Family Wii Brought to you by Bryce

Tonight Bryce was playing Wii by himself as he usually does when he turned around and said, "Dad, it's your turn."  No one had really been paying attention to him, but he had set up a game of Frisbee with four players.  Each one of us had our Mii character loaded and ready to go!  He came into the room where I was blogging and said, "Mom, we need to play four players.  You and Henry come here."  For someone who is always wrapped up in himself and could happily play Wii for hours if you let him, this was a pretty big deal! We had a great game of Frisbee and then another game of Bowling with all four of us, while Charlie watched happily from the chair.  It was a fun way to end the evening right before bedtime.  Thanks for including us, Bryce! 

"I think we have a problem!"

Oops! I posted this on my Pinterest blog on accident :) Moved to the appropriate location now!

A few days ago Bryce's aide decided to move his desk because where it was situated he was able to see the class computers and was getting nothing done while other kids were using them.

Today she told me that every day since then, he says,

"I think we have a problem..."

To which she replies "What's the problem, Bryce?".

"You forgot to move my desk back!!!"

He was REALLY enjoying his view :) I'm not sure how long this will go on, but he does love the computer, so...

Struggling Along

Bryce has been having a much harder time with second grade than he did with first.  The state standards and curriculum changed a few years ago, and now everything is so WORDY.  The math pages are just sentences full of facts and word problems.  They way they try to teach the kids to solve some things is so complicated.  I know for a fact that the majority of the class is struggling to grasp the concepts, but that doesn't really help much.  Bryce has a great grasp of the concepts, and if you lay out the problem for him, he can do it in a snap.  And the language and spelling work is a breeze for him.  His aide says that he's the only one in the class that just sits down and gets his work done.  

But the big area we are struggling with is reading comprehension.  Bryce has been reading since before Kindergarten.  But it's just words to him still.  He hasn't learned to focus on what he's saying and understand what's being read.  You can ask him a question about the sentence he just read and he'll look at you blankly.  Or, he will try to look back in the paragraph and find the answer.  That is better than nothing, but the more advanced the subject gets, the more abstract it is. Anything that requires inference goes straight over his head.  I really don't know what we are going to do with him.  He may need to go back into a special ed class that will be designed for teaching and not so focused on meeting state standards.  He does get accommodations for testing, but he's getting lost in the shuffle, I'm afraid.  The only thing saving him is his full time aide.  But I don't know how long we get to keep her around.  Technically she's only supposed to be for ABA support at the school.  We have just been lucky to use her all day :) 

For now, the plan is to just see where second grade goes, and how well he does this year.  Next year, who knows?  I just don't want him to hate school.  He's so bright, and has such potential! And he's always liked school a lot.  On a brighter note, we qualified for free school lunches this year, so he's been able to "buy" lunch every day.  It is the absolute highlight of his day.  He loves to punch in his number, and go through and pick out what he wants to eat.  And it's good, healthy fresh food, too.  Every day he comes home and tells me what he picked out for lunch.  It's the little things, right? :)

Can't believe this little cutie is in 2nd grade now!!!

Second Grade- Another Year of Fire Drills

I took Bryce to school this morning for his first day of second grade.  He has been putting this day off in his mind all summer.  He usually likes school and is always excited when holiday breaks are over, but this time he was not so sure about it.  He kept insisting that school was next Tuesday the 21st (every week he would say the same thing all summer) even when I showed him on the calendar that today was Tuesday the 21st.  He didn't talk about it directly most of the time, but I know he was just dreading the start of another school year because it means the fire drills will start again.  Last year on the last day of school, he said, "No more fire drills!  Number nine was the last one!"  That's right, he kept track in his head all year long.  And so the beginning of a new year means that he has to start all over again.  Poor kid- he really hates those things.  They are so loud, and anyone with an autistic child knows that extremely loud noises like that are just a sensory overload for them.  Add to that the flashing strobe lights and the fact that they leave the alarm blaring the entire time the kids are making their way to the staging areas, and it's a recipe for disaster.  For Bryce, the anticipation is worse than the event.  His therapist always tells him before they have a drill so he can be prepared.  He also has ear plugs that he can put in to help dampen the noise.  Mrs. Linda told him that she had it on good authority that they would not have a fire drill today, so he needed to stop thinking about it and just get ready for a great first day of school. (This was on the phone this morning before we went to school- isn't she great?!?)  When I left him at his desk, he was still a little weepy eyed as he told Mrs. Linda he didn't want to have a fire drill and she reiterated that they would not.  I can't wait to pick him up this afternoon to see how the rest of his day went.  Bless Mrs. Linda- I don't think I could have left him there if he'd have been alone!  If you think of it today, please pray for my little sweetie! 

Bryce Burkholder, Cryptographer. Almost.

Grandma and Grandpa were watching the boys for us on Tuesday so we could go out and celebrate our 12th anniversary.  At some point, Bryce brought my mom's phone to my dad and said, "I found a free game!"  He had gone into the app store, searched for a game by name, found it, and begun the installation process.  All he needed was the password.  He asked, "What's the password?"  My dad answered that he would do it, and Bryce tried to insist that he could enter it if you told him what the password was.  Thankfully, Grandpa was smart enough to avoid that one!  He took the phone and began to enter the password.  Bryce instructed, "Enter it slowly."  He was peeking over Grandpa's shoulder to get a look at the magic code that unlocks an infinite amount of entertainment.  So Grandpa covered up the phone as he entered it in.  Bryce said, "No, don't cover it up!  Move your hand, and enter it s-l-o-w-l-y."  Whatever you do, DON'T give Bryce your password!  And don't let him see even one letter or number!  He WILL spend hours trying over and over again until his cracks the code.  Maybe he has a future with the CIA cryptography department. :)

Bryce in his future office apparel :)

Bryce Makes Me Laugh

Henry, our middle son is 3 years old, and must say 12 adorable things a day.  He just makes me laugh all the time.  Or makes my heart melt with his sweetness.  We are enjoying this stage so much! With Bryce, it's really just beginning.  We skipped over the cute/adorable stage altogether, because he wasn't talking at all when he was 3 and 4 years old.  Now that he has a good handle on language, he's beginning to actually communicate more than just basic needs and wants.  I have caught myself saying "I need to write that down" more and more often.  So here's an example:

A couple days ago, we were driving along and the song "Alouette" came on.  

     Bryce said, "This song is Spanish!" (You can tell he's grown up  in Southern California.)  

     I said, "No, it's French.  It's another language, like Spanish, but it  sounds different."  

Later that night, we were about to watch a movie and the language options came up.  

          Jared jokingly asked, "Should we watch it in French?"  

     Bryce quickly replied, "No, Daddy! French is silly words! We need English!"  

Jared was so proud. :)

Last night for dinner, we had "Mexican Hot Dogs", or hot dogs wrapped in a corn tortilla and baked to make them crispy.  

    Bryce sat down to eat and said, "Hot dogs in tortillas?! How    unexpected!"

Jared and I just cracked up!  If you could only hear his voice inflection as he said it-so funny! 

Um... where did First Grade go?

It's Memorial Day weekend, and there are only four days of school left this year.  WHAT?!? I did an awful job of blogging Bryce's first year in a mainstream class!  I blame Facebook.  Most of my "important" updates come in the form of a status.  And I blame Charlie.  I DID give birth to our third boy just days before the school year began, and he's a handful! (I'm not sure what I'll be able to blame next year)  Hopefully I'll get some posting done this summer and get in the habit of recording events in Bryce's life.

There has been so much improvement in Bryce's social and emotional abilities this year.  I really believe he has "found his voice."  There are fewer awkward silences as he tries to think of what to say or how to answer a question.  He's finally realized that language is for communication.  As I look back over the last few years, I realize that he has stopped most of his obsessive behaviors.  There are still a few (see: socks) but his behavior in general is more typical.

One side effect of having more control of his speech is that he is now less "compliant" about things he doesn't really want to do.  Normally, I would see this as a discipline issue, but with Bryce, it's just about him realizing he has a say in his life.  He just needs to learn the proper way to express his displeasure with something.  Autistic kids are often bullied because they don't know how to stand up for themselves and say what they want or don't want to do.  I would actually use the word manipulated, more than bullied.  But now, Bryce has figured out he can disagree with others and express his own opinions and desires.

Case in point: At the time, I'm sure this was very troubling for him, and I did feel sorry that he had to go through this, but now, it just cracks me up!!! Every day, the kids in his class write in their journals.  They usually have options of what to write about, but on this day they were learning about writing letters, so the teacher wanted them to write a letter to someone in their journal.  Then came the perfect storm.  1. Mrs. Linda, Bryce's therapist and full-time aide, told Bryce to work in his phonics workbook first, and then work on the journal. (this was out of the normal order of things)  2.  He was told to write a letter, not to choose a subject to write about. (another deviation from routine)  3.  The date, which is normally written in the top right corner of the journal, had to be written down near the body of the letter, in proper form (three changes=too much!)

Bryce spoke in an angry manner to Mrs. Linda and tried to grab his journal from her.  She then proceeded to tell him that you may NOT act that way or speak that way in class.  Of course, he then began to fall apart.   Since he was having a hard time, she took him out of class so he wouldn't be embarrassed or become a distraction.  When they got to a private room, he was able to tell her what was bothering him, and she worked with him about speaking his displeasure properly.  When he explained that he needed to do the journal first, she let him do that, but still insisted that he write the date where his teacher told him to.  He settled down and completed his assignment.  Here is what he wrote, without any prompting whatsoever:

                                                                                                                                       March 22, 2012

Dear Henry,
   
     I am upset about writing a letter.  Mrs. Linda is making me write the date in the wrong spot and it make me cry.

                   Your brother,
                     Bryce

I just got the journal yesterday in his school stuff, and when I came across the entry, I laughed out loud! I could just hear the irritation in his voice and the under the breath grumbling!  I know, I know, that isn't something to normally be proud of, but Bryce isn't normal! We'll work on attitude next :)