Month: April 2018

Shout outs!

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If you are part of an autism family, may I share two fave resources?

1) One Stop Autism-Info Shopping –  Guess what happens if you “like” Autism Society San Diego on your FaceBook page?  You stay on top of the latest trends and breakthroughs:  

legal – medical – behavioral – educational – therapeutic – employment – advocacy

Really, you name it; this hip group misses NOTHING.  On top of that, “likers” are treated to stories of personal triumphs (our hearts soar), and inspired by the many ASSD sponsored activities (weekend family camps – gym night – sensory friendly movies).  This is a forward moving,  assertive group with a very public presence in the community.  San Diego kids on the spectrum and their families are lucky to have such powerful support.  The San Diego Autism Society:  A+ on every level. 

ampersand

2) Dr. Amy Yasko: so smart, so kind – My son follows the autism protocol of brilliant researcher, Dr. Amy Yasko.  (My son’s local doctor described Dr. Yasko’s work as being “the Cadillac of Autism Protocols”.  Whoa.)  When anybody asks me about her, the first words out of my mouth are, “she’s SO smart and she’s SO kind”.  But see for yourself:  dramyyasko.com – lots of free videos of her lectures:  you will see how smart she is, you will see how kind she is.  Supported by an astonishing intellect and impressive resume, Dr. Amy is able to clearly explain the most ridiculously complex systems and processes to the likes of me (and apparently thousand of other parents – great parent chat room at www.ch3nutrigenomics.com) (and that is indeed a “3” in the middle of that web address).  And her sincere empathy for the plight of families with an autism child?  It helps.  Really, we love Dr. Amy Yasko.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled STORIES AND STUDIES review:

From our nightly story problem collection – I am still laughing over this:  somebody recently wrote that distance from the earth to the sun is exactly the length of 8 CVS receipts – this led to a story problem:

From the purchasing office at Le Fictitious Local Diner – If the typical length of a local diner receipt is 2 feet (what with all the diner coupons attached), and there are approximately 100 receipts printed out daily, and a paper roll of receipt paper is 230 feet in length, how many rolls does the diner need to purchase per month (assuming a 30 day month)?  (answers at bottom of post)

  1. 17 rolls     B.  27 rolls     C.  37 rolls     D.  47 rolls

If each roll costs $2, how much should the diner budget for receipt paper per month?

  1. $24     B.  $34     C.  $44     D.  $54

war book

Reading for fun – we are revisiting all of our Tom Gates books (author L. Pichon), currently reading book 2, “Excellent Excuses (and other good stuff)”.  Tom Gates makes me laugh every single night;  I love his favorite rock band, “Dude 3”, I love his sullen sister, Delia, I love the way Tom’s dad tries to avoid his pompous uncle.  My son loves Tom’s doodles (vocab) and luckily, Tom is a chronic doodler.  We both enjoy trading Tom’s UK words and expressions for American counterparts (biscuits/cookies, jumper/sweater, that sort of thing).  Every page is entertaining and so worth a second read through.

Reading for our heart – “The War that Saved My Life”, a 2016 Newberry Honor Book, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley.  We look forward to opening this book every night.  The overriding theme focuses on children who were evacuated (vocab) from London during World War II, but cleverly balanced intertwining themes (horses/air fields/special needs/friendship) make this book difficult to stop reading every night.  Excellent discussion provoker.

Our Classical Music Choices – inspired by the UK locale of our two fiction books, we listened to the work of iconic British countryside composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams:

ralph vaughan williams stamp

  • “The Lark Ascending”, composed in 1914 for piano and violin, scored for orchestra in 1920. This well loved piece keeps placing #1 year after year in the Classical FM website Hall of Fame competition.  It is a bit lengthy (16 minutes or so), but it is original, soothing, hopeful and puts the solo violinist (in this case, virtuoso Hilary Hahn) to the test (Ms. Hahn delivers!):

  • “Sea Songs”, composed in 1923, Vaughan Williams seamlessly combined three sea shanties in a four minute jaunty piece (which appears to have been performed, recorded, and uploaded onto YouTube by more college orchestras than any other composition). The seemingly irresistible “Sea Songs” also reappears as movement II of Vaughan Williams’ “English Folk Song Suite”.  We’ve selected a performance by the Wheaton College Symphonic Band, expertly led by honors conductor, Elizabeth Barrett:

  • “English Folk Song Suite”, also written in 1923.  We listened to movement III, a spritely march, “Folk Songs from Somerset” (and sort of interesting:  repeated throughout the piece, my son and I can hear the first line of “The 12 Days of Christmas”).  A simply outstanding performance by a local Texas MIDDLE SCHOOL (!).  We are VERY impressed:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
 – Jane BH
Story problem answers:  B.  27 rolls,  D.  $54

April, at last

welcome mat

March was really a long month, full of planned and abrupt schedule changes.  A beloved grandmother, “The Peach” passed on (so many tears) – a cousin got married (adorable) – an iPad got lost in the TSA security screening at LAX (oh no, oh no, oh no) – and there was the daylight-savings time switch (ugh).  Not a dream month for an autism family, but STUDIES AND STORIES times were a constant, and that helped.

happy faceTSAhappy face

The “Lost and Found” department – this was a new concept for my son. (What? Hotels, schools, grocery stores, gas stations and the like are equipped to deal with people losing things?????  This is so handy!)  And happy, happy day!  The lost iPad turned up within 24 hours in the TSA “Lost and Found” office, and with a minimum of paperwork, was in a box on its way to our home in Texas.  Cheers cheers cheers TSA!  Their lost and found system really works!  Excellent!

geography books.jpg

Reporting from “The Cities Book” (a Lonely Planet publication) – reading about two cities per night, we are one third of the way through this book – the locations are presented in alphabetical order and we are just about through the “K’s”.  We scamper all over our globe finding each night’s destinations (this is actually kind of fun).  We are also interested in each city’s:

Primary Exports – some of the better conversation starters:
– Asmara, Eritrea – salt
– Baku, Azerbaijan – pomegranate juice
– Hamburg, Germany – Steinway pianos
– all cities on the equator – coffee

Observed Weaknesses – again, some of the better conversation starters:
– Ashgabat, Turkmenistan – bugged hotel rooms (yikes)
– Dhaka, Bangladesh – polluted waterways (yikes)
– Christchurch, New Zealand – situated on a major tectonic fault line (yikes)
– Florence, Italy – pigeons everywhere (yikes)

More geography – “The Philippines, Islands of Enchantment”, by Yuson and Tapan.  Side story:  It would be impossible to find a kinder heart, a more dedicated worker, a more mechanically adept young man than the super fantastic Ogie M, who cared for “The Peach” (grandmother supreme) for the final 10 years of her life.  Upon her recent passing, Ogie returned to his family in the Philippines.  So this has propelled my son and I to begin a Philippines unit with a book filled with beautiful photographs and decided opinions (this is not a “let’s pretend everything is perfect” book).  We are getting our first glimpse of this tropical paradise of 80 dialects (vocab) and 7,000 islands.

violin book

We thought we knew about violins.  We knew NOTHING.  This is changing:  we are reading “The Violin Maker”, by John Marchese.  Every night we get smarter and smarter, learning about:

– Cremona, Italy, home to Stradivari and Guarneri, rival luthiers (vocab) of the early 1700’s who produced stringed instruments of astounding quality that remain highly sought after and extremely valuable to this day.
– Sam Zygmuntowicz, recognized expert violin maker and stringed instrument historian extraordinaire.
– The Emerson String Quartet (or “ The Emerson”), and specifically, quartet member Eugene Drucker for whom Sam Z has been commissioned to create a violin.
– Bach’s compositions for the violin – and most emphatically stressed, the final movement of the Partita No. 2 in D minor, “the Chaconne” (composed around 1720).  This piece is the gold standard for the crushing relentlessness of loss, despair, and grief – I think my son and I are a bit too immature for this, but we did give it a try (and we listened to the best):    

 

Classical Music Time – well, duh, we had to listen to more music that showcased the violin:

From The Emerson String Quartet –  we always like listening to The Emerson’s (we are so in-the-know now) recording of Alexander Borodin’s “String Quartet No. 2 in D”, composed in 1881 (perhaps better known as music used in the 1953 American musical, “Kismet”, for which Borodin won a Tony, posthumously (vocab)):

The perfection of a performance by Itzhak Perlman – when we are tired, Max Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy” (1880), movement 1, soothes us:

Thank you good friend Amy S for suggesting that my son and I would love “Song to the Moon” from Dvorak’s “Rusalka” (1900).  The performance by Joshua Bell clutches our hearts:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH