As I was saying....

not a cookie cutter. And I'm perfectly okay with that! :-) I love his sense of style. I think my boy is going to be a trendsetter.

Cookie cutter.....I think not!

We were at the thrift store last Monday with my friend Andria. She had to head home (30 minutes from here), so the boys and I went with her while she paid for her things, said our goodbyes, then kept looking around. I was looking at the books and had given Lucas a book to look at. He was asking me questions about the book (it was a book about different jobs and had a dog dressed up as different professions). I had already answered lots of questions and he was asking me questions I had already answered. I was browsing the books and he'd say, "And what is this one, Momma?". Well, without looking, I couldn't answer, so I'd look at a few books, then turn to look at his book and answer him. But, before I could answer, he'd ask a few times. Never did he yell, but would just get a little louder each time. A woman (probably 60 or so) came over and said something to him. I don't even remember what, but I think it was "excuse me". Lucas paid her no attention, so I said, "Lucas, someone is trying to talk to you." Lucas briefly acknowledged her, so she began talking to him. "How about I join you with your yelling. Do you think we'd make a good team?" Lucas answered, "Yes." She laughed a bit and said, "No, I don't think so. Are you in school?" I told her that he would be starting kindergarten. I didn't say I'd be homeschooling (or that he had already gone to a year and a half of pre-school through the public school system), so she proceeded, "You know what they are going to tell you at school? To use your inside voice." At this point I told her that he is Autistic. Now, I have had a couple of doctors tell me they think he is, but he has never been diagnosed with it. His current doctor actually says she doesn't believe it is Autism, but ADHD and that is the diagnosis she has given him. Regardless, he does have a lot of the characteristics and I wanted this woman to back off. I said, "Well, he is Autistic, so that is a hard one." "Oh. I know. I worked with kids for 20 years." I let it roll off my back pretty easily and she probably thought she was helping me out. Had her tone been a bit different, I might have responded differently, but it does bother me that just because my child looks "normal" people think it is okay to comment on his behavior. It just makes me wonder, if my child appeared handicapped and was being loud, would a person still think it was okay to try to quiet him??

I should add. I don't let Lucas just yell and carry on. I do try to quiet him and if it becomes too much, one of us will usually leave with him. I have to admit that I've learned to tune a lot of it out (as his doctor's have told me to ignore the bad if it isn't too bad and give lots of praises for the good). So, I'm not constantly reprimanding him for being noisy. I try to quiet him if we are in public, but usually my efforts are useless. I've really gotten to the point that I don't care if people don't get it. It isn't fair to me or my boys to try to shield them, so we go and carry on just like anyone else, we just happen to be a bit noisier about it. It just really makes me wonder when everyone is going to realize that we don't all fit into a cookie cutter mold.

Words!

When Lucas is upset, he bites his fingers and yells. His poor, poor fingers are so calloused. They are actually starting to look better because we've been working really hard to stop him as soon as we see them in his mouth and encouraging him to use his words when something upsets him.

This morning he and Logan were down stairs in the living room and I was upstairs. Logan was supposed to put Epic Mickey on for them to play. Well, Lucas came upstairs and said, "Momma, why'd Logan not put Epic Mickey on?". I asked him what game was on and he didn't know the name, but he knew enough to tell me about a character on it so I would know which game Logan was playing. I called Logan up and asked him what game he had in. His eyes got big and he said, "The one that Daddy was playing". I told him that he better start doing what I tell him to because his brother can use his words now and tell me if they aren't playing the game they are supposed to be. Lucas let out this little laugh, "Ha ha!". Oh, my sweet boy, how I laughed! Yes, at 5.5 years old Lucas has finally figured out how to tattle on his brother and as strange as it may seem, I am one proud momma!

So excited!!

No. I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, but I have been busy! We went on a vacation to Yellowstone (and I took over 800 pictures!!) and since we've returned, we've been trying to come to some decisions regarding schooling for our youngest son. He is special needs, as I've talked about before. Obviously I would love to homeschool (as I already do my oldest son), but ultimately I want to do what is best for my boys. I've been searching and searching to find a place to take Lucas to therapy that would be covered by my insurance. I finally hit the jackpot!

We haven't been yet (our first appointment is on Tuesday), but I'm really crossing my fingers that they can offer us the help we've been looking for. School also starts on Tuesday, but neither of my boys will be getting up and heading out the door. We've decided that I will give homeschooling both of them a try and see how it goes. My feelings are that Lucas being gone approximately 8 hours a day for kindergarten and then us driving about 45 minutes one way for therapy, have a session, then drive home would just be too much. Of course, I could take him during school hours, but I don't think the school system would like him missing school so often. Obviously I have no clue how often he will have therapy yet, but considering his developmental pediatrician has recommended occupational and speech therapy, I'm assuming it would be at least once a week.

So, I've been busy, busy trying to prep for our new normal. I was trying to get the homeschool room done already, but the decision to have both boys home made me move a little faster. I know that I need to be as organized as possible so that I can use our time each day wisely. I'm so, so excited to be mostly done with the school room!! I still need to hang our calendar and do a few final things with filing and such, but I'm pleased with the results!

I took some pictures, but it was after 10 PM and dark, and they just didn't turn out so great. They are a little blurry, but after spending about 7 hours down there today, I was too tired to go attempt taking them again. :-)

Let me give you a tour!!

This is looking down the hall into the schoolroom from the playroom. I just hung our world map in the hall because it was so big and I don't have a whole lot of open wall space in the schoolroom.
Here is my new homeschool cabinet. We bought this from a military family that bought it in Germany. It comes apart into two large pieces, which made it nice for transporting! It only had two shelves on the inside, so my husband added more.
We decided to go with a system that will allow me to move the shelves around if I want to and I love it!! I'm really excited about having it more organized than I have in years past!
Above the bookshelf, I'm planning on hanging a clothesline of sorts to hang the boys artwork.
Close up of the bookshelf. I haven't filled this yet, but I (or my husband, really) did move all the books down from the over-flowing bookshelf in Logan's room. I'm going to love having all these educational books in the same room as us (the chapter books are all still in Logan's room). Before when were doing school at the dining room table and wanted something, we'd have to go up a flight of stairs to get it. It got tiring and annoying!!
We got the corner desk on Craigslist and I love it!! Also got the filing cabinet on Craigslist. I have some plans for it, but that will have to wait a bit.
I'm going to hang our calendar on the wall above the little white bookshelf. Since we have to change things out on it often and I can't really laminate it, I'm going to try something new with it this year. I had been using that sticky putty stuff to hang it, but it didn't work very well and would fall. I'm afraid if I just use push pins that it may rip. So, Costco has a large dry erase board that is magnetic and I'm hoping that I can put that on the wall and then use magnets to hang our calendar up. I'll have to measure it and find out.
So, that's it. What do you think? I'm so excited that it's hard not to go wake the boys to try out our new room. :-)