Pete and Pam Wright

Last week I attended a conference by Pete and Pam Wright of Wrightslaw. Wow. It was amazing!

As speakers they are phenomenal. Very engaging. I do not like sitting still. I did not have any problems sitting all day (minus the well spaced breaks) and listening to them. I could have done it for days!

As providers of information for parents with special needs kids - they are the experts.

The format was not as I expected. In the past when I have attended conferences I've gotten PowerPoint handouts and the speakers read and added to those. There were no handouts. I was nervous. What am I going to do for 8 hours if I have nothing to look at, doodle on and record my thoughts so I don't forget them?!? Instead, there was an agenda. Pete and Pam used power points to go thru their presentation, but we actively used the 2 books that were given to us. (Which by the way were Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition and Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy, 2nd Edition). Both these books are extremely resourceful and they showed us not only what was in them, but HOW to use the information. And, I truly felt I walked away having absorbed their message without having handouts to jot down notes on.

I wish I could only have a day to sit down with them and really talk to them. They are so knowledgeable about this field, so approachable, so real-life. They make parents feel like they CAN fight for their child. And they are right. We can. We just need cheerleaders like them to guide us along.

Kari over at The Karianna Spectrum and Silicon Metro Moms has mentioned them coming to her area next spring. If anyone else has them coming near to them they should plan on attending. It is most definitely worth hearing them and learning from them. They are exactly the resource parents of special needs kids need.

Thank you Pete and Pam Wright

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I've Been Tagged!

Toni over at A Tale of Two Kiddies tagged me a meme:

7 Unique Things

Wow – my first meme – I feel all important-like and liked :)

So, here goes:

1. I’ve only got 1 kid, he’s 9 and I STILL get asked if we are having more.

2. I love red wine and chocolate ice cream as a meal.

3. My son turned into the breech position 4 days before his due date and after I had been 4 cm dilated for 2 weeks. I knew he would be trouble then!

4. When I was in 4th grade I had a dream that President Reagan was riding a motorcycle in the desert and some cowboys on horses came up behind him and shot him. Now, remember, I was 10 and grew up in New England. My concept of California was that it was ‘out West’ hence deserts and cowboys. The next day at school my principal announced that President Reagan was shot.

5. I love to kick box and ride a bike, but find it hard to motivate myself. I feel like a kid at bath time – I never want to take one, but once in, I never want to get out!

6. I’m glad there is only 1 more random/weird thing to think of!

7. I have stared at this computer screen for entirely too long trying to think up a last comment and wonder if others do the same or if they can rattle off 7 comments with the snap of their fingers.....

And there you go! Instead of tagging 7 people, I’m opening this up for anyone who’s game.

Rules are simple:

-Link to your tagger and post rules.
-Share 7 facts about yourself, some random and some weird
-Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names/blogs
-Don’t forget to let them know they were tagged by a comment on their blog!

Have fun!

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Shhhh..... Don't Tell My Son

I put carrots in his brownies. Why did I do such a thing? Because he does not eat many vegetables. He eats 3: corn, spaghetti sauce and ketchup.

He used to be an extremely picky eater. And I mean extremely picky. Down to the brand. For a couple of years he had about 5 foods, all brand specific he would eat. While this made grocery shopping quite easy, it made meal time quite the battle.

He is also on the Autism Spectrum Disorders. Picky eating and sensory issues are very common with kids on the spectrum. I had tried sneaking a variety of nutritious foods into his foods before, but the kid knew. He knew as soon as he smelled it. He knew as soon as his tongue was an inch away. Last year, as many of you know, we put him on the GFCF diet. His willingness to try foods increased immensely. He began eating a huge variety of breads, pastas, cereal, meats, dairy (well, substituted dairy) and fruits. He doubled his vegetable intake to 2 – form corn to corn and spaghetti sauce. But he’s still very hesitant to try other vegetables and won’t eat them.

I have heard much about Jessica Seinfeld’s new book Deceptively Delicious. So I decided to give it a try. Why not? What have I got to loose? His tastes are slowly becoming braver. Maybe the taste of vegetables won’t be so over powering in foods he likes now.

So, I gave him the brownie. “Uh, Mom, this brownie tastes different.” No, keep the creative ideas coming, it can still work! “Well, ummm, probably because I put more chocolate chips in it than usual – it might be, umm, more chocolately.” He takes another bite and thinks. “Yea, that might be it.” Then he finishes it and asks for another one.

VICTORY!!! My son has been tricked. He has eaten carrots and is still living. There has been no tantrum. No tears involved. And maybe over time from the slight taste of carrots in brownies he’ll grow a tolerance to the taste if I give him some on his plate.

Ummm. I wonder what other vegetables I can put in his foods without him knowing :)

Brought to you by The Parent Bloggers Network’s contest promoting Deceptively Delicious. Visit PBN to see how you can participate!

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I Won't Give It Up

What won't I give up you ask? This sweatshirt.

It's just not any ole gray hooded, front pocketed thermal-on-the-inside you see. It's one just like my Dad used to wear. For work. For the 25 years he did construction/concrete foundations. In New England. In the freezing cold. From 5:30am till 6pm if not later. For 6 days a week.

My Dad missed A LOT by working this schedule. But it allowed my Mom to stay at home with us 4 kids, in a town with a superb school district. It allowed all 4 of us kids to take 2 extra curricular activities each growing up (a sports and a musical instrument). It allowed us to have vacations to show us other parts of the country. It allowed for trips to the movie theater for those rainy afternoons and dinner out on lazy Sunday evenings. Mom was always at our school for school plays and classroom parties. And all this was because of the long, hard hours my Dad, who didn't have a college education, put in, to make a better life for his kids.

In the summers, and sometimes on spring or fall Saturdays my brother and I would go to work with him. We'd get up before the sun was, eat breakfast, bundle up in warm clothes, get in the truck and drive on the dark highways. But when we got to the job site and the sun was up we had the best sandbox a kid could ask for. We got to eat lunch out of the big cooler my Dad had. We got to play with our cousins who tagged along with our uncle (Dad and his brother worked together). We got to get dirty. And we got to spend time with Dad.

I've had this sweatshirt for about 20 years. It was the last sweatshirt I had when I stopped going to work with my Dad. I was a teenager and had my own part time job and friends to hang out with. But I've never given up this sweatshirt. I don't wear it anymore. It would be like making new memories and erasing old ones. So, it sits in my closet under all my other sweatshirts. But I also can't give it up. It has too many memories about my Dad, about my family, about my childhood in it.

This post brought to you by Writing Challenge #5 over at The Mom's Daily Dose Secret Awesome Group of Awesome Blogging Power

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The Horrors of Homework

My son has lost it. And not his homework. He has lost IT. His ability to function. His ability to speak nicely. His ability to set a goal and achieve it peacefully. His ability to get his homework done.

Monday - 4.45 hours of battling
Tuesday 2.45 hours of battling
Wednesday 1.45 hours of battling

His homework should/is designed to take him 45 minutes.

Do you see the pattern though? When I tried praising him on Tuesday for at least making an improvement in how much less time he spent arguing and he was in the right direction (hey - gotta look for the positive where ever you can find it, right?!?) he noticed the pattern - cut in half. So today he was bound and determined to take an hour extra. Because now it's about patterns and completing the pattern. Ugh.

But these meltdowns. I don't want to do homework. My hand hurts. I don't like homework. It's too hard. I want to play outside. I want PlayStation. You're mean. You're not fair. The yelling, the throwing things. The stomping. The excessive fidgeting and wiggling. The increased stemming and echolia when not arguing, having a meltdown or actually doing his homework.

I am so worn out by the time it's bedtime (although I wish it were the same for him!)!
Some of this is age, some developmental, some power battle/seeing what he can get away with, some Asperger. Such a complicated mix.

I won the contest over at Discussing Autism and received the Self-Calming Cards. I need to introduce them first. Teaching a new strategy isn't usually the best in the moment of escalation. It'll only lead to more frustration. But we were busy this past weekend and I didn't have time. But tonight he was fairly calm after finishing his homework, Tae Kwon Do and a nice, long shower. We started working on the cards. He likes them. It'll take some practice to use them without prompting. They're exactly what we needed - some new tricks to put in our bag of tricks.

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Warm and Fuzzies

My son has to write a story for class. He has a title page with title (apparently it's going to be a series, Book I, The Castle of Morca). But that's not the warm and fuzzy part. The warm and fussy part is the next page - the dedication page:

Dedicated
For my mother
who is always there to help me

It doesn't get much warmer and fuzzier than that now, does it?

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A New Purse?!?

I had a dream last night that I bought a new purse. And I loved it. And I loved having the chance to go out shopping for the purse. I went to several different stores and searched and searched until I found THE perfect purse.

What's extremely odd is that I HATE shopping. Like, I really, really, really hate it. And I also do not need a new purse.

So, what the heck was that dream supposed to mean?!?

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