Yesterday was fabulous! Everyone wanted to do their schoolwork so they could be finished for the day and put on their costumes. They have been waiting for months to finally wear their costumes. David got them a while ago I do not remember why he got them so soon, but there was a reason. This year Ariel wanted to be Darth Vader, Joshua wanted to be Batman, (He wants to be Batman every day.), and Daniel wanted to be a “bee.” I made the mistake several times of calling him a bumblebee.

He corrected me and everyone else who called him a bumblebee with, “I am a BEE not a bumble bee.”

I kept forgetting I am sure it was frustrating for the poor fella. He has asked for wings for over a year now. He thought if he got wings that he would be able to fly. He really wants to fly like birds and has made many attempts trying to do so. It always ends with him being frustrated that he cannot fly. I had to explain to him over the course of the year that pretend wings will not allow him to fly. Hence, one of the reasons I was hesitant to get him any until this Halloween. When he put them on, he audibly spoke his script, “These wings are fantasy. I still cannot fly with my wings.” He came up with that on his own.

Ariel and Joshua had completed their schoolwork a while before Daniel.

Ariel decided to read and Joshua played with his toys. Daniel and I worked on his school and I discovered something very interesting. Back-story, this house is one long stretch of house. The way that it sits upon the hill, it is diagonal. Since we have moved in Daniel has been fixated on the shape, dimensions, number of stairs, the way the tile is laid, sounds, anything you can think of, but the one thing that he is extremely intrigued with is how it is “diagonal.” He has moved all of the furniture, toys, his rug, at one point the rack of my clothes, (I do not have a closet or a room in this house, not fun.), my shoes, and whatever else to be diagonal. I was able to get him to stoop moving everything in the living room, finally.

One day I was curious because he was being so quiet that I went to see what he was doing.

He had moved everything to one end of his(my) room. He had pushed all of the items in the room all the way next to the big window. Along with sliding everything into a diagonal direction. He had moved the queen size bed and his giant desk to face in a diagonal position by himself! I do not like it – AT ALL! I talked him into turning the desk straight again because it is dangerous for it to be diagonal. However, he will not let me fix the bed or his rug. :-/ I am jumping to another topic, but related. When I looked ahead at their handwriting lessons, I saw that they were going to start cursive handwriting. I showed Ariel because she has wanted to learn it, but we have been trying to work on her regular handwriting struggles for the time being.

When I showed both of them Daniel said, “The words are diagonal!”

He was very interested in the words being like that and we had a short lesson about cursive writing. Now you know about the diagonal, which will help understand this next bit. Yesterday when I started to go over his spelling words, which he normally refuses to do, he asked me to write them diagonal. I took his prompt and wrote them out, neatly. It took me longer than I would like to admit, but I managed to write them legibly. He loved them! I asked him to read and spell the words. He was able to read each letter he had a little difficulty with my “y” thinking that it was a “w.”  It was my handwriting, ugh.

I found it so interesting that he could read those letters and enjoyed reading them.

We went through all of them on the cursive page and his workbook page comparing and reading. I asked him if he could read cursive better, he said, “No, I just like it.” Lol! I think he may not see a difference in his ability to read the words in cursive, but it definitely peaked his interest and made the learning process more enjoyable. I will continue to try this with his words and see how it progresses. I was so amazed at how much he did for me yesterday. He read several sentences, took several quizzes, and stayed a happy guy.

He did amazing walking around the houses as well.

We went to my aunt’s house to trick-or-treat and then we stayed for a while. Daniel said he did not want to say, “Trick-or-treat” and he was a little nervous going up to doors. At first, he thought he was supposed to go inside. There were dogs barking and it was chaotic. Thankfully, the first house we went to the woman noticed Daniel right away; I notice her behavior was different. She seemed to know how to speak to him and her attitude was accepting of his behaviors. When he started to have slight panic in his voice saying, “Do those have gluten? Mom, do those have gluten?” She said, “Oh, wait I have some candies for a restrictive diet.”

When she returned she said, “I am a Speech Pathologist and many of my kids are on restrictive diets.”

The whole interaction actually helped me be at ease and settled some of my anxieties about Daniel going to the doors. I never know how adults will respond to him. Some of them have been very rude in the past. Ariel and Joshua had a blast. It was getting too cold and Daniel was shutting down after about half an hour. It was getting darker and the flickering lights were starting to affect him as well. After a few more houses, he was ready to go back to my aunt’s house. He was so cold that he was starting to shake. I said, “Do you want to run Boo? You can pretend to fly.”

He loved that idea.

We ran down the street, his wings flapping in the wind, and his laughing the whole way saying, “I am flying, look mom I am flying!” Awesome moment! It was a grand wonderful Halloween. I hope that they will all be ok today. We have a full school schedule and several online classes… Hoping for the best. They are all dressed in their costumes for school. I never thought I would have the opportunity to teach Batman, Darth Vader, and a Bee. How awesome is that?:-?

Oh, I did dress up last night.

A last minute idea because the kids really wanted me to dress up. I decided to be Audrey Hepburn from “Funny Face.” You can never go wrong in an “intellectual” attire of all black and white socks! I had fun doing her dance and posing like a silly willy. We got some really great shots of the kids. One picture is the absolute best. We stopped by my grandma’s house to see her before our adventures. Outside we took a picture and grandma totally photo bombed! Hilarious! I think my aunt got me doing the proper poses from the film. I was all over the place being goofy. I do believe I was in my “hyper-outgoing” anxiety loop last night.

I am so glad that the kids had such fun and that it was such a great day.

3 people like this post.

Like

Unlike