Er . . . What?

Just now Sasha bolted upstairs and announced, "I have access to the midnight whore!"

A moment of startled silence between Kala and me.

"Sorry," I said.  "What was that?"

"I unlocked the midnight whore!" he said.  "On City of Heroes."

"I think you'd better spell that last word," Kala said.

"H-o-u-r," Sasha said.  "Whore."

"Hour," I said, trying not to laugh.  "Midnight Hour.  Whore is . . . something else."

"What's whore, then?"

"A woman you pay to have sex with," I said.

"Gah!  No!  No!  Not that!  No way!"  And he fled the room.

Rough Week

This last week was kinda rough.  Okay, it was extremely rough.  The boys behaved wonderfully at school during the week previous to this one, and then apparently decided to make up for it this week.

 

MAKSIM: Wednesday, he punched a boy in his class.  While he was waiting to see the vice principal, he got into it with another kid in the office.  He was suspended for six days.  This had the added effect of wiping out a multi-day sub job Kala had already accepted.  We've decided that Mackie needs to see a psychologist.  He behaves fine at home, but he seems to be on a hair trigger at school.  I'm starting to wonder if school reminds him of the orphanage and that puts him on high alert while he's there.

 

SASHA: He has a major project for his social studies class--make a display about the country Honduras.  We knew it was due in mid-May, but that was all we knew.  We told Sasha several times that we needed to see the instructions for it, but he kept saying he couldn't find them, that his teacher wouldn't give him a new set, etc.  Finally, Kala threatened to walk into his classroom the next day after school and get them directly from his teacher if he didn't show up with a full set.  Miraculously, the instructions appeared and we discovered that two sections of the display were already past due, and Sasha hadn't even started.  This set off a yell fest.  Sasha claimed he had no idea that any of this stuff was due, and I demanded to know what he thought was going on when everyone else was turning in their materials.  I removed all of Sasha's computer, video game, and TV privileges until the ENTIRE project was completed and set him to work on it.

 

Unfortunately, this meant that I had to stand over him and help with it.  Sasha's version of writing an essay or report is to find something about it and copy it word for word.  I'm working on breaking this habit, but since Sasha's reading level is rather below most reference works, so I had to read them aloud to him (which helps) and then rephrase them to make sure he understood them, then ask him to repeat the information back to me, then have him write down what he told me.  I would check his grammar and spelling so he could rewrite everything properly.  This was, as you may imagine, an arduous task for both of us, in no small part because Sasha was resentful and angry throughout.  It was no fun for me because I couldn't just tell him to do it, leave to do my own thing, and return to check on him every so often.  I had to stay at the table with him every moment.

 

We did this every evening for four evenings.  All I was doing was teaching school, karate class, and helping a recalcitrant Sasha with his project.  It was exhausting.

 

And then, on top of that, on Friday Sasha reached step four on the discipline system at school.  (Step five involves out-of-school suspension.)  I was on the verge of letting him have some of his privileges back after the Week of Much Work, but I told him I had changed my mind in light of his school behavior.  I also told him he and Maksim couldn't go see SPEED RACER.

 

ARAN: Aran behaved just fine all week, actually.  No problems at all.  Kala took him to see SPEED RACER on Saturday and reported that it was a headache-inducing movie without the faintest shred of a plotline, but Aran loved it, which was the whole point.

Aran and Notation

Sometimes Aran's musical ability and memory fight with his autism and his learning pace.  Here's the situation:

 

1. He hasn't quite mastered musical notation.

2. His phenomenal memory allows him to memorize songs quickly.  After he plays a song once or twice, he has it memorized.

3. He keeps the music on the piano in front of him and looks at it while he plays, even after he's memorized the song.

4. His autism does not allow for changes in music.

 

The main disconnect comes between 1 and 4.  He plays the song perfectly on the keys but makes mistakes when he reads the music.   Get it?  He knows the note should be an F and he plays an F.  But he misreads the music and thinks the notes are telling him to play, say, an A.  This freaks him out.

 

"It's an F, not an A!" he wails.  At which point, Kala or his teacher or I have to tell him he was simply playing it right and reading it wrong.

 

This is the reverse of most musicians, who read it right and play it wrong.  Aran hardly ever makes mistakes when he plays a song, but he makes plenty of mistakes when he reads music.  It's weird.