(Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Short) ”Wally Llama who lives on top of a mountain in the Himalayas is the wisest creature in the world. After he grows sick of answering questions he vows to stop for the rest of the day. The Warners arrive and pester him to answer one question. Eventually he gives in, but when he hears the question he goes crazy because he cannot figure out the answer. The question is why do hot dogs come in packages of ten, and hot dog buns come in packages of eight?

There are numerous reasons why I relate very much to this episode.

One being the question that the Animaniacs ask at the end “Why do hot dogs come in packages of ten, and hot dog buns come in packages of eight?” This is the type of question that I get all day long from my own little Animaniacs, but sometimes it is a bit too much.   The main reason why I chose to talk about this today is because I took Wally Llama’s coping skills as my own years ago after watching the episode. I was a supervisor in a stressful job, living in a stressful environment and when I would get overwhelmed I would close my eyes, plop down on the floor, (I did not care if it was the middle of the store or if I crossed my legs in a chair in the middle of a restaurant.) place my hands up, and repeat “Llama, llama, llama, llama, llama” Yes, I did. I would not always plop down, but I would hold my hands up in meditation position, close my eyes, and repeat llama.

Most people would laugh and that would help me laugh.

Once I started laughing I was able to cope. This week has been a bit rough at times and our 2319! Plan has not been working. I was at my wits end with the boys the other day because they are having such miscommunication that it is was causing some serious meltdowns.  I was getting so frustrated at not knowing how to deal with it that out of desperation I said: “Come on boys sit down criss cross applesauce. Let’s close our eyes, put our hands up like in Yoga, and you say what Mommy says.” I then said: “Llama” over and over and they said it with me within a few minutes we were all laughing and calm. After that, we were able to talk calmly about what had happened and everything was cleared up.

I have been doing it for days now.

It is working! (For the moment.) I can only find the clip of Wally Llama in Spanish which makes it sound even better. We purchased the episode off of iTunes. This week has been a huge week of progress as well… so I am not surprised by the meltdowns. All three of them have been practicing their handwriting, which is extremely stressful for them. They all have to use a lot of concentration and effort to practice writing, but they are doing so awesome. I started the Autism & Reading Comprehension this week as well and the boys are doing great! I was very surprised at how much Daniel does comprehend I shouldn’t be. All three of them comprehend, but they all three also show their comprehension through different ways. Ariel is way beyond in her reading and comprehension although — she is still enjoying doing the lessons with the boys. I really like the book and the lessons being laid out. I have to constantly try new things with the boys to keep them focused on reading.

Ariel reads all the time.  

Daniel likes to read, but he can forget words. If I do not continually stick to a reading program he will lose interest and the words that he has learned. We then have to start all over again, not for all words, but the bigger ones. This also can be quite taxing on them, and cause meltdowns. They are doing great at many of the math concepts, but need more work with subtraction. I decided to focus on subtraction this week as well. I think that may have been a bit too much to add while starting something new with reading this week. Even though they are doing well with subtraction — I did not think through all of the new things that were happening this week…for all of us.

I get kind of freaky when I know that their evaluations are coming quickly.

I have several months, but I go in hyper-drive at times wanting to make sure they are at level and learning everything they need to be learning. AND I think that is why my mind pulled out Wally Llama. I need to make sure that I am not pushing too much. These guys are above-average in many of their academics and are constantly asking questions. It is so easy to miss the progress and things that are accomplished  sitting right in front of you when you are constantly focused on the things you feel need to still be accomplished. I need to sit back and appreciate how much these guys know, and enjoy the way each of them see the world in such awesome and unique ways. I also found some Yoga DVD’s for kids that have been fun for us. We started them about two weeks ago. That is probably what triggered Wally Llama for me.

Maybe you would like to try it too, let me tell you sitting down and repeating “Llama” over and over can be quite amusing.

Here are the Yoga videos I am using with the kids.

YogaKids

Junior Yoga by Annette Lefterow (They are not as “enthused” with this one.)

AND I thought this was worth sharing as well. Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong

Nope, she is asking me “Why can’t I hear God’s voice?”

Why did Peter stop looking at Jesus and fall into the water? What does covet mean? Why can’t I walk on water, I have faith as small as a seed. Along with saying things like “I don’t know if God exists, I can’t see him.” She has been reading Bible graphic novels for a couple of weeks now, Genesis to Revelation. She has also read several of their Children’s Bibles. She knows every story in great detail and is asking about each one. She says that she knows what special power God gave her it’s “Science” she said: “I know and understand science, but I wish God would give me the powers to speak animal.” She told me that she knows that God lives in the clouds, but he also lives in us, so she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t talk.

Yesterday (still today) she was completely fixated on a dragon fortress that she wants for Christmas.

She started praying for it, Ariel does not like to pray. She says that she is too shy, so it is a big deal that she started praying. Many Christian parents I have been around would feel proud, and excited about some of what she was saying and asking, but to me it is hard. Well they may freak out because she wants a dragon fortress. I cannot legitimately look my little girl in the eyes on Christmas morning and say that Jesus brought her a dragon fortress.

God is not a Santa Claus figure.

He is not a simple pray and get what you want kind of character. I am fairly certain that is the wrong message to be taught about him. He is hard to understand, I cannot with a clear cautious say that I hear Him at all. Why? Because I have mixed my own personal feelings, fears, and agenda’s into my prayers and managed to convince myself of things so I could feel like I had the answers. I am not denying God or that he answers prayers, I am challenging my own perceptions and acknowledging my ability to fool myself. He has answered many prayers for me, but the fact that I was able to convince myself that my voice sounds a lot like His is something that needs to be dealt with. I am.

I do not want to pass that on to my little girl.

She is reading every word quite literally, and I know how damaging that is because I have done it. The Bible and things of God need to be taught differently to my children. Example, Ariel and Joshua spent the other evening and yesterday afternoon discussing Bible stories, and the gospels, I let them have their conversation and would challenge them when they were taking things a bit too literally. They are 5 and 7 discussing these things.

It is important that I help them not get stuck in literal thinking.

A good reason for this is because later in the day I walked into the living room, and Joshua was on his knees with his hand clasped. He stopped when I asked him if he was praying and he giggled and said:”Yes”. I asked him if he wanted to tell me what he was praying for he said: “Oh, I was praying that I would make good decisions.” The churches we have been in, and certain family members would jump on this saying how wonderful he was, or how he had a gift from God. I do not have a problem with him praying, I think it is great if they want to pray, or seeking spiritual things.

The concern I have is that they all tend to fall into black-and-white thinking.

Making good decisions implies that something that could turn into a deeper issue, the feeling that there is only right and wrong. For many people that is not an issue, for me and my kids it is. There is the constant challenge of not falling into guilt, or feeling like being wrong is the worst thing in the world. When it comes to God I have suffered a very long time with feeling like God thought badly of me or I had to do things to be good. I will not allow that to happen to my kids. Maybe I am a bit sensitive, but the other night when Ariel and I sat her room hanging out talking, she looked at me and said out of no where: “I wonder why I can’t hear God’s voice.” I asked: “What do you mean baby?” She started to tear up and with a shaky voice said:”I don’t know why I can’t hear God’s voice. I try to hear him and I can’t”. She is only 7 years old darn it! (I later discovered that she had read 1 Samuel 3 when God speaks to Samuel as a boy.)

I fought back my own tears, I was not going to allow my baby to go through that.

I scooped her in my arms and just held her as she cried in my lap. I was more angry with God than I had ever been in that moment. Even with many of the things that I have struggled with dealing with churches, other Christians, or my own personal issues, none of those had a hint of meaning as I stroked her hair. Nothing else compared to what she was feeling. I knew that feeling, I have been feeling it for months, years to be honest. And just because I say that doesn’t mean I lack faith, I have so much faith it makes me angry! I can’t get rid of it, even if I want to, believe me I have tried. I mean no disrespect to God or people who have faith, know that this is my own rantings. I cupped her face in my hands and I told her: “I don’t hear God either.”

She busted me!

She looked straight at me and said: “But you said that God gave you our names before we were born.” D’oh! She was right. I told her the truth. The truth is, I felt like their names did come from God, but I did not hear some audible voice from heaven or in my head. I saw their three names flash in my head and heard them in a voice, it’s the same voice that is talking now as I type. The same voice when I read, the same voice that writes poetry and everything else. Maybe I just hear God in my voice. So I asked her if she heard a voice that possibly told her right and wrong. Or other things. She said: “Yes, I hear a voice and I think that it is Jesus, but He always says yes.” We laughed together when she said that because we both know that Jesus does not always say yes. After I explained that I do not hear a voice, and shared the ways that I see God or feel like He is talking through nature, friends, songs, books, or the many other things that can reach us, she was all smiles. The pressure of hearing Him was lifted, and she was fine with my response.

It is hard to discuss spiritual matters with kids.

I shared with her that I may not hear God all the time. However, I do feel like when I see rainbows in the sky, or things like a pair of Converse that I have wanted for so long, and carry a huge significance to me suddenly appear in my size at a very cheap price, seems like God is there. She has witnessed many things like that happen for me, they have happened for her too and I reminded her of them. These things tend to happen during my lowest of times. For me it seems like God is saying “Hey, I see you and your are going to be alright. Here is a little something that will bring you a smile.”

Is it Jesus?

Is it the Universe, my Dragon friend I left in Germany, or an invisible friend? I do not have a clue. I feel like it is God, and I will stick with Jesus. Although, I am not going to carry all the baggage and confusion that has been looming my life for almost 13 years, about who or what it is.  I got really messed up when I walked into the strange world of churchdom. I mean no disrespect, but our brains are not wired well for church in this household. It causes more confusion than answers, at least right now.

My kids bring up some hard topics.

They ask us about what we believe and why. They ask about divorce, why people lie, why people don’t like people because of their race, or religion. They want to know why, a lot of these questions come from Ariel she is always thinking and observing these things. I want her to feel safe when she says I don’t know if God exists. I have seen kids get yelled at or have seen parents respond in fear when their child said that. For me it was a moment that made me feel good, she is thinking about it. She is reading the bibles around here and pondering the stories and questioning. When she gets older I will introduce her to church history and more details about other faiths. I am not afraid of her not believing what I believe.

I am afraid of her not having her own faith.

Or finding her own beliefs and becoming shaky because she was not able to discover herself. I have more trust in God’s ability to reach down and convince her of Him, than forcing her myself or worse yet using fear to make her believe something. I feel that way for all of the kids. The boys are not really pondering about spiritual matters yet, but they have asked their own hard questions. Not like Ariel, not yet, but I know that it is coming. These kids think, they ponder, they reason, and they do not stay quiet about it. They do not settle for simple answers. I don’t want them to believe what we have told them without thought, or feel like our authority as parents trumps their valid questions. I want them to learn and grow with us, I want them to feel comfortable challenging and questioning. I want Ariel to develop her God given superpowers of Science!

I want them to feel safe talking about things, and never feel like they are wrong if they don’t agree with us.

As they listened to the song I asked them questions.

We discussed the vocabulary words and what they meant. I also used it as other lessons in that the music sounded really nice and pretty, but what it was actually about was unhealthy and could cause harm. Some things look good that are not, especially in nature. Some of the prettiest, most colorful frogs for example are the most deadly! Now I did not scare them I used it as a lesson to be cautious. They are pretty young so I was not all intense as I was in my own mind, trying to get myself to understand this important lesson. Some of the vocabulary words that they learned were virus, transmutate, contagious, host, and adversary. Then, I pulled up BrainpopJr and we watched some videos about health and wellness and had some more words added like, symptom, fever, immune system, and mucus.

I then read several books and they made red blood cells with invading viruses!

I like the app because it is visual and auditory along with being interactive it really got all of them interested and able to retain the information. We had a full sensory learning experience. I plan on doing this with the moon app as well because the basis behind it is the moon cycle and I will create some sort of lesson out of that. I came up with this on a whim today so I hadn’t really prepared much, but they really liked it. We had fun and finished up our school day, then headed off to Target for some new backpacks.

There were several on clearance and we each got one.

Yes, I got a pink monkey backpack! I did, I admit. It was only $4.24 who could resist a monkey backpack for that? Ariel and I both have one. Plus I had a nice encounter with a raven in the parking lot. Actually it was quite strange for a moment, he flew to the top of a tree and sat there and stared at me while I got the kids and items in the car. A few minutes later a couple of his friends showed up and they chowed down on someones littered food on the ground. I can only assume he was watching me with such caution to make sure I didn’t take his feast. Hee hee No other bird encounters though and there were a lot out today for some reason.

Another thing that I found for school that is super cool for Joshua is the Lego Master Builder Academy .

This has been a great incentive for Joshua to do school. He is not a fan of doing school most days, but when I told him that he could do “school” Lego’s after he finished his work, he was all for it. I know I bribed him in a way, but he really is not motivated to do school. He would rather build and create Lego Star Wars or other Lego adventures and I do use his Lego’s to teach him a lot. However, I get Lego’d out and I need some actual documentation of his learning and progress for learning other things. He has built every set we have received by himself. We will venture out using it in more creative ways later in the year. Right now he is enjoying following the directions and building them. (I do not get any kickbacks for sharing any links. I like them, I share them, possibly others will like them too.)

Pictures, you know it!

Ariel and Joshua creations. Daniel’s handwriting is getting so good I am totally amazed. He is even able to hold his writing instrument well and “properly”. We have viruses, Joshua’s Lego Robot he built and Ariel’s current reading material. Yes, it is a comic book, she has read more than half of it and yes, she is a fan of Sheldon Cooper and loves the show The Big Bang Theory. I admit I do love Sheldon. I am not into comics that comes from David.   OH! And a monkey. And yes, there is quite a bit of paint spillage all over our carpet. Accidents happen. And yes, I am trying see how many times I can write “and yes”. I am quite silly today.

Side Note: After watching the season premiere of “The Big Bang Theory” I must say I am a bit disappointed in their lack of creativity. They could do a lot more with the show. Good thing we have a DVR I could fast forward so the kids didn’t ask a ton of questions…mainly Ariel.

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I had to get up and write that post!

So at 3am I went into the school room on the kids computer, in the dark, eyes barely focused, and wrote out that post. For some reason I had to have it finished before later in the morning or day. I still have no idea why other than I was able to sleep a bit more after 4:30am when I posted it. That was another strange thing, I posted it without really going over it. So what happened? I go back to read it later that morning and see that I called David, my mom and myself “idolators” instead of isolators. In the past I would have had a panic attack at the thought of anyone reading that, this time I laughed. I am still laughing. How funny, idolators.

I think my brain needed to process the information.

The topic of moving has been flying around for over a year now. We had not found a location that was a good fit. Again, going to another city where I do know anyone or have any family at this point would not be a good thing for me. Everything that I wrote about in Big Changes…Possibly, have been concerns for a while and there are still other issues and factors that we are dealing with that I have not written about. In the past week the idea of moving to my hometown has become a real possibility. Actually more than that, we are about 96.8% sure that we will be there this time next year.

I still am not sure how I feel about all of that.

I am not going panic, I am going to process. We will be about three hours away from my dad which is a good distance. Small doses to enjoy him. My grandma lives in my hometown as well so she can help me and go places with me and the kids if I need help. Or she can babysit for me. I am not too sure about other family members, I am not close to many of my family members. Mainly my aunt is the closest, I tend to feel awkward around my grandma too, but I do not feel like talking about my awkward disconnect to family. I am sure I will have a ton to write about when/if we move there. She was planning on moving here, but she has continued to put it off and prolong the whole thing. I could help her get her house ready to sell, that may be one of the issues for her. She has friends and family there also and it may be hard for her to leave. She is quite the social butterfly. Here she would only have my mom and other two sisters. I am just writing anything that is popping in my head so I am stopping on this topic.

Good news!

Daniel pooped on the potty yesterday for the first time!! Sorry for the poop talk, but that is a VERY big deal. He told me on his own that he wanted to and he sat and did it. He was very proud of himself. Another great thing happened yesterday. We were sitting on the couch together, he has started asking me to sit next to him and then he practically sits on me so we are working on boundaries. He wants to sit next to me and talk. HUGE! He was telling me all about his clock as we sat there. He told me all of the things that he likes about it and how he likes helicopters and that the reason that he likes them is because “how they work”. He has never given me a reason like that before, it has always been because “they spin” or “they make noise”. Then, during a moment of pause, he turned to me looked me straight in the eyes and asked: “What do you like mommy?” And then he listened and asked me questions about it. He wasn’t just following a script, he really wanted to know.

It was a great moment.

I have a lot to process in my life right now and as I am processing I do/say things that seem to contradict each other. A major one is working out and baking. I love to do both. I do make some healthy treats, but to be honest I do enjoy making sweet, tasty baking delights that make people smile and get them on a sugar high. Not the kids of course, but other people. I do share the treats with the kids and they get so happy and surprised that they can “have a cookie for a snack!”. I do enjoy making things with the kids. They love to help me and we learn measurements and chemistry in the process. I cannot really think of anything else to write about at the moment. I think I just needed to get some things out so I could process some more things.

I will leave with some photos of some gluten-free delights and who knows what other pictures will show up.

There are some Lego Dragons, school shots, raspberry oatmeal muffins, peanut butter/banana/oatmeal bread (I will not eat! Two things I dislike very much peanut butter and banana.), lemon cookies, granola bars and bread…I think those are the only pictures I put on of food. I tend to bake a lot and not eat any of it. I will freeze them for a later date for when I have a sweet tooth. It’s the process of baking that helps me not the eating it. Besides sweet things are good…in moderation. The same goes for working out. Moderation, right?

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by Ariel

I think there is another secret planet, that is far away and so cold from the other planets. I think it looks so dark blue. It’s called Colden Planet because of its cold weather. Too freezing to live, even with an astronaut suit. It’s always dark there and always blizzards. Never stopping.

The only thing that can live there is dragons. There are really dark clouds and storms so no one can find it because it is way out in space. It has no sun and no moon. It has a solid snow ground. It’s so dark that no one can ever find it. My head told me that it was out there, probably. You can’t find with a telescope.

Only dragons can live there. No people or animals. It has a huge cave, only one. My planet is kind of like Jupiter only colder.

Alien Glass Planet

by Joshua

My planet is a circle shape. You can see it with a flashlight. My planet is white and has snow. And the face is a circle of the alien face. Aliens live there. There are dragons on the planet, they are snow dragons. There are snow mountains. The aliens wear masks because they are actually people. And they have a space ship. It always has sun, a special sun that can change into the moon. If you hit it with a rock it changes into the moon and it’s 9 o’clock. If you hit it with a big rock it will just turn into the sun and get bigger and bigger and be nothing but the sun. You can see stars shining. It’s called Alien Glass Planet because its white and the sun shines on it and makes it look like glass.

Green Planet

by Daniel

My planet is a green planet. It’s cold on my planet. It has 100 hundred moons, no 20. It has a lot of clouds made out of gas. It has a whole bunch of gas. I live on the planet. I live on the green planet. And just toys live on my planet. There is an ocean on my planet and toys and animals and plants and birds and bugs. I like dragon flies. I like mosquitoes on my planet at night, but not in my house. It has grass and sidewalks.

I am not going to share my story but my planet is called Purple Hoom. It has ligards which are a cross of lizards and rats. There are huge plants that have ginormous leaves that swoop down to the ground in grand curves. That is all. 

So I did.

His color of choice today was yellow. Interestingly, because he “owns” green but I was green today. Later he decided that straight lines were the way to go. Ariel has been painting with me for two days and has made her own pictures along with swirly like paintings. Today she went on a dragon kick. Yea! Dragons! Joshua wanted to paint a Star Wars Lego scene and of course create something out of wood. He loves building and creating things like that. I cannot really paint any Star Wars scenes so I made what I saw, explosions.   He made this whole scene with Jango Fett and Obi Wan.

I am just going to keep going with this painting thing and see where we all go.

There are a lot of pictures, this is kind of a big deal since the only one who has ever really painted was Ariel. She is super excited to have us all join in her special interest. You can scroll over them to see their title and click on them to get the full fabulousness!

Here is our gallery of fun!

“Photo Friday!”

Joshua’s Lego fixation has seriously turned into an obsession. Unfortunately, I cannot remember all of the names he gave his ships. He has a name and task for each one. He then shares what they are with everyone, even when they are not listening. He doesn’t care, he just keeps going.

It’s pretty funny.

I have some of Ariel’s art work and Daniel’s entertaining toy dumps. He likes to dump toys in his room and then jump on his bed while singing songs. It’s good to hear him singing again, he had stopped for quite some time.  I have about a billion pictures. I put a lot on here because I had such a hard time deciding which ones to put on and which ones not to put on. So here you have some fascinating pictures of a few of our days over here.

Picture time!

To better help discover how sensory issues are affecting us I got this book My Sensory Book: Working Together to Explore Sensory Issues and the Big Feelings They Can cause: A Workbook for Parents, Professionals and Children (very long title) I am hoping that it will help Daniel communicate his needs better. I also hope this will help identify Ariel and Joshua’s issues and help all of them learn how to help themselves or communicate how we can help them.

To help learn to help themselves I got a more kid friendly book called Squirmy Wormy. I like this one because it gives examples of certain behaviors and the things to do to that can help them feel better.

To help the kids (and me) with anxiety I got When My Worries Get Too Big!

To help with explaining the autism spectrum and acceptance I got these two books. This is Asperger Syndrome and The Autism Acceptance Book.

These last two books I mainly got to share with the kids to understand their differences and similarities.

The Autism Acceptance book is a book that you personalize, it explains autism and what acceptance in general means and how to apply it. I personally like how it has a section on how and why to accept others and gives examples on how to “walk in others shoes”. Our family needs this anyway because we tend to think that everyone thinks like us so it allows us as a family to think of others and think about how each one of us is different. The whole thing is meant for children who do not have autism to relate to those children who do but I see it as another learning tool for us on the spectrum. It is teaching my kids to accept and understand each others differences and to apply that to others outside of our home as well. And I am not ashamed to admit that it helps me too. We have personalized it as a family not just as individuals and we are trying to apply what we are learning to all situations where we see differences. I think we can get several years out of this book because as they grow so will their awareness of different types people and situations.

I like the This is Asperger’s book to give a general feel but it is limited in its examples. It does address this at the end where it has notes on Asperger’s, I like that about the book.

For working on understanding friendships:

I got How to be a Friend. I like this book because it addresses several topics about friendships and self. There are things about arguments and shyness and how it is good to be by yourself sometimes. I think it is a very good book for little ones. However, I will be honest again I learn so much from my children’s books, I know it may sound ridiculous but it is true.

For adding to our school curriculum:

I got Teaching Asperger’s Students Social Skills Through Acting. I thought this would be a great resource throughout our schooling years. Despite my anxiety issues I am very good on stage, well not Grammy worthy but I have been known to be quite theatrical and have done some lead acting roles at church and for work. I never tried at school there were too many other things going on for that. Acting comes natural to me, I assume because I have had to do it my whole life. I see this as an opportunity to use acting skills as a means of true expression and ability to share emotions in a fun way. I hope that is how it will work for us.

I got Teaching Students with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Lessons from Teaching and Science. This book seems self-explanatory, I see Daniel progressing and I want to make sure I stay on top of it and help him to not have the frustrations and issues I had growing up with Dysgraphia (Dyspraxia). I am also recognizing some issues with Ariel and Joshua and I wanted to make sure I was adding this to our curriculum right away to make life easier for all of us.

Since I am freaky about wanting to be sure I teach the kids what they are supposed to know I got these two books What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know and What Your First Grader Needs to Know. Now just to be clear, I go through freak outs of thinking that I haven’t taught them enough and then I go through moments of being perfectly fine with where they are at but all of the time I just let them be kids and have fun.

And for my own personal interest, because I cannot seem to get enough information on the topic I got Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Complete Guide to Understanding Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and Other ASDs.

I have not started that one yet but I mainly got it to make sure I understand the differences and I am always looking for new information to help the kids and myself.

When to say when?

I don’t know if there will ever be a time that I will feel comfortable with all that I have read or looked into. I like having an abundance of resources to look back on and refresh my memory because some things that did not work in the past, may work now and vice versa. We are at a place where the kids are becoming more aware of themselves and they are molding their identities, so at these ages I would like to make sure that we are instilling in them acceptance of themselves and of others. I also hope to help them gain ways to express themselves and feel confident in expressing who they are, how they feel and what they need. These are things that I didn’t feel as a child so I think that I am pretty sensitive to it.

Well I am off to go do some more reading!

All of the books are linked to Amazon but they can be found cheaper at places like half.com or going through book swaps.  These may be of some interest to some. If you have already used some of these I would be interested in your opinions, feel free to share about them. Or any other book suggestions as well.