The baby I had who lined up his cars, blocks, and many other things at a few months of age, and followed that up with making grids of same might have returned...I thought he left when there was wailing about math being "hard"...
I'm now in that funny position of feeling simultaneously vexed and pleased! A bit of history to provide the necessary context for the vexation and satisfaction: one of the things we usually do in math is a fact grid on the white board, divided into mastering, and learning of the multiplication facts...so he gets a nice mix of satisfyingly "easy"s to burn through and a few to get better at, so he can master the whole lot. He resists "seeing and saying" (to increase number of "modes" he's operating in...keep his brain more active, etc....) because he gets "mixed up"...but he'll do it with some encouragement, so that's good. I keep trying to share the purpose behind what we're doing with him, so he's more aware that he's learning, how he's learning, what he's learning, and why he's learning it.
This morning, I told him that he was getting better and faster, and it was time to get mastering some of the ones we've been calling the "learning" ones...[balk-as expected-so just pushed through that-he accepted the compliment and moved on]. I left the room briefly, which usually helps him resist less, because there's no one to oppose for opposition's sake. I came back to see that he was on the last one, "Excellent, I was hoping you'd be done, you're getting faster!!!". "Yep", he replied.
He carried on to tell me that the twelves were easy to write, because "you just write the numbers down 1 through 12, then start at the top again and go down counting by twos to get he second digits..."
Heh?!? So I looked, having never noticed that pattern myself...and yes, that is the pattern. What does a teaching-in-the-dining-room-mom say to that?!!! I went with something like "yes, that is the pattern, super-cool that you noticed it!" Then, because his purpose was to learn the facts one-by-one, I felt it necessary to point out, gently, and in a light way, that his purpose was to learn the facts so that if he was looking at 7x12, he should be able to quickly think 84 ('cause that kids loves a shortcut!)...or, he could keep having to write them all using his pattern... He agreed it would be faster to learn them one by one, instead of as a group--all with a good attitude, so it was an interesting exchange...I am more enlightened about how he approaches things-
I'll have to get used to expecting the unexpected... This was a good one, in a good way-not the kind of unexpected like him freaking out because "Dad said 6 was GOOD!!!!" when he was biking and I said it was time to crank it to 9. Outcome-I had him bike through his tantrum instead of yelling himself silly about it. Challenges were staying calm, explaining, and not taking his explosion personally--because he's GOT to learn how to adapt to changing circumstances and understand that one time does not apply to ALL TIME FOREVER MORE or longer!
Pulling out the positives from his storm: he stayed on the bike, he cared about not having his time evaporate because he sat for too long - I'd let him know that his time would start over if he let it lapse back to 0 - he discovered he could bike harder than he thought, he did actually bike through his freak-out. He was in charge of how long he biked, because I'd said he's be biking until he was calm and able to thing again, so he cooperated within the set boundaries, which was really good for him...I pointed out that if he had cooperated sooner, he's have been able to keep the tv on while he biked [old news: I let him watch cartoons in Spanish as long as he's biking hard enough to get sweaty] and he got the message after about 12 minutes. He was sweaty. I kept pushing him harder each time he thought maybe it was time to yell again. "If you have energy for yelling, you might as well use it to work harder on the bike, and do something good for your body instead of trying to hurt someone's feelings". So in all, it was a learning experience.
There's an intensity with this kiddo that needs channeling. My goal is to have him use his powers for good, so he can feel in charge of himself instead of overwhelmed with sadness and tantrums, instead of misdirecting his energy at anyone asking him to do a thing. I can't see the latter serving him well in the rest of his life. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute--I can see that it's starting to work, and I'll keep looking for signs that it is. Overall now, he's calmer, and I see the happiness bubbling to the surface more often. I'm glad for this chance to work with him at home, and hope that it's able to help him reshape his approach to tasks.
And food-wise? My physical is happily in the past- according to the data, I am in good shape, with high "good" cholesterol, low "bad" cholesterol, low tri-glycerides (bad fats in the blood), and whatever other results were good. So eating how I have been eating is working well for long-term health. I'm waiting on a few results to come back, but that should all be wrapped up by the end of the week. I had scans and checks and everything recommended--even a bone scan. There was an interesting result too: I need more beef, because I've become anemic again (and I thought I was just tired because my "deciding" list is nearly as long as my "to do" list...).
This morning, in my quest to use what I had on hand before we move, I made a spaghetti sauce with all the beef I had in the fridge, the can of sauce in the pantry, the tomatoes from the counter, the one onion in the basket and the remainder of a head of garlic. I sort of forgot I had intended to try a beef-noodle thing for myself...But I still have a few frozen packs, and there's tomorrow. I'm buying fresh things to match up with the pantry items I would like to use rather than throw away. There's a green curry something in the future, along with a TBD dish of something with green olives, perhaps a lentil-olive combo... The shelves are indeed becoming bare.
Cheers, and chao.
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