Where is the dog?

2008, November 25, Tuesday 

We sat down to have a study session (Ivan and I), this time it was English Comprehension. After a few sessions of break and work, we had reached the last page of the assessment book. It was the last hurdle for the day. Unfortunately, none of us expected it to take that long.

First, I had to erase all the answers that he had written, as they were all wrong. I got him to read the passage again (so slowly). Then I read it over again to help him reinforce it. After which, we read the question again, slowly.

Question: Where is the cat?

He simply could not comprehend the passage as it was not so straight forward. As there was a picture attached I circled the cat and pointed to it with an arrow. I then asked him, "Where is the cat?" 

He repeated my question. I modified the question. 

 Is the cat in the tree or on the ground?

He paused awhile then answered me. "In the tree". 

I was glad with his answer, as he showed me that he understood. (hurray). 

Normally, he would repeat the last choice you gave him, as the answer to everything. The fact that I gave the correct answer as the first choice and the wrong answer as the second choice was to get him to think. Thankfully, he did that. (thank you God)

That went fine, but it was only the beginning. The second question, really got me to hit the roof.
 

Question: Where is the dog?

Answer: It stood below the tree (as per passage)

He was lost again. We read through the passage again. 

Then I read through the passage. 

Then we read the question again. 

He paused, as if he was in deep thought, after a while he smiled and answered, "Woof, woof." 

Oh no.... I realized just then that he had misunderstood the question and was already beginning to switch off mentally.

Ivan is a very visual child, unfortunately that was not helping in this situation. The picture of the dog was drawn in such a way that it had three strokes around the mouth, (to give you the idea that the dog was barking). That apparently, was the whole distraction. Ivan refused to see the rest of the picture, he was very contented with the lines that illustrated the bark.

On one hand I should be glad that he understood the abstract illustration of the dog barking, but on the other he was fixated with that thought. I tired re-reading the passage again, but he still gave me "Woof, woof" for the answer. When I stricken my tone to get him to focus, he got angry. He let out a scream and with eyes filled with tears he said "woof, woof". I felt horrible. Was I pushing him too much? Am I being unreasonable? But I just knew there was a way to get through to him. What was it?

I took a deep breathe and smiled as I composed myself. Assured him, that the reward was at hand if we could get over this last page. This time I read through the passage and exaggerated the annotations to highlight the answer. He managed to pick it out. I was so happy with his effort. As he began to write the answer he forgot where the answer was in the passage. Quickly, I grabbed a highlighter and highlighted the sentence as we read through together. SUCCESS!

I thanked God that we had overcome the hurdle together. The other two questions were not that hard and he managed to finish the book after all. As I sat down and thought over the new found victory, I felt my heart skip a beat as I looked ahead and thought of all the new syllabus that will come next year. How was I going to do it? Picking up the pieces, of my broken heart, I told myself that I was going to take it a day at a time. Meanwhile, I would enjoy this little boy that God has given me.

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Our Sunday

2008, November 23, Sunday

Ah, Sunday morning, I normally get up and think if I was going to church that day. By this particular Sunday, I was up early and so I got the boys ready. Getting it all together, so that we could leave the home on time, was always a challenge, here in the Gomez household.

Each time I pick up Immanuel from Sunday School, I would be anxious to know how it went for him. The poor boy tends to have issues with some of the boys there. I guess getting those cards for him was a great idea. It totally served it's purpose. I wanted him to find a way to fit in with the boys. Now he has a common topic that he can share with the boys. For now I have solved the problem at hand, but it looks like I have to keep coming up with new ideas each time he has issues. (a mother's job is never done)

 After service, I brought the boys to Pastamania. Recalling a conversation my sis and I had about fast food, I decided that we go a little healthy. Immanuel has his favourite Al Funghi, while Ivan had the Spinach Tortellini. Watching Ivan sit here and eat his lunch was something that still amazes me.

I will never forget those days, when Ivan had such a limited list of things that he ate. Those were the terrible days, when he only took oats, nestum, and sweet chocolaty breads. We had to look for KFC and BK everywhere we went or pack sachets of nestum, oats and milk powder. Even our holidays were challenging to plan.

As cruel as it may sound, the only way I survived this was to get him all hungry and then insist that he ate what I had prepared for that meal. Obviously, he wasn't going to eat it all up, but my main objective was that he was a draggy 2 year struggle but by God's grace we survived it. After lunch we came home, we lazed as the new rule was on Sundays we don't overwork our brains. We can watch, read magazines shop and stone (Immanuel's favourite pastime).

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My nAsty FaCe

2008, November 23, Sunday
Here is Mr. Nasty Face.

I thought that ir would be good for Ivan to learn to label his emotions. So the teaching begins. Each time he showed me an expression, I would either take a picture or bring him to the mirror to talk to him about it, and then we label it.

In the excitement, I found myself having a lot of fun. This shot was taken on a Sunday after church at Pastamania, during lunch. We looked at the pictuure on the digi-cam and we called it Nasty Face. Now, whenever we fell bored we simply request a nasty face. That would bring a smile to our faces. It's so cute, that i ask for it all the time. (anyway it's just a phase so I am going to enjoy it while I can).

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Shrek the Third

 2008, November 22, Saturday

Now let me introduce you to Shrek the Third. This was a photo, that I took at the void deck, after we watched the movie. The cinema experience was much better than the previous time. Ivan managed to be seated for at least one quarter of the movie. The movie was followed by a Happy Meal, from McDonald's, thus the green ears. Immanuel however, felt that he was too old for all this. (he's growing up so fast).

Ivan looks so adorable in this shot that sometimes I secretly wish that he would be my cute baby forever. Them growing up is getting hard for me...


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My boys

2008, November 22, Saturday

These are my two adorable boys.
Immanuel is my first born, on the right. When this picture was taken he was a witty 10 year old, who challenges me with every area of boundary.

He is very articulate, (like me he.. he..) but is warm and caring just like his daddy.

Ivan my second born on the other hand is two years younger then Immanuel. This dragon baby surprised us with autism at the age of two. A journey that we are still on and will continue threading on until many years to come. It was for him that I stopped work for seven years and decided to stay home.We been through many adventures as a family and grow stronger with each new day.

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A revamp from the past

2008, November 22, Saturday

It was Saturday, and my sister sat down with me, to help me create a blog for me. Now that I can start blogging, maybe I would stop bugging her with my stories. Thanks Annie.

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First day of school

Its the first day of school for my boys... Immanuel looks so smart in his new attire. My teenage boys has left to swim the into the world to find his oyster. I pray the good Lord will give him wisdom to make good and right choices.


-iPhone