The School Board's Vote

I attended the school board meeting last night. Unfortunately, it looks like minds were made well before the meeting. Read my thoughts here.

Is My Son’s Future At Risk With Impending School Board Decision?

How much money does a school district have to save to in order make it worth risking the future of a few kids with special needs?

That is the question that the North Shore School District 112 Board of Education will be faced with at its next board meeting Tuesday night.

I discuss this in a post today on my local Patch site.

I know many of you are not local to my area, but for those of you that are, please spread the word. I think that there has been almost no publicity about this important decision and time is running very short.

Please click here to read more.

Thank you.

Practicing Comprehension Skills Through BrainPop

BrainPop has been one of my son’s favorite apps from the time he first got an iPad. We like it because the short animated movies teach a variety of subjects including math, science, social studies and more. Kai likes it because the character of the orange robot, Moby, is very funny as he antagonizes his buddy, Tim.

Lately I’ve noticed that as Kai has seen just about all of the different movies the app has to offer, he watches only the funny parts, skipping all of the educational content. I was wondering if he remembered at all what the movies are attempting to teach.

The cost to subscribe is over $7 a month, so it’s not terribly expensive, but it does add up. And for nearly $90 a year, I wanted to make sure Kai was actually learning something.

So, I’ve started making him take the test that is given at the end of each featured movie of the day. He had been skipping that part, but we are now tying in taking the test with earning points from our Point Store. If he answers 80% or 90% of the questions correctly, he earns 50 points. If he gets 100% correct, he earns 100 points. And if he scores less than 80%, he loses points.

The first day he struggled and got only 70% correct. I could see that while he can answer most questions about facts that were given, he struggled when he had to make inferences. It is the same issues he has with reading comprehension.

The next day, he still struggled with the same types of questions, but improved his score to 80%. I saw that he was paying much closer attention to the main content of the movie.

So, I’m thinking that this will be good practice for him. He can still laugh at all the funny parts. But, I’m hoping it helps to condition his brain for listening and thinking through what he hears, too.

Math Word Problem Struggles

Kai does very well in math normally, but there are areas where he really struggles.

I had him do coordinate plane word problems on his online Khan Academy program the other day.

The first problem stated that an ad was as 4 inches wide by 3 inches high. The upper left corner of the ad was given as (-6, -2) on the coordinate plane. Kai would have to place the four corners of the ad.

I thought this was a very easy problem for him.

So I was a little surprised when he didn’t know where to begin.

I asked him if he knew where one corner of the ad was. He tentatively moved his cursor to place the point in the wrong spot.

I stopped him and asked him to read where the sentence that gave the coordinates for the upper left corner.

He was starting to get agitated, and he did not pick up the fact that all he needed to do was to plot a point at (-6, -2).

I wrote out (x, y) on a sheet of paper and asked if he knew the x and y coordinates of the upper left corner. He would not answer the question.

I then told him that the he needed to plot a point at (-6, -2) and asked him to point on the screen where that point is. He waved his hand wildly, not pointing to any particular spot. He was getting more agitated, and I was starting to get that way, too.

I finally explained that -6 on the x coordinate meant that we needed to count six places to the left, and -2 on the y coordinate meant that we needed to count two places down. This was not the first time we have worked on coordinate planes. This really should not have been so hard.

I finally got him to place that first point. I breathed a sigh of relief as I thought the other three corners would be easy.

I was wrong.

He started to place the next corner in the wrong spot.

I stopped him. I pointed out that the first point he plotted was the upper left corner. When it says “upper,” does it mean that it is at the top or bottom? He answered bottom.

Huh?!

I was getting very frustrated.

I drew a rectangle on the paper. I asked him to point to the upper left corner, and he was able to do so. I asked him to write down the coordinate of the upper left corner. He resisted.

I yelled that he needed to write it down.

Now he was getting more upset.

If the upper left corner was at (-6, -2) and the height was 3, how far down to we count to get to the bottom left corner?

I thought I was giving away the answer but he just did not seem to understand any of it.

My frustration boiled over, and I was shouting my questions at him. He was yelling back saying that he never wanted to Khan Academy with me again.

My wife came downstairs to find out what was going on.

She suggested that she could take over for me, but I didn’t want to end on this sour note.

I had Kai take a five-minute break, which extended longer than that. For most of the time he was still yelling that he wanted to do this with Mom, not Dad.

Finally, my wife encouraged him to come try again.

I spoke very softly. Okay, we know where the upper left corner is. And we know the height is 3. Let’s count down three from the point we already plotted.

Finally, with me pretty much giving him the complete answer, he was able to plot out the other three corners.

And after he completed this one problem, he was able to do four more similar to it all on his own.

But it was an eye-opener for me how he struggles to comprehend the simplest things that are in word problems. It showed me how reading comprehension is still such a big issue for him.

So, we’ve got a couple of big things to work on: Kai’s reading comprehension, and my patience.

I think that progress with the latter will be essential to making progress on the former.

Generosity – Highlights From Parent-Teacher Conference

We had our parent-teacher conference at my son’s school last night.

Kai’s teacher gave us a nice overview of his academic progress; he continues to struggle mightily with writing, especially, but, not surprisingly, continues to do very well in math.

This year they are teaching math to Kai using three different methods: a textbook three days a week, and two different online programs the other days. We are already familiar with one of the online programs as we have him do Kahn Academy at home.

The other program is called Dreambox, and the teacher explained that all of the kids like it because the program awards points that can be traded in for game time. While all of the kids like the program, she said that Kai was the only one to stand up and cheer when she announced that they would now be able to do it at home as well.

We thought it was cute that our son was cheering that he got an opportunity to do more math.

Though, later, after we got home, we had Kai show us what he is working on in Dreambox. He showed us the avatars you can select and the games you can play and it all looked quite fun.

Unfortunately, the program doesn’t let you select your own level; you have to start from the beginning and work your way up. And so, on Dreambox, Kai is doing math that he mastered two, three or maybe even four years ago. And since he is a kid who loves to do easy work and has to be pushed to challenge himself, he loves this way-too-easy math program.

I emailed the teacher and asked that they limit use of the program to break time or only as a reward.

But I digress. Back to the conference we had at school…

Kai’s teacher shared a story about a recent class project. Each student had to write compliments about each of their classmates.

She said that Kai thought long and hard about each one. He praised one student for achieving a Level change. He complimented another for doing well at PE. The teacher said that every compliment was very appropriate for that child and very well thought out.

Kids with autism often have a very hard time relating to another person’s perspective. So for Kai to be so thoughtful with his compliments was quite an achievement. His teacher was nearly tearing up as she explained what a great job he did.

She went on to say that because he did such a great job, she awarded him with a Generosity card. Generosity is one of the school’s Circle of Courage values along with Belonging, Mastery, and Independence. Students who show special adherence to any one of the values have a card with their name on it posted on the Circle of Courage board in the school’s common area.

When she honored Kai with the Generosity card, he spoke up.

“But Ms. F____, everyone should get one because we all wrote compliments for each other.”

And with that, Kai showed his generous spirit even more.

Wondering If A Special Needs Activity Is Right For My Son

My son’s special needs soccer league wrapped up this past Saturday.

This is the fourth year that Kai has been participating. When Kai first started, there were enough kids that they had two groups, one for older kids and one for the younger ones.

The kids had a wide range of disabilities, with several requiring volunteer buddy kids to take their hands and help them go up and down the field, to direct the ball toward their feet, or to point them toward the goal. Other kids were able to function independently.

I recall one boy in the younger group who was an excellent soccer player. He was so talented that I first wondered why he didn’t play on a team with typical kids. When he had the ball, the “coach” (on the field) would sometimes defend him to make it more challenging, or to get the ball over to other kids who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance.

As the weeks went on, though, I could see that this boy had trouble keeping his emotions under control, getting angry on several occasions. It was not unlike how Kai gets many times.

In those early seasons, Kai did not play well. Physically, he should have been fine, but he rarely ran after the ball, and frequently complained about how he was too tired to play. I was seemingly constantly yelling at him to run and go after the ball.

It was frustrating for me as other kids with disabilities more severe than Kai’s were enthusiastically playing hard.

But gradually, Kai started to play better. It helped when a classmate of his joined the team and they could run up and down the field together.

Over the past couple of seasons, though, several of the more able kids stopped coming out. That talented boy from the first year had long since stopped coming to the games. And this season, all of the other kids at Kai’s level, including his classmate, also dropped out. Kai was now the most capable soccer player left on his team.

In recent weeks, attendance among the kids still signed up was poor. We barely had enough kids for one game, let alone two separate groups. One week we had only four kids come out, meaning that they played a two on two. With the disabilities of the other kids, they didn’t play a game so much as just taking turns with each child having a chance to kick the ball down the field and scoring.

Back when there was a wide mix of kids, it was tough to balance the varying needs of the kids. But it usually worked out well enough. Sometimes the more able kids would run and pass and try to score like in a real game. Sometimes the volunteer kids would get the ball to a less able child and make sure that they had a chance to kick the ball.

Now, with no other kids at Kai’s level, I no longer felt like cheering him on to play hard or try to score. Though Kai now plays like I wanted him to before.

This past Saturday, at our last game, Kai ran, dribbled, kicked, and got off some really hard shots.

One of the parents of a volunteer buddy child commented to me, “He can really play!” He may have even been wondering what my son was doing playing in a special needs group.

But then it started to rain. Kai started to scream, “I WANT TO GO HOME!”

There was no thunder or lightning. The rain was really light. He wouldn’t calm down when I tried to tell him there was nothing to be scared of.

And so Kai’s panicked screams drew stares from the volunteer kids and their parents. I think they might have figured out why Kai was in this group.

And so we’re left with a conundrum. Kai is still not capable of playing on a “real” soccer team with his typical peers. But it doesn’t feel like the special needs team is right for him anymore either.

I love that the special needs program exists. I think this is a great activity for these kids. I’m glad there are wonderful volunteers who make it possible.

I just wonder whether it is right for my son now.

I think one of the difficulties of having a child with special needs is finding an appropriate placement – in school, in therapy, and in extracurricular activities like this. I’ve learned that just because something is labeled as being for kids with special needs does not necessarily make it appropriate for my particular kid with special needs.

Well, next soccer season does not start until spring. We have a few months to think about it.



Here's a photo from earlier in the season of Kai with a couple of the volunteer buddies:

Making (Some) Progress on the Bike

After a rainy few days, the sun came out on Sunday so we were able to get out on our bicycles once again.

We went back to our favorite forest preserve along the Skokie Lagoons, but this time we convinced Kai to go on a different path that goes in the opposite direction. That was no small deal as Kai is a boy who usually prefers to stay well within his comfort zone and just do things that he is very familiar with.

As we started riding, Kai seemed much more comfortable on his bike. He didn’t seem so anxious to be on his bike, and he was pedaling a bit faster than how he started last week. Though still riding far behind Mom, still afraid that he would crash into her if he rode too closely. In the photo below, can you see the tiny spot of pink far ahead of us? That is my wife, and that is about as close as Kai felt comfortable getting.

Besides riding so far behind Mom, when other riders passed going in the opposite direction, Kai would sometimes yell out, “I’m scared!” as if they would crash into him.

But I also heard him humming as he was riding. That was a good indication that he was mostly relaxed and enjoying himself.

But it wouldn’t be an outing with Kai if he didn’t get really upset about something.

Unlike our other path that loops around back to our starting point, this one goes on for many miles. As we did not want to travel all the way to the end, we picked a spot to stop, turn around, and head back.

We had all agreed that our turnaround point would be Lake Street. But it wasn’t until Kai and I stopped to look at a map that we realized that there was no intersection there; rather, there was an overpass.

We tried to yell to Mom to stop before the bridge. But as we were riding so far behind her, we weren’t sure she heard us.

As we slowed down to stop, we yelled to Mom to stop. But she kept riding up and over the bridge, disappearing from view.

“MOM!!! COME BACK!!!”

I told Kai that Mom would come back soon. But he would not calm down.

“When she comes back, she should get a big punishment!”

I told him that if we were riding closer, Mom would have heard us.

I called her on he cell phone and she came back. Kai wasn’t exactly happy to see her.

“Mom, you did a bad job!”

Sigh.

We resumed riding. Kai was crabby much of the way back, complaining of how his legs couldn’t pedal any longer. I wasn’t surprised that he felt tired. Our old path was about 4 miles; this time we biked about 7 or 8 miles, so we went about twice as far.

I was exhausted, too. Not from the distance, but from constantly exhorting Kai to keep going.

When we caught up with my wife back at the starting point, she was cheerful about how beautiful the new path was. I grumpily agreed.

She enthusiastically praised Kai for making the longer ride.

And though I wasn’t exactly in an enthusiastic mood, I agree. He did deserve the praise.

Progress is measured in many ways. On this day, it was by the length of a little longer bike ride.

Halloween: Ketchup and Mustard

Kai has been really into collecting Trashies that I thought perhaps that he could be one for Halloween.

About a month ago, I googled “Trashies Halloween costume” and, well, let’s just say the results were not what I was looking for. (Though I notice today that the same search now yields a bunch of kid-appropriate results.)

We eventually found one Trash Pack costume for sale, but since it was for young kids, it would not fit Kai. So, I decided that I would make him a costume this year.

I ordered a light-weight collapsible trash can. We would make it a craft project to paint it as if it were trash-stained, and to also paint an old t-shirt.

Unfortunately, nearly four weeks later, the trash can never arrived. It is still showing as “In transit,” stuck at some UPS facility. I contacted the seller and they refunded the money rather than send out another one.

So, still without a Halloween costume for Kai and with the big day approaching, my wife went out and got a replacement:

It’s not homemade, but I have to admit that they look good together.

My wife attended the Halloween parade at school in costume.

And then they came home and did a short round of trick-or-treating in the rain.

When I got home from work, Kai was ready to go again. I don’t think he particularly cared about getting more candy – he eats hardly any of the candy he collects – he just wanted to do another round with me, which was very sweet.

And so it was my turn to be Ketchup, and we embarked just as the rain picked up again.

Three Halloweens ago, Kai was just beginning to talk more ably and it was still hit or miss whether he would say “trick-or-treat” and I constantly had to remind him to say “thank you” at each house. He did not respond when people commented about his costume.

This year, I heard him say “trick-or-treat” loudly and clearly. And I only had to remind him to say “thank you” once.

And when people remarked how great his costume was, he quickly and appropriately thanked them.

At one house, the person at the door did not see me hanging further back with the umbrella over my head. Seeing Kai as mustard, she asked what happened to ketchup. He turned around, pointed to me, and told the woman, “He’s right there.”

We probably went to less than ten houses before turning around and heading back home. It was late and the wind started picking up.

But it was plenty of time for father-and-son bonding.

And for me to notice the progress he has made with his communication and socialization.

And so, despite the rain, we had a great Halloween.

Carving a Pumpkin All by Himself

I always call my wife after I leave work to let her know which train I will be on and when I expect to be home. When we talked the other day, she told me that Kai was carving a pumpkin all by himself.

My wife had bought three smaller pumpkins to go with the big one we carved earlier. As it was Halloween week, Kai reminded her that they still needed to be carved, and volunteered to work on one himself.

My wife was very surprised that he wanted to do it. We had never let him try to carve one before.

He told her that he had carved one in school, having been taught by his OT. We don’t always have a lot of insight into what his OT at school works on with him, so it was good to find this out.

Once the pumpkin insides had been cleaned out, he drew a face on his pumpkin. Then he poked a hole for a starting point using the icepick-like tool that came with the carving kit we had.

Next he inserted the tool with the small, saw-like blade and began carving out his design.

He started with the eyes, and then went on to the nose.

I couldn’t wait to get home to see his work. He did a nice job, don’t you think?

My wife and I heaped praise for a job well done, and my wife continued to express surprise that he was able to do this.

“I’m becoming a big boy, Mom,” he told her.

Yes, he is.

I Wonder…

Are all kids as sweet as my son, or does his autism help make him that way?

After our bike ride on Sunday, Kai wanted the two of us to build an electronic circuit with a set we had given him three Christmases ago. He hadn’t played with it much in the past year and a half so I was surprised that he wanted to now.

But before we would do that, I wanted Kai do a little bit of online math work. He has been doing math on the Khan Academy website for several months now, mostly on weekends, to get in some extra practice at home.

Kai enjoys math so it was not difficult getting him to agree to work on one or two sets of problems.

On this occasion, I had him work on pattern recognition. He solved the first problem easily, but started having trouble with the next one. Frankly, I didn’t quite understand what the problem was asking for, and couldn’t point out to Kai an error in his answer.

And once Kai gets an answer wrong, he starts to get frustrated.

The next problem was also a bit difficult for him. But I understood it and tried to help Kai by asking pointed questions intended to get him to think through the problem better himself.

But once he is frustrated, his listening skills deteriorate.

Rather than answer my questions, he started randomly guessing answers to the problem. I tried to slow him down and try to figure out the problem one step at a time, but he was too upset to think about what I was telling him.

I asked him to write things down on paper, as it would help him to work things out. He chewed on his pen, and then angrily wrote things down, but so sloppily that it did not help him gain clarity.

At one point, I read aloud the key sentence in the problem that should have clued him in to the answer immediately. When he still didn’t see the answer, and continued yelling that he didn’t want to do this anymore, my frustration grew equal to his.

He wanted to quit. I was angry. I yelled at him to keep going.

He started crying that we would not have time to do the Electronic Snap Circuits as it was now approaching dinnertime.

I could see that it was probably pointless to continue working on math when his mind was in this state. And I felt terrible that I had lost patience, and my temper.

But, I’m stubborn. And I didn’t want to stop on a low note so I pressed on.

I tried to calm myself down.

I finally decided that if he could get one more answer correct, that would be enough for that day. When I told him that, he seemed to calm down enough to start thinking about the math problem again.

And when he got the problem right, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

After our ordeal with the math, I was a bit surprised that he still wanted to do the electronics with me. And so I eagerly joined him.

He did not really need my help, though. He was able to read all the instructions, view the diagrams in the book, and build the circuits by himself.

But he really enjoyed that I was there with him, constantly explaining to me all the steps as he did them, and occasionally asking me to grab a piece for him.

He built a circuit that would record and re-play his voice. On his first attempt at recording, he spoke very tentatively and barely got any words in before the 8 second limit had passed and the beep sounded. But after that, he enjoyed recording his voice many times, saying something different each time.

After a break for dinner, he wanted to build another circuit, this time asking Mom to watch us while he built an FM radio. It really worked.

At bedtime, he told me that he wanted to build another circuit with him the next day. And when I came home from work on Monday evening, he was eagerly waiting for me.

He was so sweet.

It made me wonder. How does this sweet boy continue to love me so much when I keep getting frustrated with him?

I don’t know why.

But I do know that I want to work harder not to get frustrated.

I don’t want to risk losing his love.

Back on Our Bikes

We had one of our few “regular” weekends this fall, meaning that we did not attend any special events. And that meant that we had time to get back on our bicycles and go riding.

For this of you who have been following along, you’ll recall that we got new bikes for Kai and my wife. But we’ve had a lot of difficulty getting Kai to ride his new bike, as told here and here.

It’s now been over a month since we got the new bikes, and I was looking forward to finally taking them somewhere besides the empty parking lot in our neighborhood.

If I knew how difficult it would be, I don’t think I would have been looking forward to it so much.

Kai got off to a slow start. And I mean that figuratively and literally.

Kai tends to pedal very slowly. Which makes it hard to steer. And almost impossible to ride up even the slightest hills.

Now, this being the Chicago area, we’re not talking about the Rocky Mountains or even hilly San Francisco. Our “hills,” if you even call them that, are very mild inclines.

But when you’re barely moving on flat ground, you’re not going to make it up the small hill.

I tried to encourage Kai to pedal faster. But he said he was scared and then started yelling at me to be quiet every time I told him to pedal faster.

The result was that he would not make it to the top of the incline, he would stop, and yell at his bike and me.

“Stupid bike!”

It’s not the bike’s fault, I told him. You just need to pedal faster.

“I WANT TO GO HOME!”

Aside from being afraid to pedal faster, he also was afraid to ride too closely to the rider in front of him, which was my wife in most cases.

Here you can see the typical distance between them.

Sometimes my wife would slow down or stop so that we could catch up to her. Whenever she did this, Kai would start yelling.

“KEEP GOING, MOM!”

There was panic in his voice, as he was afraid that he would crash into her.

I tried to reassure him that we were so far behind that there was absolutely no way we would run into her.

“You be quiet!” he told me.

Eventually he did start to ride a little faster. And so it got easier for him. We did the last 3 and a half miles of our short trip in less time than the first mile.

Back at the starting point, he had a bit of a smile on his face.

“Dad, I was out of sorts at the beginning, but then I did better, right?”

Yes, Kai, you did.

Hopefully we can go ride at least once more this fall before he forgets that’s it’s not so scary to pedal a little faster.

Now That Was a Busy Weekend: Part 3 – Carving Our Jack-O-Lantern, and Dinner Out

Our Sunday wasn’t quite a busy as Saturday, but we still had some special activities.

After looking at all of the carved pumpkins at the pumpkin festival the night before, Kai wanted to carve our own pumpkin.

You may recall that I mentioned that we had bought a very large pumpkin the previous weekend when we visited my dad. Well, here it is:

Kai and I set to work on carving it. I cut open the top and scraped down the sides. I let Kai take out the “guts” of the pumpkin.

Kai had earlier gotten an Angry Birds pumpkin pattern book with my wife, so we picked out one of the patterns and I traced it on the side of the pumpkin. And then I set to work to carve out the design.

I found out that really large pumpkins have really thick skin. The carving tools that came with the pattern book barely were long enough to cut all the way in. And so it took a long time to carve that pumpkin.

Kai was interested for a while. But as I continued working on the pumpkin, he said that he would go play Wii by himself.

Periodically he would yell over from the family room to ask how I was doing.

It ended up taking me two and a half hours to cut that thing. And not all of the holes are nearly big enough as the pattern was designed for a much thinner pumpkin, I’m sure. After all that work, I’m not sure you can even tell what it is.

I grumbled that I would never carve this kind of pattern on such a large pumpkin again. But Kai seemed very happy with the finished product.

By the time I was done, it was time to go meet Kai’s grandparents for dinner. They were taking us out to Benihana for my wife’s birthday.

Benihana is one of those Japanese steakhouses where the chef prepares the meal right at your table. We’ve been to a similar type of restaurant before, but never to this particular one.

When the chef came to our table, Kai asked if there was going to be fire. At the other restaurant, a big part of the show is a huge flame that the chef ignites as he begins cooking. It’s a fun sight, but Kai always gets very scared.

“Is there going to be fire?” he asked our chef here.

The chef told him that there would be no fire, and we had to reassure him several times that would be the case.

The chef was quite talented, and his skillful slicing and dicing entertained us. One of his tricks was to flip the cut-off shrimp tails into his pocket.

Kai and my wife ordered combination platters that included lobster. My son doesn’t like regular fish, but he loves his shellfish.

The food was excellent, the atmosphere fun, and the company was great. Kai had a triple helping of shrimp (from others who knew he loved it so much) and finished all of his lobster.

It was nice to see Bubbe and Papa again. Bubbe told the wait staff that we were celebrating my wife’s birthday so they came and sang “Happy Birthday” in both English and Japanese.

It was a very enjoyable evening.

Kai had behaved very well at the restaurant, even though I had told him that he could not bring his iPad. I think the entertaining atmosphere helped, but he also just had a good attitude about it. The whole thing was a far cry from the old days when just the thought of going to a restaurant with him stressed us out.

And so, this was a great way to cap off our special weekend.

Now That Was a Busy Weekend: Part 2 – Mom's Birthday and Pumpkin Festival

After the Pooch Parade, my wife took Riley and her owners home while Kai and I drove separately. Kai wanted to stop at a Target to get Mom a birthday present.

I asked Kai what he wanted to get Mom.

“I don’t know. Maybe Angry Birds.”

I mildly scolded Kai, explaining that when you buy a present for someone, you look for something that you think they would like, not something that you want for yourself.

I suggested that we could look for music, movies, or clothes. He chose music.

I found a couple CDs that I thought my wife would enjoy. But Kai did not like the selections.

“Let’s look at the movies.”

Kai asked me what movies Mom would like. The reality is that there are very few movies that I would think of buying for my wife. First of all, our public library has a very good selection. But also because we watch almost every movie just once so it’s not really worth owning them.

I saw Kai eyeing the latest animated feature that I knew he would want to get for himself. But after my earlier scolding, he knew better than to suggest it for Mom.

After much dithering going back and forth between the music and dvd sections, I was getting impatient. Kai’s boxing class would be starting soon so I wanted him to decide on something.

I asked him if he was sure that he did not want to get the CDs I picked out. He said he was sure.

So I suggested that we go over to the section that sold women’s clothing and look for shirts. Kai thought that was a good idea.

And when we got there, he quickly picked out a nice pink long-sleeve top.

“This looks good.”

Yes, it does, I agreed.

And with that, we were finally free to move on to the rest of our activities.

Kai had his boxing class and soccer game.

And after he took a bath, it was time to go to the Highwood Pumpkin Festival.

This is the fourth year for the festival in which our tiny neighboring town attempts to break the Guinness world record for the most lit jack-o-lanterns.

It was raining lightly when we made our way over to the festival. Kai usually gets upset with any amount of rain, but he didn’t complain at all on this evening.

The festival covered several city blocks so started walking around and taking in the sight of all the pumpkins.

We came to an area that was set up for carving. To break the record, they would have to carve and light over 30,000 jack-o-lanterns, so they needed all the help they could get. Kai insisted that I pitch in.

I carved Kai’s name in a large pumpkin.

After that, we walked some more and saw people starting to light the jack-o-lanterns. Kai wanted to help.

We let Kai hold a lighted candle for the picture, but most of the time he gathered the small, unlit candles and placed inside the jack-o-lanterns for lighting. Then, my wife or I would light them.

It was hard work. After I lit a row of pumpkins, I looked back and saw that the wind had blown out nearly all of them. After three or four attempts at the same row, I was ready to move on. We had done our part; let someone else try.

But Kai didn’t want to quit.

“We have to keep going!”

It was cold. My wife and I were tired. But we kept going for longer than we wanted, as Kai was still enthusiastic about lighting as many pumpkins as he could. We found a spot that wasn’t as windy and was able to successfully light the pumpkins.

Eventually we convinced Kai to leave as we still had Mom’s birthday to celebrate. I think it was the thought of birthday cake that finally got him to agree to go.

On our way out, we saw a lot of lit jack-o-lanterns.

But I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to be enough to break the record. We later found out that they had over 28,000 lit jack-o-lanterns, but another town, in New Hampshire, set the record that same day with over 30,000. Oh well, we'll try again next year.

Back in the warmth of our house, we celebrated Mom's birthday.

Here’s a picture of the pink top that Kai picked out:

Kai enjoyed watching Mom open her other presents, too.

It was a long day. But a good day.

And our weekend fun wasn’t over yet.

Now That Was a Busy Weekend: Part 1 – Pooch Parade

As if our Saturdays aren’t busy enough with Kai’s special needs activities for ice skating, boxing, and soccer, this week we also went to two additional events on Saturday.

First was the Spooky Pooch Parade at our local botanic garden. We went there with two of the dogs that my wife sees often, and their owners.

There was Riley, who was a beautiful pumpkin ballerina.

And, Momo, who was an adorable witch.

This is an annual event, but it was the first time we had attended. This is the only day of the year that dogs are allowed at the garden, and there were a lot of dogs taking part in the event.

The three-headed dog was one of my favorites.

Many dogs came dressed for the horticultural theme of the botanic garden.

And we also saw a lot of owner and dog combinations.

My guess is that there were over a thousand dogs there, and it was a crush of people and animals as we waited for the judging to be completed before the parade would begin.

My wife and I enjoyed looking at all of the dogs, but Kai was getting grumpy at all the waiting. We thought perhaps that we would take a break from the crowd and go get a snack before the parade began.

Of course, as soon as we go to the cafeteria, Kai started becoming anxious that we would miss the start of the parade. With his loud grumbling, I barely had time to take a bite of a cookie before we hurried back to the area where all the dogs were.

The parade started soon after, and Kai enjoyed marching in it alongside Mom and Riley.

I could have taken hundreds of pictures, but here are just a few of other dogs we saw.

For those of you who want to see more pictures, I direct you to the website of Chicago Botanic Garden.

My wife and Kai did the short route of the parade while I snapped these pictures. It would have been fun to stay a bit longer, but I think Kai had had enough by then.

And besides, we still had a long rest of the day ahead of us.

Fall Weekend at Ojiichan’s

We drove out to see my dad this weekend.

Fall is a great time to go as my dad has a lot of apple trees on his property that are usually loaded with fruit this time of year. Kai wanted to walk around and pick apples as soon as we got there.

After that we had lunch. And then Kai occupied himself with the iPad while my wife and I cleaned up the house just a bit. It would take a 10-man crew a few weeks to really clean the place, so we just did what we could while we were there.

We couldn’t work too long though, as Kai was itching to get outside again. My wife loves chestnuts and Kai knew that Ojichan has a couple of chestnut trees. So we went in search of the elusive treat

We saw a lot of the thorny shells on the ground that was evidence that the trees must have produced a lot of chestnuts. But with no actual nut inside the empty shells, it looked like the squirrels had gotten all of it. Finally, my wife spotted one with the nuts still inside the shell.

We found a total of three chestnuts.

We came back to the house and played a game of darts.

From the time that Kai first saw my dad’s electronic dartboard, he was fascinated by the game. The combination of numbers and funny sounds made a perfect combination. At the time of his first visit, he was too small to throw the darts well, though we let him stand on a crate just a couple feet from the board so that he could participate.

Now, my dad no longer plays as his eyesight has deteriorated to the point where he cannot really see the dartboard. But Kai has gotten much better and he can throw the dart from almost the same distance back as I do. So, he, Mom, and I played while Ojiichan watched.

After the dart game, the four of us drove to a nearby farm where we saw apple cider being made. It was the first time I had seen the process.

First, a woman washed the apples and loaded them on a conveyer.

The apples went through a grinder.

A man wrapped the apple pulp in burlap.

When he had five of those stacked up, he started the machine that pressed the juice out of the pulp.

The juice flowed into a tank.

And then we were able to pour ourselves some cider.

Afterward, we enjoyed the cider, and a dozen apple cider doughnuts which we also saw being made.

Both the cider and doughnuts were very delicious.

The next day, we walked around picking more apples.

Kai enjoyed tasting fruits from each different tree. Some were too sour, but he found some that he really enjoyed and we brought back a large bagful.

On the drive back home, we stopped at a country market that had a very wide assortment of large pumpkins.

We picked out the largest pumpkin that we had ever bought, and it was only $10, which is about a third of the cost we would have to pay at a pumpkin farm near our house.

And so we had a very pleasant weekend.

I know my dad was happy to see us, but I was also pleased that Kai had a good time.

There were many things that could have bothered him – the fruit flies in my dad’s house, the odor from the garbage we hauled away in our car, the odor from my dad who doesn’t shower as often as he needs to – but the boy who often wails at the slightest odd smell just went with the flow this weekend.

I really don’t know if he just did not notice, or if he did notice but had enough social decorum not to mention it. I’m guessing it was the former, though that would be a bit surprising given his ultra sensitivity to everything.

I’m just glad that he remains such a sweet kid who truly enjoys seeing all of his grandparents. Even the smelly one.