Delving into My Aspieness

I just found this blog written by an autism specialist named Tania Marshall. In this particular post she lists the First Signs of Asperger Syndrome in Young Girls Pre-school. I was so tempted to reproduce her list and make my comments here. However, that is illegal (called plagiarism) and that is also the lazy way.

I did recognize a LOT of myself in her list but not in every item. People who knew me when I was that age may look at this same list and say, "Oh, yeah, she did that for sure!" to something that I simply don't remember doing. I mean, how many of us really remember our preschool years??

I will comment on some of the things on her list which I most strongly identify with:

• Sensory Sensitivities: I've always had issues with this. I remember when I was in elementary school I had to have MY special pillow and pillow case. The pillow case was extra soft (made from a gunny sack, if there is anyone out there who remembers what those were!) I would NOT accept any other. I still have have to have MY pillow. This is just one small example out of many sensory issues I have.
• Speech: My mother had me in speech therapy when I was in elementary school. I used to insist on my own "special" pronunciation of words like "Belbow" for elbow.
• Hyperlexia: When I was learning to read in 1st grade, I was SO excited about it that I came home every day and taught my little sister (13 months younger than me) what I'd learned that day. She was reading on a 2nd grade level by the time she hit Kindergarden and I had been her teacher!
• Play: In the lower elementary years, I remember trying to play with the girls my age and being frustrated because they didn't want to play the way I wanted to. So I played with the boys instead and had a grand time pretending rocks were cars on that old rock retaining wall.
• Appearance and clothing: Those who attended school with me from 1st through 12th can attest to the fact that I had my very own sense of style. Maybe it's the fact that I'd attended school with these same kids for so many years that I didn't get teased even more about that than I did.
• Imagination: I was an AVID reader as a girl. I often read and enjoyed books many grade levels over my own.
• Writing: I was intensely interested in writing and wrote many of my own stories. I'm sure I would have written much more had I had the luxury of using a computer instead of my spiral notebooks and pencil.
• Determination: Oh, my gosh!! Do I fit this one to a tee!! I am still one of the most stubborn and competitive people you will meet.
• Attention Issues: I spent the majority of my childhood hanging out in my own world. All the way up into my college years, I had a rich fantasy life in my mind and preferred to spend time there rather than in the real world.
• Hyperempathy: I still struggle with this one. I can get choked up over the craziest things.

Add to these things the general social awkwardness that always accompanies the aspie and it is a wonder to me that I was never diagnosed. I have absolutely no doubt that I am an aspie and don't feel the need as an adult to be diagnosed. I would sure love to get feedback from people who knew me as a kid on the list I mentioned in the beginning of this post.

Eeek!! I'm a microwave Christian!!

Like so many people my age, I am a certain product of my generation. We are the generation that saw the microwave enter nearly every American home. We are the generation of "I want it all and I want it NOW!" Remember that song?? 

I see this in several areas of my life. My weight loss for sure! Who of us doesn't want to see the weight come off overnight? Even as much as I tell myself that is not healthy even if I could find a way to make it happen, I STILL want it to happen that way. Even worse, I still get discouraged when the weight doesn't come off as quickly as I'd like to see.

I see it in my parenting. I want to be able to tell my kids how things are supposed to be and have them follow and obey without question. Anyone who has kids (especially teenagers) knows this is NOT how it happens. You have to train them and correct them, then train them and then correct them again. At times it feels like they are never going to get it. But we have to stick with it and they don't become well adjusted, with a good work ethic, high morals and great character over night. It takes years of patient parenting to get to that point.

I realized this past week that I see it in my running too. It's hard for me to slow down and build up to faster speeds and greater endurance because "I want it all, and I want it now!" On ever run I go for now, I remind have to myself to take it slow and steady. I'm going to have to crochet myself a tiny turtle to take on my runs to remind myself of this. Again, it's the patient building of muscles and endurance through many practice runs. This takes time.

I also see it in my prayer life. I've been wanting to learn to pray more effectively and not be so bored in prayer and not have my mind wander as it tends to when I'm trying to converse with Jesus. I got discouraged when I tried to pray the way Daniel Henderson outlines Worship based prayer. 

What I think I failed to recognize is that much like my running, I am in prayer training. It's going to take patient building of my prayer 'muscles and endurance'. That is of course assuming that I'm going into prayer with the correct motivations and with a clean heart before my Lord. But that is a totally different discussion.

So basically the Lord is teaching me to slow down and listen for HIS leading instead of running off half cocked barely having any idea what direction I'm even going.

I have not wanted to post to this because we have had such a tough time staying consistent to doing school the last couple of months. I prefer for my posts to be uplifting and encouraging, however I also desire to be real and transparent. It's not always easy to find that balance. I'll just share what God has been doing in me over the past couple of months.

I shared about my second fall and messing up my knee two posts ago. To make a long story short, I bruised my kneecap which means that it will be a long time before it feel normal again. In the meantime, I've been allowed to go back to running. Praise God!! I am doing my best to take it slowly and not push myself too hard, too fast.

So I'd been back to running for two weeks when my hubby came home feeling like he was coming down with a cold on a Thursday. All that night he ran a temperature and stayed home Friday from work. By Saturday, I was beginning to feel like I was coming down with it too. By Sunday I was running a temperature as well. Went to the doctor on Monday and was told that I had an upper respiratory infection. I wasn't the only one who came down with MyHero's cold. All 3 kids came down with it as well. Even the dog was sneezing! We spent the week of Thanksgiving hunkered down and quarantined from the rest of the world. Praise God that my hubby already had the week off. He had asked for it off months before.

Due to all the sickness and perhaps from just being so inactive, I've been fighting depression again. The enemy tries to tell me that I'm a terrible mom and that I'm failing at homeschooling my kids. Never mind the fact that we've been sick and that I had scheduled this week off from school! I refused to give in to the lies and kept reminding myself of the truth.

This morning is Sunday and I was home sick with sick kids. I listened to our church service live via internet connection. I was so glad that I did! One of the things the speaker discussed was fighting depression and how we can choose to praise and be thankful instead of believing the lies.

Another thing that God has been impressing on my heart is to spend more of my time seeking Him. I want to seek for Him as for hidden treasure. I want to seek for Him as for the thing that is going to save my life. "As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God." Psalm 42

The way that is walking out for me is by listening to all the recorded sermons from Genesis to Revelation from our church. I must confess that since I've been sick I haven't been very consistent with this. I think the enemy of my soul recognizes that I'm on a path to blessing from the Lord and doesn't want that for me.

Yet another thing the Lord has been laying on my heart is a desire to see unbelievers come to know Him. I want to be used to bring them to Jesus. As a stay at home, homeschool mom I don't get many opportunities for that. However, I do have this blog and I have my Facebook. Therefore, I'm recommissioning this blog to the purpose of sharing what God chooses to teach me through His Word. I pray that this will be used to bring others to Him!

Why I'm Not Making My Kids Do Dishes Anymore

You are more than welcome to disagree with me, but I have chosen NOT to make my kids do dishes anymore. The way I see it, they have plenty of other chores to teach them responsibility. 

They each are responsible to do their own laundry, ManBoy is charged with taking out the trash, Fashionista is to keep the bathroom sparkling, and RoboBoy's job is to keep the floors swept and clean. In addition they are each tasked with keeping their rooms and computer areas clean. Yes, we have more than one computer, in fact each child has access to one to use during the day. They also have various smaller chores to keep up with such as helping to care for the critters.

The main reason I'm not letting them do dishes anymore is because I got fed up with never having a clean kitchen. There seemed to always be dirty dishes, and messy countertops. As a result, we've had an issue with ants causing us to have to keep our bread, peanut butter and other ant attractors in the refrigerator. Clean dishes were rarely put back where they belonged. I felt like my kitchen was constantly in a state of disorder which totally stresses me out.

I also feel that, by doing the dishes myself, my kids can see that I'm doing something to contribute to keeping our home clean and orderly. Not that I didn't before, but this is a more tangible contribution. This should help them to feel less 'used' or like mom is just giving them all the work to do.

So as I said, you are welcome to disagree with me on this, but my kids are no longer allowed to do dishes in our house. Well, except on rare occasions. Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

Sidelined for Jesus

I shared in my last post about falling and scraping myself up pretty badly. As a runner, it is hard to let yourself be down for very long. I was recovering well and saw no reason not to be out running. Besides that, I had an important race coming up. It was the official kick off race for our running team, Calvary Chapel Running Team. 

So this past Wednesday I was out doing one of my training runs. Since my last 5k (3.1 mi) race had been so difficult to complete I had decided to clock a 5k on my own working on endurance more than speed. I was near the end of my 5k and still doing well and feeling very proud of myself when it happened again! Even as I was going down I was thinking to myself, "OH, NO!! NOT again!!" 

I'm pretty sure it was either the same location as the first fall or very close to it. As I sat there gathering the strength to get back up and assessing the damage, I felt overwhelming discouragement. I just wanted to sit there and cry and cry. I was also feeling angry. I'm not real sure who or what I was angry with but I was MAD!!!

I did manage to get up and limp home again. Even tried to run for a short way. Yes, I'm THAT hard headed! Quickly realized that my injuries were to much for that. Once I got home and got a good look at my injuries, I realized that my left knee was in pretty bad shape. What had been just a minor bruise after the first fall was now swollen about twice it's normal size and had very limited range of motion.

Since then, I've been doing my best to stay off that leg, keeping it elevated and icing it. After 4 days fighting depression, discouragement, and boredom that knee is still swollen and painful. So much so that I stayed home from church in order to keep it propped up. Praise God that our church broadcasts the services live over the internet. There was a special speaker who is a special friend to our church, Daniel Henderson. I'm sure that his message spoke to many others as well, but it was one of those that felt like it was especially for me. You can hear it at: http://www.ccstpete.com/living-word-media/teaching/index.cfm?tape_id=GS3352.

Of all things, the message was titled, "Don't Just Do Something! Sit There!" That's precisely what I'm being forced to do. I guess I'm one of those who is so stubborn that God has to sideline me to get my attention! You've heard of the proverbial frying pan to the head! After hearing this message, I have a new purpose to my recovery. I'm convinced that God wants to use this time to teach me to pray effectively. Not those boring, struggling to stay focused, God here's my list of requests prayers, but reaching the heart of God, worship saturated prayers.

At this point, I have no idea how long my recovery will be, whether weeks or months. I need to see the doctor for some kind of prognosis on that, but I'm going to try make the most of this time sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Blood, Sweat and Tears! All part of a typical homeschool week!

I don't know about you other homeschool moms, but I've been about as busy as a toddler in a room full of nick-nacks! We haven't been without our share of blood, sweat and tears either! Literally.

Last Thursday I was out running when I stumbled and fell. Running is not supposed to be a contact sport, but I guess I was trying to make it into one! I scraped myself up pretty good! Ended up having to take several days off from running to recuperate. My road rash is still healing and my left knee is a sickly shade of yellow and purple, but I got back out there yesterday. Trying hard to take it easy. Not something I do well!

That same day, I got word that my dad's brother died. He had been fighting a 2 year battle with cancer. I'm glad to be able to say that Uncle David had a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. He performed the wedding service for MyHero's and my wedding. In his last days, he had taken to having a weekly church service for all the family in his home. Even my dad, who had not been to church in years, attended. What a wonderful legacy to leave!! He will be greatly missed by many! I can't wait to be able to visit with him again in heaven!! Please pray for my Aunt Debi and my cousins and their children as well as the rest of my family. They will be grieving for some time yet.

This week I have been plagued by migraines. They have made it difficult to monitor school progress. Yesterday, I was helping RoboBoy with his school work when I got slammed with a migraine. It had been gradually coming on for an hour or so, but suddenly became unbearable. I told RoboBoy that he would have to do his best on his own with his school, then I took my prescription and went to bed. So far today I'm feeling better. Such is the life of a homeschool mom!

Off and Running!

We have now been back to school for just shy of 4 weeks. Each day has not been without it's struggles, but I'm very proud of the consistency we are displaying! At this rate, this may turn out to be one of our best school years yet.

I have to give a shout out to Mark Berg who runs the new math practice site that I've found for the kids. It is called Math Facts Pro and is only $5 per year for 5 students! Yes, you read that correctly. That's $1 per student. It is geared to teachers who have a class full of students but works great for homeschool moms. 

In fact, after some e-mail communication with Mark yesterday, he shared with me that his wife homeschools their children. Makes perfect sense! It seems that homeschoolers are the ones who usually have the ingenuity to invent such programs and then make it affordable for all.

Besides being affordable, I like the fact that this program, while going over the most basic of math facts, does not make my kids feel like they are being treated like babies.

I feel like I have FINALLY found a way to remediate my children's lack of math skills without having to hire a tutor or spend hours with each child going over flash cards!

We were using another online math facts practice program that was free. However I became frustrated with it after two weeks of the site being down. I decided that it was time to scrap that one and find something else. I'm so glad that I did because now we get to support another wonderful homeschool family while using a program that more perfectly suits our needs!

We are still using Time4Learning for Fashionista and RoboBoy. They are using it for Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions and Social Studies. RoboBoy still needs my assistance when he "does school" on the computer. He has a hard time focusing when there is a lot of text to be read. So I set aside time to sit and help him through it. We are both learning a lot. LOL

How is your school year starting out? How long have you been back? Have you realized that you need to make any changes in curriculum?