Parenting and patience....

Calm parenting.  Respectful parenting.  Gentle parenting.  These are terms that I'm sure we've all come across when we're fat and our bellies are kicking us and giving us heartburn before our first bub arrives.  They're all over Facebook.  There's Facebook groups in every town for people that aspire to these styles of parenting.  Parents everywhere are loving these terms and striving every day to be these calm, wonderful, peaceful parents.  Myself included.  But it is bloody hard work.

I know there are those wonderful, beautiful calm souls out there that are just naturally calm and don't usually yell or loose their temper.  They would totally rock this style of parenting (and I mentally curse them daily!).  That is not me.  I struggle with my temper daily.  I am getting better.  I am not naturally calm or patient or gentle.  I'm that person that shrugs and says "suck it up" when you're struggling, at least I used to when I was younger.  I've learnt a lot.  I've grown a lot.  And I've practiced patience a LOT.

I never thought patience was something that you practiced.  You practice the piano, or walking along fences, or kicking a football. But patience? Patience is something you are, well some people, not something you practice. Right?

Well since becoming a mum I have practiced patience every single moment of every day.  It's hard work.  It can be down right exhausting.  Now I have two beautiful, demanding, intelligent, exhausting girls I need to be patient.  Miss M (3.5yrs) is ASD and needs and deserves so much patience.  I sometimes feel that she deserves more patience than I have.  But that feeling alone makes me a better mum than I was the day before.  I am a work in progress.  Yes I can be incredibly hard on myself every time I loose my patience, but I am a work in progress.  Hopefully by the time the girls are in their 30s I'll be the parent I want to be!

Every time the girls fight over a dummy (oh how I detest dummies!), or a toy, or who's turn it is, or which Paw Patrol dvd they want to watch, or who hit who first... etc.  My instinct is to snatch the toy they're fighting over (or dummy or dvd) and put away.  Clearly if they can't share it they shouldn't have it.  But then I think, how is this teaching them to share?  How is this respectful of their rights to learn sharing and how to fight with a sibling? So I breathe.  Big deep breaths and talk to them about it.  I don't know if this is "right" (what does that even mean?!) but it feels better when I manage it calmly, and they seem to respond to it better than when I yell and snatch.

Every time they take their time going to sleep - and believe me they do, the other night it was 10pm - my instinct is to yell at them and shut they door and just let them sort it out.  And sometimes I do this.  But it never feels good.  I want to lie down with them, or read them a story, or sit quietly with them until they wind down from their busy day and fall asleep - especially Miss M, her amazing brain can take hours to wind down from something seemingly small.  I'm happy to clean the kitchen while they wind down and go to sleep.  Don't get me wrong.  My first instinct isn't to sit in there.  They seem to want me in there.  Pfft.  Ok,  they yell and scream when I'm not in there.  To me bedtime should be able to be a calm winding down.  Yelling and screaming shouldn't a part of bedtime.  This area of our lives is still a massive work in progress.  I can sit in there quietly, or I can read a chapter book to them  - for about an hour and then my patience is almost completely gone and I have to leave the room.  Yes sometimes I yell, lots.  Never feels good. Sometimes I manage to sit with them calmly until they go to sleep.  And that always feels lovely.  It feels like what I think bedtime should feel like.  Safe.  Calm.  Secure.  Warm.  Loving.  I can remember my mum rubbing my back for hours and hours.  When I manage to stay calm, it feels like that.

But I'm still practising and learning.  I am a work in progress.  I hope my kids will understand one day.  And I am forever and endlessly grateful to my wonderful wife for helping me learn and practice patience.

If you're a mum (or dad) like me, wanting to be calmer (or whatever) that you are, or feeling you "should" be something different than you are.  Just practice.  And be kind to yourself.  You are a work in progress, a wonderful, amazing, beautiful, inspiring work in progress.  💗

Today at our house...

One of the wonderful things about homeschooling, more specifically, unschooling, is that no two days are exactly the same.  Oh you still get a bit of the groundhog day feeling, and some days are harder than others and some aren't.  And while there is a very rough outline of a schedule visible, there is certainly no hard and fast, by the clock, schedule.  

Today was a day at home, it was raining and cold, the girls had a busy day yesterday so they didn't really want to go anywhere today (good because neither did I!), and I was definitely not in the mood to do housework.  So that meant we did stuff inside, whatever the girls wanted to do, we did.  Except for a few peace-keeping suggestions from me, everything was driven by the girls - just as it should be.  So I thought it would be a good day for a 'day in life of' post.  Yes, most days don't look this intense, and this amount of activities would usually be spread over a couple of day with things like trips to the park; or outside play; or housework to break them up.  But this was our day.  

So it started at 6am when Miss M (3.5 yrs) woke up and set herself up on the couch with her iPad, not sure what she did on it, she has a number of fun / educational games as well as youtube that she enjoys.  She loves to watch youtube videos of people opening toys, or aquariums with calming music, or aurora borealis clips, and who knows what else.  

I got up at 7am and made her and myself breakfast.  Midway through breaky Miss M declares that she wants to make a pelican.  Righto.  I will admit right now that I am NOT the creative one in our family.  I'm good with sheet music or cross stitch or knitting - you know, things that have patterns and detailed "how to's", but make something random up, sooooo not my forte.  That would be my wife's, she's amazing at that sort of thing.  So me, I resort to pinterest.  I am so so so grateful to people that have the time and energy to think up weird and wonderful things (like how to make a pelican with paper plates!) and then put them up on the internet to share with other creatively stunted people like myself! 

So we Pinterested the crap out of it, and made a totally awesome pelican out of paper plates! 

Then Miss F (2yrs old) woke up at 9am ( I know right!) and demanded we watch Paw Patrol - the latest obsession in this house.  And the girls sat on the rug and played with some puzzles while I cleaned the kitchen.  Miss M asked for help with the puzzles.  So we did a new Paw Patrol set of puzzles.  It was actually really good.  There were five different puzzles in the box and all the pieces were numbered (I just want to say here that there are five different puzzles in this box, and only three compartments! seriously! who does that!).  So it was really good for number recognition for Miss M.  She used a toy digger to find the puzzle pieces with the right number on it and deliver them to me. It took a bit of practice to distinguish the '2's from the '5's.   Miss F then 'helped' me put them in the right place (think elephant tap dancing).  

We then went back to the craft table (aka the dining table covered in stuff) as Miss F's request - actually the found the scissors and was trying to cut her pjs, so I redirected her to some paper.  She also loves to paint with the clag brush, but not actually stick anything down.  She painted some paper, and a garden statue from a nearby plant, a couple of the dining chairs... get the picture?  She had a great time, luckily clag wipes off easily! Then she moved onto actually painting.  So both girls did some painting with the paint textas (that's what we call the crayola paint brushes that are already paint loaded like textas - they're awesome!), so we now have a few new pieces of art work stuck on our wall. 

We have an old milk crate full of duplo that Miss F loves to regularly upend and then spread from wall to wall.  This came next.  All while Miss M yelled at her and told her off for not using the duplo in the right way! Walls and towers were made and toppled and played with for about half an hour.  Farms were designed and animal figurines were given new homes - until cyclone Miss F destroyed them.  

Balloons are all over our house at the moment. So to distract from the duplo destruction I started a game of balloon tennis with Miss F (always ends up a bit like brandy when playing with Miss F!) that Miss M quickly joined in and lasted until the middle of the day.  I'd say lunchtime, but my kids don't really do lunchtime - I put a plate of snacks down (fruit, nuts, ham, chips, biscuits - anything I can find) and they munch for a few hours while they do stuff.  

There's a thing called 'study ladder' online, I think I've mentioned it before.  It is basically lots of short quizzes (10 questions) organised into categories and levels.  Once they complete a quiz correctly the child gets points and can then buy animals in a zoo, or trucks in a city etc.  The quizzes are boring as, but the rewards are fun.  Miss M loves playing in her zoo and city, and will tolerate the quizzes to get more things.  Miss F had a go today too.  It was fun watching her point to the right colour or shape or match a picture or face.  She did pretty well, actually better than I thought she would, and scored herself a few new trucks for her city scape.  Don't be confused, this is not something I push or even actively encourage.  Miss M knows it's there and will ask to use it.  It has been good for her hand/mouse coordination, as most of the quizzes she does she knows the answers to easily.  

While Miss M had her turn on the computer (I am forbidden to help unless asked to do so!) Miss F and I sat and played the piano together.  I attempted to bash out an old irish tune that the sheet music was out for, and she alternated the low notes and the high notes.  Bashing the low notes and giggling, and then angelically playing a couple of high keys with a look on her face fitting an angel.  Crazy baby.  

Playdoh was next.  We made snails, and snakes, and peas (we had green playdoh today), and a little hut that Miss F squished three seconds after completion (I was a bit heartbroken for a split second..), and an elephant, and a worm house (Miss M's creation), and some fish.  I think it's only the second time that both girls have played with playdoh together.  Miss F has only recently decided that it's not completely disgusting, and is in fact great fun to make tiny balls and throw them everywhere, all while laughing hysterically! 

Then came the bike riding.  Miss F recently got a balance bike for her birthday - she's still too little for it, but will happily ride it with assistance.  So I ran around the house 'brooooooming' like a crazy lady pushing this balance bike by the handle bars, being chased by Miss M on her balance bike - do not be underestimating the speeds she can get to on that thing! We did some basic road rules and courtesies - 'give way' at crossroads (kitchen / hallway intersection) and some reversing (complete with beeping sound effect), zig zagging to practice the steering.  I can't wait until Miss F is big enough to actually ride it independently and we can go outside on rides / walks.  

By now I'm exhausted so I lay down on the floor and nap for 15 mins while the two girls sit on me (literally) and watch the ongoing Paw Patrol video.  Once I woke up I realised that Miss F had missed her nap (mixture of late wake up and too distracted to care) and was getting cranky as! 5pm crazy hour! Her calming thing is the shower, so in she went.  She sang and played and splashed for ages, then fell asleep at the dinner table! 

Now both are in beds.  Miss F is asleep in her cot, and Miss M is in my bed with iPad winding down, she takes a while somedays.  We don't usually encourage iPad after dinnertime, but it seemed to be needed today.  And I like to think I can be flexible and respectful enough of our children's needs to allow things to be outside the 'rules' sometimes.  

So that's my day.  It was a very busy, demanding one.  As I said we wouldn't always do all of those things in one day.  Most days the girls are happy to sit and play on their iPads quietly for a bit, or will sit and flick through books, or build things with the various building sets we have.  Today was mummy labour intensive.  Fun, but now I'm ready for bed at 8pm.  😀

Writing, art and bedtimes.

One of the many things I hear from people unconvinced or unsure of homeschooling, or more specifically unschooling, is "how will they learn to read and write if you don't teach them?".  And I understand the reasons for their questioning.  They were once taught these things, like myself, we were all 'taught' to read and write in school.  I got my pen license as I'm sure most of us did.  But one of the beautiful things I love about unschooling is watching kids be so completely pleased with themselves for learning something ALL ON THEIR OWN.  Not because I'm a wonderful teacher, patient to the end, or have amazing resources to teach things in fantastic ways.  But because the child themselves has noticed that there is something they don't know how to do, and then they set out to conquer it.  And conquer it they shall.

Well Miss M (3.5yrs old) has focused her self solidly on numbers and counting, as well as letters, including the alphabet and writing.  WRITING! This is a child who we (the Occupational therapist and I) were worried about how she was still fist gripping the colouring pencils.  Well that phase has gone - and we really didn't 'do' much to help her there.  She has a near perfect grip on whatever writing implement she is using.

The writing started with a few random apps on the iPad I found, they had fun ways of encouraging letters.  They have been on the iPad for ages and just recently has she started enjoying them.

This progressed the other day to Miss M asking me to write her name for her on the white board on our fridge (once used for a shopping list, now just a daily reminder of our lack of organisation!).  I obliged and she pushed a chair in front of the fridge and wrote her name underneath, and it looked pretty good too.  Definitely a proud mummy moment! (And yes it is still on the whiteboard!).  

It is a challenge to keep Miss F (2 yrs old ) still when you're trying to dress her or change a nappy, so we have resorted to singing counting songs or the alphabet.  Both of the girls love it.  Miss F just sings along random noises that sounds similar.  Miss M seems to be actually enjoying the learning and is linking them back to words and other games with letters.  Any book that has a picture of more than one thing has the story paused to count them. 

The other theme that seems to be in this house lately is art and painting.  Miss M has told me this week that she wants to be an "auntist"! 

We were lucky enough to recently have a rock painting session at a local playground.  Well isn't that just the bees knees! Miss F really couldn't care less - unless she can throw them.  But Miss M has completely fallen in love with painting things.  She's painted rocks, and shells, and wooden animal toys, and I don't know what else!

The rocks have ended up having an extra use.  Miss M being ASD is REALLY bad at looking for things.  Something can be right in front of her and she just won't see it.  Directions are useless - like "look up a bit" " look down" " behind you" " near your foot" "near the cupboard".  They just have her spinning in circles and looking at the roof.  So practicing finding things is a great idea - and even better... the girls love it! So I hide the rocks in one area of the house or garden and then they run around crazy style trying to find them and put them in their little baskets.  Then we count them all to see if we found them all.  What a wonderful game! It's awesome how much learning came from a game we came up with together after painting rocks! 

Where's Wally has also been great for getting Miss M to look and find things.  We had a lovely time one day last week while Miss F napped looking through this picture.  

This also had us talking about all the different sports on an athletics field and then YouTubing some olympic action.  Miss M was fascinated with the javelin and high jump.  We talked about the amount of training and practice the athletes need to be so good at their sport.  

Miss F is all about colours lately.  The easiest way to keep her from destroying something is to give her something with a lot of colours and get her to match them.  She loves it! Buttons. Pom poms. Whatever I can find.  

Here I got an ice cube tray and put a row of different coloured pom poms down one side and got her to find a matching coloured pom pom for the other side.  After one round she was off and played with these by herself for about 20 mins.  Then they got thrown and kicked all over the house! 

My struggle for this month is bedtimes.  I hate them.  I hate being the grumpy nag just constantly telling them to get back in bed, or lie down.  Even if I'm managing to do it calm and gently putting them back in bed, its driving me nuts. I hate that they often take until 10pm to go to sleep.  This is the time I get to sit down and do something I enjoy without worrying about anyone else.  Just a little part of my day for me.  So when the girls take most of that up fighting with sleep it drives me nuts. So we're going to stop the nag and give them books and a lamp and check in on them regularly and see if they need different books.  While I feel this will work well for Miss M, who is a bit older than Miss F, I think Miss F may still manage to push my buttons.  But lets see how it goes hey! 

For the moment they are both asleep, so I'm off to do some colouring in of my own! 😀

Not doing the "should"

So a little over a year ago Miss M (3yrs old) was diagnosed ASD.  Despite the fact that we pretty much knew it was coming it gave us that extra push to change the way we did a lot of things.  However it has still taken us a year to figure out one of the most (I feel) important things about our little aspie, and our parenting style.  That is that we don't need to do all those "things" you get told or feel that you should.

On a side note I hate the word "should", there are things that you need to do, or want to do, and that's about it.  If you don't need it or want then there is no reason that you "should" do it or get it.

So we stopped doing all things that we felt we "should" do.  Like rhyme time at the library every week.  She was always enthusiastic about going, but once there found the energy and noise from all the other kids completely overwhelming. Instead we have a Justine Clarke CD and an ABC CD in the car and sing songs with ridiculous animation whenever we drive anywhere.  We read books (at least 2) every night and usually a couple during the day.  Ok, I think we've got rhyme time at the library covered....

We stopped doing swimming lessons.  I once felt kids should have swimming lessons always.  Aussie kids need to learn to swim, too many drown.  Well Miss M forced a change in my thinking.  If every lesson is her screaming, then she's not really learning swimming, or even on a basic level learning confidence in the water, is she? Nope.  So we stopped that.  The last month she has started lying back in the bath and putting her ears under the water.  Awesome hey! She will blow bubbles in the bath - mainly because Miss F (1 yrs old) thinks it's hilarious.  We've done a few caravan trips to the beach and she's had a few brief paddles.  And she has had a few (albeit highly anxious) bobs in the pool at granny's house.  We'll build on this as we see appropriate.  I still feel that I will encourage learning to swim, just not on my agenda, on hers.

We stopped doing gymnastics.  This was a hard one.  Miss M loved jumping on the trampoline and balancing on the beams and showing the teacher she could do things, for the first 20 mins of the 1hr class, then it all became too much for her and she would have a melt down at the next thing being asked of her.  But it's good for kids development and confidence to jump and balance in a formal setting, and put on a show every year.  So eventually we realised that this too needed to go.  So instead we jump on our trampoline in the back yard.  Whenever we walk anywhere there is always things to balance on, and she's getting more confident with not holding our hands while she walks along fences and whatever else she can find.  Every disney musical dvd watched is not without a dancing leaping show.  Most rainy weather days have our lounge room turn into some sort of random obstacle course of tunnels and cushions.

We considered doing a ball play program for toddlers.  We went once, and it was hectic and loud and chaotic and both girls were completely overwhelmed.  So instead we play with basketballs and tennis balls and odd shaped balls regularly.  We bounce basketballs in the back yard, throw super bouncy balls all over the house, roll balls between us, kick them soccer style up and down our hallway.  And they love it.

Now some might say that she is missing out on important social development by not being involved in all these things, along with not going to day care or kindergarten.  But I wonder how much social interaction she was getting when she did attend these things, when she spent most of them in complete melt down or so anxious that she ran around giggling at such a high pitch that only dogs could hear her!

We used to love going to a small local play group.  We went for about 3 years, knew all the parents and the kids.  Still Miss M struggled with the noise and energy of a bunch of kids, even when it was only three others.  So we stopped going there too.  Instead we organise play dates with friends at cafes and houses and parks.  Then there is just a couple of other kids to deal with and it's a much more controlled environment to me to be able to teach her social appropriateness in real time - as well as the ongoing random conversations that happen for weeks afterwards!

Since stopping everything she is a new person.  She has rekindled her love of colouring in - and doing an amazing job of it.  She is having fun again, exploring new things and enjoying old things.  And it is wonderful to see, and worth all the moments of doubt at not doing all the things we once thought we "should".

xx

Same, same and some different.

Between work commitments and home commitments the last few months really got away from me! What have we been doing? Heaps, and not much, and more of the usual, and lots of different things. Get the picture?

We went to an emu and stag farm near Bright. The girls loved it, they had so much fun feeding the animals.  Miss F (1.5yrs) is now completely in love with emus and loves watching YouTube videos of them.  Emu's running, emu's sticking their heads into petrified tourists cars, emu's chasing cyclists, emu's eating - I have to admit they're pretty funny to watch eat!

Miss M (3.5yrs) has taken it upon herself to teach Miss F everything, yep, everything.  So our car drives consist of Miss M saying things like "F can you say blue?", then Miss F says something that sounds like blue (sort of), and Miss M say "great! OK, now can you say yellow" etc.  She is teaching her colours and number and lots of random words along the way.

Also in the past few months I've come to realisation that I am currently housing more fat on my body than ever before - yay for achievements hey! So we have been doing lots more outside things, like walking and riding. Our favourite walk at the moment is around the local lake.  The girls love spotting all the birds, especially the odd pelican and watching the ducks dive under to catch a fish.

Sometimes the girls sit in the pram, sometimes on their iPads, sometimes they ride their bikes.  Miss M loves her balance bike - she's getting pretty good at it now too.  Balance and co-ordination are not in her list of talents, so it's good to see her gradually mastering something like a balance bike.

The other day when we walked around the lake a group of guys had some remote controlled speed boats on the lake. Usually that sort of noise would have Miss M curled up in a ball terrified. But to my surprise she was completely fascinated and loved watching them go around and around.  We stood at the end of the pier for a while and watched them speed past.  Talking about how each one was different and watching how they sprayed water behind them.  We left with Miss M deciding she really wants a blue and red one (her favourite colours at the moment).

In the last few months we also got a small aquarium in the dinning room, just with a few gold fish.  The girls love it.  At first two fish died, so we had some very superficial conversations about death.  As Miss M is very literal and logical in her thinking we didn't want to say anything made up about death - like they go to a garden, or a big ocean to play etc.  We just said that the fish had died and is no longer alive, and maybe a few other things.  We put the poor fishy in the bin and she seemed ok with that.  So far, I'm sure it'll come up in conversation again one day.

We've had some lovely days with lego.  Miss M likes to meticulously build little cities and gardens.  Miss F likes to throw the lego and destroy Miss M's creations.

A fabulous friend recently bought the girls these magnetic construction shapes.  They are brilliant! The girls have played with them for almost two days solid.  Making cars, houses, snakes, random shapes.  Miss F has had a great time spreading them throughout the house finding all the things that they will stick to, and again, destroying Miss M's creations.

The ongoing themes with Miss M are still continuing.  She is still in love with anything oceanic, especially octopuses and sharks.  She loves telling us all about them, what they eat, how they breathe, what type they are.  There's a YouTube video of an octopus solving problems, and getting through mazes with locks on doors - it's a favourite of ours.  It's amazing how a big squishy lump can be so intelligent.

We frequently have to google things to see what they are made of.  Last week we had to look up what glass is made of.  Miss M asked if it was wood or plastic or perhaps wool? Apparently they're the basis for everything solid! For those playing at home it's made out of sand and lime.  We spent ages watching videos of glass being made and glass blowing.  Such a beautiful art.

😀

Two mums, stickers and being an adult.

While we've had several conversations with Miss M (3.5yrs) about the different people in different families, we haven't yet had a chat specifically about our family.  We have two girls and they have two mums, and no dad, and so far no brothers.  We weren't really expecting any conversations about this for a few years yet, but Miss M decided to get a head start.

Miss M "mummy do you have a dad?"
Me "Yes, grandpa is my dad"
Miss M "mummy do I have a dad?"
Me "No, you have two mums instead, me and mumma"
Miss M "but I want a dad!"

While I love ABC kids TV shows, they leave a lot to be desired when it comes to anything out of the general norm.  For example there aren't many shows with homeschooled kids, or two mums, or autism (although sesame street does now have an autistic character, my autistic 3.5yr old doesn't really like sesame st).

I explained that every family is different, and this family just happens to not have a dad in it.  Some families have two dads, some only have a mum or a dad, and some, like ours, have two mums. Just like brothers and sisters.  Not everyone has a brother or a sister.  I have a brother and a sister, but mumma doesn't have either.  Then I talked about some of her friends who did and didn't have brothers or sisters.  She seemed happy with this explanation, so far. But watch this space, I feel there will be more on this at a later date!



One of Miss M's issues (as identified by the OT and Speech path) is her, for lack of a better word, inability to imagine and she struggles with imaginative play.  When given a picture, of anything, she struggles to come up with a pretend story.  If you tell her a story, you first have to tell her that it is pretend.  So most of the toys we buy and a lot of the things we do are around encouraging her to be imaginative.  One thing I've found to be fantastic is some reusable stickers with scenes. It helps that Miss M LOVES stickers, and because of this we have stickers on most surfaces in our house!

These ones are "Melissa & Doug" stickers.  There's a few different scenes and heaps of reusable stickers for each one.  Miss M and Miss F (1.5years) both love them - and they're not too hard for Miss F to do on her own.  After we had made the pictures, Miss M and I sat and talked about what the animals were doing, who they might be friends with and how they might be feeling.  We made up games that they might enjoy to play with their friends, we talked about what they might eat, and where they might sleep.  It was interesting that, to Miss M, only animals that looked alike could be friends, and then the odd ones out were teamed up.  For example the clownfish couldn't be friends with the octopus, it could only be friends with the other clownfish.  The Octopus was friends with the diver, because there was only one of each, and they were both lonely.  

We also try to do lots of different arty things.  This is something I struggle with.  I find a lot of things I want to do with the girls, or think they would enjoy, they're just too young to do.  They both still struggle with scissors - Miss M can use the special OT ones we got, but she has a short attention span with them, I think her hands get sore.  We try painting - neither of the girls like to get paint on their hands, and are very quickly done with it.  However we found these awesome painting textas that they LOVE! 

There's no mess, it's not sticky, they're perfect.  So now the art on our walls is growing every day! And, as we are not allowed to swap the pieces of art around, more and more walls around our house are getting covered with art.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.  💜

Miss M, thanks to her limited imagination, also has a wonderful view about what being a grown up means.  She asked me if one day she will be a grown up.  When I said that she would, she said oh good.  I asked her why -  

"Then I can do grown up things! Like drink coffee, and clean up broken glass, and rock babies to sleep".  

Apparently that's all we do! 😀💖

X-rays, puppies and silliness!

A lot of this week has been about bodies.  There's been the usual conversations about wee and poo - they're a staple in this house lately! But then there's the conversations about food and where it goes to (our bellies), as well as what muscles and bones.  When we do something that uses our muscles (like lifting something heavy) we've always said something like "wow look at your strong muscles".  Well Miss M (3.5yrs) will now tell you to look at her muscles, as she does something, usually a random pose.

Yesterday I was rolling around on the floor with Miss F (1.5yrs) and Miss M took a sudden interest in my ankles.  Ankles are very interesting.  Then she says excitedly "Oh my goodness!! Mummy!! You have bones in your body!!".  Yes, yes I do! And so do you!! So we Googled images of X-rays - we stuck to hands and legs, I think skulls can be a bit spooky.  She loved it.  Sat on my lap comparing her hands to the pictures of hand X-rays.

We looked at all the parts on our bodies where bones can be felt easily - ankle; hip; rib; jaw; feet; toes; knuckles; elbows etc.  All the ticklish spots!!

With the weather settling down a bit this week we've been outside heaps more.  The girls have loved playing in the sandpit.  Miss F is slowing learning not to throw sand at everyone.  The dogs have enjoyed having us outside too.  We play 'find the buried treasure' in the sandpit. We bury barbie dolls, sticks, sandpit toys, my feet.  They love digging up a treasure.  So the girls did this, so I could find her....

                                

I think she actually enjoyed it! She didn't move once.  

Miss M LOVES taking photos.  My phone is always telling me my storage is full and I have to go through all the photos and delete hundreds of random photos (I do keep some).  She loves her own feet! Lately it's been shadows.  Lots of photos of shadows.  And random exclamations of having found her shadow.  We've talked about something blocking a light and that makes a shadow... but I don't think she understands.  She likes watching Peter Pan chase his shadow! 

                                    

One of the things Miss M struggles with (being autistic) is creative play.  Playing with things in a different way to what they were designed for is always a fun conversation.  I'm always doing the wrong thing and being told I'm silly - silliness is underrated! It feels really strange having to teach my daughter how to be silly and random, and not always so completely serious and black and white.  It's not something I ever though parenting would look like.  Don't get me wrong, it's sometimes fun being the silly one, and being able to justify it to unknowing onlookers! 

We recently got a beautiful wooden rainbow puzzle.  It's brilliant for encouraging creative play.  It can be anything you want.  It took a fair amount of convincing to get Miss M to let me make them bridges on our road rug.  I was silly and wrong and all sorts of things! But in the end she loved it and actually spent ages playing with the cars, going under the bridges and over them! 

                                         

I feel like these blogs neglect Miss F lately.  Grated she doesn't talk much, but she's trying! Most of our conversations with her are very repetitive or are telling her not to bite (yes, she's a biter!).  Today the dog (featured above) actually managed to steal a soft toy (a puppy) out of Miss F's hands and ran off with it. It was good to see Miss F get a taste of her own medicine for a change (usually she's the snatcher!).  She was very upset and for about an hour the conversation was "Daisy! Puppy! Gone!"  While she stood next to our dog pointing at her.  We got the toy back straight away (otherwise she would have eaten it!).  But it didn't calm the drama in our poor tormented bub! lol!

Pom poms, shapes and squishy beads.

We've had quite a few windy and wet days lately.  Even when it wasn't wet it was really windy. Miss M (3.5) is quite freaked out by the wind, so we do things inside - much to the disgust of Miss F (1.5yrs) who, much like a puppy dog, has energy to burn and needs to 'run' it off.  So we find things to do inside that keep both happy.

This week we found some coloured electrical tape and made shapes on the floor.  Together with different coloured bean bags the girls had a ball.  They threw bags, and jumped, and hopped, and crawled like dogs, and retrieved bean bags in their mouths like dogs.  It was very entertaining.

Miss M surprised me again with her knowledge, this time of shapes.  We counted sides of squares and rectangles and triangles and talked about the differences, she was all over it.  Then we made harder shapes and she knew the names of those... hexagon, octagon.  I got her with one though - she didn't know what a pentagon was ... although she does now!

 

Something Miss M doesn't like very much is getting wet, she will tolerate it for a bit and then demand a towel, or completely loose her plot!  Miss F, however, would happily spend her life running through sprinklers, or chasing her sister with a hose.  Water beads has been a fantastic discovery for this family! They challenge Miss M to touch wet things - as well as sparking conversations about colours and texture.  We've talked about water being a liquid (and milk, and coffee, and wee! amongst other things), and the beads being solid but soft and slimy - and great fun to squish and break and crumble! And it keeps Miss F happy because she's touching something wet and weird, without creating too much mess (so also keeping mummy happy!).  It's really lucky the girls like them because my wonderful wife bought some from an online wholesaler... so we have a lifetime supply! 

Miss M has almost no interest in letters or writing, most of the time.  She likes numbers, but not really letters.  I don't think she understands that they are two different things, letters and numbers.  Every now and then, while drawing, one of us will write her name, or Miss F's name on their artwork.  Miss M knows that her name starts with 'M', and that's about it.  She has never tried to write it, or wanted to trace our writing.  Until this week.  While drawing, Miss M wanted her name written, Mis F's name written, our names written.  Then she wrote her name on the paper and was so proud.

Don't tell her, but other than the 'M' it looks nothing like her name! But it was still a proud mummy moment! 

One of the things recommended by the occupational therapist was using some specially designed chopsticks to move things around to improve her pencil grip - which is more like a fist grip at the moment.  So we found some pom poms and she had a ball! No pun intended. She moved the pom poms around and sorted them out, sometimes she used the chopsticks the right way, other times she had them however she wanted to.  

                                 

It also followed well with her recent theme of things being bigger/smaller, longer/shorter and so on. We've talked a lot about one person being shorter, or a truck being longer than another, Miss M being taller than her sister (and marking it on the wall).  It started with a study ladder activity (https://www.studyladder.com.au ) where she had to pick which item was bigger or longer etc.  Even though we like the unschooling model of homeschooling, I find study ladder is something Miss M loves and will ask to do. Like just now. I guess that's the end of my turn on the computer! 😀

Magic, numbers and puzzles

Miss M's (3.5yrs) latest favourite thing to do is to "beshooom" something for you.  Except when she says it, it sounds a bit like "becharm".  She will do this hourly, or more.  Anything that she perceives that you might need in the moment.  This week I have been lucky enough to get new clothesline pegs, after she watched two in a row disintegrate; a foot stool for my, apparently, tired feet; dinner so I didn't have to cook; a remote control for her sister Miss F (18 months) after I said I wished she had a mute button for a few minutes! And a million other things I clearly needed.  If only her magic had some substance to it! I think I have a few different TV shows to thank for this! Ben and Holly is one that comes to mind... 

Numbers is a big thing at the moment for Miss M.  Anything numbers is completely amazing.  It started with having to change the way we transition Miss M from one thing to the next.  As a kid on the spectrum this is always a challenge.  We used to write them on a white board (didn't matter that she can't yet read) and rub each thing off as we did it - that lost it's charm recently.  So this week's style is to point to the clock in the living room and say "when the big hand reaches the top, it's time to get dressed/get in the bath/ have dinner/ go to bed .... ".  The only draw back to this is that you need to be watching the clock and not say it at 5 past something (e.g. 7.05) because, as it was pointed out "the big hand has already passed the top!".   A positive for this method (other than the simple fact that after five days it's still working!) is that she's becoming more aware of numbers.  After you point out the clock and the impending activity, she will stop whatever she is doing and climb onto the couch and watch the clock with huge levels of excitement (flowing over to her sister who also climbs the couch to watch).  It kind of defeats the purpose of having her finish of her previously enjoyed activity to sit and watch the couch... but whatever works! 

So from this she has developed a love of numbers.  I found some books (possibly bought ages ago, or given... I can't remember that far back!) that have dotted lines of numbers so they can be traced over with a whiteboard pen, over and over and over again.  Well they came out today and the two girls had an absolute ball.  Miss F drew crazy lines and was giggling hysterically - then I realised she was drawing on the table, herself, the chair - basically anything but the book! Miss M however traced over every number in order for several pages.  Delighting when she got the numbers right and at the same time getting seriously upset when her tracing went off the line - massive A type personality there! 

Today we got out the jigsaw puzzle box.  I'm sure we're not the only ones to have one of these? A big box full of those toddler appropriate puzzles (with the little handles on all the pieces)- and more recently a few big kid type ones - 12 or 16 pieces.  Well we have about 25 toddler puzzles.  None of them had all their pieces.  All the boards were nicely piled up. All the pieces were hidden underneath in a tormenting mountain.  (not sure if I thank my wife or my mum for this!).   Eventually (once I had sorted them all out) we had a great time with the puzzles.  Miss M has always loves puzzles.  Miss F prefers to just throw them.  Today, however, we managed to get Miss F enjoying the puzzles and cheering after every piece she put in.  Miss M managed to do a big puzzle (? 24 pieces) all by herself - and it didn't even have the cheat picture underneath! 

protectors of... plants and caterpillars!

While hanging out the washing the other day we became distracted by the amazing amount of weeds that had invaded my garden.  So the three of us (Miss M 3.5yrs, Miss F 18months and myself) took it upon ourselves to attack the weeds.  This led to conversations about which plants were weeds, which were plants, what was the difference and why we had to remove the ones called weeds.  After explaining that the weeds were unwanted plants in our garden and would eventually kill the plants we had planted, Miss M took on the "hero" position and went out to save all the plants.  "PROTECT THE PLANTS!!" was yelled over and over.  Miss F wasn't sure what to do, but helped by removing random leaves.... most were weeds.  

While gardening we found a few bugs, and watched then crawl away.  Miss M became upset that, in protecting our plants, we had destroyed the bug's homes.  So she 'built' bug homes in the piles of weeds now on the path beside us.  Such a beautiful soul.  

We also found a caterpillar in the strawberries in the fridge (Yay right!), so he is now living in a glass jar with random bits of food.  The jar regularly gets shaken up when either Miss M can't find him, or Miss F climbs up and reaches the jar.  Otherwise he seems quite happy! 

Being 18 months old Miss F thinks everything is her's and she a right to grab and play with everything.  This is quite concerning for Miss M, as a concept. She is very worried about Miss F taking everything and making everyone in the world very unhappy.  We have had lots of conversations this week around this topic.  While driving - "what if (Miss F) thinks that house is hers?".  And "Mummy you would be very sad if (Miss F) thought your stitching(knitting) was hers, because then you would have none!".  What if she thinks all the flowers are hers? All the puppy dogs? All the TVs? I feel this issue has more to come.  

We watched a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef this week.  It was amazing.  We watched a mummy turtle crawl along the beach and lay her eggs, and then crawl back to the water (if she could).  Miss M was very concerned that the mummy turtles 'just left' the babies in the eggs there alone.  So we talked about different animals and the different needs of their babies.  

The documentary also showed robots that dived down into the depths of the ocean.  That sparked a conversation about how robots work - waaaaay out of my depth here!! I didn't even get a chance to google as she moved onto another topic about sharks.  

Dinner time is always a challenge in our house.  Miss F will eat almost anything (unless she's pushing out teeth), but Miss M is another story.  If it's something that has the ingredients all mixed together (spag bol, shepherds pie, etc) she won't touch it.  So this week I had a stroke of genius and used ice cube trays for a dinner plate (we have a lovely expensive, bought sectioned plate - she doesn't like it).  

The ice cube trays were a hit! Miss M ate almost everything in her ice cube tray plate! Miss F ate the corn (blaming the new eye teeth here!). And then discovered it was fun to throw her food on the floor for the lizard to eat (yes we have a free ranging lizard, or two!).  

Bedtimes are also a bit of a struggle.  Miss F is going through a clingy, cuddly stage.  Miss M just takes ages to wind down and stop her crazy brain.  The other night, after a busy social day, there was a huge list of things on her little brain.  It started with "mummy, what's in snot?" (we currently have a cold making it's way through the house), that one took a while to explain (little germs, and fluid to help push the germs out??).  Then it got harder.  "what's in guts?", "what's in horses?", "what's in people?".  After talking about food, digestive juices, organs and bones, she moved onto things.  "What's in houses?", "What's in pillows?", "what's in curtains?".  This started after saying curtains were in houses, and then led to "what's in material?", "what's in fibres?", "where do fibres come from".  Ummmm, sheep, cotton plants, plastic?? Thankfully she finally fell asleep thinking about curtains.  

😀

Poo, poo and more poo!

This week Miss M (3.5yrs) has had a fascination with poo.  So, sorry for those who find poo offensive - you may want to skip reading this post!

Every time I have changed Miss F's (18months) nappy, Miss M would like to see the poo.  I'm ok with that, but I draw the line at touching it, or poking it with things - much to Miss M's frustration.  When we have done a dog poo scoop in the yard, Miss M delights in finding all the poo, standing over it, point at it and yelling (at the top of her voice) "POO!!!).  Such a great help - sorry neighbours!

Miss M is not yet "toilet trained" - I personally hate that phrase, but that's for another conversation.  She has shown interest a few times, but not for quite a while.  This week we were all about undies and using the toilet and not nappies, so it was a nice change.  But the poo fascination continued.  The poo in toilet required everyone to look at it - "it's a beautiful poo" she exclaimed! The  poo that didn't quite make the toilet wasn't so nice "I don't like poo in my undies".

Today we are back in nappies, but the poo fascination continues. "what is in poo?".  😐 So we talked about how what we eat gets churned up in our bellies, our body sucks up all the goodness and nutrients from the food to make energy (she's all about energy at the moment) and then what is left becomes poo.  Not a bad explanation I thought? Then she wanted to take a photo of a "beautiful poo" in a nappy and send it to her aunty so she too could admire the beauty.  Yes we took the photo, but we talked about how poo is not something most people would like to look at, so perhaps this could just be a photo for  you to look at (you're welcome sis)- and no maybe not on our wall, how about we just keep it in my phone?

It's ok, I won't share that particular 'beautiful' photo on this post... here's a beautiful flower instead.

We drove to playgroup this week - about 30mins away - and Miss M was very concerned that her little sister thought everything was hers.  The drive consisted of questions like "what if F.... thinks that house over there is hers?", "What if she thinks that truck is hers?" "what if she thinks the trees and sky are all hers".  Trying to explain to a 3 year old that a 1 year old doesn't really understand ownership and thinks everything is hers to enjoy and look at and play with, is oddly frustrating.  So after trying for some time, we started singing play school songs instead - very thankful for Justine's CD being in our car!

Miss M has, until recently, never really been one to play imaginary games or play.  A new game this week has been 'library / pet store'.  In this game (invented by Miss M) Miss M asks us what book we would like to borrow from the library / or what pet we would like.  We are not allowed to say one already done (!) and then she magically finds it for us.  Its quite fun, but gets very hard when you're into the second hour and have asked for a book on everything you have knowledge of existing, or have asked for a pet of every animal you can think of.

It did highlight one thing to me, Miss M's knowledge of animals is a lot more than I gave her credit for.  For most of the animals I asked for, she could tell me where they would live and what they ate.   Kids really are sponges for information.

Thanks for reading.  Hope you didn't get too squeamish with all the poo talk - that's toddlers for you!
Cheers!

Baby birds, flour, and pretend bones!

Today was another fun day of random stuff! While playing ball with the dog in the back yard we discovered that Miss F (18 months old) now knows "up" and "down".  Had a great time watching her point up and down as we threw the ball.

Miss M (3.5yrs) loves anything oceanic the moment, but she hates colouring in pictures, she will draw, but not colour in something already drawn.  So to encourage this a little, the other day, my wonderful wife made some fish and seaweed and other sea creatures for the girls to colour in.  They got blue tacked to some blue card.  Now the daily game is to move them around as if they are swimming and moving.  In true aspie style Miss M puts them all back in exactly the same place after she's finished playing with them.  Miss F's fun is to randomly move them throughout the day just to see if her older sister notices!

The playdoh came out today - because I couldn't think of anything else to do(and we love playdoh)! I made some little balls and Miss M made a nest and put the balls inside, then asked me to make a bird.  She played 'house' with the bird and pretended the eggs were hatching.  Then she wanted to know what baby birds eat "do baby birds eat nutrigrain?".  Nope, they don't.  So we found a you tube video of a nest with eggs. It was a time lapse over a week or so.  It was amazing to watch the little birds grow more feathers and the finally learn to fly.  We talked about the mummy bird feeding the baby birds chewed up worms and insects. So Miss M made some playdoh worms for her mummy bird to feed her babies.

While I cleaned the kitchen the girls spent an hour crawling around the house with 'bones' (wooden spoons - shhhh don't tell my wife!) in their mouths pretending to be dogs.  It was fantastic! An entire hour of no fighting.  The (real) dogs were a bit put out though, as they got kicked off their beds.  

Snitzels for dinner tonight.  In our house that means drawing pictures and rolling around in flour that has been thrown on the floor from my flour bowl when my back was briefly turned (and i 'don't see').  Tonight the girls ended up painting each other and my legs white with flour while i cooked. That counts as  home ec / food and nutrition education right? 

Thanks for tuning in.  I'm off to clean the kitchen - again! 😀

Welcome to us

Deciding to homeschool our, now, 3.5 year old was one of the easier parenting decisions we've made so far.  Miss M is on the autism spectrum, she is high functioning, and highly intelligent, but struggles with changes in activities that aren't on her own terms, and struggles to understand many subtle, and some not so subtle, non verbal communication.  This often makes getting along with other kids hard for her.   So homeschooling it is, until we feel it doesn't work, then we'll try something else.

The aim of this blog is not to convince you that homeschooling is the bees knees, you can make your mind up all on your own.  It is not aimed at converting the haters or disbelievers.  But perhaps it might help some almost homeschoolers decide whether or not it is for them.  It might help our friends and families to better understand what we do.  And, I'm hoping, it will be a good reminder and a positive reinforcement for me on my 'doubting' days or frustrated days.  It is also not to show that we are amazing and have endless energy, we don't.  We have a constantly messy house, and sit and watch the tv just as much as the next person, the act of sitting and taking time out is under rated.

Because of how hard it can be to move Miss M from one activity to another we have gravitated towards the 'unschooling' approach to homeschooling.  Basically it means she chooses what and when and how she learns.  We are merely the facilitators, and our job is simply to recognise interest and opportunity and combine the two where possible.  Otherwise Miss M will largely be left to her own devices and interests.   For more details on unschooling see http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html

So what does our day look like? None of them look the same.

Yesterday started with Miss M sitting on the couch with the iPad watching YouTube videos of scuba divers exploring a coral reef.  She loves anything oceanic at the moment.  Fish, octopuses, jelly fish, sharks, anemones, sea urchins, you name it, she will know what it is and love it instantly.

Over breakfast we had a conversation (carried over from bedtime the night before) about water.  Miss M wanted to know what it was made of. We talked about H2O and what that meant (in my basic-vague-memory-of-high-school-chemistry-way).  That went on to antartica and what ice was made of and how it was made.  We looked at the ice in the freezer (she didn't want to touch it - it was too cold and wet!).

Then off to gymnastics for some jumping, balancing and tumbling.

We found a necklace that Nanna had forgotten last time she stayed here.  Miss M wanted to know why people forget things - but off course she had never forgotten anything, ever! She liked the idea of having a full head and getting distracted by something new, and then sometimes forgetting something seen as less important.  (seems to be what I do daily anyway!)

Baking some cookies with "mumma" (my wife) is always a favourite activity.  Miss M and Miss F (18months old) LOVE to help baking.  They clean anything with cake/cookie mix completely! They both love to watch the kitchen aid go around and around and help choose the cookie cutter shapes.

While the baby slept, I sat down with a cuppa and my knitting - Miss M 'helped' by unravelling all the wool.  We talked about how much wool was in a ball and how far it could go (all the way to the moon and back!).  Which led us talking about space and Miss M decided she would love to go into space one day and bounce on the moon like ben and holly did (abc4kids).  She wanted to know what was in space - "stars, planets, moons".  What are stars?  Ok (thanks google) - they are balls of gas, like our sun, really hot, and REALLY far away.  WOW!

Once Miss F woke up we fed the goldfish in the pond.  Looking at how some are bigger than others, and some are still 'babies', some have more white on them than others.  It was fun putting our hands in and letting them nibble our fingers.  We watched them swim and dive and duck away when we were loud or moved suddenly.  Miss M noticed that our lilly plant has a flower and a bud.

Then mumma went off to personal training - well that started a whole conversation about why? why? why? why?  We talked about how moving your body was important, and how muscles like to move.  How some people like to go for walks, or rides, or swim, or do gymnastics for exercise.  How as we become adults sometimes it feels good and relaxes us to go and do some movement / exercise.

Thanks for reading, sorry I'm a bit long winded today.  We had a busy day of random conversations yesterday! Today was quieter.  I cleaned the house and Miss M and F played on the iPads or in the back yard.

Bring on more interesting conversations and lots more google searching for answers!

😀