Monday, January 25, 2021
I went to bed before 10 and was wide awake by 2:30. The other day Yvette sent me a TED talk on how to trick your mind into sleep. Nothing else I did worked, so I listened to it. https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_donovan_how_to_trick_your_brain_into_falling_asleep?language=en I was able to get it to work for me. It involves beating out a rhyme using both hands alternating taps on each leg. It reminded me of EMDR.
Worrying about Elsa exhausted me yesterday and was still bothering me. I reached out to touch her. She didn't respond. I put my hand by her nose, feeling for her breath. Ah! All was well.
We got up at our usual time, 5:30 am. We were all suited up for our walk, I was about to open the door, and I heard rain. Rain???!! I was on the phone with Dorothy at the time. She heard my surprise. Is that unusual? Very. This is the first time I have seen rain at this hour of the day. We have only felt a few, a very few drops one day during our driveway yoga. There is no way Elsa was going for a walk in the rain. She won't even go out if the ground is wet from earlier rain. I'm going to have to do my steps indoors.
Elsa peed in the backyard off the bedroom just before the rain started. The house has four-foot overhangs, protecting the ground close to the house. However, she hadn't pooped. I put down a pad for her to use, but I figured she would prefer the carpet on the lanai. Sure enough. No worries. I'll get what's left cleaned up with my Rainbow vacuum cleaner. But not today because it's too damp out. I'll wait until a day when the sun hits the carpet and dries it quickly.
I called the vet as soon as they were open. This receptionist told me that dogs often just decide they've had it with their old food; they want a change. She told me to change her food. I also told her I had on Science Diet for sensitive skin and Dr. Marty's. She told me I couldn't mix any other food with Science Diet because it was prescribed by the doctor. This is a woman I wasn't going to have a satisfying conversation with. She was a flat thinker. Rules are rules ad require no exploration or explanation.
If the food I was giving her wasn't bad for her, why wasn't the inclusion of an egg a good change? Why couldn't I mix other foods with the prescription? There may be reasons; I can think of two, but I doubted reasons beyond, "the doctor has spoken," was relevant for her. She did reassure me about Elsa. If she rejected her food, that wasn't a problem; if she wasn't eating at all, that would be another matter. I texted family and friends to tell them there was probably no reason to be concerned about Elsa.
I did some walking while in the house and spoke to Dorothy. I had to get off and lie down. I was still exhausted. I think my worries about Elsa weighed heavily on me. I set the alarm for 10 am. I had to get cleaned up and dressed for my luncheon date at Zola's with Judy and Paulette. Mindy was supposed to join us but had to quarantine because she received her first vaccine.
Judy had called me earlier in the day to say that she had a doctor's appointment and might be late. I was to assure Zola that she would be there as soon as possible. When I pulled up to Zola's house, there was Judy's car. When I got inside, I announced, "Zola, I'm supposed to tell you that Judy and Paulette might be late." Judy said that the appointment went quickly, and they got there early.
We all ate around a table. There weren't quite 6 feet between each of us, but we were outdoors with tropical breezes blowing. Zola made breakfast burritos; Judy made the sweets, lilikoi squares, and another type, which was good, but there's no competing with lilikoi anything.
We sat around yakking. Some of it was gossip, but nothing bad. I would be comfortable with someone talking about me that way behind my back. We laughed at the foibles of others. Ours are funny too. The human condition. It was good to be in physical contact with others.
I had plans to stop at Costco on my way home. I was out of eggs. Zola gave me three, so I had them for Elsa. I napped before my 2:15 appointment with H. I managed to get a few minutes in with his mom before starting our session. I asked her if she got my message about how he tried to manipulate me in our last session. She said, "He's really bright." What?? Does she know nothing about autism? She had no idea what "theory of mind' was about.
I asked her if they were seeing any improvement in H. She said her husband thought he was speaking better and conversing more with the neighbors. She said he's very social. Huh? If he's autistic, that's not what comes naturally. Maybe he's got some other problem. Autism doesn't seem to be an accurate diagnosis.
H wandered for most of the session, playing with blocks on a table in front of him, saying we would play Tetris. I was waiting for something to happen I could latch on to. Then he dictated a story. There are many problems, but I tried to keep it exactly the way he wanted it. I tried to change one word, which was 'incorrect.' He caught me and told me to change it back.
I sent his mom a link to a short statement on the 'theory of mind' and its relationship to autism. I also called her and asked her to call me back. She hasn't yet. I don't want to send them H's story until I've spoken to her. I want to make sure they don't 'correct' him. I feel I have to be careful with him. If I come on too strong, he'll shut down. There is always time to make corrections. I want to ensure his parents don't ride his early efforts by waterboarding him with their 'superior' knowledge. Boy, would I ever be furious if they did! He's opening up. He's trying dangerous things; he's taking risks. That has to be handled very carefully.
I had J at 3:30. While I had a few minutes, I called T-Mobile. I had trouble using the Internet on my phone outside the house. Texts don't even send. I mentioned the problem to one of my walking buddies. Valerie always listens to something on her phone when she does her evening walk. I asked her about it, telling her I couldn't stay connected on my phone outside the house for anything except phone calls. She said, "That's not right." I had the cellular function shut off. Now, I didn't do that. Is there a gremlin in these phones?
There was a lot of background noise when I connected to J. I told him to ask someone to turn down the music. His neighbor was having a party. I guess not. I worked with him on that math problem again. It was a complex one. But the first thing I did was cover why he couldn't add meat and cheese together- because he wasn't adding meat and cheese, he was adding ounces. I had created another problem. Five chocolate kisses with almonds and 6 chocolate kisses with mint. What did those two items have in common? He said chocolate. That was accurate, but it didn't work for math purposes. Some of it may be the confusion between English and Spanish. The two languages order their adjectives and nouns differently. I told him about superordinate categories versus subordinate ones. This is a difficult concept. I went over the problem I created several times. In the middle of demonstrating it, I saw another way of doing it. That made a total of three somewhat different ways of solving the problem. I actually tried one, and it didn't work. Then I realized I had labeled something wrong, which misled me. This was a good demonstration of how important it was to label answers. I don't know how much was over his head. I'll keep working on this problem until it becomes clear.
I can hear some people saying, why bother? He already handed in the work. There are so many concepts and math skills built into this one problem. If he can see the problem and the various ways to solve it clearly, he will have a good foundation for learning other thinking skills.
He had had enough of that. I'd have another problem in the same vein next time. We switched to having him learn to recall the multiplication facts quickly. He has no idea if he is using his brain's left or right side. I always tell people," 'I don't know' is a perfectly good answer." I will keep asking the question. At some point, it will make sense to you." I did a little bit of work focusing on the left brain versus the right.
Then I switched to listening. I brought up the audio file from Bandcamp. I was able to play three tracks from the Quiet Queen. I stopped it now and then and asked him if he found it pleasant or annoying. I told him I wasn't asking him because I wanted to know how he felt about the tape. I wanted to know because the information gave me information about his auditory processing skills. He was okay with one track. Then it became annoying. I stopped playing the audio file and did the word breakdown on my own slowed down. He said that was better. This confirms my suspicion that he has a history of auditory processing problems. People with auditory processing problems are uncomfortable with the phonemic breakdown at normal speed. They find the slowed-down one much more comfortable, if not actually enjoyable. After modeling it slowed-down, the students rapidly become comfortable with the normal speed breakdown.
I asked if he had a tough time in school. He said he did in Kindergarten. He had trouble learning English. Well, I'm sure everyone did. However, his Spanish wasn't as good as the other kids. Yeah, we have to do more work on this.
I did some walking in the house. I was going to have trouble getting my 10,000 steps in.
I found a credit card in the mail claiming to be an Economic Impact Payment Card. I checked on the Internet. It says it's for real. Boy, is this poorly done?! I can imagine it was done by a Trumpite wanting to make Biden look bad. These are debit cards. If they are thrown out, they're gone. Lousy job! Why aren't there public announcements being made?
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