Chasing a Tornado Child -- the gifted and 2e adventure

Rockets to the Heavens

2009-07-30T13:03:00.011-04:00

Little Tornado Boy LOVES building and setting off rockets. I am quickly figuring out that he is turning into a little adrenaline junkie. He and his daddy starting setting off store bought rockets at the local baseball stadium parking lot over a year ago and it has now moved up to them purchasing kits and building their own rockets. They decided to start with a Skill Level 1 rocket that was a big success but you know guys...the bigger the fire power...the better. I can hear Tim the Tool Man making his grunting noise and screaming "more power!!!!!"....So they went up and built the Storm Caster a Skill Level 2 rocket. It took them about a month of working evenings to build it and paint it. I loved watching the two of them work together....I think daddy enjoyed building it as much as Tornado Boy.

Launch Day came for the Storm Caster at the local baseball park and they used C engines for the initial launch....3,2,1 blastoff....and WOW - WAY up in the sky....the wind was a little bit up and picked up the larger parachute and sent the rocket about 1/2 mile off towards the local elementary school. We watched while screaming "keep going" as it hit the top of the elementary school's roof and fell onto their property. We raced to the car and drove around to the school and sheepishly, Daddy climbed over the elementary school fence and went hunting for the rocket. Success! A quick clambering over the fence in fear of police getting us for breaking and entering...we decided that maybe the Storm Caster was a wee bit too big of a rocket for the baseball stadium parking lot. So, we were on a mission to find a safe location. We had graduated to the world of rocketry.

After researching we found a local rocketry club that meets one time a month in a very desolate area of the county and Tornado Boy was thrilled beyond words! We of course headed over one Saturday with Storm Caster in tow and talk about the mother loads of rocket clubs!!! These guys were setting off giant scale rockets that screamed to the heavens! Tornado boy and daddy were SO into it that we all hung out in 95 degree weather for 3 hours watching and launching Storm Caster. He got to launch his rocket 4 times, with one time sending daddy on a long 25 minute trek to try to recover the rocket after one mighty launch!

Here they are setting up Storm Caster at the launch site

Ready for Lift Off!!!

Storm Caster soaring to the heavens! The other rocket club members were VERY impressed with the rocket they built. You can see Tornado Boy recoiling from the HUGE sound this rocket makes at lift off.

Some of the other rockets the members had were just amazing. They were HUGE - like the size of Tornado Boy and used absurdly large engines. They have special clearance at the rocket launch site with the FAA due to how high some of the rockets go up..so local airplane traffic are aware of the launch site.

Here are some pics of the other rockets....

The last one we watched before we sweat ourselves into a pool of water, we saw the most awesome launch. A gentleman was getting a special certification in order to launch a specific category of rocket. When you really get into the high end rockets, you have to earn certification in various levels of rockets...you have to build the rocket yourself, then take a written AND oral exam showing that you understand rocketry and then you have to do a launch of your rocket with an examiner present to certify the launch. This rocket SCREAMED to the sky...it had a ridiculous size engine and they had to call it into the local airport to notify the altitude of the rocket. I mean this puppy disappeared thousands of feet into the sky, it was UNREAL. Tornado Boy's eyes were the shape of saucers after he saw that one go off and said in a breathless voice...."that was just way cool....can we start building a new rocket".

Here's a pic of that last monster rocket.

The next day, my two "men" headed down to the local hobby shop and purchased the next level 2 rocket kit...this puppy is called The Express and it is supposed to travel 1,700 feet....God help us!!!!

Tornado Tidbits - a look into our daily messy life

2009-07-19T23:25:00.010-04:00

Ok, I just had to pull out the camera after walking through the house today. All I could think was "wow, what a MESS!". I try really hard to do a thorough clean once a week but on days like today, all I can do is shake my head and then join back in the fun that caused all the chaotic mess!

Here is the lovely ketchup splatter. Tornado boy is a ketchup fanatic and even loves to eat it with his stick cheese. Unfortunately, I tend to find ketchup in really strange places!!! Here is a pic of a nice splatter on the floor and the next pic, I have NO CLUE on the world a ketchup slotch got on the living room wall...I guess I shouldn't ask huh?

This one is just nuts....our recycling does not pic up the cardboard from all the various food boxes/toy boxes and I refuse to throw it in the trash...so, our laundry room sink is our "catch" for all things cardboard and when daddy is able, he takes a car load to the recycle center way down by his work....as you can tell, we haven't had a load in quite awhile!!!!

Here is one day of play in Tornado boy's playroom...he took my old cuisinare rods and designed his own metro subway system complete with connection points and then add in some magnetics and his playmobile and we have a small village with the metro system.

Don't know if this one will come through but we have dribbled stains of the "cabbage water" we made this morning (for our science experiments that were done) all over the tile floor from the kitchen all the way through the front room to the laundry room. Nice little blobs of purple all over the place. All I can say is that red cabbage really SMELLS!!

Here is the kitchen counter from the afternoon...we did several science experiments today with learning about bases, neutrals and acids - we had stuff everywhere but tornado boy had a blast with doing all of them!

I am just pooped from the "busyness" of the house today and will just have to wait til tomorrow to clean everything up...or maybe in a few days :-)

Train Fanatic times infinity

2009-06-22T13:36:00.008-04:00

Ok, Tornado Boy is the epitome of a train fanatic. He pretty much eats, breathes, sleeps trains. We are WAY past the Thomas train stage....he now is into the electric HO and O scale trains and of course riding the real things. We hit one of his major to do items while we were in Washington, DC - we rode the only high-speed train in the US - the Acela...his next item is to fly to Chicago and ride the Empire Builder all the way to Seattle. He has actually learned a History lesson concerning the Empire Builder and the man who "built" the route - James J. Hill...pretty cool stuff....anyways...back to trains.

We were very much buried under trains here at home....he is the proud owner of an O and HO scale train along with miles of Geo-Track set ups, a new Lego train set up and a Playmobile train set up. These things pretty much take up the entire floor...or should I say house!!! So, tornado boy came up with the idea of selling off all of his old Thomas Train collection (he had a HUGE amount of items) and old toys he doesn't use in order to raise money to redo his playroom and build an elevated track system for his HO scale train. Quite a mature plan for a 6 year old! Who would have thought that Thomas train items would sell like hot cakes and lo and behold, we raised more than enough money to paint, put furniture and build the track layout. Tornado Boy had everything "mapped out" in what order things needed to be accomplished.....

Step 1: Paint.....he picked the colors after switching between blue and orange and then back to blue again (THANK YOU- just couldn't imagine day-glo orange painted on all 4 walls) and painting one wall with magnetic paint so he can hang up his works of art on the wall with no more pin marks. His beloved Polar Express poster and CSX transportation map finally have a spot.

His other beloved map - railroads of the continental united states is TOO huge for the room and will stay in his bedroom.
Step 2: get furniture including his own large desk for current work and art projects
Step 3: build track supports and track along the top of the ceiling to elevate his HO scale trains. This was interesting since my husband and I are the most "UN-builder-like" people in the world....but we pulled it off with everything actually being level!!

We are only missing new wood floors (hopefully will go in within the next year or so- VERY yucky old carpet is just blech!). I also want to paint some mural items along the track line over time - mountains, buildings, trees....so there is scenary along the track line. Tornado Boy has it in his head for future train plans for his O scale train....to cut a hole in the wall to run the track from his playroom through into his bathroom and then cut another hole in the wall through to his bedroom and run the train through and then around the top of his bedroom walls. This is do-able but the thought of punching holes in the walls is a wee bit intimidating to us...but it would mean NO more tripping on trains on the floor!

First Airplane Flight - to DC

2009-06-16T11:55:00.015-04:00

I haven't had a chance to post in what seems like forever! We all got a really nasty cold and then our family vacation came up and finally things have slowed down a little bit so I can get back to blogging!!! Tornado Boy LOVED Washington, DC! It was his first airplane flight and this was such a GIANT step for him! With all of his Sensory issues, we were so proud of how he handled the whole flight and he really enjoyed it! Of course Manny the Manatee had to ride with us on the plane!

Eating could be interesting sometime but he was a real trooper and we found several places where he was able to eat and even try some new things. He even got to eat at an icon in DC - a place called Ben's Chili Bowl.

We hit just about everything you could possibly hit in a week and had so much fun! I will say, anyone heading to DC, bring comfortable shoes! Tornado Boy had so many awesome experiences that there were too many to list. I will tell you one thing...he has to be the only 6 year old that had the Washington, DC Metro map memorized in less than 2 days. Strangers would mumble to themselves on the metro about how they didn't know how to get to so-and-so and Tornado boy would pipe up and give exact, detailed directions while they listened on with jaws dropped.

I will have to say the top highlight of the trip for him is the surprise we gave him. He is a train fanatic and is in love with the Acela High Speed train...he even has an HO version of the train at home. We went to Union Station and surprised him with a trip to Baltimore and back on the Acela. He was in HEAVEN. The price was absoltuely ridiculous for 30 minutes one way and 30 back and he was the ONLY child on both trips but he loved every second of it. He brought the GPS onboard and clocked the train going 127 mph. I laugh again, how many kids want to bring a GPS onboard any vehicle in order to clock the speed? So he can officially say that he rode the only high speed train in the United States. His next trip he wants to take is the Empire Builder route from Chicago to Seattle.

He really enjoyed the Postal Musuem and got a kick out of seeing statues of Ownie the dog...he is the official mascot of the postal service way back when and would hope board trains and planes and travel the world with the US mail. Tornado Boy learned about Ownie through one of his All About Trains videos he used to watch so he was excited to see Ownie.

We also took a ride down the C&O Canal in an old boat much like they did in the
1870's. It was super cool seeing how the locks worked on the canal and being pulled my mules was kind of neat!

Of course we had to go see the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History.

Both were super crowded and I was so proud of Tornado boy enduring the noise level. About half way through the Museum of Natural History, he asked for his special headphones to help block out the sounds echoing off the walls of the museum. He really enjoyed seeing all of the animals at the Natural History museum.

We visited all of the monuments and he filled up his entire National Park's Passport book for the DC area.

We REALLY enjoyed visiting Rock Creek Park where he worked for several hours and earned another Junior Ranger pin and badge. He completed the whole Junior Ranger workbook and collected a bag of trash and was SO proud when the ranger pledged him in. This is his third Junior Ranger Patch that he has earned and he worked SO hard.

The park was beautiful and it was hard to believe that something so serene and calm was in the midst of a bustling place like DC!

Of course we can't forget our visit to the National Zoo! We picked a great day to go visit...it was rainy and hardly anyone was there...we came prepared with our umbrellas and it was great.

The Pandas were so special!!!

We were super sad to leave but it is always nice to come home! We said that he is ready now for a trip to see Mimi and Papa WAY over in New Zealand....our next family adventure :-)

Happy Cheese Dance

2009-05-13T20:02:00.003-04:00

All I can say is YIPPEEEE, we have ONE new item added to Tornado Boy's PICKY list of acceptable foods! There is hope...and the clouds parted and there was light!Picture...mom doing the happy dance...yeah booyah, yeah booyah!

We are planning a trip to Washington, DC in a couple of weeks and we are all excited but, Tornado Boy's SPD dietary "wants" make traveling very interesting....he is pretty limited to what he eats and 99% of his choices are not normally found in most restaurants....food is either too yucky, too smooshy, too salty, too sour, too hot, too spicy....on and on...the joy of SPD! So we talked about making a deal...he said he would be willing to try one new food a week so that maybe we could try some new restaurants while we were in DC. So this week's new food was...tada.....grilled cheese (with the crusts off of course)....and YES it was a HIT. We had tried it a year ago and it was spit out with lots of "yucks" and gags followed after...and this from a child who would consume an entire bag of cheese sticks each day if he was allowed. Well, for some strange reason today(I will not look a gift horse in the mouth)it was "great" and "yummy" and was devoured in under 20 seconds AND more was asked for. YIPPEEE - Grilled Cheese is probably one of the most popular items on kid's menus so DC here we come.....next week - Macaroni and Cheese - keep your fingers crossed!!

Tornados DO grow up

2009-05-01T13:33:00.003-04:00

How sad......I am one of those moms that wants to enjoy their child for as long as possible and don't want them to grow up.....but, it seems Tornadoes do grow up :-( How do I know this? This week, I was called into the bathroom by a very frightened, very concerned yell from Tornado Boy. I went into the bathroom and found my little guy completely upset with this look of fear and awe on his face. Daddy was in there with him and he asked me to "check it out" because he wasn't entirely sure. I was very confused at first until Tornado boy opened up his mouth and pointed to his bottom tooth. He looked up at me with this face of confusion and said, "I think its wiggling". We have read stories in the past about the Tooth Fairy visit and had explained the whole process of his baby and adult teeth so it wouldn't be a total shock when the time finally came.

Well....looks like the time has come....my tornado is growing up and I can't stop time like I had SO hoped for.

So, he is no longer totally wigged out - according to him he is 50% scared and 50% excited and every day now, he has a system....he calls it his wiggle time - where he takes his finger and wiggles his loose tooth....a wiggle in the morning, a wiggle after lunch and a wiggle before bed. Anyone have a secret on how to stop little boys from growing up? The tooth fairy will be visiting our house soon unless there are any secret methods anyone wants to pass on :-)

Never Under Estimate Tornados!

2009-04-28T09:57:00.008-04:00

My husband and I had one of those "duh" moments last week when we purchased something for tornado boy. We both had no idea why we didn't think of it sooner...especially since it is pretty much what my husband does all day. It makes me ponder just how many other things I just think, "nah, that's too advanced" or "that looks too difficult" would catch his fancy.

I introduced a Circuit Kit to him in a local store and his interest was peeked immediately. So the introduction to building circuits began. This kit was right up his alley - it came with a step by step book with 101 circuits to build. To my complete astonishment, he was so fascinated and taken by them that he literally went through all 101 experiments in under 2 days. He spent the entire day with hardly any breaks going from one experiment to another.

It was so cool seeing a new passion spring out and see his face light up when he began to just mess with the circuits to try to make his own ideas. My husband was able to explain to him how each circuit experiment worked and he was honestly understanding it because the next day when Daddy was at work and I asked him to explain his current circuit he was working on, he blurted it out so matter of factly like he had known about circuits all his life.

Well, after 2 days, the exploration began with him building his own ideas but he noticed on the back of one of the flyers that there were BIGGER kits (which he so slyly pointed out to me). Daddy went online and found the grand daddy of circuit kits complete with a computer program so you could build some on the computer and ordered it for him. For the next several days all we kept hearing...."is it here yet?", "how many more days", "I'm SO excited"....until the box arrived. Man was this thing HUGE! Tornado Boy's eyes about popped out of his head when he saw all the cool stuff that came with it! So off he went working on the 300+ experiments that came with this box. NEVER, EVER under estimate a tornado!

10 Favorite Things About Living in Florida

2009-04-22T19:55:00.013-04:00

We have done so many eco-adventures over the past few days that I just had to do a 10 favorite things about living in Florida!

1. We went to Cape Canaveral National Seashore to hang out at the beach and got to see the two shuttles both poised on their launchpads.

2. Here is a beautiful Zebra butterfly we saw while out exploring

3. We went on a Manatee finding mission yesterday and came across this cool canal filled with tons and tons of.....turtles!

4. One of the pretty views on our two mile hike through Turkey Creek Sanctuary

5. This fat little guy has had one too many peanuts fed to him!!

6. A view of our backyard - we had so many doves camped out.

7. Tornado Boy's butterfly garden he planted last year - it's now in full bloom.

8. We took an eco-boat trip this weekend and explored the Indian and Banana rivers - we saw several dolphins and one manatee hump :-)

9. A view of the sunset from our front window looking across the street. I swear the sky turned 10 different colors in a matter of a view minutes.

10. The angry Florida Sky right before a hail storm

I know there are many times where I moan and complain about living in Florida because for 99% of the year it is usually hot and humid and I miss having real seasons....but these 10 pics quiet the whining!

The newfound joy of Orienteering

2009-04-17T21:17:00.006-04:00

A compass and a map are like Tornado Boy's favorite accessories....so begins the sport of Orienteering into our lives. I know that we enjoy geocaching - but it isn't "exciting" enough for our little guy so a friend told me about Orienteering. Let's just say Tornado Boy fell in love with it hook, line and sinker! We found a group that is about an hour away and they host a monthly Orienteering outing at different locations around the central part of the state. They offer all kinds of levels and certificates for the kids for completing a course. So last weekend, we decided to jump in head first and see what all the fuss was about. This group had a permanent course set up in a beautiful county park and we decided to tackle it before trying a group meet.

For those who don't know what Orienteering is about - basically you get a topographical map, a compass and you have to find your way from one "control" or marker to another until you find all of them and complete the course. So you are wandering deep into woods and forested areas trying to find the best route from marker to marker by reading the topo map. You learn what all the sections of the topographical map mean - higher areas/wooded areas/scrub areas/water.....and people compete all across the country to see who can complete courses the fastest. So the main gist...you get lost in the woods and find your way from checkpoint to checkpoint to learn how not to get lost in the woods.

My little guy was totally engrossed in this whole event and we had an absolute blast wandering through beautiful wooded areas. He was really, really good at finding his way on the map and locating the markers. We finished the course in 58 minutes and will be going back next weekend to complete the advanced course and then in May they have a large meet at another park that we hope to join.

While we were out wandering we came across the most unreal animals! We heard tons of birds, saw a rare fox squirrel, watched a "shnafalo" (armadillo) sniffle his way around, and then the best part of all - Tornado Boy was at a marker and looked up and thought he saw a bird but then figured out it wasn't a bird. It was this magnificent, giant owl way up in a tree. He was so pretty and just watched us as we putzed through the woods. When we showed the ranger a picture he said it was an immature barred owl and he was just as excited as we were and wanted to know where we spotted him so he could go look at him. I can't believe he was considered "immature" and that he was going to grow larger!

So for those families who love getting lost in the woods - you should see if you have any local Orienteering groups around your area - at least with my little tornado around I know I will never get lost in the woods!

SPD, highly gifted and loss of friends

2009-04-16T14:27:00.008-04:00

Well, the inevitable finally happened....so I apologize ahead of time if this turns into a novel but I just need to vent. Little tornado boy has an extremely difficult time meeting and making new friends. He has two strikes against him and sometimes I just want to yell to the world that, "it's not fair...doesn't this kid have enough issues to deal with, can something just for once come easy to him!!!" Between his highly gifted level and his Sensory processing disorder, he has one doozy of a time making friends. If he hangs out with kids his own age, most of them are running around screaming about Pokemon or playing tag while he wants to talk about integrated circuit building or the fact that he knows 10 zillion facts about Amtrak and high speed railways. The other kids look at him like he has 5 horns growing out of his head and run away either ignoring him or making fun of him. So he tends to do well with older children that he can have conversations with. The other side of things with his SPD, if he is having a tough sensory day, he can come across as a poorly behaved child who is having a meltdown and what "normal", older kid wants to deal with another child who does that? So we try our darnedest to look for good sensory environments/times to have get togethers or play times with some of his friends. We also try to look for families who are patient and understanding of his needs and I am very up front with them before hand letting them know. We have also started a special environmental group that he came up with all with his own input and I helped him get everything going. I am hoping that maybe forming groups around his interests will pull in other families/kids that have similar interests to his. We were really interested in looking at Cub scouts for next year because Tornado boy loves working towards goals and loves the environment so we thought this would be a good fit. Yesterday, a dad and a scout came to our door to sell something to raise money for scouts. We spoke with him and was informed that meetings were an hour long and that the kids were expected to sit still and be on their best behavior for that hour. All I could think was oh well, that goes the idea of Cub Scouts out the window. An SPD child can't sit still for an hour and with his gifted nature, if the meeting isn't exciting or interesting enough then it makes sitting still for an hour that much more difficult and then once again, I will have the child who looks like he is the child from hell with all the other kids and parents staring at us like, "what is wrong with your kid".
Tornado boy met an older boy at one of the local playground get togethers a few months back and they seemed to hit it off. We had a couple of get togethers and things were okay but we had our normal SPD issues to deal with....schedule changes (which are hell on SPD kids), transitions (another hell point for SPD kids), loud locations that were too much for tornado boy.....and he would have periodic meltdowns. Tornado boy usually came back home completely upset from the get-togethers saying that the other child didn't want to play any of his games. The other child has a different background than my son and his mom, who is very well meaning and is very nice seemed to have a difficult time understanding that you don't discipline a 2e child the same way you do a "regular" child. Those of you with SPD children understand what I mean. I honestly don't believe in hitting a child and I don't believe in scaring the "you know what" out of a child in order to get him to do something or get him to show respect. I want him to learn the how and why you do something not just because you are scared silly into doing it. Maybe I am wacked to believe this, but it is what it is. I have a very difficult time punishing a child for doing something that he has absolutely no control over. It is like hitting a child with ADD because he wasn't able to sit still and do his work.

Well, anyways, we had a get together yesterday. Tornado boy had just endured almost 1.5 hours of an assessment that his Speech teacher has been working on with him over the past month and then we had about a 30 minute break between that and meeting his friend. I had no idea that he was going to take so long to work on the assessment that day otherwise I wouldn't have set up the get together. I thought, it can't be too bad, tornado boy was looking forward to it...so we went. I could see that it was quickly going downhill and within no time, he was totally over the moon, over stimulated sensory wise and so began the normal SPD meltdown proceedings. I kick myself for allowing it to happen....classic scenario for an SPD kid....totally sensory deprived for 1.5 hours while completing the assessment and then walk him into a location with bright lights, tons of stuff on the walls, things everywhere and surprise, surprise TOTAL SPD meltdown from sensory overload. The other child got upset at my little guy and started to say things to him about not being so loud and such and that just made Tornado boy feel worse. I mean my son is not dumb, he is very much aware of how he is perceived and how different he is, he doesn't need it pointed out to him. I could tell that he was trying so hard to hold it together but it is pretty much pointless when a person is experiencing fight or flight...much less a 6 year old trying to understand and control his sensory system that is completely overwhelmed. So we decided that it be best that after 45 minutes of expecting a 6 year old to show interest in a store, we left. The other child yelled, "that's not fair" and stomped away.

So this morning I got the dreaded phone call from the other mom- she informed me that her son did not want to play with my little guy anymore. She then very kindly went on to share her opinions/ideas about all of the things she thought I could do to help his meltdowns. She was trying to be so helpful and really wanted to try to offer ideas. She informed me that he needs consequences when he has a meltdown and can't we do something to help him control his outbursts. Yes, he does have consequences and we do use time out for NON SPD behavior problems, but I refuse to punish him for actions that he 100% can NOT control because his brain is wired differently than other normal children. I was fit to be tied trying to explain the ins and outs of dealing with a 2e child.....he has massive emotional OE's as a gifted child and has SPD and then add in that he has Dyspraxia and then this week we found out that he has massive tracking issues with his eyesight that go hand in hand with his dyspraxia and he now needs vision therapy to help him. ARGGGGGHHHHH..I wish there was a handbook that you could happily hand out to friends and family that explains all of these characteristics and how they can help to build up my tornado boy instead of sending him down a tunnel of self-loathe and beating himself up emotionally because he is not "normal". I don't think it's fair that a friendship be formed all based on conditions...."well, I will be your friend if you don't have any more meltdowns, or I will be your friend only if you don't get scared by loud noises"...that is too much pressure to put on an already anxiety ridden little kid....in my eyes, a friendship should be unconditional - much as love should be - it is what it is, accept me as I am or don't be my friend.
So, I had to break it to my son with some fibs thrown in that meet ups with this other child are going to change. He cried and I could tell that he was seriously hurt and then he kept saying that he was trying so hard to "be normal" (and he said those exact words and my heart broke). I could see where he was totally beat down and I have no idea how to fix it. He then finally came out of his funk and looked at me and said, "maybe this was a good thing because he never really ever wanted to play anything that I wanted to so now maybe I can find a friend that likes a lot of the same things I do so we can have fun together."
I mean as a parent, what in the world am I supposed to do? What do you do with a special needs kid who is just the coolest kid in the world and has the hardest time fitting in with others? He has some other friends that he seems to really mesh with but one can only get together some times on the weekends, another is completely across town and the other is 2 hours drive away. I can't be the only mom on the face of the planet with a 2e kid...sure wish we could meet up with some local 2e children so that maybe they could be more understanding of each other and just be kids together without 10 million expectations placed on top of them before hand.
Thanks for the vent...I feel much better!

The Life of a Squirrel

2009-04-09T12:12:00.019-04:00

OK - we have this squirrel that has been part of our family for quite some time. He showed up when we of course placed the "squirrel" feeders in the yard (I mean come on folks, we would be lying if we called them bird feeders since the poor birds are usually left with nothing after Sir Squirrel gets his fill). I am convinced it is the same squirrel - but who knows! This goofy squirrel likes to play a game of taking mouth fulls of food and then hanging upside down on our screened in porch and eating. He(or she) pretty much devours anything in sight and will gorge himself every day. His daily schedule consists of...eating, lounging, eating, eating some more, lounging in the sun, eating....What a life!
He has a habit of "lounging" throughout the day all over Tornado Boy's playground set like he is king of the yard. At night, I have found that the little guy has a nest in one of our palm trees up front. Tornado Boy always gets a kick out of the crazy squirrel antics complete with the squirrel flicking his tail at Mach-10 all while making this "wha, wha, whaaaaaaa" sound while being suction cupped to the screen.
Tornado Boy loves messing around with my Microsoft Publisher and with my help we put a book together a few years ago called, "The Squirrel Ate the Sandbox".

I'd like to be a squirrel just for a few hours!

The Invasion Has Begun!

2009-04-09T11:44:00.002-04:00

Well, we have finally broken down and joined the millions of other families across the world and are now proud owners of......tah dah....the Wii. It all started with my hubby's Nintendo DS - he has it to help with stress relief in the office and once Tornado Boy saw it and what it does, he confiscated it from Daddy. Daddy then was without his DS and ended up having to go out and get Tornado Boy his own DS. Well, we usually rent DS games instead of buying them and Tornado Boy and I kept noticing all the cool Wii games for rental. We had been talking about it for quite some time...we were even surprised to learn that one set of our Grandparents had the system. We are not into many of the games that are out where you have to battle or use weapons and "fight"...and Tornado boy seems more into race and logic games which is fine with us. Well, Hubby surprised all of us by coming home with one yesterday. Tornado Boy was fit to be tied! They had it set up in no time and we all looked like crazy maniacs bopping and hopping around the living room (I don't want to know what we looked like through a window if someone could have seen us). Who knew that you could flip hamburgers and feed them to a hungry walrus - or whatever that freaky animal was supposed to be on Raving Rabbids - and I quickly found out that I have NO rhythm when it came to dancing along with lunatic rabbids. I am now being introduced to the Mario race terms - chain chomper, mean mushrooms, and bullet bills :-)

Needless to say, Tornado Boy was COMPLETELY on sensory overload by the end of the night and had a complete meltdown come bed time. But we knew it was coming - I mean what do you expect - Christmas in April! We will need to learn some tricks on how to let him play Wii but counter-balance the over sensory input.....we also will need to figure out some tactics on how to deal with his UNDYING perfectionistic issues that leave him angry or upset because he "just missed" getting a new time record or winning.

Tornado Boys fell asleep with this comment....."mommy, wouldn't it be the coolest if they made a Tornado Intercept game for the Wii?" He and daddy programmed their own Tornado Intercept computer game using the super cool kids programming program - Scratch which is made by MIT...who knows, maybe he will make his own Wii game! Here is the Scratch site for anyone else out there with their own little programmers - and best of all - it's FREE!

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Graham's Story

2009-04-07T20:50:00.004-04:00

For those SPD moms who have not seen this yet - you need to visit the site - it is concerning a new movie that has just come out concerning SPD.

http://www.autisticlike.com/index.html

This is a story of a family with a little boy, Graham, who hit all the normal developmental milestones but something wasn't quite "right". They came back from a doctor's visit with the diagnosis of Autism...but they knew in their gut that autism just didn't fit the description of their son....so began their journey into understanding Sensory Processing Disorder.
Why is it that SO many parents can just TELL that something is up and their GUT tells them that what "stick to the wall and see what fits" diagnosis the doctor gave them just isn't right? Why are doctors so intent to stick every child into the autistic category? My son was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder when he was around 4 years old....AFTER I did months of researching because NONE of the doctors would listen to me...they wanted to write it off as behavior or a fussy kid and that I was an over-reactive mom. I remember time after time of bringing him into the doctor stating that something was up - why did he cry all afternoon, why was he having constant meltdowns, why was eating only certain things, why did he scream when any kind of loud noise happened, why wasn't he sleeping.....the same old answers kept coming back...he's just a difficult child...he will grow out of it...you are over-reacting. My poor little guy was MISERABLE and so were we...no one would listen to us. As he got older, Aspergers came up once, but the docs all agreed that he was no where near that category...so when I found SPD, it WAS him! We took him to the right specialist and SHAZAAM - they agreed..straight up SPD. But it took 4 long years of my husband and I crying SO many nights out of frustration, totally exhausted and mentally burnt out...I can't imagine what it must have been like for our tornado boy. The strain on the family was so intense and all because the doctor wouldn't sit down and just listen.
I do remember several OT's telling us that many people stick the label "autistic" to many of these kids because SPD and Autism go hand in hand....if you are Autistic then you have SPD.....BUT, if you have SPD, you are NOT automatically autistic - and this is where the gray area comes in.

This story of Graham is very touching and massive KUDOS to the parents for sticking to their guns and NOT letting their child be mis-labeled. All I can do is pray, beg and hope that pediatricians, nurses, teachers, parents throughout the country can get to see this and maybe open up their eyes to the fact that SPD IS real and that there are families all across the country that NEED help in dealing with this disorder and STOP sweeping all SPD kids straight into an autistic label before really digging deep and honestly LISTENING to the parents.

You Ever Have One of Those Moments?

2009-04-02T21:25:00.008-04:00

I know, stupid question to ask other mom's of 2e Tornado children....but, do you ever have one of those moments that just makes you smack your head and think what in the world is up with this child? I had one of those moments tonight....

.....we have recently set up this really cool camera/Internet connection with Tornado Boy's grandparents in South Carolina where we can all sit down at the computer and talk for as long as we want for FREE! No more long distance phone calls....you just need a camera on the computer, speakers and download the software and viola...we can all see and hear each other...pretty cool huh?

UNLESS, your child has chosen that time to be as totally spastic and bananas as can possibly be to the point that you have NO idea who in the world this kid is! My little tornado child decided he wanted to be a full flown EF5 tornado and rip through the entire area in under a second, screaming at the top of his lungs, showing a million items on the camera to grandma/grandpa and just acting like a total SPAZ! The icing on the cake though is when the little hooligan decided to show his grandparents his lovely new camo underwear (yes, we were running around in just a shirt and undies...his favorite attire it seems) and then he took it a step further and pulled his undies down and totally MOONED his grandparents! ACKKKKKKKKK!!! As my husband put it, "it doesn't get any better than that now does it?"

The Life and Times of living with a tornado!

Earth Hour Family Fun

2009-03-28T22:59:00.005-04:00

I am so proud of my little tornado boy. Yesterday, when I explained to him what Earth Hour was about he wanted to know if other people on our street knew about this. I told him that I didn't know and then asked him what did he think we could do to let them know. He helped me make up a little flyer explaining what it was and then he very proudly went to some of the neighbors on our street and told them about Earth Hour. Tonight at 8:30, all of our lights went off and all computers and for the whole hour we played a board game by candlelight. Near the end, we took a flashlight walk down the street and he thought it was so neat to see our next door neighbors all sitting in their front room with candles and several other people he had spoken too with their lights off. He asked if we could do Earth Hour all the time instead of once a year and we all thought that was a really cool idea....so we are thinking about doing our own Earth Hour once or twice a month where we just turn off the electronics/lights for an evening and just enjoy each other by candlelight.

I know that a lot of people honestly feel that global warming is a joke or a myth made up by our government....and maybe some of the hype has gotten extreme...but I believe that we have been really rough on the Earth and that it can only take so much before we see damage that can't be undone. So, here in our little town in Florida, we proudly participated in Earth Hour in hopes of sharing our voice about concern for Mother Earth.

Earth Hour this Saturday

2009-03-27T16:35:00.005-04:00

My family will be participating in the Earth Hour Saturday. Basically, Earth Hour is a simple movement, for one hour on Saturday 28th of March, everyone on the planet is asked to make a small sacrifice, turn off unnecessary appliances and lights at 8:30pm local time. I was fascinated to read that something like 85 countries around the world have agreed to participate by attempting to curb electricity usage. From what I have researched, Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia in 2007 and I commend them for starting this. In this day and age, I honestly believe that we have done some serious damage to Mother Earth and all of us need to try to do things on a daily basis to help.
On the Earth Hour website they share,

" This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first global election, between Earth and global warming.

For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.

We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together we can take control of the future of our planet, for future generations.

VOTE EARTH by simply switching off your lights for one hour, and join the world for Earth Hour.

Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm."

I hope that other families will take part in this across the world and stand up for Mother Earth!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CRs-7lRlPo

Secret Codes Anyone?

2009-03-24T20:03:00.004-04:00

Tornado Boy is very intrigued by secret codes and how you can mess around with numbers. Awhile back, he came up with a game that he was Willy Wonka and his playroom was the chocolate factory and he had daddy help draw out a picture of a keyboard with all the numbers on it. When he wanted to go into his playroom, he "entered" the secret code onto his keyboard paper (that was taped to the front of the door) and he was "allowed" to enter. Of course the secret code was only for him and daddy...no mommys allowed. I can recall many, many games that involved using a secret code of some kind. He likes seeing books or papers that have a special code on it and you have to use a code sheet to decipher it. I think this love of "codes" or unusual ways of labeling things began way back. When he was 4, he noticed that some clocks had "weird numbers" on them and when we explained that those were Roman Numerals he instantly wanted to learn what all the symbols were and what numbers went with each symbol. Same goes for daddy's Scientific calculator. He LOVED exploring calculators. When most kids start to get bored, the parents pull out some kind of toy out of their purse....well our toy was the calculator. We have gone through 2 calculators that I know of just because the numbers were rubbed off from so much exploring and use. On daddy's scientific calculator he noticed all the unusual keys and he was given an impromptu introduction about binary numbers and complex numbers and he was completely fascinated that there was a whole world out there involving things other than the "normal" number system.

Last week, I noticed that Tornado Boy had a pretty quiet day and had started to bounce off the walls a bit by late afternoon. Not enough sensory input for his SPD....so I got a little creative and took his old Thomas Train table and flipped the top over, used an oversized storage bin and dumped some play sand we had into the bin and viola...instant sand box. I gave him some of his sand toys and a collection of tiny plastic cups and he very happily fed his sensory input need by digging in the sand. Daddy came home and stayed outside with Tornado boy while I started dinner. Things got very quiet.....hmmmmmm....a little leery, I peeked my head out the garage door and was totally mystified by what they were doing.

Secret Codes strike again.....Tornado boy had worked out some kind of secret code language and had daddy write it out in the sand and according to what code was written, it let him know how many small plastic cups of sand to fill for daddy's sand "order". Daddy ran with the whole idea and the two of them came up with a seriously complicated code system. I had NO idea what any of it meant and when I asked, Tornado boy looked at me so matter of factly and explained what each part of the secret code meant. Daddy would write his sand order down in code and Tornado boy had to decipher it and make the sand order. I was honestly blown away with the complexity of their game and he completely understood every aspect of it! In the picture you will see the code before it evolved to a more complex one....the first number - 6 means how many plastic cups to fill with sand, the second one - R means regular (or S for stacked) - regular meant the cups were "delivered" individually, stacked meant that they were "delivered" by stacking the cups on top of each other, the third one - O with a line over it, lets him know to over fill each cup with sand...if the O had a line right at the top that meant to level the sand off at the top of the cup, if it had a line in the middle of the O that meant half a cup of sand (and you could not "order" stacked delivery with the over-filled method - those are the rules)....the last one - G meant Grind (and N for no grind) and basically meant Tornado boy pretended to grind the sand with his hands. Daddy informed me that it grew more and more complex and involved other codes like T for delivery by train, B for delivery by boat amongst other special order descriptions.

They sat and played that game for almost 2 hours and Tornado boy had to be pulled away crying when it came time to come in for dinner. Who knows...future work at the CIA? FBI? Nah....just a very happy, very smart little boy who loves to mess around with symbols and numbers and keep what he is doing a secret!

Unusual pet for an unusual family

2009-03-23T11:57:00.005-04:00

Ok.....we took the plunge and bought a new critter for Tornado Boy. I have spent most of my life being surrounded by warm purries and I lost my last cat, Pookie, of 18 years last year. My little guy loved Pookie and it was a very hard loss. It's hard to believe that a warm purry was by my side for 18 years and I miss her dearly. The sad thing is that little boy is allergic to dogs and cats. Due to Pookie's Diabetes, daily shots, and her age we could not bare to place her in another home when we found out he was allergic. So when she passed we have been having animal withdrawal because we can't get most "normal" animals. After much research, we came to the conclusion that "pin cushions" were safe allergy-wise for tornado boy and we took the plunge yesterday. He went and picked out the one he wanted and gleefully took him home. Our new Hedgehog is properly named "Perry the Platypus Hedgie" after the silly platypus on Phineas and Ferb. He is SO cute and NOT so cuddly but he has a great temperament. He lay sleeping in a shirt on Tornado boy in bed last night while he got his stories read and little boy looked up and so earnestly asked, "can he snuggle with me all night long". Um....no.....I don't think you would like to roll over onto a pin cushion in the middle of the night and I don't think Perry would appreciate it!
So it is a perfect fit....a very unusual pet for a very unusual family!

We Come Up With the Strangest Games!

2009-03-20T21:17:00.005-04:00

I am proud to share that we have quite an unusual household. If anyone could be a fly on a wall they would be left scratching their head asking, "what in the world are they doing?" Tornado Boy comes up with some really creative games and this one has to be at the top! I honestly have no idea how this whole thing started.....but he came up with his own way to teach skip counting all while playing delivery car service with his remote control car. We have these strange little glass "pucks" (as he calls them)...but I think they are used in flower arrangements or decoration in glass containers. He came up with a very confusing game where I take the white pucks...they are considered payment... and he takes the different colored blue ones. We each get an old cell phone (they don't work anymore) and I put in a call to the delivery service (tornado boy and his remote control car) and let him know how many blue pucks I would like for delivery. This is where it gets confusing....He made up his own order chart and had me write it down for him (as you can see in the pic above)....1 blue puck costs 5 white pucks, 2 blue pucks costs 10 white pucks...all the way up to a super wuper shmuper load which costs 500 white pucks. Well obviously we don't have 500 pucks so he came up with the idea that the white pucks can change their values to one puck being worth 5, 10, or 100...so for the heaviest load, I would send him 5 pucks which would be equal to 5x100.
So the game goes on with me "calling" in an order on the cell phone to him at the other side of the hallway or room and telling him what size order I want. Then, he loads in the appropriate amount of pucks into a plastic bag and places it on the back of his remote control car and sends it on its way over to me on the other side. I unload my order and I put in my correct payment of white pucks and push the car back to him....and the orders continue until he gets bored and moves onto something new.
I have NO idea where this whole thing came from but he came up with every part of it all by himself....throughout the week, Tornado boy comes up with complicated games like this one almost on a daily basis.......at least we are never bored!!!

The Sky is the Limit!

2009-03-20T20:58:00.003-04:00

Well yesterday was the start of Tornado boy's new love - rock climbing! He watched the safety video and I got him harnessed up and he was off! Dear husband and I have been talking about various sports he could try but it always came back to his Dyspraxia and Sensory Disorder. With both of those, his fine and gross motor coordination really does him in. Tornado boy quickly figured out when he was younger, that he tended to always be the last one at running races or the last one to get picked for teams....and it was a sore spot for him. So team sports like soccer and t-ball just didn't look like the best fit. Rock climbing is SO perfect for him! It will really help build up his fine motor skills with his fingers and hands and talk about a confidence booster! You should have seen the look of just sheer pride on his face while he was climbing! His biggest thing was that he has never really been up in high places and he was unsure about climbing so high. He would get 3/4 of the way up the beginners wall and ask to come back down. Each time he went up, he went higher and higher. After our hour session, he was one pooped out child!! He begged to go back again today and he was so excited. He tired a lot more quickly this time because his little muscles were still a little tired from yesterday's climb....but he was beaming with pride when he left. As we got into the car he looked at me and said, "I am an official rock climber mommy - I am really, really into this!".
He didn't make it to the top even though he really kept trying....but boy oh boy, talk about being proud the day he does make it to the top!!

Goosebumps?

2009-03-16T11:54:00.003-04:00

One of Tornado boy's questions lately has been why are goosebumps called goosebumps? Good question! With his SPD, he tends to rush to the bathroom right in the nick of time because he doesn't always get the signal from his body that he needs to go like other kids. His body will finally get the signal some days when it has just about reached the point of no return....and in doing so, he always wants to know why he gets goosebumps at that moment when he finally goes.

This looks like another job for the internet search engine! So.....for all those that ever wanted to know about goosebumps.....here's the real skinny!

Goosebumps are called goosebumps because if you ever plucked a goose (poor goose) then you would see little raised bumps where the feathers used to be. These bumps look identical to the raised bumps humans get...hence the name goosebumps....taaaadaaa...

Tornado boy was very interested to learn that at the end of each of your hairs, there is a teeny tiny muscle that can pull the hair erect. Goosebumps can be brought on as a response to fear, anger and in some cases things such as the ole fingers down the chalkboard, or after feeling a very strong sense of emotion. So in my little dudes case...his poor body reacts with goosebumps after some potty times because it is SOOOO relieved to finally be able to go! Back in cave-man days, the goosebump reaction would have helped keep their hairy bodies warmer by raising their hairs to help trap heat.

Mammals and birds can get goosebumps mostly to help keep them warm or to bristle themselves up to make themselves look bigger and keep enemies away. Pretty cool huh???

Got Maps?

2009-03-16T10:46:00.005-04:00

Anyone else have a child that MUST collect ALL maps of EVERY kind in the entire universe? Tornado boy has to be the first map-a-holic I have ever met. When it came time to decorate his room he immediately said he wanted maps. So, we found the biggest wall map mural of the World we could find and it pretty much takes up one whole wall from ceiling to floor. He then added in his Unites States map of all railroad lines in the U.S. And did I mention that he has maps all in his playroom and a giant basket that is ever growing to collect his map collection? He actually got angry at me one time when I went to one of the large malls in Orlando and forgot to bring him back a map of the mall. What does he do with his maps you ask? He will literally sit for hours with the maps spread out everywhere and make up his own games where he will ask you to select starting points and destinations and then he will map out the route for you to take. When daddy brought back maps from Singapore, tornado boy was GLUED to those particular maps for weeks! We even found the COOLEST spot in the world online....it allows him to combine two loves-trains/subways and maps...it has every subway line map on all the continents that you can download and print. You should have seen his eyes when we realized the goldmine we had found! Needless to say, the printer was working straight for about an hour printing everything from subway maps in South America to Asia.
Well, it seems Tornado boy has taken it a step further (as usual....this is a normal, daily event)...and has figured out how to make his own subway lines using Microsoft Publisher. The only thing that annoys him is that he can't use curved lines, he can only use straight lines right now. He sat down and made his own subway map line called the Shmuzzy Subway and then placed the amount it cost to ride each line. He modeled it after all the subway maps he has seen by making each line a different color and the little oval/circles are stations that you stop at and the black ovals are transfer stations.
I don't think that I know anyone who could possibly afford to ride on his subway system though!

The joy of styrofoam

2009-03-16T10:33:00.004-04:00

Who would know that so much could be done with a styrofoam airplane??? Tornado boy got the airplane at the airshow that was here this weekend and decided to do some test flights in the back yard. He went up to the top of his playset to try for longer flights and we all came up with an interesting idea. With his input, the idea grew and we got to experience the joy of an unschooled gifted child. He wanted to figure out how far each flight went and what direction. Using his compass, he carefully noted the direction of each flight and I would pace the distance out on the ground and we wrote down all the data. He then wanted to plot all the info on some kind of chart. He is ADDICTED to any and all charts. Daddy suggested a cool circle graph paper I had never heard off and found a copy on the internet. He just had to show tornado boy one time how to chart the distance and direction on the axis points and he completed the rest of the data himself. He got to see the differences between certain flights and then how other flights overlapped each other in areas.
Here I was, silly mommy, thinking we were going in the backyard just to throw an airplane!

Unschooling Garden

2009-03-12T14:06:00.003-04:00

Ahhhhh...the joys of Unschooling! The whole no workbooks, worksheets, planned lessons is just working so incredibly for us. Our project we started last week at Tornado Boy's request was to grow a container garden. We are "garden bug" members at a local Garden center and they send us monthly emails about new things going on at their center. In the last message, they sent pictures of a container vegetable garden and how to make one. Our little guy was so interested that we took some scrap wood from the garage, made our container and then painted it a fun purple color to match some purple chairs we already have outside in our Zen Garden we made last year. He picked out all the veggies and some herbs to plant. He was determined to have the same number of herbs as veggies and was very careful in what he picked. We have all sorts of stuff like peppermint (which is his favorite), rosemary, peppers, tomatoes, squash, celery, sage....among several others.
During the whole process we have used math to map out and measure the container garden so that we could grid off each section properly. We used reading to research the different veggies and which kind worked best in the Florida climate. We used science when researching about the best kind of soil and why it was the best. Of course, art with the painting. I am sure we hit on a ton of other subjects as well. We also made a special hanging container and planted strawberries. He has been enjoying watching all the plants already growing! The squash plants are already huge and soon we will need to place up the growing trellis for some of the others. We love unschooling.....when would he have had the chance to do this in a classroom other than the typical bean plant grown in a cup that all kindergarten kids seem to do each year?!
Thank you mother nature for everything you teach us each day!

One with Nature

2009-03-12T10:20:00.006-04:00

We have been gone a few days...off on our very first family camping trip! I love camping and did quite a bit of it before getting married. When I got married, my husband and I went out and bought this huge tent and most of the basic supplies in hopes of getting back to nature......several years later, the camping gear still sat dormant from the day we brought it back from the store.
It is prime time camping time here in Florida, so we began looking for open sites and I stumbled across a site at Tomoka State Park outside of Daytona Beach. Our little tornado boy was SO excited about his first camping trip. Having SPD, camping could be a total wash or a really thrilling experience, so we held our breath in anticipation. I will try to set the scene.....we get there around 5:30pm or so in hopes of setting up our giant tent in the normal time it took us to set it up in the backyard during our trial run...hahahahahahahahaha is all I can say. Of course the silly thing wouldn't go up without a huff! We worked on that thing for quite some time as we watched the sun start setting...so I asked dear hubby to get out the lantern and set it up...another HAHAHAHAHA. We hadn't done a trial run of setting up the new lantern that was still in the box. So here is the hilarious scene...a family struggling to set up this tent that is being SO stubborn...in the dark! Finally we have VICTORY..sort of..the tent is up but not 100% correctly. By this time it was too late to cook dinner so we all ran out for the best camping dinner...Wendys.
Oh - did I fail to mention that we also picked the camping weekend during the last weekend of Bike Week in Daytona? We were pretty much the only family in the campground and the super sweet rangers kept checking in on us to make sure we were doing okey dokey. The campsite site and park were SO incredibly beautiful. The huge, magestic trees dripping with spanish moss. Birds everywhere. It was stunning. Little boy was SUPER excited about sleeping in the tent for the first night. It was a wee bit chilly and we were all snuggled under many layers on the blow up mattress and he was one happy camper - literally! He would ask about the noises outside the tent which were predominantly motorcycles but as the night went on, things quieted down and you could hear nature. It was so soothing to hear the animals making all their nighttime noises. Little tornado boy fell asleep with no problems at all. We all woke to the glorious sound of birds chirping and woodpeckers going about their business. You could feel the stress melt away.
We spent the next day exploring the state park and we went on a 2 hour canoe ride that he loved. We tried our hand at fishing and caught a Sheepshead and then finished up the day with some geocaching. We got to cook at the camp stove (there's a fire ban in florida so no fire ring) and we were just having a blast. I broke the camping rules and left some food out near the forest entrance by our tent window so we could maybe catch a glimpse of an animal. As we all snuggled in the tent, we heard little critter foot steps and we got to see the most enormous Possum gobble up our offering. Little boy's comment was, "ooooohhhhhh, he is SO cute". He was tickled pink to have seen the possum. Another nice sleep and a pack up in the morning. We went off to explore the Children's Museum in Daytona - which was a huge hit! In the pic above he is holding a creation he made with nuts and bolts. Followed up with a surprise visit to the Daytona Raceway. This thing is just HUGE! They let you in for free to check out the grandstands and tornado boy asked if he could come see one of the races in July.
It was an amazing family vacation that made us really appreciate being able to get out to nature again. Sometimes in our insane lives, we just seem to forget that there is this beautiful, big, world out there just waiting to be explored. Getting back to being one with nature was exactly what this family needed and we are already looking for our next camping weekend.

Some Favorite Tornado Boy comments

2009-03-05T01:49:00.003-05:00

After the whopper of an afternoon today, I am having a really difficult time sleeping and decided to have a good laugh and pull out some silly things I have been writing and putting away for a number of years so I could pull them out on a rainy day.....here are some of my more favorite comments/moments from my little tornado.

*yelling very proudly from the bathroom after pooping that his "intestines were now empty".

*Another potty moment....sitting on the toilet with daddy in the bathroom and he so matter of factly looked up and said, "Houston, we have a dangly".

*"Hey Mommy, I have a question, when I grow, do my ears get bigger?"

*"I am 62% done with eating my lunch".

*While laying in bed during night snuggle time, "Mommy, I have been wondering, why is the ceiling flat in our rooms but the roof outside is shaped like a triangle."

*After running into the doorframe while riding his scooter, he looked up at me and said, "I guess my ecolocation device is broken".

*"How tall can they build a building before it begins to fall over."

*He loves elevators so he asked to make his own pretend elevator on the side of the sliding kitchen door which somehow morphed into a racecar as well...so he helped make and design the speed limit guage, the gear shifter, steering wheel and elevator floor button pad (see pic above). One day he asked if he could put an "up and out button" on his elevator pad so he could be willy wonka which then morphed into making negative and positive numbered floors after a Cyberchase on PBS that he watched.

*"Mommy, I really have a problem. I really want to be friends with the girls but they don't like to be nice to the boys. I really, really think they are pretty but I don't know if they will be my friend."

(had to add one after posting)...while having a sheer sensory overload kind of afternoon with running crazy through the house, he banged a chair back and forth banging it into the wall while we were listening to some of his favorite songs. Daddy asked him not to do that and his reply was that the "chair was dancing". Daddy replied with, "chairs do not dance into walls". Tornado boy's response was that the "chair didn't have any eyes to see the wall with" causing it to dance into the wall.....this kid could talk his way out of anything!!!

and to end on one of my favorites:

*While he was running around with the yard stick and hitting some things around the house (he wanted to hear the different tones things made depending on its size, shape and material according to him)- I told him not to bang the walls and he got very upset and looked me square in the eyes and said, "I have been thinking about this game all the way from 2001 and until December 2007 and now I can't do it!"

Blue Hair Victory!

2009-03-03T15:16:00.007-05:00

We had a MAJOR breakthrough today concerning little tornado boy's Sensory Processing Disorder and haircuts! We tried getting his hair cut at a salon when he was a weenie little one and it was a nightmare. The memories are all still there in my head....screaming, crying...complete fight or flight mode while daddy tried to hold him on his lap in the hair chair and all of us in tears at the end. After 2-3 attempts like this, we said enough because we didn't want to traumatize him anymore. So....I became his hair dresser...yes, hahahahahaha is all I can say! Haircuts happened in the bathtub with me doing a total song and dance to keep him occupied while I did a snip here and a snip there. By the time I was done, I was exhausted but his hair was cut (for the most part). His hair was always pretty straight but FAR from looking professional.

For the past several months I kept pointing out that there was a new place called Snip-its down the road where he could play games while they cut his hair because lately the little hairs around his ears have been really bugging him. He was interested but not enough to convince him to try it. His love of the past month is his new DS system and he asked me the other day that if he tried getting his hair cut at the "new place" could he earn a new DS game. I agreed a million percent and today we ventured in to get his hair cut. There were a few slight stressful moments when she pulled out the electric razor tool to get around his ears and I just held his hands. The lady asked how he wanted it cut and he said he wanted to look like daddy. Daddy has short on the sides and then spikey in the front (and he frosts his spikes- but we are not ready for that yet!) Then he found out that he could put color on his hair and that was all he needed to hear to finish out the cut. He was thrilled with the gel that was put in to make his hair "pointy" and then the blue streaks were the icing on the cake. As we walked out the door he yelled, "I want to do that again and next time I am getting orange streaks". He was SO proud walking around showing off his hair for the rest of the afternoon.
Another SPD battle finally fought and WON!

Unschooling adventures

2009-03-03T10:36:00.004-05:00

Since the holidays, my husband and I have made the decision that "typical" homeschooling was just not the answer for our 2e child. After lots of research and soul searching we realized that we have been unschooling him pretty much since birth...we just didn't know there was a name for it.

Unschoolers believe, "that the use of standard curricula and conventional grading methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child. Instead, unschoolers typically allow children to learn through their natural life experiences, including game play, household responsibilities, and social interaction.....Unschoolers often claim that learning any specific subject is less important than learning how to learn..."

We have been facilitating his interests and explorations since birth and unschooling is the perfect match for his gifted/2e issues....so we are officially an unschooling family. He has explored and learned about topics that most kids don't touch on until the upper grades or later - binary numbers, dwarf planet criteria, weather systems. In our explorations we are hitting all the major subject areas of reading, math, history, science and even go into art and music among other areas. He just isn't sitting and doing a workbook and sit down lesson that usually separates all of these subjects out into boring capsules. He is learning real time situations where you can use specific math facts in order to help solve a problem instead of looking at useless math problems stuck in a workbook.

He really loves to play boardgames....but not the typical boardgames that 6 year olds like...his favorite is Monopoly and I think we have 3 different versions of it and he is RUTHLESS when he plays. So the other day, out of the blue he told me that he wanted to make his own monopoly game. He asked me to help with the writing and coloring and that he would come up with everything else. I believe we are the only people on the planet who have a Monopoly game that has a space for a Tickle Factory
and an Invisible Factory! For almost 2 hours, we worked together as he designed his own gameboard (complete with his own street names) and then came up with the costs for each property and their rents and then we proceeded to play his Monopoly game. He was SO incredibly proud of his accomplishment. So he followed his interest and in doing so he learned math, reading, writing, and art....and of course he beat me by a mile!

"You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it within himself." -Galileo

Why the Need to Place Children into a Box?

2009-02-27T23:35:00.001-05:00

Ever since our little tornado boy was born, we always allowed free reign of the house and creativity. We followed safety lines but he could explore anywhere he wanted. If he wanted to try something or asked a question about something, we always went out of our way to provide as many resources as possible to help quench his thirst for knowledge. I will never forget when he was around 3 years old, he would sit at the computer and using word cards we had made for him, he would type in his favorite words (firetruck, school bus, train...) in a search engine and pull down sites, pictures and movies and spend afternoons just exploring his favorite subjects. I think he was the only 3 year old that would sit forever and watch an old 1970's school bus safety video over and over again. When he asked a question and our answer was, "I don't know", it never crossed our minds to leave it at that. We showed him how to find the answer and we would do it together.

Due to his many unique needs and a poor experience from preschool, when it came time for elementary school we decided to homeschool. We started in August for his Kindergarten year and my brain seemed to change for some bizarre reason and I put on my teacher hat and pulled out a lesson plan book. We researched around for the various curriculum choices for gifted children and finally came to a conclusion and ordered some items. I planned out the lessons and the scope and sequence and felt like I was right back in the "required" frame of mind that the public schools had so repeatedly banged into my head after my years of teaching. Our creative/exploratory lifestyle we had been living for the past 5 years seemed to float out the window. Everything was neat and organized along with a schedule and we went on our merry way down the road of homeschooling....and we all lived happily ever after......NOT!

For some reason, I felt compelled to follow the "rules" and I quickly fell into the trap so many homeschooling moms fall into...the daily battle to get "work" done. I was so concerned about following the standards and being able to put a portfolio together at the end of the year for the county to sign off on his education for the year that I wasn't listening to my son's needs and wants. It came to a head before the holidays, where I finally opened my eyes and realized that this technique wasn't working. We took a break during the holidays and I did some much needed soul searching and I had a revelation. When I began teaching many years ago, I went out of my way to think outside of the box. I listened to the needs and wants of the kids and planned my lessons around that....I guess I was a bit of a rebel because I didn't believe in the state standards and all the hype of getting kids ready for "the test". I was just SO excited to go in every day and show my kids just how cool learning was. If they wanted to learn about the solar system, I set up an astronomy night with volunteers from the local astronomy club and telescopes all over the school's front lawn. If they were into dinosaurs, I found bleached cow bones and I buried them in the playground and showed the kids how to be archaeologists and lay out grid lines, dig and how to record data. The deep concentration they showed trying to place those bones into various positions to rebuild what they thought their "dinosaur" was based on the size and shape of the bones. I followed their lead and just helped facilitate their explorations and discoveries. I involved families and had 1-2 parents in my room working almost every day on one project or another. After several years of quite a creative classroom and happy kids and parents, I began to hear rumblings from my fellow teachers. Some good, some bad. Some of the teachers on my team were really upset with me because they said they were tired of hearing about all of my "unusual lessons" from the parents in their classes asking why they weren't doing some of the same things in their classrooms. The teachers shared that they didn't want to take the time to plan all of these activities and that I should just stick to the curriculum and the standards and the same old BORING worksheets and workbooks. I tried my best to share ideas and activities and show them that I was just so eager and excited and wasn't it just the coolest thing to see a kids face light up when they explored a prism or magnet. I will never forget the day my principal took me to the side and said that she loved everything that I was doing in my classroom and that she loved just walking in and seeing how excited the kids were every day (she had even nominated me for a special teacher award) and that she knew I was doing the right thing in my classroom. She then turned around and told me that she wanted me to "tone it down" to appease the others on my team. She shared that many had been teaching a very long time and that it was difficult for them to change their ways and wouldn't it be better if I "toned" things down and perhaps do a handful of creative activities/lessons a few times each year instead of every week. She thought this would smooth things over and bring all of us to the same page again. After that conversation, I really lost respect for her and a bit of my love of teaching disappeared. Why should I try to fit myself into some expected mold just because everyone else didn't feel like exerting energy. Why was it bad for me to be so excited to come in every day just to see the excitement on the kids faces when the lightbulb went off while some others preferred to take the easy way out and pass out a worksheet and follow a distinct plan. I felt defeated and beat down. Over time, I began to change my methods and followed the status quo. My fellow teachers were happy again but the children and parents were clearly disappointed. As the next few years passed, I went along with the herd and taught my K kids how to bubble in standardized test forms in preparation for "the test". I remember meeting several other "boat rockers" throughout my teaching career and they all pretty much wound up on the same path I did...being beat down. I didn't want to rock the boat so I passed out workbooks and before I knew it, long gone were the hands-on experiments and the explorations....and my passion for teaching was gone. I felt cheated and I had no desire to step into the classroom every day anymore...so after almost 15 years I hung up my teaching hat. I conformed, I was a good girl and did as I was told. I went with the cattle herd and made sure to stay in the box that I was so clearly told that I needed to stay in.

When I sat down over the holiday break to figure out where things went so wrong with our attempt at Homeschooling..the light bulb went off. I had gone back to my old one size fits all frame of mind that had been beaten into me throughout the last few years of my teaching career. I had put a stop to creative learning and exploration. I squashed all free thinking. I tried to squeeze my child into the required box that all children MUST be forced into according to the general population. The problem was that he refused to be placed into the box. Of course when I shared my concern with some outside people, their first comments were, "well he is going to need to learn to conform sometime" or "he is going to have to learn to adapt and fit in and the sooner he learns the easier it will be for him in the long run". "Why?", I asked. Why the need to make a child jump through all the same hoops as each other. Why does society have this undying need to make sure that everyone comes out of the same cookie cutter molds? Why? Why the need to place children into a box and make sure that everyone does exactly the same thing because they need to learn to conform and fit in? Why must things be taught the exact same way to each child?

All I can say is that "the box" in our house has been revamped by my 6 year old by specific blueprints that HE drew up and showed me. It now has a door cut into the front to allow any form of creativity to enter, a sun ray satellite dish on top to help collect information, a connecting secret hideout to plan future adventures and a large pinecone at the front for decoration.

Last Child in the Woods

2009-02-26T14:23:00.001-05:00

I have just finished reading this amazing book - Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and for anyone that has not picked it up - I highly recommend it. You know the big focus that has come about with the term Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and for some reason, any child who is overly excitable - they are immediately labeled as having ADD. This book focuses on a growing problem of Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD). Many of us may have had the luxury of growing up near or around green areas. I remember exploring what seemed like a never ending section of forest next to my house when I was little. My brother and I would hunt for black berries and blue berries, we found hidden swimming holes and made pine needle nests. Sadly, many kids now a days don't have the opportunity to explore nature due to massive over building and in our case here in Florida, the belief of slash and burn everything when new housing developments go up. My son just doesn't have a huge back yard where he can get lost in the woods. This book opened my eyes to just how much children need the opportunity to get out and explore nature....explore a pond, explore a patch of woods, smell nature and just listen to it. The Nintendo DS and the world of Wii have taken over SO many children's lives and they spend an unreal amount of time with their bottoms glued to a chair and their faces glued to the tv or video game that many kids have NO idea how to even explore nature. I remember when I used to teach kindergarten, every year I had a large amount of children who had no idea how to even "play" outside. When it came time to go out to the playground for recess, many just sat along the fence because they didn't know how to "play" without a computer system or planned activity.
Thanks to this amazing book, my son and I are now making a conscious effort to get out once a week to explore a new area of town. I have found that he really enjoys hiking so we have hiked many state and county park areas....we have purchased a pair of binoculars and a bird whistle and really get out and experience the joy of nature. One of our last hiking trips, we were the only ones on a 2 mile hiking trail along the Indian River lagoon. We heard a strange noise in the water next to our hiking path and low and behold we were speechless when we saw this beautiful manatee, just a few feet from us, eating off some mangrove trees. We watched, totally captivated for several minutes and then he slowly swam away. I will always remember that moment and seeing my son so excited was just priceless. My son is now able to name a handful of native Florida plants and several bird species and he gets excited when he learns new things each time we are out. I urge everyone to try to get out once a week for their own "green hour" or day and you won't be disappointed!

A place to share

2009-02-10T20:28:00.001-05:00

Well, looks like I found a much needed outlet to vent my frustrations and worries as a mom to an amazing EF5 tornado child. Many days I sincerely feel like I am chasing a tornado! My special little guy is 6 and is considered a 2e child - he is both gifted and learning disabled. As the years have passed by, I feel as if I have spent half my life on the computer or with my face buried in books trying to better understand my amazing little boy. I am hoping to use this blog spot to vent and share my journey in raising a child who is gifted, has Sensory Processing Disorder, Dyspraxia and possibly some OCD tendencies. He never seems to stop and wants to know and learn about everything all while trying to overcome his other disabilities. For those out there who also have their own little tornado children, perhaps this blog may enlighten you and help you as you grow and learn....thanks for coming along for the storm chasing ride!