Silver Linings

Sometimes you're leery of making an announcement too early, in case you jinx it. This is one such. But as it's been little over a month, I'm hoping it is safe enough to let the cat out of the bag without undue consequences.

No, I am not pregnant. And no, we did not win the lottery. But this is a priceless prize I am about to share, so it may be just as good, for our little family.

In the light of the bullying debacle (outcome to be announced next week, I hope) that led to Little A's sudden hysterical fear of going to sleep at night, I decided to move him into his own room, with the hopes that he wouldn't associate sleeping in there with anything negative.

He's been sleeping on a mattress on our floor for some time, despite getting his own bed for his fourth birthday. The reason for the room share was partly to defray electricity costs (just one instead of two air conditioners running a night) but mainly because Little A, since birth, was never the longest of sleepers.

Unlike other newborns who clock 3 hour naps and 5 hour nightly sleeps, Little A woke up every 45 minutes to feed as an infant. This blog chronicles our sleep dramas and traumas, among other things.

By the time he was 5, Little A would sleep a 7 or 8 hour stretch, but also log in around two 5 hour nights a week.

When he'd wake up between 3 and 4 pm, he obediently stayed in bed, as he was told getting up before there was light out wasn't allowed - not that he didn't try, in the beginning, to turn on the lights and start playing. But it always took him 2 hours to fall back asleep, and then I would wake him up at 8am to start the day properly.

The unexpected silver lining to the bullying and crying himself to sleep was that he suddenly began sleeping longer night stretches. Combining that with giving up his naps meant he actually got a proper night's sleep.

Apart from maybe 3 times he's woken up before dawn this past month, he's been going to sleep cheerfully at 10pm and waking promptly at 7am or so. He's our little alarm clock, always reliable.

They say things happen for a reason, and that something good may come out of a negative experience. Here, then, is a perfect example.

Drowning Daddy

Pushing Daddy's head under

Checking for bubbles

Making sure he's still underwater

Swimming away

Undewater hug

 Swimming days are here again. Happy happy joy joy for Little A. Even when the water was still a bit nippy, he happily jumped in. The first couple of swims of the year were careful ones as he never strayed far from the edge. When the water warmed up though, and his confidence returned, off he went like a fish, underwater, backwards, sideways.

When Big A was teaching him how to blow bubbles last summer, Little A discovered it was more fun to see how long his dad could stay underwater. (The answer: Quite long, thanks to his decade or so of training as part of the National Swimming team.) These days, he likes to play what I call the "drowning game," and never tires of it, even looking for other willing victims when his dad isn't in the pool with him.

Summer is not yet officially here, though the weather seems to be saying otherwise. Sundays are pool days, then, and this is one of them. We're off now, to the water.

Is, Has

A small L serves as apostrophe

Phoenetics - they "coudin" put Humpty back together

Ronald was a farmer, you know

Along with spelling, Little A is learning grammar. Apostrophes perplexed him as he knew the ABCs and could read, so I would explain that sometimes an apostrophe was short for "is," as in "It's raining," "It's sunny," since the first apostrophes he regularly encountered were when observing the weather during therapy sessions.

Logically, "are" also contracted therefore into 're, as in "If you're happy." So he happily went and constructed those phrases, with or without an apostrophe.

Before I could explain possessives properly, however, he observed the Golden Arches all over town, and figured they meant "McDonald is." And since his favourite nursery rhyme, after Humpty Dumpty, is that of the farmer and his animals, he sometimes turns Ronald into a farmer. He always precedes this with the proper spelling of Old MacDonald, so I know he is aware that they aren't the same. So we need to get cracking with the next grammar lesson.

Use Your Words

It's been said that language is what separates us from the animals. Mere communication isn't enough, there must be language development. After all, human infant communicate by crying, and later on with gestures. But it isn't until they begin to use language purposefully that they are considered properly "evolved."

For non-verbal individuals, such as Little A, language development is considered retarded. I can't say I agree entirely. My child doesn't speak, but he does communicate, and works hard at it, too.

Ever since, at about age 2.5, when I discovered quite by accident that he could read, we've been encouraging Little A to spell out things with letter tiles. He types much faster than even his father does, adeptly finding out what he wants to view on youTube by spelling things phoenetically or from memory. I catch him in the car, as we are driving to school, looking carefully at the building names, and then later spelling out at home "ChinaBank," "ToastBox," "StarbucksCoffee" or "DeutscheBank" with no prompting or help whatsoever.

These days, his therapists are advocating magnetic words, as Little A's receptive language is astounding, and it takes too long to spell each word of several phrases out letter by letter.

As the photos indicate, he's gone from words to phrases to sentences. We now have over a dozen alphabet sets combined, as he still does like spelling things out letter by letter, as he enjoys forming the words. He's even grasping the nuances of the language - more on that later. Most importantly, he doesn't simply parrot back what he sees. He adds his own little bits of humour at times - "Humpty Dumpty great fall oh no."

Almost daily, I catch him spelling at least one new phrase I've never seen before. He answers questions as well, with minimal prompting, and always initiates activities using his word cards. At the height of the bullying at school, he would spell out on the classroom floor, "No More Clapping" and "I want to go to the bookstore."

So we are not entirely giving up on his speech emerging, but for now are actively working on developing this alternative method of communication to become more efficient, as this is the best way he can be tested as to how much he knows. And really, he does know rather a lot.

There Goes the Neighbourhood

Global City, circa 2000

Circa 2012

On December 31st, 1999, my father took our whole family to celebrate New Year's Eve at a new events venue that was built in the middle of a grassy area formerly allocated to the Philippine Military. The land had been recently privatised, and was going to be developed for residential and commercial use. First to rise were some very expensive condominiums. 

Next to come up were lower-priced ones, including the one Big A and I moved into upon the building's completion in late 2005. Then, there was a construction boom. For three years, we endured endless dust coating everything inside our flat. High rise after high rise rose to obscure what was once flat grassland.   Office buildings, condominiums and commercial areas mushroomed and greenery disappeared.

Naturally, small restauranteurs and new businesses eagerly signed leases and took spaces, hoping to make names for themselves in the ever-difficult industry called retail. Some have thrived. Others, sadly, have simply disappeared.

Around the corner from where we live is a small shop that Little A discovered a few months ago, when he suddenly developed a passion for skateboarding. He saw some boys practicing jumps and was instantly enthralled. Loving, as he does, jumping, crashing and falling, seeing these boys try and succeed at their tricks, or try and fail, made him ecstatic. We would walk to this shop at least once a day, and he would either chase after the skateboarders or jump up and down delightedly while watching the looped video playing on a tv in the store.

The store's staff knew his name, and the regular customers would patiently allow him to play with their boards, usually quite roughly. Big A and I got him a skateboard for Christmas, one with a detachable handle that started off as a scooter.

Today, we visited the store and saw that everything was being packed away. Like several of the restaurants in the area, the shop was closing down and moving elsewhere. It would still be in the neighbourhood, but just a little further away.

I wish I had kept a photographic record of how quickly things are changing in this little area where we live. Visitors from abroad are shocked and amazed to see the pace of the development in the span of just one year. I mourn the loss of green spaces and curse the now inevitable traffic jams blocking the narrow streets. Truly, change is one of the few things we can count on. I suppose I only have to look at my little boy for proof of that. 

Behaving Badly

So a new year has begun. Work is becoming manageable again, and Little A is back at school. Much to his dismay.

Unlike older school age children, Little A has long loved school, particularly these last few months. He would spell "Let go to school" or "Car school" even on weekends and especially on rainy days that forced classes to be called off.

In the last few months, he improved significantly in the social area, seeking out playmates and voluntarily joining group activities. I hoped the three week Christmas break wouldn't cause any setbacks. He seemed eager enough to return, judging by the amount of time he spent poring over the photos of their Christmas program, and the number of instances he asked me to name his classmates in the photos. Perhaps I should have crossed my fingers.

Monday morning, first day back, Little A sat in the car outside of school, a little apprehensive. He went into the classroom cheerfully, pushed me out as usual, and began his first day back.

When I picked him up that afternoon, he was crying. His Shadow Teacher told me there had been clapping in the class, and that bothered him. I assumed it was a song or an activity that was part of circle time or something similar, so I consoled him and reminded him that if he was upset by clapping he could just clap "his" way (putting fingers of one hand to the palm of the other, without sound) or ask his Shadow Teacher to clap that way.

That night, he refused to go to sleep. I reminded him that tomorrow was Tuesday and there would be school again, and that made him more upset. Every time his eyes shut, he would stamp his feet or flap about to keep himself awake. He finally fell asleep at 230am.

Tuesday and Wednesday at school were similar. While in the car, he would ask particularly to go to the bookstore, or the toy store, instead of to school. I thought he was just adjusting to being back, but when I'd pick him up, he had been crying again. I asked the Shadow if the clapping was due to an activity planned by the teachers, and he replied that some classmates were provoking Little A into getting upset by deliberately clapping in the way he didn't like.

When I asked what was being done about this, and put it down to children being wilful or naughty, he said that the teachers had asked the kids to stop, so I assumed things were under control. I also wanted Little A to get that he couldn't always control the environmnent around him, and thought this was a way for him to adjust. The Shadow said he was communicating well using his word cards, which was a great thing.

On Thursday, during Speech Therapy, his therapist asked about school. When she asked if he was going to play with his classmates at school that day, Little A started crying, then took the photo of his classmates, shook his head, put it on the floor and jumped up and down on it angrily. This was a clear sign that something was really wrong.

I didn't realize just how traumatised my son was until Friday morning, when I dropped him off and he had tears in his eyes. I tried to hug him, but he was being brave and pushed me away, and walked into the classroom crying quietly. I rushed after him and pulled out the pack of word cards, reminding him to use them with Teacher, if anything upset him. He watched carefully until I left.

That day, he had a good day at school. The Shadow reported that he joined a game with the other kids, and enjoyed himself. So I thought we were back on track. Until today.

Today was another crying day. And by now my mum had already heard some of the story - how Little A wasn't sleeping because he was so afraid of school the next day, and how he would walk into the classroom crying - and she was fuming. My mother has an MA in  Child Psychology, and she has taught at, run and set up preschools and school guidance offices in the city's big schools. She recognised that Little A was being bullied, and demanded that something be done about it.

We spoke to the Shadow, who was careful not to name names, even when I did, because I saw who frightened my son when he would look around his classroom at certain faces and start crying. He was still vague about the nature of most of the incidents, which prevented me from getting a very clear picture. Still, I scheduled a meeting with the Headmistress the next day.

I recognise that my son is not the easiest child to manage in a classroom, and he can be disruptive at times. But his school accepted him that way, and in many ways has been helpful about his needs. I would think that their policy should not only discourage bullying but set a positive values program for all the children who attend. I could, as with many other things, though, be wrong. More after the meeting.
 

And Now We Return to Regular Programming

2013 starts in a few hours. The world did not end, with a bang or a whimper, on 21st Dec. Whether that's a good or a bad thing remains to be seen.

This year, all things considered, was a good one of many firsts. Little A started PROMPT speech therapy, changed ABA therapists, and has improved hugely in behavioural areas.

Big A and I recently spent two nights together, apart from our son, for the first time since he was born. We went on a crazy shopping holiday in Hong Kong to treat ourselves after all the hard work put into 2012. We also saw a musical together for the first time ever last October.

Work-wise, this Christmas was the busiest ever for the little shop, forcing me to fall off the grid somewhat in the month of December. I barely ate or slept, and did little apart from balance inventory, type up sales reports, and make change. The shopping vacation was a much needed respite from the other side of the retail experience.

Big A, too, was incredibly busy, juggling two jobs this year and not taking a single day off work until Dec 28th. Should next year prove to be just as successful, we will hopefully go on a nice family holiday abroad.

Wishing everyone a glorious 2013!