So we’ve got two showings scheduled for today.

Doug is up at the church and the boys and I are hanging out at my parents’ house. It’s so convenient to have them living five minutes away during all of this.

In the middle of all of this house marketing, our refrigerator decided to die…again. The freezer portion works…sort of. So we’ve got our frozen food inside and our refrigerated food in a little apartment fridge that’s in our garage. Have I mentioned here before that I will never, never, never, NEVER EVER purchase a Maytag product again? (I dragged our Maytag washing machine to the curb after three years and two transmissions. I wrote “Maytag Stinks” all over the side of it in bright red Sharpie. Yes…it made me feel better.) After we get through the weekend, we’ll see if we can stick a band-aid on the stupid thing and get it through the next few months. If the band-aid doesn’t stick, I guess we’re buying a refrigerator for the new owners.

Doug finished his first week of Dapper Dan rehearsals. He’s starting to learn the tap routines, and let me tell you…I’m glad that it’s him and not me. I was a majorette in junior high (yes…I wore pleather boots and twirled fire batons) and a cheerleader in high school, but I IN NO WAY the have skills or brain power to learn what he has to learn. And he’s got to do it while he’s singing.

I’m not the least bit worried that he’ll figure it out. He’s a bulldog that way…if he wants to learn a new skill, he will. It reminds me of how he learned to do vocal percussion. Back in the early days of their group, Doug and the guys competed in an a cappella competition, where they were first exposed to vocal percussion…kind of a “beat box” thing. On our way home from the competition, Doug looked at me and said, “I’m going to learn how to do that.” And he did. I confess that the constant boom boom and snare drum noises around the house about drove me crazy, but learn it he did. (If you listen to any of Return 2 Zeros’ four albums, the drum sounds that you hear are not mechanical. That would be Doug.) Anywho…I’m confident that he’ll be tap dancing in no time.

Well…that’s it for now. Ya’ll have a good Saturday.

Oh…it’s my Mom’s birthday today. Happy Birthday, Mommy. I love you.

One thing that I always hear about having one child with autism and one who is “typical” (whatever that is in this house), is that the “typical” child learns about compassion from a very early age.  It’s encouraging to hear that there are potentially great character benefits from being the sibling of a special needs child.

So the other day, I thought that I was beginning to catch a glimpse of that promised compassion from Isaac.

For the past few months, I’ve been starting to dabble in the use of Essential Oils.  That subject is a whole other post entirely, but let me say straight up that we’ve seen some freakishly cool things from Noah since we started using them on him…specifically Oil of Oregano.  (For real, ya’ll…an off the chain obsessive behavior ENDED within 48 hours of initiating Oil of Oregano.  That’s some crazy stuff.)

To get the oil “in him”, we’ve got to rub it on the bottom of his feet.  Noah was, of course, just a wee bit disagreeable to the whole idea, kicking and hollering during our first few attempts at application.

After a few days, he figured out that this is actually a good thing for him, and started to stick his feet out for us to put the oil on.  He still struggles and kicks a bit, but now he’s laughing the whole time.

Back to my compassionate redhead.

A couple of days ago, it was oil time.  Isaac said, “Mom..I’m gonna help Noah.”

He processed to go over to Noah and say “Noah…I’m going to hold your hand”.

awwwwww.

As I started to rub the oil on Noah’s feet, Noah started his struggling and laughing shtick.

Isaac looked down at Noah and said, with a slightly exasperated tone…

“Noah…you’re not gonna die”.

oh. my.

Apparently we still need to work on that whole compassion thing.

Yeah…me too.

Other than the one on Friday, we’ve had no house showings.  No phone calls to our realtor either.

Oh well.  At least it’s clean.

If the crickets continue to chirp this week, we’ll pick up the clue phone and look at our price.  The obvious question is, how low do we go?  At what point are we picking up a gun and aiming it directly at our feet?  Hmmm…I’m glad that it’s God’s problem and not mine.  We’re trusting Him to give us wisdom to make the right decision.

In other news…

Doug starts rehearsals with the Dapper Dans today.  The rehearsals last for three weeks…four days a week with Wednesdays off.  He’ll miss Monday and Tuesday of next week because he’ll be in California for the Calvary Chapel Senior Pastor’s Conference.  Ever the crazy man, he’ll go to the conference sessions on Wednesday…take the red-eye home on Wednesday night…arrive home Thursday morning at 6:00 am and go straight to Disney for rehearsal at 8:30.  I would rather have my little piggy toenail plucked off than take a red-eye, but Doug can handle it.  He’s kind of a freak that way.

We’ve been talking for months now about going to Kansas City this summer to visit Doug’s family.  Doug has been up several times in the past few years, but the boys and I haven’t been in over three years.  WAY too long.  So yesterday afternoon, we realized that it’s Memorial Day weekend, and the time to plan that trip is upon us.  Doug told me to go ahead and price out driving vs. flying.  I figured that driving would be the obvious choice, because the cheapest that I’ve seen fares to KC in the past few years is around $250 round trip.  Well, lo and behold, I logged on to Southwest airlines and found $98 round trip tickets the first week of August.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!  Of course, we bought them.  I’m so excited about going and so thankful that we don’t have to drive.  It looks like we’ll probably be driving to Texas for Noah’s Soma RPM training, so it’s nice to not have to look at two long road trips this summer.

Well…that’s it for now.  I’ve got more to write, but I really need to get moving and run some errands with the boys.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day…

So here’s what’s up…in random fashion, of course…

We had our very first showing today.  We were supposed to have one on Sunday, but the peeps were a no-show.

This whole house on the market thing is weird.  I feel like I’m throwing a big honkin’ party and I’m not really sure that anyone is going to show up for it.  Now that someone has shown up, I don’t know if they had any fun.  We haven’t heard a thing from the buyer’s agent that came by today, so I don’t know if the potential buyers are laughing at us or drafting a contract.

It’s. just. weird.

So I have no idea who that kid is who won American Idol.  We stopped watching when they got to the top 9.  I cannot for the life of me remember one single performance from him.

Instead of watching the American Idol finale on Wednesday, Doug and I watched the final ’24′ of the season.  They left us with Jack on his deathbed…a “maybe he’s not so evil after all” twist on Tony…the President sending her daughter to the pokey and Renee’ getting ready to crack crazy on the icky bad dude.

oh…have you not watched it yet?  I’m so sorry.

Anywho…the first half of the season rocked and the last half was rather lame, but it’s still ’24′ and we’ll still be tuning in next year.

Thank you for all the great suggestions for Noah’s reading list.  I’ve got a library order on the way.  Noah is enjoying his new reading time and is occasionally repeating new words that he hears.  Sweet.  I’m busy reading Soma’s Rapid Prompting Method guide…it’s really good.  I’m getting stoked.

Well…that’s all I’ve got for today.

Ya’ll have a good night and I’ll catch up with you later…

So I thought that I would get to this sooner, but…ya know.

The past year has been an amazing one for Noah.  Through the introduction of an assistive communication device, Noah’s speech has greatly improved.  You’d think that a “talking box” would make a child talk less, but it’s helped Noah to talk more.

Now we’re looking to accelerate his success with his box.  And I have great hope that we’ve found just the thing that will help make that happen.

About a year ago, my Mom told me about a child in their special needs class at church.  This child was using some kind of letter chart to spell out words, as his Mother prompted him in a rapid manner.

My Mom…a career teacher…was immediately taken with the method.  She asked the mother about what she was doing and learned that it is a therapy called the Rapid Prompting Method (aka Soma RPM.)  The mother explained that she took her child to a clinic in Texas to learn how to implement it with her son.

My Mom told me immediately about what she witnessed, and encouraged me to look into it.  I did…but I didn’t think that Noah was quite ready for the therapy, so I stuck it in the “look into this later” autism file that is embedded in my brain.

Fast forward to late last fall.

Noah began to demonstrate his ability to use the AT device that he was training on at school.  Early this year, the school system purchased a Springboard Lite for him to use 24/7.  I began to realize….and Noah’s teacher encouraged me…that Noah may be able to communicate by typing out words one day.

So early this spring…at the same time that Noah started to make better connections via his Springboard…I began to read posts on some Yahoo groups that I frequent about Soma RPM.  The posts were kinda out of nowhere, but I was immediately taken with the reports.  The parents described some pretty amazing things…children spelling out answers to questions for the first time.  Children progressing to the point of working on grade level.  Hmmmm….could this be the way that we make the jump from picture communication to letters and words?   On the back-burner since my Mom mentioned it to me last year, I picked up the pot and moved it to the front of the stove.

After a bit of internet research, we’re making plans to head to Texas.

The HALO clinic is in Austin, and the woman who pioneered the Rapid Prompting Method, Soma Mukhopadhyay (thankfully, she goes by Soma), conducts week-long “camps” for out of state families to train them in the method.

Soma’s summer schedule is already booked (it filled up 30 minutes after registration opened), so we are on a wait list to see her.

If we do not clear the wait list by mid-July, we may decide to book a week with her apprentice so that we can go ahead and learn the method.   We can always come back and work with Soma at a later date.

When I called the HALO clinic to complete Noah’s new student intake, I was given our “homework” from Soma.  While we wait for our camp date, we are to read to Noah for 10-15 minutes a day using “literature and age appropriate books”…”not baby stuff”.   Reading age appropriate literature communicates respect…and shows the expectation that Noah will learn from it.

I unexpectedly found myself in tears after speaking with the HALO representative.  Through our conversation, I realized that we are going to take Noah to a place where they fully believe that Noah understands everything that is said to him and that he is capable of learning and communicating.  Because of his limited verbal skills, it’s natural to assume otherwise.  Anyone who spends any extended time with Noah eventually comes to the conclusion that his teacher has…that “he is sooooo smart”.  But with no way to express it, many things are locked away from us.  I think that the tears came because we may have found someone who can lead us to the key.

So we wait.  Doug and I are reading Soma’s teaching guide, and we’re starting to read “not baby” books to Noah.

I need the help of you homeschooling Mamas here.  What literature do you read in the 2nd and 3rd grade?  Any favorites?

I’ll keep ya’ll posted.  If you see a post here that we’re suddenly headed for Texas, you’ll know why.