Comic Strip Conversation

I'm in a very good mood today. Last night, I had a breakthrough with my son, Jonah.

Jonah is going to be 9 this April. He is our family's sweetie pie :) He is always considerate of others, always mindful of the volumn of the TV or computer whenever his dad is still sleeping. He has a lot of determination, once he had so much homework to do, he broke down half way through but continued to finished all of them anyway. He is generous with his savings, he once bought a computer game for Russell with the savings from his pocket money when he learned that Russell didn't have quite enough savings to buy one. He is very helpful. He would even help me clean the toilet without complaining! He is honest and owns up to his mistakes eventhough he knows he would get a scolding. He is obedient and tries to follow the rules given both at home and in school. He is very patient and would wait for his turn quietly. He is also very peaceful, once when he was in kindergarten, he was playing with some toys and another kid barged in and scooped them, all he did was stood up and walked to another toy. He is bigger and stronger than the average kid but he prefers to be the little gentle giant. He is also very reliable and responsible, I can always count on him to remember to do important things.

He is the quiet type and prefers to watch and see what's happening before trying things out himself. And I found him surprisingly very observant many times when I least expected them. He is also shy and refused to talk whenever he is upset. He would sob quietly, sulk and refused to talk about it to anyone. As a parent, I feel frustrated when that happened because I want to help him with his feelings and thoughts.

As a mother of an Asperger child (read my previous post), I have been reading books on that subject and eventhough I do not need to use this technique with Russell, I decided to give it a go with Jonah. It's called the comic strip conversations by Carol Gray. And guess what? You guessed it! It successfully helped Jonah to overcome his struggle to comprehend and rationalise his feelings and the party involved (in this case, it was with Russell).

I felt so happy when he 'talked' about it :) Oh, that was joyful enough for me. And that is why I'm still in a very good mood now and especially when remembering him telling me he felt better and not upset any more. Below is the piece of comic conversation that we had last night. He doodled on it after our conversation ended.

My heart is still smiling :D

AS

During lunch this afternoon, Russell looked at me with sad eyes and asked, "Mom, do I have mental illness? Is there something wrong with me? Am I sick?"

Russell is a very loving boy, at 11 years old, he still hold my hand in public, even during our not so frequent walks to school. He still kiss me on my lips and say he loves me before walking into the school. He does things that show his love for the family. He loves to read, almost all genre, particularly humorous ones. He likes to tell jokes he read from books and some of them were made up. He is adventurous when it comes to food and is pretty good at describing how it tasted. He is a very fast learner and teaches me how to operate certain computer programs, the PS3, that he learned from just watching his dad. He could remember lots of details from information books that he read through just once. Oh, and somehow, he has mastered the art of speed reading. He could finish a whole Mr midnight or Enid Bryton book in an hour or less. He is very forgiving and mild mannered.

He has also acted eccentric many times in school since kindergarten, and finally, at the end of primary 1, his form teacher, Mrs Ibrahim, was very concerned about him and suggested he see a psychiatrist. At first, I was very worried and my husband was very angry. We were afraid that he will be labelled and frown upon. I am thankful that Mrs Ibrahim was very gentle in her approach and assured me that getting help early is the best thing to do.

The hardest year was when he was in Primary 3. I was actually having a hard time coping with his eccentricity especially when it came to school work and it was wearing my patience down. Finally, on the 3rd term of school that year, the doctor arranged to meet up with me and my husband to discuss his diagnosis. Russell has Asperger Syndrome. A very mild form of autism. Someone with high IQ but low EQ. He needs a teacher that understands how he thinks and a weekly behaviour therapy with the school counsellor. The doctor also taught me a few tips on how to help him in the areas that I had a hard time with. He also recommended taking him off Chinese class as it contributed to the stress he was having.

Thankfully, the teacher that was having power struggle with him all the time, resigned and Mrs Tang replaced her. He stopped taking Chinese exams. I started understanding how he thinks and followed the doctor's advice. Things were looking brighter... and after 6 months of behavior therapy, he didn't have to see the school's counsellor, Ms Claire Yeoh, anymore. She told me he was coping well in school and I was happy for him.

But today, he told me no one likes to talk to him in school because he is different, his science and health education teachers shouted at him because he was slow at finishing his work but he couldn't help it. It was painful for me to hear those words and so I explained to him for the first time, that he has Asperger Sydrome. It is not an illness or disease. It is a developmental disorder that affects his social skills. Hyperverbal most times that affects communication skills. Preoccupied in his own thoughts most times so doesn't seem to listen when we talk.

I worry sometimes about how he will cope in the future but I have faith in myself that I can help him improve. As it is now, he has mature so much from those days when he was a little trouble maker in class. Will talk about those little troubles he created next time. It's fustrating and funny at the same time :)

If you want to learn more about AS, go to this link, http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/

My Problemo

I have a problem. I enjoy the solace of not being disturbed when i'm in the shower. Sometimes, I bring my laptop or music player in with me to play my favourite tunes. I take my time to wash my hair and spent half the time just standing under the shower enjoying the warm water running down my back. And I often forgot that water is too precious to waste like that. Then i'll think of things to blog and how i would phrase my words.

But once I leave the bathroom, I'ld forget about blogging and thus hasn't been doing so for quite sometimes. And by the time I remember to start, there'll be just too many things to blog about so I don't know where to start. Maybe a voice activated blogging system would be useful for person like me! Just think it out loud during my shower and i can publish it right after.

Maybe I'm just lazy and proscrastinate too much. Ah....that is my problem.....
Need more action, less talk. Isn't that what i tell my 2 boys most of the time? Alamak...I better start to talk the talk and walk the walk!

Dogs Attacks!

There was a newspaper article today about how 2 guys were being attacked by the same 2 Rottweilers on 2 separate occasions and the dogs' owner was fined for that. I was chased by dogs twice before and I recalled my heart pounding like crazy and my legs felt like jelly. On both incidents, I was really lucky to have escaped harmless.

Scene one:
My girlfriend and i usually went for our nightly walk after dinner in the neighbourhood. My real reason was to accompany her. Her reason was to help her food digest better and not put on more weight. But the truth was she really like this guy that lived at a corner bungalow on our street. Any chance of a glimpse of him was the idea behind the walk. We strolled so many times passed his house every night, giggling whenever we spotted him. Yes, we were silly teenagers then.

One night while doing our silly stroll, we turned a corner to another street. Just at that moment, a neighbour had just returned home by car and his porch gate was opened. His 2 fearsome Dobermans strutted onto the sidewalk outside and spotted us. They stood very still staring at us. We too, stood very still staring back. The dogs were like 10m away from us. Both of us tried to back away very very slowly but too late, after 2 seconds, they decided to attack! We screamed and started hugging each other and running on the spot at the same time. Like in one of the 3 stooges scene where they tried to escape but bumped into each other instead. Fortunately for us, the dogs were very obedient. Their owner shouted at them and they stopped in their tracks almost immediately. We fled after that. We were terrified but not enough to be back again the next evening spying on our corner bungalow guy again!

Scene 2:
My granny needed something from the grocer one afternoon and sent me to buy it. It was a 10 mins walk from the main road and I had to walk around a factory to get to the main road. The factory had 2 gates. One facing the street where I was walking from and another facing the main road. Usually only the gate facing the main road was opened.

That day, both gates were wide opened. Walking straight through the 2 gates would be a quicker way. It was a really hot scorching day as I recalled and any kind of short cut sounded good to me. Half way walking into the factory's compound, I heard growling behind me. I turned to see a dozen growling and barking pariah dogs moving towards me. Needless to say, I had trespassed onto their territory and they didn't like me at all. I ran as fast as my legs could carry and twice I felt their teeth brushing against my butts missing their bites. I screamed and panted and cried. Lucky for me, as I ran out of the other gate, an old lady saw my plight, scolded the dogs and started waving her umbrella at the dogs. Somehow that turned the dogs back to the factory and I was saved once again.

I can't imagined what would have happened to me if that old lady wasn't there for me or if I was not a fast running teenager.

Spot the real tooth

Few days ago, I boiled a packet of barley. My 8yr old, Jonah likes that drink. After I've put all the liquid into containers, I scooped out some boiled barley for him to try.

Just after one glance of it he turned it down. I tried to persuade him to take one small bite to no avail. As I returned to the kitchen wondering why he didn't even want to try it since he likes the drink, he spoke aloud, "I don't wanna try it because it looks like Russell's loose teeth!".

Russell just lost 2 loose teeth recently and paraded them around in our apartment. When I think about it, the boiled barley does look like loose teeth! Here's the photo I took to prove it. Try to spot the real tooth ;)

Good luck? Bad Luck?

Okay.....I think I was 10 or 11yrs old then. My kampung gang, mainly consists of me, 2 brothers living next door and their fat cousin, usually played together after school. We'd take turns riding the bicycle my cousin Doreen bought, play tag, catch spider, catch guppies in the drains, soccer (which I hated), hide and seek, imagination game and made wooden guns. The brothers' mom worked for CK Tang department store and always brought home the latest toys and board games. Especially loved playing with their set of PlayMobile in the sand.

One day, we had permission to go swimming at Buona Vista Swimming Complex. So we took the public bus and paid 20cents each for the fare. Back then, the buses had conductors on board to give us change, punch a hole on the ticket tab and alert the driver when it was safe to move on after passengers alighted. And most of the buses were usually quite beat-up. The seats were stained, the floor dirty, windows could not be opened properly and some had no doors!

At the swimming complex, we goofed around in the wading pool and then proceeded to the shallow end of the deep pool. Then someone had an idea of pretending to be drowning and we'll have a rescue team to save him. Maybe it was me....maybe it was one of the brothers idea...Fat boy volunteered to be the 'victim', afterall, he can't swim so we thought he was the ideal candidate. We decided that the shallow end was too shallow for the scenario so we waded to the part where we could barely touch the bottom standing up. And so it started....fat boy started flapping his arms around pretending to be drowning. The brothers and I swam towards him. He was maybe 2-3 meters away from the side of the pool. I thought it couldn't be too hard to save him. Afterall, I've seen how lifeguards save their victims so many times on TV. Just put one arm around his chin and drag him to the side.

It was harder than I thought! Fat boy didn't seem to budge. He was still flapping and this time he was really struggling. The 2 boys gave up as they became too tired and tried to swim back. I was getting tired too. Somehow, I could not feel the bottom of the pool eventhough I tiptoed. Fat boy was tugging my arms and I couldn't tread water and stay afloat anymore. I was exhausted by now and struggling as well. Next, I did what a survivor would do. I used fat boy as a support and pushed him into the water so I could take a quick breather! Yes, I am ashamed of myself for doing that. Fortunately, the brothers and I managed to link our arms together and pulled fat boy to safety. Fat boy was mad at me and complained that he drank a lot of water.

Whenever I think about this incident, I shudder at the thought if fat boy was drown by me.... I know kids being kids will do stupid things for fun. Therefore I try to be vigilant whenever my boys go swimming.

Anyway, after our adventure at the pool, we headed for the bus-stop to return home. We didn't have small change after paying for our snacks so we decided to use our last $1 note to buy four 20cents tickets for our bus ride. I was in-charged and supposed to return someone 20cents after that.

When our bus arrived, we felt so lucky that it was a brand new bus. The exterior looked clean and shiny, the door was intact and folded to the side smoothly. We boarded the bus and the driver pointed at a transparent box near the door next to him. Huh?? was my thought. He then said to drop our money into the box for the fare. I dropped our only $1 note in and the driver punched in a few keys on the dashboard and voila! Four 20cents tickets dropped out from another box. We were amazed at the new ticket machine and flopped onto our clean seats with smiles on our faces. Then one of the brothers asked me for his 2ocents change. I didn't get any so I walked back to the driver and asked for it. He stared at me and shouted, "Aiyah, you never see the sign meh? This is OMO bus! No change!". Imagine our shocked when we realised our 20cents were gone just like that. Back then, 20cents could buy us a packet of twisty snack. I still remember the boys grumbling that it was all my fault. Later we learned that OMO stands for one-man-operation. And we thought we were lucky to sit in a new bus!

whoever you are, Thank You!

When I was 10, my cousin Doreen and Roger, her boyfriend (now hubby), used to take me swimming at Buona Vista Swimming Complex. Roger taught me how to swim the breast stroke.

Once, thinking I was very good, I swam in the deep end. Before I could reach the other side of the pool, I felt my arms too tired to continue and began to sink. I panic and began drinking lots of chlorine water and struggling for life. I thought I was going to drown. Suddenly, i felt someone lifted me up and pulled me to the side of the pool. It was a man but I couldn't really see his face with all those water dripping over my eyes. He warned me not to swim without supervision and then waded away, while I was still in a little shock. It was all a blur...I didn't even have a closer look at my life savior or thank him!

Never ever leave your children unsupervised in the pool. Will tell you another story next time about how fat boy nearly drown.