Yep, I Missed Four Days

I won't be blogging 365 days this year. I thought it would make me more accountable for keeping a daily record. Then I thought... accountable to whom, exactly? Myself? Whoever it is that reads this thing? Honeychile please - my words are not that important. I have a weird way of taking something fun and turning it into work. You know your pushing it when your frantically searching your life for writing inspiration because it's 11:00 at night and you still haven't posted. Foolish. So, I'm just going to post when I feel like it, just as it should be.

We spent all day yesterday painting our kitchen. Q chose the color, and it's yet another shade of brown. The man is in love with brown. It's not what I wanted, but he loved it and I will just pull in my love of orange, cream, and turquoise for the accent colors.

I bought fabric for curtains today. It's washing up now, and I'll be sewing in a bit.

We were both tired of our circa 1990's brass (blech!) light fixture. Q just wanted to buy a new one and be done with it, but I convinced him to take it down and let me attempt a rehab. I figured if I completely botched it, we could just buy a new one then. I'm refinishing it in a hammered bronze finish. After the first coat, I thought it was wrecked, but it's looking better after a second spray. So we shall see.

I Have Nothing to Say Today

But some other people do.

First, read this.

Then, watch this.

And we all need to know about this.

When you're done, do something you enjoy. Be kind to yourself, and hug the ones you love.

'Night.

Tuesday in Twenty Lines

Up too early.
No coffee.
Work was busy.
Too many phone calls.
School was great.
Took a library trip.
Fixed dinner with my favorite soux chef.
Had help with the dishes.
Got to watch Glee!
Finished the laundry.
Even put it away.
Kitchen is shiny.
So is the bath.
Coffee's ready for 5:00 a.m.
Squared some fabric.
I do love to iron.
Unplugging early and going to bed.
Chico is waiting for meds and a story.
Hoping tomorrow is a good day.
And that I can sleep tonight.

Holiday

What is it that just makes an extra day off of work feel so decadent? It's not like I dig ditches for a living, but a three day weekend is a great way to recharge. I'm usually wiped out by Friday afternoon.

As usual, I planned way too much for one day. My plan was to get up at 5:00 this morning and jump right into my HMC Bible study. When the alarm went off though, I couldn't haul my carcass out of bed to save myself. I slept until 7:00, and then jumped into my day.

The whole day flew by in a whirlwind of cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, more cleaning, and dinner-fixing. Now it's 6:00 and all I have to show for my holiday is a horrid knot under my left shoulder blade from some over-zealous tub scrubbing.

I think my reward for the busy day will be some DVD episodes of the BBT, and squaring and ironing my newly washed quilt fabric. That, and the sundae that Q is out picking up for me.

Spiritual Attack? Or Just a Bad Day?

Today started wonderfully, with a terrific church service during which Mr. C. was exceedingly well behaved.

And then just like the proverbial excrement deflecting off the overhead cooling device, he lost his ever loving mind in the parking lot of Costco. We sat there a good 20 minutes, trying valiantly to talk him through his feelings, offering various rewards for getting through the store nicely, and finally settling for gritting our way through a miserable trip, being gaped at by the ill-mannered masses all the while.

The icing on the poo-cake was that somehow Q decided to direct his anger and disappointment with C straight at me. I get it, I do. You can't be mad at Chico, so you end up mad at whoever else is around. It still hurts though.

As I drove home feeling quite shattered, I started to wonder if maybe we were experience some kind of retribution for our church attendance this morning. The church Q grew up in teaches that he-who-lives-in-hades is always on the lookout for a Christian being too focused on God, too much on the right track and then he pounces. No sooner is your parched soul refreshed by the Word, than he stomps all over it again.

I guess that could be true. I don't know if I believe it in this case. I think sometimes bad days just happen, and sometimes they happen after a really good thing. Autism, of course, exponentially increases the odds of a good day turning bad without warning.

In the end, a consequence for Chico and a nap for everyone and all was well again. Chico and I even ventured out to JoAnn for some new fabric for Q's quilt (I decided on blue/grey after all), and he behaved so well he even earned himself a brand new rubber stamp. I still plan to make that quilt for Q, even if he was mad at me today. I'm sure he'll be mad at me again for the same non-reason in the future. Autism does that to a marriage.

At any rate, today was a good day to pull out my word for 2012.

A Post in Five Minutes

Today will be short and sweet. It's been a busy day and we're going to watch a movie in a few minutes.

I stayed up way too late last night (2:00 in the morning, actually) reading this. I'd started it at 8:00, intending to read for an hour, and found couldn't put it down. It's a hard read, in that she describes some really horrible situation, but quite a gripping story if you can get past the gritty. I finally finished it about an hour ago.

We're working in a kitchen update. Q and I spent most of today removing wall border, scrubbing walls, and taping and painting. The trim is done, and we'll roll the wall color next weekend. So far so good.

I'm shopping for fabric in greens and greys. I stopped at two stores yesterday, browsed for an hour and a half, and didn't find a single fabric I liked. However, I fell in love with every single blue in the place. Why is it that I always find stuff I love in every color except the one I'm looking for? I think I'm just weird.

Why We Homeschool

Inspired by the discussion started by the ever-lovely Heather of Oh My Stinkin' Heck, I'm thinking today about the reasons why homeschooling became the best choice for our family.

Now, I don't believe that homeschool is the only valid option for education. I don't even believe that homeschool is the best choice for every family. For ours, it is not only the best option, but became our only option after the disastrous year that Chico spent in public school.

We homeschool because

Chico learns best in a 1:1 teaching environment.  Since C is my only child, I have the luxury of tailoring each and every school day to what works for us at the time. For example, we've been using the same basic visual schedule and subject order since we started homeschooling. A month ago, math had become a sticking point, and was often the catalyst for a meltdown. I decided to try moving math from it's place as the third item on our schedule to the very first spot, employing the "Eat That Frog!" principle. So far, it's worked. Chico gets his math done when his energy and patience stores (mine as well, truth be told) are at their highest. The rest of the schedule looks easier because our most difficult task is done first. In a classroom full of children, such a change would likely be impossible.

Chico's skills are uneven.  Like many autistic individuals, Chico shows amazing strengths in some areas, and deficiencies that would put him into the 'impaired' category in others. Homeschool allows us the opportunity to reframe his work to not only take advantage of his strengths and allow him the sweet taste of success, but also to reinforce those weaker skills and allow him to strengthen them. In theory a public school IEP is supposed to accomplish the same end, but our experience was that C's work was being completed 'for' him rather than being tailored to him.

Our school day is dedicated to his success.  As the parent of a special needs child, your chief objective is getting your child's needs met. You cannot be concerned with any other child in the class. If there is ever a conflict, then the choice has to be your child's benefit, even up to and including pulling resources from someone else. That's just the way it is. There are only so many hours, providers, and money to go around, and there is no room for sympathy in the world of special education. In our 'class', all resources, time, and money are dedicated to Chico. There is no competition, no time when he is pushed aside, no busy-work to keep him occupied while I work with someone else. It's all for and about him.

The 'sit still and work' part of our day is short. We do have 'desk work'. There's no getting around it, and I do think that concentration and attention to task are valuable skills. However, for us this amounts to about 1 - 1.5 hours total; the rest of the time Chico can move if he needs to. In fact, we regularly go out to walk the dog as the wrap up to our school day, and reinforce what we've worked on along the way. I believe that the combination of the physical activity and discussion really helps to cement concepts for C.

Chico takes a while to learn new skills.  Probably longer than most NT children. He does get it eventually though, and that's okay. I'm glad that we can give him the time and repetition he needs to get things. Mastery is more important to me than speed, and it's equally important to me to make sure that C doesn't always feel that he's failing. I believe strongly in setting children up for success, not by making work falsely easy, but by allowing adequate time for practice before evaluation. In a setting that's set up for a strict time and testing schedule, that doesn't happen.

We tried public school, and it failed us. We gave public school a try. They responded to C's needs by warehousing him, and eventually by isolating him for large parts of the day. Chico ended his public school career with the exact same skills he began with, and with fears he never had before attending. I still don't believe that public school is inherently wrong. Some children do well there. Ours didn't though, and I'm glad I recognized that and pulled him out before any more damage was done.

I get to be there to encourage him when he's struggling, and to witness the moments when a concept just 'clicks'. And really, that for me is worth all of the work.