I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

The other day we had a blast making ice cream for the first time using an idea I found at Kaboose Crafts. On our shopping trip for ingredients, I turned it into a guessing game. As we picked each item, I heightened the anticipation by telling her we were going to try a new recipe and she will be so surprised. Her eyes lit up each time and, with every item, she modified her guess to no avail. Since she has never made ice cream, the rock salt did not give away the mystery.

While we were making the ice cream, a recipe from Rachel's Recipe Box, the guessing game started anew. While stirring, Pamela thought of pudding, so I encouraged her that she was very close! Even while putting ice in the Ziploc bag, she went through a guess or two before she figured it out. We all enjoyed the ice cream and found that this handmade, homemade way of making ice cream promotes fun and emotion sharing.


Coconut Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream

2 14-ounce cans coconut milk
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon xanthum gum
1/2 cup gf/cf chocolate chips/chunks
1 pint Ziploc bags
1 gallon Ziploc bags
2/3 cup rock salt
ice cubes
canister or coffee can (optional)

Put first five ingredients in a bowl and stir with a whisk until smooth and creamy. Put half of the mixture into a pint-sized Ziploc bag. Add half of the chocolate chips/chunks to the bag. Zip the bag tight. You may want to double bag it. Put half of the rock salt in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and fill the bag half full of ice. Put the pint bag inside the gallan bag containing the rock salt and ice. Zip the bag. Gently flip, toss, rock, twist, shake the bag until the ice cream texture meets the consistency you prefer.

For another RDI variation the next day, double-bag the remaining mixture and place it in a canister with the remaining rock salt and more ice. The freeze will happen faster because ingredients stored in the refrigerator are closer to the desired temperature. Roll the canister back and forth as a game and see if the child can guess what is inside the canister. Kaboose recommends using coffee cans, but all I had onhand was a sugar canister. With a bigger group of kids, a large can, and plenty of duct tape, you can try playing kick the can.

Now, we are taking time to reflect upon this experience to imagine other recipes for ice cream. Pamela has already chosen Strawberry Coconut Ice Cream for our next batch.

Silly Talk

My friend, the Queen Mum, gave an example of how RDI differs from other therapies in trick or treating. Someone made a comment to me today about Pamela's great conversation yesterday. The mom wrote, "It is so reassuring to me to see other kids with mannerisms like my son's." I realized that RDI is different in another way.

My goal is not to make Pamela indistinguishable from her peers. I want Pamela to be Pamela. She would not be the same Pamela if she lost her gentle, yet quirky qualities. I want to be able to share with Pamela my experiences and find out about her experiences. I hope that she can learn to enjoy spontaneous exchanges and to be able to collaborate with others for she has so much to share. I pray that she can learn to be resilient and bounce back more quickly when life does not go exactly her way. I want her to be able to communicate non-verbally and pick up on the subtle ways that others do so. I hope we can open the door to friendship outside of the family (we are already her friends), to meaningful work, and to independence if that is even possible a long time down the road. Of course, she can chose not to go through these doors, but, at least, she will know how if she does choose!

Today's clip from the same great conversation reminds me of what attracted me to RDI. When I read the following paragraph describing the language used in Level I, I had an "aha!" moment because I was doing these very things with Pamela starting when she was about eight years old. We have been playing these language games, which we called "silly talk", for years!

Vocalization is used for the enhancement of excitement, the irect attention to our faces and to celebrate our simple successes. Ritualized song segments, often repeated "chants," set phrases and silly words are used for their relationship binding and enhancement elements. We often take phrases that the novice enjoys and repeat them, with slight changes in emphasis or rhythm and find that this significantly increases with their fun. We may pick up on stereotypical language, modify it and then ad it contextually to the activity we are setting up. (page 36)

When Pamela was little, she would sit in my lap and we would go back and forth with her favorite stim phrases. I would slow down my pace or increase my pace. I would raise my voice right before I would insert the wrong word. Silly talk always meant lots of giggling and laughter. The most oddball thing we did was to stretch a jingle from TV to teach calendar skills. Pamela picked up a jingle and ran around the house singing, "It's Sunday." So, every day, we sang it for that day, "It's Thursday." When she mastered that, we practiced what day it was not, "It's NOT Tuesday." Next, we worked on today, tomorrow and yesterday: "Yesterday was Sunday!" Then, we extended it to months. It amazed me how far we stretched one silly jingle that Pamela loved!

In the following clip, notice how Pamela smiles and laughs when I say things wrong on purpose. Her enjoyment increases as keeping getting close to the right word (Super 8 Motel), but never quite right. Pamela learned to be playful in language because of all the silly talk we have been doing for years.

Exploring a Novel Object Part 1

Last week, we did not do much on the official homeschool front. David was working hard with other youth in our area on a spring break mission trip. They spent their days cleaning up yards, building steps and railings, and painting for the poor. When he was not at baseball practice, David spent his evenings relaxing at youth group. He came home exhausted.

With David gone all week, Pamela did not feel the urge to renew the contract about the sacred hour. But, today, I find this waiting for me in the kitchen when I fixed my first cup of coffee. While she did not nag me, she did read the contract aloud to me in my presence five times during the morning!

On the RDI front, I filmed Pamela exploring a novel object found in her locked box at the end of the treasure hunt activity. I stored three pieces from a Barbie Dream Kitty Condo I secretly bought at Wal-Mart last night. Pamela unlocked the box and handled two plastic green fish and a plastic green rope that form a stand as you can see in the picture. She figured out how to assemble the pieces without any clues and hints from me. She has not studied the toy on previous shopping trips because she had no idea of its connection to Barbie's kitten. She guessed correctly that the pieces are part of a Barbie toy. She missed the mark in that she thought the parts are part of a trap or jail, but all things considered Pamela did well!

Next Episode of Barbie Kitty Condo Project