So Much to Say

And not much of it is good.

I've stayed away for a few days, as I was in the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" frame of mind. No, I prefer to wallow in misery and let my depression stew for a few days before forcing it on my poor, undeserving (or is that underserving?) readers.

The misery and depression aren't so miserable and depressing today. Amazing what a day, and a double shot mocha (with whip) will do for you!

The pleasantly fading misery and depression stem from a few things, but they all involve a certain beloved first child. Yes, I love him unconditionally. No, it's nothing he did, but rather things involving him. See the difference?

Anyway, last week I received an email from Hutton's ABA consultant, who had emailed Hutton's primary megabitch er, teacher, wait, let's just say it's someone involved in Hutton's life several hours a week. This woman who shall remain nameless had emailed his ABA consultant about Hutton's behavior. ABA consultant had been in to observe Hutton's class a few times and recommend things to try for his bad behaviors. [That's what they do - Applied Behavioral Analysis. Kind of like a nicer version of Pavlovian conditioning. You show a child how to do something the right way, and give him lots of praise, or tokens, or treats, or he gets to play with a special toy, etc. if he does the "right" thing. For instance, if Hutton is working on a worksheet, and completes the worksheet, he may get a high five and a check mark on his chart, with the goal being after he gets five check marks, he gets to play with his trains. If he does something "wrong" -- tearing his worksheet and putting the paper in his mouth, let's say, very hypothetically. Cough. -- he is redirected to doing it the right way. The bad behaviors tend to be ignored, as if you punish them, that is often what the child is going for -- attention, and a chance to get out of what he doesn't want to do.]

Back to the story. So, the ABA consultant knew that this mystery woman (MW) didn't like having Hutton in her, uh, surroundings, and was not too keen on trying these ABA techniques for changing negative behaviors, but she still told MW that if she (ABA consultant) could help with any transitions to a new class she would. MW wrote back, in my best paraphrasing, with some of the choicest words in bold:

We are leaving Hutton's backpack in the bushes [he often throws his backpack in the bushes after he gets off the bus] so he doesn't get his snack for the day as a consequence. We reward all the other kids with crackers and telling them "Good job!" when they aren't ripping their papers, and ignore everything Hutton does unless it is harmful or affects other kids. Yesterday, Hutton was playing with the soap and got some in his eyes. I'm hoping he is smart enough to put the two together.

The rest of it mentions more of his bad behaviors, and how she knows I am weary of the school battle. Huh? I'm fine with school. Hutton is fine with school until he is treated like a dog, and worse than that, a very stupid dog.

Onto my mom bias. I know Hutton has challenging behaviors. Yeah, really. I deal with fights over getting him to drink his supplement-laced drinks every morning (damn, that TMG really smells bad, and Hutton sniffs everything before eating or drinking it! Guess he really doesn't need TMG that much today), his howls of protest when he doesn't want to do something he needs to do (get the bus, go to speech therapy, go downstairs for ABA therapy...), other assorted things here and there. But, I also know that Hutton is a very smart little boy who is perfectly capable of doing kindergarten level work. The trick is to make it enjoyable. Hmm. That's crazy, isn't it? Make kindergarten fun? You mean, so kids will like going to school for the next 12 years? Yeah, crazy.

And the point of Hutton being in kindergarten isn't to make him feel singled out as a stupid freak; strangely enough, he may get that idea when he's IGNORED and everyone else is rewarded for things he doesn't understand. Does he know they're getting crackers for not ripping papers? Maybe, but more likely he just sees other kids getting crackers, while he essentially sits ignored and hungry, because he doesn't get to have his snack, because his backpack is still in the bushes. But wait, how is he doing to make those connections if, as MW believes, he's not smart enough to realize that soap in your eyes hurts? GRRR.

I think his ABA consultant would point out that the whole idea is POSITIVE reinforcement of good behavior. Not punishment of bad behaviors. I realize punishment works to change behaviors, too, but that's not what we're looking for. I'm sure MW would love to be able to whip Hutton into submission, but that's just not going to happen in WA kindergarten. (I do remember being horrified when we moved to Tennessee and they had corporal punishment in the form of paddling at middle and high schools! No, I never was paddled. I was a good girl!) I've seen how well positive reinforcement works for Hutton. When I go crazy with praise after he writes his name on his homework sheet, the whole process goes so much more smoothly. Imagine that. Praise works better than my getting angry and frustrated. Who knew?

A few minutes after I got the forwarded email (e standing for EVIL), I got another email from MW, CCed to the ABA consultant and the director of special education at Hutton's school district.

Just to prove me wrong (or insane) Hutton has had much better days this week...He hasn't thrown his backpack since the day he missed out on snack. He has been willing to stay in his seat and do his work with a minimum of prompts. (And lots of crackers.) Let's stay on course and see how it goes!

So, right when I'm ready to get Hutton out this class ASAP, MW comes around to seeing how well he can behave. Of course, now I have to let her know we're doing a gluten, casein, corn, etc. free diet, and will have to provide them with some better reinforcers. I called the director of special education to discuss the situation, but haven't heard back from her yet. Needless to say, I still want Hutton out of crazy (hey, she said it herself!) Megabitch's class. But I don't know what his options are, and I've heard bad things about our neighborhood school from another parent. Sigh. It will all be fine. Eventually.

The other misery has been dietary. Hutton has been fine on the diet. I'm the one having trouble getting used to it. And Hubby (or Husband as I should call him, as Hubby sounds too cute and cheery for someone I'm still sorta pissed at) has problems with it as well.

Yesterday, as I was making the boys waffles (yes, Kim, I got the Trader Joe's ones!) and bacon, I was trying to get Hutton to drink his supplement juice. I made the mistake of putting the vitamins that smell in there (super nu thera and TMG), and Hutton wasn't going to drink his juice, which had the last of the lemonade in it, which is the best beverage for disguising the grapefruit seed extract I'm currently using to treat his yeast overgrowth. I was trying everything. "Hutton, you need to drink this so it will kill the yeast monster!" "Sweetie, if you drink this, you can have maple syrup on your waffles!" then quickly degenerating to, "Hutton, you will not scream at me. Go to your room until you calm down!" followed by, "Sweetie, please drink this! You won't be able to have any bacon unless you drink this! These supplements are really frickin' expensive!" Finally, after Husband came downstairs and offered the helpful, "Hutton, please drink your juice so Mommy will shut up," I dumped the drink, found some oranges to make orange juice with, and hid the grapefruit seed extract and a few other non-smelly vitamins in the o.j., which was readily accepted as drinkable by super-nosed boy. I then attempted to show him how to swallow capsules. No, that didn't work. I think I'll be leaving the smelly stuff out indefinitely, and sticking with the yummy, though not as nutritious or good for a yeast problem, chewable vitamins.

So, I was pissed at Husband after that remark, plus when he tried to say that we weren't doing anything fun all weekend, not because he had work to do (which he did) but because we couldn't go out to eat because of the diet. I decided to take the boys to the park after a delightful GFCFetc. lunch to prove him wrong. Husband wheedled his way into going to the park with us, then went to work that afternoon.

Another incident at the park added to my weekend funk. We saw a boy from Hutton's class. I spoke to the mom briefly about our plans for school for next year, while avoiding talking about a certain teacher at all costs. The boy from class pointed out that Hutton didn't pump well on the swing. OK. A few minutes later, another boy from Hutton's class showed up. I attempted to talk to the moms, who are obviously better friends than I am with either of them, for a few minutes, while watching their sons come up with some super-imaginative play scheme involving the jungle gym as a submarine, and going into the boiler room to check for leaks, and spotting dolphins through the periscope, etc. Hutton preferred to just play on the jungle gym as a jungle gym, and I quickly excused myself to spot Harrison on another jungle gym, feeling left out and sorry for myself, and sad that Hutton wasn't playing "the right way" with two boys from his class.

Today, in my less-miserable state of mind, I realize that the two boys aren't autistic (well, I know one isn't, and I'm pretty sure if the other one is, he's super high-functioning, as he came up and asked me my name and proceeded to call me by name for several minutes), and they are friends outside of school, so probably play better together anyway. If Hutton's friends from school who have autism were there, it may have been a different story, or if his friend Amy were there...Who knows?

Oh, and I was just PMSing. A classic excuse for misery and depression!

Rants, Rants, Rants

Did I say rants?

I came up with most of these last night, when the cat woke me up MEOWWWWWING at 5 a.m. As I stumbled, cursing, down the stairs, and gave the cat her F'ing food, because you know cats must eat at 5 a.m., they can't possibly wait a few more hours, Harrison woke up from the hubbub. So, I had to get him to go back to sleep.

Then I went back to bed, but couldn't sleep for a while. I tossed and turned, and did lots of mental blogging, where I come up with all sorts of things to write about in my head. Things that will be forgotten the next day. I really need to design a brain wave reader, so I can just hook something up to my head on nights like that, and the next day, happily edit what my insomniac brain came up with before it finally gave up and went to sleep.

I remembered that I've been mentally blogging for a long time. I remember in my pre-teen and early teen years, having a running narration in my head as I went about my exciting pre-teen life.

The girl finished brushing her teeth, got dressed, and headed into the kitchen, where she was greeted by her mother. "Good morning!" they said to each other. The girl decided to eat instant oatmeal for breakfast that morning, so got out a bowl and opened the Maple and Brown Sugar oatmeal packet....

Snore. Oh, sorry, did I fall asleep, too?

Anyway, back to the rants.

So, in addition to the cat waking me in the middle of the night (Friday night it was 3 a.m., so it's getting better), I have more rants.

The next one came from reading Greg's blog, in the comment section on this post, where Chris posted, "teachers teach to the tests now, kids don't learn HOW to learn, and we pile on homework that serves mostly to stifle curiosity and interest," and Allie posted that her daughter Natalie already has homework for Kindergarten.

Reading that, I felt my horns coming out. Hutton, too, has homework in his Kindergarten class. Now, I can understand this in theory. The idea is to get the kids used to bringing home their backpacks, and remembering to put their homework back in the backpack to take to school. But, here's the thing. Hutton is in Kindergarten. He has Autism. He doesn't think, "Gosh, I better get my special homework tube out of my backpack and do my homework." He thinks, "Gee, what can I play with now that I'm home from school?" So, guess who gets to be in charge of making sure the homework is taken out, completed, and put back in the backpack? If you guessed, "Laura" or "The Mom" you get a gold star on the homework chart! Oh yeah, I also get to fix the homework tube when it gets broken because Hutton wants to play with it.

And here's another RRRRANT about school. One of his "homework" assignments was to redo an assignment from earlier this week. It was a worksheet that involved coloring two of the peanuts in the picture, then circling them. The worksheet had groups of 2, 3, 4 and 5 peanuts, and apparently when they were teaching this at school, Hutton didn't understand and wanted to color ALL of the peanuts. So, the teacher wrote this on the worksheet and included an extra worksheet for him to practice at home. Again, I can see this in theory. It's good to get extra practice on something the kid doesn't understand at school. But the RRR in rant came out when I thought of it the other way. Here's an idea, why don't you, the teacher, TEACH the child how to do it at, say, SCHOOL.

In addition to Kindergarten, Hutton has 4 hours of speech therapy a week, and 6 hours of ABA therapy. It's not like he's just goofing off all the time at home, and if he were, hey, he's 5 YEARS OLD. They're supposed to be goofing off, playing. That's how they learn.

Which brings me to another rant. This one about Hubby.

Yesterday, Hutton and Harrison were playing with the Stomp Rocket, a very cool toy. The problem was, Hutton kept taking the Stomp Rocket out of the driveway, and moving it to the front walkway, and aiming it for the roof. He'd already done this before, and lost a rocket on the roof, so I told him not to aim for the roof, or the rockets would get stuck on the roof. That was one rule. The other was, not to use the Stomp Rocket inside. We're pretty mellow around here. Not too many rules.

So, after a few minutes (yes, I was sitting reading a magazine, so wasn't really paying attention. I'm not in the running for Mother of the Year, or even Mediocre Mom), Hutton ran up and said, "I need help with the rockets!" and I saw them all on the roof. I got angry and told him, "I've told you 100 times NOT to shoot the rockets on the roof!" As I climbed out my bedroom window, risking bodily harm to retrieve the rockets from the roof, I yelled to Hutton that we were done with the Stomp Rockets for the day. And as I was still cursing under my breath, Hubby asked what was going on. I told him, to which he replied, "That's how kids learn! By doing the things you don't want them to do. Heck, I put stuff on the roof all the time when I was a kid." So, I stormed off downstairs to watch bad tv by myself and let Hubby be the Perfect Father.

Later I took the boys to get their hair cut, and they both got balloons. When we came home, Hutton immediately let the balloons go so they flew up to the top of the stairs where only adults could reach them. I told him I wasn't going to get the balloons for him every time he let them go in the stairwell. Hubby got them for him a few times, then started getting short and told Hutton NOT to let them go in the stairwell again. When he did it again, I told Hubby, "You know, that's how kids learn."