Cured! Or ... not.
Yesterday when I picked him up from school, the boy child declared that he was completely cured of his "phobia" of the outdoors. Cured! All better! This news was greeted with much enthusiasm, as you can imagine. I asked him what had cured him, and he said that he had read something about phobias in a book and that was all it took to get rid of it. So I asked him if he'd gone outside at recess, and he said no, but only because yesterday was an early-release day and they don't have recess on those days. And we didn't really have a chance to put it to the test after school either, because homework was immediately followed by taekwondo which was immediately followed by occupational therapy which was immediately followed by dinner which was followed, shortly thereafter, by bedtime. But hey, tomorrow is another day!
So when I picked up the boy child this afternoon, before I could ask whether he'd gone outside at recess, he told me he hadn't. "It was cold, Mom. I want to test it out on a hot day." Um. Okay. "I don't really understand your rules for how this works, but I think it's great that you're willing to try going outside someday," I told him. "Yeah," he said, "someday when I'm ready." And then we went home, and a fly somehow got into the house, and when he saw it he ran screaming up to his room and slammed the door and wouldn't come out until I had produced a smushed fly corpse. Sigh.
I've only talked about the boy child so far, but there is also a girl child at our house, age 7. She is what is known in the parlance as "neuro-typical" or NT, meaning she does not have Asperger Syndrome. Although if you know the girl child, you know that "typical" is not quite the right word to describe her. We don't know if she's abnormally sensitive and social and ... sort of attention-demanding, or if she just seems that way in comparison to the boy. But at any rate, she's fairly well-adjusted and doesn't seem in need of a diagnosis for anything.
A couple of weeks ago, the girl child planted wildflower seeds in the newly created beds around the trees out front. Every day after dinner she'd water them and examine them to see how they were growing. They were just at the point where you could sort of tell one plant from another when suddenly they up and died overnight. It looked like someone had sprayed them with weed-killer. We suspect it was the new lawn service (hired specifically because they were willing to weed the flower beds, while the old service wasn't - oh, the irony). The girl child was crushed and I, as her mother, was crushed on her behalf. Well actually, I was ready to rip someone's arm off over it, but that seemed excessive.
And so today I went out in search of one of those mini-flowerbox kits that has the container, dirt and seeds to grow flowers quickly and easily, so the girl child could have her flowers with no chance of anyone messing with them. After searching three different stores to no avail, I finally found them at Linens & Things, of all places. I got the girl child a little bucket-kit for growing sweet peas, and the boy child a bucket o' sunflowers (the manliest of flowers, to make things fair and because he loves sunflower seeds). So that was their little surprise after school today, and they were delighted.
Except when it came time to actually assemble the kits and plant the seeds, which I suggested should be done outdoors. The boy child wanted no part of that. So instead we did it in the garage, with the door closed and the light on, and me filling up the watering can at the kitchen sink. Then the girl child put her bucket out back so it could get lots of sun, and she offered to take the boy's bucket out for him but he said he didn't want his bucket going outside AT ALL. So his bucket is perched on the kitchen windowsill, which is fine.
Friday is Wellness Day at school, which is a bit like the Field Day I remember from the end of the school year in my youth. Meaning the kids will be outside all day long. I debated whether to just keep the boy child home, but have instead opted, with input from the psychologist, to send him and just plan to shadow him all day long like I did at his field trip last week. I hope it goes well. Wish us luck!
So when I picked up the boy child this afternoon, before I could ask whether he'd gone outside at recess, he told me he hadn't. "It was cold, Mom. I want to test it out on a hot day." Um. Okay. "I don't really understand your rules for how this works, but I think it's great that you're willing to try going outside someday," I told him. "Yeah," he said, "someday when I'm ready." And then we went home, and a fly somehow got into the house, and when he saw it he ran screaming up to his room and slammed the door and wouldn't come out until I had produced a smushed fly corpse. Sigh.
I've only talked about the boy child so far, but there is also a girl child at our house, age 7. She is what is known in the parlance as "neuro-typical" or NT, meaning she does not have Asperger Syndrome. Although if you know the girl child, you know that "typical" is not quite the right word to describe her. We don't know if she's abnormally sensitive and social and ... sort of attention-demanding, or if she just seems that way in comparison to the boy. But at any rate, she's fairly well-adjusted and doesn't seem in need of a diagnosis for anything.
A couple of weeks ago, the girl child planted wildflower seeds in the newly created beds around the trees out front. Every day after dinner she'd water them and examine them to see how they were growing. They were just at the point where you could sort of tell one plant from another when suddenly they up and died overnight. It looked like someone had sprayed them with weed-killer. We suspect it was the new lawn service (hired specifically because they were willing to weed the flower beds, while the old service wasn't - oh, the irony). The girl child was crushed and I, as her mother, was crushed on her behalf. Well actually, I was ready to rip someone's arm off over it, but that seemed excessive.
And so today I went out in search of one of those mini-flowerbox kits that has the container, dirt and seeds to grow flowers quickly and easily, so the girl child could have her flowers with no chance of anyone messing with them. After searching three different stores to no avail, I finally found them at Linens & Things, of all places. I got the girl child a little bucket-kit for growing sweet peas, and the boy child a bucket o' sunflowers (the manliest of flowers, to make things fair and because he loves sunflower seeds). So that was their little surprise after school today, and they were delighted.
Except when it came time to actually assemble the kits and plant the seeds, which I suggested should be done outdoors. The boy child wanted no part of that. So instead we did it in the garage, with the door closed and the light on, and me filling up the watering can at the kitchen sink. Then the girl child put her bucket out back so it could get lots of sun, and she offered to take the boy's bucket out for him but he said he didn't want his bucket going outside AT ALL. So his bucket is perched on the kitchen windowsill, which is fine.
Friday is Wellness Day at school, which is a bit like the Field Day I remember from the end of the school year in my youth. Meaning the kids will be outside all day long. I debated whether to just keep the boy child home, but have instead opted, with input from the psychologist, to send him and just plan to shadow him all day long like I did at his field trip last week. I hope it goes well. Wish us luck!
posted by Miss Anthrope at 1:44 PM
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