DIY with B, part 2

As you know, B and I did some DIY-ing last weekend.  If you haven't read the first post, please go back and see our epic fail.

Besides the candy, B really wanted to make cereal.  The girl on the video ensured that it would easy and delicious. She also claimed you could change the world by changing the things you add to the cereal after it's done.  B was hooked - he wants to change the world.  I was skeptical, at best, after the candy.

Skeptical or not, I trotted off to the dollar store to gather the ingredients.  The girl was right about one things, the ingredients weren't expensive - oats, butter, sugar and salt.  I also picked up a foil baking pan because she cooked her cereal in a roasting pan and I don't have one of those.

B was able to help more with this recipe as it did not involve constantly stirring a 200 degree liquid.  Nor did it include pouring a 300 degree liquid. Here he is getting the foil because we're supposed to cook the oats with the lid on.

The recipe was very easy.  The challenging part for B was that the oats have to cook for 45 minutes with the lid on then another 15 minutes with the lid off.  But he kept himself busy getting ready for the cereal.

He found a box, because cereal comes in a box, duh! He quickly realized he couldn't make a fish stick box look like a cereal box so he grabbed some paper.  He decided to call his cereal Jungle Flakes.  He decorated it with pictures of characters from the Jungle Book.

It was getting late, for me, by the time the cereal was done.  I was done.  It was probably 9:30, I'm not a night owl.  I wanted to let the cereal sit over night.  B wasn't having it. Thankfully, Zac is a bit of a chef so he stepped in to help while I went to bed.  

They wanted to dehydrate some bananas to go in the cereal but decided instead to put in some dried strawberries and bananas we bought at Sam's Club earlier that day.  They also added Craisins.  

When I got up Sunday morning, I was impressed.  The cereal looked good.  It was in a ziploc baggie inside the fish stick/Jungle Flake box. Because that's how cereal comes, mom! In a bag inside a box.  I tried some and it was pretty good.  Ryan and the boys liked it too. 

B was so proud of his cereal! He took 2 baggies of cereal to his teachers Monday morning.  I was just happy that it turned out the way he anticipated. He loves watching those DIY/hacking videos and loves to try things out.  Sometimes I put him off - we've got some place to be, we don't have the supplies, I don't want to make anything right now.  I'm glad I didn't put him off this weekend. 

He learns so much by doing.  With the candy he learned that things don't have to go exactly right to be good.  That's a lesson he needs every day! With the cereal, he learned that he could create something for other people to enjoy.  He can't verbalize those lessons yet but I could see it.  

And nothing bets the look of accomplishment when he showed off his creations to his brothers.  Or when Ryan poured a bowl of Jungle Flakes for breakfast Monday morning!

DIY with B, part 1

B's favorite thing to do, right now, is to watch 'hacks' on YouTube.  These are DIY videos of all sorts - food, crafts, repurposing/upcycling, anything.  All. The. Things.

When he finds one he really likes, he comes to me begging to do them.  Often times, I say no.  We don't have the supplies.  Or it's too complicated.  Or I just don't want to mess with it.  On Saturday, I decided not to say no.

He found a video where a lady made a giant lollipop and he wanted to make one too.  I actually had most of the food ingredients.  She said to use food coloring and food flavoring. I decided we'd use jello to cover both.  The next issue was the mold.  She used some kind of pink tray and a large dowel rod.  B didn't want a giant lollipop, he want a normal sized one.

While I was looking around for something to use as a mold, B announced he had something - the plastic tray from the sour straws he had at the football game Friday night.  He also had coffee stirrers from Starbucks for the sticks. I tried to explain that the hot lollipop mixture (it has to get to 300 degrees) would melt that plastic.  He wasn't have it.  I could not convince him.  So we forged ahead.  Some things you have to learn by doing.

Making the mixture was easy.  Waiting for it to get to 300 degrees was not so easy.  B ended up going to play while I watched the candy thermometer. I called him back to the kitchen when it was time.

He only wanted the sour straw mold but I knew we'd have a lot of mixture left so I got out my Texas A&M Jell-O molds out.  I poured into the sour straw mold first and, sure enough, it began to shrivel. Hot lollipop magma poured out onto my counter top.  I poured into the first A&M mold. It didn't shivrel put it did kinda bend in.  I poured into the second A&M mold and everything seemed ok.  All this took just about 30 seconds.  Here's what it looked like.

                

I decided to let it cool before I tried to clean up the mess.  By this time, B had lost interest.  He watched the sour straw tray melt and he was done.

About 30 minutes later, I came back to the kitchen. The puddles left by the sour straw tray melting came right up with a spatula.

I decided to throw away the first A&M mold.  As you can see from the pictures, the hot candy lava melted right through the mold onto my cabinets.  But that mess came up easily too.

The second A&M mold actually produced candy. I was able to pop them out pretty easily.  B came running back for that.  He was so excited.

All in all, not a bad way to spend some time on a Saturday morning.  The mess was minimal. He didn't get a lollipop but he got some cool looking candy.  They taste pretty good, too. They are big so you can't put the whole thing in your mouth.  The big boys tried them and liked them.

The best part was when B said "Record this!" and introduced our candy to the world.  Here he is...


Sometimes, it's best to learn by doing.  Join us tomorrow to see B's next DIY creation.

Communication with B

B-man is quite verbal.  It's actually kinda hard to get him to be quiet.  Sometimes he's chattering away and he's not talking to anyone in particular.

This was not always the case.  At one time I told our doctor "He has 2 words - Daddy for Ryan and Dada for me." Only to be told, that's only one word.  Communicating with B then was difficult.  I never knew for sure what he wanted.  If we were in the car and he finished his bottle or a sippy cup and wanted more, he threw the cup at the back of my head.  I used to carry a huge backpack full of things he might want, plus toys for other kids to play with so they wouldn't try to play with his special toys. I was constantly trying to guess what he might want or need. It was exhausting.

The summer he turned 3 he had an explosion of language.  It was like a switch flipped.  He was talking a lot more all of a sudden.  But, as I listened, I realized he wasn't saying much.  He was mainly repeating what he's heard us say, or lines from a movie, or parts of a YouTube video.

This is still B's main communication method.  He reuses things he's heard. Lately, most of his lines are from YouTube videos.  It's called echolalia.  I'm not real thrilled with Google's definition of what it is but here it is...

As you can see in the definition, it's common for kids learning to talk.  And that's the key. B has mastered the skill of talking.  However, he's still struggling with the art of communication. 

He can't always tell you why something is bothering him.  He can't give us details of his day.  Although, I will say this has gotten better but there are still holes.  

But what he can do is use lines from YouTube videos and movies and from us to try to express himself.  This is sometimes called scripting.  Many autistic people have scripts that they repeat over and over.  B-man doesn't do this.  So, it makes it difficult to tell if he's repeating something he's heard or not.

When we went to meet his teachers last week, he had his Tsum-Tsums with him.  One of the teachers asked what they were, she had never seen them.  He launched into a Tsum-Tsum commercial.  He even changes the tone of his voice to match the tone of the commercial. There was no mistaking that he was repeating a commercial.  It was so cute.

On the first day of school, he told me "I'm nervous and excited all at once."  I was blown away.  He had never expressed himself like that before.  He was right on target.  He had watched some videos on YouTube kids about emotions.  And he applied what he learned to himself.  I almost cried.  I was able to tell him that those emotions were right on target, that's how most people feel on the first day of school.

I try to remember, and I try to remind others, that just because B is talking, doesn't mean he's communicating. For me this means, that I still have to ask the adults at school to fill in the holes of his day.  It means that they need to call me to ask why I think he reacted a certain way in a certain situation.  It sometimes means waiting a while to try to process things with him.  Sometimes he can tell me later about a situation that he couldn't express in the moment.  

Whatever it means, we are willing to do it. We want to know what he's thinking and feeling, even if he's recycling the words from a video.  I want to know what's going on in that awesome little mind of his.  I suspect I'd get more than I bargained for.  

Hurting

Sunday night we took the boys out to eat as a kind of end of summer celebration.  At one point I looked around and no one was talking.  I had already asked them questions about the upcoming school year and gotten short answers, so I didn't want to keep asking questions and feel like I was grilling them.  It was hurtful.  I felt like a bad mom.  Look at my family sitting here in silence while families all around us were talking and laughing.  What am I doing wrong?

The boys did eventually start talking.  But I couldn't shake the bad mom feeling.  So, I decided to do something I got from my sister in law, who got it from another friend of ours.  I decided to do a prayer journal with each one of them.

Once they were in bed, I went into their room and sat with them.  I asked them for 3 things they were thankful for and 3 things they were worried about (I modified for B - 1 worry and 2 thankful).  I wrote the things in the journal then we prayed.

Wow! I got more than I bargained for.  More than I had expected.

At dinner I had thought, "Do they even like each other?" During our prayer time I found out they are all thankful for our family.  I was also touched that both the older boys are faithful for their faith.  Their thankfulness encouraged me.

I also found out the things that are hurting my boys' hearts.  And it crushed me.  I cried with them. I prayed with them and I held them close.  After the last boy I sat on the stairs crying and praying. I was so overwhelmed.  I don't know what to do to ease their pain. I'm not sure how to help them.  This had done nothing to relieve my feelings of being a bad mom.  I crawled into my bed and fell asleep praying and crying.

All I can do is pray and ask God to guide Ryan and I.  Ask Him to lead us as we lead them.  This verse was in my reading this morning:

There's not always a way to fix things right this minute.  But, I can stand firm in my faith.  Keep praying.  Keep asking God to lead my boys.  Keep begging Him to lead Ryan and I.

But the bottom line is: let all that you do be done in love.  I have to lead from a place of love.  I have to show them how to live in love even when you're hurting.  We all know the adage, "Hurt people hurt people." I don't want the things that are worrying or hurting my boys to lead them to hurt others. I want them to operate from love.

So, today I pray, "LORD, help me to lead my boys in love.  Let them do all things out of love."