Life Moments With A Child On The Spectrum #9

Today Adam had a math worksheet on comparing numbers using percents.

One problem read:
If Jay has $20 and Mitchell has $80, what percent of Mitchell's money does Jay have?

Adam's answer:
Jay doesn't have any of Mitchell's money.

And this is a perfect example of how his literalness interferes with his education.
He had no problem with the other examples.
(What percent of a yard is a foot, If Carlos makes $480 a month and spends $120 a month for rent, what percent of his income does he spend on rent).

Had he put his answer to Jay's money on a test it surely would have been wrong. And his teacher may not have seen the humor in it either.

He can do the work. Heck, he had solved all the math problems in his head correctly before I had finished reading the problem. But only if they couldn't be taken literally.

Read more!

Life Moments With A Child On The Spectrum #8

Adam was getting ready to do his homework. A project from his geography unit. He had to draw a birds eye map of one floor in our house.

Adam - Mom, Dad, I'll need a ladder and some duck tape.

Mom - Why do you need that to do you your homework?

Adam - How else am I to get a bird's eye view of the floor if I don't climb a ladder and duck tape myself to the ceiling?

Read more!

Life Moments With A Child On The Spectrum #7

In this pencil sharpener one would find not pencil shavings, but eraser shavings. To add to the collection of other eraser stuff started earlier this month by Adam. This collection also proudly collected during school. Stay tuned to see in what other forms an eraser can be collected. Because I am definitely sensing a new line of collections here.

Read more!

Life Moments With A Child On The Spectrum #6

New kind of TicTacs? Nope. This is what Adam had in his hand when I picked him up from school the other day. Those pink things in the TicTac container would be bits of an eraser he cut up during class. (Oh, and he was so very excited about this too)

In the past he has collected pencil tips in small containers. Looks like this year he will be expanding his collections to include the other end of pencils also.

Read more!

Life Moments With A Child On The Spectrum #5

Saturday morning Adam was running around the house. A.Lot. And making random and loud noises. A.Lot.

Me: Adam, you better calm down right now. We are NOT having one of those days so get that through your head right now. Understand?

Adam: Yes Mom

5 minutes later. Behavior is continuing.

Mom: Adam, I thought I had made this clear?

Adam: Mom - technically you said get it through your head. So that means IT went THROUGH my head and didn't stay, so I must have forgotten.

Mom: Well, then, you'd better go find it since it went through your head and put it back in your head and make it stay there.

Adam runs around house 'looking' for the phrase that is floating somewhere in our house.

Adam: Can't seem to find it Mom.

I play along some more and put out my hand and tell him here it is.

Adam: Wow Mom, how'd you find that?

Mom: Must be magic. Now put it IN your head.

Adam takes the phrase from my hand, puts it up to one ear and smushes it in and puts his hands over both ears. Shakes his head around a bit. Puts hands down.

Adam: OK Mom. We're all systems go for a great day now.

And a great day was had.

Read more!

Life Moments With A Child On The Spectrum #4

The past week my folks, brother and his son came into town to visit. And stayed at our house. And my sister, brother-in-law and her daughter spent a lot of time visiting too (they live locally). Of course I love my family, and they love us, and each visit is a time to treasure since we live hours apart.

But, it wrecks havoc on my Son. Which in turn wrecks havoc on hubby and myself because he is stressed out.

So, today I bring you:

Top 5 Signs That You've Had Family Spending The Past Week With You

(when you're on the spectrum)

5. Having to sleep in your parents bedroom, because if things are going to be different in your house at night time, then one must sleep in a different room also

4. Significantly reducing food intake (and losing 3 pounds in a week, which is 5% of total body weight)

3. Banging your head on your mattress to go to sleep at night (a behavior that was pretty much extinguished after 7 years trying to extinguish)

2. Sorting your Lego's by color and type and then rebuilding the same thing over and over and over again.

And the top sign that you've had family spending the past week with you (when you are on the spectrum):

1. Crying for a good 30 minutes because your Nana took you home from Target a different way than your Mom does (not a wrong way, mind you, just a different way)

And a sign of huge progress:

Within 2 days all weight has been regained, head banging is pretty much extinguished again, Lego's are being played with, not stemmed with, sleeping in own bed, and being just fine with however we drive anywhere.

Read more!

Life Moments With A Child On The Spectrum #2

How to tell when Son is genuinely, truly, grounded and happy:

-he skips instead of walking

-he talks passionately about math - formulas, patterns, similarities between percents/decimals/fractions, you get the picture

We've had a lot of that today :)

Read more!

Life Moments With A Child On The Spectrum #1

To Son: It's time for dinner.

Son: OK

*gets up from watching TV and on the way through the kitchen starts making those random, annoying noises. Stops in his tracks, looks at me and says:

Was that out loud? Because if it was I take it back!

Now, how do you keep a straight face with that I ask?

Read more!