Everybody Stims

Just a few ideas to follow up on my summertime post from a few weeks ago.  Here are some ideas to fill those days where your kiddos are bouncing off the walls and it's really hot out and September seems eons away... •    You don’t need a therapy room devoted to mats, balls and swings, there are all sorts of activities to get the same input. Try games such as Twister, sack races, whiffle-ball in the yard, or even a trampoline –the mini or large kind. •   Hiding under cushions, making forts, obstacles or crash pads in the living room is always fun.  Rolling up in a big blanket together to make “body bagel dogs” or under a bunch of pillows to make “human fruit salad” on the couch or floor is always fun. “Toss” the salad by having the child pile up with pillows and stuffed animals on a big blanket, then you gather up the corners of the blanket and shake and pull them around. Then change places. Be brave! Wrestle, roughhouse, break a sweat toge...

I've never made cards like this or handed them out before. Thinking about it as we leave our sweet, safe little Vancouver community nest to travel a bit this summer, I'd like to be uber-prepared, just in case. Starer-ers, snickerers, and pointers are not my favorite people but I usually ignore them or try to give them a straight on for reals, Namaste-yourself-I-see-you-and-I-still-love-you smile saying we are just fine thank you. Happy, even. However, as we venture far out into areas unknown in challenging new ways, I want to make sure Dan has backup, and if I don't have the emotional (or sleep) resources to bring forth my namaste-self, then I might need to just hand out a card --really it would be to make myself feel better. But families, just so you know, I have mixed feelings about these things... Part of me is like; "It's no one else's business and effing back off if you are disturbed by my obviously struggling child or I will shank you." We...

Every year, after the initial excitement and novelty of mornings with cartoons and pajamas wears off, usually just after the 4 th of July, I often get the question:   “Help! What can we do to fill up our summer days?” Good question. So many of our kids enjoy highly structured lives. School, therapies, doctor appointments, and activities typically fill our days. Often we feel we have to fill the empty spaces during summer months to keep our kids from stimming the day away and getting very bored or behavioral. However, we can only go to the zoo or Children’s Museum so many times before we want to poke our own eyes out, so what to do? These days, spontaneous individual play is a challenge for many kids, but it can be doubly challenging for us, especially when  nostalgically  thinking about the “typical” summers of our own childhoods. Those long, unscheduled hours of grimy, sepia-tinged adventures we  remember, glorified in movies like “The Sandlot” with...

"Let Go or Be Dragged." (Attributed to a Zen proverb) As the youngest child in our family gets ready to attend middle school in the fall, I want to post and re-post this video until everyone sees it and internalizes it:  Ethan and I put this together one day, years ago when he was home sick in the third grade. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Zs8DS2wBE) Despite this big, looming transition in September, this summer has been one of our best ever. But it has also been one of the hardest. I find myself internally clinging to the last weeks of carefree, total abandon that comes with having to answer to no one about my children's participation in school. No homework due, no missing art fees, no IEP meetings, no phone calls about missed meds, no emails about what to do when a new behavior crops up, not even a measly picture day reminder slip. Freedom.  The break is welcome and happy, the kids are tan from playing outside and snuggly with sle...

These two. They just blow me away. With their two brains working together they were unstoppable.  Thank you, Annie and Helen. You showed 'em. Helen and Annie When I was 16, I auditioned to be Helen Keller in our high school's production of   The Miracle Worker , a beautiful three-act play by William Gibson based on Keller's autobiography:  The Story of My Life . It literally changed the path of my entire life, thanks to a brilliant teacher and director, LouAnne Durham, who could both 1) Manage to organize the circus of hormones called Teenagers in Drama, and 2) Create something beautiful out of our chaos using a great script, her own skill, extreme patience and sheer tenacity.  She made us do more than just recite lines and learn blocking. She talked to us about the relationships between characters. In preparation even before practice she challenged me to experience life in different ways to get a hint of what Helen may have felt. She had me wear vi...

(this is a post from last winter I forgot to publish  because clearly at the time I was very, very sleep deprived!)  It is the simple things that make me so grateful, so happy, so able to drift off to sleep. Just two words that I now know he can use: "Yes. Ear." Who would have thought they had such meaning? --I'm desperately hoping for sleep tonight. Dan feels much better and his antibiotics SHOULD have kicked in by now to relieve the ear infection that I think is the reason that we've been up at 3, 4 and 5am on and off for the last two weeks. I thought it was time to maybe "go there" with some heavy duty sleep meds, besides the melatonin we use now. However before we went there (to psychiatry for meds) I went to his pediatrician to rule out a possible ear or sinus infection, or --ahem-- a pinworm infection. Because he eats dirt.(But that's another blog post for another day, okay?) She found a goopy, red and infected right eardrum. I have never...

Last January I got this letter from Dan's teacher: "...This morning he came in and checked his schedule. Today was PE. He took the picture off. I told him that he had PE today so we were going to leave it on.  He looked at me and said, 'No.'  I showed him my teacher schedule that said PE for his class.  He said, 'No PE' again and tried to take it off.  I told him I was sorry, but it is what is on our schedule for today.  He got his iPad, and told me "No" again. I asked him what he would rather have instead, and he verbally said, 'Art.'  I talked with Dan about being disappointed that today was not art. I made him a specialist calendar for January and February.  It seemed to appease him and he did well in PE. Later in the day we worked on writing.  Every presidential inauguration year, students can write to the president and the letters will be read to congress.  I asked Dan what he wanted to write about.  And Dan said, '...