The Pants Dance

This morning when Bryce was getting ready for school, he was being so silly.  I'm not sure what was going on in his head, but he kept giggling to himself and was just in a playful mood in general.  After his shower, he was getting dressed but he still needed his pants.  He started jumping around and shuffling his feet and swinging his arms.  I thought he was just being silly and getting the wiggles out before school.  A few seconds went by, and he walked over to where I was sitting (he was still pantless at this point) and said, "I was doing the pants dance."  It was so matter of fact that Jared and I both starting cracking up.  When he saw we thought it was funny, he starting "dancing" again.  Silly boy.  We questioned him several different ways trying to find out where he learned the pants dance.  He's been on an AFV kick lately, so I thought maybe he saw it there.  But we couldn't get any other answer out of him except, "I made it up."  So we did the pants dance and sent him off to school in his silly mood. Poor Mrs. Linda.  She's going to have her hands full today :)

STAY IN BED!!!

In the mornings, Bryce knows that he's supposed to stay in bed in his room until 7:00.  The only exception is if he needs to go the bathroom.  And even then, he's to go right back to bed.  To help with this, I bought a clock for the boys' room at a garage sale a while ago.  This led to a new obsession about times and scheduling. Homework is done at 3:30, bedtime is 8:00, etc.  Don't even thing about getting anything done even two minutes before the scheduled time!  And if one of the clocks in the house is different, we have to (well, at least he wants us to) wait until they all say 3:30, or 8:00, or whatever.  

Mr. Smarty Pants has figured out how to use clocks to his advantage, though.  A couple days ago, he came into my room at 6:38.  I told him to go back to bed because it wasn't 7:00 yet.  He proceeded to tell me that it was 7:00 on the Wii.  I send him back to bed anyway, but later that day I checked the Wii clock.  Sure enough, for some reason it was 23 minutes fast.  Smugly, I thought, I'll get him now, and I changed the clock to the correct time.  The next day, he came into my bedroom again at about 6:45.  When I told him it wasn't 7:00 yet, he replied that it was after 7:00 on the Wii.  I then informed him that it wasn't, because I fixed the clock and it's the same as the one in his room now.  He went back to bed, but reappeared at 6:58.  Once again, I said, "Bryce, it's NOT 7:00.  Stay in your room until 7:00!!!"  Without batting an eye, he said, "It's 7:00 in the blue van."  Little stinker.  He's right.  I keep the van clock ahead by 2 minutes just to help keep us moving when we're out and about.  Beaten by an 8 year old.  I let him get up.  But I fully intend on taking my phone around the house with me and resetting EVERY clock until they all say the same thing!!!

My Little Math Whiz

Only 6 kids out of 32 got a 100% on their Math test today.  Guess who was one of the 6? :) He's one of those kids that skips over all the explanation and problem solving and just gets the answer.  Before I can finish reading a question he's already figured it out in his head.  If there's ever a "show your work" requirement, we're in trouble. :)  That's all- just wanted to brag a little.  (Oh, and he got a 100% on his spelling test, too.)  OK, now I'm done.  

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!