Winter Break Activities

Kai returns to school this morning.

He made the most of winter break.

He worked on the various kits and sets that he received for Christmas and Hanukkah.

We made our annual visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden where we saw Wonderland Express, the exhibit of famous Chicago buildings made from plant materials, with model railroads running through them.

We tried going ice skating, though the ice in the outdoor rink wasn't quite thick enough yet.

We went sledding.

He also started reading from among the many books he received, did online math through the Khan Academy website, and we played a new board game as well.

It will not be easy for him to get back into the school routine. But it is time. I think my wife is looking forward to it.

Birthday Celebration

Kai’s grandparents were in town so we had an early birthday celebration for him.

We were to meet them at the Lego store where Kai would get to pick out a set of his choice.

We are still working on teaching Kai to be more appreciative and less greedy. Before we left home, my wife and I spoke to Kai that he could have one set, and to not ask for any more. We reminded him that he had just gotten two Lego sets from our trip to Legoland last weekend, and he would likely be getting additional birthday presents as well.

At the store, he greeted his grandparents with hugs, and then set about the store. A Star Wars set caught his eye. That was the one he wanted, he said.

But then he saw something else, and he wanted that one, too. The Star Wars set he saw first was an expensive one. I didn’t want him asking his grandparents for more.

Kai wasn’t happy that he couldn’t have the Chima set, too. I wasn’t happy that he had already forgotten the talk we had with him.

Bubbe came over to talk to him.

She told him that if she bought everything now, she wouldn’t have anything to get him the next time she was in town. Kai pondered that for a second.

“When are you coming next?”

And that made me laugh, just a little.

I was even happier that Kai stopped making a fuss about wanting more. He finally was genuinely appreciative of the gift he received.

And when we got home, he started to work on his new set right away.

And later we had dinner together, with cake, of course.

After that, he got to open one more gift, this one a special one from his grandfather. Kai was able to guess what it was: tins! He had Mom bring the rest of his collection downstairs so he could see all of them at once.

And with that, we had a very nice birthday celebration.

My wife told Kai that she did not have grandparents, and that he is a very lucky boy to have so many grandparents.

And so he is. And not just because of presents he gets, but from all of the love they show him. That is priceless.

Anxiety, Perspective, and Legoland

As I wrote last week, my son had a Safe Month at school in January. But he still had to be safe for one more day to earn a special incentive for staying safe 25 consecutive school days: a trip to our local area Legoland.

My wife and I held our breath all day Friday. And when Kai came home in the taxi, my wife went out to greet him. She opened the door of the cab and saw Kai crying profusely.

Oh no! He must not have made it. He wasn’t safe. And there went the Legoland reward.

Except that wasn’t why he was upset. He had been safe at school.

But he was mad that the driver had dropped off another boy first.

And such is the life with a boy who gets upset over the seemingly smallest things.

My wife explained to Kai that Jacob deserved a turn to get dropped off first. But she also understood that this new taxi driver changed things up without the staff at school being able to prepare Kai ahead of time. Sigh. My wife made a mental note to talk to Kai’s therapist this morning.

We hit another bump in the road early the next morning. Snow plows were clearing our street for the first time this season. Kai heard the noise, and woke us up. He was scared.

I explained that it was just the trucks plowing the snow and he had nothing to be scared of. But he was scared anyway and could not sleep.

We have been working with Kai to get him to stay in his bed and not wake us in the middle of the night. He had accumulated a number of points and was on the verge of earning a desired toy. I told him that he would have to wait (at least) one more night to get his reward.

I can already hear some of you quietly expressing that I should have given it to him anyway. But if I made an exception for snow plows, the next time it would be for garbage trucks or a honking horn or whatever. I wanted to hold the line. Kai was not happy about that.

“I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW!”

It’s only one more night.

“WHAT IF THE SNOW PLOWS GO BY AGAIN?”

There is nothing to be scared of. Stay in bed.

“I’LL SLEEP THIS AFTERNOON INSTEAD!”

Well, then we won’t be able to go to Legoland.

“I DON’T WANT TO GO TO LEGOLAND!”

This went on for quite some time. But eventually I got him calmed down by the prospect of earning a Trashie for doing exercise.

And once he had his Trash Pack Fizz Bag, he was all smiles.

We made it to Legoland later that morning.

We saw the amazing Lego figures, like Darth Vader.

We sat in on a workshop where they taught us how to build T Rex.

We watched the 3D movie, which was my favorite part.

And my wife and Kai rode on this…

Although Kai was one of the oldest kids there, he was the only one I heard screaming during the ride, “TOO HIGH!” as he clutched my wife’s arm and tried to get her not to make the ride go up.

Later, he got to pick out one new Lego set for his Safe Month, and another as an early birthday present. And when we got home, he set to work on one right away.

He finished that in less than a day, and then started on the next one as the Super Bowl was about to start.

And though he barely watched any of the game, getting to work on his Lego while eating chips and salsa made for a grand time.

“I love the Super Bowl!” he told us at bedtime.

Ha, I loved that he had a really nice time this weekend.

First Week Back at School, and Our Weekend

It has been one week now since the end of winter break.

All in all, we are satisfied with Kai’s transition back to school. His scores on the daily point sheets could have been higher on a couple of days, and he expressed some anger at various teachers and classmates when we talked about school at dinnertime.

But, he stayed safe. A week with no torn clothing or attempts to bite teachers; I guess I would put that one in the win column.

He had some extra motivation to stay safe. Early in the week, we got a belated holiday gift from an aunt: another prized “credit card” for the Lego store. We told him that if he stayed safe, Mom would take him shopping on Friday afternoon and he could pick out something with his new card.

From the looks of his point sheet that day, he barely made it. He was marked off more than once for not showing respect, among several other things. But he must have calmed down enough each time after being given a warning that he recovered enough to be marked as staying safe.

He picked out a set from the new Chima collection, which looks to be Lego’s latest big thing. (Those folks at Lego are marketing geniuses, much to the dismay of parents everywhere). And when he got home, he worked on it right away and had it mostly completed by the time I got home from work.

When he was showing me his new set, he told me that he was going to get another new one tomorrow. I was puzzled. How do you know that?

He explained that he had spoken on the phone with his grandmother who would be visiting over the weekend. She was at the Lego store as they spoke. Hmm, what was she doing there?

And the next day, when his grandparents arrived, they brought over new Legos which he loved and started on right away.

For lunch, we all went to Fuddrucker’s, Kai’s favorite hamburger restaurant. He loves the condiments bar where he can take all the pickles and onions that he can eat.

These days, he is usually pretty good at waiting for his food to arrive. Well, for a few minutes anyway. But on this day, he seemed restless. The restaurant gives each group a buzzer to alert you when your order is ready. Kai sat at the table for only a minute before he wanted to go up to the counter to check on the progress. He was a bit impatient, but still managed to wait nicely.

And when our order was up, we went and got a plateful of pickles and he was a happy kid.

The rest of our weekend was spent building Legos, doing extra math work, and playing a periodic table quiz – in other words, an ordinary weekend.

Now we begin a new week. Can Kai stay safe two weeks in a row? Can he finally attain a safe month? Ah, but now I’m getting ahead of myself. One day at a time, I tell him.

Let’s see how today goes.

The Issue with “Credit Cards”

On past birthdays, my son has sometimes been given gift cards. The cards come enclosed with a birthday card, and Kai has not shown much interest in them. I wonder if he even knew what they were. He usually just tosses them aside and moves on to the next present.

My wife makes sure to grab the cards so that they don’t get lost in the frenzy of opening the presents or tossed out with the wrapping paper and boxes.

However, and here is where we have a confession to make, we don’t give the cards back to Kai afterward. Oh, it’s not like we use the cards for ourselves. We are not that bad.

But after getting so many presents like he usually does on his birthday, it seems excessive to take him to the store with his gift cards and get him more. Instead, we save the cards and use them later in the year when he wants something. And that has worked out fine.

Until now.

This past weekend, Kai received a couple gift cards for Hanukkah. My wife tucked them away as usual. But this time, Kai noticed.

The next day, he asked, “Mom, where are the credit cards I got?”

My wife explained that he did not receive credit cards, but he did get two gift cards. I don’t think he cared about the distinction.

What he did care was that he could use them to buy more Legos at the store. Like, immediately.

We are trying to get him to wait for a little while before he cashes in his cards. I, for one, would like to do a better job of teaching him about delayed gratification, the concept of saving his money, and the notion of being able to buy something better later by having saved some money now.

But this is a boy who sometimes can hardly wait a few minutes for something, let alone having to save up for weeks or months. Rationally explaining the value of waiting often seems to have no effect.

I know we need to start small, and perhaps for short periods of time that we gradually stretch out. But it is not easy.

For now, with his latest gift cards, he seems to have accepted our argument that he should at least wait until after Christmas so he doesn’t spend his cards on something that he may get on the 25th.

But come the 26th, I know that we will be hearing his persistent pleading/whining/yelling to go to the store.

Perhaps it is both unfair and unrealistic to try to use these gift cards to teach him about delayed gratification. Maybe we should let him use these now but come up with another plan to teach him this valuable lesson.

Kai has made progress in many ways. This will be one of our next challenges.

Christmas Tree Loses to Hanukkah Present

We were all still feeling the great about the Hanukkah party when we awoke on Sunday morning. My wife and I were still aglow about Kai’s interactions, while Kai was excited about his presents.

He wanted to get started on one of his new Lego sets right away.

Usually I want him to have breakfast before he starts in on a project, but on this morning, we let him play for a good long while before we had breakfast together.

But after that, it was time to turn our attention to Christmas.

When I was a kid, putting up the Christmas tree was a highly anticipated occasion. Not only did I enjoy decorating the tree, the occasion signified that Christmas would soon be here.

In recent years, Kai had the same excitement. He would play with the ornaments before helping to put them on the tree. It seemed like every year he got more and more excited. Last year he even climbed up the ladder to put the lights and ornaments high up on the tree.

But not this year.

He was mildly interested when I took out the boxes of decorations and started to string the lights. But soon he wanted to do something else.

“Mom, I’m going to work on my Legos.”

“Hey, what about the Christmas tree?” I asked.

“Dad, you can do that yourself.”

Sigh. Hanukkah 1. Christmas 0.

He worked on his new Lego diligently with only a short break for lunch.

He finished the first model early that afternoon.

That was quick. I was thinking that all of the new Lego sets he would get for Hanukkah and Christmas would keep him occupied for many months. But I can already see that he will be pleading for new sets much sooner than we thought.

In fact, he was already thinking ahead.

When we had our usual Skype call with his grandparents in Japan that evening, he told them which Lego sets he received for Hanukkah. He was very concerned that Jiji and Baba were going to get the same ones for him for Christmas. “You have to get a different one,” he told them.

My wife translated Kai’s concerns, though we already know that he will be receiving different sets.

But such are the worries of an eight year old.

My worries are about what will happen when he finishes all of his Lego sets.

Ah, but those thoughts can wait, I suppose. Only one week until Christmas. Time to enjoy the moment.

Quick Recap of the Weekend

Hanukkah started this weekend and Christmas will soon be here. My wife and I both feel like we have way too much to do and not enough time to do it. How I wish I had followed my blog friend Betsy’s lead in starting planning for Christmas back in October. Anyway, this will be just a short post on our weekend.

We won’t have our family Hanukkah gathering until next weekend, but we did light the candles on our menorah the first two nights. Kai is looking forward to the presents, and seeing everyone, too!

We are also counting down to Christmas. Well, Kai is counting down with his Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar. Every morning, the first thing he wants to do after he gets up is to see what the model-of-the-day is, and to build it right away. This morning’s figure was an AT-AT Walker from The Empire Strikes Back.

We were all in a grocery store yesterday when Kai saw coconuts for sale. He always takes an interest in fruits and vegetables that we have never had before. So, this time he wanted to bring him a coconut.

As a kid, I remember seeing my dad climb a tree in Hawaii and knock down some coconuts for us to eat. But I don’t remember cutting one open myself.

It was a once in a lifetime experience. Which means, it was such a pain to take out the juice, open the coconut, and cut out the edible parts that I never want to do it again.

But Kai really enjoyed the whole process, and he liked drinking the juice and eating the fruit as well.

Morn than a year ago, Kai’s grandfather in Japan brought over a Japanese marble race toy for Kai. Kai had seen Japanese videos of elaborate setups where one marble would run into something that would set off another chain of events. The toy he got was a bit difficult, even for adults, and Kai did not show a whole lot of interest in playing with it after Jiji returned to Japan.

But this weekend, he pulled it off the shelf and started building with it. He wanted me to join him, but he was the one who came up with the ideas of what to make. It was nice to see, as with Legos he usually just sticks to following instructions instead of coming up with his own creations.

And while we did not build anything too elaborate, it was great that Kai showed interest. Yes, at times like these, I can see that he is maturing.

Happy Hanukkah!

A Present, Just Because

Last Friday evening, my wife told me that Kai really wanted to get a Lego advent calendar. Saturday was the first day of December, so if we were going to get it for him, we needed to decide right then.

We sometimes use things that Kai really wants like this as a reward that he can earn for good behavior. Or, we will give him with an unexpected prize when he has done something special that we want to recognize.

But there was nothing in particular to recognize at this time. In fact, Kai had a poor month at school throughout November. Our one-time hopes that he might attain the next level at school have all but vanished for now. He is back to having several major incidents per week.

So, there was no good excuse to get him the Lego set. It would have been easy for me to just decide that he did not deserve the present right now.

But something about that gnawed at me.

Between my wife and me, I am more likely to be the one to say that we should not get Kai a present. I am the one to argue that we are spoiling him if we give him things too easily.

But when I woke up Saturday morning, knowing it was December 1, I wanted to get that Lego set for him.

I didn’t want Mom to get it for him. I wanted him to know that I wanted to get it for him. And for him to know that it would not come with any conditions, but I wanted to give it to him just because it would bring him joy.

And so, after he woke up, I told him that we would go to the Lego store and get that advent calendar.

I think he could hardly believe it.

First, we had our weekly trip to the library. And then I took him to a birthday party. But after that we drove straight to the mall. He picked out the Star Wars calendar. And he was very happy.

When we got home, he made his first model from the set, a Gungan sub. Kai has not shown a great deal of interest in Star Wars until now, but somehow he knew what it was.

Two years ago, my wife gave him a different Lego advent calendar. At that time, he built all 24 models in one day. This time, he showed some restraint as he decided that he would build only one each day as intended.

The next day, as he was making the second model, he told me, “When I go to college, you can keep the set here.”

And then he added, “And when I get married, I’ll send you an email and you can bring this to my house.” That brought a smile to my face.

And I really smile as I see Kai smile that big smile of his every time he works on the Lego figure of the day. It makes me think that I made the right decision.

A dad should try to encourage his son to do his best, and reward him when he does.

But he should also let his son know that he loves him regardless.

Hopefully it didn’t take a Lego set to accomplish that. But I think it was a nice reminder.

The Campaign

The election is over but the campaign has only just begun.

Yes, it is that time of year. The pre-holiday lobbying season.

At his last birthday, Kai got numerous Lego sets. For those of you without young kids, when your child is attending a birthday party, particularly a boy’s birthday party, the go-to gifts these days are Lego sets. Boys like my son who do not play with many conventional toys will almost assuredly play with Lego.

Lego has been around at least since I was a kid, but their popularity has never been higher. They have sets for a seeming endless variety of things, from vehicles and buildings to Star Wars and castles. Some of the sets are quite involved and expensive, but others are priced more affordably. And thus, make perfect birthday presents.

Most of the Lego sets that Kai got nine months ago sat on a shelf unopened for a long time. He had too many new presents to play with, and other things caught his attention for a while.

But in recent months, Kai has started to work on his Legos. One by one, he has built each set. Working mostly independently, he has constructed the simple to the more complex.

A couple years ago, he would have gotten frustrated if he could not find the right piece, or if he had made a mistake and the pieces did not fit right. He would have given up and perhaps thrown things around in anger. But these days he is much more able to stay focused and is able to work through most of his difficulties.

A couple weeks ago, he finished the last of his Lego sets. And now he wants more.

With the holidays around the corner, we told him that he could make a list of what he wants and perhaps he might get some of the things on his list at Hanukkah or Christmas.

And so he wrote out his list and gave it to Mom to mail to Santa, and to also send along to his grandparents. I am not sure if he still believes in Santa; we have a suspicion that he no longer does. But, he wants to cover all of his bases just to be sure.

With the holiday list completed, you might think that would be that. But, of course, that is not the case.

On a regular basis, he reminds us of what he wants. And when he is not telling us, he leafs through his Lego catalogs, or goes on the Lego website to look fondly at what hopefully will be his one day soon. Sometimes he wants to add one more thing to his list. He tells my wife that we can get it for him, or Santa can.

And though I am poking a bit of fun at my son’s obsession, I remember that I was the same way when I was his age. In my case, my parents had a giant catalog from Montgomery Wards (back in the day when stores would make giant catalogs). I remember that I endlessly flipped through the toy section, as if staring at the toy would make it appear under our Christmas tree.

We shall see what Santa brings for Kai this year. But I think my wife’s Christmas wish is for Kai to go more than five minutes without him lobbying for some new Lego.

Much like how many of us are relieved that all of the election ads have finally stopped running, my wife will be relieved when this campaign has run its course, too.

Campaign for Presents Continues

With my son ramping up his campaign to get more presents, it is interesting to what he is excited about.

One of presents he always looks forward to getting on his birthday is Ugly Dolls. He has already amassed quite a collection. The company that makes them is constantly putting out new dolls so there is no end to how many Kai can get. Ahead of Christmas and Hanukkah, and now once again ahead of his birthday, Kai goes on the Ugly Dolls website every day to look at the entire inventory. Though there are now over a hundred dolls, he has memorized the names of all of them, as well as the year each came out. He also knows what new dolls are due out later this year.

What I find interesting is that the anticipation of getting a new doll seems to far outweigh the joy of actually having one. These days he rarely plays with the dolls he has. And, anyway, it’s not like he would do much of the imaginative play with these dolls that typical kids would. So the thrill for him seems to be all in the chase, and once he has a new doll, he starts looking forward to the next one. I’m not sure if that is an autism thing, a guy thing, a collector thing, or just a Kai thing.

Another thing that he is obsessing over these days is one of his favorite gifts from Christmas 2010. Electronic Snap Circuits is a toy that teaches kids the basics about electronics. The set that Kai received enables kids to “build over 300 exciting projects.” Back when he received it, Kai was really into it for several weeks, doing several projects a day.

But lately he hadn’t played with it in months. Now though, thinking of his upcoming birthday, he’s taken interest in it once again. He declared that he wanted the upgrade set that would allow him to do 500 projects. He Googled it and looks at the product’s website every day, being sure to show it to me. When I mentioned that he hadn’t yet finished his first 300 projects, he started to work on them once again. At least with this toy, I know that he will likely play with it after he gets it, and it is educational so it will be good for him.

Legos is another toy that had been idle for months. He had a few sets from his last birthday that had been unopened. But after our recent trip to Legoland, Kai has taken a renewed interest. He wanted to get more sets. When I pointed out that he still had several that he hadn’t worked on, he set to work on them. Now he’s just about caught up and wants more RIGHT NOW.

In seeing all of this activity over presents, I wonder if the use of rewards from all the ABA therapy he’s had has made it harder for Kai to wait for things. In ABA, positive reinforcement is often used to motivate a child to do something that is difficult for him. In many cases, the rewards were given immediately. He rarely had to wait for weeks to collect on something. And for a child who has always had a lot of difficulty waiting for even 5 minutes, the notion of waiting 5 more weeks is very difficult.

For those of you with younger kids, I encourage you to try to stretch out the rewards with your kids while they are still young. It likely won’t be very easy. But it doesn’t get easier as they get older.

Visit to Legoland

With our son off from school for two weeks during Winter Break, we have a lot of time to fill, and we’ve been trying to come up with things to do with Kai. He actually told us that he wanted to go to Legoland one day, and we promised him that we would go.

In anticipation, this week he began building several of the sets he had received before, ones that have sat on the shelf untouched for most of the year.

And, yesterday, we made our trip to Legoland.

We found out that a lot of other people had the same idea.

Even though we had gotten tickets online for entry at a specified time, we had to wait in line to get in, along with the dozens of other families that bought their tickets ahead of time. The wait was about 15 minutes – not exorbitant, but still quite long for Kai. He was impatient, whining the whole time in line, which made the wait seem even longer for us.

But once we were inside, he was surprisingly good.

The place was tremendously crowded. Frankly, I felt overwhelmed with the crush of people. But, Kai did not get flustered.

He and my wife had been there before, but it was my first visit. I wouldn’t have been able to find anything on my own in that crowd, but they knew where to go.

I particularly enjoyed the Lego models of many famous Chicago buildings.

But Kai was most interested in seeing the 4-D movies. And though we had to wait in line twice to see each of the two movies, he was patient, at least by his standards. (The clock that counted down the time left until the next show started certainly helped Kai handle the wait – wish every place would have something like that!)

He ended up having a great time. He was a smiling kid throughout most of the time there.

And when it was time to leave, Mom bought him a new set, which he enjoyed making today.

It’s a nice way to close out the year.

Happy New Year, everybody!

A Boring Highlight of My Weekend

Picking the highlight of my weekend is tough today. There’s a lot to choose from.

It started out well on Friday afternoon. Our son came home from school and his point-sheet showed that he had a really good day, thus completing his second straight good, safe, incident-free week at school. (With another incident-free day today, Kai will make it to Level 2, and I will be a little anxious until I find out if he makes it.)

Anyway, for doing so well, my wife gave him a Lego Advent calendar. She had planned to give it to him on December 1, but he got it ten days early as a special reward. Up until very recently, Kai was never much for Legos. He had neither the fine motor skills to work with the smaller pieces nor the patience to put them together. This set came with 24 different Lego builds, with the idea that your child would do one on each of the first 24 days of December. But, when Kai saw it, he wanted to work on all of them. I thought he might get frustrated or lose interest after one or two, but he diligently kept working on one after another. He studied each picture carefully, and with only very minimal help from Mom and Dad, he completed all 24 figures. I was truly impressed.

But, that is not the highlight of my weekend.

On Saturday morning, Kai had his ice skating class for kids with special needs. Here, local high school and junior high girls assist the students to skate. Kai has been taking the class for nearly two months now, and was already moving better than I thought he would. I originally thought that just standing up and balancing on the skates would be difficult for him, but it didn’t take long before he was moving along with girls on either side of him holding his hands. This Saturday though, was the first time that one of the girls gave him a hockey stick and let him skate by himself. I was truly amazed as he moved around the rink independently, totally overcoming my skepticism.

But, that is not the highlight of my weekend.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to see a local community theater production of Snoopy! The Musical. It is a sequel to the more famous musical You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. We had gone to a play with Kai once before, and it was embarrassing as he talked loudly and shouted things to the cast right in the middle of the performance. This time, we reminded him of the rules for the theater and hoped for the best. Kai loved the show! He was very excited, but contained his comments to an appropriate level. It was fun to see him clapping and shouting “Wahooo!” at the end of each musical number. And, most importantly, he then quieted down when the applause died down. It was another sign of maturity and progress.

But, that is not the highlight of my weekend.

Yesterday, I popped inside the house after working on cleaning out our gutters. My wife was in the kitchen trying to finish something when I heard Kai call out from the play room. “Mommy, I’m bored!” Yes, that familiar refrain that is the bane of mothers everywhere. Except that we had never heard that before from Kai. I was startled. How wonderful that he was able to express himself like so many other kids! I shook my head and smiled as I went back outside, leaving my wife to deal with Kai’s boredom.

Now that was the highlight of my weekend.