The other day, David, who is almost 13, started watching several "Little Bear" episodes on tape. Little Bear is age-appropriate for 3-5 year olds. He also pulled out a Wiggles video! We asked him why, and he declared that he "must be reverting to my childhood."

Mikey has fixated on a feature on the Sleeping Beauty video disk #2. It is a walkthrough of the Sleeping Beauty castle. He watches it over and over, and looks up similar videos on You Tube. This has supplanted the more recent fixations with "The Lion King on Broadway" You Tubes and the "Journey through the Grand Canyon and Medieval World" from the Disney train ride. I wonder what will be next.

Speaking of Mikey, he has learned it is appropriate to greet someone when you see them for the first time in a day. "Good Morning, Mother." "Hello, Grandma."

He does this rather quickly then goes off, again rather quickly, to pursue his own interests. His Mom said that, one day when - hm, I'm not sure if it was on the bus ride home from school or a day when Mom went to the classroom - at any rate, someone in authority reminded Mikey to "say hello to your parent."

"Hello, Parent!" he said.

Mikey does continue to make improvements. However there are some core issues. One is that, when things don't go his way, he sometimes throws a tantrum. He'll flop on the floor and scream and do the hit-his-head-with-one-hand and bite-the-fleshy-skin-over-his-thumb with the other. AND he kicks. It takes 2 of us now to control it.

The one thing that is more scary is that he cannot tolerate a person crying, including babies. If David cries, Mikey will cry and hit him. You have to watch him very carefully at a park; where normally he ignores other kids, this is the one time he'll attempt to connect with them.

David is doing very well in math. The past several concepts, save one, have come to him rather easily. He will probably finish the pre-algebra course a couple of weeks from now. We'll be able to start the following year's math before this year is out. Heaven knows what Grandma will have to brush up on to keep helping him.

Also, how creative I'll need to be. This past year we have "MARCH to the Other Side and Change The Sign" and "Group the Troups Together." It's tough to "literalize" abstract concepts and I expect it will get tougher. It is very rewarding and not terribly infrequent for David to turn to me and say, "Thank you, Grandma, for explaining that to me."

David is turning into ...

"So David," I asked, "What is happening on July 30 this year?"
"My birthday!"
"What else?"
"I don't know - what?"
"What does it mean?"
"I'll be an eighth grader."
"What else? What will you turn into?"
"WHAT?"
"An icky, terrible, stinky teenager!"

Yup, the boys are going to be 13. And David has turned into a Weird Al fan. He has an inexpensive MP3 player and 5 albums loaded. He now sings/recites the words to dozens of Weird Al parodies. And yes, David knows what a parody is - he has even told us in detail about "Bob" - the song comprised of all palindromes. And yes, he knows what that is too.

Disneyland Redux 2

Mikey has on-and-off been interested in our car GPS units. I have a Garmin device - I think a C650 - and it is small and will operate on battery power. Hubby's GPS is really old; it's a larger model and not terribly portable. Recently, Mikey has been staring intently at street names - or something - while we drive.

Last Saturday, as we got ready to go back to Mama's house, Mikey asked, "May I have GPS, please?" so I got mine out of my truck and let him hold it on the way home.

He did push buttons; we could hear them - they beep. Then the GPS unit said, "Turn right on Heather Street."

Now, the GPS gives directions only when a destination has been programmed, of course. And we needed to turn left. It took a moment to realize that Mikey must have pushed the "Go Home" button. So I told him, "Mikey, 'Home' on the GPS is Grandma's house."

I took the GPS from him and programmed it to go to HIS house. I also told him we would not be following the instructions exactly. As we approached intersections where I knew the GPS would give different directions, or if it did give different directions, I would reassure Mikey by saying something like, "We are going straight here" or something equivalent to explain our variance from the proscribed path.

We soon got close enough to "Mama's house" that the directions were accurate. However, as we approached one particular street, the GPS said, "Turn right on B---- street."

Hubby asked, "Why is it asking us to do that?"

I responded that it sometimes directs us around and in from the other side. He said, "Yes, but we would need to turn LEFT to do that."

We were stopped at a light, so hubby took the GPS and looked at the instructions - Mikey had managed to find a set of directions to Disneyland!! and executed them. We guess he thought if he programmed the GPS, the car would go there ...

Feb. 7

It has been raining for a couple of days, and the yard was really soaked. The boys came over, as usual, of course. We had tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches, and the boys got goldfish in their soup. [The crackers; not real fish ;0]

Disneyland Redux

We were surprised last week that Mikey did not ask to go back to Disneyland. No worries - or maybe many worries - this past week, he said, "May I have Disneyland, please??"

We told him, "No," of course; even if we were to get him a "Southern California" pass, weekends are blacked out for most of the year. Also, I don't think we could take both boys at the same time; they like totally different things.

David, who, for a long time, said he did not want to go to Disneyland (an assortment of fears), has now decided that he wants to go as well. So I'll pick out a time for him. I can take him on my own and we won't get a "Guest Assistance" pass.

Aquarium

We are also members of the Aquarium of the Pacific, which is in Long Beach. The boys have loved going there. Our favorite times are "Member Nights" which *used* to occur the first Tuesday of every month. On those nights, the Aquarium would open at 6 pm for 3 hours for "members only."

Before I retired, I worked practically next door to the Aquarium. Mom would bring the boys around 5 pm and we'd go to Tequila Jack's for their Tuesday special: $1 tacos and half-priced margaritas. (Only Mom and I had margaritas.)

Then we'd go to the Aquarium and have it pretty much to ourselves. The boys were better able to concentrate on the exhibits without the distraction of the crowds.

Mikey was always pretty much touch-and-go, or just go, for the longest time. Lately, however, he has picked up a "fish finder" (the Aquarium's brochure that lists the items in the exhibits), and has actually spent time looking at the fish etc.

David / Math / Follow Up

At our last session, David said he was going to send me homework. He did!


answer these questions

1. how many bricks are on the great wall of china?

2. what is the ingredient found in Cheese Whiz and Krazy Glue? :-\

3. solve this equation

A. Y = Y(3)
B. 2 (Y /+ /2YX - 9) = 4


4. what accordian player parodied popular rock songs since 1979?


5. were ANY episodes of /THE SIMPSONS /ever rated TV-14-DLSV?

David's Head is Exploding

Since I retired, math tutoring got moved to Tuesday mornings. We still do some reinforcement on weekends if needed, but Tuesday is our Math Day. As I've mentioned in some earlier blogs, the more abstract the concepts get, the more creative the tutor has to get ;-).

Today, we worked on solving linear equations (2x + 7 = 13) and followed it with slightly more complex linear equations [ 2(x+3) = 4x + 10 ]. The first set, he seemed to understand or at least understand how to process. Well, actually, he seems able to get to the answers - they normally come out even - in his head and he can't explain how he got there. When we get to the more complex equations, doing it in his head doesn't work quite so well.

So Grandma breaks down the steps. However, doing steps is not fast. Anything not fast is frustrating.

So today, in the middle of all this, David declared, "My head is exploding!" as he held his head in both hands. No doubt he was in serious angst; as nearly as I could tell, nothing actually fell out of his head.

I do the standard thing - get quieter and calmer - when David gets like this, but press him to continue. The most gratifying this is that, every once in a while, when I force him to take the time to do the steps, he will grasp the concept. I know when it happens, and not just from the look on his face. David will look me square in the eye and say, "Thank you," when he gets something that has taken a while to sink in.

Oops

Once in a while, I make a mistake when we're working together. (It happens, OK??) When we figure out it's wrong, David will accuse me, "You're trying to mess me up!!"

When the lesson is over, I send homework sheets to Mom, with a key, so she can check his answers. This morning, before I went over, I talked to Mom and she said, "David did really well on his homework this time. Oh, and he found an error YOU made." Apparently, I posed a problem in yards and instead of labelling the answer as "square yards" I labelled it as "square feet." Smart kid, huh?

Today, during one of the "frustrated" periods, David added something new: "I'm going to send YOU homework, Grandma!!"

All in all, a good day, I'd say!

Disneyland - Part II

This is the second part of the Mikey / Disneyland blog.

When lunch time came, Mikey went to lunch. That is remarkable - during the trip we took to Sea World several months back, he screamed through most of lunch, because he didn't want to stop doing what he was doing. As I've said, he's made some significant progress following directions.

We went to the Mexican restaurant in Adventureland for this because, of the things we offered him for lunch, he wanted tacos. I ended up getting him a kid's meal, because that was the only place we could get plain chicken tacos. He ended up eating all his taco - which had lovely white meat chicken in a generous portion for a kid's meal - then he ate most of my beans with some extra chips we'd bought, and then he ate about 1/3 of Evie's very large burrito. And THEN he actually waited while we finished and went to the bathroom and washed his hands. Now, for an NT 12-year-old this would all be expected behavior; it is Major Progress for Mikey.

Star Tours

After Space Mountain, we went on Star Tours. We told Mikey it was a space ride, and then had to add, "but not in the dark" and other things to convince him it was not like Space Mountain. [Star Tours gives you a Star Wars type adventure. there is a lot of motion and it simulates "going in" to the Death Star. However, it does not have the twists and turns and roller coaster action of Space Mountain.]

To get into the ride, we went in a "back" door that took us right to the ride. The regular route is through what is almost a separate adventure, where R2D2 and C3PO are the hosts. All the attractions at Disneyland have some of this; it is entertaining and distracting when you are waiting in a long line. Star Tours is especially fun and clever. I have been occasionally disappointed if I go through it "too fast." At any rate, Evie observed that one of the disadvantages of the "special assistance" pass is that you miss all of this.

The "pilot" of the ride is an animated robot. Mikey loved the robot! At one point during the ride, the craft enters a frozen crystalized area and the craft smashes through it - it sounds like breaking glass. This was Mikey's favorite part of the ride, after the robot pilot.

Splash Mountain

After Star Tours, we took Yet Aother Train Ride so we could see the dinosaur diorama. We got off in New Orleans Square, and were going to go to the Haunted House, but it was closed (all the rides get closed every couple of years for rennovations and repair. Normally they are all open during the summer unless something is really off, or are undergoing major renovations that take multiple months.) So we went on to the other thrill ride in the area: Splash Mountain.

Splash Mountain is a log ride. You sit down in a faux log, fairly close to the bottom; there is a back support for each person. There is no seat belt; there are side hand rails. Most of the ride is fairly calm and only a little bumpy. They've moved a lot of the animatronics from the old "America Sings" ride into the attraction and have added some things to it. There are one or two short drops. When you are more than halfway through the ride, you go "over" a falls and take a quick, steep plunge. Mikey had been on two similar rides when we were at Knott's and they were his favorites; he loved this one too.

In terms of lines, we went through the FastPass line. There was a small wait - about 10 minutes - to get on the ride. Mikey was antsy but managed.

When we got off the ride, we saw the Winnie the Pooh ride. It is very gentle and takes you through a dream sequence with lots of honey. The wait was only about 2 minutes so we went through the regular line. He appeared to enjoy the ride - he likes Pooh - but when we finished it, he said, "May I have scary ride please."

Indiana Jones

In that vicinity are two rides that probably met Mikey's criterion. Aunt Evie asked him, "Do you want to ride a scary train or a scary jeep?"

Mikey said, "Scary jeep please" so we went to Indiana Jones. I have to say here that things could have been handled a bit better with the special assistance pass. They sent us through the FastPass line - folks with wheelchairs went "up" the exit. We ended up spending at least 30 minutes in this line. We worked with Mikey; played hand games with him; had him do jumping jack when there were areas that would accommodate it. We asked a couple of folks and they insisted we stay in the (not so) Fast Pass line.

When we got to the front, Evie asked if Mikey could drive the jeep, which they did do.

Now, these jeeps have several rows of four seat-belted seats across. The cool thing about the ride is that there are several embedded adventures - that is, there are options on the tracks as to which way you go, so you'd have to ride several times to go on all possible adventures.

The jeeps are on tracks. The ride is fast, jerky and has several spots where the jeep headlights go out and it is totally dark. Mikey did say, "all done" a couple of times during the ride. But overall, he liked it. If you ask him if he wants to go on Space Mountain again, he always says, "No"; but with Indiana Jones / jeep, sometimes he says, "Yes" and other times, "No."

Right after we went next door to the Jungle Cruise, which is a boat ride through major rivers of the world. It is one of the oldest and most campy rides in Disneyland; there are all kinds of animatronic beasts and some head hunters to content with along the way. All the while the boat driver provides a verbal commentary riddled with puns. Mikey really liked the animals.

Finding Nemo

We did several other things, but I'll cover only one other ride here. The submarine ride was revamped a few years back with a Nemo theme. (The old ride was way overdue for an overhall.) They have done a wonderful job on it! Mikey wasn't quite sure what to make of it - you go down inside and sit facing out of a port hole. Once we got underway and told him a couple of times, "Look out the window!" he got the idea and was engaged.

I had been on the ride before, and spent most of my time watching him. It was a wonder! Several times, he started to laugh and clap his hands. There are a couple of places in the ride where something is intended to startle you; Mikey jumped back and clapped and screamed and laughed. He had so much fun, he was fun to watch.

Winding up

Both Evie and I were astonished at how long Mikey stayed engaged AND behaved. In many similar scenarios, he has gotten over-stimulated to the point where he was barely controllable and we've had to leave early. We were at Disneyland from around 10 am to almost 7 pm. Now, as I've mentioned here and in some other blogs, Mikey has made progress; but I also have to give lots of kudos to the Disney folk for all they did.

The last thing we did was have dinner. We did not know it would be the last thing we were going to do. Mikey said he wanted a hot dog. As it turns out, there is only one place that actually has hot dogs, and it's in Toon Town. So we got Mikey his hot dog. After dinner, we started back out and were debating what to do when Mikey said, "Home, please." He had come to the end of the day. We were pretty tired too - as you may have detected, other than those rides we sat on and the two meals we had, there was no "rest" time for us that day - and were not at all unhappy to accommodate this last request.

We walked out of the park, tired but totally stoked at what a terrific day it had been, and how much fun it was. This was the first time we'd taken Mikey some place fun where we acdtually got to enjoy some of it - the other times, it had been all work in taking care of him, managing him, coralling him, etc. We went away very happy we'd gone, and definitely plan to return.