Worst Aid

Posted by Dad Enough

After I spent Friday evening and most of yesterday at my curling club for a bonspiel, I spent a few hours with the kids so my wife could get away from them.

In the course of this adventure, I decided that the Monster’s nails needed a trim. As I’ve mentioned on multiple occasions, he likes to squeeze things when he’s not happy – usually me, but sometimes his brother – and tends to dig his nails in, so I thought I’d just take care of it really quickly. He was being nicely compliant, letting me cut his nails with a clipper… until he wriggled and I missed. Continue reading →

Social Politeness

Posted by Dad Enough

Do you remember when you learned that it was appropriate to say “please” and “thank you”?

The Monster does have those down okay – he doesn’t always say the latter unprompted, but if reminded/cued about asking nicely, he’ll usually remember the former. Continue reading →

Warnings

Posted by Dad Enough

My wife tells me sometimes about friends of hers who post to Facebook about how they have “surprised” their children with a trip to Disney World, the morning they are going. Most of this is a lament about how we really can’t do that to to the Monster… both because of how it would backfire in terms of his schedule, and because of his not really being in a place where the surprise would mean anything to him.

No. I’m more fixed on lots of advanced warning, so he knows what’s going on. Continue reading →

Count On It

Posted by Dad Enough

The Monster is obsessed with Sesame Street. He has been for a long time… and that’s alright with us.

Of course, Sesame Street is really good at teaching two things – letters and numbers. And the alphabet song is one of his coping mechanisms. Get him overloaded, and he starts singing it. Continue reading →

Let’em Stare

Posted by Dad Enough

If you’ve ever wondered how children with Autism would have been seen in the Middle Ages… well, a renfaire really is probably at least as close as you’ll get to the concept.

We enjoy going to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. We’ve been hitting it since before we had kids, and even now with children, we still try to go at least once a year to enjoy the sights. Continue reading →

Overprogrammed?

Posted by Dad Enough

I hear all the time about how my friends with NT kids are running around from activity to activity. Be it little league, dance class or something else, their kids seem to always be on the go.

I’m starting to get a sense of the same thing with the Monster. Continue reading →

Naked Time on the Neighbors’ Porch

Posted by Dad Enough

I’ll write more about the party itself tomorrow. But for now, an amusing vignette from when it was winding down.

We had hoped that Memorial Day weekend would, as the ‘unofficial start to summer’ entail a warm day for the party outside. Now, it wasn’t freezing by any stretch of the imagination, but it was really not so ‘summer-like’. Continue reading →

And Sometimes, He Really Surprises You

Posted by Dad Enough

So for my proud parent moment for the week:

The Monster’s birthday party is next weekend, so we’ve been slowly going through cleaning up the house. We’ve not yet tackled the family room because the Monster and his brother constantly empty out the bins of toys against the back wall. (Well, that’s more R (the baby) than the Monster of late.) Continue reading →