A Week, Briefly (10/14/19)

Talking to big sister Pixie on Sunday evening.

Diving right in . . .

Super Star and Belle had a moderately productive week.  We had to modify our expectations due to psych appointments and family crises (we reduced required math and science lessons to 3 days each instead of 4 or 5), but they worked hard and made some academic progress.

Super Star and I had a good math tutoring session during the week.  I marvel at her progress in successfully manipulating fractions, exponents, and algebraic equations.  Her ability to work through basic math skills has not improved in a full decade, so her success in algebra is partially due to the fact that she uses a calculator for the basic stuff.

I spent time trying to find a clinical psychologist who both tests for learning disabilities and takes our insurance; I was not actually successful.  As Super Star needs to take a college placement exam by next summer, we need to get her suspected dyscalculia confirmed (or not) as soon as possible.

For Symposium these two read and discussed excerpts from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, worked on basic grammar skills (prepositional phrases), memorized some geography facts (the southeast Asian islands), and read and put into historical/political context 1 and 2 Samuel.   We also plowed through several chapters of Men of Iron . . . at least two of them while I wrestled Brother through a violent dissociative episode.

Nature Angel and Little Princess worked hard at their individual school subjects, completing tons of language study, art, writing, reading, and math.

During Colloquium we finished our study of muscles, read more myths about Apollo, Artemis, Poseidon, and Hermes (their favorite this week was how newborn Hermes stole Apollo's cows), and enjoyed some stories about the establishment of The United States in the earliest days after the American Revolution.

Nature Angel built a fairy house for Baymax one day.  Shortly thereafter, in an unrelated accident, she broke her toe!  No dance practice for Nature Angel!!!

Nature Angel was allowed to invite some friends over for a campfire, and the whole family had a fun outdoor cookout with hot dogs and s'mores.  Once Sir Walter Scott and I took the youngest 6 inside to go to bed, the teens and tweens played games and sang songs that made them laugh until they couldn't breathe.

It was hard to break up the party when the evening grew late.

Ladybug struggled with defiance all week long.  The good news is she didn't actually break my hand during one of her fits; and the bruising is healing nicely.

She accomplished a great deal of spelling, math, and phonics in spite of her challenges.  She worked on drawing and cursive a lot when she needed time to calm down and focus.  (Both are beloved activities.)

Her long-awaited testing session with the clinical psychologist took place on Tuesday afternoon.  We get the results in early November.

She and Mister Man completed their writing study of Benjamin Franklin (D'Aulaire) and began Meet George Washington.  They're working on writing complete sentences and using adjectives.

We studied Christopher Columbus, continents of the world, and constellations in Academy.  Here the kids are punching holes in paper following constellation patterns.

And the finished effect is really cool.  We have 6 of these in our windows.

Mister Man is feeling sick a lot (again!) when he eats, even though we're still faithfully using digestive enzymes at every meal.  He worked on his independent school subjects sporadically through the days--sometimes I found him carrying his math workbook from the kitchen to his bedroom to the front porch to the living room--but he made it through all of his assignments for the week.

I never get tired of hearing him recite his Latin lessons in his little 7-year-old boy voice!

And he's still processing the movie In and Out by continuing to build characters from the movie.  Here's Disgust.

Brother is not well.

We had some ugly times this week . . . including a two-car chase after him on a bicycle and his convincing some bystanders that I was kidnapping him.

Fortunately we have enough of a paper trail that the police let us take him home within the hour, and I have now successfully talked to the officer in charge of tracking devices for Autistic children.

The bad news is that our department's system is outdated, and as they're in the middle of applying for grants to update the system, they don't recommend we invest in getting started right now.  The officer is bringing us a GPS watch next week, but neither he nor we are optimistic about it working as Brother fiddles endlessly with things like watches, and he's likely to break it and/or remove it.

I had an interview with an ABA therapy company, and we're making progress toward finding out how much our private insurance will cover.

In the meantime, our application to the Regional Office is complete except for the documents from Brother's diagnosing clinic.  Multiple requests have been sent, and it is odd that we are falling between the cracks because this clinic is usually incredibly responsive to contact.  The intake professional assured us that they are working on our case, and they will help us as soon as documentation is in order.  This is good because through this office, Medicaid and Autism grants will cover what our private insurance won't.

We tweaked Brother's meds a little bit this week, too.  We'll see how that goes in the week to come.

Playing with the paper ships we made when we studied Christopher Columbus.  They each have Lego crew members.  Baymax is introducing a shark to the story line!

Brother participated in our Academy activities, and he completed math, phonics, spelling, and handwriting worksheets.

He likes worksheets!

We did not do any reading practice--it's too tricky a thing to do when he's so unstable.

But he did have one happy, productive afternoon helping Dad clear out some of the fallen tree detritus.  He loves helping with man-work!

Beowulf is tolerating his new med regimen better than I thought when last I wrote.  He just needed a couple of days to adjust to the med in his system, and then he was his usual happy self.

We've now moved to the next level of the 4-week titration process.  I can see benefits and side-effects just like I did last week, but this week I feel more confident that he'll level out in another day or so.

But I'm watching closely!

He works on fine motor skills by finger-knitting and rolling balls of yarn.

He's making slow-but-steady progress in reading, math, and handwriting.

He loves Academy!

Having dinner at Nature Angel's party.  They roasted their hot dogs themselves, and they were so proud!

Lola and Baymax are becoming more opinionated and determined as each day passes.

I tried to get them to do a little math/art project included in their Jr. Kindergarten curriculum manual, but they are still so much into process over product that it was not doable.  They did what they did, and I adapted, and we were all happy!

We've moved to The Three Billy Goats Gruff and learning the days of the week for Jr. Kindergarten--along with practicing handwriting, number skills, and letter sounds.

Today is Saturday.

My mom came to spend the day with us so that I'd have extra hands to deal with Brother while Sir Walter Scott is at work.  That opened up the opportunity for me to take a few kids to the library for a Cubelets robotics activity for older kids.  Grandma kindly kept 5 kids at home while I took 5 with me.  It was an interesting activity!

Then I managed to speak too abruptly to Brother, and that set him off in a brief-but-dangerous episode that has knocked the wind out of my sails.

My to-do list still has 9 items on it.

I need to get moving before the Sabbath arrives . . .