How Things Work

On Saturday afternoon, we had lunch at Uncle Julio's.  And while Noah loves their chips, he didn't get his standard order of fries.  Later, when we were home, he wanted his usual fries and lemonade.  We said we'd already had lunch.  So, he said we could go on a picnic, get money, and go to the store.  When that didn't work.  He said we could call and get some - like we call and get pizza or chinese food.  When that didn't work he said the brown delivery (UPS) could bring it.  Poor boy.  He knows how all this works, but it doesn't get the result he wants. (Yesterday was actually very nice weather wise, so we did get his fries and lemon and chicken and eat at the park!) 

A few times, when we've been at various stores and getting ready to leave, we've explained to him that we have to give them money first.  Now, if you handed him a dollar bill, he wouldn't know that was money.  (Well, we did finally do that yesterday, just so he'd have an idea.)  But, he's not ready to make the connection between doing X and getting money, and then taking the money to the store and buying things.  It probably won't be long though. 

Last weekend we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner, and of course, walking through the store part, he saw a car and a truck he needed.  He took the car to the table with us, and then decided he had to go back and trade it for the truck.  (It is a very cool, solidly made old truck.)  He and I are done eating, but Ching is still trying to finish.  So he tells her it's time to go and to get up and go give them money.  He was done and was ready to go home and play with his new truck. 

He's also very into looking at clocks and saying either where the little hand is, or where it should be for X to happen.  He has no idea how to actually tell time, he just knows there's a connection there somewhere.  

In, he's kinda crazy news.  About a week ago, Noah told me the light fixture in the stairs said Hi to him. Since then, he insists that it be on all the time, because it's scary. Then, when he saw the other one like it in the downstairs hall, he said it had to be on, too.

Our boy is crazy smart when it comes to observing how things go and using that to his advantage.  

120

I believe we're living in some pretty stupid/crazy times currently.  But I am also incredibly optimistic about the future.  I believe everything from peanut allergies to Alzheimers to diabetes and cancer will be cured.  I believe this country will be strong and prosperous.  Those sorts of things. 

I also believe Noah and his generation will live to 120 or longer.  (I personally plan on living to 100.) 

So when parenting a kid under 10 seems like it's all so Right Now, and then teenagers and people in their 20s are also living Right Now, how do I raise a son for the long life?  How can I possibly instill that notion in him?  How does it affect the decisions I make, and the ones we help him make.

One big issue would be dating and marriage.  If you're going to live to 120, why would you even bother with dating in high school or maybe even your early 20s?  How do you pick a career and stay open enough to the idea it will probably change several times, so be invested, but not too invested?  How do you stay open to changing some things, but being consistent in others? 

Look at how much has changed in the past forty years.  How much more will in change in the next 40?

I don't know.  I'm fascinated with both history and the future.  Does it help to take the long view?

Getting To Know Noah

Friday. Noah and I returned a book to the library and got a new one (for me - he gets library books at school), then we went to Chick Fil A and he got his favorite, a strawberry shake and fries, and then we did some shopping at Wally World.  Later that evening, I realized I had understood everything he had said to me that day. 

That is a big deal. 

I'm not sure we've ever really been able to describe Noah's lack of speech.  The problem seems to be that he gets in a really big hurry to get his words out - and runs it all together and it sounds like gibberish.  His teachers and speech therapist have worked really hard to get him to slow down so we can understand him.  He's made so much progress just since October, when he really got into the swing of the school year.

One result of his inability to really communicate with us was that we (I) often felt like we didn't really know him all that well.  With his new ability to communicate so much better, his personality and such is really starting to come through. 

He's kinda bossy.  More so with Ching than with anyone - she calls him her Tyrant!  His teacher told us, in addition to his ultra smart schemes (which are brilliant in avoiding confrontation) he tends to boss his classmates sometimes.  He likes to boss us, too.  Lately, when Ching gets home from work, he's even told her to go change clothes because he wanted her to wear a different shirt. 

He's a little bit ocd and a stickler for the way things are done and does not like change.  One of the worst parts of this is he just won't try new foods.  Again, his teachers are really trying to help us with this.  He's not as likely to tell them straight up NO, so we send a little bit of something in his lunch for school and they get him to at least take a bite.  Not being able to get up from the table and go play when the other kids do is a great motivation! 

Our favorite phrase of his comes from food - "I can't want it."  

He's incredibly stubborn.  On fb the other day I said it was like arguing with a jack hammer.  You're just not going to win.  He will repeat what he wants until he gets it.  Sometimes we can get him to do X instead of Y, but not always.

Speaking of stubborn, wow with the whole issue of pooping.  That's a whole post within itself.  Once again, at school the other day they noticed his need to poop dance and actually got him to go sit on the potty and poop.  We can't get him to do that.  He's still in diapers over night - so he's learned he can just hold it until sometime over night and just poop in his diaper and not the potty.  Sigh.  Soon we'll stop doing the over night diapers.  But he sleeps 10 to 11 hours and we know that's a long time to hold it.  We don't think he'd get up and go pee.  He still doesn't get out of bed until we come upstairs and open his curtains and turn on the light.  

He's also learned to use "tomorrow" - as in, "Noah it's time to take a bath," "no, tomorrow."  "Noah, we need to cut your fingernails," "no, tomorrow."

He's a smart kid.  I'm not sure we know how smart yet. 

He still loves to watch cartoons, these days it's Fireman Sam, Sheriff Callie, still some Curious George.   He has so many of them memorized.  And he still loves music.  He loves playing with his firetrucks and cars.  He has a very set in stone arrangement of these things in his bed when he sleeps. 

We hope to help him use these strong traits for good and not for evil!  Smart, stubborn, scheming, and handsome could lead to real trouble. 

Future Vacations

Last weekend, we took Noah to an RV show.  He loved it.  He checked out almost every single one, trying all the beds, pretending to cook when there were dishes visible, and pretending to drive all the ones he could! 

I've often wanted an RV.  But the reality is they're expensive and if you're not using it all the time, you have to put it somewhere.  And really, we're kind of hotel people! 

One trip we plan on doing eventually is to rent an RV and go through all the parks in Utah, then Yellowstone and Yosemite, see the huge redwoods.  All that.  Probably a month long trip.  An RV is just much easier in all of those places.

The second trip... I realized my parents' 50th wedding anniversary is in a couple of years.  None of us has ever been on a cruise.  Hmmm.  What started this line of thought was realizing that Disney World is just too big and too expensive and too crowded for our taste.  But, a Disney cruise might not be terrible.  So, I asked my folks about maybe doing a cruise for their anniversary.  That gives us all time to save up and find a good one - maybe Disney, maybe not.

The third trip...  Any time we've watched the Tour D' France, I've always thought that a fantastic vacation would be to rent a car over there and pick any of the Tour's routes and follow it.  Again, probably a three or so week trip.

But lately, with the help of HD tv, I've really started wanting to go to Switzerland and see the Alps and all the little Alpine villages and such. 

So yeah, a month over in Europe.

The fourth trip...  Of course, at some point we have to take Noah to Taiwan.  Ching's mother still lives over there.  She would love to go eat all of her favorite foods.  We have no idea what Noah would eat over there!  What's funny is that my 13 year old nephew is still into Japan.  We've toyed with the idea of taking him to Taiwan for his high school graduation.  Noah will be old enough for such longs flights by then!

It's a good thing Noah seems to love to travel as much as we do! 

2015

Wow.  2015.  In high school that was a year I couldn't even really imagine.  It was hard enough imagining how old I'd be in 2000.  Ha.

Which means we're done with 2014.  It seems like it was a very long year.  I spent a lot of time yesterday just trying to remember the first half of it.  Last night, I finally took down the wall calendar we keep track of life on and looked through it.  January was the month of too much snow and missed school.  March was our trip to Texas.  March was Ching's heart episode.  July we got George and Peppa.  August we went to Nashville.  September Noah started at his new school.   September we got Ching's new car.  October we got married.  Wow.  December saw the year end with my adoption of Noah being all legal and done.  More wow!

It was an expensive year.  But, it was all money well spent. 

As for Noah.  My goodness.  The progress he is making is really picking up it's pace.  He talks so much more and we understand so much more of what he's saying.  He moved into his big boy bed and loves it.  He loves his school and teachers and classmates this year.  And he's finally just about potty trained.  It seems there is a on/off switch with things for him.  He won't do anything until he's ready, but when he is ready it's a done deal.  For now he's still in a diaper over night, but I'm not sure how long that will be necessary.  He's at 95% of the time telling us he needs to pee instead of peeing in his undies.  And poop, well, he has very strong control over that, but I think he's making progress.  He currently loves Sheriff Callie and Fireman Sam.  He loves music and singing along and playing his guitar and rocking out in the car.  He was more into the holidays this year.  He still loved all the Halloween pumpkins, but wasn't into getting dressed up or trick or treating.  We got a Christmas tree this year and he really enjoyed that.  He loves all the Christmas lights on all the houses. 

I have no idea what 2015 hold in store.  So here's to health and happiness. 

You Said!

The week before Christmas brake, Noah and his classmates had a gingerbread week.  They made a gingerbread house and they learned the story of the Gingerbread Man and had Gingerbread Man cookies.  So, when I got groceries and was trying to think of things to do with Noah over the break, I got some of those pre-rolled out gingerbread cookie dough packages and some cookie frosting. 

Of course, with all the sickness, we hadn't gotten around to making them yet and last night he saw the frosting in the pantry and was ready.  I told him we'd do it tomorrow.

When he woke up this morning, and Ching came up here to get him to pee and get dressed, as usual, he wanted no such thing.  Sigh.  He wanted to make the cookies. 

I came up thinking I'd be reinforcement, and he pointed at me and said, "YOU SAID." 

HA!

I told him, "You're right.  I did say we'd do the cookies today.  You just have to get dressed first." 

So that's what we did. 

Thoughts on Education From Three Perspectives

I've had lots prompting me to think about education the past few weeks. 

First, and most importantly, as a parent.  You all are probably familiar with my thoughts on public schools and home schooling.  Yet, we find Noah in a public pre-school for special needs kids.  And I am generally very impressed with his little school.  I think there are a total of 42 students that go there.  There are two morning classes and two afternoon classes.  They have a fantastic playground, a lunch room, a special area for kids to go blow off steam or energy by jumping on a little trampoline or some similar activity. 

Mostly, though, the teachers are great.  It takes very special people, with special skills and patience to work with special needs kids. 

As you know, Noah loves school.  He's not the best behaved kid, but he follows along pretty well and has fun with the other kids.  His language ability has come so far since school started.  They're also trying hard to help us figure out how to get him to eat new foods.  We send something new and they have him try at least one bite of it.  That's more than we can usually get him to do at home!  And now, even better, they're really helping us move him along in potty training.  This week he's finally wearing his underpants and not diapers.  At school they made him a sticker chart and every time they ask if he's still dry they give him a sticker and high five.  Praise really works for him.  This started last week.  We'd put his underpants over his diaper, then at school he'd pee when he got there and they'd just not put the diaper back on.  So yesterday we just started the day with undies.  It wasn't until they helped him that he started making real progress.  And I'm so glad they help us come up with a plan and help him with it.  We were really at a loss as to what to try.  Before that he'd absolutely refuse to let me put undies on him. 

So this is an area that for now is really great for Noah and us.  They have the years of experience and the tools and resources we would never have. 

I'm still not sure I'll be as impressed when he's out of the special ed programs.

Second, I'm also involved in the school's advisory council which means once a quarter to go over the goals and progress of the school.  This led to me also being on the Superintendent's Advisory Council, which meets monthly.  I've been to two meetings so far and have really learned a lot about the school district.  This is a group of 75 or so people from all of the schools that really does give recommendations to the school superintendent.  At the meetings we get different presentations.  Last one was about how the district is trying to serve the Gifted population, and then the other was on how they're teaching math at the elementary level. 

So far, I've also been really impressed with the school district.  They seem to have a good approach to things. 

But...  it's a huge bureaucratic organization.  There are FOUR curriculum people for example.  In a future meeting we'll do budget stuff.  That really interests me.  I know big budgets are hard to read.  I was thinking it would be nice to have it broken down by building - the budget and staff at each school and each administration building. 

Anyway.  It's really made me think about just how hard it is to really accomplish real change in "education".  For one thing, they're about to start making their plans for 2020.  It's taken several years to overhaul the Gifted program, and so far they've only done the middle school programs. 

Of course, in some way every teacher and every principal can have an impact - for good or bad.  But for big change it comes from "big government" - the school board, the city council, the governor.  Etc. 

And we saw what happened to Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee when they tried big, serious reform in the DC school district.  They were pretty much run out of town.

Third.  As you also know, I score standardized tests from home.  I read everything from middle school and high school essays to short answers.  I'm currently doing a project of high school short answers that are just terrible.  They wouldn't be passing if written by 6th graders, much less high schoolers.  Some are literally a jumble of words.  Forget grammar and spelling, they can't even understand that Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address - it wasn't about him. 

I know a lot of people are against standardized testing.  I'd challenge any of them to find a way to read even 20 essays from students at their school.  They would be appalled. 

Sigh.  So how does it all tie together?  How can the district have all the specialists, all these people working so hard, so dedicated, and the results sometimes be so terrible? 

I know...  parents, society, economics... and on and on. 

But.  Whatever it is that's broken has to get fixed.