Detour

Today was detoured.  My son had an accident so bed linens had to be washed.  And with his fondness for grabbing extra blankets and flat sheets, well it has been quite a few loads.  Then add in his pillows.  Well, it was four loads just to get all of that cleaned up.  And since I was already on that detour, I'm going to go ahead and get as much of the laundry done as I can.

And since I needed to pay attention to getting the laundry done, I worked on our home school lessons for this coming year in between loads.  That way I could hear the loads finish and stop quickly to pay attention to the laundry. 

I already have most of what is needed for this coming year's school.  Right now I'm looking for a primer reader about scientists in general.  I think I will be printing the planner outline and taking it with me to McKay Books sometime in the next month.  But as I've discovered already, I have a lot of primer readers that match up with the lesson plan I'm following.  I also have the items for a lot of the activities.  And we are going to use an online lesson curriculum this year.  While the curriculum is not adapted for special needs, it isn't hard to adapt.  I will just be spending more time on each section of a subject and adapting any activities to my son's abilities.  I think this will be easier on me than creating the curriculum from scratch like I did last year.

My son has not been adapting well to spending lots of time indoors.  There is something about being outdoors that just takes the raw edges off of his hyperness and stimming.  It lets him burn out the energy that otherwise becomes destructive indoors.  So I've been having him do art projects to help.  And it seems to.  It allows him to burn energy in a focused manner.  Today he was painting with dot markers.  And he very deliberately chose the two colors he wanted.  He said no when I asked if he wanted more colors.  And he was actually paying attention to what he was doing, rather than just randomly banging the markers down.  The result was a purple and orange smiley face, I think.  Or maybe a purple pumpkin with orange eyes and mouth.  Either way, I was happy because he was trying to make an image rather than just fill the page with ink.  And he knew when he was done and stopped. 

I'll try to explain why this is so big to me.  There were a whole bunch of firsts in this activity today.  He paid attention.  He decided on colors.  He let me know that he didn't want more colors rather than letting me just keep handing him new colors.  He wasn't just pounding the markers down to splatter ink or fill the page, he had an image this time.  He worked on it without requiring me to supervise him.  He knew when he was done and stopped, rather than continuing and using the markers to stim.  So even if I can't determine exactly what it was that he had in mind, this piece of art will hang on our wall for a while.  But even better is that I can at least partially see what he was trying to make.  He's only managed to do this once before.  And that time it was a fish.  Here's hoping that he will continue on this path.

He also did another first today.  One that has me highly amused.  Every afternoon for the past week, I've ended up laying down in my bed to rest.  My body has desperately wanted naps but that's not a possibility.  And I haven't had to worry about what my son is doing because he believes that laying down on my bed is an invitation to pounce.  So we've been having afternoon pounce, snuggle, tickle sessions. 

Well my body started bouncing back yesterday and didn't demand "nap" time.  But my son did.  When I didn't lay down he came in and tried to pull me into the bed.  When I wouldn't climb into bed he decided to pounce on me whenever I sat down.  Needless to say, we had lots of play sessions throughout the afternoon but he wasn't satisfied.

So today he tried something he has never tried before - ever.  He laid down on my bed and giggled.  And he kept giggling, on and off, for a few minutes.  Well, that was too much for me to resist.  I had to see what was causing the giggles.  And as soon as I came to investigate - I was pounced upon.  And the giggles continued as we played for quite a while.  So I guess a daily play romp is going to be part of our schedule for a while.  Especially with my child thinking "outside his box" to get mommy to come and play.  There is nothing like a child's pure laughter and joy to make you feel wonderful.  And my son has retained the ability to have that pure laughter and joy.  It is one of the blessings that is part of his disability.