A Side of Autism: Summer

I hate summer only because I am clueless with things to do with the kids when they have 10 weeks off.
But as it stands - for the month of June - I only have 2 kids at home plus 2 dogs.
A-Man is still attending day-care for this month and I'm trying to clean the place up (clearly - as I am sitting here blogging) and get rid of stuff.

That's right - I am beginning to CLEAN and de-clutter crap and I have a table rented at the second-hand shop to do so.

Currently, M-Girl is snoozing on the sofa for her nap and V-Man is beside me scrolling through Netflix!

If you didn't see my post on Instagram lately - my big guy won a stipend/award from his school for being the most improved student in his class.
Every year, the teachers vote for a student - one male and one female - from each grade and they get a special certificate and a bit of spending money as a treat.

I found out beforehand that he was getting the award and didn't realize the significance of this right away until his therapists clapped and cheered and everyone around the table seemed thrilled about this.

His teacher, Mrs. S said it was an easy unanimous vote and very well deserved.

I felt my heart swell with pride and while his party was on Saturday (they do graduations on Saturdays here in Finland) at 8:30 in the morning - I was excited to go.
PIC was supposed to go to it but after some discussion - decided it was a bit silly for him to go because he doesn't understand or speak much Finnish at all.

We were placed in a separate room off of the main stage room due to space and sadly couldn't hear a freaking thing because while the graduation was shown on a projector screen in real time - the sound was turned off.

I asked a teacher why this was and he said it would echo and cause the mics to go all screechy.

So I have no idea what was said and could barely make out what was on their screen in terms of lyrics to sing along to...

But I DID manage to get to the other room and watch V-Man protest going to the stage for his reward.
Once he did receive it - he was full of smiles (and he's missing about 4-5 teeth in the front and rocking the ol' man look easily) and seemed to understand he did something really good.

I had written down a list of things that he now enjoys from his therapists and one of them was DUPLO.
Chunky Lego.  Things I can see better and hopefully not skate across the room on...and guess what? With all that cleaning I started - I actually found a TON of it and haven't had to buy any!
(Just kidding - I'm going to buy more - second hand... to reduce the fights, screams and tears among ourselves while some practical building is ongoing...)

So now the V-Man's favourite things to do are:

1. Eat nachos.  We go through 2 jumbo bags a week of them.
2. Skim through Netflix.  PIC has it set up on his Xbox thing and V-Man cruises through - in and out of shows and he loves it.  
1. At first PIC was ticked off about the 10-seconds (max) blips of shows starting and whatnot - but then we realized, it calms the V-Man down somehow and he enjoys it.  He's not being rough with the controller and he's quietly enjoying what HE can handle.
3. Hike like a boss.  This kid went for a 2-hours or longer hike with PIC the other day and they had a blast!  
1. He also enjoys walking with Loki using the Flexi-leash.  I realize some people have a love-hate relationship with that kind of leash but Loki is such a chill dog and is also 9-years old - that a Flexi works for him - and for the kids.
4. "Play with Duplo" - by "play" I mean he hands you the piece and you put it on the Duplo base mat thing.  Although...if I have to go tend to something else - he seems to be able to build and take them off. ;)
5. Youtube - same deal.  He skims and finds things he loves to watch and it's awesome.  He loves those un-wrapping toys/Kinder eggs videos, food reviews (a child after my own heart), toy reviews and snippets of his favourite movies.  I've learned that he's obsessed with Frozen sing-along videos...
6. Clean. Yeah - he doesn't get it from me.
7. Colouring - it's not in the lines.  I don't expect it to be! He has fun with coloured pencils and markers and just doodling whatever on paper.

He doesn't nap at all - so we don't press it.  We encourage him to go outside as much as possible to balance out his lack of a nap and he loves it.  He's not as fussy now when it comes to direction and almost always is willing to go your way.

He's also warming up to the idea of going to the playground which is nice - and enjoys the swings! He's also started learning how to play with sand - which is also exciting.

Until next time!
BIMU

PS it was hailing/snowing and raining the first couple of days of JUNE...safe to say - I am not getting my tan on this year.