Proud of my boy

That says "nuzzle nuzzle." A very common occurrence in our house, although we almost always have faces at the time.

Child 2 has an assignment for school. It's to take a scenario that his teacher chose and write a story from it: his scenario is a student sitting at a table with a teacher.

His story is about this student who got into trouble for punching another kid and is now having a "conference" with the teacher about the incident. The kid (who doesn't have a name that I can tell) "acts very angry all the time." It was his first day at a new school, he got into a fight with another kid, and he punched him. But this nameless boy's father is sick and the boy has gone to stay with his grandmother while his mother and father go to a different state to seek treatment. Nobody at his new school knows about his parents, they just see that he is angry all the time. The reality is that he's scared and upset and worried about his parents, but it comes out like anger because that's how he expresses himself, and maybe if he could make some friends he wouldn't be so angry all the time.

I'm so goddamned proud of him. At 7 he already has more empathy than most adults.

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Who doesn't love a good shameless brag?

This was drawn all in purple because we have no yellow dry erase markers that Child 1 finds acceptable and purple is the only color we have that isn't actually a color of one of the lines.

and for comparison purposes

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Pure, unadulterated bragging

I don't even care how obnoxious this will sound, I'm so proud of my kid right now, and also myself, so I'm going to brag my fucking ass off right here right now! Sorry if this is annoying, maybe you want to skip this one if you're tired of rainbows and unicorns.

I don't think I've talked about Child 1 and homework here for a while. It's a struggle, to say the least. I'm incapable of doing it with him and we had a tutor for years but this year I decided we couldn't really afford it anymore, so I guess fuck homework? We just won't do it, I don't care. It's not worth it.

Fortunately for everybody in the entire world, though, we got the greatest teacher who ever lived this year, who happens to be a former Special Ed teacher, and who totally fucking gets it. So, I told him about our homework issues and maybe there's a way to figure out how to get him to do it by himself? In the end it's the goal, anyway, so let's give it a try?

So I said, let's come up with something really really easy just to get him in the habit of doing it by himself; like one page with two math problems on it, and I will withhold his fun stuff until he gets it finished and our wonderful fabulous teacher came up with a modified homework packet. Very very simple stuff. (Have I mentioned how awesome this guy is? He's also the teacher representative on the PTA Executive Board and I have now learned that he gets really embarrassed when you say these things to his face and in front of his boss, the principal, who also goes to those meetings).

Anyway, today was our first day having math homework. Child 1 has a mental block about math; in a nutshell it's an emotional thing for him, he hates it and it makes him cry. However, he's actually really good at math and I know this because 1. I've watched him do multiplication in his head and 2. His IAs constantly tell me that he whips this shit out like nobody's business when he's in class. His thing, though, is to say "I don't know how" or "I can't do this, it's too hard" or whatever.... basically he's pretending he can't so that he can get out of it, which is what makes homework such a struggle every time. But this time I took the attitude that "yes you can" and "whatever, take your time, I'll be in the kitchen and you can have your fun stuff whenever you're done."

So, he said "Tell me how to do this. I don't know how to do this, it's too hard" and I told him (and this is the part where I'm proud of myself, too) "I do not accept 'I can't do this' because you can do this. I know you hate math but I also know you can do it and that you're good at it" and I left the room.

Not 5 minutes later he comes running in, "I'm done!" and sure enough, the math problems were done. He did it all by himself, and with ease. I was SO GODDAMNED PROUD OF HIM. After the high fiving and the "you're awesomes" were done, I kneeled down and said to him "never say you can't do something, even if you don't like it and even if it's hard, because you can do anything."

He had the hugest smile. Good fucking stuff, man.

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Number 20!

SHAMELESS BRAG

That means that of all the people in the entire world who have sung this song on Rock Band, I rank (almost) NUMBER 20.

Damn straight.

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Two shameless brags. Because I can.

Today I will be bragging about my kids. I know, it's uncool to brag about your kids, but fuck it. Today I will be bragging about my kids. Because my kids are awesome.

BRAG 1

Child 1 is obsessed with calendars right now. Pictured above is a blank dry erase calendar that he has been filling out and erasing and filling out again. He'll ask us to pick a month and a year and then he'll fill it in. I'm sure it's 100% accurate every time, I don't actually check. Anyway, part of his calendar obsession has been talking about dates in the past, and things coming up and such (it reminds me of Griffin). This weekend was his tutor's birthday, and on Saturday he says "Today is April 28th, it's Karen's birthday." And then he asked me for my phone so that he could call her and wish her a happy birthday. He had to leave her a voicemail and it was his first one, so I helped him out. He said "This is Child 1. Happy Birthday. Goodbye."

So fucking adorable.

BRAG 2

I was doing homework with Child 2 last week and this was his math problem:

Since this is 1st grade math, I'm pretty sure the goal of having to explain his answer was for him to show that he understands that half of fruit bar A is more fruit bar than half of fruit bar B, so he's probably supposed to say "I want half of fruit bar A because there would be more for me to eat." Instead, he looks at it for a while and then he says "Fruit bar B." "Why?" I ask. "Because I don't like fruit bars."

It reminded me of the time when we were participating in the Infant Sibling Autism Study at the MIND Institute, he was maybe 18 months, and they gave him one of these things and showed him how it worked:

The test was to see how he handled being frustrated by something, because he wasn't supposed to be able to make the toy work. Instead, he made the toy work, and then played with it. I guess he failed that test.

By the way, are you reading Pish Posh? You should hang out there and show her some love. Also follow her on Twitter. SHE knows why.

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I don't mean to brag, but....

HA HA I'm totally lying. Of course I mean to brag!!

Here is a Google map view of The MacArthur Maze:

Here is Child 1's rendering of The MacArthur Maze that I just found on our white board:

IMPRESSIVE, right??

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Out of the mouth of babes, I don't know what number I'm up to

Me: Okay, everybody in this house who is under the age of 10 needs to go upstairs immediately and brush their teeth.

Cousin: Child 2, are you under the age of 10?

Child 2: I'm 5. I have 5 more old until I'm 10.



Freakin. Genius child.

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