Books, Books and More Books

If you went to any room in our house right now, you would probably find books. We are all big readers in our family. I have loved to read from a young age and one of my favorite series of books to read were the ones by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I think I own pretty much the whole series. With my stepson visiting us this weekend for Lauren's high school graduation, I found a book that he loved to read when he was little, "The Monster at the End of this Book." Last night, I had my stepson on one side of me and Lauren on the other side. I read the two of them the book and they both remember this book from when they were younger. This morning, Dominic and I snuggled up on the couch and he and I read "The Monster at the End of this Book."

It is pretty cool that now Dominic can enjoy the book too. Certain books to me are timeless, like the Dr. Seuss books and Curious George. My favorite author for a long, long time has been Danielle Steel. Lauren likes to tells me, "her books are all basically the same." I like that though. To me, it brings me comfort, because I kind of know what to expect. My real life is very unpredictable. My stepson owns a Kindle and Lauren has read books on an i-Pad. The hubby and I still prefer what he calls the "printed page." Here are some books that belong to the five of us. Can anybody guess which book belongs to who???

One of the happiest days of my life was when Dominic got his own library card. He has kind of come "full circle" from throwing a book across the room to being able to check out his own books. For several months, I have been bugging my local library to start having a special needs story time. Back at the beginning of April, I got an e-mail from the "youth services specialist" for the library system. They have trained some employees to work with special needs children and hope to have a story time for the Fall of 2014! I was super excited to get that e-mail. We have been going to our local library for just about as long as we have lived here. Lauren and I even got our picture in the local paper a LONG time ago!

We love our local library, I'm in there at least once a week :) I can't wait to see what books they will pick for the story time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comments

A Book Every Autism Mom Should Read

When Dominic was diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2, I went to our local library and took out every book I could find about Autism. Sometimes I would bring back 20 books. This was 2006, so a lot of the information was very "dated." I guess I was looking for a book that would tell me what I should do next, like a "manual." Autism doesn't quite work that way! The saying is, " if you know one person with Autism, you know one person with Autism." Every mom to an individual with Autism follows their own "path." I think as moms, we judge ourselves much harder than anyone else does. I was 41 when I had Dominic. Did he get the diagnosis of Autism because I was an older mom? because I drank a lot of pop? I could sit and think about that every minute of every day. I am pretty integrated into the Autism community around Lansing and have told more than one person that it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis. It is so incredib...

Mainstreaming and Inclusion

The hubby and I were discussing the other day how special education students were treated back when he and I were in school. He remarked to me that in his time, they were "hidden away" from the rest of the students. When I was in elementary school, I can remember seeing the kids in those classrooms pass by us in the hallway. I don't ever recall seeing them in the lunchroom or playground. I'm so glad that times have changed. Even though Dominic is in a "self-contained" special education classroom, he does get to go to the art, gym and music classrooms. He also gets to eat lunch in the school cafeteria. He loves hot lunch on Thursday - pizza!! Given Dominic's abilities, he is able to be "mainstreamed" into the general education classroom for small amounts of time. Every moment he is able to do that gives me so much hope for his future. I absolutely love what Dominic's current teacher is doing. He has started a peer-to-peer progra...

It's a "Group" Effort

Since going to the local barbershop is still not allowed where we live, it fell upon us to figure out the best way to shave Dominic's beard and mustache. Typically, Dominic goes to our local barbershop to get his haircut and his barber (Vince) also takes about 30 seconds to shave the beard and mustache. This August, it will be five years that Dominic has been going to Vince. That in itself is a huge milestone as anyone with a child/adult with sensory sensitivities knows. Anyways, earlier in the week my hubby, Lauren and I had all noticed that Dominic's facial hair definitely needed some assistance. I mentioned to Lauren that I needed to find a "social story" about getting a shave. Before I had a chance to find one, she took it upon herself to find one and print it out, it had both an electric shaver and shaving cream/razor stories! That meant so much to me, because she didn't have to do that, she wanted to! I showed the social story to Dominic and sai...

bountifulplate

Search This Blog