Monday, November 11, 2013

Keeping my Sanity Through the Holidays with a 2E Child

Today's post is part of a blog hop sponsored by Gifted Homeschoolers Forum!  Take a look at what others have had to say!

Typically, at our house, "holidays" and "enjoyment" are near oxymorons.  Finding a way to keep some form of routine during this period is neigh torture. This week, Mad Natter starts a skills development program for hockey. This lasts six weeks. So, once the schedule gets to be routine, it changes again because the program stops.  Now, this year, we're not travelling until Christmas, but ordinarily, we'd be heading to Chicagoland from Mooselandia for American Thanksgiving.  And this year, it's our Christmas in Chicago, as well.  So we'd be travelling for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, holiday set-up and tear-down, then New Year's...  There's so much change, so much commotion, and a boy who stresses with even slight changes? The whole season is a wreck.

Now, as if that's not enough commotion... This year, Mad Natter takes up hockey.  So, our school schedule was already screwy from having the sudden arrival of practices on Saturday and Sunday mornings (both days before Mad Natter would usually even be out of bed!), then once that's settled, we have the arrival of the skills workshops, then at the end of the month will be a scrimmage at the local OHL team's game, then the schedule changes again - practice on Saturday, and games at variable times on each Sunday.

So what do you do? What can you do, if the very nature of the season throws your kiddo into a tailspin - and not just any tailspin, but the kind that doubles up each day things are crazy?  In our house?  I try to reduce the changes.  So, effective Hallowe'en?  School's out.  I refuse to run school on Candy Day itself, there's just too much craziness. Then the whole week following is a loss in a sugar-induced high-low fest of epic proportions, and then there's on-again, off-again with the holidays... So, I put our large year break in winter - where we can ease at least some of the stress on Mad Natter before we hit the year fresh in 2014.  I have to remind grandparents and Skeeve that a) we've already accomplished a half year of schooling (minimum) since mid-August, and b) it's not like he's going to be behind - ever.

What this means in the big picture, though, is that we're able to have relatively low-key holidays, vaguely stress-free (or at least manageable stress levels), and I get to take the low-key time to have read alouds with Mad Natter, going over things like fairy tales, or cultural stories - things we all know, but don't remember where or when we learned them... Cinderella, or Jack Spratt.  It means school is much less formal, and instead we have a lot of stealthy schooling, and honestly? It keeps all of us saner over the crazy-making time that is any holiday, but particularly the cluster of fall and winter holidays.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Wait, it's November? Already?

Apparently, the Big Deal in November is NaBloPoMo.

I'm probably not going to get through that.  But, I suppose it's worth trying.

I'll kick this year off with Hallowe'en - Mad Natter was a specific character out of a Minecraft video for Hallowe'en this year.  We went by Mimi's house for dinner yesterday, and when we arrived, she asked him, "So, who are you?"

In a style so reminiscent of me that it's almost as frightening as it was funny, he turned to her, gave her the "I'm so sorry you're so stupid" look, and said "I'm Natter." as though she had managed to forget his given name, and completely blank on who he was, rather than asking what his costume was to be.  It was certainly one of the more fabulous moments being parent to a child who... can be challenging most other times.

I'll point out that today? Totally one of those times. Sugar rush/crash all day, a smallboy who wants nothing to eat but candy, and trying to get anything done?  Hoo, boy.  It's not entirely a picnic, but it's our time, and I get to know him a little better each day.