Kiss My Knits!

Me: I’m going to go take a shower.
Em: Good luck!

We’re still working on proper responses. Heh.

Em’s class went on a field trip to the Mint Museum of Fine Art the other day. Her homework assignment that night was to write about it.

Here was her first take.

“In the Mint Museum we watched people set things up and saw so much things I don’t remember what they were. We were in the classroom and put pictures together and saw more pictures and that’s all I remember. Then we went back to school. We put things together in the places related to religion. We got to try on clothes I don’t remember what it’s called. We weren’t able to lean on things in the museum. That is pretty much all I remember.”

Oy. She decided in advance that she needed to write six sentences, so there was definitely a bit of stretching there. I read this, and I told her that I thought she could do better. She said she didn’t remember anything, so we went through it.

Me: Sometimes when I need to remember something I’ve done, I close my eyes and imagine I’m doing it again. So let’s try that now. We’re walking in the door. What do we see?
Em: Um… I don’t know.
Me: Is there a person there?
Em: Yes. There’s a guide.
Me: What is she saying?
Em: She says the rules of the museum.

We talked about that, then I asked what was next. So we went on and looked at the dolls, and some art, then went into a classroom inside the Mint and did some things, etc. I haven’t been to the Mint in quite some time, so I couldn’t really lead her toward specific things, but that’s just as well. It’s not my paper, it’s hers. She required very little in the way of prompting questions once she got started.

Me: Wow, it sounds like you do remember!
Em: Yeah, I guess so!

She went to write her paper. The other bit of advice I gave her at this point was to think about her “wh” words. If she gets stumped, think about who was there, what she saw, where it was, how it made her feel, etc.

Thus armed, she gave it another shot.

“At the Mint Museum, we saw the tour guide, and she let us see Queen Charlotte and King George. We went to the classroom and put North Carolina pictures together like a puzzle. We saw some dolls in a family with real hair. We saw a picture of a statue dressed up. She had a baby. We put small boxes of things with their labels, then we went back to school.”

Better! It’s still exactly six sentences. She certainly told me more about what she saw while we were talking, so I don’t know if she didn’t want to write more, or if in her mind she felt it had to be exactly six sentences, period. Regardless, there’s no more “I don’t remember” and there’s certainly more detail. And, importantly for Em, she didn’t have a panic attack because she’d done it “wrong” the first time, as she has done in the past. She really held it together and listened and worked. That’s big progress. And may I also note how well she’s staying on the lines? Occupational therapy for the win!

Em has her first major projects coming up. One is a long paper (several pages at least) on a biome. She’s chosen the taiga. The other is also a project about a biome, and again she’s chosen the taiga. Might as well go with what you know. Interestingly, I also chose the taiga when I was her age working on biomes, as I knew everybody else would be choosing the rainforest and I wanted to do something different. She’s mentioned the rainforest several times so I have a feeling that’s what she did too.

After seeing how she was able to stay calm and rework her paper, I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to get through the project without incident. She’s showing more maturity every day.

Em was roughhousing with her dad and bumped her knee a little.

Em: Ouch!
Dad: Did you hurt your knee?
Em: Yes! I think I got the H1N1!

Heh.

It’s another quiz from Em.

What’s my secret friend’s name?

1. It doesn’t begin with a vowel.
2. It doesn’t start with J.
3. It doesn’t have 4 letters.
4. It doesn’t have “ie” at the end.

You’ll have to turn your monitor upside down to confirm your answer.

Em and Mr. Tvini and I went to the Renaissance Festival today. Mr. Tvini heard someone say at the gate, “I love this place because I can smoke everywhere!” Funny, that’s just what I don’t like about it. Seriously, I haven’t seen that many people smoking since the 1970s. It was amazing. I was glad that I left my Jayne hat knitting in the car because there’s no way I could have worked on it out there. Nobody wants a tobacco-y Jayne hat.

We didn’t bring a camera, but Em rode everything she always rides, so you can extrapolate from past pictures (2008, 2006) what this year looked like. This year she also had her hair braided. I did get a picture of that at home. The flash made the copious amounts of glitter look red. The woman who braided it said the style should last several days, so Em’s sleeping on it. We’ll see how it looks in the morning. I think it’ll probably be okay – there’s certainly plenty of hairspray in it.

We stayed for at least four hours and there was definitely more we could have done, had we wished. I drifted off in the car on the way home (I wasn’t driving, obviously) and am totally wiped out. A good time was had by all. We look forward to next year!

Today’s trivia question comes from Em.

ETA: Wow, you guys are smart!

Em likes to pretend that she’s injured. Usually it’s a broken or twisted ankle. We wrap it up in a cloth like it’s in a cast and she rests. Sometimes she uses an umbrella as a cane. Two minutes later, she’s magically better, and we repeat the process.

Today, we were racing four laps around the outside of the house and with her usual flair for the dramatic, on lap three, she declared that her ankle was twisted and I would have to carry on and finish the race without her. Unfortunately, just at the same time she declared that her ankle was twisted, I actually did twist my ankle. Ow.

Em: “Um… then… my ankle’s broken.”

Showoff.

With the race called due to injury, we supported each other inside and wrapped each other up in “casts.” Then we laid around in her bed, sharing dolls and resting to make each other feel better. Our casts came off at the same time, but she seems to have bounced back a lot faster. Mine’s fine if I keep weight off of it. No more running today for me. Em will have to finish the race without me.

Word up it’s WordGirl! We don’t have the monkey, whose name is Captain Huggyface (or his mild mannered alter ego, Bob), but the rest isn’t bad. I bought the red jacket at Goodwill for about two bucks and was going to cut the hood off for the costume, but Em liked it with the whole jacket, so fine. Less work for me. It’s about her having fun, not my obsessive need for a perfect costume. I’ve been interested in trying silkscreening, so that’s what I did with the yellow star on the shirt. Needs work before I’m ready to sell anything or give any gifts, but it was fun to try and I see how I can improve.

For those of you wondering who the heck WordGirl is, I have provided this instructive clip. It’s from Soup2Nuts, the same production house that did Home Movies and Dr. Katz, and you can really see the same sense of humor.

I just realized that I haven’t updated on the situation at Children’s Theater. Props to the teacher, who although he has no experience whatsoever with teaching autistic kids, is being very active in finding out what works to keep Em engaged. He’s asked me for advice on several occasions, shared what’s worked for him, and generally stayed very on the ball. This week we decided that it might be helpful to have a copy of the script (a little three page Shel Silverstein poem with people reciting bits) so that I could run lines with her. And he did have it for me by the end of class, with her parts highlighted.

She had a great week last week, but today was, according to her, “not perfect.” The teacher said that at one point she burst out crying for no apparent reason. The word “apparent” is key there, as of course there’s always a reason. It’s just a reason with a subtle trigger, and she may not tell you in the heat of the moment. The reason, she told me in the car, was “these lines are too hard.”

The teacher, however, immediately said, “raise your hand if you think Emily’s a good actor” and all the hands shot up. “Raise your hand if you want Emily to be your best friend” and all the hands shot up. He relayed this to me, rightly proud of himself and the kids. Em did recover.

Em seems to like going to class, and doesn’t ask “when can I stop going?” as she sometimes has with other activities. So a bad situation was turned around nicely.

Thanks for your support, folks. I’ll let you all know when she wins her first Tony so you can say you knew her when.