Voracity

After upgrading the tank our two goldfish were in (Wakko and Dot are now comfortably ensconced in a 30-gallon with a pleco named "Oreck" ~ he's one of those algae-eater fish that attach to the sides of the tank and suck on the glass, in case you were wondering) we had to put something in the old 10-gallon one.

So, we got an Oscar fish. We named him Mayer so we could tell people, "And here's our Oscar, Mayer." Z wanted to get two of them and name the other one Wiener, but unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately) the tank is only big enough for one small Oscar fish. We will have to get a bigger tank for him sooner than later, though, as he is due to grow at least 7 inches THIS YEAR and will be about 19 inches when full grown. That little cichlid would eat 24/7 if we allowed him to. As it is, we've only had him two weeks and he's already grown visibly. We've cut down to feeding him twice a day instead of three times daily, just to slow it down a bit until we get a bigger tank later this year (and hopefully our own house to put the new tank in, so we don't have to move a 19-inch fish in a couple of years, yikes).

Mayer tries to eat anything that moves ~ and he zips in there extremely quickly to snag his pellets or flakes. Or, the plants, or his reflection. The second day we had him, he stunned himself by trying to attack his reflection on the side of the tank and swam full-force into the glass...Mayer has since then shown a bit more restraint and caution when approaching the boundaries of his tank. Quasi-smart fish. (He still tries to attack the heater, though, so he's not the sharpest crayon in the box. Or fish in th....well, you get the point).

There is a distinct similarity between Mayer's enthusiasm and voracity for his food, and A's enthusiasm and voracity for learning. That boy will attempt every new activity or word, practically launching himself in a head-on full-tilt boogie to master saying or doing the new thing. He will repeat the new words over and over (and over) sometimes, but he is also figuring out phrasing and incorporates them into appropriate phrases. A has come out with several things recently that we didn't even know he knew, like telling his (cute, blond) ABA therapist, "Hey, cutie!" when he arrived one day. He also told me that he was "going on sidewalk. Down sidewalk. Sidewalk." while we were waiting for "A-- school bus" yesterday.

A's teacher and therapists are constantly noting how he devours everything they are teaching him, and how he is looking for more.

This is the good kind of voracity. We can only pray that he continues to hunger for knowledge like he does now.

Finally, Spring!

The weather is finally cooperating with the calendar! We had 88 degrees yesterday, but it was nice and 81 over the weekend. Here's A (and pal W) and K swinging with her honorary auntie, M.

Autism Speaks Charity donations get Number One Spot in Contest

A while ago, I had posted a link (on the right) to a donation badge for Autism Speaks through the sixdegrees.com / networkforgood sites. There was a contest to provide a matching grant of up to $10,000 to the top six charity badges with the highest number of donors (not money amounts) through the end of March. Thanks to the generosity of readers everywhere, this badge was the number one badge in the contest with 2,313 donors. We all raised $47,849 for Autism Speaks. In addition, because this badge was one of the top six badges in the contest, Autism Speaks will receive an additional $10,000 courtesy of Mr. Kevin Bacon (yes, the actor).

Sorry this information is a bit late; they just released the information with the final counts. To hear a conversation between Kevin Bacon and the creator of the badge, there is a link to the right under "thanks for donating".

This badge is still active and you can still donate to Autism Speaks through it, but the contest is over.

Huggies

A shocked both Z and I tonight by sounding out the word "Huggies" on the wipes container. We've never regularly used that brand of diapers (too expensive), but we have this random Huggies wipes container that I refill. If his pants need changed, that's what we say, "Come on, buddy, let's go change your pants." And wipes are always just "wipes".

So where he got "Huggies" from, we're not entirely sure. We don't watch much TV so he most likely didn't see or hear a commercial.

He's done this before with other things, and we always assumed he just recognized the object. Experiments with writing ten words he's recognized in the past only got one response, and that was "eat". (He is a part of the H-- family!) So scientifically speaking, one word out of ten isn't great odds.

Interesting.

We'll keep watching it. I was reading at 3 years (my mom says I used to read to the class so my preschool teacher could go to the bathroom), so it's not entirely out of the question. He is a smart booger. He does know all his letters and the sounds they make. Hmmmmm.

Blue but Happy

I know this is entirely late, since her birthday was about a month ago, but I just got this onto the computer. Happy First Birthday, K!

Identity

A is making great strides at Labeling things...he doesn't have the request object or discuss object without it being present processes down just yet, but labeling is a start. His teachers and therapists keep stressing how visual he is, and we're (Z and I) seeing it daily. Picture books and videos appeal more than verbal directions, or having a story read to him. Art is a big hit, whether it's crayons, chalk, paint, or collaging. He loves sign language because it gives his hands something to do other than flap, and it reinforces the word. There are times when he isn't sure which word to use; then he will just randomly run through a bunch of signs until he finds the one he's after to label something, and then repeat that one until we go "yes, that's a ball. Good job!"

I also had a startling moment today: I have moved into someone else's shadow. No longer am I simply "J--", "J-- H" or my maiden name (which I went by in college), but I'm now "A's mom." I had to drop A off at school today, because his ABA appointment overlaps his usual bus pick-up time. When I got there, his bus arrived, and all A's classmates were saying "Hi, A's mom! Hi, A's mom!" I know I'm his mom, of course, but I've never had that used as my sole identifier before. It's odd, but nice. I am having difficulty putting this experience into words; these I have down aren't quite capturing what I'm trying to say. Hmmm. I may come back and try again later.

Signs

Some interesting things happened the last few days:

First, on Saturday, A did the entire "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song with all the hand motions ~ unprompted. He walked over to me and just started doing it. It took me a second to figure it out, but when I heard "itsyitsy pider" that cinched it. He doesn't really sing it, kind of whispers it under his breath. He really likes the "washed the spider out" part. I usually don't like spiders (even though I know they're beneficial...I just don't want them in my house, or any other bug! Outside is fine)but I am willing to make an exception in this case ~ we can sing about that spider any time he wants to! :)

Also, this morning when he woke up, he came into my room and spent twenty minutes performing various sign language signs and telling me what they were. The ones he didn't label I'm not too sure of, I'll have to try to look them up somehow. But VERY
clearly we got:
"mommy"; "daddy"; "baby"; "bowl"; "kiss"; "eat"; "cereal"; "milk"; "ball"; "drink"; "cup"; and what appears to be "garden" but I'm not sure. He's also made up his own sign for "Jesus".

Completely random, but awesome!

Another favorite thing for A to do is play "Ring a ring of rosies"...he'll spin with you while you sing the little ditty and won't say a word until we reach "all fall down", which he shrieks, drops to the ground, and laughs hysterically. We might get an "ashes" out of him too, occasionally. A will also, out of the blue, shriek "DOWN!!", fling himself to the ground, and just laugh and laugh. It's really funny to watch!

Also, yesterday after church we had a rather interesting sight: it was lightly snowing. I haven't seen snow for Easter in years (not since I lived in Alaska), so it was weird and heartwarming at the same time. The delicate little flakes drifting lazily out of a partly sunny sky provided a compelling visual for all of us leaving the church building ~ washed "as white as snow" indeed. Made the afternoon egg hunt
at a friend's house just a wee bit Chilly, but the kids didn't seem to notice ~ when you've got five kids scurrying around, it's much too exciting to pay attention to anything silly like the cold temperatures! Happy Easter everyone, by the way!

Unwise Purchases

I totally lifted this off of Jonathan Carroll's site, in case you wonder where it came from. www.jonathancarroll.com (thank you Ella D., by the way!)

I laugh at this poem because it strikes that inner chord of ironic truth: don't we all have something along these lines gathering dust in our houses? And I also have a violin sitting in its case that I haven't had time to practice for months!

Unwise Purchases
by George Bilgere

They sit around the house
not doing much of anything: the boxed set
of the complete works of Verdi, unopened.
The complete Proust, unread:

The French-cut silk shirts
which hang like expensive ghosts in the closet
and make me look exactly
like the kind of middle-aged man
who would wear a French-cut silk shirt:

The reflector telescope I thought would unlock
the mysteries of the heavens
but which I only used once or twice
to try to find something heavenly
in the windows of the high-rise down the road,
and which now stares disconsolately at the ceiling
when it could be examining the Crab Nebula:

The 30-day course in Spanish
whose text I never opened,
whose dozen cassette tapes remain unplayed,

save for Tape One, where I never learned
whether the suave American
conversing with a sultry-sounding desk clerk
at a Madrid hotel about the possibility
of obtaining a room
actually managed to check in.

I like to think
that one thing led to another between them
and that by Tape Six or so
they're happily married
and raising a bilingual child in Seville or Terra Haute.

But I'll never know.
Suddenly I realize
I have constructed the perfect home
for a sexy, Spanish-speaking astronomer
who reads Proust while listening to Italian arias,

and I wonder if somewhere in this teeming city
there lives a woman with, say,
a fencing foil gathering dust in the corner
near her unused easel, a rainbow of oil paints
drying in their tubes

on the table where the violin
she bought on a whim
lies entombed in the permanent darkness
of its locked case
next to the abandoned chess set,

a woman who has always dreamed of becoming
the kind of woman the man I've always dreamed of becoming
has always dreamed of meeting.

And while the two of them discuss star clusters
and Cezanne, while they fence delicately
in Castilian Spanish to the strains of Rigoletto,

she and I will stand in the steamy kitchen,
fixing up a little risotto,
enjoying a modest cabernet,
while talking over a day so ordinary
as to seem miraculous.

Who Knew?

I learned something that I just have to share. Rubbing alcohol removes otherwise permanent marker off of aquarium glass.

I was putting K down for her nap, and A decided that while I was upstairs and he was downstairs, it was a good idea to take my orange calligraphy marker (the permanent scrap booking kind...this one was a ZIG) and color the goldfish as they swam by the glass. They must have swum all over the place, because there were lots of dark orange marker spots on the glass with lines trailing to each one. I had just used rubbing alcohol to remove some non-permanent ink from clothing the day before, so I figured I'd give it a shot. And it worked! Who knew? The rubbing alcohol apparently won't remove the permanent marker from wood, plastic, or clothing though (just regular ink pens).

In another area of the "who knew?" category, these are some things I have said or experienced this morning that I never imagined I would:

"Don't hit your sister with the penguin."
"Get the farm animals out of the toilet!"
"Do not hit the dog with the lizard." (rubber lizard, real dog)
"Get your socks out of the toilet!"
"Shoes do not go in the toilet!" (all the toilet ones were to K, of course)

Unfortunately just shutting the bathroom door isn't enough since big brother is kind enough to oblige little sister these days. Those door knob covers have long since lost their effectiveness. Oh well, A had his "what floats in the toilet?" phase so I guess little sister has to go through it too. Here's hoping she'll lose interest REALLY soon....of course, A still occasionally throws stuff in there even now, so we'll see.


I have also freed a plastic giraffe from the confines of a very small toy car -- twice -- and pulled the TV remote out of the clothes dryer. I also comforted my son, who discovered that if you hold on to the body and sling a rubber squid really fast, the tentacles hurt when they whap you and leave red marks.

Motherhood is never dull, especially when you have active kids! I really need to take more pictures first and not just jump in and clean up the mess...I could present an album to their future spouses and tell them "This is what they did when they were little. Good luck with your own kids, they'll be half H--!" :)

The Shoe Bandit

Apparently some things are genetic: hair color, eye color, and a love of shoes. My mother loves shoes (she often tells me that she used to make her own clothing in college so she could afford to buy more shoes!); I love shoes (especially fun summer ones). And my 12-month-old daughter LOVES shoes. Any shoes. Her shoes, my shoes, daddy's shoes, brother's shoes. One of her first words is "shoes".

But she really loves the shoe store.

I was waiting for Z to come back, so I let K out of her stroller for a minute. Big mistake. She began gathering all the display shoes and stuffing them in her stroller seat, which I missed for about a minute while I was corralling A. In 60 seconds, she had managed to grab about 8 shoes, put them in her seat, and was going for more. As I took the shoes out and put them back, she was going for even more. I had to resort to holding her with one arm and putting shoes back with the other, so I could clear out her seat and strap her in again. And boy was she ever mad! Z came in and picked out a couple of pairs for her, so we let her hold her own shoes. She was happy then! :)

In other news, A has been approved for then Extended School Year (ESY) option, because he is doing so fantastically well and making incredible progress. Regular school gets out here June 15th...he'll have a couple of weeks as a break...then July 2 - July 26 he's in session Monday through Thursday (only 2 hours a day, instead of 2 1/2)...then we break for a couple of weeks and go on a family vacation to see our families in FL and GA....then school starts back early August. The 12th maybe? His teachers have noticed that when he is out of school for extended periods like spring break or the wintry weather that slammed us in February it takes him up to a week to get back in the swing of things, after being off for just a couple of days. So it makes sense to continue on a modified schedule for the summer, just to keep him going without a two month break. (As a side note, today is April 5th and it has been snow flurrying all day ~ but not sticking, thank goodness! Crazy, crazy weather).