Be A Good Dad

Funny Pookie

beagooddad — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:36:03 +0000

Last night during dinner, Giggles managed to get a hold of the lid to one of the gallons of milk and proceeded to shove it in her mouth. BAGM took it away from her and returned it to the milk container after cleaning it off. Giggles rebutted with lots of crying and yelling and “I want.”

Pookie finally got tired of it all and said, “Don’t play with the lid or I’ll put you in the Pack ‘N Play” while pointing to the area where we used to keep the Pack ‘N Play. That boys going to be a natural father some day.

photo credit: valentinapowers

Funny Geetle

beagooddad — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:38:48 +0000

During dinner last night, Geetle was complaining about being bored and how boring school is and how things will be so much better next week when they don’t have school because she won’t be bored with school and…

Then she concluded with a hearty, “I’m so glad we don’t have school next week. I’m tired of s-h-o-o-l.”

And that’s exactly why we keep sending her.

photo credit: Alan Smythee

The Puzzling Grumpy Kid

beagooddad — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:45:38 +0000

Geetle and I find ourselves arguing all the time these days. It’s strange. Pookie and I just got out of that phase and Giggles is just getting into her Terrible Twos Tantrum phase. When Geetle and I argue it gets pretty bad sometimes. She is a much better confrontation seeker than I am.

I’m not sure where all of the issues are coming from but I do know that one of them is her trying to understand why Pookie gets treated differently than her. Sometimes we are stricter with him, sometimes more lenient. She only notices the more lenient and she is starting to very directly let us know about it.

I also know that while her and BAGM have their moments, her fights with me are much stronger. I’m sure it has a lot to do with the different ways that BAGM and I handle things.

So while the battle will probably continue off and on just like they do with most independent seeking, vocally gifted kids, I decided to take some action. I need to have moments where her and I are just sitting around chilling and happy. And I need it to be little moments instead of constantly needing to think I need to do big things to have any good moments with her.

I would like to point out that she and I have a lot of great moments, too. But we do seem to be fighting more often between those moments.

So, while Christmas shopping for the kids the other day, I added this Disney 8-in-1 Multipack Puzzle to the cart. It has 4 100 piece puzzles, 2 300 piece puzzles and 2 500 piece puzzles. We did the Jack Sparrow 100 piece puzzle earlier this week and had about a half hour of nice, quiet, working together fun.

Since the bigger puzzles will probably need multiple sessions to complete, I bought a puzzle storage mat. I used to have this exact mat but ended up selling it in a garage sale one year. So, now I have a new one arriving next week from Amazon.

I’m hoping that we get into the habit of working on the puzzles once or twice a week. I’m also hoping that these quiet positive moments will help reduce the loud bad moments. Part of the fighting has to do with her wanting attention and realizing how easy it is to get some kind of attention when you pick a fight.

As for the issue about her knowing there is a difference between herself and Pookie, we have started talking to her about it over the last couple months. I know she doesn’t understand what it really means but she’s 6. I’m 34 and often don’t fully understand what it means. Our goal is to get her to understand it enough that she continues to look for ways to play with Pookie (which she is very good at) but understands why we sometimes respond to Pookie differently. Why we sometimes give him more attention (and why we sometimes give him less).

I was working on increasing my Amazon order enough to get free shipping and decided to pull the trigger on a couple books I had been thinking about for a while. Since We’re Friends: An Autism Picture Book and The Autism Acceptance Book: Being a Friend to Someone With Autism.

I’m not even sure if we will ever let Geetle see them. We have to read them first to see how appropriate they are for her and the situation we are all in right now. But, I think they could provide good opportunities for us to continue discussing what autism is and what it means for both Pooke and for her.

photo credit: comedy_nose

How to hang out with a kid with autism

beagooddad — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:20:55 +0000

I read a post yesterday written by MOM – Not Otherwise Specified about an amazing, and I mean AMAZING, day that she and her son had when her sons favorite musician Dierks Bentley hung out with them at a fair that they were playing at.

Go read the post. It will restore your faith in humanity.

I just have a couple quick comments.

That is such a huge big ticket moment in the kids life and kudos to the band for making it happen.

And an even bigger kudos to the band for their ability to just hang out with the kid without looking confused about what to do or unsure about what to say. Those conversations will probably stick around with Bud longer than any of the big moment things that happened that day.

photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt

BeAGoodMom can quiet a screamy baby

beagooddad — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:52:11 +0000

Whoever took my happy baby home from her birthday party and left the screamy thing in her place, could you please bring my baby back?

I put her to bed way early last night figuring that she must be tired and that’s on a night I was planning on letting her stay up a little late to watch The Great Pumpkin with the big kids.

She woke up with more complaints this morning. Some of it is being a little under the weather but at least half of it is just bad mojo.

I was watching her this morning while BAGM got showered and dressed. The Giggles Impostor was not happy.

My laptop was nearby. I fired it up and Giggles squirmed next to me to see what was happening.

I went to Be A Good Mom and we started looking through the pictures. Then we watched the slideshow in the upper right corner. It kept her quiet for several minutes until it was time to get the big kids onto their buses.

Feel free to use BAGM’s site whenever your kids are inconsolable. If that doesn’t work, you can always try busting out your photo albums. Those seem to work well, too.

photo credit: ThouArt

Guess who just bought his first Christmas present of the year

beagooddad — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:46:49 +0000

That’s right. I did.

It’s for BAGM. She hates when I make a big deal about stuff like that because she gets so excited and just has to know what it is.

I normally would have waited a month or so to buy her present but they need time to make it which, well, takes time. Several weeks.

That’s all. Carry on.

photo credit: fdecomite

Quieting a talker during story time

beagooddad — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:36:34 +0000

Pookie has been quieter than normal recently. He had a head cold that left him a little drained. For whatever reason, his echolalia diminished quite a bit during these last few days. Yesterday, however, it was back and strong as ever.

He chattered while playing with his toys. He chattered during dinner. He chattered while getting ready for bed. And then he started chattering during our story time.

We were reading Clifford’s First Halloween. Getting ready for the weekend, you know.

There was no way that Geetle and Giggles could pay attention with Pookie making his own noises. I asked him to be quiet a few times like I normally do. Normally it works well and when it doesn’t we normally have a quick story time.

He didn’t seem to be able to stop talking so I asked him to read the story to us. Without hesitation, he plowed right through the rest of the book.

I can’t believe I haven’t thought of channeling his need for talking into having him read us the night time stories.

I have had informal conversations with Pookie’s teachers about the difficulties we might face when Pookie starts mainstreaming. One of the areas they always mention is that he will not be able to consistently stay quiet during story time or other moments like that. I wonder what he would do if a teacher asked him to read a book out loud to the class.

photo credit: kevindooley

Giggles is 2 years old

beagooddad — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:57:20 +0000

Giggles turned two on Saturday. We had a medium handful of people over for the party. BAGM already wrote a post about the birthday party complete with pictures.

Giggles had her two year checkup with the doctor today. She’s developing just fine. She has a little cold but nothing to worry about at this point. She got her normal seasonal flu shot booster and some other booster type of shot. We heard that our doctors office still doesn’t know if they are going to be getting the H1N1 shot but to call them every week because they should have at least one week notice before they actually get their hands on it…unless of course they never get any.

Pretty normal stuff.

We had been looking forward from switching Giggles from whole milk to the 1% the rest of us drink. It will make our refrigerator very happy. So, our only real surprise from the visit is when the doctor told us that we should keep her on the whole milk for another year.

Bummer.

I sort of thought that whole milk until 2 and then lowfat afterward was kind of a universal thing. I guess like most medical things, you really are supposed to talk with your doctor.

photo credit: law_keven

Homework with a kid from the neighborhood

beagooddad — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:30:25 +0000

Yesterday was the day that BAGM is responsible for our half of the babysitting co-op with our friends in the neighborhood. BAGM and the other mom always have the kids do homework right after school before they start playing/watching TV. Due to a mini-emergency with the girl, I ended up helping Geetle and the 2nd grade boy with the second half of their homework. Part of his homework was reading and/or being read to for 15 minutes.

His parents have a little trouble getting him interested in reading. I think his reading skills are fine but I think his confidence in his reading skills is still a work in progress. The first book I picked out was vetoed as being a chapter book and “I don’t read those books.”

He tried to sneak out of it by suggesting that he read something to Geetle off in another room.

Sorry bub.

I convinced him to join me on the couch and grabbed our copy of Frog and Toad Are Friends before he had a chance to really think about it. He really seemed to be hoping for a meteor to crash through our front window to get him out of reading with me.

To help us get on the same team, I told him that he could read a page and then I would read a page and if the book happened to be too hard, I would read the rest of the time. We would be a team. I asked him what our team should be called. He said, “I don’t know.” So we became the “I don’t knows” with a quick high five and were off and reading.

I read the first page and then he read his with no trouble. As we alternated back and forth, I used some funny voices and asked some “Do you yelling at the flowers will help them grow?” He seemed to warm up to the story and even laughed at a couple of my goofier questions and funnier voices.

15 minutes later, we had made it through two of the stories in the book. We did another I Don’t Know high five. I asked him who the greatest readers ever were. He said, “Who?” I said “I don’t know!” and we high fived again. Then he rushed off to get away from the crazy guy and get his play time in before his mom came to pick him up.

photo credit: Cayusa

A Math Trick for Counting by 2s

beagooddad — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:57:22 +0000

I was helping Geetle with her homework last night. She had to count to 100 by counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s by writing the numbers on a sheet of paper.

We started with the 2s.

Geetle got off to a good start by writing 2 4 6 8 10 12 and then she started having troubles and getting frustrated and ready to kick my…well she was getting mad.

So I showed her that counting by 2s is really just saying every number but when writing them skipping one and then writing the next. She plugged away at it. Slowly. With her hand cramping and her anger bubbling until she was ready to kick my…well she was still mad.

While she wrote them, I had her start a new line after each 10, 20, etc. I was hoping she would notice the 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, rinse, repeat pattern. She didn’t.

But eventually she had them all written out. I congratulated her on getting through it and then I showed her the pattern.

Then she started screaming and yelling at me for trying to trick her by not showing her the trick and how we just wanted her to not watch TV (they get to watch some TV after homework on Wednesdays) and she talked about hating me and being ready to run away from home.

I didn’t know all of that started at 6.

After that, she effortlessly made it through the counting by 5s (I think that’s from all of the telling time practice they are doing) and 10s.

She did learn an important lesson in dividing by two. She learned that when you scream and yell at the parents, the 60 minutes of TV time magically turns into 30.

Go Math!

Dreams of Math Nerdom