden up there, it’s not doing so well but it was just an experiment.  After that we went to a Portland Sea Dogs game, which they won.  It was Monkey’s first baseball game and he did great!  He did not use the seat we had for him but he was able to stay for the whole game.  He would pretend to pitch the ball and then clap…for Every.  Single.  Pitch.  The stadium erupted into cheers on a number of occasions.  The first few times really freaked him out but he calmed down as soon as the pitcher resumed pitching.  Towards the end of the game he hardly reacted to the screaming at all.  Whenever a run scored the crowd would stomp their feet on the metal floor of the stadium and it sounds like very LOUD thunder.  He totally loved that, even when we were under the stadium by the concessions.

After THAT we went to my neice’s graduation party which just seems so unbelievable…I’m not sure how that happened.  One second she’s running around with a stick in her mouth, licking people because that’s what puppies do, duh, and the next she’s all dressed up and dancing at her graduation party.  Scary.  Monkey and Duhdee were pretty much beat by this time but I had fun.  We tend to be a loud and rather rambunctious crew, we left hours ago and I still keep randomly cracking up over the smart @ss comments and insults that were flying.  I love my family.

Now, sunburnt and exhausted, I am headed for bed.  Duhdee is already calling me “lobster,” I can just imagine what I will look like tomorrow…and the sunblock was sitting by my feet the entire time.  D’oh!

I started to write this as a comment and it got out of control :-)

Melissa

Grammy’s comment about knowing her kids more than the teachers triggered this.  Monkey’s current teacher certainly seems to agree with the idea that we know him better than they do.  But I’m not all that sure that this is totally accurate.  I think in some ways they do know more about him than we do, which is why we let them set his goals without much interference. 

Monkey seems to have different attitudes at home and at school.  He will do things at school that he won’t at home and vice versa.  It’s weird.  He won’t use his entire vocabulary at school…there are certain things we hear him say all the time that they never hear.  Again, weird.  We thought that if he felt more comfortable in his classroom (and he does) he would share more of his skills but it doesn’t seem to have worked that way.  He’s definitely showing MORE than in the last classroom but still not all.  I wish I knew how to fix that.

One example, at our annual meeting the ST mentioned that she wanted to work on breathing exercises with him to help him speak more loudly.  Uh, what?   We were flummoxed, the boy has lungs and USES them to the point of giving poor Duhdee headaches some days.  She was shocked to hear that he can be so loud, she really thought he had some sort of trunk weakness that was affecting his diaphragm. 

Another example is that at school he will apparently eat with utensils…we have to constantly remind him at home to use his fork/spoon and he still ignores us a lot of the time.  I would have said he didn’t have the coordination or fine motor skills to do that…in fact I have said that exact thing on those stupid questionnaires we have to fill out for all of the evaluations we’ve done.

I just wish I knew how to get him to use all the skills he has regardless of which environment he is in.  Any suggestions?  I can’t be the only one who’s seen this 🙂

So depressing.

Melissa

I’m back to work.  *SIGH*  I was really enjoying my recuperation.  I had my own personal Buffy marathon going on.  I miss Buffy and Angel and evil Spike (I’m only part way through Season 2.)   C’est la vie.

This morning Monkey had two escorts into the classroom.  Two of the little girls in his class arrived just as we did.  Duhdee and Monkey stayed outside with them for a minute to give me a chance to go talk to the teacher.   I had to ask Monkey’s teacher to stop greeting him in the mornings.  We had noticed that he was increasingly upset about going to school and we realized that it started right about the time she began to get down at his level when he walked through the door and basically force eye contact.   She didn’t touch him, she just would not get up and walk away until he made eye contact, no matter how much he squirmed.  Not good.  

The talk went fine, she is OK with backing off during the transition period.  I was worried that I would have to point out that it is in his IEP for a reason.  I can’t seem to do this without feeling snarky and I don’t want to be snarky with his teacher.  I really like her.  Hopefully he will relax in the mornings again.  He does fine with her the rest of the day…it’s just that first minute or two that it takes to get him through the dooor and get his backpack hung up. 

So, anyway, Duhdee and Monkey arrived a few minutes after me.  Monkey had a girl on each arm right up until they walked through the door.  He was in heaven.  He is serious trouble ladies.  Between the sunny nature, the cherub-like cheeks and those curls…big, BIG trouble.

The little things.

Melissa

One thing, of many, that I love about my son is how easy he is to please.

Is he bored with his toys?  Get a large cardboard box.  He will play in and with it until it is no longer identifiably a box but appears to be just a piece of ratty cardboard.

If you want to make his morning?  Take him for a ride on the bus.

If you need something to amuse him so you can do outdoor chores?  Use the hose to make a puddle on the driveway.

Having trouble getting him to eat ((This is not a common occurence, the boy loves his food, but when he is stressed by visitors it does happen))?  Sit on the floor with him and call it a picnic.

He doesn’t want to settle down for the night?  Ask him if he wants to sleep on the floor, it will be lights out in no time.

Blow bubbles, get out the vaccum cleaner, convince one of the dogs (but not both at once!) to play “fetch,” pull up a train video on YouTube, lay on the lawn and watch the airplanes…any one of these things will make his face (and my heart) light up with joy.

It really is all about the little things.  It’s taken me an awful long time to learn this and I might not ever have done so without him showing the way.