Offering a Full Life

Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. Thou hast set my feet in a large room; should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking––the strain would be too great––but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. ~ Charlotte Mason (page 170)

Recently, a Facebook friend asked what we would like in a daycare program for special needs adults. What I described was basically a full life as described by Charlotte Mason. While the programs in my area don't meet her lofty expectations, our school does! At the beginning of the year, I imagined I would hang out there and teach Pamela when I wasn't helping out. Family obligations for two of our staff put a serious dent in my time with her, so she attended class with the elementary students for the last two terms of the school year.

Because her teacher and classmates were so gracious and giving, Pamela had a wonderful year! When we moved to Carolina almost a decade ago, I would have never imagined her attending class all day long with her academic peers. All I can say is that God is good!

She joined her class for all manner of living.

Weekly Nature Walks


Classroom Critters


Reading and Narrating Living Books


Science Projects


Notebooking


Gardening


Chores


Shakespeare


Field Trips


Tracking Snow Tracks


A Pool Party


Handcrafts


Term Finales

I'm especially pleased about the term finales. Even though Pamela narrated less frequently and less consistently than she would have with me one-on-one, clearly she paid enough attention to have something to say during her term exams. Not only that, she has transitioned to doing all her term finale questions in writing. So, besides the benefits of having to self-regulate to the demands of a typical classroom, she made progress in her academics. That's a more than acceptable trade-off, especially when I consider the alternatives for her as an adult in the autism spectrum.

Forgetting How Hard It Used to Be

Sometimes, I forget how hard it used to be. Granted, some people have it much easier than we do. Children become more and more independent. They go off to college. They leave the nest. Life with Pamela is a 24/7 thing, but things have gotten so much easier. I have forgotten...

• ...feeling exhausted because both of us worked full-time careers in the Navy and Pamela only slept four hours a night!
• ...the horrible diapers, especially when the leaked because her digestive system was in such an awful state—you do not want a description.
• ...the awful stares and glares shot our way when our perfectly normal looking daughter pitched a fit when her senses overloaded.
• ...the limited range of convenience foods and snacks for someone on a gluten-/casein-free diet.
• ...having to guess what Pamela was experiencing because she lacked the language to tell us and had no idea we needed to know.
• ...always taking the stairs for ten years, including walking to the thirteen floor of an apartment building while on vacation.

My folks gave me some pictures taken almost nine years ago. This was before we figured out how to fill in missing developmental gaps through Relationship Development Intervention. This was before we had fleshed out fully what Pamela needed for her aphasia (the association method).

What struck me about these pictures was Pamela's complete lack of ability to pose for a simple picture. Right around this time, we renewed passports for the kids. The photographer had to take at least ten pictures to get one with her eyes open. Even though we begged and pleaded for her to keep her eyes open, Pamela shut them the moment she heard the click of the camera. We ended up having to use the picture we nicknamed "the angry drunk" because she was screeching "Say cheese!" She looked quite belligerent in the shot! The four sets of pictures below illustrate how hard I had to work to get Pamela to look into the camera. She is either looking the wrong way while I frantically point or she is grimacing her face in anger.





When my folks gave me these old pictures, they remarked at how much progress Pamela has made. They would know! She spends several hours at their home, twice a week. My dad stated that she seems to be accelerating, especially in comparison to before. Most people expect adults with autism to slow down their rate of development. We are told once a developmental door closes that is slammed shut for good. I am starting to see that as myth based upon how far Pamela has come since these pictures were taken.

The other day, I snapped three pictures of Pamela during our weekly nature walk. I did not have to point or go out of my way to get her to stop and pose. Her ability to share joint attention has come a long way. While taking this photograph, we were talking about the little flower, the Carolina jessamine that blooms this time of year. You can see how relaxed and at ease she is in front of the camera.

Here are two more pictures that illustrate the difference nine years can make! You can see how Pamela is "with" me!





I have one more example of how well Pamela is progressing. When she visits my folks, she gets her programmed television fix for we have none at our house. Lately, they have asked her to go upstairs (especially when Downton Abbey conflicts with sports). Pamela does not enjoy watching that television for it only has nine channels. She would fuss and argue when asked to go upstairs. Finally, I had to tell her that she would have to come to church with me on those nights if she kept giving my parents a hard time. I talked to her about it a week ago, and her attitude has improved.

On the way to watercolor class, we tried listening to a CD in the car. It did not work. Pamela became unglued. I warned her that I could not have her freaking out at art class—we listen to classical music there and sometimes the CD player fails. I tried various strategies to help her calm down, but she was till having outbursts. Finally, I tersely and firmly told her we were going home because she had broken her promise to calm down.

I let her know that I was upset at her, too. Pamela apologized, but I knew she could do more to repair the situation. So, I grew silent and ignored her. I waited and waited, letting her dwell on the long awkward pause. I decided that, if she made a more elaborate attempt to repair the breakdown, I would change my mind and take her to class. I did not share what I was thinking.

We passed the art gallery, and I turned and drove around the block. When she realized that I was taking her home, Pamela asked, "Where are we going?" I remained silent. She must have reflected about keeping her promise the night before at my parents' house for she said, "I watched TV upstairs." Translation: "Mom, I kept my promise last night. I can do it again." I replied, "That's a good point! Because you kept your promise last night, I will give you another chance."

Even though Pamela "won" the argument and "got her way," she continued to repair the situation. I was still disappointed, so, at watercolor class, she apologized several times, held my hand, and made kissing sounds. She kept looking me in the face to see how I responded. I think she did this three or four times to assess the results of her effort to cheer me up. Clearly, winning a victory did not satisfy her if I continued to be upset.

The CD at class did act up. We were listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. To my utter shock and dismay, the CD stopped just seconds before the soloists came in during the fourth movement—my favorite part—the "Ode to Joy" section. I freaked out—in good fun—more than Pamela did. In fact, she remained absolutely calm.

On "Wise Passivity"–The next element in the attitude of masterly inactivity is good humour–frank, cordial, natural, good humour. This is quite a different thing from overmuch complacency, and a general giving-in to all the children's whims. The one is the outcome of strength, the other of weakness, and children are very quick to see the difference. 'Oh, mother, may we go blackberrying this afternoon, instead of lessons?' The masterly and the abject 'yes' are quite different notes. The first makes the holiday doubly a delight; the second produces a restless desire to gain some other easy victory. ~ Charlotte Mason

Where We Do School in Spite of My Sore Throat

Pamela has been looking forward to today for a long time. Over the holidays, she choose to do schoolwork so that she could do exam week so that she could have the first day of school with a brand new crop of books. Unfortunately, a nasty sore throat started plaguing me yesterday and, between that and the nausea and headaches, I was afraid I might let her down.

Pamela's determination won my over, and we managed to do a full day with copious napping on my part. I loved seeing her bright smile when we began a new book. The wave of joy that swept across her face when she heard the recording of her daddy reading El cuento de Ferdinando kept me going.

This year, we upped the ante of copywork. Pamela now copies seven words in Spanish and two sentences from any book that we read during the day. I cracked up at the juxtaposition of her last entry of the last crop of books to the new entry. "Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?" is what Jesus said to the disciples on the day he calmed the storm. "And suppose you do know the answer to that question, what difference does it make? Who cares?" was taken from a science book asking if two different sized stones will hit the ground at the same time if dropped at the same time.





And, speaking of storms, we witnessed the coolest thing as we were leaving watercolor class last Thursday. The sky blackened and, near the end of class massive thunder rocked our ears. As we were getting up to leave, lightning struck and we saw blue and green flashes outside. The building lost power, and the static electricity in the air put Pamela's iPod to sleep. It did not wake up until the next morning. I figured out later that we witnessed St. Elmo's Fire, which is the making of plasma. Since Pamela needs to work on sequencing non-biographical events, I guided her through a written narration of what happened.



Seeing plasma live was one of those lovely moments God orchestrated for us. The Friday before, our Charlotte Mason community had tried to make plasma in the microwave, but we failed. Fortunately, the experiment had worked at my friend's house and she showed us a video of it. Pamela added this fourth state of matter to her science journal.



Devoting some time to the growing of plants is a scary thing since I have a black thumb. First Pamela matched the seeds to the packets. She knew five of them, which left her to guess correctly the sixth (buckwheat). Since she also needs to work on describing what she sees, I guided her through a written narration about the seeds.



With my sore throat, planting the seeds offered the chance to gesture to her. I guided her to narrate in writing the steps we took to plant seeds.


Pamela has such an eye for detail and pattern that mathematics is her best subject. This year we are going to test drive Jacob's Algebra and Jacob's Geometry, side by side, at very leisurely pace. We will also be throwing in Kahn Academy to hone basic arithmetic. Inspired by my friend Laurie Bestvater, I have been pondering how to keep a mathematics notebook. In addition to a three-ringed binder for loose-leafed papers, Pamela will put her problems in a composition book and her thoughts and ideas in a journal.

After reading the letter to the student, Pamela's entry cracked me up! She recalls watching her brother work through Jacob's Algebra as he prepared for the mathematics placement test at CSU. After we finished mathematics, Pamela announced that she was not getting a job and, if she had to get a job, she was going to be a farmer of her stuffed animals.



Pamela adored the first page of algebra, which focused on number tricks. She giggled as we tried the trick on 100 and 0, which turned out the result of 5 every time! For geometry, she drew two equilateral triangles using two different construction techniques: (1) using the 30-60 triangle from RightStart and (2) using the unusual compass from RightStart. I did not have a traditional protractor on hand, which I need to purchase. By the time we finished geometry, I was too worn out to go beyond making the triangles.





Pamela is continuing to work on her baby blanket for her "babies". Once she finishes this ball of yarn, I will teach her how to purl and she can practice stockinette stitches.

It's All Relative

Braving a thermometer that regularly read in the teens, we spent the Christmas and New Year holidays in Kansas. One night driving home from seeing The Hobbit—for the second time—we watched the temperature gradually drop down from 15º to 5º! Driving back to Carolina, the weather felt down right balmy at 45º.

Tired of typical fare grabbed on the road, we decided to try Domino's gluten-free pizza. While their food labeling clearly states it does not reach the uber-scrupulous standards for celiac disease, Pamela usually has no problem with gluten-free food that might have a little cross contamination. We wanted to find out whether an occasional pizza would cause a reaction (skin rash, irritability, foggy thinking, incontinence, etc.). I had forgotten that this pizza establishment was not a sit-down restaurant, so we ended up eating at a rest area five miles down the road.

Both the temperature and level of gluten exposure have one thing in common: relativity. Compared to Kansas weather, we felt warm basking in the sun while eating our pizza. Compared to a regular pizza, the gluten-free pizza offered such a miniscule amount of the wheat protein that Pamela had no reaction.

Everything is relative.

Sometimes, hearing about autism-spectrum folks doing great things makes me fret about much far behind Pamela is. Online viewers of the Miss America 2013 competition chose Miss Montana, who still has residual speech anomalies in spite of having come far after getting diagnosed with mild autism eleven years ago. Lexi Madden is planning to major in art therapy in the fall. She is so far beyond where Pamela is and, believe me, Pamela has worked just as hard to come as far as she has.

And, then, I come across a post by Greg Lucas about finding joy in scrubbing urine off the bathroom floor.

It's all relative!

So, rather than succumb to grumblings caused by comparing my situations to that of others, I'm going to ponder moments of joy. Think of this as a virtual gratitude jar. Pamela . . .

• . . . thinks it's funny when I make a mistake. We had her leftover burger and fries boxed up before we left the Mexican restaurant. When she realized I had left her leftovers behind, she cracked up and laughed at my forgetfulness.


• . . . is so excited about starting a new year's worth of books that she drove me to homeschool during our break and on weekends. We started the term finale and she is the one coming up with the daily schedule.


• . . . on her own initiative, entered page numbers for our daily readings for the last day of the week in a spreadsheet. She even knew how to change the highlighting of the cell from green to white to show what is ready to go (white) and what still needs work (green). Then, she told me, "I did the schedule!" with great joy in her efforts. Talk about an "Elves and the Shoemaker" moment for me!


• . . . gets the mail every morning and even brings books that come in the mail to me. How thoughtful!


• . . . found great delight and exclaiming loudly "REMEMBER THE ALAMO" while reading the book on that topic in our final week of the term.


• . . . reminisced about all of our favorite horses when the topic came up in one of our books: Shadowfax, Goblin, Chùcaro, Pegasus, etc.


• . . . is adamant in her proclamations that she is NOT college, NOT high school, NOT middle school, and NOT elementary school. She is Charlotte Mason (our style of lifelong learning). To respect her repeated announcement, I decided to shift the names of all my computer documents from "Year 6" to "Year 2013" since we are beginning a bunch of new books in January 2013.

Making Memories in the Midwest

Pamela and I popped into Kansas and spent a lovely week with our menfolk. Steve and I were discussing how differently Pamela turned out from the dire stories in the few books about autism that existed back in 1991. Even though she is not completely independent and self-sufficient, the joy she gives us makes our hard work worth while.

This post is a hodge-podge of memories stored in my heart from this trip. One afternoon, while I was doing a Wii Fit routine, Pamela popped onto Steve's laptop and recorded this recitation of Cinco Pollitos. In case you don't understand Spanish, Pamela said, "Cinco pollitos tiene mi tia. Uno le canta, otro le pia, y tres le tocan la symphonia." It means, "My aunt has five chicks: one sings, the other peeps, and three play a symphony."

Life with Pamela also takes you to places you never expected to go. On the way to Kansas, she begged me to eat dinner at the "Dinosaur Cafe". After careful investigation, I figured out that she loves watching the PBS television show Dinosaur Train when we stay with Steve, who has an HD digital antennae at our place. Somehow, she became aware of a restaurant in Kansas City, KS called T-Rex Cafe (there are only *two* in the whole world). Steve, David, and I were a bit leery about eating dinner at a "kiddie" place, but the food was surprisingly good. Or, maybe the hour-long wait for a table sharpened our appetites. The enormous portions offered another meal the next day. You can see Pamela's extreme joy in the few dark, blurry pictures I managed to take.

Watching Pamela interact with people she has not seen in a long time helps us see how far she has come. Because David has spent the summer working in Kansas, Pamela has not spent much time with him. Sitting in the back seat of the car on the way to dinner was the first opportunity to bond. Pamela said a single word to him and waited for him to reply. She did this so often that it became clear she was initiating conversation with him. After each prompt, David commented on the word, leading to a brief exchange. Then, she came up with another single word, which began another round.

This morning, she showed David how much she cares about him. She walked to the door of his bedroom, where David stood with his cup of java. She looked him in the eye and said, "I'll miss you." He smiled and said, "Let me put down my coffee." Then, he gave her a bear hug and Pamela leaned into her big brother. Friends and family know how much this simple act means. One wrote on Facebook, "That is such a huge statement." My sister commented, "That is amazing, and you know she understands and feels what she is saying."

During our stay, we headed over to Iowa to see my youngest sister and her family. Her only child is about fifteen months old. Pamela longed to engage with him but did not know exactly how. While I was holding him, she came up to us and put out her arm, expecting him to play tickle games with her. I tried guiding her to tickle him, but she didn't quite grasp what she needed to do. I guided her to a seat to let her hold him. She gave him a hug and kissed the top of his head.

As I watched Pamela and the tot, a wonderful thought hit me. Our Charlotte Mason study group is planning to have an enrichment day once a week this year. One of the mothers in our group is due any day now. I am seriously considering skipping the science lesson to hang out in the nursery and show Pamela how to interact with babies. Pamela could mature in her ability to connect to babies and the wee one matures.

On the way back from Iowa, we stopped in a town of population 422. My parents, who are camping not far from where my sister lives, saw a segment about the man behind the mural on Independence Day. The reporter at the Des Moines Register quoted my mother, "We saw it on the 'Today' show and just had to come." The story is about a man named Todd Spaur, who flipped his car and landed in some underbrush where he lay for sixteen hours, unable to move or call for help. Doctors predicted he would never walk, but, after a extended recovery, he can get around with his cane. The people of Bussey helped raise his children and supported his family. Between the pain and difficulty walking, he is not well off financially, so he took some art classes with funding from the town and painted their portraits in the mural as a thank you. Todd even enlisted the help of local children for the final touch-ups. This human interest story reminds me of the importance of relationships in the lives of differently abled people. Bussey, IA showcases what makes our country great!



Pamela loves music. On the road, she brightened when she connected the lyrics of "Mockingbird" by James Taylor and Carly Simon to the folk song we learned awhile back. She's also fallen in love with the "Symphony Hall" channel on Sirius (a relief from listening to videos she has recorded on her iPod which are accessible to the car audio system thanks to bluetooth). The other day, we heard some unfamiliar music after I started the car. Then, it shifted to speaking parts. We looked at each other as if to say, "That's odd." So, I changed the display from navigation to the music band we saw the title A Midsummer's Night Dream by Mendelssohn. A huge smile of recognition hit her face because (a) she adores Shakespeare and (b) she enjoys Puck's adventures in Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill. Yesterday, after a couple of bars of music, Pamela turned to me and said, "Bach!" Since I knew it was one of her favorites I asked, "Do you know which one?" She flashed a smile and said, "Brandenburg!"

Driving through Missouri, Pamela knowingly made a play on words and called the state "Misery." we stopped for breakfast in a fascinating town called Bolivar. The city was named for Simon Bolivar, the hero who led South American countries in their quest for independence. The first thing that caught our attention was the YMCA's aquatic center which brought Prince Albert's Crystal Palace to mind—we read about it in Tappan's In the Days of Queen Victoria this year. Pamela looked at me and said, "Is it future?" While I was dwelling on the past, she was focusing in the other direction of time.

After we ordered breakfast, I saw more evidence of Pamela's progress. Because of the extensive reading aloud we do together (half and half), her articulation has improved greatly. Since the restaurant wasn't too busy, I let her go back to ask the fast-food employee for forgotten items. Pamela managed to get her fork, mayonnaise, and mustard without any help from me.

Another Milestone

As you can imagine, fireworks and people with hypersensitive hearing don't always get along. Since David usually takes off with a bunch of friends, we haven't bought fireworks in years. While she enjoys the big show in the sky, viewed from afar, Pamela has never shown an interest in the tame stuff peddled at the fireworks shacks that pop up all over town this time of year.

Until now....

It all started with Wii Fit Training Plus (review here). Just as the movie Toy Story 2 taught her the joy of elevators (overcoming a decade-long phobia), the balance game Tilt City has sparked an interest in fireworks. For the past two weeks, Pamela has talked about shooting off some sparkly stuff when Steve came home to visit us for the Fourth of July festivities. I thought he would pick up something tame like sparklers, but he's an engineer. He bought a family package of all sorts of arsenal, including Roman candles, cakes (not the chocolate cake Pamela insisted I bake), snaps, poppers, something called "mad dog" (a gazillion firecrackers lined up in a belt of earsplitting noise), etc.

You know, of course, which one Steve went for first: the "mad dog".... He made a crack comment about giving it to our mad dog (the beast), and she exclaimed, "You're joking!!!"

Safely perched on the back porch, Pamela watched Steve launch one bomb after another. She kept a running commentary going in between squeals, giggles, and a few Nazgul-like shrieks.

"Dont' burn down the house!"

"Don't burn your hand. Reminds me of Johnny Tremain."

"THOMAS SUMTER! REBECCA MOTT!" (two revolutionary war heroes from South Carolina that we studed last year: The Fighting Gamecock and  The Courageous Patriot)

"Just like Little House!"

Laura Ingalls Wilder's mention of fireworks had slipped my mind, but sure enough, right on pages 249 and 250 lies a description of an Independence Day celebration Laura spent with Almanzo in These Happy Golden Years:

At supper Almanzo proposed that Carrie go with him and Laura to see the fireworks in town.... They kept the horses well outside the crowd, so that no one would be trampled or run over. In an open space at a safe distance they sat in the buggy and waited until a streak of fire rose in the darkness above the crowd and exploded as a star.... After each explosion of beauty against the darkness, Almanzo drove the circle, always bringing Barnum and Skip around in time to face the next rush and blossom of fire. Not until the last shower of sparks had faded did Almanzo and Laura drive away

Pamela watched every move Steve made and stuck around until every last explosive had been fired off. She even joined Steve in the noise making. She prepped a small balloon and stomped on it (a fear she conquered three years ago). She blew up another ballon, threw some pop pop snappers at it, but never got close enough to pop the balloon. She laughed, "I failed!" She ended up stomping on another balloon.

After the fun ended, Pamela looked at the debris on the brick walkway and announced, "Clean up tomorrow!" I encouraged her to thank her father for buying the fireworks and she walked down the driveway to the front yard, where Steve was turning off the sprinkler. She told him, "Happy Fourth of July!"

When she returned, she told me of her plans to do fireworks in 2013.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17

Sweet Moments Treasured in My Heart

Saturday afternoon, Steve and I drove the Chevy to the levee (okay, it was the uncatchy VW) and walked about three miles along the lake. The sun glimmered on the waters, and a gentle breeze cooled us as we headed back to the car. When we returned home, Pamela and I counted birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count. We stood for a half hour at the kitchen window and, although the count was low due to a pesky hog-faced squirrel at the feeder and an evil cat who adopted a neighbor last summer, we enjoyed our quiet time together. Yesterday was our final day for the count. At seeing our last two customers, I broke out into song, "Two mourning doves!" Without missing a beat, Pamela improvised, completely impromptu, "And the cardinals on a bird day!"

Then, the Saturday miracle happened. You might not think of it as miraculous but any family dealing with autism knows one when they see it. Pamela and I headed to the store to pick up some things. She picked out a small bag of chips to go with her burger for dinner. I know I bought the chips. I saw the clerk put them in the bag. I put all the bags in the car. Somehow between the car and the house, the bag of chips disappeared. I don't know where it went. I don't know how it happened but the chips vanished.

While she is mature enough to avoid a full-blown meltdown, we usually cannot avoid tears in such situations. I spent ten minutes looking in all the cabinets, drawers, refrigerator, and car. Pamela remained calm and joined me in the search. I apologized several times while we looked everywhere. When she realized that the chips were gone, she looked over to the gluten-free bread our neighbor picked up for us Friday. She said, "Chips, next time." She quietly opened the bag of bread and fixed her hamburger. Pamela kept herself so well-composed I stopped her after she grabbed two pieces of bread. I hugged her and looked her in the eye. I told her she was so brave and stayed so calm about the chips. I smiled at her, and she smiled back at me and nodded, "Yes!"

Today was another warm, gorgeous day and so many lovely things filled my heart to near bursting. Pamela and I studied in the morning. She flew through math and remembered many details from our readings about the Presidents. Last week, I introduced her to the electoral vote by playing with a spreadsheet about the 2000 presidential election. We looked at the popular vote first which leads you to one conclusion. Then, we went state by state, looking at the results of the popular vote, and assigning electoral candidates. Since Florida was the source of so much controversy, we did that state last. The electoral vote lead to another conclusion, which is the constitutional one.

Today, when Pamela narrated the presidential elections, she told me they were counted by state! Woo hoo! Then, we read the lesson which talked about how Andrew Jackson held the first national convention to pick a candidate for the party. That was something I had forgotten (if I ever learned it in high school). The first one for Jackson's party, the Democrats, occurred in Baltimore, Maryland in 1832.

Before plunging into A Child's History of the World, Pamela told me what she remembered about the Bronze Age. She said, "Caveman had fire. Made copper. No wire. No electricity." I replied, "They didn't make wires. I wonder what they made." She answered, "Hammers. Knives." After reading and narrating, we talked about the map in the book. Pamela made a connection to the Caspian Sea because it reminded her of Prince Caspian.

Our lesson on sculptures was spectacular. Sculptures? Yep!

As always, we recalled what we did last time, which was draw an Assyrian tree of life into a slab of Sculpey clay, which we baked to harden it. To start today's lesson, Pamela made rubbing with crayons. Then, we inked it and tried making stamps. The original drawing was more like a sunken relief sculpture (the one on the right) because she carved into the clay. We made a second slab and made an imprint of it, which turned out to be like a high relief sculpture (the one on the left). But, that was not even the cool part!



I glanced over the first sentence of the book, which talked about a chop. "Today in Japan and China, artists sign their names with a stamp made of carved stone called a chop." Suddenly, I realized that we have a couple of them in our house! Whenever Steve travels overseas on business, he always picks up interesting objects. On one trip, he brought home some chops. I sprung off the couch and grabbed one. We inked it up and stamped the paper. I told Steve about what happened later on and we both had a good laugh. When we were in the Navy, senior officers had to put their chop on paperwork, which meant they had to initial it--the Captain in green and the Executive Officer in red. We had no idea the term's origin was connected to the Chinese stamps in our office! If that wasn't enough, the reading ends with talking about different museums in which you can find Assyrian sculpture--one is located in Baltimore (a connection to our reading on the Presidents)!

The rest of the morning went smoothly. Pamela had another surprise for me. When we sang "El Coqui" in Spanish, Pamela harmonized! Since it is a very short song and we are still learning the lyrics, we repeated it a few times. Every time we sang it, Pamela sang a third above the melody. She has never done that before, and I just loved it!

We ate lunch with some homeschooling friends who are interested in Charlotte Mason's ideas. They asked me to do a "show and tell" to give them a glimpse of how we do things. We sat at umbrella tables in an outdoor patio out back and the children who came enjoyed playing together. As we talked, we soaked up the sunshine and fresh air. Afterwards, as we began to chat about how we all met one by one in unusual ways for a small town, we realized that only the hand of God could make such a meeting possible. So many disconnected threads all woven in such a beautiful way. I have been hoping to become involved with a local study group for the past ten years, and it looks like this one has fallen into my lap. Suddenly, I felt very loved and cherished by my Father in heaven.

‎"The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and that God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged." ~ A. W. Tozer

New Year Reflections

Here is the only math I will put in this post. My next post is another matter. To celebrate the New Year Pamela style, I printed out a dodecahedron calendar from RightStart on cardstock for her to cut out and put together. Pamela loves calendars and she can tell you the day of the week you were born given your birthday and year. A cyber friend emailed me to ask Pamela if when she could "recycle" her 2003 calendar because of the repetition of the fourteen different kinds of calendar. In five seconds, Pamela told me 2014. She loved kicking off the first school day of 2011 making her own calendar.

Cutting out this calendar appeared quite complicated and, at first, Pamela looked overwhelmed. Then, I guided her into breaking down the job into smaller steps:

• I picked up my scissors and snipped off one edge. I handed it back to her and she realized that the job becomes less intimidating when you focus on one corner.
• At first, she focused on edges while I snipped out the corners. Once she was comfortable, she cut both edges and corners too. When she felt stuck, she passed it back to me and until we cut out the entire outline.
• The next phase was cutting the solid lines joining two calendar pages. Pamela caught on right away. She cut and I "cleaned up" any sloppy cutting--her fine motor skills still need sharpening.
• Then we took turns folding along the dashed lines.
• Because glue is just not her thing, I glued and taped the insides until the calendar was finished.

This process reminds me of how we have taught Pamela many things that seemed impossible at first. At first, I feel overwhelmed and then I think about what small things can she do to get the ball rolling like I did with having her work on the outer edges of the calendar first. Sometimes, seeing her do some thing small helps me see that she can do more than I expected. Then, I slowly work in something more difficult (like snipping off the corners). Sometimes, she figures out what to do by watching and imitating my actions. Pamela also knows she can turn to me for help when she is stuck, making her more willing to try something new. When an expectation is beyond her reach, I quietly step in and take care of those things (cleaning up sloppy cutting and gluing and taping) without making her feel incompetent for not being able to yet. YET!

Knowing that today's "yet" is tomorrow's milestone keeps me positive as we slowly plod along.

Speaking of milestones, the other day, we had the most delightful little conversation. To give you some perspective, at 10, Pamela had LOTS of words, mainly nouns and phrases, but could not put them together in a sentence because of her aphasia. We had tried autism programs like Teach Me Language off and on, but they were not effective. By 14, not much had changed in being able to put words together so as to make sense! Then, we found the association method, which is for kids with aphasia and other severe language disorders. By 18, she could speak in very short, limited sentences. That's when we stumbled on RDI, which gave her a newfound ability to communicate without words (reading facial expressions and body language, having the desire to communicate, sharing experiences, etc.). Being able to fall back on nonverbals smooths her path to communication when she is having glitches with her verbalization.

Last year, Pamela turned 21 years old. We continue to work on her nonverbal and verbal communication in context, focused on full meaning, without direct prompting, and without constant corrections. Yes, you read that right--WITHOUT. She can relax and trust me that sharing what she thinks is not going to bring out the drill instructor. If she makes herself clear enough for me to understand, then we continue the flow of conversation. I don't worry if she has a grammar glitch or a wrong word or even an invented word. While she is not having a back and forth exchange of ten perfect sentences, she is up to two or three turns when the moment is right. Here is a recent short conversation:

Me: "Pamela, you were right!" (I intentionally left out information to see what she would do with it. It is a way of encouraging her to communicate without prompting.)

Pamela: "Right about what?" (Don't you love that question? She cared enough to ask!)

Me: "Burger King" (She noticed the Burger King sign coming down the other day; I thought they were fixing it.)

Pamela: "Is it closed?"

Me: "Yes!"

Pamela: "Is it moved?" (Earlier in the year, the McDonald's closed for two weeks while they were moving into a new building.)

Me: "No. Burger King didn't build a new building."

It is never too late to try something new. But, it's important to find things that are small and slow and steady. Sometimes, I think LF children have been bombarded with too much and they shut down and give up. Sometimes, we feel overwhelmed by too many things to do and too many decisions to make. Autism is a very complicated thing, and, sometimes, no matter what parents do, the child struggles. We need very slow, gentle learning situations where we all can process and think before interacting. Speaking without thinking, speaking automatically, speaking without ideas and connections and meaning is just talk. Communication is more than words.

Yesterday Pamela asked one simple question that revealed a sophisticated train of thought three steps ahead of us. Even though she doesn't always participate, she pays attention to our conversations. The black car is in the shop, so Steve borrowed the van at work to get home the day he dropped it off. The van has been sitting here since then. Steve left it at the office today and got a ride to the airport for a business trip. He asked me to pick up him on his return later in the week. He also mentioned that he was picking up the black car before the weekend. While he and Pamela were running errands last night, she asked, "Where am I going on ___day?" Steve had no idea what she meant. Then, she added, "Get the black car." Suddenly, Steve realized that he would need me to go to Charleston with him to pick up the car. Pamela had reasoned all that out in her mind, and clearly a great deal of thought went behind her simple question. While she probably lacks the ability to explain her logic, her question is evidence of her ability to reason.

Last Sunday, we saw evidence of more milestones in the making. Her first experience with death was when her great-grandmother died in 2004. It upset her greatly and we weren't allowed to mention the "d" word. Over the years, she started asking questions. Where is her body? Where is her soul? Does her soul have a mouth? Is her body a skeleton? In 2006, my great aunt died and Pamela wasn't ready to face it. We all drove to North Carolina, and Steve dropped David and I off at the funeral and took Pamela somewhere to kill time. In the past year, Pamela has seemed less fearful and asks questions from time to time.

When we learned of Uncle Jerry's terminal illness, we told Pamela about it. She first said, "It's alright. He'll get better." We told her that wasn't going to happen. His body was too sick. She asked, "Pass away?" We confirmed the truth for her. We visited him a couple of times and she never acted fearful around him and interacted with him like she always did. When we told her he had died on Christmas Day, she said, "He's in heaven with Eugenia. What about the babies?" I had no idea what she meant until she started talking about Baby Alive. Pamela wanted to know if she could bring her three babies to North Carolina. And, she did!

When she first asked about going to the funeral, we left it up to her. Aunt Edna had the body cremated and planned a memorial service on his birthday next September. So, all that Pamela would need to experience was visitation with family, friends, and friends of friends at the funeral home plus a short ceremony with military honors. We hoped she would try because it would be the least intimidating way to approach this. Pamela joined us at the funeral home and spent most of the time sitting in a comfortable arm chair, watching everything.

When the Air Force airmen started the flag folding ceremony, I was on the other end of the room. Since Pamela had been fine up to this point, I figured she would be okay. And, she was. I had forgotten this little thing called a gun salute, which happens before the bugler sounds "Taps." I hate to admit it but I jumped at the first shot. Then, I worried about what Pamela would do? Would she notice? It was so loud. How could she not notice? Would she get upset and freak out? I didn't hear a peep until after the second shot. Then, a calm voice asked, "What are they shooting?"

I quietly moved next to Pamela and explained that they soldiers were honoring Uncle Jerry because he was a soldier too. Her serenity surprised me because clearly she knew those were not fireworks. I think Pamela noticed that everyone in the room was standing still and calm. She didn't panic because nobody else was.

So, Pamela has reached another milestone: saying those cute things that kids say in public that make people chuckle. Okay, so she's about twenty years late. Who cares! A milestone is a milestone!

The other new thing is emphasizing her words by spelling it out. "I said 'Now, N-O-W, Now'!" This evening, Pamela and I were at my parents' house. She was tired and wanted to go home. After we ignored her first two requests, she said, "I want to go. G-O, go!" And, as she was saying the letters g and o, she was signing them with her hands using the manual alphabet!

Pamela definitely made her point!