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A 1st grade graduation present

June 23, 2012 By 3 Comments

Yes, I still have to finish the much-belated-long-awaited post about Ash’s birthday party.  Ditto for my medical update, and the bit about his CSE meeting, and, well, a bunch of other stuff.  The thing is, I’m trying to pack, and those updates take longer than I really aught to spend right now.  Trust me, packing isn’t what I’d rather be doing, context aside.  So, in the meantime, you get another quicky post.  It’s a quicky post about my big boy….seven years old, with his 8th tooth wiggly (he wants it to come out NOW so we can warn the Tooth Fairy about the move), and 2nd grade on the horizon in a whole new school.  My big boy, who mastered buttons (before snaps?!), who has started eating peanut butter sandwiches (and who will consume an entire apple, as long as it is cut into four pieces — they can be any shape, but it has to be four), and who thinks it’s silly that I can’t always remember that the puzzle he won at his school carnival has a shape technically called a stellated rhombic dodecahedron.  My big boy, who in the middle of all this chaotic limbo has grown into wanting to sleep with his knight light on, and wanting me to snuggle him to sleep in his castle bed in the first place, “For comfort.”

Did you catch the bit about how he’s moving on to the 2nd grade?  Good, because that’s the context of this post.  Ash did it!  He graduated from another grade, while in an integrated program, in the first try, for the second time!  I am so proud of him!!  And, because I have friends that are lovable dorks and who notice my inquiries to other friends into the existence of coupons which would help me get him certain things as a graduation present, sometimes those graduation presents actually come from someone else.  Someone else who needs to be tackled by the child they blame their impulse on.  *cough*

Ash opens the box.  Not so long ago, he might have had trouble getting to that point before he had finished examining the box.

Ash checks out his new dragon.  He likes that it’s so soft, as well as that it’s shiny and green with glittery gold parts.

Ash notices the strap-on wings.  Build-a-Bear probably did things that way because most of their animals get dressed in little outfits, but since we’re us, Ash learned the word ‘prosthetic’.  Of course, he immediately thought that we should bring his new dragon to the zoo to show the prosthetic wings to the zookeepers and suggest something similar for the one-winged birds that they take care of.  If they are unconvinced, he will make them watch the How To Train Your Dragon movie with him, where, of course, another dragon flies again with the help of a prosthetic half-tail.

Ash is pretty proud of his idea.

Now Ash wants to know about the pendant-style tag on a gold cord around the dragon’s neck.  The tag notes that this is a limited edition critter in honor of The Year of the Dragon, (and features what Steffan would like to note is a horrible rendition of even the simplified form of the Chinese character for ‘dragon’).  I explain.  Ash points out — oh, I’m so proud! — that this does not look like a Chinese dragon, and wants to know if perhaps the explanation was that it was adopted by a Chinese dragon family.

Ash reassures his new dragon that this is the last time he will have to be adopted, because now he is part of OUR family.

Ash is pleased to get confirmation of this notion from both Mommy and Daddy.

“And you will help the rest of my dragon family guard my castle at night so I can be safe to go on dream dates with Mommy.”

It occurs to Ash to ask whether I have to pack up his dragons for the move yet, or if they can continue guarding his castle.

Oh.  Oh, it’s ok.

Whew!  That’s a relief.

He wasn’t so sure about that.

Now that we’re all feeling secure, Ash decides it’s time to name his new dragon.

“The first part of your name is like your color, and I think the last part is “full” because you are full of shiny green….your name is GREENFUL!”

Ash thinks it’s pretty darn cool that he got Greenful BECAUSE HE GRADUATED FROM 1ST GRADE.

It’s also worth giggling over.  Of course, pretty much everything is worth giggling over.

Ash shortly discovers that Greenful doesn’t just like to cuddle and giggle and prove that he can fly, but that he also likes to fly INTO people and gently bonk their heads with his own, just like he used to as a baby, as a way of introducing himself.  Greenful earns the nickname “Bonk”….not bad for someone who has been hanging out with us for less than an hour.

Attempts are made at two-way flight patterns for Bonk.

But for some reason, Bonk prefers flying at Ash.

Ok, this time he’s ready and waiting for it.

GOTCHA!!!

Welcome to the family, Greenful aka Bonk.  You’ll find lots of love here.  Thank you, Steve, for sending him to us….at Ollie’s insistence or otherwise. ;-)

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A REAL magic wand

March 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

To fully appreciate the story I am about to tell, you must first know that on the 13th, Ash made his first specific birthday request, aside from the party he hopes for.

“I’m asking you why I don’t have a real magic wand!”  …That’s actually how he broached the subject.  I’m pretty sure some of the preceding dialogue only took place inside of his head.

He wants Mommy and Daddy to be able to give him a “real” magic wand.  He does not mean a classic magician’s wand — that simple, narrow black rod with a white tip.  No no no, that’s boring, and not the kind of magic he’s interested in, anyway.  He does not mean a fairy godmother type deal with a star on the end.  Those turn up in so many places that they are suspect.  He also does not mean a Harry Potter style wand.  He hasn’t seen the movies yet and so only has the vague impression that they tend to look like sticks, and he knows that kids tend to get in trouble when they pick up sticks and start to point them at each other.

No, those aren’t the kinds of magic wands he has in mind, at all.  On the 19th, he clarified.  What he means when he asks if he can have a real magic wand for his birthday, please, is something with a silvery dragon on one end, and sparkly crystals, and, “If it isn’t the silver or sparkly or black or wood colors, then it’s blue like a night-time sky with stars, of course.”  My input is that it has to be sturdy enough to survive the fact that he’s only going to be seven, and not so hard-core that it’s likely to damage anyone or anything else.   And, yes, I’ve also explained to him that magic wands don’t do magic all by themselves.

We’re….working on it.

In any event, he’s brought up the wand several more times so far, but a particular episode from the 22nd is amusing enough to merit a post (and therefore the preceding explanation).  I think the manner of his story-telling was influenced by having re-read “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street”, so keep that in mind as you read the following and imagine the style with which he delivered things.  Here’s the break-down of how it went, based on my notes after the fact:

Ash had a strange photo in his wallet.
See, he was walking through the enchanted forest
…when he passed through some transforming magic.
And BECAUSE HE DIDN’T HAVE HIS MAGIC WAND YET….AND WAS HIS BIRTHDAY SOON?!…
…he was magically transformed into…
Could I give him some choices?
…He was transformed into a baby snow leopard…
…with very big paws.
But he could talk, because he wasn’t a REAL snow leopard,
he was just a boy that was turned into one.
As he passed out of the magical woods
…he met a lady.
Wait, the woman had someone else with her.
It was her husband!
So he met the woman and her husband…
…and he explained to them what had happened.
They took his picture
…which is why he has a strange photo in his wallet.
Then he decided that he needed to turn into a boy again…
So he walked BACK through the enchanted forest…
and passed back through the blue sparkly transforming magic…
Yes, it was blue.
…because he had ordered it that way.
And so he turned back into an Ash-boy…
and was telling me this story.
But someone else went into the enchanted forest next,
And he couldn’t help them…
BECAUSE HE STILL DID NOT HAVE HIS MAGIC WAND!
And so they walked through the transforming magic…
But they didn’t turn into the same thing he did.
They turned into…
Could I give him some choices?
They turned into a baby hippo.
But hippos aren’t as smart as snow leopards,
because they aren’t Daddy’s favorite.
So THAT boy didn’t walk backwards when he was done…
…being a hippo…
and turn back into a boy.
So he doesn’t know what happened to him.

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Almost Wordless Wednesday: Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun….*CHOMP!*

March 21, 2012 By 2 Comments

It’s a Super Shark.  It’s sort of almost not quite but adorably whatever close enough like the one in the pamphlet of ideas that came withe the Play Doh Creations kit.  Also, it wants to eat you.

Also, pay no attention to the Christmas Tree in the background.  I never claimed to get everything posted in a timely fashion.  Oh, shush.

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Autism and the school snack day challenge

March 1, 2012 By 3 Comments

Every month, each parent of a child in Ash’s class is assigned one day to bring in snack for the entire class.  The way the 1st grade lunch period is timed, a lot of the kids aren’t fully hungry by then, but they are plenty hungry again by the end of the school day, so a snack helps perk them up to make the most of the last hour or so.  Apparently, very few of the parents actually keep their end of this bargain, and most don’t even warn the teachers that they aren’t going to send or bring anything in, on their assigned day.  (We are also supposedly the only parents that send in a daily, our-child-in-particular-approves-of-this snack, just in case.)  As a result, the kids have been stuck eating a lot of not-exactly-fresh, pre-packaged, bulk basics that the teachers stashed away out of pity, lest the kids go hungry because of the parents.  Instead of having a couple of pretzels or cheese crackers as back-up snacks for times when a kid is allergic to what’s brought in, or really doesn’t like it, or too many things fall on the floor….it’s what the kids are stuck eating, much of the time.  We can’t afford to pick up the slack, but we do try to take advantage of the fact that Ash’s school still allows homemade food to be brought in, when it is our snack day.  Often, it’s brownies — since that was the first snack we brought in during Ash’s kindergarten year, and he was quite fond of how popular it made “his” snack day, amongst the kids — and if it is something like that, then we also try to make a bit of something else, that will work for the two students with egg allergies, and sometimes the one whose mother is trying to keep her from refined sugar, too.  (Semi-surprisingly, no one seems to be on a GFCF diet, a diabetes-friendly diet, or anything trickier to get around, like that.)  I don’t want them to have to be the only ones not getting good stuff.

In any event, ever since getting a cupcake kit as one of his Christmas presents, Ash wanted to make cupcakes for one of our snack days.  He eventually decided on the flavor of the cupcake (chocolate), and the style of decoration (“Funny Faces” — as inspired by one of the ideas in the book that came with the kit).  He picked out what would be used to make the faces.  All that took some time.  He also wanted to be the one to do the decorating of every single one of those cupcakes.  Since there are 24 kids in his class, that….was going to take another quite-a-while.  These were more involved than his previously-made, simplified gingerbread men.  I baked and then had him decorate six cupcakes at a time, storing them in a container in the freezer so nothing would go stale before we had enough for our snack day.  He was VERY proud of himself for completing this self-assigned project.  He was even PROUDER when the long-awaited snack day finally came, near the end of February.  The “Funny Face” cupcakes were a rousing success in his class, popular not only for being tasty, but for being SO COOL.  It was made clear to all the kids after they’d already started proclaiming the awesomeness, that Ash designed and decorated all of them, BY HIMSELF.  What’s more, we just so happened to deliver the cupcakes while Ash was in his reading group, so that group of kids, only partially overlapping with the students in his class, got to see the enticing, impressive snack that he’d made, that they weren’t going to get.  (Is it evil of me to hope that a very particular little girl ended up with a box of raisins or something, that day?)

Ash is hard at work, putting the finishing touch -- a mouth drawn on with black gel icing -- on one of the cupcakes.

You have no idea how much therapy is involved in decorating one of these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Heee! Mommy, you think I did a good job?"

"Yes, yes I think I AM doing a good job."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ash cheered for himself upon the completion of each cupcake.

Occasionally, he threw an, "I think they will be so very yummy!" into the cheer, and added a lip-licking funny face of his own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YAY!

A thumbs-up job, in-very-deed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The complete first set of cupcakes! In the top row you see a funny-face person with a ponytail, and one with hair that looks like a lion's mane. In the bottom row you see another ponytail, a guy with short hair, and two caterpillars.

Really? You think the second set of cupcakes is super cute, too?!

...That will make me giggle....a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It could have something to do with the fact that I am impossibly cute, myself. Maybe.

This is the completed second set of cupcakes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the third set of cupcakes! By the by, that's vanilla frosting for the faces, with hair made of Twizzler Pull-&-Peel, eyes made of chocolate chips icing-glued onto "cupcake bite" candies, noses made from jelly beans, and mouths drawn on with gel icing.

Ash rests secure in a job well done, when it comes to the 4th set of cupcakes, too.

The 4th and final set of cupcakes, complete! Ash pointed out that the one on the top-right looks sad because his hair fell in his face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the last triumphant cheers faded, Ash grabbed my hand, and pressed one of my fingers -- it happened to end up being my thumb -- to his lips. "We need to shush now, Mommy, because I have to tell you something..."

"...after making all these cupcakes, I'm hungry! Om nom nommmm!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, he was pretending to munch on my finger.  Oh yes, you can also see there the horrible chapping he gets above his lip all winter, unless medicated chap stick is applied every quarter hour or so.  And by the way, no, he isn’t wearing the same shirt almost every day — he’s wearing a DIFFERENT blue shirt almost every day.  In any event, I’d say this was a pretty darn successful project.  I kind of hope we don’t have to repeat it each month, though.

 

 

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Distinguishing between dragons

February 29, 2012 By 4 Comments

One of the many crazy-awesome pieces by M. Peña -- the image is linked to source.

Ash decided that for his birthday, he wants me to make him a chocolate cake shaped like a purple dragon with green and blue polka-dot scales all over.  He’s not talking about a flat cake with a dragon design drawn on it either, but a 3D cake similar to the coiled, green dragon one I made Steffan a few years ago.  Very well.  I have a plan.  With luck, I’ll ALSO have more than the 1½ hours from start to finish, and incomplete planned-ingredient list that I unexpectedly had to work with (gotta love when certain people show up 3 hours earlier than you told them the party would begin), when I made that first 3D dragon cake.  Ash doesn’t know yet that I haven’t given up on making his personal party possible, so he thinks there will just be the usual family party.  In line with that thought, if the with-his-friends party can happen, and his auntie wants to make some of her snazzy cupcakes for it to get the attention of his classmates’ parents, I can plot and scheme those with her as a surprise for him, since the dragon cake I would quite possibly have made some version of anyway, has now gone from surprise to request.  The cupcakes can involve different flavors and/or possibly take some egg-free form, if one of Ash’s two classmates with egg allergies, end up coming.  They could be decorated….well, in whatever thematic way we brainstorm that his auntie feels up to, if it comes to that.  I still haven’t asked her about it, because it seems silly to do so before any plan — even the family-based one — is even vaguely in place.

In the meantime, at one point today during a tickle-fight, Ash started to Raaar at me.  I went into silly antics, going on about how the dragon was going to breathe fire at me and turn me into tickle monster toast to eat.  “But of course I’m a dragon!” he said, “But I don’t think I need toast, because my tummy isn’t sick.”  Oh, that was very good to hear, I told him.  By the way, was he a purple dragon with green and blue polka-dot scales all over, like the one he wanted me to make his birthday cake into?  “You’re so silly, Mommy!  Nooooo, of COURSE not.  I’m not a purple dragon with blue and green polka-dot scales.  I’m a REAL dragon that’s green.”

Mommy is indeed pretty darn silly.  That must be why she giggles so much.

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The Valentine love-dragon gets a name

February 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Everyone, Ash would like you to meet Pete the LoveDragon!

Ash received this LoveDragon on Valentine’s Day.  Since he’s been naming his toys (including Gerald the dragon) himself, lately — and occasionally other people’s toys — I have been finding occasions to ask him what the LoveDragon’s name might be, since then.  Well, he was finally ready to answer — but, he qualified, he could not TELL me.  It seems he had to WRITE the name down, instead.  I wasn’t going to argue.  So it was that he ran to get his Magnadoodle (aka “The Dinosaur Writer Toy”….one of the tools that got a lot of use in training his grip and motor control while allowing his pressure control issues, to not BE issues at the same time), and wrote his newest dragon’s name for me.  Then, I had to take a picture, since I’m bad at remembering names.  ;-)

The funny thing is that I haven’t actually managed to get my hands on the Pete’s Dragon movie for him, yet.  Granted, the actual dragon character in that movie was named Elliot, I believe, but it would still have been a likely source of inspiration.  Ash did not want me to ask him where he got the idea for Pete’s name.

Ash did ask me if Pete had a family.  I told him that Pete was part of our family now, just like Fafnir, Amethyst, Gerald, Azul, Rojo, Flame, Sparkle, Aurora and Springtime….his other dragons.  “But,” he told me sadly, “Pete doesn’t have a Mommy and Daddy who look like him.  Like….sort of….you know that Gerald looks like a family with Azul and Rojo, and everybody knows they say that I look like Daddy but except for Mommy-colors of course.“  Naturally, this lead to a refresher talk on what does and doesn’t make a family, etc.  “Well that’s true, Mommy,” he said, “Of course, of course, you’re right.  That’s a good choice thinking, yes.  But I think Pete would like it’s fun to match, anyway.”  So, Ash decided that he, Pete and I would all PRETEND that I was Pete’s Mommy and looked like him, and he was Pete’s Daddy and looked like him, too.  (Actually, isn’t it sort of normal for little kids to get the idea that they are going to marry and end up some day parenting a child with one of their own parents?)  We then, retroactively, taught Pete how to fly and breathe fire.

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What makes us different, makes us special

February 22, 2012 By 1 Comment

Today, Ash watched Disney’s DUMBO for the first time.  After the film, he wanted to read the accompanying story in the special features option, because he’d seen it mentioned on the back of the box- and because I didn’t have a “real” DUMBO book — but after that, he wanted to pretend (which means he wanted us to pretend together) to have dialogue with some of the characters.  Specifically, he wanted to start by pretending to be Timothy Q Mouse (who he has focused on), Dumbo, and a kangaroo joey (who was in the special feature story) in turn, while I asked them what made them different and what that allowed them to do, that made them special.

Just so you know…

  • “Timothy Q. Mouse is different because he didn’t laugh at Dumbo, and that makes him special because he can be Dumbo’s friend and get to fly with him.”
  • “Dumbo is different because he has really big ears, but his ears can keep him warm or dry or he can use them like wings like a bird and fly.”
  • “The baby kang….the….Joey is different because he has big feet, but they help him jump really high, and jumping is a lot of fun.”

Admittedly, the Dumbo and Joey parts were paraphrased (which he can’t do if ASKED to) from the story thing — but hey, at least he got the points from it that he was meant to.  And, y’know, he figured out the bit about Timothy Mouse, which is important.  Before we traded off and I took my turn playing the characters, I asked Ash what made each of US different, and what that let us do that made us special.

  • “Um….I think I don’t have anything different.  I’m just special.”
  • “Mommy, you’re different because you have me.  And you can always hug me, and special things like that.”

I can work with that.

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Valentine’s Day 2012

February 17, 2012 By 2 Comments

I hope that on the 14th, whether or not you celebrated Valentine’s Day, whoever you did or didn’t celebrate with, you knew, and truly felt, that you are loved.

Ash had school on Tuesday, and while he was there, Steffan had work.  The few hours of family togetherness that remained between homework and bedtime were to be dedicated to celebrating the holiday with Ash.  After all that, Steffan and I were — fairly predictably — too zonked to celebrate more privately….but that’s ok.  Steffan and I are a little more able to take it in stride when things aren’t best-manifested on their pre-designated dates, than Ash is!  Steffan had presented me with a chocolate rose (in, “Festive red foil,” Ash would like to be sure you know) at 4am when he woke up and realized that putting the finishing touches on the shirt I was making for Ash had not yet released me to bed with him.  We’d get to our own more extended celebration on Thursday night, after he’d had the day off and before he’d have another day off.  At random times during the week, I’d find myself surprised by some little token — such as when Steffan sidled up to me with adorable dramatized meekness, then with a huge, proud grin, whipped something from behind his back and said, “Happy whatever we feel like celebrating about us today, day!”  Yeah, Ash gets a whole lotta CUTE from his Daddy.  Hee!  Eniways, it was all good.

I'm pretty sure that all Mommies still working on something for their kid 3 hours before their kid is going to need it, aught to get one of these from their counterpart Daddy (or whoever).

This was the design I put together, and then put onto a shirt for Ash, for Valentine's Day. The frog is not my artwork. I'm afraid I didn't have the kind of time needed for my own artwork, this year!

On Tuesday it-was-morning-for-all-of-us-at-that-point, I went to wake Ash up, and was greeted by, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mommy!” as soon as his eyes focused.  After some extra hugs and kisses, we set about the morning routine — a routine which was made considerably more exciting by the fact that I had set out a special outfit for Valentine’s Day, including the shirt I’d made for him as a gift.  Oh yes, my little froggy prince charming quite loved it!

PSA: Special Little Prince Valentine shirts might make little princes twirl like princesses singing, "I Feel Pretty"...

So dang cute, it's hard to keep your feet.

Of course, giggles knock you over regularly, around here, also.

We have our own version of the old, "I've fallen, and I can't get up!" commercials, in our house.

Supposedly the shirt was a hit at school, too.  I don’t really know how the other kids reacted, beyond not-badly (or I would’ve heard about it), but I had notes from the staff about how adorable it was, and about how everyone was surprised when Ash told them I had made it for him.  Ash told me that one of his teachers told him that it was going to be hard not to kiss him, but that that was ok, because he was already a prince charming to them — to which he claims the reply, “Why yes, I AM, I know!”

The holiday-based changes in the school day made for a fun — and exhausting — time, for Ash.  He came home with a sack of valentines from his classmates, the half-Halloween‘s-haul equivalent of another sack of candy taped to those valentines (apparently the agreement to prepare goody bags of sweets to go along with the typical array of sticker-folded cards, did not reach my planet), a few warm-n-fuzzy stories about thank-you’s and hugs from kids after getting valentines from him, some holiday projects for us (which decreased in number relative to last year, predictably), and a tightrope-routine along the fine line between holding it together, and mark-your-calenders-for-meltdown.

This flower, which Ash made in one of his therapies, actually came home on Monday. It was supposed to come home on Friday, but had gotten pushed back and overlooked in the shadows of Ash's mailbox, and didn't make it into his backpack like he'd thought it had. He was SOOO proud and excited to give me, "The beautiful flower (he) made for (me)" -- it was the first thing he mentioned when I got him off the bus on Friday -- and he had been crestfallen when it appeared to have gotten lost. I was so, so relieved, for a few reasons, when it was found and secured in his bag for him, on the next school day!"

This is the valentine that Ash made for both of us. :-)

This is the valentine that Ash made just for me. :-D

And this....made me cry. Sentence one reads, "My hero is mommy." Sentence two reads, "I have just one daddy." Sentence three reads, "I said hello to a friend."

Thankfully, both Ash and I managed to hold it together, and worth through his “3 Steps” after getting home from school.  After eating his snack, Ash asked me if I would share my chocolate rose with him.  I told him that I’d be happy to, but that I wasn’t ready to open it yet.  He accepted this without struggle, and decided that, instead, he’d share one of the miniature chocolate bars he’d ended up with, with me!  A miniature Hershey bar — something I am normally loathe to refer to as chocolate — has never before tasted so sweet.  We finished off the whole thing, taking turns bite-by-bite.  I’d say we did so at his direction, but that doesn’t even cover it, since he fed me my bites of chocolate.  Once we were done, he asked for my help cleaning off his fingers and his mouth, “So [he] could hug and kiss [me] without making [me] dirty.”  Then, after another love-you, he went off to the bathroom with, “Ok, ok, I’ll catch ya when I’m done with step two.”

Glass crayons used on medicine cabinet mirrors make trips to the bathroom more exciting, too.

Homework -- "Step 3" -- was done with a new, Valentine's Day pencil. Much as both Steffan and I dislike pink, Ash hasn't been raised to object to a pink-and-white, heart-adorned pencil as too girly. By the way, it's still odd to see a mature pincher grip, a supported writing arm, and the other hand holding the paper. So odd, and so wonderful.

Part of Ash's homework was a sheet of math problems you solved to end up with a Valentine's Day coded message. Oh, in the background you can see the board game we're currently playing as a family again. Ash gets the blue piece, Daddy gets the green piece, and Mommy gets the red piece.

We always take a lot of "hug breaks" ....and sometimes, kissy breaks, too! On this day, there were at least a few hugs, kisses, cuddles, and verbal proclamations of love, along with Valentine's Day wishes, every hour. You can bet I soaked in every moment of it, and gave as good as I got! In fact, at one point I kind of had to remind myself that if I didn't want Ash to have a potty accident, I really needed to stop squishing him, even if he DID tell me that he loved me about five times while on the way to the bathroom.

Daddy got home from work around the time homework was being finished up, so then he went out to get the pizza we’d promised Ash for dinner.  (And so, the last of the Christmas gift cards went *poof*, into a big, tomato-sauce-covered grin.)  While he was out, Ash kind of randomly turned to me and asked, “Mommy, am I a man yet?”  After I replied that he had  more growing-up to do first, he told me, “Well, I will be a man when I get married.”  I asked him who he thought he was going to marry, some-day.  “I think I will marry Daddy,” he said, “Or maybe, no, I was wrong.  I will marry you.”   Yep, we’re pretty equal-opportunity, around here.  I guess it shows.  ;-)

After enjoying dinner, we gave Ash his valentines from us and from his great-grandma, and his other gifts.  He had asked for a shiny frog balloon like the one we’d gotten him two years before.  (A mylar balloon filled with helium is only $1 at DollarTree, you know, instead of $2-6 elsewhere.)  Thankfully, he didn’t get upset that they’ve changed the model slightly since then.

He might be high-maintenance (for example, as you can see starting here from one photo to the next, he chaps horribly around his lips in the winter, even when he DOESN'T have a cold, if he goes more than a few minutes without medicated chap stick freshly applied -- because he's so often licking and sucking on his lips, as he mouth-stims), but he sure isn't "high maintenance"....he could've been set with that smile, all day, with only the $1 balloon.

One of the things you can do with balloons, is have "bopping battles"....and it is nearly as funny, to just bop yourself!

You can run back and forth with them, or spin around while trailing them...

...until you get dizzy! (That is, of course, assuming you're CAPABLE of getting dizzy, at that time -- which Ash isn't always.)

You can listen to the noise they make while you yank them back and forth, or let them go and watch them float up, over and over.

You can pretend the balloon is your head...

We could easily have left things at balloon-play, but there was one more present for Ash.  A friend had sent him this adorable Valentine Dragon, that she found at Target:

The Valentine dragon doesn't have a name yet.

Actually, she claimed that the toy thought it was a dinosaur….that happened to have wings.  Yeah, whatever — it’s totally a dragon.  Once he had checked to confirm that it was not going to surprise him with any noises, Ash was all over it.

Apparently, if this dragon kisses you, your hair is set on fire. The photo above is of Ash watching me react to the information. It’s all right for him to be amused, because in this game of pretend, when a love-dragon sets your hair on fire, it doesn’t hurt, it just turns red…..until Ash blows it out, at which point, “Whew! It’s black again. Ok, Mommy, it’s your turn to set my hair on fire.”  Hmm….perhaps not the version of being set on fire with kisses that one would expect from a happily-married couple, on Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t mind the additional version. ;-)

After a little more family play-time and some shared cocoa, it was time for bed.  Ash didn’t want to take off his special shirt, and when he finally did, said, “But Mommy….I can wear it again even if it isn’t Valentine’s Day, right?!”  As if he needed to prove that he wasn’t done being my little prince charming yet, he decided to break his own routine — YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT — and switch up the order that we took our turns wishing on his star-lamp during the bedtime routing, telling me that I could go first, and his Daddy could go second.  (Normally, he goes first, I go second, and if Daddy is home for that bedtime, he goes third.)  Naturally, extra wishes included variations on the theme of always being each others’ valentines, having had a happy Valentine’s Day, etc.  Also naturally, the traditional last wish of each of us, remained the same.  To help avoid wish-interrupting, the cue is always saying, “And also…” or, “And for my last wish…” — if Steffan or I is wishing, Ash completes the sentence for us with a triumphant, “….for lots of hugs and kisses!!!”  If he is making his wish, we say it all together.

It was a good day, filled with lots of love.  The best part is that it didn’t end there.

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Looking back on 2011′s Christmas season (Part 5)

January 12, 2012 By 1 Comment

Ok, THIS really aught to be the last part.  Part 4 brought us to the edge of Christmas Eve, so there’s only so much left to cover, relative to the month of lead-in we had.  This was IT….the big days….

The funny thing is, it feels like there’s less to say about Christmas Eve, than the preceding days.  I mean, a lot went on, but more of it was all the same kind of thing, if that makes any sense.  That, and it went pretty much as Ash had anticipated the night before — and the things done in the morning and afternoon when it was just us, were mostly done together (and fairly lazily, because the day before had left him majorly depleted spoon-wise, and he’d need all the recuperation he could get before the next day), with no one to point a camera at us, and some of the things done later involved family that I only get into just so much, and don’t show photos of, on the blog.  There was one period, though, which I was distanced enough from to capture…

Yep, Ash has his own little wooden nativity set.  Some women volunteering at a charity Christmas-craft sale set up in the foyer of Steffan’s church had noticed Ash’s desire to play with it as we headed in past the table, last year, and surprised us by having chipped in together to gift it to him when we headed back out.  It was one of the little blessings last year, when, by the by, he pretty much just knew that the figures in the set included three wise men, three animals, an angel, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.  This year he knows a little bit more of the context, in a vague kind of way.  This lead to the following amusing quotes:

“Baby Jesus was born in a barn instead of a hospital….which is more fun.*”

“And then he lay down in the hay and the animals looked at him and two white men and one brown man** who were very wise came to give him birthday presents, and then someone pushed a button to make the sky light up around him and sing “Silent Night”***….I think maybe it was his Mommy Mary or his Daddy who was named Joseph except or sometimes God.”

* Ash went into a barn during the Pumpkin Farm field trip his class took in October.  He got to pet a calf, twin goats, a lamb, and a bunny.  This was quite distinctly more fun than his times spent in a hospital.  He assumes that baby Jesus and the others share his preference for furry animals over needles and such.

** He is basing this on the paint-job of the figures in his set.

*** He is basing this on a book his Grandma gave him a year or two ago.

I also snagged a few shots while Ash helped with Santa’s cookies.  This year his help was a bit more effective than last, after having had the practice with the gingerbread men, along with just more developmental time, in-between.

Ash has placed and pressed in the letter-shaped cutters. Other cookies will be made....snowmen and Christmas trees and stars and the like....but these are the important ones for him to do himself.

Ash double-checks the cut-outs before trying to peel them out and hand them to me for placement on the cookie sheet.

I think my favorite part of the period when my in-laws were over, was that Ash, fueled by his pride and excitement over having helped make Santa’s cookies, because vaguely obsessed with the idea of being helpful in general.  This wasn’t just the usual interest in being helpful via wanting to break in and “help” someone do whatever he realized they were about to do for themselves (often in a counter-productive way, of course), or the also-usual leaping at the chance to do what someone has asked him if he could do for them.  This was stuff like him distributing cookies to everyone in the room, along with cups of things to drink, in case the cookies made them thirsty.  Granted, the cups he distributed were not always the cups left around by the family members he was handing them to, but hey, he was trying, and it was all his idea.

This is how things were left when Ash went to bed on Christmas Eve. I hope the reindeer aren't as hungry as Santa is expected to be!

We added the Christmas characters, but Santa did the rest. From the looks of it, I caught him when he was returning with the mostly empty carrot plate, to place one last special thing under the tree. He also snuck some candy canes onto it. Perhaps they no longer fit in his pockets (every child has noticed that Santa always carries candy canes in his pockets) after this latest stack of cookies and quintuple-scooped-cocoa was downed.

Honestly, I was surprised to find that any crumbs or drips had made it through the night, when I checked things Christmas morning! At least it seems like Santa was smart, and ate the special cookies spelling out his name, first.

Christmas morning.  Ahhhhhh, Christmas morning.  For once, Ash waking up at 7am when he didn’t especially have to, was him waking up LATER than other children.  In any event, with a whole two hours or so of sleep painting festive circles under the eyes of us parents, and perhaps the world’s best fuel source twinkling in the eyes of our child, we began our day.  The plan was to, like last year, begin with some us-time under our own tree….then get dressed and go over to Uncle S- and Auntie L-’s place — where we’d also do the family gift exchange — for brunch with them, Uncle A-, and Grandma and Grandpa….then come back to our place to let Ash unwind (and possibly open something else)….then go over to Uncle A-’s for dinner with just him and Grandma and Grandpa, since Uncle S- and Auntie L- would be having dinner with her family….and then finish the day with some more us-time at our place.  It was a rather full day, but at least it involved a number of flexible escapes, and we’d have the next day to share a more relaxed, just-us-three, Christmas-Day-2.  Typically, Steffan works a late night on Christmas Eve, and a very early morning the day after Christmas.  For once, he was opening on Christmas Eve, and off the day after Christmas as well.  HALLELUYAH!  Yeah, we were grateful.

Someone asked, for Ask Ash!, what his favorite thing about Christmas was.  I kind of lost track of who, so I hope whoever it was, is looking.  In any event, he answered that, “My favorite thing about Christmas is that family is there to have time smiling together….and also, things are sparkly and Santa comes if you’re nice.”

Ash starts on the outer rim and works his way in. The Christmas characters were an obvious place to start! This Rudolph started off as a moose from DollarTree. I clipped the felt antlers into a more reindeer-ish shape, sewed on a sparkly, red craft poof I'd had floating around for years to be his nose, and used a $1 jingle-ring like Ash had played with while caroling at school, as a special collar. BAM! Almost-instant, semi-DIY Rudolph.

Another DollarTree find from Mommy and Daddy was this piggy bank. Ash has learned to identify different coins and bills, in school, and has done some simple math related to them....now it's time to try AGAIN at working on some of the context and concepts related to money.

The stockings were no longer limp. Propped against the small pile of gifts from Mommy, Daddy, Great-AuntiePat, Emily Elf and a couple of family friends, were a few packages in Santa wrapping paper -- as gifts from Santa tend to be wrapped in, around here. Only one gift under the tree wasn't marked like the others, as if it had been prepared at the last minute, only upon arrival. It was a little, red, velvet box with a green ribbon. Inside that was a red satin pouch. Inside that...

...was the silver sleigh-bell that Ash had asked Santa for!!

“Santa gave me the bell I asked for when I wroted him my note!  And it was like the HeroBoy, because I believe!  And it rings for me, and it sounds beautiful, do you hear, Mommy?!  And you know, I think I won’t put it in a hole in my bathrobe.”

Ash gives the bell a good jingling. Actually, based on the scratches on his cheek and nose, this photo must have been taken later in the day. Every time we came home, the first thing he did was go to the tree, locate his bell, and ring it. It has also been the first thing he's done upon coming downstairs in the morning, every day since.

So….the scratches.  See, Uncle S- and Auntie L-’s house has a very, very enticing feature…

This is Cole kitty. He thought his placement under the tree suggested that he was trying to hide, NOT that the chance to pet him was going to be his gift to Ash.

"The PURPLE kitty doesn't scratch and make me wear a band-aid."

Really, it wasn’t so bad.  If the scratches hadn’t been bleeding at first, we wouldn’t have bothered torturing Ash with a band-aid on his face.  He didn’t care in the slightest that Cole had scratched him.  To Ash, no matter what he’s been told, the inevitable occasional scratches from one cat or another, guard as we do, are a sign that the offending kitty was being silly, not a sign that he should probably feel less of a desire to try to pet it….or the next cat that doesn’t seem as interested in him as he is in it.  Perhaps if his nociception wasn’t often off-kilter, his eiditic memory would counter-balance his complete lack of danger sense, in these matters.  Whoops?

Some conveniently-timed snuggle-squishes were put into effect, immediately after Cole's less than merry mood was made known to....the rest of us. At this moment, Ash and his Daddy were listening to someone or other else in the family.

Another thing of note from that part of the day was that Ash ate about half of a Belgian waffle (¼ from Daddy’s plate that Mommy didn’t know about, and then later, ¼ from Mommy’s plate that Mommy was, therefore, extra impressed by)….which was something new for him.  He ate plain parts, but still.

One of Ash's presents from his aunt and uncle, that he broke into once we got home again, was this toy-and-book set. "Jingle" the Husky puppy, if you have pressed his ear first, responds to certain phrases read from his storybook, by barking, howling a tune, etc. The book is quite simple, relative to Ash's reading level, but the "interactive" aspect delights him.

"You're a GOOD dog, Jingle!"

An interesting thing about Jingle is that he was first set off by Ash’s uncle, while at their house, before Ash knew what to expect….and Ash was barely startled, and only for a moment, and was not scared.  Apparently, Jingle was exempt from the stuffed-toys-or-otherwise-made-decoratives-that-look-like-creatures-and-make-noise-and/or-move-especially-if-it-was-unexpected-the-first-time-are-going-to-terrify-me rule.  Possibly this is because the first sound that Jingle makes is a bell-jingling sound, which rather blends into the overall audio backdrop of Christmas anyway.  I was intrigued, but mostly glad.  I had, after all, told my SIL that yes, I thought he’d enjoy that gift, and I had a feeling they’d pay attention to the abnormality of his reaction, and not any overlooked disclaimers about the manner and timing of introduction, if he reacted horribly a few seconds after they gave it to him.

One highlight of the part of the evening spent at Uncle A-’s for Christmas dinner, was Ash’s continued desire to be helpful, being taken advantage of by me to get him to practice utensil use.  Ash is not so good with eating utensils.  He has only recently improved when it comes to spooning anything that doesn’t stick to the spoon (like pudding), thanks to cocoa.  You’d think that spearing things with a fork would be easier than balancing things on a spoon, but he’s never gotten the hang of forks at all, with anything.  Don’t even ask about knives, ok?  Some day, we might just see how he takes to the old chopsticks-rubber-banded-around-their-rolled-up-wrapper thing, for the heck of it (I never needed that, but I know a lot of kids….and some adults….that required that trick for early chopstick learning stages, and Ash has far from the average kid’s motor coordination)….but in the meantime, he sticks largely to finger food when he’s feeding himself, whether or not anyone else thinks it is finger food.  Well anyway, Ash really wanted to “help” me eat the Christmas ham, so I told him I’d love it if he helped me, but I wanted to eat it with a fork, so he would only be helping if he tried to feed it to me with the fork.  Gee, did he think he could try to do that for me?  Pretty please with dragons on top?  It would be sooooooo nice and helpful for my tired hands…  I think everyone else in the room popped their jaws grimacing and wincing, waiting for me to be speared in the throat or stabbed through the cheek.  With cues to move the fork very slowly and gently towards my mouth and wait for my teeth to close on the ham before he moved the fork away, though, Ash did a fine job of feeding me without injuring me, and was so pleased with himself that he decided I was hungry for seconds, and would I please cut them up so he could stick them with the fork again?  Heheh.  Mommy wins.

Indeed, by the time we neared the last part of our Christmas day, Ash was still having a pretty darn good one.

By the time Ash went to bed that night, the living room looked like this…

Ash sits amidst the rubble.

The impressive part is that the room looked like that, but not all that much was opened.  It’s rather nice to have a child that gets so much out of each gift, and takes such time with each gift, that even without GETTING that many gifts, he still takes an average of one to two weeks to open everything and go through his stocking.

Speaking of which, here are a few post-Christmas highlights, mostly for friends that I know look here…

Ash and I play "The Magic Labyrinth" game, a gift from his "Big Cousin C-", for the first time. It has been played since, too. It turned out to be a GREAT game for Ash, in many ways.

Ash looks at the "Big Cats" book, also from "Big Cousin C-"....and tries to see if he can stick out his tongue as far as the yawning lioness can.

By the way, he says that lions are his favorite big cat, because the boys have manes which look so soft and fluffy, like his Daddy’s hair used to be.  Is anyone surprised?

These ladybug slippers come from Grandma.  They match his PillowPet.  Ash faces two challenges when it comes to making good use of them.  First, he must reconcile himself with the concept of “inside shoes”….secondly, he must master actually walking in them.

Ash and the Amazing Aurora, who is taking a turn balancing on the large weighted ball.

Aurora, a velvety-soft, blue and purple dragon with shiny parts, was one of Ash’s belated birthday presents from his “Auntie A-” that I set aside and saved for Christmas so she would lose one excuse to send him MORE for Christmas.  Aurora is Ash’s most playful stuffed dragon thus far, a character trait determined when she was so impatient to get unwrapped and pounce Ash that she somehow….magically, I suppose….managed to roar while still in her box, despite it normally taking precision effort to squeeze her neck in just the right way, to produce that effect.  As you might have guessed based on Abominable Snowmen, et al, this unlikely feat of impatient enthusiasm on the dragon’s part, was rather counterproductive.  Aurora’s box took another day after being unwrapped, to be opened, and it took the rest of that day to get Ash comfortable with playing with her, first indirectly, and then, handling her himself.  Had she not been such an endearing dragon, I suspect it would’ve taken much longer.

This no-bake gingerbread house book was another gift from "Emily Elf" -- there was too much sickness in our household to make one over Ash's winter break, but the book contains ideas for all seasons, so I expect another good excuse will come up soon.

“This is a mushroom gnome home, do you see, Mommy?  It looks like a mushroom, you know, and gnomes are kind of like faeries I think.  And do you know, Mommy….Mommy….when you say gnome, the ‘g’ is silent.”

This animal calender was from Ash's great-grandma. Ash thinks it's great, especially because the snow leopard cubs are on the cover AND inside, and that's his Daddy's favorite big cat. Naturally, Ash and I have taken turns pretending to be all the depicted animals inside....generally, a Mommy-baby set of them, whether or not that's in the photo.

A new, blue hoodie lined with super-soft plush fabric puts Ash in a good enough mood that I get him to try Ramen for the first time -- after he asked me to make him some and then immediately decided he wanted something else -- by getting him to imagine that it was squiggly-wiggly dinosaur seaweed, and he was a baby brontosaurus with a big belly to fill. This is the first time a trick like that has ever worked.

With it already being mid-January, I don’t know if I’m going to get as far as writing a separate holiday-gratitudes post, like I did last year.  So here, before I go, I want to add a few thank-you’s:

  • Thank you to E, my Fairy Blogmother, and Ash’s “Big sister”….all these years after you needed me to be a Mommy to you, you still always think about how to help take care of us, in turn.
  • Thank you to Mo, who sees no reason why saving our asses….sorry, arses….should be enough if she hasn’t filled Ash’s tummy with his favorite pizza yet.
  • Thank you to “Santa” for being sneaky again this year, so I have to let you get away with it.  You got our medication.
  • Thank you to Wolf, for giving us the ability to give Ash the animals that inspire him to aspire.
  • Thank you to Mike, for choosing us to be the adoptive geeks for your books.
  • Thank you to Moobs, for the sassy fashion show I just put on for my husband, and the chocolate we’re pretending isn’t bulging out from under it
  • Thank you to C-, for honoring Ash as one of the only little people you care for at all, let alone adore.
  • Thank you to E-, otherwise known as “Emily Elf”, for being insufferable.
  • Thank you to Kat for the….uh….reminder to snag a photo of Santa in the act.
  • Thank you to the friends and family — some who know about this blog, and some who don’t — who sent cards, sent gifts, have been thinking of us enough to be planning to send things, came to visit, are hoping to visit, etc. etc. etc.  Thank you to all who cry with us, scream with us, sigh with us, cheer with us.  Thank you for the wishes, hopes, and prayers.  Thank you for being you.

 

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Looking back on 2011′s Christmas season (Part 4)

January 8, 2012 By 1 Comment

When Part 3 left off, we were a bit past mid-way through December, and had a rather impatient Ash trying oh so hard to be patient for Christmas.  You might be relieved to know that this update starts with December 22nd.

First off, Ash prepared for the last day of school by making a card for his teachers.  Ok, so I had to trick him into doing it by setting it up as a fake part of his homework.  I can get him to quite happily do things by pretending they are part of his homework, that he otherwise resists doing.  (Writing practice on all days that he doesn’t have homework assigned, is what this primarily comes down to.)  I think it mostly has to do with how he compartmentalizes activities, in his head.  In any event, he wasn’t given any normal homework on Thursday, so I had a gap in his routine to fill.

It says, "Happy Holidays"....then there is a heart, and a hat-wearing snowman on the snow.

Having covered a fine art, it was time for a performance art!  Yup, that’s right….you’ve heard him read a story, and now you get to hear Ash sing.  I give you: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in the key of Giggle!

I’m pretty sure I’m not imagining it, and he really is saying, “Used to have to call him names,” instead of, “Used to laugh and call him names.”  Hello, language processing….if you’d be so kind as to step over here, I think we need to clarify a little something…

Thursday’s other main event centered around “The Bumble” — yes, the one from the old Rudolph special.  See, we have this little stuffed Bumble-holding-a-star that Steffan found on Christmas clearance for me, a number of years ago.  It’s very soft and very cute, and most of the time we’ve just had it sitting up on a shelf next to a miniature fake tree, where it makes us giggle.  If you press on its free hand, it softly makes a roaring sound, and then shifts into playing Burl Ives’ “Holly Jolly Christmas” while doing a little wiggle-dance.  Now, Ash really likes this Bumble.  He thinks it’s hilarious.  Unfortunately, the very first time he encountered it, it got set off before he was adequately warned, so in addition to finding the Bumble hilarious, Ash finds it frightening.  It’s quite a conflict of interests.  Because Ash’s SPD-riddled brain has issues organizing information — and that includes giving it any sense of relevant chronology — and because it also gives him modulation issues….and because he also has an eidetic memory, and remembers bloody everything….Ash automatically goes into sensory-defensive mode and the feelings of anxiety and fear that go with it, every time he encounters anything that ever so much as startled him.  It doesn’t matter if he is now familiar and comfortable with whatever-it-is, likes it, desires it, and/or anticipates it.  It’s reflexive, like blinking when something comes towards your eye, even if that something is the contact you’re about to put in, that you’ve been wanting to have as an option for ages.  You can get over it in time, with effort, but simple logic isn’t going to cut it.

Well, on Thursday afternoon, after finishing his….*cough*….homework, Ash asked if he could see the Bumble.  It had yet to come out this year, anywhere in the house; with all of us varying degrees of sick all month, the tree was pretty much the only thing that got decorated.  I was a little surprised, since a toy Bumble (that didn’t even have a sound/movement feature) at the house where the Christmas party was, had terrified him on sight….but hey, you learn to roll with the inconsistencies, around here.  So, I delved into the box marked as containing “Christmas Critters” and fished it out.  Immediately, Ash bolted across the room and peeked at it — with a huge smile on his face but fear in his eyes, mind you — while hiding behind the couch.  Ok then.  He then asked me to push the button so he could hear the Bumble sing.  I asked him if he wanted me to pretend I was the Bumble wiggling and making the sounds first, and he said yes, so I did that.  That was all good, silly fun, of course.  He insisted that he wanted to hear the Bumble do it.  Well, all right.  First, I set the Bumble off, but hid him behind me so there was sound, but no visual.  I made a point of giggling as the soft fur tickled me on my back.  He cowered under a blanket he yanked over himself, while protesting that the Bumble was supposed to be in front of me, not behind me, and I had to do it again.  Are you noticing the pattern, here?  Yeahhhhhhh….things continued on that track.  While Ash thanked me and exclaimed delightedly about how it was so much fun to hear the silly Bumble sing and see his wiggle dance, and laughed at how the soft fur was so tickly, he also made a point of letting me know that we “couldn’t” push the button any more, until another day.  He reassured….me….that the Bumble couldn’t do anything unless you pushed his button, but still moved around it and generally treated it like a live grenade….that he wanted to keep in the room with him.  Or, perhaps, more like a psychotic killer, that you had to watch for any sign of impending attack.  In any event, all the way into the evening, we worked on Project Bumble, aiming to help Ash get over his reflexive and conflicted fear.  We took turns imitating it.  We talked about how he’d become afraid, and different ways we could try and help the Bumble get less scary to him.  I pretended to be scared, so Ash could comfort me.  We talked about how the Bumble might feel.  We arranged a very “safe”, controlled, and quick touch of his fur, so that Ash could feel for himself how soft it was.  We sat snuggled together under a blanket (while the Bumble sat OVER THERE) and started watching Rudolph together, for the first time, so that he could see the Bumble and see his story (with a little flexibility of interpretation, provided by me), but on the TV, where it was even easier to remember that Ash couldn’t be hurt by him.  By bedtime, we’d gotten far enough that Ash was — after running upstairs to get his Blankie, “So [he] would be safer.” — able to sit next to the Bumble, and….and this was his idea, mind you….sing the Bumble the lullaby that I usually sing for him, “So that the Bumble will sleep well.”  He wasn’t feeling confident enough to kiss the Bumble goodnight, but really, for a day’s progress, it was pretty dang good!

Ash and the fearsome Bumble

Yet again during the wish-making part of bedtime that night, Ash tacked on to his usual wishes (although he’s been expanding upon those more in general, lately) the wish that Witch Winter Grey would not come to steal him away in her Cloak of Darkness.  This is a reference to the show his class went to see, and a wish he’d been making ever since that field trip.  Lo and behold, he passed through the night safe, his dragons having done their duty.  Onwards he went, to the last day of school before winter break.

Yep, this year — possibly for no other reason than that Christmas Eve was on a Saturday — Ash had school all the way up until the 23rd.  Also possibly, with the assumption that the day before Christmas Eve was going to be a moot point, educationally, in an elementary school….someone decided to have the kids spend the full day in school BECOMING EVEN MORE WIRED.

If you equate overstimulation with, say, cocoaine, Ash’s brain overdosed that night.

But hey, you know….it’s tricky to not enable the addict when they are positively bursting with thrilled anticipation for their doom, starting two days before (when they first found out about the potential for it).  On Friday, Ash’s class was going to DRESS UP IN ELF HATS in the morning and GO AROUND THE SCHOOL CHRISTMAS CAROLING.  Then they were going to go back to their room to DRINK COCOA.  They’d fill the rest of the time until lunch by LEARNING ABOUT CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS AROUND THE WORLD.  Then, after lunch, THEY WERE GOING TO HAVE A POLAR EXPRESS PAJAMA PARTY, during which, of course, they’d watch the movie.  Ash was soooooooo excited and soooooooo wanted to do all this with his classmates.  He wanted to wear his “Christmas pajamas” to school and everything, whereas last year he couldn’t conceive of wearing his pajamas to school for pajama day, because you just don’t do that kind of thing.  Ok, so really, we couldn’t hold him back from that experience….especially not since he might handle it better than we had reason to worry he would….I mean, that sort of thing has been improving, over the years….and really, there’s a certain point at which how far over the edge you go, doesn’t really matter any more.

We were able to be there for the part in the morning with the caroling, before we had to go home to that Steffan could get ready for work.  All the kids got elf hats, some of which trailed jingle bells and some of which had lost their bells and stuck straight up like garden gnome hats (much to my amusement).  Those, they got to keep.  They also got to use an assortment of hand-bells to accompany themselves as they marched around the school and stopped at various classrooms and offices, singing.  Ash, who had been providing a several-shows-daily Christmas concert at home for months, naturally zoned out whenever it was the appointed time to sing one song or another.  In part, it was the change in routine.  In part, it was the excitement.  In part, it was the overstimulation of the activity itself for him, combined with the visual, audio and tactile effects of having 20-some singing, bell-ringing, dancing kids, plus their staff and a few supporting parents, packed into someone else’s already-full classroom.  Partially, it was the distraction of getting to be in environments not yet explored, full of people not yet interacted with, and riiiiiiiiight next to a bookshelf full of enticing, higher-grade, more-skill-level-appropriate books not yet read.  By the time they got through that first part of their day, he was exhausted, and yet still convinced that he had been fully involved, had had a blast, and was going to continue having a blast for the rest of the day.

This was an ok bell.

This was a better bell.

This is a very worn-out elf who was told he was not there to look at the books vaguely across from him.

Pooped elf is pooped.

Luckily, classmates D- (next to him) and A- (in front of him) don't hold it against him much.

Now, just in case you didn’t think it was enough that the day before SANTA COMES AT NIGHT WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING was going to be spent DRESSING UP LIKE ELVES AND SINGING CHRISTMAS CAROLS AND DRINKING COCOA AND LEARNING MORE ABOUT CHRISTMAS AND HAVING A POLAR EXPRESS  PAJAMA PARTY, I should note that the day was slated to contain yet another unusual element of excitement for Ash.  I had….while trying not to be overly optimistic about the chances of being taken seriously….suggested to Ash’s SpecEd teacher that, since the class was going to watch The Polar Express on Friday, they might do well to give Ash the chance to sit by himself in front of the class, and read the book to his classmates, before then.  This would not exactly be extra-curricular, but would both give Ash a moment in the spotlight that he would love, and would, at the same time, shine a spotlight on something which he very much does not need extra help with — which is always pretty useful, socially, considering he’s in an integrated program.  Much to our own excitement, both the SpecEd teacher and GenEd teacher were supportive of this idea, and planned a slot of time for Ash to do it.  Unfortunately, things ran late on Thursday and he never got the chance to do it, which left Friday.  The problem with this is that part-way through a wacky and draining day of the nature of that particular day, crammed between more cocoa and a pajama party with a movie, neither Ash nor his classmates were especially….focused.  Knowing that he’d later get the chance to read a whole book to his classmates was actually another one of the things which kept distracting Ash while he was supposed to be singing….he was soooooo looking forward to it, so proud….but when the time came, he was ill-equipped to perform at his best, and they were ill-equipped as an audience.  He did get the chance to read, but things ended up with him and the SpecEd teacher next to him taking turns reading pages.  She felt this was necessary to both re-focus him — in that he couldn’t drift off-track looking at the pictures or talking about the related scenes in the movie, before turning the page, because SHE already was — and to re-focus the class, in that their attention was re-grabbed more effectively when a teacher was up there talking.  Certainly, the experience was still worthwhile, but….but it wasn’t what it could’ve been, for him or his classmates in regards to him.

Ahhh well.  He had a blast that day, and came home one last precarious surge of adrenaline short of passing out cold.  For once, he was perfectly happy about the fact that when he woke up the next day, school would be closed.  It was time for Christmas Eve!  We would watch Christmas movies….we might even drink cocoa and have our own Polar Express pajama party, since Mommy and Daddy weren’t able to stay for the one at school.  We would sing Christmas songs.  We would open the last window in the Advent calender.  Grandma and Grandpa would stop by on their way to Uncle A-’s, since both he and Daddy had to work until the evening.  We would have….well, I can’t remember what it was, any more, but we would have something he had asked for, for dinner.  He would get to help us make cookies for Santa again, and put together the special tray with cookies and cocoa and this year baby carrots (a careful 9 of them) for the reindeer as well.  And then….AND THEN….then, after bedtime, Santa would come and leave presents under the tree and in our stockings.  Would he bring Ash the silver sleigh-bell he’d asked for?  Ash had dreamed back in November that he had told Santa that Santa needed to bring his Daddy three watermelons (Steffan really likes watermelon)….would Santa be able to find any in the winter?  Mommy wasn’t so sure about that, especially since no one had written to actually ask Santa for them, so Santa wouldn’t know to ask his elves to try to grow some.  But….y’know….MAYBE.  Santa and his elves probably had a lot of magic sparkles to work with, after all, being up at the North Pole where there was already so much sparkly snow.  There was no particular reason to believe they COULDN’T be related.

Stay tuned for Part 5…

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