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Jan. 6th, 2010 05:50 pmAfter taking Aaron to hip hop, the kids and I drove up to have dinner outside with Grant - cold, windy dinner at picnic tables by the dark parking lot, with the boys racing through the patch of grass and everyone putting their hands in their pasta to warm up. Then we went and visited Laura. Baby Elizabeth - have I mentioned that Laura changed the baby's name? It's now Elizabeth MARIE, half after ME (Tina Marie) :D For kickass reasons about how they had a homebirth largely due to my mistakes and all sorts of awesomeness. Anyway...Isaac had never met Elizabeth, and I called ahead and Laura was up for a visit. Aaron was just in awe of her. He was sitting there next to her with tears in his eyes, staring with a slightly open mouth.
After awhile he got frazzled by younger kids running, laughing, yelling and playing - Brian ringleading them all - and then he does this SID spaceout thing that involves shaking his hands around in front of him, making rapid successions of funny faces, and finally getting up and running around, too, albeit in ways that have nothing to do with what the little kids are doing and are noticeably jerky.
Elizabeth got done nursing and needed to be changed, when I was getting ready to go. So I brought Brian out to the van to say Goodbye as I got the other 4 kids strapped in, while Aaron stayed inside in the quiet house. I came back in with Brian, leaving the van on and locked for the others, and found Aaron wanting to hold her. She was fussing and then wailing in Laura's arms, though. Laura handed her to him anyway, and he started doing this little gentle bop up and down, and then leaned his face down to her chest, closed his eyes and concentrated....and she stopped crying. And then he held her for like 5 minutes and she just stared at him and he was so happy. Frank ran and got the camera. Frank was like, "Good job, man"...Aaron has this thing he does that calms animals and it's like he "used" it on her.
Anyway. Finally we left. Hours later, Ananda and Elise were asleep together, all bundled up, and Jake and Isaac were in Isaac's bed (which is not something that often works out), and Aaron was in my bed. I found him in there with a heating pad on and his light up spinny solar system alarm clock going, with all the lights off and door closed. I read him 3 more chapters of Hatchett. And if you could watch him listen to this story of a little boy stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash, alone, trying to survive...he goes from teary to hugely grinning to open shock to laughing out loud. I LOVE reading to him so much. We kept stopping every few pages to talk about what would happen if HE stumbled upon a giant bear in a berry patch, or woke up in the night with a porcupine sitting there, or whatever.
Then we snuggled up and talked about everything. How he wants to be a veterianarian but he really doesn't think he could handle it. The bossy kids in his dance classes that annoy him, and how he tries to just ignore them. How the dad across the street just throws things down on the ground, and he doesn't understand why he would do that, but he doesn't want to judge him because he thinks it's wrong to judge people. How he thinks Peter (his rescued cat) is having a good life, even though he's still scared often. How Elizabeth just looked at him, and looked, with her tiny curious eyes.
SID (which is coming to be more often called SPD) people have a hard time regulating body temperature and that is definitely true with him. When everyone else is dead to the world he's balled up, thrashing about under his covers, unable to get warm. We ended up running for a second heating pad, last night, for our feet, and when Grant found us there he threw a blanket fresh from the dryer over both of us.
BTW, it is SO WEIRD to have several nights in the 30s in a row, here. It's all over the news that we're setting records. Windchill factors were in the 20s here for the past two nights. "Global Climate Destabilization" Grant says.
Anyway. An "Aaron and Music" update. Some new things he plays by ear include the theme song to The Nightmare Before Christmas, Carol of the Bells and that song from the JK Wedding YouTube video. Along with several new original things of his own, and this jazzy thing Grant plays that I think is someone else's song and not just Grant's. He's started going and getting the his-sized guitar Shaun got him years ago and transferring these songs - figuring out how to play Linkin Park and Carol of the Bells on guitar. Yesterday I heard him getting down in a way that sounded different. Louder, for one thing, and also a little bit more erratic than normal. But still cool. Still "a song" and not just something you'd normally hear an untrained 8 year old banging out. I went out there and he was STANDING UP FACING AWAY FROM THE PIANO, reaching behind him and playing. He looked embarassed when I saw him. "I got bored" he said. O_O Today I went in and he had drumsticks on the keys as he played. I inquired and he told me, "They're racing. I want to see if I can make that one get over there first just by playing songs."
He frequently gets my attention just to say, softly, "poof" as he does this...I don't know, exploding dandelion thing, with his hands. IT IS SO ANNOYING and he knows it and his favorite thing is to get my attention when I'm stirring 2 pots and a little kid is on the counter talking to me, just so I look at him frazzled and hear, almost whispered, "Poof" as he spreads his hands out and flutters his fingers. His new way of wigging out in the van is to say, frantically, with great urgency and volume, "WE'RE SURROUNDED!! THERE ARE TREES EVERYWHERE, THEY'RE GOING TO GET US, SOMEBODY HELP US! I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS CAN'T ANYBODY SAVE US THIS IS SO TERRIBLE THE TREES! TREEEEES! Tuh-REESSS!!" or "There's a car - and, oh no, wait, another car - and a third one - MOM! Mom! MOM THERE ARE CARS EVERYWHERE I CAN'T HANDLE THE PRESSURE SOMEONE GET RID OF ALL THESE CARS IMMEDIATELY!!!" He'll go on like this for half an hour while Isaac says "Aa-WON! Stop it! Stoooop!" and Annie slaps and wacks him with murder in her eyes. It's really bad, because if I have the SLIGHTEST edge of humor in my voice, or make eye contact with him in the rearview mirror, he can tell I think it's a tiny bit funny (he's clawing at his eyes and ripping at his hair and gesturing wildly, and it's all an act). And then he starts laughing and then there is NO STOPPING HIM. I tell him all the time that he's just barely, I mean BARELY by the skin of his teeth funny enough that I don't quite have the heart to kill him for how irritating he is trying to be funny. Sometimes he's doing this slow drawl at the dinner table, like huh-yuck, hyuck, yup, tha-yat's ri-yight and he stays in character with it, you know? He does the expressions perfectly and when I tell him, "That's enough, quit talking that way" it's "buh-buh-buht WHY ma-yam" and I finally have to be like, listen, I may be laughing hysterically, but I will stand you in the corner laughing hysterically.*shaking my head*
Over the course of three days back at schoolwork he's gone from being able to do about 5 math problems in 2 hours, to being able to get 40 addition and 35 of his 40 subtraction problems done in about 2 hours...today we're taking a math break and he's been working on one page of cursive (which he loves) for about an hour.
I gave Annie creative writing today. Her prompt was "All About Me". She just brought me the work. It says;
"Hi my name is Ananda not Amanda. And I like to read. I have three brothers and one sister. My sister is tow and my first brother is eight. And my second brother is five. And my third brother is four. My birthday is June first. I like to draw. I have a pet bunny named Shadow. And a pet chicken naned Lily. My mom has a cat. I would like to visit Italy. I like to do multiplicolion. The end."
She is also wearing tights, a leotard and a heavy jacket with a hat under the hood right now, and thinks she is ready for dance. o_O
I really liked the quotes my google homepage had to offer up today:
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
- David Sedaris
If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; first, you get accused of things you never did, and later, credited for virtues you never had.
- I. F. Stone
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
After awhile he got frazzled by younger kids running, laughing, yelling and playing - Brian ringleading them all - and then he does this SID spaceout thing that involves shaking his hands around in front of him, making rapid successions of funny faces, and finally getting up and running around, too, albeit in ways that have nothing to do with what the little kids are doing and are noticeably jerky.
Elizabeth got done nursing and needed to be changed, when I was getting ready to go. So I brought Brian out to the van to say Goodbye as I got the other 4 kids strapped in, while Aaron stayed inside in the quiet house. I came back in with Brian, leaving the van on and locked for the others, and found Aaron wanting to hold her. She was fussing and then wailing in Laura's arms, though. Laura handed her to him anyway, and he started doing this little gentle bop up and down, and then leaned his face down to her chest, closed his eyes and concentrated....and she stopped crying. And then he held her for like 5 minutes and she just stared at him and he was so happy. Frank ran and got the camera. Frank was like, "Good job, man"...Aaron has this thing he does that calms animals and it's like he "used" it on her.
Anyway. Finally we left. Hours later, Ananda and Elise were asleep together, all bundled up, and Jake and Isaac were in Isaac's bed (which is not something that often works out), and Aaron was in my bed. I found him in there with a heating pad on and his light up spinny solar system alarm clock going, with all the lights off and door closed. I read him 3 more chapters of Hatchett. And if you could watch him listen to this story of a little boy stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash, alone, trying to survive...he goes from teary to hugely grinning to open shock to laughing out loud. I LOVE reading to him so much. We kept stopping every few pages to talk about what would happen if HE stumbled upon a giant bear in a berry patch, or woke up in the night with a porcupine sitting there, or whatever.
Then we snuggled up and talked about everything. How he wants to be a veterianarian but he really doesn't think he could handle it. The bossy kids in his dance classes that annoy him, and how he tries to just ignore them. How the dad across the street just throws things down on the ground, and he doesn't understand why he would do that, but he doesn't want to judge him because he thinks it's wrong to judge people. How he thinks Peter (his rescued cat) is having a good life, even though he's still scared often. How Elizabeth just looked at him, and looked, with her tiny curious eyes.
SID (which is coming to be more often called SPD) people have a hard time regulating body temperature and that is definitely true with him. When everyone else is dead to the world he's balled up, thrashing about under his covers, unable to get warm. We ended up running for a second heating pad, last night, for our feet, and when Grant found us there he threw a blanket fresh from the dryer over both of us.
BTW, it is SO WEIRD to have several nights in the 30s in a row, here. It's all over the news that we're setting records. Windchill factors were in the 20s here for the past two nights. "Global Climate Destabilization" Grant says.
Anyway. An "Aaron and Music" update. Some new things he plays by ear include the theme song to The Nightmare Before Christmas, Carol of the Bells and that song from the JK Wedding YouTube video. Along with several new original things of his own, and this jazzy thing Grant plays that I think is someone else's song and not just Grant's. He's started going and getting the his-sized guitar Shaun got him years ago and transferring these songs - figuring out how to play Linkin Park and Carol of the Bells on guitar. Yesterday I heard him getting down in a way that sounded different. Louder, for one thing, and also a little bit more erratic than normal. But still cool. Still "a song" and not just something you'd normally hear an untrained 8 year old banging out. I went out there and he was STANDING UP FACING AWAY FROM THE PIANO, reaching behind him and playing. He looked embarassed when I saw him. "I got bored" he said. O_O Today I went in and he had drumsticks on the keys as he played. I inquired and he told me, "They're racing. I want to see if I can make that one get over there first just by playing songs."
He frequently gets my attention just to say, softly, "poof" as he does this...I don't know, exploding dandelion thing, with his hands. IT IS SO ANNOYING and he knows it and his favorite thing is to get my attention when I'm stirring 2 pots and a little kid is on the counter talking to me, just so I look at him frazzled and hear, almost whispered, "Poof" as he spreads his hands out and flutters his fingers. His new way of wigging out in the van is to say, frantically, with great urgency and volume, "WE'RE SURROUNDED!! THERE ARE TREES EVERYWHERE, THEY'RE GOING TO GET US, SOMEBODY HELP US! I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS CAN'T ANYBODY SAVE US THIS IS SO TERRIBLE THE TREES! TREEEEES! Tuh-REESSS!!" or "There's a car - and, oh no, wait, another car - and a third one - MOM! Mom! MOM THERE ARE CARS EVERYWHERE I CAN'T HANDLE THE PRESSURE SOMEONE GET RID OF ALL THESE CARS IMMEDIATELY!!!" He'll go on like this for half an hour while Isaac says "Aa-WON! Stop it! Stoooop!" and Annie slaps and wacks him with murder in her eyes. It's really bad, because if I have the SLIGHTEST edge of humor in my voice, or make eye contact with him in the rearview mirror, he can tell I think it's a tiny bit funny (he's clawing at his eyes and ripping at his hair and gesturing wildly, and it's all an act). And then he starts laughing and then there is NO STOPPING HIM. I tell him all the time that he's just barely, I mean BARELY by the skin of his teeth funny enough that I don't quite have the heart to kill him for how irritating he is trying to be funny. Sometimes he's doing this slow drawl at the dinner table, like huh-yuck, hyuck, yup, tha-yat's ri-yight and he stays in character with it, you know? He does the expressions perfectly and when I tell him, "That's enough, quit talking that way" it's "buh-buh-buht WHY ma-yam" and I finally have to be like, listen, I may be laughing hysterically, but I will stand you in the corner laughing hysterically.*shaking my head*
Over the course of three days back at schoolwork he's gone from being able to do about 5 math problems in 2 hours, to being able to get 40 addition and 35 of his 40 subtraction problems done in about 2 hours...today we're taking a math break and he's been working on one page of cursive (which he loves) for about an hour.
I gave Annie creative writing today. Her prompt was "All About Me". She just brought me the work. It says;
"Hi my name is Ananda not Amanda. And I like to read. I have three brothers and one sister. My sister is tow and my first brother is eight. And my second brother is five. And my third brother is four. My birthday is June first. I like to draw. I have a pet bunny named Shadow. And a pet chicken naned Lily. My mom has a cat. I would like to visit Italy. I like to do multiplicolion. The end."
She is also wearing tights, a leotard and a heavy jacket with a hat under the hood right now, and thinks she is ready for dance. o_O
I really liked the quotes my google homepage had to offer up today:
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
- David Sedaris
If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; first, you get accused of things you never did, and later, credited for virtues you never had.
- I. F. Stone
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
