We are all sick. It is yucky. Roger woke up and went to church. The only person well enough to go with him was Alissa. Roger is still feeling sick, just not as bad as he was before. He had to go to church today because he had to teach the lesson.
Parker, Brinley, and I all stayed home feeling sick. When Roger got home from church, he hurried and packed his stuff and left to go to Dan's house. The windshield on our car has a crack in it and it wouldn't pass inspection. Dan said he had a windshield he could put on it, free of charge, so Roger went to get that taken care of.
After Roger left, the kids and I spent the rest of the night just chillin'. None of us are feeling very well, so we did a lot of sitting around. I spent a lot of the night on the computer, trying to get caught up on my blog.
At one point in the night, Roger sent us a picture of him holding Dan's little girl
Alissa and I responded with a duck face picture. This is my first duck face. I've seriously never tried to do that before. Apparently, I'm horrible at it.
Fuller House is on Netflix now. I always loved watching Full House when I was little. I love that they decided to make this new show. It is the same characters that were in the original Full House, all grown up. They are playing the same character's as adults. I love that idea. I was super excited to watch it. I really wanted it to be just as cheesy and nice as the original Full House. Alissa's friend, Sydney (who wants to be our Kimmy Gibler) came to watch the show with us.
We tried to watch all of the episodes tonight, but were unsuccessful. I was getting too tired and starting to fall asleep, then Sydney's mom came to get her. So, we called it quits. We'll have to finish them all tomorrow.
I really loved how they did it. The new show is just as cheesy as the first. I love it!
Roger had to work tonight, so he wasn't here. I knew he wouldn't want to watch the show anyway. Roger and I don't like very many of the same shows.
Homeschooling is exhausting! But I think it is going to be so good and so fun for us. I'm just really tired tonight. I think it's a good thing, though. We did a lot of fun learning today. The most time consuming think we did today was the making of Brinley's cooking show. Making a show and doughnuts took a lot of time and energy. She decided to call her show, 'Brilliant Brinley's Baked Sweets'.
The other thing we did was to try and build a tall tower using skewers and playdough. We first tried it with a square base. I helped to start that one, then Parker joined in. Eventually I quit and let Parker figure it out on his own. It fell down before he could get it very tall, so we took it apart and started over with a triangle base. Parker didn't work on it too much longer after that. We cleaned up that mess and started on the cooking show.
Parker has a head cold which is causing him to have a yucky headache, so I didn't expect him to do much schooling at all today. Roger woke up feeling sick also and by the time we all went to bed tonight, we were all feeling sick. It is not fun!
Roger took Brinley on a Daddy Daughter Date tonight. Roger has taken Parker and Alissa at various times on outings, but he hasn't done anything with just him and Brinley. So, he's been talking to Brinley about what they might do. After Brinley's first experience at the Chuck-a-rama, she knew that if they went out to eat, that's where she'd want to go, but she wasn't sure what else she'd like to do. Roger and I talked about it for a little bit today and we decided that she would love to go out to eat and there was a fun store in Logan that she'd love to go and see.
Roger needed to run and errand in Logan, so he decided tonight would be the perfect night for Brin and him to go on their Daddy Daughter Date. Brinley was so excited!
They had a lot of fun! Brinley loved her dinner. They said there was a large family at a table next to them. Every one of them had their own electronic (tablet, phone, kindle, I-pad, etc). Roger said that there was no noise coming from that table. They each had headphones and their electronics. They all went and got their food, then sat down to eat and watch their electronics. I thought that was crazy! I can't imagine spending that much money to take your family out and then you all sit at the table and ignore each other. That's crazy! If we're going out, we're going to enjoy each other's company.
Anyway, enough about that. Brinley and Roger went to whatever store it was that Roger had to go to, then they went to the store Roger and I had talked about. I still can't remember the name of it. Even after Roger came home and told me about it. I still don't remember.
They had fun wandering around that store. There are lots of toys and fun things I knew Brinley would love. Roger told her he would buy her something for $5.00. She was excited about that. She saw a diary with a key that she wanted really bad, when they first walked into the store. The diary was $10.00, so they decided to look around and see if they could find something cheaper. The cheaper diaries were horrible and Brinley never found anything else in the store that she wanted more than that. So, Roger decided to buy the $10.00 diary for her. She was so excited! When she came home and told us all about it. She felt so special and she especially loved that he got her the more expensive diary. She loves. She cleaned off her dresser top when she got home, so she had a nice place to keep it, and she hid the key somewhere she thinks we'll never find it. She said she had the best night ever. I'm happy she finally got to do that.
This horrible little monster was in Alissa's room. There are too many spiders down in Alissa and Parker's rooms. They have both decided that they want to move to rooms upstairs, so we will be doing some room swapping soon. The spiders are just creeping them out too much. We've had the house sprayed, but we still keep seeing spiders every where down there. It's yuck!
I'm hoping that after we have the house sprayed a few times, it will be better.
It's my sister Missy's Birthday today. I always wish I lived closer to my sisters on their birthdays. I think it would be fun to live close enough so I could celebrate with them.
The weather was really nice today. It is so nice to get to be playing outside again. We are loving it! Brinley is loving having so much room to practice her tricks.
I ended up spending most of the day in the kitchen. Roger wanted French bread, so we could make garlic bread to go with our dinner tonight. So, I made french bread. I needed to make regular bread, so we would have bread for lunches this week. I decided that I wanted to try a different recipe this time. The recipe I tried was Amish White Bread. It uses a lot more milk, than I normally use when making bread. I wondered what kind of difference it would make. The bread turned out really good. I'm definitely going to use this recipe again. The recipe makes enough dough for 3 loaves of bread, but I only have 2 loaf pans, so I decided to use the remainder of the dough to make doughnuts. My family was so excited when they tasted the doughnuts. They were thrilled to know that I know how to make doughnuts. I don't know why I've never made them for them before. I guess it always just seems like too much work. They loved the doughnuts. They thought they tasted better than the store bought doughnuts. I'm pretty sure we'll be making them again in the near future.
The other thing I made today was Homemade Cheez-its. I printed up that recipe a long time ago. I just haven't gotten around to trying it. I figured that since I'd be in the kitchen all day, I might as well try them. I didn't love them. The girls thought they were okay. Roger and Parker loved them! They couldn't get enough. Roger kept saying, "You're going to have to start making these all the time now."
I'm sure I took a picture of all of the treats I made today, sitting together on the middle of the counter. But, looking through my pictures, I can't find it anywhere. It's weird that I don't have that picture. So, the only picture of the garlic bread I made is in the picture where the kids are eating their doughnuts. The bread is sitting on the counter, off to the side. If I find that picture, I'll post it. I wonder if I did the thing, where I think about how I need to do something, then, I get distracted by something, but I imagine that I did it, even though I didn't.
Today was such a nice day! It was so fun to be able to go out an play outside for a while. Alissa had to wake up early to go with the Young Women to do baptisms for the dead. One of the leaders came to pick her up. We were surprised when we opened the front door and there was an inch of snow on the ground and it was still snowing! The weather hadn't mentioned anything about a snow storm. So, I started the day thinking it was going to be snowy and cold all day. Luckily, that wasn't the case. Eventually the snow stopped, the clouds cleared, and the sun warmed everything up. It was finally warm enough to play outside without a jacket.
I started my day, with a nap. I went back to bed for a couple of hours after Alissa left with the Young Women. When I woke up, Parker and Brinley were awake. They were each doing their own thing. Brinley was playing the computer and Parker was watching some YouTube videos on the I-phone. I asked Parker and Brinley if they wanted some breakfast, but they had already fed themselves, so that was nice. Brinley went to play something else and I took over the computer. I'm trying to get caught up on my blog and I figured out a way to add videos. I can put videos on YouTube. If I post them under unlisted, they don't show up in searches and the only way to get to them is from my blog. I'm so happy about that! I've been trying to find a way to add videos. I thought I had a good way when I discovered google drive, but that didn't work because I quickly ran out of space and it kept threatening that my email wouldn't work until I deleted videos. I deleted a bunch of them, but it still kept having that warning. So, I deleted more, but the warning was still there. I slowly deleted all of the videos I had on their, trying to get it to stop sending that warning. Roger finally came and looked at it for me and figured out, that I deleted the movies and it kept them in a trash can folder. He deleted the folder and it finally stopped saying I was out of space. But all my videos were not on there anymore. I always wanted to use YouTube, but I felt embarrassed to have the videos out there for everybody to see. They are still out there for everybody to see, but the only ones who will see them are the readers of my blog and I'm okay with that. Hopefully there is not a limit on how many videos I can post on YouTube. If not, then I found my way to back up my videos. I feel like my blog is a back up to all my pictures. If anything happens and i lose my pictures, I know there are copies of them on my blog.
After my scrapbooking, Parker and I were sitting in the sun on the bench seat in the kitchen. Parker was wishing it was warm enough to go outside. I decided to open the window and see. It felt really nice from the window. Brinley heard us talking about it, so she ran and got her shoes, then went out to see how it felt. She was excited to be able to practice her cartwheels outside where there is lots of room. Brinley stayed out there for a while doing cartwheels. Parker hurried to get ready and go out and play also. First, he changed out of his pants and into his shorts. He's goofy like that. He was just excited that it felt warm enough. My kiddos can't wait for summer.
Parker played with Brinley for a little bit, then he went to the front yard to ride the bike. I say the bike, because it is not his bike. It's Alissa's old bike, which is the only bike we have left for the kids, so they all share it.
After that, he got his roller-blades on and did some rollerblading.
Brinley went across the street and invited Ashley to come and play with her.
They had a lot of fun playing outside, but eventually they decided they were bored of the backyard and they wanted to go play at the park.
Autumn got ready and went over there with them. Parker came back shortly after they left and said he had a bad feeling about it over there. I don't like to let them go to that park without me, because there is a lot of trouble that goes on over there. I got my shoes on and went over there with them.
Eventually, Roger woke up and came and joined us. Alissa didn't want to come outside at all. She was feeling a little sick and wanted to stay in bed.
We got home from the park and relaxed for a little while.
Brinley went over to play at Ashley's house. I tried to figure out something for Roger to eat and I cleaned the kitchen.
Alissa had my phone and brought it to me when I got a text message from Malaiyah's mom. She asked if the girls could play. Brinley and Alissa were excited. They have been missing Teirnynn and Malaiyah a lot. Roger doesn't usually like them to have friends over, but since it had been so long since they've seen each other, he said it'd be fine.
They had a ton of fun with Malaiyah and Teirnynn here. Brinley and Teirnynn did their make up, put on dresses, and made up some dances. I had a lot of fun watching their cute dances they made up. I'm glad they had so much fun together today.
When Brinley and Teirnynn started feeling tired, they sat down and played with the cloud dough for a while.
Malaiyah and Alissa spent most of their time talking and playing on the phone and the computer.
They came with good news. They aren't moving to Draper! Their mom is getting married in April and they had planned to move to Draper after the wedding. But things changed and they are going to stay in Tremonton! Also, their mom got a new job, closer to home, with the same hours each day, so she will be home more. They are happy about that and it will make it easier for us to plan play dates for them.
It is official! We made up our minds. We are homeschooling again. Parker's teacher was willing to meet with us and said she'd be open to discussing things with us and trying to make things better for Parker. But I just couldn't do it. We've been down this path before. I'm just tired of dealing with this kind of stuff with the schools. I've had enough. I really didn't want to go through this whole process again..... and I really doubt it would have made a difference.
Brinley wants to be homeschooled also. I know after the last time, I said I really didn't want to do this ever again. I really didn't want to homeschool, because I kept doubting myself so much and causing myself so much stress. But..... I realize that it is necessary. I want Parker to be successful. He is put down too much at school and has to deal with a lot of unnecessary conflict. He is a good kid who does not set out to make trouble. He just struggles. It think a lot of it is anxiety. He's had teachers who have recognized when he is getting too worked up and overwhelmed, and they let him calm down before moving on to the next subject or trying to get him working on his assignment again. The years with those teachers were the good times. Unfortunately, not all teachers are like that. He keeps getting the teacher who have no patience and when they see him getting upset or struggling, they yell at him to get things done. When that happens, he shuts down, he won't talk to anyone and he tries to hide his face if he can. Then the teacher keeps pushing. Tells him not to be a baby, makes him look up at her, and gets in his face about how he has to do his work. That usually the point where he loses his temper and yells or throws something. When he was 5 years old, he started crying for his mom. She got in his face and told him that he couldn't see his mom until he finished his work. I am just done trying to work with the schools. I want to help Parker to want to learn and to think positively about learning. He has not had good experiences that would make him love learning. He's had so much bad, he has no desire to do any kind of schooling. That's what makes things so hard.
I'm feeling more hopeful this time around. I've been reading the Thomas Jefferson Education book. I'm going to base most of our schooling off of that. I think it will be a stress free way for Parker to learn. Another thing that will be different about this year is that Brinley will is being homeschooled also. Brinley loves to learn. She is really smart. The kids in her class will tell you she is the smartest girl in her class. At Parent teacher conferences, the teacher said that Brinley always goes above and beyond on all of her schoolwork. She has the best penmanship in the class and when they give assignments, telling the students to only do the even or odd problems, Brinley always asks if it's okay if she does all of the problems. She gets straight As and 100% on every spelling test.
When Parker, Brinley, and I were discussing how we will be doing our homeschooling and what kind of things we were going to be doing, Brinley had lots of ideas about things she wants to learn. In math, she was wanted to go ahead of her class and learn how to multiply double and triple digits, so that is the first thing she wants to focus on in math. I think it is fun that she knows exactly what she wants to learn all ready. Homeschooling her will be lots of fun and I'm sure she'll keep me busy. I think having her here showing Parker how much fun learning can be, will help Parker a lot. I really want him to see it as a good thing.
During our homeschooling hours we are keeping the TV off, so when I went to make lunch, this is what Parker and Brinley did. They pulled out and played with some of their old toys. They had fun.
My obsessive video and picture taking paid off today. Shelley called me. She was frustrated because the apartment managers claimed there was a light fixture covering the light in Alex's room when she moved in, but there is not one on their now. Shelley was sure there was never a cover over that light. She was calling to see if I remembered. I told her I'm not that observant and I have a terrible memory. That's why I take so many picture and videos and keep a journal. I realized that I probably have a picture of his room. I took lots of pictures and videos when they moved in. I looked through all the stuff I had. There were no pictures that had the ceiling in them, but I found a spot on one of the videos that showed the light in Alex's room. There was no light fixture covering it. Shelley was so thankful for the proof, so she won't have to pay for a new one.
Parker and Brinley had a lot of fun painting today. I told them to use the paper plates to mix paint on, but they decided to just paint the paper plates. I like their creativity. Parker painted fire. Brinley painted the sun and flowers.
It turns out, Alissa has a gift. She has really good aim. She is a natural. She went shooting with the Young Women and Young Men tonight. She was nervous. She remembers shooting something once with Roger, but it was a long time ago. So, she was nervous about going to this activity. She was glad she went, though. She was excited to show off how well she did. She said that she did better than most of the people there and a lot of them were experienced. They considered themselves to be pretty good. She was proud of herself for doing so well, but she felt like she cheated because she had a scope on her gun. Not everybody had that. I think she did awesome! And the leaders were impressed. They've never seen anybody do so well on their first time.
Parker made a Minecraft video for me to put on his YouTube channel. I don't understand why the kids enjoy watching things like this, but they just love it. They spend a lot of time on YouTube watching other people play video games. I think it's crazy. They are always wanting to make their own. This is the first time that I was nice and edited and produced the video for him on the same day he made it. Parker edited the video after I put it on his channel. He added music, because he thinks it is better that way.
I don't love the music. You can't hear when he talks, so if you want a non musical version, here it is.
I can't sleep. I'm feeling so frustrated with the kids' school right now. I've been thinking about it and praying about it all night. Roger had to work overtime and I didn't have time to talk to him about it before he left. He got to come home early because they weren't that busy. He got home a little after 1:00am, so I finally got to talk to him. He is now of a stickler than I am about the kids going to school, so I didn't know what he would think our say.
I've been worrying all night about what I should do tomorrow. I really don't want to send Parker back to school. I talked to him after I posted that last post on here. He said that he hasn't told us what was going on, because he didn't want us to be upset with him. I promised not to get mad at him. I explained that I had heard some things about how his teacher was doing things and how she was treating him. We told him that we don't want to get mad at him, but we want to help him. If he is having issues and his teacher is not being nice, we need to know so we can help him know how to handle and so we know if the teacher is being wrong and we need to step in to help him.
So, tonight he started telling me about what's been going on. Last month, we had come to the school for 2 meetings where we set up an iep and had a good plan worked out to help parker succeed and do well in school. It had been going wonderfully, but when the new teacher came in, she refused to do any of that stuff. Parker said he had asked the special ed Teacher for help to talk to his teacher. He said that she had talked to his teacher, but his teacher wouldn't do what the special ed Teacher asked. I listened to parker telling me about am the changes and the way the teacher had been dealing with him and taking to him and the more I heard the more frustrated, upset, and sad I got. I really wanted this charter school to be a good thing. It was working out so wonderfully until now. It just feels like we area staying over, dealing with the same stuff we sidled with at the public school. I can't do it again. I really don't want to send him to school tomorrow. He was crying add he went to bed about how he really doesn't want to go. It just hurts my heart. He was doing so well and he was loving school. Now we are back to the way it felt at the public school. From the things I've heard and what parker described it sounds like, Parker goes to school and it is just one long day of parker and his teacher butting heads. Not much schooling is getting fine. Just a big power struggle.
Anyway, Roger came home a and we talked about it. We are both on the same page about this. We do not want to have to deal with this again. Parker has had to put up with a lot when it comes to school. We don't want to have him in another bad situation where he is not learning anything and he is constantly getting yelled at by the teacher. Roger is mad that we spent all that time setting up a plan and the new teacher came in and is disregarding all of it. So, we agreed that we will keep parker home tomorrow and we will arrange to meet with his teacher and the principal or who ever to get this resolved in some way. We aren't sending him back into that situation. I am so relieved that Roger and I are on the same page with this. I just knew I couldn't send him to school tommorow. And I didn't know what I was going to do if Roger insisted that he go.
Alright. I'm tired now. I just needed to vent for a little bit. I'll have to read this tomorrow and see if it makes sense at all or if it is something I really wanted to blog about. I'm sure I'll keep it, because I like to use my blog as a journal. I'll just have to correct spend and grammar or whatever. Goodnight all.
This morning, Brinley's friend Rachel called to invite us to go ice skating with them at the outdoor rink in Logan. I didn't think we'd be able to go, since Roger has to work overtime tonight. I figured he'd stay in bed until 2 ish, we'd spend some time with him, then he'd leave for work. They wanted to meet at the ice skating rink at 12:30, so I told them that we couldn't make it. Roger ended up walking up a little after 11:00am. I was surprised that he was awake. Brinley was excited. She couldn't wait to ask him if he wanted to go ice skating. He debated about it for a little bit, then decided to take us. As we were driving, we were wondering if it would even be open. The snow was melting. We assumed they must have checked it out, before inviting everybody (they had checked online, and the website said it was open). We got there before everybody and there was a sign warning us to stay off the ice. Alissa and Roger were rebels and went out on the ice anyway.
I messaged their friends about it. They were coming anyway. We decided to play on the playground near by for a while.
The kids were really excited when their friends showed up.
They had a lot of fun playing. Roger kept them busy having snowball fights. I had a fun time visiting with Rachel's mom.
Eventually we all got cold and tired. Roger wanted some time to relax before he had to go to work, so we headed home. We picked up some lunch from McDonald's and Cafe Rio on the way. We are home relaxing now.
It was interesting talking with Rachel's mom. She asked how Parker is doing in school. Parker's teacher that he had at the start of the year, quit. I'm not sure of all the stuff that happened to make her want to quit, but she mentioned that she was frustrated and felt like there were too many complaints against her and she felt unappreciated. Parker was really sad about his teacher quitting. He really liked her. She was very patient with him, so I was disappointed too. His new teacher started 2 weeks ago. Parker does not really like her. He hasn't told me all the details of what has been happening at school. He comes home and complains about things, like, the whole class missing breaks and having to sit with their heads down because a couple of students were being loud. I didn't have a hard time getting him to go to school with his old teacher, but he really doesn't like school with his new teacher. I kept hoping that it was just because of the change. He doesn't like change and he doesn't handle it very well. But I keep hearing more and more stories from other parents at the school about incidents with this teacher and how she treats Parker. I don't know why Parker hasn't told me about them. I'm going to talk to him about it tonight. I have a feeling that he is keeping things to himself because he doesn't want to get in trouble. The incidents start out with him getting upset. The way the teacher is reacting to him is making it worse. Parker struggles in school. He struggles with changes. Even switching from one subject to the next is difficult for him. He handles it better when there is a set schedule and he knows what to expect. The new teacher came in and changed their whole routine. She also keeps getting mad at the class and taking away their breaks.
The other day Maryann told me about an incident where Sydney got in trouble. What happened was, Parker was upset. His teacher had brought him to the high school room to try and work things out with him I guess. I don't know that whole story, I just know that Sydney got up to go and comfort him and try to help out, but her teacher told her not to. Sydney got upset and told the teacher that her best friends little brother is upset and he needs my help right now. I will not sit down. The teacher sent her outside after that. I hadn't heard anything about what happened with Parker. His teacher hadn't tried to contact me at all about any problems they were having. I just figured everything was fine and that Parker was just struggling because of the changes.
During the first week with the new teacher, there was another incident that I hadn't heard all the details of. Brinley's friend Rachel, who we went to the park with today, has a sister in Alissa's class and a sister in Parker's class. Her sister in Parker's class is Shannon. I had heard on the day it happened, that Shannon had gotten upset and just left. She ran out of class and walked home.I learned more details about it today from her mom. This is their first year attending school. She has been homeschooling them up until this year, so Shannon didn't really understand how bad that was of her to run home. But, that's beside the point. Shannon was upset because the teacher was being horrible to the other students and the thing that pushed her over the edge was the way the teacher was treating Parker. She got upset at Parker. He was having a hard time and not handling things well. He started to cry and hid his head in his jacket. She shamed him in front of the class and made him stop hiding his face. It hurt Shannon's heart to see her friends being treated that way. She didn't know what to do, so she just left. I wanted to burst in to tears when she told me that. I can't handle hearing of the way he's been treated. I really don't understand why he hasn't talked to me about all of this. He has been begging for me to homeschool him again, but I keep telling him that it will get better. It's a new teacher, but it will be better once you get used to the new routine.
Another thing I heard about today, its that the teacher has 2 kids in the class. One of them lost their lunch. When the teacher realized, she accused the class of stealing the lunch. She punished them and talked to them about how it is wrong to steal. The next day when she found the lunch, she didn't apologize to the class.
Also, Shannon wrote an apology letter to the teacher, when she came back to the school. The teacher took it and read it, but never said "Thank you" or "I accept your apology" or, "Let's talk about this".
Parker did complain to me about how when he went to school his desk was moved. His old teacher knew he had a hard time with this, so she would talk to him before moving desks around. I told him to be patient with this teacher. she doesn't know, but I'm sure we can talk to her and work things out.
On Thursday, Parker's teacher asked me to come to class during their rotations, so I could help Parker. Apparently, he refuses to move each time and that's why they are struggling. I went to class and sat with Parker. He showed me what he was doing and where he was supposed to go and everything went smoothly. I din't love the way the teacher talks to the class. she reminds me a lot of the teacher Brinley had a few years ago that was always yelling at the class and punishing them whenever a few of them acted up. Brinley had a rough time dealing with that and she came home crying a lot. This teacher is a lot like that. She got made at the class a lot while I was there and when she thanked them for being good, it was in a rude way. She said it in a way where she thanked them and put them down at the same time. I don't know how to describe it and I wish I could remember the words she used so I could share an example. It just wasn't nice. She is not very good at working with kiddos.
The more and more stuff I hear, the more frustrated I am feeling. I'm not sure what to do. This school has been better for Parker because they work with him on the level that he s at and they are helping him to get caught up. At the public school, they didn't worry if he knew anything before moving on to the next level. So each level was harder and harder because he hadn't had enough time to learn the previous level. Public school was pointless for him to go to and that's why I had to homeschool last year. This year he is making progress because they are able to work with him on the level he is at and get him caught up, but I'm afraid that he is going to start having emotional issues again because of the new teacher. The biggest improvement I saw in Parker after homeschooling him last year was his confidence level. He is much better at knowing how to control his emotions and keep from freaking out. We haven't had any major issues this year that I know of, but it sounds like it's getting bad and kind of out of control and they aren't telling me about it.
I'm going to talk to Parker about it tonight and go to the school tomorrow to talk with his teacher and special ed teacher and see if we can work something out. Parker does not need to be shamed in front of the class. He is a good kid. He has the biggest heart. He just has some struggles. I'm pretty sure they are Autism related, but I've never had him tested to find out. But, I think it's time we find out. We never wanted him to have a label and that's mainly why we haven't checked it out. We worried about how giving him a label would affect him. The reason we are looking in to it now, is that I realized there are things I need to know in order to help him better. I don't feel like I've done a horrible job, but I bet things could be a lot easier if I knew exactly what is going on with him and I had some resources to help me know how to handle the different situations we face with him.
The thing that really got me thinking it was time to find out, was when I was talking to the special ed teacher at his school. She mentioned that her son has Asperger's. At some point in the conversation it came up that kids with Asperger's really don't like to feel like you are mad at them. It is really upsetting to them or maybe it was just to her son. I don't know. But this stuck in my brain. Later that night, Parker got upset over something and he was over reacting and getting really mad. I went to talk to him and get him to calm down. I explained that what he was doing was wrong and he needed to stop. He was still freaking out a little and he said, "I feel like you're getting mad at me." Normally, I would have said, yes I am getting mad at you, because of the way you are behaving it is hard for me and your sisters to handle. We don't like it and we want you to stop please. And I'd explain why it is bad and why he needs to stop. But I remembered what the special ed teacher said about how they don't like to feel like you are mad at them. So, I told him that I wasn't mad at him. I love him and I understand that he is having a hard time, but his temper tantrum is hard on everybody around him. I explained why he should stop and that I understood why he was feeling upset, but I need him to find a better way to calm down. I gave him some ideas of how to calm down and told him to chose to do one of them. He chose one and calmed down. That was a little before bed time, so he went to bed after that. The next day when he woke up, He came and gave me a big hug and said, "Thank you so much for not getting mad at me when I was upset yesterday. I'm really sorry that I did that." It was so cute and so special. My heart felt so happy that I had been able to help him in such a positive way. He has a doctor appointment next month, so we'll see how it all goes.
I didn't mean to ramble on for so long. It just feels good to get stuff all out there. And I think writing it down helps me to sort it all out. Hopefully things will get better with Parker at school.
