Understanding what the Monster wants or needs usually’s harder than it looks.
He’s not bad about expressing the basics of his needs, most of the time. He’ll use single words – “eat”, “drink”, “bed” – which usually expresses the gist of what he’s looking for… but getting to the specifics, and to a format that others’ll understand, is another matter.
And at eight years old, this is really starting to become a problem. Continue reading
I’ve written before about how the Monster seems to have an interesting relationship with art.
Now, I’ve yet to meet a child who doesn’t like to scribble, paint or the like. Just because my kids have picked up my distinct lack of talent for the medium doesn’t mean that they’re not going to do it. Continue reading
I’ve been in diversity training this week, and these kinds of sessions are the kind where everyone is having to suffer through two long days of ‘training’ to teach you the things you should have already learned. As such, there’re plenty of people I don’t know in the room from different departments, minding their own business and just trying to survive to get out of the session without doing too much…
… and then across the room, I noticed that one of the others was wearing their ID badge on a puzzle-piece lanyard. Continue reading
Like many children with Autism, the Monster is working with a serious language deficit.
He’s certainly by no means wholly non-verbal – he does have quite the interesting vocabulary, and it’s more often than not the manner in which he uses it. His use of language, primarily, are one and two word utterances, and it’s an IEP goal to encourage him to stretch that out.
But somehow, a lot of the time, he does get his meaning across. Continue reading
Add another thing to the diverse list of interests for the Monster.
We have a cart near the door to our patio with all kinds of art stuff in it. It’s been there for a while – I don’t quite remember when we got it or what inspired it – but it has paint and markers and the like in the various rainbow-hued drawers, ready for the taking. Continue reading
The Monster turns eight today.
Since his last birthday, a lot’s changed. The Monster’s attending a different school. He’s no longer in private therapy for speech and occupational therapy, mostly because of how much the work for that’s been increased at his regular school. And we’re seeing, at least, a little bit of progress on those fronts. Continue reading
So, it should be apparent when you’re reading my blog, that I don’t do all of this by myself. (If you’ve not noticed mention of my wife, then you’re… not reading often enough.) And on this day, it’s important to remember that she is there, part of everything that’s going on.
Because, truthfully, I wouldn’t be able to be a fraction of the father that I am, if it weren’t for her being the mother that she is.