Tidbits

Mikey says ..

Mikey has limited verbal skills and issues with things like time and tense. He does know his phone number. He will dial the number but does not like to "wait" for ringing and answering, so he'll hand you the phone. If you hand it back, he will hang on.

On the days the boys are with us, we always have one of them call Mom right before we leave to let her know we're on our way. Mikey has learned some patterns: "Hi, How are you." etc. On the call-to-let-Mom-know-we're-on-our-way, he often adds, "Are you coming home?" I think Mom will repeat the question back, and then he'll say, "Yes."

Similarly, when Mom drops them off, there is a "leaving" routine - hugs, and something on the order of, "Bye-bye. I love you. See you tonight." Yesterday, Mikey added, "No smoking!"

Must be something he is learning in school - Mom hasn't for a while and Grandma and Grandpa never did. I don't think any of the aides/therapists do around Mikey (even if they do elsewhere).

In addition to that, Mikey is growing up - there are signs AND he has taken a great deal of interest in anatomy - his, and other people's. Last night, at bath time, he announced, "Shrek has a green [named male anatomy part]." I don't know for sure but my guess is, he's right!

David and Math and Attitude

We still don't know - even though David is much for advanced than Mikey - what really sets him off sometimes. Friday, he was totally Mr. Attitude and didn't want to buckle down to do math. Part of it was there are some hard concepts that are just a struggle for him; part is impatience. Both Mom and I came down pretty hard: She told him that if he didn't fix his attitude, he'd lose both his favorite video game and Mac privileges for the day. And after she went to the store some of it continued until Grandma said, "David, we are going to stay here and do this until it's done, even if it takes hours."

Things improved after a while. I did try to probe what the issues were but David was not able to verbalize them (not sure he could identify them either).

Friday he had an assessment and did reasonably well; Saturday we started new material. If you had seen him Saturday v. Friday, you would have thought you were looking at a different kid. Cooperative, happy and he GOT it. Bunches of stuff. Multiplying monomials, factoring quadratics, perfect squares, etc. It just worked.

After our Saturday session, I create his assignment for the week. He is expected to do some math every day. I had been assigning review items. For a change, I've assigned him NEW pie pieces (ALEKS math program) instead of review. And I think he's going to do just fine with them. There is one that is a bit of a challenge ... we shall see!