Walking for Autism Awareness

My family and I are participating in the Georgia chapter Walk Now for Autism Speaks this May. We are so lucky to have the resources we have but more research means even better resources for our little boy and for the countless other little boys and girls who struggle in the same way. The icon below will take you to Alexander's individual donation page. Please take a moment to consider donating in support of his walk. Any amount you can offer will be appreciated! 

"How High?"

For those of you who may not know, our 3 year old son was diagnosed with Autism at the beginning of January. You can read more about him and his development on our family blog.

A few days after Alexander's appointment at Marcus Autism Center I found and joined a website called MyAutismTeam.com. Everything is still pretty new but I'm really glad I found that site. Alexander is an anomaly in many ways but it's so nice to connect with other parents who can mostly relate to my current circumstances, whether emotionally or in the technical aspects. Right now I'm more focused on the practical parts. Because in fact, I find that my biggest anxiety-causer isn't Alexander at all; it's the red-tape. We want to get our little man all the help and services we can, and that requires paperwork.

And it requires cold-calls, and doctors' consultations, and IEP meetings, and waiting on hold with the insurance company (again). And being rerouted to yet another person at the insurance company who has no idea what I'm talking about or "no authority to make that call," (again). It means waiting in line at DFCS and "willingly" handing the state information that I, frankly, wish they didn't have. It requires, over time, filling out 57 different forms for 11 different offices, some private and some tax-funded, all with that same information! (Those numbers are guesses but I promise I'm not trying to exaggerate.)

Bureaucracy is the bane of my existence and has been most of my adult life. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Alexander's pediatrician at least seemed to agree with me. I commented to him the other day that I'm working toward a gold medal in "Hoop Jumping" for the 2012 Olympics. He paused briefly in his scribbling under yet another "To Be Filled Out Only By Child's Primary Care Physician" heading. He glanced at the mountain of case files on his desk. (Alexander is his 4th patient to be diagnosed with Autism this month.) Then he gave an exhausted attempt at a chuckle and said, "That's actually a good joke."

Calling all children's story authors!

Hey all! I hoped you've already checked out knowonder like I told you to a few weeks ago. If you haven't then pleeeease do so now! My sister and I both starting working for the magazine and have had stories published recently. My story was just posted today so go read it and let me know what you think! It's a little Halloween story called Wait Til Simon Comes. My sister's story was posted a couple of weeks ago and it's called Matchless Melanie.

The magazine can always use new authors. So spread the word and get working on your own material to submit. Go back and read the archived stories to get a feel for what we're looking for and then get writing! Can't wait to hear from you!

Baby Communication 101

I love this product. Our family has all four Baby Signing Time! videos and my kids love them. My 2 (almost 3) year old, Alexander, can't talk or sign yet but we're working hard on both. If nothing else, having Baby Signing Time on helped me learn the signs so I can be a better teacher for him. Really great stuff. Check it out.
Baby Signing Time Dvds
All About Baby Signing 

Alphabet Treasure Hunt

This is a little activity my mom came up with for me when I was two. She made two copies of each letter of the alphabet. Then she would post one set all around on the walls at my eye level. She would give me one of the second set of letters and tell me to go find the one that matched. My mom was pregnant with her third baby in three years at the time (and insanely morning sick) and this game gave her the ability to rest while I would go on a hunt and bring the letter back to her. Over the years there were other variations, and of course there were times when she could look with us instead of handing us the letter from the couch but this is the general idea. There is actually an article that she wrote all about it in the November edition of knowonder! magazine*. Her article is called "The Amazing Alphabet Adventure" and it's on page 112. You should definitely give it a read. My mom is a mother of 6, she did daycare in our house for years and know she's a elementary school teacher for kids with special needs. She is a veritable fount of knowledge when it comes to creative/educational activities for kids.

Moving on to "little Amy's" present day story. I don't think I've mentioned it on this blog before but my son Alexander is going to be three in July and he's never said a single word. He babbles in his own little boy language but never a word in English (or Spanish. The doctor asked me that once when I said he doesn't speak English, "What language does he speak?" Totally didn't get what I was talking about. So I told her he speaks Curious George.) I know there's plenty of kids out there who didn't talk right away but we can't help but wish he could say things like "Mommy" and "Daddy" and "Yes, mother I am now ready to be potty trained."

Anyway, the reason I share this here is because I've noticed lately that I've been putting off teaching Alexander a lot of different things because he can't talk yet. I've been waiting and so focused on that one thing, I've been slacking in other areas. I've realized now that just because he's delayed in that one aspect, doesn't mean he can't learn things like matching and recognizing his letters, which is all this game requires. So I decided to give my mom's idea a try.

I used velcro for the wall posting, in case you're interested; loop half on the wall (semi permanent but that's how serious I am about this) and the hook part on the back of one set of letters. 

Good letter cards can be used for any number of learning games so I wanted to share some printables. **Free Free Free!** Get all three sets and then you can mix and match as your child becomes more familiar with the upper case block letters.

Upper case print/block letters. Full jpeg alphabet in zip file. 

All Arial font except "I" is Lucida Fax (to distinguish between lower case file "l" and upper case file "I".)

Click for 4shared download

Lower case print/block letters. Full jpeg alphabet in zip file.

All Arial font except letter "a" (to simplify as possible writing guide) 

Click for 4shared download

 Both upper case and lower case cursive letters. Full jpeg alphabet in zip file.

All Learning Curve font with "guidelines" added.

Click for 4shared download

If you read my post from last Thursday you'll remember that I printed my cards out on regular printer paper and then laminated them. Of course you can use whatever paper/card stock you want and they don't have to be laminated to serve their purpose. I just wanted mine to last a really long time.

Here's Alexander trying to get the matching A to stick to the wall, too. Sorry son, no sticky on that one.

I effectively posed this picture, because I called him to me and handed him the A and pointed to the A on the wall. So, no he didn't magically learn "A" overnight. I figure we can practice and have a lot of fun! Here's to better teaching and communication! 

I love you, little boy!

*Story has been moved to a new webpage on knowonder! Click here to see it.

TOFW

I had the awesome opportunity over this past weekend to go to Time Out for Women in Nashville, TN. My friend Anna and I drove up there Friday afternoon and attended the Friday evening event and then stayed overnight and went to the big Saturday session as well. I'd never been to a Time Out before and I was amazed at the quality of the presentations. I spent about 70% of my time there crying (in a good way) because the Spirit was so strong. I missed Kevin and the boys but it was so nice to get spend time with Anna and have a little vacation.

Our trip was also extraordinarily special because Anna got a call a few weeks ago asking if she was interested in going to this Time Out and if she would be willing to give one of the presenters a ride from Nashville to see her family in Atlanta. The lady said that if we could do that, the presenter would provide two free tickets for us at will call. So Anna called me to make sure I could commit to go and we jumped on the opportunity. 

What we didn't realize was that the presenter was actually giving us her "Guest" tickets. Which meant when we got to the Convention Center we were escorted through the audience to reserved seats...in the SECOND ROW! We were sitting with the presenters and their families and friends! On Saturday we got to eat lunch with them and to kind of formally meet everyone. So fun! Then of course we got to road trip it up with the lady we were taking to see her family. Her stories are so amazing; some tragic, some inspirational, some HILARIOUS! It was awesome to get to talk with her with Anna.

Anyway, if you've never been to a Time Out for Women, Oh oh oh, you should go! Even if you left our "Guest" experiences out of the equation, the time and money were SO worth it. There are still a bunch of stops on the 2011 tour. Go to the site and check it out. I definitely would love to go again one day.

Book Club

I love being in a book club because it gives me the opportunity to re-read and discuss some pretty awesome books. 

 

First time I read these, I think I was about thirteen. Ten+ years can do a lot to change which characters you relate to and how you interpret a storyline. You should give it a try. Pick up a book you haven't read in a while and you might be surprised how fresh and new it seems.

Learning

Looking back at my 5 Year Plan, it's all about home economics. These are big goals for me but yesterday I rediscovered something else I'd like to add to my list of things to do.

Study regular economics.

Most people will probably think that sounds totally bland and boring but it's something I'm really interested in. I actually started on this goal yesterday without realizing it when I was doing some research for another blog of mine. I'm not going to go into many of the details here because that other blog is a political blog and I made it separate from this one for a reason. But the point is I found myself watching a video of an economics lecture. And it was enlightening to me. I could actually feel my brain waking up and firing neurons it hasn't fired in a while. I've always heard that learning something new will keep you on your toes and sharpen your senses. I just hadn't put it into practice for a while. Specifically using that analytical part of myself made me feel fresher for the rest of the day. It wasn't stressful because there isn't going to be a test or homework, but I found myself taking notes anyway. Learning something "academic" made me feel really good. Smarter. Which I like.

I actually have three blogs. My family update blog, my political blog, and this "better myself" blog. And I think that making all three of them is going to contribute to this "woman I want to become."