We are leaving for London and Eurodisney on Friday (yayayayayayayay). I really wanted N to be involved in the trip, reading up, what to do etc, and she was kind of “grey” about it. not unexcited, just not excited – KWIM? We’ve all been extremely busy, friends, pool, late nights, and when we are at home I have let her be. no nagging, no pressure, I showed her a few sites, she kind of grunted acknowledgement at me, and I left it at that. I figureI have enough things to argue with her about, and this isnt one of them.

I was at the book store and found this “kids book of London”, a really cool book, a kids tourbook, that has all sorts of missions in it (“follow PeterPans footsteps” – go into Kensignton Gardens, take 3 steps and look at the statue on your right. find the marking on the statue and follow its direction. at the 4thflower turn…etc or: Count how many mummies are in the museum of London. or: spot the following buildings on oxford st) really really cool, with all the fun historical explanations – the gory executions, the royal family, where to get on double decker buses and so on.

The kid is now obsessed. she has spent the entire afternoon with this book (I would say close to 6-7 hours), reading and re-reading, marking pages, every few minutes I get a “Mommy, in London can we…..”, or “Mommy, did you know that….”. the funny thing is, is that she isn’t obsessed with the book in a booky kind of way, when she goes oblivious to her surroundings and into her own world, she is being so active about this book that its hysterical to watch. she has now gone to google the various places to see when they are open and how much they cost and what other people have to say.  She is spewing the info at me, about tubes that we need to take and what queen lived where and why and which museum is recommended and where we can find “real live ghosts” (I had to laugh at that one!). She is so into this and so excited, that she is glowing! YAY!

the kidnapped soldeirs bodies have been returned. Although they were pressumed to be dead, no one was sure, and no one was prepared to  be the one who killed the hope.

Noam is very emotionally involved in this story (as the entire country), I stopped watching the news with her, so she started reading the newspapers. I now have to shatter her innocence and explain to her how even though she was hoping, even though she  was holding her fingers crossed, even though we set places for them at the passover table, even though Udi (one of the soldiers) had just gotten married and his wife is young and pretty, even though it isnt fair and we didnt want it to be so – the worst has happened, and they are both dead. I spent the past few days lowering expectations for her, but in some ways she is so innocent, so childish. she knows that bad things can happen to good people, she just refuses to beleive it. so sad.

a brief re-cap: N has been going to swimming classes since last June. She has a lesson a week since then. Swimming has been hard for her, first there are the motor aspects of swimming – her biggest struggle to date has been with separation of motions and that was what she worked on with her OT (when she held a pencil and tried to write all her fingers did the same motion, her entire body moved with her), swimming is all about separating motions, your hands moving separately from you legs etc. second – there was the psychological aspect of “I don’t do things that are hard for me or that I am not the best at”, and third – the emotional aspects – the ability to analyse and see into all the “what ifs” of the future, and in deep water there are a lot of “what ifs”.

All this is a re-cap, and I think that I have mentioned before that one day  she was in the water with the instructor, giving her whole “I cant breath/I’m scared/leave me alone” whine, swimming one stroke and then turning and going back to the wall, when he tried a relaxation technique on her and took her floating on him. she turned around to him, informed him that she could manage from here, and proceeded to swim. and another lap, and another. she is now one of the best swimmers in her class (they go to the pool twice a week in summer camp and I was watching them, most are still using water wings and others are doggy paddling). the next water obstacle was diving underwater, you know – picking up objects from the floor of the pool. she refused. refused and refused some more. until one day she just did it. she went right under, tummy on the floor of the pool and picked up the darn toy. and ever since she has spent her time at the pool throwing things and diving for them. the last obstacle she overcame on Saturday. she jumped in the water. Princess N, of the “this is the list of all possible dangers”, of the “by jumping I loose control therefore I don’t jump”   school of thought – JUMPED into the water. and then she ran and jumped. and then she ran further and jumped higher. and then she tried diving into the pool and did pretty well (not even a belly flop, her head did go in first!). I guess that once again she has proved to me that she is going to do things when she is good and ready to, and not when i want her to. and, like everything she does, she is going to do them well.   

hey – I just realised something. N started walking at 1 year and 2 weeks. she just stood up at crossed our friends living room. she completely skipped the 2 steps fall on butt phase, she didnt   do much       cruising the furniture. she just got up and walked and was awake until midnight that night walking backward and forward laughing with excitement. Amazing to realise that that is just who she is, and looking back – to understand that that is who she has always been.

seriously. how sad is that. I will say that I did know the answers to most of her questions, but you dont actually get points for that. oh, and she argued with me about Galileo Galilae (sp?), and she was right. I wasnt.

I have two things to say:

first – I have no idea how she knows half the stuff she knows.

second – there is nothing more shaming then having your not even 7 year old look at you pityingly, with this “look” in their eyes, and asking you if you need some bonus points so as to give you a chance to even up the score…..

*big big big sigh*

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*

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?

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……..