Q1 Report Cards & Halloween Costumes

Tyler has C’s in Albegra & Language Arts and B’s in Science, Social Studies, PE & Electronics Band. Overall I’m happy with his report card; his average GPA is better than it’s been for a while. I’m not happy about the C’s, obviously, but I’m most concerned about his grade in Algebra. He has tests each semester that he has to pass with a 70% in order to get high school credit for the class. I’m having a hard time figuring out how much of his grade is effort (or lack thereof) or subject content. I guess the district has a new policy where kids have to be re evaluated for 504’s every three years. This gets on my nerves for several reasons, one of which is that on the paperwork I have to fill out, they ask me to provide copies of report cards. ?!?!?!?!

Halle has a C in math (what’s UP with math this quarter?) and has herself convinced that it’s soooo hard. I watch her try and use strategies to solve problems that I swear to God add like, three or four extra steps. So we’re working on that, and she’s got A’s in every other subject.  She says she wants to run for Student Congress this year instead of Conflict Manager, which is a relief to me. Iasked her if she was going to join Buddy Club this year, and she said no… if she does Student Congress and Buddy Club it’s just too much running around (all these activities happen during lunch recess). I thought that was pretty impressive… hopefully she’ll be able to maintain that awareness of what she can handle & what’s going to just stress her out, unlike those of us who “should” ourselves to death.

Daija is coming along… she’s got self control & taking esponsibility as areas of concern, and everything else is developing or proficient (she doesn’t get letter grades yet). We’re working on that as well… Mommy needs to be more consistent! We spoiled the baby, and now I’m paying for it (and sadly, so is her teacher).

We went and got costumes last night, and somehow, not one of the kids is a vampire. Tyler is an “underworld outcast” and Daija is a US Diva. Halle said over the weekend she wanted to use last year’s costume (she was cleopatra). So I may be dressing up as cleopatra’s mother again… and we’ll be doing our usual Halloween tradition of trick or treating around the neighborhood for a minute and then heading to Doomtown at Rawhide.

a Facebook “oops”

So I woke up this morning and had a notification that a coworker had accepted my invitation to join Facebook. This was puzzling, since I don’t solicit people to join facebook if they’re not already on, unless you’re family anyway. I also seem to have a lot of email on my blackberry, for it being not quite 5AM… and strangely, some of them are out of office replies from vendors that I hadn’t emailed from work and who I’d never given my blackberry email to. Then I get an actual response from another coworker to an email I apparently generated, inviting them to view my pictures on facebook. I couldn’t have been more mortified… I mean, my kids & dogs are real cute, but most of the time that you get an email from someone you don’t really know inviting them to view your pictures… well… they’re not of cute kids & dogs.

I think my son, who has only been on facebook for a month, showed me a text he’d received from an uncle, telling Tyler he’d just signed up for facebook. I told him he could add his uncle this weekend, but Tyler was having trouble sleeping last night, and I strongly suspect he went online at some point with the intent of “friending” his uncle. The late hour may be why he didn’t realize he was in my account and not his, or that the “friend finder for smartphones” was not going to work on the kiddie lojack cell phone that he carries to & from the school bus stop… but it does would explain why he’d asked me yesterday evening what kind of phone he had/if it was a smartphone. It looks like he unintentionally sent invitations to join facebook to everyone in my blackberry, which wouldn’t be too big of a deal if I only had personal contact in my blackberry, but I sync it with outlook at work… so that request would have gone out to HUNDREDS of people. Literally. I’ve worked for US Airways for almost ten years and I probably have at least 1500 contacts in oulook.

So long story short/short story long… if you got an invitation to be my friend or view my pictures, please feel free to disregard or accept as you see fit. I only ask that either way, you never mention this little fiasco to me or anyone else for the rest of your natural life…

A conversation with my son about the Obama Speech

So at bedtime I chatted with the girls about their days, and asked about the Obama speech. Afterwards, I asked my son about it, and before he really got started, I got what I decided was a flash of inspired brilliance and grabbed my crackberry and recorded our conversation. I wish I’d done that with the girls… sometimes with Tyler, you ask a question and when he’s finally done talking, it’s been an hour and you’re asking yourself…

Who put a quarter in you?

… and sometimes, he has a hard time figuring out how to express his thoughts verbally.

He’s like his mama like that…

 a 13yo’s take on the Obama Speech

When I was listening to this afterwards, I cringed a little bit. Something I said with the best of intentions doesn’t sit too well with me.

Bike Riding…

So tonight at dinner we’re having some nice conversation.

Tyler: I wish we could go for a bike ride.

Halle: Where at?

Daija: Colorado! 

Tyler:  WHY in Colorado?

Daija: What?  I dunno… cuz it’s as big as our world… it’s medium-large…

God, I love these kids…

back again so soon…

September 9, 2008 – Tuesday 4:56 AM

Won’t be too long of a post, but Tyler has his first COA event this weekend… it’s a teambuilder at a retreat a couple hours away. Tyler and the other COA youth will be doing teambuilding activities, including a ropes course. I had no idea what that was but Tyler did and can’t wait. So Saturday morning I’ll be taking him to meet the group and then pretty much spending the rest of the day attending various offerings commemorating the anniversary of the 1963 bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church that killed four young girls. The event is called The Love That Forgives, which was the Sunday School lesson plan the day of the bombing. Then we’ll be back at for services on Sunday, as Tyler has a COA class, “The UU Story and Vision.”

Needless to say I’m in the process of adding all the classes from the syllabus to my outlook calendar so I can download them into my phone (also known as my portable brain) and attempt to keep track of when his required classes are/I absolutely have to get my butt out of bed no matter how tired I am.

via back again so soon… – CURLYGURL’s MySpace Blog | Cyndi–s Jewels.

OPEN THE DOOR!

So we were up late Saturday night, my little Easter/Christmas Elf and I, assembling Easter baskets and watching The Five People You Meet in Heaven.  It was a warm weekend, but I refuse to turn on the air conditioning this early, so I popped the baskets into the fridge, intending to get up about half an hour earlier than either of the girls usually wake up to set them out and to go outside and, using the chalk stamper/stencil I got at Target, to stamp bunny feet going to and from our front door.

The girls woke up at 6:30. 

So I herded them into the tub before they could look any further than their rooms, pulled the chilled chocolate and jelly beans out of the fridge and set them out, and ran outside in my jammies to stamp the bunny foot prints. 

Dear Mr. Exterminator… (by Halle)

Dear Mr. Exterminator,

Please do not destroy me and my home.  If you don’t, I’ll continue to help you out with your bedbug problem.

I know I’m nasty, but that’s just the way I am… forever.

Sincerely,

Cockroach

Apparently, cockroaches eat bedbugs.  Who knew?  And Tyler shares with me that they can live without their heads for three weeks, go without food for a month, and hold their breath for 45 minutes.

Gotta love public education.

Twinkies, and other snack cakes

So you learn something new every day.

I have reached that point, 3/4ths of the way into the school year, that I am just tired of being hit up for money.

I’m tired of school pictures.

I’m tired of class pictures.

I’m tired of yearbooks (Christ, I was in high school before I had a yearbook.)

I’m tired of fundraisers.

I’m not interested in hitting up my friends and colleagues to buy shit that is substandard in quality and certain to break within weeks.

And thanks, but no, I’m not interested in fighting childhood obesty* and going door to door to asking for pledges for Tyler to participate in Jump for Heart.

I very crossly informed him the other morning, “My children are all healthy weights. Let the parents that send their kids to school with twinkies pay for childhood obesity.”

This dissolved Tyler into giggles.

“Mom, we’re not allowed to have that stuff at school.”

This is what the world has come to… junk food has actually been BANNED at my children’s elementary school.  No Little Debbie, no Doritos, no Fruit Roll-Ups, no Cracker Jacks, etc.

And I’m really OK with this, because the Safeway Delivery Man carries very little of that stuff through my front door anyway.  I send carrot sticks, pickles, cucumbers, avacado, sliced bell peppers, grapes, apple and orange wedges, pretzels, granola, etc.

But despite the fact that, when away from my children’s ever watching eyes, I am a junk food fiend, I’m never ceased to be surprised that I am clearly part of such a tiny population of parents who are conscientious about what their children eat.  I’m amazed that other parents are sending crap food to school in such quantity and with such regularity that it’s actually been banned in an elementary school handbook.

Tyler brought up Jump for Heart again.  I guess he thought that the dollar was some kind of admission fee and assumed I’d believed the same, and wanted to clarify with me that it was not for him to jump, to to help fight obesity.

I responded, with less ‘tude this time, that my children have healthy diets and that the parents who choose to feed their kids Twinkies and Doritos can pay to fight obesity… I already paid at the grocery store.

Again, my son almost fell over laughing.

My son tells me how funny I am, and I am compelled to ask what is so funny. My son tells me that I’m the only grown up who has ever said that word to him.  This is when I was learned, or should I say, had my memory refreshed, that the name of just about any snack cake has an alternate meaning for the ten year old boy. 

Granted, I remember weeners and ding dongs… but I never remembered the 10yo boy’s genitalia being referred to as a twinkie.

Live and learn, I guess.

*I realize that childhood obesity is a serious issue – no disrespect intended to anyone who may be battling weight issues, whether their own, or their children’s.

There’s Something About Mary

Considering that it’s Christmas Eve, my blog title might have you thinking this post about Mary of Nazareth.

But it’s not.

Per Latonya’s request in Conversations with the Boy, this is about Mary of Mrs. Homeroom’s 5th grade class.

A few weeks ago, Halle’s friend, Kameryn, was at our house for a sleepover. Kameryn is in 4th grade, and just turned 9 in October. She and Tyler were chasing each other all over the house and it almost seemed flirtatious to me.

So a little later that night while the girls were playing Barbie’s, I caught Tyler alone and asked him if he was old enough to like girls yet.

He almost blushed and told me that was personal information.

I reminded him that I was his mama.

So he confessed, not to liking Kameryn, but that he kinda likes a girl in his classed named Mary.

I asked what she looked like.

Now, I guess I assumed that at such a young age, boys liked girls based on appearance. Hell, I know grown men who are still chasing after girls based on appearance… and grown women who do the same.

Tyler started to say, “Well, she…”

and tapered off.

He started again, and stopped.

“I don’t really know how to describe her. But we have a lot in common… we both like math…” etc. etc. etc.

I was impressed with my boy, that he likes a girl based on what’s in her cabeza, not what’s filling out her top or behind.

Last week I went and helped out at the class party, and as I was making like the one hundred millionth hot chocolate, and an occasional hot cider, I asked one of the girls, “You wanted cider, right honey?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A few minutes later, I heard someone call her Mary.

I confirmed with Tyler… yes, she’s THAT Mary we talked about… but BE QUIET, Mom!

Oh, yes… I was impressed with my boy. Her Accellerated Math score is higher than Tyler’s… so not only is he not attracted to her because of her looks, he’s not intimidated by her brains either. She’s smart and polite… and for the record, pleasant looking, too. Taller than Tyler (but who isn’t) and slender, with thick light brown hair that’s kinda straight.

The Search For Stimulation (AKA, ADHD on the school bus)

The Search For Stimulation:  Understanding Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

So when I was moseying the net Friday night on Ei’s reference to Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities and giftedness, not to mention ADHD, I came across the above article.  I’d encourage anyone to read it, but I’m going to post here a couple paragraphs I particularly appreciated.

If I was in charge of renaming ADHDand Im notI would call it the “search for stimulation disorder.” To explain this, lets look at the problem of Timmys attention. Timmy has difficulty sticking to tasks such as homework or other relatively less interesting chores, such as cleaning up his room. To Timmys parents, it wasn’t that he couldn’t do his chores, but that he just didnt want to do them.

Timmy’s parents are partially right. Timmy can do things that he is interested in, but he has trouble with jobs that require more sustained effort. Its not because he doesnt care; its because, more than most other people, he needs to find something interesting for it to hold his attention.

Timmy searches for stimulation. That often gets him into trouble because he doesnt pay attention when hes supposed to. He turns to look out of the classroom window when he should be listening to the teacher. He gets up out of his seat during the middle of a lesson. He annoys other children when they are trying to listen or do their work. Although medical scientists do not know exactly what causes ADHD, I can tell you what I think it is, just as I explained it to Timmy’s parents.

This describes Tyler so aptly.  I had commented to Tyler, you don’t act like that (the way he had on the bus) when you’re in the car with me.  Ei’s question… what skills is Tyler lacking, made me ask, what’s different about the bus than my car?

Well, there are a heck of a lot more kids, for one.  And Tyler has always been one to get wound up in an unstructured environment with a lot of other kids.  There is one adult, whose primary attention is directed to what’s going on in front of her rather than what’s going on behind her.  By the time a situation comes to her attention, it has already started to escalate, at which point Tyler is rarely able to reign himself in, and needs intervention from an external control.  I’d also bet my bottom dollar that she’s trying to redirect Tyler (and the other kids) through her rear view mirror. 

Since Tyler was diagnosed, I’ve made it a point to communicate with teachers, tutors, and parks/recreation staff that Tyler needs direct, eye contact anytime verbal instructions are given.  I make it a point to let them know that if he’s ‘gone’ and not responding to verbal directions, he needs physical touch… something like a hand on the shoulder.  I’ve had to cup my hands around his eyes in a super stimulating environment to maintain his attention.  If I’m worried that the professionals working with my child every day don’t have adequate training on dealing with a gifted/ADHD, aka twice exceptional child, why would I assume his bus driver is any better equipped?

What else is different about mom’s car versus the school bus?  Well, I don’t drive any length of time, particularly not in rush hour traffic, without something for Tyler to do.  Meds or no meds, if he doesn’t have some activity to channel his energy into, he will ’self stim’ with excessive fidgeting and noises that are distracting to me if he’s in the front seat, and irritating his sister’s if he’s in the back.  I keep some handheld electronic games in the car, and carry a ‘fun bag’ when the kids are with me that has books for each of the kids, paper, pencils, crayons, and flashcards for the car and in case we wind up waiting for an extended period of time in any kind of boring place. 

Behavior management
Behavior management can be extremely important. It is essential to understand, however, that medication is the only intervention that will actually reduce the individual’s symptoms. Without medication, only the environmentnot the individualcan be changed. Behavior management means changing the environment so that the inattentive and impulsive individual can function better.

I really liked this paragraph as well… I’ve always looked at behavioral management as me managing Tyler’s behavior in circumstances when he can’t, but it’s really more of me managing his environment.  For example, if I need him to focus on anything, homework, chores, etc, I eliminate as many distractions from the environment as possible.  I turn off the TV, I make sure any music provides white noise rather than being stimulating/distracting.  If his sisters are a distraction, I occupy them in another room. 

So Tyler’s medication doesn’t necessarily prevent him from self-stim if he has nothing else to do, plus his meds take 30-60 minutes to reach a therapeutic level, and he takes them 20-40 minutes before he gets on the bus.  In a situation where medication can’t be depended on alone, what are the options for behavioral (environment) management?

Well, it seems that a great deal of the trouble Tyler is getting into on the bus is when he and his friends are talking about who knows what (Radio Disney lyrics?) and disagree about something, and then it becomes a shouting match, and Tyler is the loudest of the bunch trying to make his opinion heard.  They also sit towards the back of the bus.  Well, I can’t eliminate all the other kids, but it seems to me that Tyler needs to sit towards the front, and not with any of the other opinionated children he argues with.  I know every kid he listed (my best friends’ son, his best friend, halle’s best friend, halle’s best friend’s cousin), and I love them all… they’re great kids… but Tyler needs to sit in a seat by himself.  And he needs something to do.

And that’s a conundrum.  What can I send?  Chances are I’m not going to convince him to read on the bus, because I’m not sure how many books I’d find that could hold his attention in the force of that much stimulus.  I know a handheld game would probably do it, but would he have the self control to only take it out while on the bus?  I think he has a different driver in the morning than in the afternoon, as well.  Besides, I’ve always been very ‘anti’ sending toys to school, and I’m pretty sure the school has some kind of rule about that too.  Not to mention, how irritated would I be when it got lost or stolen or confiscated because he was playing with it in school?

I picked up a Rubik’s Cube yesterday at Target while Tyler was picking out a gift for Cameron, as well as a handheld Sudoku game. He seems interested in the Rubik’s Cube, which has the benefit of not being an electronic game/not making noise, and chances are I can find smaller/cheaper versions if I put my mind to it and it really works for him.  I also printed out an easy sudoku puzzle, which Tyler says he did some of towards the end of 4th grade on the computer.  He was excited about taking them to do on the bus to keep him busy.  He also loves word searches, so maybe I can find some of those that are challenging enough to keep his attention, but not so hard he’d give up and start looking for other stimulation.

Energy/Prayer Request…

It’s hard for me to do this, because I know most of you are working hard to overcome your own painful situations, but Tyler really needs your good stuff right now… He had an appointment today at St. Luke’s Child Study Center. I wish I had it in me to go into detail… but I don’t so I’ll just have to beg for your patience until I find my equilibrium again.

Please, the next time you talk to God, mention my son.

ADHD Perspective: my name is Wild Child… – 2006

This is a personal narrative from my son, describing his ADHD.

March 6, 2006 – Monday 10:35 PM

My name is Wild Child and I am nine years old.  I go to [ABC School].  I am in 4th grade and I am in Mr. Homeroom’s classroom and I have Mrs. Gifted for reading.  I am gifted and I have ADHD.  My ADHD makes it really hard for me to remember things and pay attention.  It also makes it hard for me to sit still.  I take medicine for my ADHD.  When I take my medicine, I feel like regular me, but kinda tired and not so excited.  When I don’t take my medicine, I feel really excited about everything, and I feel jumpy and I want to move a lot and stuff like that.  I like taking my medicine.  I feel like I’m getting a whole lot better grades than I did when I was in second grade and I didn’t know I had ADHD; it helps me sit still in class and pay attention a little better. Sometimes when my teacher is giving directions, I look at him while he’s talking but then my eyes start drifting off to something else and then my brain starts thinking about that thing.  One day while we were talking about math, Mr. Homeroom was teaching us about the problems for that day, and I looked at one of the math problems, a multiplication problem, and I started staring.  Then my brain started reading the numbers backwards and thinking of different multiplication problems and I wasn’t paying attention anymore.  I didn’t figure out the answer, so when Mr. Homeroom called me I didn’t know the answer.  After that Mr. Homeroom told me to go back to the thinking table.  I think I was in trouble for not paying attention.

Just think of me as the white rabbit (Section 504 Update) – 2006

Just think of me as the white rabbit (Section 504 Update) – CURLYGURL’s MySpace Blog | Cyndi–s Jewels

I’m up half the night at home researching for this and then at work I’m furtively printing documentation like mad in between tasks… I’m so behind in everything… work, housework, friends… ya know… life.

Aside from my ‘independant research’ I made a few phone calls that kinda bolstered my confidence.  On Monday I spent nearly 45 minutes with the director of gifted services at the AZ Dept of Ed, and yesterday I about 30 minutes on the phone with a staff attorney from the US Dept of Ed’s Office of Civil Rights… I’ll have to post details of those conversations this weekend.

I finally confirmed the date of the next CST (child study team)/504 Accommodations meeting on Tuesday, 3/8.  Tyler’s teacher, the school’s gifted teacher, the school’s SpEd coordinator, and the District’s 504 coordinator will all be in attendance… not sure about the school Psychologist.  I called to follow up with Ms. SpEd, and discovered she’d forgotten all about him (eyes roll outta my head).  That was the weightier of the reasons we decided to continue the meeting, so that he could attend.  She’s sweet and seems well intentioned, but either she’s overworked or she’s on the ditzy side.

So my task between now and then is to sort through the two or three reams of paper I’m hefting around with me everywhere I go, and figure out how much of it I want to carry into this meeting.  I have about twice as much paperwork as I had when I went to the last meeting.  Mr. Teacher made a wow comment, and Ms. SpEd looked a little freaked out when I plopped that bulging 2 in binder on the conference table.  I also need to get some records from Tyler’s initial diagnosis/comments from that psychologist.  I’m trying to get some records out of the old school district and I am so hot with them right now… they only have scores for Tyler’s 2nd grade SAT-9’s.  No SAT-9 scores for 3rd grade, and no AIMS scores.  For those of you in AZ… you know the AIMS.  IT’S FREAKING REQUIRED FOR A CHILD TO PASS IT TO GRADUATE FROM 3RD, 8TH, AND 12TH GRADES and they have no record of it.

Shared via AddThis

Cool! The whole crew’s gonna be at the sock hop!

Just let the title marinate for a little while. It’s not just me that thinks there’s something fundamentally hysterical about any sentence that contains both the term ‘crew’ and the phrase ’sock hop’, is it?

Friday after I picked the kids up from the community center, Tyler asked if Jelani would be going to the sock hop at their school that night. The subject line was his response when I answered yes.

I managed not to laugh, and just gave a little hiccup as I inquired, “You have a crew?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tyler responds.

“Who all is in this crew?” I ask, as if I don’t already know the answer.

“Me, Cameron, Elijah, and Jelani,” Tyler informs me.

If you follow our blog on myspace, you probably remember Cameron and Elijah from my posts on Tyler’s stint as a small business owner and attempt at petty forgery. They’re getting quite a little reputation, the three of them. The last time the staff at the community center shared a concern with me, the story began like this… “Tyler and his posse were by the bingo machine…”

You don’t mess with the bingo machine at a community center that has a thriving senior group whose primary social entertainment consists of B-I-N-G-O. You especially do not allow oragami claws to enter any part of the machine.

I finally got a chance to meet Cameron’s mom at the sock hop, and she says she hears Tyler’s name just as often as I hear Cameron’s. I think it’s a tossup as to who gets who in trouble. I told her about the little conversation Tyler and I had about their little crew, she laughed and called them the Fab Four. In the Cha Cha Slide, she’s the lady in the denim outfit and baseball cap; I think Elijah’s mom is the lady wearing gray slacks and a burgandy top.

Halle, upon hearing Tyler list out his crew, decided she has one as well. You can probably just dub Halle, Chaz, and Kennedy ‘The Pink Ladies’ and be done with it. I wish I’d gotten more pictures of her, but in case you couldn’t tell, she wasn’t real interested in the camera.

Daija had a great time at the dance… she jumped into the picture Jelani wanted me to take of his face painting, and then grabbed his hands and started dancing. I think they may well have been the only boy/girl couple at the dance!!! But that’s my Daija, she knows her own mind and isn’t afraid to take matters into her own hands.

| View Show | Create Your Own

Tyler’s Life of Crime

Well, after Tyler’s company folded (he got shut down for not having an operator’s permit), he has apparently decided to try his hand at other criminal activities. Apparently somebody’s mother wrote a note for two of his friends who are cousins (and a grade behind Tyler in school), which will allow them to sign themselves out of the rec program (supervised) to go play basketball in the gym (not really supervised, and from what I see, mostly junior high/high school/young adults… no place a bunch of 8/9 yo’s need to be). Tyler’s no dummy… he knew I wasn’t gonna go for that. So Tyler, Cameron, and Elijah came up with an alternate plan, and oh so discreetly (yeah right) added Tyler’s name (with an arrow) in all the places that Cameron and Elijah’s names were written. When I walked into the community center, Mr. Butter Wouldn’t Melt in My Mouth was very quick to ask me if he could get a note to be able to go play basketball… right before one of the staff showed me the forged document.

To coin a phrase from my dad… I’ll give you three guesses who’s on house arrest, and the first two don’t count.

Ei	Wow…at least he snitched on himself.  So how good was the forgery?  Has he a future Big Mama?   Posted by Ei on December 9, 2005 – Friday – 9:38 AM [Reply to this]  [Remove]  [Block User]

CURLYGURL

LOL… he wrote neatly and in cursive, but it didn’t look a thing like my writing.  I was sure it was his handwriting, but when I asked he got that deer in the headlights look and said no.  I said, who wrote it?  “I didn’t”  Tyler, I didn’t ask you who DIDN’T write it… that’s a long list.  I asked you who DID.  Told him to think about the consequences if I didn’t get the truth and get it NOW.  A very small voice replied “Me”  He and Halle were supposed to have a movie party, but since they both got in trouble at Club 212 (she was told three times by a staffer to stop throwing toys???) they lost that.  Since Tyler lied to me on top of that, he has community service… which means it should be a nice, relaxing weekend for me.  I’m gonna sit on my butt and not do a DAMN thing… Tyler will be doing all mommy’s chores.   Posted by CURLYGURL on December 10, 2005 – Saturday – 8:56 AM

via Tyler’s Life of Crime – CURLYGURL’s MySpace Blog | Cyndi–s Jewels.