"Oooh, he's learning binary!"

MacTroll got home from Anaheim last night at around 9:30 p.m. Papa, X-man and I were all in bed and, boy, were we pooped. It had been an exciting Halloween.

This afternoon after MacTroll picked up JR and X-man and walked them home, JR invited X-man into play. So, MacTroll came home and brought in the mail while the boys had a play date. He dropped off some sobering paperwork. For the last three days, I've been spelling words with X-man for a test on Friday. The first time I created a worksheet where each of his spelling words was missing one or two letters, so he had to really listen for the sounds. He got all of the words right. The next day, I busted out the foam letters. I read the words to him and he found the letters and spelled them in front of him. He only had one upside down letter and forgot the "c" in duck. 

Then yesterday, after school, I asked him to verbally spell the words to me. He got them all right except duck, again. But today, in a spelling "check" he misspelled all the words. He inserted the short "o" rather than the "u" in everything. It was really, really strange. The test was on white paper, which is hard for him to write on. And I got frustrated. Why is what he showing me at home not translating to the writing? When he gets home from his play date, I'll have him write the words again, and see how he does. But it worries me. I've been in constant chatter with his teachers about the spelling issues. And they are very supportive and encouraging and tell me that I'm doing some great work with him, but it's not getting consistent results, especially for him in the classroom. I was changing the ways we did them (rather than just tracing words or verbal/writing tests) to keep things interesting and limit complaining. No one likes to feel stupid. And when he gets things wrong, it deeply affects his self-esteem. And in turn, seeing your child take a nose dive, doesn't do anything good for the Mom's esteem either. My little man is totally working his little butt off, and it sucks to see him have to work so hard for things that come so naturally to other children both in terms of the writing issue and the socialization issues. But he totally has a heart of gold. He keeps on trying and he pours everything he's got into it.

Then I showed MacTroll the math fun that X-man brought home from Mathman yesterday. To me, it was a math game that X-man took from Mr. Cohen's house in NW Champaign all the way back to our driveway to explain how to play to me (remind me that he probably won't grow up to be an instruction manual writer), but in the end, he got it. And we played. 

There are five grids of numbers in boxes labeled A through E. You have to pick a number in your head 1-31 and then tell the "quizzer" what lettered boxes it is in. Then the "quizzer" adds up the first number in the first row in the upper left hand corner of each box and -- surprise -- you get the number in the person's mind. 

I showed it to MacTroll and he sat down on my scooter and seemed impressed that X-man was working in binary. "What? I thought binary was just a bunch of 0s and 1s?" 

MacTroll got excited, because he likes it when he knows more about something than I do, so he sat down and explained binary to me. Now we're all in the know. 

And I guess I need to pay more attention when I do things because Christie Clinic had to send back my check to pay for my surgery because the number in the check box didn't match the one I wrote out.

Oops!

** Update **
X-man gets home from his play date. I give him his spelling words. He misses the "l" in plum and the "c" in duck. But the other six words are perfect. I show him the sheet that came home.
Loosey: "Did you do this today?"

X-man: "No, that was from a long, long time ago." (Which probably means it was his pre-test on the spelling words on Monday. Now I feel all kinds of silly for being so frustrated.)
Lesson learned -- I just need to calm the heck down.

"You Told Me Vader Betrayed and Murdered My Father."

Well, the big news for all the Star Wars geeks (that includes me) is that LucasFilm is being sold to Disney, and that they plan on making six more Star Wars movies (one every two to three years), at least.

And I have to say... and I know this will sound like blasphemy to some, that I'm happy about that. Mostly because the Episodes 1-3 were so abysmal to mediocre. And honestly, if we can get some Avengers like action and campiness back into the Star Wars saga, I'm all for it.

The news was very timely, as X-man is suddenly very into Star Wars. We watched Episodes I, IV, V and VI together over the last few weeks. And we watched the movie the Clone Wars (Yuck). But he was very excited to hear the news from me this morning.

Less exciting was my call to Carle to get a referral for X-man's OT evaluation. I wasn't sold that the person on the other end of the line actually understood the wealth of what OT does. It's not just fine motor skills like "Hold your pencil this way." There's sensory processing and integration going on there that can affect learning in so many ways. So, there was a lot of the person on the other end typing and a lot of me just being silent wondering what in the hell she was putting down in the note to X-man's pediatrician.

Of course, this isn't the first time (or the last) that I'll have found the medical profession confusing. For example, my surgery bill from Christie.

I got an estimate a week after my surgery that my part of the bill would likely be around $1,900. Fine. Then I got the bill and it was over $4,000. What? Then I looked at my insurance claim online where I could line up all the items. There was a $3,904 charge for fixing my ligaments that the Christie bill said the insurance company hadn't paid their part of. But there on the computer screen the insurance company had it's 70% of the bill. So, I looked at what the insurance company said they paid and sent the remainder of the "patient responsibility" to Christie. I figured maybe the check and bill overlapped in the mail. But it was still annoying.

Today is the Storybook Parade at Carrie Busey. X-man is wearing a t-shirt about the story Swimmy by Leo Lionni that I mostly made but he told me where to put everything. (He's very bossy about his design concepts.) After school he goes to see the Mathman and then he can come home and veg until he gets dressed up in his Halloween costume and heads out to trick or treat. He's an astronaut this year. :-)

Things that make me smile

Somehow this is how life is supposed to go, right?

X-man snuggling with KTDID while reading her a book in a big fuzzy chair. 

Dressing up for the Pirate Party at the Orpheum. Arrrrghh!

I Won't Back Down

Woot! Woot! Woot! I stood on the scale this morning and I can put over 100 lbs on my foot without any pain. This is great news! I called my doctor this morning all proud that it took me 7 days of trying to get it up to 100.

The nurse was less enthused than I was. "That's great, but it's a bit over 50 percent of your weight. You probably didn't hurt it, but we don't want you to go above 90 lbs."

Then I asked what my next step was. I was sad when she said that besides pointing and flexing my foot, this is all I'm allowed to do until my next appointment on Nov. 7. Sad panda. Damn it. I want to walk.

I did get a call the other day from a friend who is in a similar situation. We've taken to chatting with each other to keep each other from going crazy in our restricted movement.

Other than that... it's me and Anthony Bourdain today.

When you're without status...

It's been one year since I quit my Facebook habit. And if I was still on it -- this would have been my status tonight, because X-man cracked me up.

X-man: "My least favorite holiday is Chicken New Year."
Loosey: "Do you mean Thanksgiving?"

Fuzzy Photos

After I killed my iPhone a few weeks ago (by dropping it in the toilet), I inherited MacTroll's old iPhone 4. I hate getting hand-me down phones from MacTroll because he is a serious phone user. By the time he's done with a phone (each year), the battery is basically nothing (six to eight hours of conference calls 3-5 days a week will do that to a phone) and it's been beaten and scratched beyond repair. I acknowledge that I wouldn't be in this conundrum, if I wasn't the dumb ass who dropped her phone in the toilet.

You'll see that the photos are all fuzzy. That's because he didn't use a protective case and the lens of the camera got all scratched and beat up.

Now, why don't I just break down and buy myself a new one? Well, here's why -- I have been with AT&T for so long that I've been grandfathered in and have an unlimited data plan for $70 a month. I don't ever really talk on the phone when I have it (unless it's to my spouse), I mostly text and use it to answer X-man's never-ending questions. But I do admit, that I take photos with my camera enough that this fuzziness is annoying. 

That, and I think once we move to California, I'd do better on a Verizon plan (because I have a 3 call limit when MacTroll tries to call me from San José, Chicago or NYC and he keeps dropping on his AT&T phone). So I'm trying to hold out until next June... plus, it is possible that in the next three months, the Fruit will send MacTroll an iPhone 5. And then I can have his 4s, which DOES have a cover. No phones wasted... I just need patience.

Anyway, so here's what's been going on... This is X-man's creation that we made in the waiting room at his therapist's office. When he went in with April he was sad I'd have to take them apart, so I took a photo and put them in a baggie and my Mom delivered them to another kid in the other room who was waiting. 

This is an updated photo of my foot, so you can see how long the incision was. It's still swells a bit throughout the day. But foot massages are starting to feel good again rather than painful and freaky.

This is X-man dressed up for school picture day in his fedora, sports jacket and "spy shirt." Notice how he's got his excited smile on. He's totally adorable. I just have to find the right tie!

And here is a photo of the giant Tardis cake that I got for MacTroll's birthday. We'll be taking leftovers to all the neighbors... Cause holy cow that's a lot of cake.

It feels like Saturday!

X-man was off school today. We got to get up a little later than a typical school day, but we had a parent/teacher conference at 8:45 a.m. The conference went okay. Most of X-man's struggles have to do with his trouble writing, so I contacted the OT I know today and we're setting up a time for her to evaluate him. She'll also get to see him at school starting Oct. 29th. His teachers were very happy with his verbal expression, reading comprehension and how much he enjoys and excels at math and science. We saw vast overall behavioral and confidence improvement from last year, too. So, the socialization and behavioral issues are definitely improving with age and counseling. But he still has trouble operating as part of a group. He does better one-on-one with his friends. And we all know that cooperative learning and problem solving is going to continually be a part of his school life. We'll get to talk to his therapist April Keaton about that on Nov. 8th. She's moving out of Kevin Elliott Counseling and setting up her own practice at Windsor and Duncan, which means no more remembering change to pay downtown meters each week. I'll write about the OT evaluation after we have it.

Carrie Busey also had their fall book fair today. We let X-man pick out the books he wanted. In the last couple of weeks he's suddenly gone totally Star Wars crazy. He's also manual crazy. He wants to see pages and pages of characters. He wants to know the names of each of the clone troops (he's this way over Pokémon, too). I have to draw a line sometimes when reading to him or I'll go nutso. We also got a couple of chapter books.

Then we stopped in to see the school librarian, Ms. Cahill. I totally miss volunteering this semester. Stupid foot! Anyway, the school had a decorate a pumpkin like a storybook character contest. X-man and I made the fish from "Memoirs of a Goldfish." We got to vote for Best in Show, Cutest, Scariest, Most like the Book, etc. All three of us voted and I cannot wait to get back into the library. I feel totally out of sync because I don't know the "way of things" at the school. It's just odd to be there because I haven't been.

When we got home, X-man asked to watch Clone Wars and play at LegoStarWars.com. I set him up and then went upstairs while MacTroll got on his conference calls. I needed something therapeutic to do, so I sat down on the floor of X-man's room and sorted Legos and scrubbed down his Lego table with cleaner. Then he came up, noticed that all of his "town" pieces were on the table together and not in a mess and we started playing. Then we pulled out the Scribbles coloring and activity book my sister got him for his birthday and we did some activities. He read me the instructions and then I'd take one page and he'd take another. We fed some crocodiles with our art. We determined that the "heavier" of an object would be an elephant over a refrigerator. We drew striped and polka dotted brontosauruses. It was fun.

I made X-man lunch and then set him up with his next section of Handwriting without Tears. He finished his worksheet practice with only one correction from me. Afterwards we all had to head out to the library so that MacTroll and I participate in early voting at the Tolono Public Library. It was awesome. It was so nice because X-man could go pick out books while we voted and we didn't have to worry about standing in line. We were voter numbers 100 and 101. And there were at least a half dozen people coming in behind us.

Then we drove north and got MacTroll his birthday cake. I ordered him a specialty Doctor Who cake from the Cake Artist's Studio that looks like the Tardis for his 37th birthday tomorrow. X-man is adamant that we must celebrate birthdays. So a cake is a requirement. I still haven't found the black camera, so here's a photo of one that is similar. But I like celebrating MacTroll, too. :-)

Then we went to Meijer to do a quick pick up of food. I stayed in the car with X-man and read him some of the library books. Two of them were picture books based on uncomfortable social situations. He would panic in the middle of them, and we'd have to close them and talk about what made him upset. One was Howard B. Wigglebottom and the Monkey on his Back: A Tale about Telling the Truth and the other was I Gotta Draw about a boy who can't stop doodling (It's his fidgit) in school and he's earning terrible grades until his teacher adapts a bit and learns to accommodate his learning style. Then the whole class is integrating learning and art.

When we got home, MacTroll had a few more calls to make. So X-man and I headed up the stairs to his room to play more Legos. We also ended up reading "One Morning in Maine" by Robert McCloskey. There's a scene in the book where the older sister is helping the little sister brush her teeth. I asked X-man who the girls reminded him of. He smiled and said Super Ella and Super Chloe. Great minds think alike.

When MacTroll was done with the phone around 6 p.m., the boys sat down with the BIG purchase from the book fair today: A paper airplane book where you make the starships from Star Wars. Cutting and folding are fine motor skills, so it was nice to see them working together. Plus, there are five pages of each plane, so you can make whole squadrons. X-man makes up stories about what's happening with the planes. "A bad guy stole this Naboo plane so the X-wing has to run him down..." MacTroll is now playing planes with his Millennium Falcon while we prepare to watch Return of the Jedi as a Family Movie Night.

But I keep having to remind myself that tomorrow is Saturday! And after the giant cake is out of my fridge we'll have room to do a real grocery shopping trip. :-)

Last night I tried to watch the DVD of the first two episodes of Game of Thrones. It made me terribly uncomfortable and after violence against children in episode one and violence against dogs in episode two... I've decided I am not the Game of Thrones key audience. I had to fast forward through most of it (incest, arranged marriage and dwarves, oh my!). I think I'll go back to the Big Bang Theory. Much more my speed... I find great comfort in Leonard and Sheldon.