Serenity Now!

I just accidently lost all of what I wrote for the week! Ack! I hate it when that happens.

Let’s see if I can remember. Isaak just finished Scout Camp and Maggie just finished a camp at a local kid’s gym. She did “Weird Science” and blasted off rockets and dropped eggs and all the fun stuff. She continues to make friends and fill her days with playdates and social bliss.

Isaak had a great time at camp this year. A far cry from last year when I was called in to shadow him after a day of his freaking out a bunch of times. This year, he only had one freak out, and it wasn’t a big one (from what I hear). He did great. He’s made a really good friend (finally!) and they buddied up all week. I’m sure that helped.

His den did the old fav of the chair and the gum chewing skit. One guy walks onto the stage and puts his chewed gum on the back of a chair and walks off, another guy comes on and puts his hand on the chair and gets the gum on his hand, grosses out, throws the gum on the floor. Another guys comes on and steps on the gum, grosses out, puts the gum back on the chair. The first guy comes out, finds his old gum on the chair where he left it, picks it up and starts chewing it again. It’s quite funny, especialy to little boys. Well, Isaak was the guy who stepped on the gum. They practiced it a bunch of times and everything was ready to go. When the time for the read skit came, it was going great. When it was Isaak’s turn, he came across the grass “stage” and stopped where he was supposed to, and started looking all around on the grass, apparently searching for the gum. Finally, the “chair” (who was a big kid pretending to be a chair) whispered something to him, and he finally, looking confused, pretended to put something on the chair. The rest of the skit went off without a hitch. After the skit, his friend came up to him and said, “It was supposed to be *pretend* gum, Isaak, not real!” Oh! That explains it! While all the other boys had deduced that even during the “real” skit, they would only be using pretend gum, no one explained that explicitly to Isaak (who would think?), so he was looking for the real gum since this was the real skit. Wow. What fun adventures we enjoy! It was cute, and everyone had a great time. I got a nice chuckle out of it.

This week, Isaak does his first non-church camp at the same place Maggie did hers. I expect it to go well since the theme for his week is game week (Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh, video games, etc.). He’s also back to playing piano (yah!) since we finally got one. I love to hear that. Maggie will be started individual art lessons once school starts. Between that and swim team three times a week and my work starting up soon, we will continue to keep busy!

Audra

Some mediocre pics of their rooms:

So, Isaak’s defintely needing tutoring again. We’ve been here since March and haven’t had anything since then. I’m seeing more things we need to get back to working on. So, I hired a new tutor who starts next week. She is super qualified, and I rationalized hiring her at a bigger expense since I don’t have a consultant anymore. I *am* the consultant. Another set of qualified eyes on the programs will be a good thing to do.

Here are the programs he was just going to be starting before we moved:

Learning to Change Behavior. Isaak will make behavioral changes in himself by learning self-awareness, self-control, and by creating and following his own behavior plan. This program uses Worksheets for Teaching Social Thinking and Related Skills.

Understanding Personalities. Isaak will identify and understand personality traits (his and others’).

Understanding Perspective Taking. Isaak will understand ‘perspectives’ and ‘impressions.’ He will begin learning how/when to adjust his behavior so that positive impressions are made on others. This program uses Inside Out and the ILAUGH model.

Sizes of Problems. Isaak will understand that problems come in different sizes and that behavioral reactions should match the size of the problem.

Social Problems: Blaming Others. Isaak will understand when a problem is the result of a situation and not the other person involved. He will refrain from ‘blaming’ others for his problems.

And here are some new programs I will be creating:

Responding to Teasing. Isaak will be able to identify when teasing is fun versus mean and how to deal with each appropriately.

The Social Ballet. Isaak will learn how to enter, engage, and leave a new social situation appropriately.

Friendshipping. Isaak will learn to identify the differences between friend and acquaintance and learn to appropriately seek and develop deeper friendships.

More Stress Strategies. Isaak will continue to work on dealing with stressful situations in appropriate ways.

Jumping in. Isaak will learn to think of short, related stories to tell and to be able to “jump in” in social conversation.

Interesting stuff. Hope all the scheduling works out with school starting soon. Ack!

We’re getting truly settled into the house now. It’s a tad bigger than I’d like, so I really stressed to the kids today in a family meeting how important it is to me to have them leave wherever they are *cleaner* then when they started. Don’t know if it sunk in or not. Their idea of “clean” and mind are quite different.

Dave… Back from his annual training. We missed him, but he seemed to have “scratched an itch”, as he says. I think it’s cathartic to go out and do something that feels like it has some meaning and purpose behind it and to know that others think you do a good job at what you do. I’m glad he could do that. Back to the computer grindstone again tomorrow for him.

Audra… Enjoying a lazy summer, that’s for sure. I loved having my sister visit this week. The kids just played and played and we just hung out and got little done. That’s what summers are for! I’m getting the house someone organized and put together, but there’s still a lot to do. I’m glad I got the kids’ rooms painted when we very first moved in. I don’t think I would have gotten around to it if I hadn’t. They are really cute! Maggie’s is large 2-tone stripes with one wall filled with shadows of her and the dog in funny poses with the phrase “A mere shadow of my former self” above it. It’s really darling. Isaak’s is two shades of blue (opposite walls have the same shade) and one wall has a bunch of famous mathematical equations and quotes and the other I’m filling up with “pi.” Still working on that part. They both love them and I’m really happy how they turned out. Believe it or not, I have to get revved up to start work again in just a few weeks. I have a week of new teacher training and another week of prep, so I have to start up again on August 21. Can’t believe summer’s coming to an end. Not yet!

Isaak: We started a new med and then tried to wean him off the old one, but it wasn’t going well at all, so I gave up. He’s back on full dose of his old one and his new one, which is supposed to control some other symptoms. The new one was actually researched and tested ON kids with autism (like no other drug I know of), so I’m glad for that. Not sure we’re seeing strong effects, yet, but he does get sleepy on it. Not a good thing. Doc wants us to give it some more time to make a judgement. However, in general, he seems really happy and interactive and obedient, so maybe it is helping more than I give it credit for. He’s made a couple acquaintance-friends in the neighborhood and one church friend. I have hired a new tutor that will start week after next and will work on social group behaviors and the like. I’ll actually be the consultant for him! How strange. He has scout camp this next week and is really excited for it.

Audra/Maggie: Yup, most people call her Audra, now, even Isaak. Dave and I and extended family are the only ones to still think of her as Maggie. Oh well. She’s made good friends, already, in the neighborhood. One girl, just two doors down, has a birthday within a week of hers. They hang out together a lot, and I really like her mom, so that’s fun! Audra keeps asking when her friend Bailey is going to come visit, so I’m trying to arrange that, but ALLYSON is playing hard to get. Audra is all into High School Musical and watches and listens to that music a lot. Seems like she’s growing into older tastes, now. Can’t believe my youngest baby will be 8 in three months!

Katie: She has adjusted really well to our home life. She is obedient and fun and doesn’t bark/yip. I mean, she *is* a puppy, so she has her moments (mostly chewing socks and shoes), but considering she is a puppy, she’s quite amazing. She is SOOOO cute and has a very sweet, caring, loving personality. She will make a great family dog. This morning, we all went out back and were sitting on the porch, and she moved from where she was so that she could sit directly in front of us all. It was like, “This is my family, and I am here to protect them.” And she’s only 4 months old. We’re very happy with her.

Well, off to church now. Hope to hear how you all are doing soon, too!