06.29.08
last day of first grade tomorrow
and all I want to do is sing is my own version of “I will survive” – “I have survived (barely)”.
the biggest problem with 1st grade, while it was wonderful for her socially, is that we realized how different she is from other kids. her grasping, her understanding, her proding and poking a subject until you want to tear your hair out, her comprehension of life in general. And while I love her with all my heart and then some, wow – it must be so much easier raising a stupid child….or at least a child that you dont feel is being screwed over/ignored/neglected by the education system.
Summer time – here we come!!!!! At least for these two months I can relax and srop worrying that I’m not doing enough for her. *huge big sigh*
06.27.08
Lexile Scoring
I don’t know if you guys had seen this or not, but it looks like a good way to screen/suggest books for the kids. You can search their reading level by inputting a couple of their books and then based on that level query age-appropriate suggestions.
http://www.lexile.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?view=ed&tabindex=5&tabid=67&tabpageid=313
06.26.08
schooling
Maybe this doesn’t really need to be here, but I am SO frustrated right now. We put Savanna into public school in January so that I could take a temp job. Before she went in I had just started addition and subtraction to 18, and we were working on sentence structure. She could identify nouns, pronouns, and adjectives and we were about to start getting more in depth with that.
Well she doesn’t seem to have done much more then that. I know they did a bit with money (coin value and such). But in Language Arts they were working on constructing proper sentences (capitals and punctuation), and not working on what goes into a sentence. What a waste of 6 months. When I talked to the teacher before we put her into school I asked where the class was, and she said that when Savanna joined them they would be starting addition and subtraction up to 10 and moving on from there. I figured that would be okay, because it is always good to get extra practice in. I didn’t know “moving on from there” meant that the end goal for the year was math facts up to 18.
She wants to be homeschooled for Grade 2, and has told me so from the beginning. I was hoping to buy the grade 2 curriculum and start in the middle of July, and just use the next couple of weeks for review and some down time. I was going through my grade 1 book, and she is NOWHERE near ready to start the grade 2 book. They didn’t do units of 10’s (that I know of), they didn’t do double digit math, they didn’t do a whole bunch of stuff that we would have covered if I had continued to homeschool her.
Now maybe, this book is advanced for a grade 1 Curr. but we have to spend the rest of the summer, and maybe longer, working on it before we even think about touching the grade 2 stuff. So the rational part of me is trying to say that she will still get it all in, and that she will still be advancing at her own pace, and that she is still SO far ahead of the other kids that I don’t have to worry about it. But the irrational OCD side of me is furious at the wasted 6 months, and at the fact that we will be starting “Grade 2″ later then all her piers, and that bugs the gunk out of me.
On a note regarding her, she is such a “law abider” that I am sure she spent a good deal of the last 6 months doing very little, because she wouldn’t dream of acting out while she sat there waiting for the other kids to finish their work. Prefering instead to just color or wait until they moved on. She said herself she liked going to school…gym class, library time, music. “But sitting at my desk for all that time Mom. That is SO boring.”
Observation
Apparently without T here, it’s much easier to be logical and think about how I can better approach raising him (imagine that, not having a screaming match at 7am over breakfast cereal makes me more logical, lol). But this whole Evil IL think got me thinking- is part of the reason he freaks out so bad because he understands things about people and sees parts of situations that others don’t and he doesn’t know how to handle it? Because I *know* what my IL’s are thinking, I can describe to DH his mother’s motivation and see right through her manipulation and it pisses me off to no end. To DH, I look paranoid and delusional, until she slips up and her real motivation is exposed, in which case I’m proven right. It’s happened time and time again with them, it actually happens quite a bit with people in general, too. I forget that not everyone can see the things I can and it makes me crazy to no end to have to justify over and over what seems to me as plain as day. If as an adult it tends to make me look off-kilter and act irrational when I’m told I’m crazy for seeing more to a situation than what’s evident to others, how can a 6 year old handle that?
So, I’m wondering if at least part of our issue isn’t so much that he refuses to take risks in general, as it is that he’s seen that the whole way he understands the world is so radically different than what other’s experience, that unless he *knows* he can translate fluently his inner experience to the outer world, he can’t risk it.
Does that make any sense?
06.25.08
Living in her own world
this is a mish mash of a post, sorry about it!
While I know, without a doubt, that Noam is NOT autistic, there are time when I wonder. When she sees a book, any reading material, her mind shuts off to anything around her. she gets so involved, she is locked in her own little world, and she manages to build a fence (brickwall??) around her that is very hard to penetrate into. For instance – Today was her drama class end of year production. the girls invented their own play, arranged their costumes and it was very sweetly done, very age and skill appropriate. Noam LOVES drama. with a passion. she adores the teacher, loves the class, and has been talking about nothing but this production for weeks now – the whole 6 year old crush sha-bang. for the play she needed a book of spells, so she took one of her magazines with her. and at some point in the play she actually sat on stage – reading. one of the other kids needed to nudge her to get her moving again. she always has a book in her bag with her and I have now threatened that I refuse to have her read in the car while I am taking her from place to place. as is I feel like a taxi driver, a bit of conversation would be nice, especially as at home she disappears to do her own thing the minute she can.
To go back to her “own world” thing – when she is reading she is unreachable, I can call, shout but only when I have escalated into a scream that is literally in her face does she look up and then ask why I was shouting. I even thought her hearing must be impaired, but it isnt, when she choses (I wonder if its a consious choice or not) to be with us, she can hear a pin dropping three doors down. While I am thrilled that she loves books and reading, amazed at her reading and comprehension abilities and stunned by her analitical capabilities, I am also worried about the fact that she seems so much happier in her own world and that her retreat there is so completley, 100% total. this whole paragraph, BTW, can be read with the word ”tv” replacing the word “books” – except that the tv I have more control over and feel perfectly happy denying her “tv time” as opposed to “book time” which I wont.
and to branch off on the reading, I have finally reached the stage where I have no control over what she reads, and for the first time since she started reading well (Novemberish), I actually have stopped glance reading through her books. they are thick 500 page books, in a small print, in Hebrew. and I hate reading in hebrew. the advantage of these thick books is that while the Nancy Drews, Famous Fives etc she gets through in an hour or so (and being us, we didnt really beleive her so we tested her on them – yup, she can read a 200 page book in an hour and answer all questions on it), these thick books take longer to read and we no longer have a panic that we must get to the library NOW, because 6 books a week just arent enough…
and last thing on the reading – she started 1st grade in Sept reading kids books, the ones with pics etc. she could read a book to Tomer. By Oct she progressed to chapter books, Nov it was long chap books without vowel marks (in hebrew the vowels are little dots and dashes that are taken off once the kids start reading properly, around 3rd grade) and now its books of the 9th-10th grade curiculum. and when you see a book on a reccomended reading list, dont assume that the topics are nice and safe. apparently big kids like to read about teen age pregnacies and drugs. that was a fun conversation to hold. NOT! but wow, her progression is just unfathomable, but so so her. KWIM?
“Intense reactions to pain…”
Savanna’s intense reaction to pain was always something that irked me, until I read somewhere that many gifted children experience intense reactions to things like pain, cold, heat etc as well as just intense reactions in general.
We have always described her as intense…when she was a baby and was getting her 3mo pictures taken the photograper commented that there was no happy medium with her, she was either grinning like a cheshire cat or screaming like a banshee. And that is very true. When she is happy, she is not just happy she is jubilant, when she is sad she is inconsolable, when she is mad she is furious. I just wish for once things weren’t SO extreme, why must I live in a world of dramatics?
This morning we had a few mishaps that appeared to be the end of the world. The first was when she was lying on the floor in the kitchen (I don’t know why she was doing that…I’m sure I don’t allow it!!) Anyways I turned around to take a step and she was directly behind me, my toe caught her forehead and she cried, okay she didn’t cry, she wailed….Like I had mortally wounded her. And it wasn’t for a little while, she cried for a good 10 minutes. I kept wanting to say “Suck it up and get over it.” Instead I appologized once for hurting her and then tried my best to ignore it. About half an hour later she was out on the swingset with her brother and sister and all of a sudden I again heard that “Mortally Wounded” cry. One would thing I would learn better then to go tearing off to the backyard to access damage and see how many limbs had been lost, but apparently I haven’t yet. So running I go, and….She and Bash had fallen of a swing together. He cried for about 30 seconds and then off he went, she wailed for half an hour. Seriously how am I supposed to deal with this. Comforting her forever just seems like I am perpetuating it, but yet the other side feels so cold. It is interesting that with my extreme child I can’t find the balance to do things, and tend to run the extreme along with her.
Is this something they will ever grow out of? The intensity is draining to me. I don’t have the energy to spend coddling her when she hurts herself, heaping on mounds of praise and doing the happy dance for half an hour when she has accomplished something, or talking til I am blue in the face trying to diffuse the anger and/or hurt when she doesn’t get what she wants, when she wants it.
06.24.08
the rebel
Noam does not rebel. Noam does not break any rules. Noam lives in fear of rules, any rules, being broken. Heck, half of her social issues are because she can’t abide rules being broken, and when playing with other kids rule are a reccomandation only, and not a must. at least in their opinion. She needs these rules so badly that she tends to try and make rules and laws for everything and anything – if I say something about division then she will say “so every time I divide I have to do so and so”, if i say something about politics then the response will be a well thought out “so every time etc”. We have worked hard on her not living by rules, Oded can spend hours trying to find exceptions for things she says, just to show her that rules can be broken and tend to be broken and that THE SKY DOESN’T COLLAPSE WHEN BROKEN.
why this intro? because yesterday she spent the entire day breaking rules. SHe had two friends over (long story, never again), they painted IN HER BEDROOM (for me, I think I’d be happier with her doing drugs then using paint in her pretty, perfect bedroom) now she know perfectly well that that is a big “no no”. then I sent them to eat pop-ices (the frozen juice in little plastic tubes), so she found two icecreams, took one, the other freind took another and there wasnt one for the third. she knows that the ice creams need permission and she knows know knows that if there isnt enough to go around then its non-negotiable. she isnt stupid, she knows these things, they arent new house rules, yet she chose to ignore them. She knows that in this house guests come first, and they get first choice of what to do, what to eat, even what color glass they drink from – yet she paid no attention to this rules.
Obviously we had a lllllloooooonnnnnnnggggggggg talk about behaviour last night, especially about the way we act with friends, but part of me, a tiny, hidden part, deep, deep down, is kind of pleased she so blatently rebelled……..
06.23.08
Juxtaposition
T is at his grandparents house for a week and the house is so quiet. It’s too quiet, really. And yet, it is so relaxing to have a break from that knot that lives between my shoulder blades that tightens up every time I have to ask T to do something I know he’s going to argue with me about. It’s so nice to say “I want you guys to stop doing that” and have N and A just stop, no one asks me why, no one demands an explanation, no one tries to tell me why I’m *wrong*. It’s so nice to see that I am actually a really good mom, that I am capable of going through the day without screaming, that it is in fact, not my normal way of interacting with my children.
And I do miss him, I can’t wait for him to be back, but it’s more of a rose-colored-glasses sort of way, not a wish for reality to come crashing back down on me. The constant fights and drama, the yelling and screaming, the tantrums, the threats. That I could live without. But, the house is too quiet because T isn’t here.
How do I reconcile that? I like this part of him, but not that part. This part I can live with, but that part makes my head hurt. As a mother, I’m supposed to love my children unconditionally, accept them for who they are unconditionally. And it’s taken me a long time and I still fight against it, but I’ve come to accept that this is who he is, it’s not a phase, he won’t outgrow it. He has to learn to manage it and I have to learn to live with it. If he wasn’t fighting, he wouldn’t be T. But, if he wasn’t fighting, I’d get to feel like a better mom. But, if I actually managed to break his spirit, it would make me the worst kind of mother. No one wins if he’s not T and yet no one wins when he is.
The juxtaposition, this contrast of goals and personalities, he wants to be right, I want to feel effective, he needs to be the center of attention, the other kids need to have my time and attention just as much but aren’t as loud and demanding of it. It’s what I fight against and for and in the middle of and around and through and over and under every day. But, the knowledge that the rest of the worlds gets the best parts of him and we, his family, especially, me his mother, have to deal with the mess, well I don’t always feel selfless about that.
yesterday at the pool
I was “mommy of the year” yesterday, surpised the kids by picking them up from school and going straight to the pool. It is amazing to watch how Noam suddenly has figured out the water and has started loving it. I spent the past year schlepping her, kicking and screaming, to swimming lessons. At some stage she was swimming, and then she started being, well, her, and over annalysing. She managed to freak herself out about all the dangers possible and all the worst case scenarios imaginable. Add to that the fact that swimming didnt come easy to her – (something that only now i have realised why: swimming is based on seperation of motions – the hands do A while the legs do B and the head is doing C. all this occours in different times. For a kid like N who has spent 3 years in occupation therapy learnign how to do just that (seperating movement) so that she can write properly, catch a ball etc, swimming is hard). add her own brand of personality in it, the “I am the best at everything I do”+”i dont do things that there is a chance I might not be the best at” and you get this: she stopped swimming and started crying, clinging to the wall, have hissy fits, its taken everyhitng from threats to bribary (I know, I know, great parenting lol). but finally , after a long, expensive year of swimming lessons, she finally “gets it” and more importantly – loves it.
06.22.08
I’m so glad you guys are here!
I love that we’ll have this space to be able to post honestly about what it’s like living with our kids. It really is so comforting knowing that I’m not alone, that it’s not *me*. Even on the gifted lists I belong to I feel kind of like the odd-man-out because no one talks about their behavior issues with their kids. And like Karen said, I never know when he’s being gifted, when he’s being 6 or when he’s just being T.
