Perspective

  Yesterday afternoon was off to a rough start. Liam was rotten for me during lessons. His new punishment is a writing assignment. 1) because he REALLY needs to work on his handwriting, and getting him to write is like pulling teeth. 2) because he hates it, and I'm sorry, but time outs, and groundings don't work. Had to try something new.

  So when he has been exceptionally rotten, he has to write. We start off with 5 short sentences, and if he persists, then it goes up by 5 each time. So I waited til Mr. M (TSS) got here to make him do it. I KNEW it was going to be a fight. It wasn't long, and I raised it to 10 sentences. He was screaming at me, kicking my chair and refusing to do it. So there son, now you have to do more!

  It turned into a pretty nasty meltdown. It was a tantrum at first. He was pissed. He didn't want to waste his "Mr. M time doing stupid writing." It quickly spun out of control and into a meltdown. He was screaming at me and telling me, "I SUCK! I CAN'T DO IT! MY WRITING IS HORRIBLE!" (he over heard me telling his new school I wanted an OT eval for him because his writing is not where it should be :/ ) He ended up hiding under my desk and insisting Mr. M leave the room. Odd, because he LOVES M. You see, the older Liam gets the more aware of his feelings he is. He was embarrassed.  He told me later he didn't want Mr. M seeing him "so mad and so sad." Once M complied (and I felt terrible for him) Liam dried his tears, rocked a bit and banged out his writing. I even offered to knock two off for him being such a trooper. His rule abiding reply??? "No momma, you said 10 and I was bad, so I will do 10."

  My plan was to let him paint pumpkins. As you know, being an autism momma is also about recognizing triggers for our kiddos. I knew that his self esteem at the moment was low and that letting him paint pumpkins may make that worse. He is such a perfectionist. Instead I decided to let him carve one. He grew 14, we have plenty to spare! He has a special kid safe knife (thank you pampered chef) that won't cut him, and he LOVES to be let loose on unsuspecting pumpkins.

  Now, I usually draw the face on, and then let him carve it. He tells me how he wants it to look and I draw it. This year, I figured I would just let him do as he wanted to it. It would be 100% Liam. We cleaned it out, and he was off......

This is what he carved....

Now, he stepped back and looked. I could see the disdain in his little face. "Momma. I suck! I ruined it!" Oh good God, here we go again. Thank God, my brain thought quickly for a change. "No, no Liam. You didn't ruin it!" "Yes I did momma. Look at the big hole!" "Liam, you see a big hole, I see a place to put the light without me having to reach inside it. Yuck!" He smiled wide! "You're right momma!" (Yep, ALWAYS,  just ask you're dad!) 

He was happy with that, and was ready to move on with more carving. So, I  asked him if he wanted a face on it. He did. I drew what he asked. He carved the eyes, nose and part of the mouth, then asked me to take over because his hands were tired. Those  pumpkins are thick little suckers!

Liam's pumpkin :)

When he was all done, I did the redneck thing that pita always does with the pumpkins. I jammed in a solar light. So much safer than candles, and I don't have to remember to go out and light it every night. When Liam saw it with the solar light, he was very pleased with his huge hole. He later told me "Yeah momma. I carved that big hole for a reason." ;) 

 So, carving pumpkins turned out to be a great lesson for Liam on perspective. He learned that there isn't only one way to see something. That there is always a bright side.

redneck pumpkin lighting ;)

<3 <3 <3 <3