*Oy*

I would so love to blame ANYONE else for this. Kimberly, want to take one for the team? Pretend like you're the one to introduce these kinds of things to my son? No? Oh. Alright, so it was ME. In my defense, Rhiannon has become more and more interested in the differences between girls and boys. Not wanting to make a big deal of it, I told her the names of various body parts expressed my desire for her to not be QUITE as "blessed" in certain areas as myself and moved on. Hoping it was all done in a non-chalant "it's just the way things are" kind of way.
The boy, apparently, was paying close attention.
"Who is this?"
"It's Brogan!"
"And what are these...?"
"Breasts, Belly Button, Peni"
... Errrr ... Beg your pardon?
"Uhhh ... Actually Brogan boys don't have breasts. You have nipples." (Three to be exact....)
I showed the picture to Jerry and he asked, "What is that, a tail?" Errr ... not exactly.

Pictures

I love the creations Brogan makes at school, they always make me smile a little bit when I look them over. He brought home these pictures today ... (click on them to enlarge)

I'll Fix That for You

Yesterday Brogan brought in the repair manual for my truck. He's odd about where things belong, so I thought maybe he just figured it didn't belong in my truck, but in the book cupboard. However, this morning I walked into his room and found him sprawled out on his bed studying these pages: I wonder if he'll fix them for me when they go out ...

Rub A Dub Dub

Sympathy

Rhiannon's been milking a head ache this afternoon and Brogan has been "babying" her more than I have.
First he brought Rhiannon her favorite stuffed animal. Made sure she and her stuffed animal were tucked in "just right" on the couch. Then he sat next to her and stroked her head murmuring to her "k Rhiannon? 's okay."
To top it off, when he went to get himself a drink he got her one too.

Be Good!

We're in the midst of "weaning" Brogan off well, me. Not in THAT way! He's five for heaven sake.
He, however, has a painful attachment to me that borders on unhealthy. It may even cross the border. As his mother however, I'm trying to be positive.
Back to the weaning. After I put the kids to bed, Jerry has started being the one to respond to Brogan when he calls down the hall or requests anything. This practice in and of itself is totally fine with me. That is until he starts panicking because I am not the one to answer his summons.
What he wails out absolutely breaks my heart, "Be good, go see mommy?!?!" This question gets called out louder and louder till he's all but hyperventilating. I hate that he thinks that his dad being the one to deal with him says, "You've done something wrong, now you have to see your dad."

Recognizing Issues

In several Autism books they state that one of the issues Autistic people have is they do not understand facial expressions. Therefore they miss out on a great deal of conversation because so much is "spoken" silently.
I do not believe Brogan has this problem. If he's in the middle of doing something bad, I can shoot him a look and he knows immediately what I want him to do. No words needed. But that may also be because he KNOWS when he's doing something wrong ...
Another thing that was suggested is that because of certain brain function delays some Autistic people may not be able to hear voices at a certain level. Therefore they are not ignoring you when you talk loudly or yell, they are just unable to process what is being said. What they basically hear is, "Blah blah blah" or maybe a better description is thinking back on the Charlie Brown teacher and all the viewer could hear was "waa waa waa waa waa ..." that's how it distorts in thier brain. That's something to think about. Maybe will help me keep my calm better, thinking that if I starting talking loudly when I'm agitated it's not helping anyone because he can't understand me anyway ...

That's New

"Count with me, mommy! 1"
"2"
(and so and and so forth till 50)
"51"
"Excuse me, mom. No more counting."
Ohhh... ahhh ... sorry? I didn't know there was a number limit. My mistake.
Or, while he's playing with his "boy toys" ...
"No, sir! We do not do that. No, sir!"
Just to be clear I have never said "No, sir."
That comes from school where I think it may be easier to say "sir" than to think of a particular child's name in the midst of chaos.

But Mom!

I hear him call down the hall, "Go potty mom?"
I call back, "Yes you may, but you must go back to bed afterward."
I hear the bathroom door shut and lock. I wait two minutes. Then go investigate.
Using the "key" I open the door and find him ... scrubbing the floor with the toilet wand. *pukes a little in mouth*
Calmly, "Okay Brogan, back to bed."
"But mom! I'm CLEANING!"
"I appreciate that, but right now it's time to lay in bed quietly not clean."
"I'm clean-ing"
"No, it's bed time. Daddy can show you how to clean the bathrooms tomorrow." HAHAHA the last part is only a joke because I am not sure if Jerry knows how to clean a bathroom.
Seriously. When I come back to Texas after our 6 week "tour Canada" trip I am always surprised to find out he knows how to do laundry. I'm pretty sure he just does that because he hates clothes shopping more than laundry.

Take it to the table!

One of my most strict rules is that food/drink (unless in a sippy cup) MUST stay at the table. Even if I give the kids food/drink at the island, they know they are to walk it over to the table and eat it there. If they don't finish it, it stays on the table till they do. It's just the way I roll.
This evening as I was getting Rhiannon's lunch ready for tomorrow Brogan brought in a plate of his play food piled high and proudly announced, "For you mom!" I thanked him for the offering and started pretending to eat the food. "Stop mom!" he shouted. Thinking I wasn't meant to eat the food after all, I paused waiting for his next move. "Take it to the table. Sit on your bum." I apologized for being rude and went and sat down, then started in on the food. I peeked up at Brogan, who was still standing in the kitchen and he had this HUGE smile on his face. When I caught his eye he started laughing like the funniest thing in the world just happened.
What a punk.

Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch

Class field trip ... most taken AFTER the rest of his class had left.

What are you TEACHING him?

This is the temple according to Brogan. On it's less grand days, it's church. I tried to explain to him that it's actually where the President lives. That it's some ones house. He made that noise in his throat that he makes when he's annoyed with me and repeated, "church".
After days of talking about it, he finally came around. He now will tell you it's someones white house in Washington DC. The president, however, is still a non-person to him. Poor Bush.

Dreaming

I dream of the house I want some day. I dream of the car I want some day. I dream of the vacations I want to go on some day. I dream of the career I may want some day.
One thing I never dream of? Brogan being anything but what he is.
Jerry asked me about that the other day. Asked me why I had such big dreams in every other area of my life, but don't ever talk about what Brogan would be if he weren't Autistic.
I explained to him that I simply cannot. It's not that I don't hope that he will become independent, successfully employed, maybe even in a relationship.... I do. I sincerely with all my heart hope that my son will achieve these things.
However ... if I never see my dream home built, if I never drive my dream car, if I never fly off to a far off destination, if I never become independently wealthy ... I could easily live without these things. They are just things, places, long shots.
But if I were to build up a vision of what he may be, of what he could achieve, where he could go, what he could accomplish and then he stalls my heart would break.
Not for me. I can live with the idea of having Brogan being dependent.
However, for him. It would kill me. It would kill me to think of my son having so much potential. So much intelligence. So much humor.
And never living fully to know it.
So I live cautiously. I live with goals. Not dreams.

I (heart) Kimberly

After much internal debate over why I was/am so stressed about next year and Brogan leaving PPCD at ACFT (too many acronyms for ya?) I dug deep and discovered my greatest fear isn't the down grade in Brogan's schooling, the lack of specialization they have over at WCE, not knowing the teachers, being unsure of how he would react to being in a bigger classroom setting. Yes, all of these thing gnawed at me. The only rational fear in there is not knowing on a personal first name basis his teacher. So what, I asked myself, is my real fear?
*gulps ... presses back tears*
It's losing Brogan's teacher Kimberly Moll. I am completely sincere when I say I have no idea what I would do without her.
I finally got past my complete aversion/reverence/nervousness/intimidation of her role as Brogan's teacher a few months into his attendance at ACFT and her coming to our home for his in home training bi-weekly. It was a huge hurdle.
Now I find her to be one of the easiest people I know to talk to in person on a regular basis. I love having her come over to teach Brogan, talk to me about what's going on, go way off topic and talk about ex-boyfriends and road trips, discuss Autism forums, debate what's best and what's not really working.
Beyond her being a fabulous sounding board and willing to help me find answers to elusive topics I just sincerely like her.

Oh ... and Brogan really likes her too.
She's going to be really hard to move on from next year ...
Maybe I'll figure out how to become her friend.
Is that awkward?
I've never willfully set out to be any ones friend before.
Kimberly, are you reading this?
Wanna be friends?
I'll clean your pool if you take care of my imaginary chocolate lab in the summers ...

It Gets Confusing...

Sometimes it's hard to keep all the terms straight, to know all the correct terminology, to fully understand what information you're getting, to know what the right path is to take.
For instance when Brogan was first placed in PPCD I was told that they had very high hopes for him to be "Mainstreamed" by kindergarten. I was under the mistaken impression this meant in with the general education classes with an aide. That definition, however, is actually what is applied when speaking of "inclusion education". The definition of "Mainstreaming" applies when students are placed in special education classes but "visit" general education classes for instruction and social activities with their typically developing peers.
We should have a review soon to discuss what the next couple of years look like for Brogan. I've been talking about how I want things to go with Kimberly and she thinks we should be able to find a solution for Brogan's schooling next year that I am comfortable with and is the best for Brogan. Seriously, with the classroom sizes bordering on 23 students in every school in the district ... something has to be done. Especially for students who will not be okay in larger classes with a lot of distractions.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Today we went to Canton with Jerry's parents, sister in law and grandma. The last part of the day, the kids were worn out from walking for 7 hours, a wee bit cranky and ready to pack it in. Then Brogan saw the green trolley that shuttles people in between the three bigger areas in the market place. He immediately started repeatedly asking if we could ride the green trolley. Even going so far as to spell out green for me, you know so there wasn't any confusion as to what he wanted. Or something. Since I was also tired and ready for a sit down, I agreed.
He picked a seat near the front, waited for the trolley to start on its' route, stood up, cleared his throat and ...
"Ladies and Gentlemen! (Both hands swooping around). I am Brogan. (Both hands placed on chest) If you look over here (with a wipe sweeping motion), you'll see some ... (peering out window) elephants! They are big and gray ... " He continued on his little "tour" for a good 15 minutes, introducing invisible animals, giving random facts and entertaining the three bench radius. The only tour like this he has ever been on was when we went to the Animal Kingdom this past January ... I guess it really stuck with him. And I guess the fact that there actually was animals on THAT tour totally escaped him ;)

Specialton Mylint

After the little identity crisis we had with the Statue of Liberty I thought I may want to brush Brogan up on a few of the nation (that nation being the U S of A of course...) monuments. He has issues saying random words, none of them make any sense after he's butchered them.
This little problem came about when I showed him a picture of the Washington Monument. No matter how slowly I said the name it came back at me as this, "Specialton Mylint". Your who does what?

Word List

As of today, these are the words I know Brogan can read ...
dad, bad, fad, had, lad, mad, pad, sad, glad, all numbers up to 10, various colors, Brogan, mom, Rhiannon, dog

He also uses sign language when spelling his colors and numbers and insists I do the same.

Words I can spell out loud and he recognize: Yellow, blue, red, brown, Brogan, one, two, three

Mistaken Identity

This afternoon as Ms. Kimberly was walking Brogan to his pre-k class they passed a picture of the Statue of Liberty. Out of curiosity she asked him who that was. His response? "Jesus."
HAHAHAHHAA ooooh my. Too funny.

Draw me a trapezoid, mom

... this is what he asked me to do this morning. Seriously. He's four. No triangles for my boy. Oh no. Hexagons, Octagons, Pentagons and ... Trapezoids.
My answer of course was, "What do you say, Brogan?"
"Draw me a trapezoid please mom."
Then all I had to do was look up WHAT the shape he was talking about looked like. I thought it was a angled rectangle. Apparently not.