Recycled Trash Sculptures

Charlie had a special homework assignment for Earth Day this year.

To use recycled materials to create a sculpture.

He had a lot of fun assembling it.

Andy was there to help him figure out how to put things together and to prompt him for ideas.

Charlie loves anything that he does with his dad.

It was about this time that Ephram decided that he wanted to make one, too. 

Luckily we had saved up plenty of recyclables for a second sculpture.

Charlie's sculpture kept growing and getting more complex.

And then it was finally done.

(Ephram wanted to roll around on the floor for a picture too.)

All that Charlie had left was to give it a name and write a few things down.

We were sure this was going to be a Star Wars rocketship of some sort.

But, nope... he went with Andy's favorite instead.

This turned out to be a super fun project for the whole family!

Art by Charlie

Charlie was going through a pretty creative phase in March.

He really branched out in his drawings.

But somehow, they all seemed to have a rainbow in them.

Here are a couple of the pictures that he made!

Charlie and the Ephram Gate

It was a Friday afternoon.

I, foolishly, had scheduled hair cuts for both of the boys right after Charlie got out of school for the day.

Foolishly?

Yes, three kids in a salon by myself is a bit foolish.

Especially considering the fact that Charlie is autistic and hair cuts are an ordeal for him.

And Ephram is a bit unpredictable of late.

He gets really frustrated when nobody understands what he wants.

He tries and tries to use words, 

But when nobody understands him and they move forward anyway...

It can be a bit of a disaster.

I can't imagine having the language comprehension and the imagination of my 

Three year old boy,

And still be struggling to form many of the basic sounds.

To have an idea that is perfectly reasonable,

To tell Mommy or Daddy about it,

And then to tell them again - 

And again - 

And again - 

And still not be understood.

We're talking about a boy that understands everything he hears,

Recognizes letters,

And many beginning sounds,

And is even starting to spell,

But just can't speak clearly.

So I try to be understanding,

(Patience, Dzana, patience)

And gentle,

But still...

Life must go on, right?

This particular Friday?

It was just sitting there, waiting to explode.

Charlie went first.

While he was getting his hair cut,

Ephram ran out the door,

And into the parking lot,

Three times.

Macie did not go to sleep during her usual nap time.

And uncharacteristically cried,

Pretty much the whole time.

(Two molars were pushing through her gums, poor girl!)

When Charlie was done

(And had finished screaming "You're hurting me!")

It was Ephram's turn.

And Ephram was, at that moment, trying to tell me something.

I did not understand.

I have a ton of tricks for this,

But on this day they all failed.

I tried to get his interest in sitting in one of the special chairs they have.

But he just started screaming,

And then he started crying,

And the hair started flying as he started flailing.

And I had to hold my poor boy still,

With all of my might,

While his hair was cut as quickly as possible.

(Breathe, Dzana, breathe.)

Meanwhile Macie was sobbing and 

Charlie was holding an unusual conversation with the next customer.

That customer was looking at me with a look I could not interpret.

Maybe concern?

Judgement?

Understanding?

Solidarity?

Probably just a hope that her poor one year old, 

(In for her first hair cut)

Would not freak out because of the crazy lady's children.

This, my friends, is one of the days when I wondered:

"What in the H-E-double hockey sticks was I thinking

When I decided to have three kids?"

I would be ashamed to admit this.

Except I know that all mothers secretly feel this way,
Regardless of how many children we have and what challenges we face,

And it doesn't change how much we love or care for our children.

Back in the salon,

Ephram was finally done.

Just as Charlie ran and grabbed a handful of dum dums,

Without asking and before it was time,

And unwrapped one and handed it to my not-yet-one baby,

Ephram threw up.

All over him.

All over the floor.

And all over me.

And then he did it again.

Macie was still sobbing,

As she tried to bite on the lollipop...

Which probably would have soothed her poor gums.

(Quiet voices, Dzana, don't scream.)

But then her mean, mean Mom

Grabbed it away super fast.

And the sob became a wail.

So with one overstimulated and completely crazed seven year old,

One traumatized, shaking and puke-stinky three year old,

And a screaming and spit-up covered baby in a car seat,

I waited forever while my credit card
Did not go through.

It turns out that there was some suspicious activity,

That was the monthly $3 charge that always comes through from Skype,

That I've told my bank about five times...

And so they had put a stop on my card.

(Unclench your fingers, Dzana, relax.)

Thank heaven I carried another card that day.

It finally went through,

I signed the slip as fast as I could,

With the hand that was holding Ephram on my hip.

Somehow I packed all three of my kids back in the car,

Shut the door,

And said a little prayer.

And then I started to drive.

This was almost four months ago.

If you've seen my recent pictures, you may have noticed Ephram's long hair.

You could say I'm a bit traumatized,

And more than a little worried that he may have some PTSD from the experience, too.

That hair cut will have to come eventually.

Soon.

But I'm putting it off until the last possible minute.

Because I can.

Back to our Friday.

I just wanted everyone to be happy.

And it was snack time.

So I drove through McDonald's on the way home

And gave each of my boys a chocolate chip cookie.

Yes, I use food in ways I never planned to.

I'm not ashamed of that either.

And I gave Macie a bottle and she drifted off to sleep.

I may have had a McFlurry.  

(And not the snack sized one.)

When we got home, 

Both of my boys had smiles.

And I thanked God for hearing my prayer.

As I put Macie to sleep upstairs,

My boys were a little sugar crazed downstairs,

And I returned to find them playing a new game.

We call it Ephram Gate.

When Charlie was three, he went through a gate stage.

Well, this is the day that Ephram's began.

He had the most fun blocking Charlie's path

(As Charlie counted 100 times running around our circular downstairs,)

And requiring different things for passage.

Sometimes it was a "credit card" toll,

Sometimes a magic word,

Sometimes a crazy dance.

I kid you not,

They did this for 75 minutes.

They turned my face to a smile, too...
And that headache that had been forming?
Never materialized.

I had never, ever seen them cooperate so well

Or laugh so much.

The rest of our day was - 

Wonderful.

Truly.

I will never forget this day.

Life has taught me a lot lately.

More than I've asked.

And mostly that every time I survive a disaster,

I'm immediately blessed with wonder.

So, bring on the disasters.

(But... Let's keep them manageable and minor, please?  I've had enough seriousness for a few years.  Salon disasters are far preferred to those that involve hospital stays.  Thanks.)

Cool Cat Charlie

In February, Charlie finally got his turn to be the Cool Cat.

Every week in his class, a different student is spotlighted.

During their week, they get to put up a little poster about themselves.

They can also put up pictures from home.

AND they get to share something with their class every day.

Charlie loves, loves, loves to perform and to be the center of attention.

He was so ready to be the Cool Cat.

I am 7 years old.

I live in Snohomish.

These are the people in my family: Me, Mom, Dad, Ephram and Macie

When I grow up I want to be: A Lego designer and a magician

I am a star because I am good at building Legos, drawing pictures and writing stories. 

I show kindness by making nice notes to everyone.

Some of my favorite things:

• Color: Green
• Animal: Wookiee
• Food: Lasagne
• Book: Magic Tree House
• Sport: Soccer
• What I like to do at school: Math
• What I like to do at home: Write

Three very interesting facts about me:

1. I am adopted.
2. I love Star Wars.
3. I am autistic.

Charlie had so much fun picking out a group of pictures to take to school.

Then it was time to choose what he was going to take to share his first day.  Legos?  Nope.  Magic Kit?  Nope.  Most prized posession to share was...

The dictionary.  It cracks me up how much he loves this cheap little dictionary that he bought with his own money from the $1 bins at Target.

Charlie also took his Perplexus, his magic kit, his sketchbook and decided to sing songs to his class for two days.  His songs were original, written and performed without any practice.  

The kids in his class wrote notes to him at the end of the week.  The most popular citation in these notes was to the magic kit and a certain trick he performed where he made a ball disappear.  Some of the other kids said they liked his pictures, liked his drawings, his Perplexus, and that he could sing well.

Cool Cat was a very positive experience for Charlie, and it was a positive and controlled way for him to share a bit about himself with his peers.  He can't wait for Cool Cat next year!

Valentines Making

Charlie made some valentines to pass out to his classmates in his 1st grade classroom, all of the kids in his Connections program, his two teachers, three aides and bus driver.  Whew.  That was a lot of Valentines.  And I, the mom that always has a camera, did not take a single picture of them.  Whoops.  Luckily I have lots of pictures of the other valentines we made.

My mom sent us a bunch of doilies and stickers for the kids to play with.  All on his own, Ephram grabbed a doily and started putting stickers on it.  So our homemade Valentines Day decorations were Ephram's idea this year.  Both of the boys had a lot of fun making them!  I took a picture of our garage door after the first round were complete.  There were a lot more in the end!

We also decided to make food valentines this year... meaning cupcakes.  The boys each helped make their own cake batter and bake their cupcakes.  I had some leftover from each, so we made a little cake for our family, too.  They had a lot of fun decorating them, and more fun eating them.

Positively Focused

I wanted to be a parent very, very badly for years.
I always knew that part of the challenge in parenting was to teach your children how to make their own good decisions, and that this involves discipline.

I never imagined that 90% of my parenting job would revolve around discipline.

Charlie is quirky.  Charlie also fixates.  And he tends to fixate more on negative behaviors than anything else.

When it comes to discipline, I feel as though I have tried everything.

I'm serious.

I've done so much reading, talking and asking about discipline.

I don't have any more questions to ask.

And I have not just heard the suggestions,

I've actually tried each of them.

Well, the reasonable ones.

I once had a nanny who said, 

"Why don't you just put him in the garage?"

Um... yeah.

(At the time it was tempting though, I'll admit.  I won't let you in on the details of his offenses that week or how they'd impacted my other children and my relationship with my husband.  Trust me, you're better off in the dark on this one.)

My mind likes to categorize things.

To me, discipline tactics seem to primarily focus on one of two things.

Tactic #1

Take something away from the child that they care about, so that they don't want to lose it again.  The hope is that they will not repeat the negative behavior in an effort to keep what they care for.  This can be time, it can be a privilege, it can be a thing, it can be an activity, it can be money, it can be replacing free time with something hard, boring or monotonous - and/or it can be that they have to work or do the "natural consequence" for the behavior they chose.

Here's the problem with this tactic for Charlie.  He doesn't attach to things.  He was severely neglected during the first year of his life and that has resulted in a dysfunction of his attachment cycle.  

He loves Legos, almost as much as he loves Star Wars.  We gave him a huge Star Wars Lego kit for Christmas and then he spent hours building it with his Dad.  It is most definitely his very favorite possession today.  

So what happens if I take away his prized Star Wars legos tomorrow?  He'll tell me that it's okay, he doesn't like them anyway.  And he won't be saying it to be rude or spiteful.  He'll mean it.

(But in school a couple of days later, he'll probably write in his Days Off Journal about how his mean, mean parents took away every single toy he ever owned and gave them to his brother.)

That's another problem with tactic 1... Charlie's a worst-case thinker.  If I tell him he's in time out, the world will fall apart in his mind.  He will start throwing himself down on the ground, kicking and screaming.  He'll dig a hole in the floor or bite a hole into his shirt and we'll begin an endless cycle that takes us all the way to bed time, and often also into the next day.  If we're really on a roll, this one time out can carry us through an entire week of H-E- double hockey sticks.  

That's not just discipline for him.  That's punishment for me, Andy, the other kids and sometimes people outside of our family, too.

No thank you.  

Tactic #2 

Scare, intimidate or bore the child in hopes that you "bully" them out of doing the behavior again.  Yes, I'm talking spanking.  Humiliation.  Belittling.

Biggest problem of this tactic:
If I am trying to teach my son not to be a bully - why would I bully him myself? 

Second big problem... Charlie is extremely sensitive to touch.  When he is in crisis, I can touch him on the shoulder to try to calm him down, and he will shrink away from me as he screams murder.

I am not against spanking.  And I certainly remember corporal punishment and some humiliating consequences that were used during childhood in my own, and others', family.

For Charlie, tactic 2 is pretty unacceptable.  It's that fixating piece in Charlie.  Or maybe it's the ADHD piece, or the opposition coming out.  Sometimes I have to physically move Charlie because he literally becomes a stone statue and will not budge.  I have gently pulled on his arm, I've gently pushed him from behind, and sometimes I have had to carry him.  In his mind, he usually believes that I have physically harmed him.  I think it is often because he is sensorily gone and registers the tactile feedback wrong.  I'll see him later in the day, the next day, sometimes months later, rubbing the part of his arm I touched until it is red.  Sometimes he'll pinch himself or hit himself where others have touched him.  He's rubbed off his skin, many times.  If this is the reaction to normal touch, can you imagine what the reaction could be in another situation?

Tactic 2 does not help us.

It most definitely makes things worse.

Um, worse doesn't sound good to me.  

I'll take better, please.

I sure wish someone could show me that magic "better" card for me to play.

What about the other things?

You're thinking - "Wait, that's not everything... there are other things too!"  I actually think pretty much everything fits into these two categories.

We use the Love and Logic framework, even though it is not very effective with Charlie, it is the best we have found.  I've done time ins.  I've done bear hugs through tantrums.  I've done isolation through tantrums.  I've removed items.  I've removed him.  I've taken more things away then I can count.  Natural consequences are so over-discussed in my house.  I've used the "I understand you want this, but I'm concerned about this, so this can't happen" framework.  I've bucketed my concerns in three categories and determined how I will deal with each category - including the one that doesn't matter.  We've charged him for behaviors, supplies, new clothes when his are ruined.  We've tried to help him think of things that he wants and built programs, both elaborate and small, for him to achieve his goal.

I have built a life around discipline.  It's like a full time job.  And I feel, all the time, like I have made very little - if any - progress.

Where does that leave us?

The point of discipline for Charlie is pretty simple.  First, it is to ensure his safety.  Second, it is to ensure the safety of those around him.  Third, it is to help develop his rational thinking and decision skills so that he can learn and improve.

Sometimes I imagine future Charlie and wonder about this future boy.  Will his reasoning power still be akin to a toddler's?  Or will future 16-year-old Charlie be an almost-man that I can trust behind the wheel of a car?  Will future 30-year-old Charlie be an upstanding, contributing member to society that makes good choices and is respected by his peers?  

Oh, I do hope so.

Lately, I have stumbled upon another way.  It's a spin-off of Tactic #1.  I'm taking away some time, some freedom, and I'm making him obey me in order to move forward.  But the overall focus on my new tactic is positive.

Tactic 1B
Take time away and help the child make a plan to improve behavior the next time the problem is faced.  Have them recap your discussion by making a plan.  Have them chose where to display the plan, if appropriate.

Here's an example.

Charlie had a period of time where he was policing his peers very strongly.
To him, the world is full of blacks and whites - almost no gray.
He would become upset anytime he saw any other child not doing exactly what they had been told.

(Let's not talk about how he was usually not doing as they were told either.  In his mind, somehow that does not apply.) 

What was he choosing to do in these instances?  Hit the offender.  

Yes.

Everyone reading this should know that there are at least 10 other choices you could make.

But that was all Charlie could think to chose in the situation.

So, after three such incidents in one week, after the same discussion in which we talk through what some of these choices could be, after multiple apology letters and lines to write, I gave him a new assignment...  Write down five things that you could do instead of hitting.

People with whom I have shared this approach almost always ask, "But how does he respond?  Can he do it?"  Yes, he can.  In both of his schools, there has been a focus on how to handle small problems.  This has loaded a small arsenal of appropriate responses in his mind.  He simply needs to chose the most appropriate and write them down.  Sometimes he gets stumped, but this is never something that he is required to do fully on his own.  He knows that he can come to me and discuss the problem.  He also knows that I will make him work in that discussion, we'll talk through the rationalizations and I will make him be the one to arrive at the answers.  (Thank heaven for that education and influencing experience I got through my previous career!)  

Charlie actually really likes this exercise.  I like it too, because it seems positive rather than negative.  It used to be that all I would see during times of consequence were glares, glares and more glares.  After these exercises I see...

Does it work?  That remains to be seen.  He still struggles very much in the heat of the moment.  But I have to believe in something, and I chose to believe in Charlie and in the power of repetition.  We may write about the same problem 5 times, 10 times, 50 times or more.  At some point, I believe he will be able to work this out in the moment.  

And then I'll know, definitively, that he is growing.

And then, just maybe, my life can be just 80% centered around discipline.

(Dare I hope for less?)

Charlie at 7: A Birthday Interview

I am starting a new tradition of conducting an annual interview with my kids.  I think it will be the best way to remember them at that moment.  Following is Charlie's interview this year.

1.    How old are you?   I am seven years old.

2.    What is your favorite color?   Green.  I want to do it in Spanish.  But I don't know how.

3.    What is your favorite toy?  A magic trick toy from my magic kit.

4.    What is your favorite food?  Lasagne.  I’m with Garfield.

5.    What is your favorite TV show?  Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

6.    What is your favorite game?  Candy Land and Operation.

7.    What is your favorite animal?  A Wookie.

8.    What is your favorite song?   Jake and the Neverland Pirate song

9.    What is your favorite book?  Geronimo Stilton The Cheese Pyramid

10.  What is your favorite thing to do inside?  Count my money in my piggy bank, Ham.

11.  What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Ride my mountain bike with my dad.

12.  What is your favorite movie?  Star Wars.

13.  Who is your favorite superhero?  Superman.

14.  What do you like to sleep with at night?  One of my stuffed animals, but I can’t really tell which one because I forget all the names.

15.  What makes you happy?  Drawing pictures.

16.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  I want to be a magician that magically designs Legos without even making them.

17.  Who is your teacher?  Ms. McCormack

18.  Who is your best friend?  Zane

19.  What school do you go to?  Little Cedars Elementary

20.  What grade are you in?  First grade

21.  What was the best thing that happened this year?  Going to Arizona and Disneyland were the best parts.

Trips I took this year: Arizona for Spring Break by myself to visit my cousins, the Harris’.  I flew on the airplane all by myself, both ways, and I talked the entire way.  I really liked the drinks on the planes.  In Arizona I liked the way we made the Easter eggs and I liked to pick oranges and other fruit off of trees.  I also liked to invent facts, such as being allergic to butter.  I really liked the water they had in the pool.  And they let me sleep in my own room in my own bed!  In October we went to California to visit my grandparents, Great Grandma Hayman and met my cousins the Bowers.  My Harris cousins were there too.  We also spent three days at Disneyland and stayed in a Disneyland hotel.  I liked how we got to Disneyland and how we checked in at the hotel.  I also liked it when we went to restaurants in Disneyland because, at the restaurants, the food that we got was so yummy yum.  I really like the roller coasters because they went down really fast.

Teeth I got and/or lost:  I lost four teeth this year and got four new ones.

Some of my quirks:  I have many repetitive habits, like how I wash my hands and how I like to count things before I go to bed.  I really like to say hello, very loudly, to anyone that looks at me.  I am learning how to be more quiet.  I also can talk anyone’s ear off.  I am very good with words and wrote some books this year.  I also really like to draw.

Major accomplishments:  I graduated Kindergarten this year and performed in my first Kindergarten concert.  I got to go to a new school for first grade to participate in an ASD program that my school district calls Connections.  There I have tested at least at a fourth grade reading level.  (They ran out of time before we were able to go on to additional levels.)  I started reading chapter books and can finish a Magic Treehouse book in a couple of hours.  I learned how to print all of my letters and can write very neatly when I take the time.  I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder this year.

Sleeping habits:  I like to sleep but I don’t like to wake up.  My bedtime is between 8-8:30.  I am working at learning that it is okay to get out of bed without being told to do so.

Nicknames: Charlie, Chuck, Lee Lee, Charlie Barley