Teaching a Sense of Direction

I'm still not sure if this is a nature vs. nurture skill.  Josiah could navigate through the city near our house at a very young age.  Greg has excellent sense of direction.  He was a cop and needed to get anywhere in the city quickly.  He has a better sense of direction than most.  Devon is completely lost less than a mile from our house.  He can't name any roads near our house, including the one we live on.  I told him the name of the road in front of our house was in our address.  Then it clicked.  All I can say is, "Yowsers"  We are missing a major skill.

To start, Devon is not allowed to read or play video games in the vehicle.  Mostly he reads, but never pays attention to where we are.  We have asked him randomly many times where we were and pointed out landmarks as we drive, but he has never bothered to pay attention to them.  He can get his license in    a year, so we need to work on it now.  So we started with having him watch where we are going.  This was a battle of course.  He wanted to read and he's a teenager.

Next, we ask questions.  Where are we?  Which way should we turn to go to town?  Take us home from here.  Where are we Devon?  Name a city between our house and the cities.  The answers he had to these questions were scary...NO CLUE.  We were less than a mile from our country home and he had no idea where we were...He has lived here for 4 years, driven that road at least 800 times and had no idea.  Now we realize, we might need to up the ante.

Today's activity:  Make a map of our house and label the 5 ways to get to the main highway from our house.  We have traveled them all in the last 2 days.  He needed to ride his bike to some of the locations to see how the roads intersected.  That way, maybe he would see more landmarks to help guide him and get some exercise.

Next Steps:  He is excited because I told him if he perfected his map, he could draw one on his wall.  Start with pencil and then add marker to it once he perfected it.  We can always paint over it later.  He gets a say in his room decorations and would spend some time perfecting a great project.  (thanks to my friend Susie Q for this idea)

Google Earth:  Start in the city and find our house, without typing in our address, by following familiar roads.

Labeling his map with familiar landmarks and friend's houses.  Maybe tonight we'll all bike to his Phillip's house with his map and pay attention to where the road goes.

Benefits:  The other kids all sat and made maps of our neighborhood to see if they knew what their older brother did not. We learned what a county is.  The names of roads near our house.  The name of many neighbors. Fun learning going on at the Van Moer house...

LOST

Saturday, we discovered something about our eldest child....He has no sense of direction.  I mean none, natta, zippo, zilch, zero.

The prior week, he decided to bike to his friends house.  Sometimes giving rides are a pain, so he decided he would ride his bike there.  So on his way home from their house last week, we reviewed the route in the van.  I showed him how we simply stayed on the same road all the way home.  The road has 2 'S curves' and goes from pavement to gravel.  

3 days later, he decided to bike to his house to crash for the night.  He packed his backpack for the night.  We reminded him to fill a water bottle with water.  We reviewed the route with him verbally.  Phillip would be waiting outside his house, so Devon wouldn't miss the house and ride by.  It is an 8 mile ride.   Devon is about a month away from being 15.  

So at 5:15 Devon took off.  Greg and I were meeting 2 other couples at a local winery which is about 3 miles from our house.  We haven't gone yet, but were excited to finally eat there and do a wine tasting.  The night was to culminate in a bonfire at our house.

At 6:00, Phillip's parents arrived at our house looking for Devon.  That's strange, he had ridden his bike over.  After 30 minutes, they decided to meet him on the road and pick him up.  Phillip was anxious to hang out.  But they made the trek to our house and didn't see Devon.  Well, they decided to drive back a different route and watch more carefully.  Maybe they just missed seeing him.

Greg and I continued our plans to the local winery.  In the meantime, Darrin called and said that he still couldn't find Devon.  We decided that he took a wrong turn, I would go look for him and join Greg in 15 minutes after I located him.  I drove down several roads and didn't find him.  Darrin drove down several roads and didn't find him.  It is now 6:45 and Devon is missing still.  So I called 911.  The county dispatched a squad to come help look.  We live on a county line, so the other county had a squad looking too.  I picked up Greg, we got another vehicle and we all started looking.  2 more squads joined the search.  We now have 4 squads and 3 parents driving the many twisting gravel roads between our house and his friend's house.  

I was positive that with his ADHD he took a wrong turn and was just riding along.  Devon hit his growth spurt last year, and has been running a couple miles a day, so if he keeps pedaling in the wrong direction, he can cover some serious ground.  I didn't think he would cross a major highway, but I also didn't think he would get lost staying on the same road.  3 hours had now gone by and I was starting to worry.  It would be dark.  He hadn't called us yet.  Maybe something worse had happened.

Finally, Phillip's mom called and her friend who lives on the route called.  Her kids had found Devon and told him to stay put.  She told me where to find him.  I called Greg and frantically drove to where he was supposed to be.  Greg called the police to end the search.  I picked him up and brought him home.  Scary and eventful.

He had turned off the pavement, back onto gravel and went straight, rather than following the 'S curve'.  He rode like mad for 8 miles, then backtracked, got back on the correct rode, but rode off it onto gravel again on the next part of the 'S curve'.  He continued to ride random roads, until finally giving up and that's when the kids found him.  Riding randomly on a gravel road, exhausted and lost with no plan.

After hugging him, I asked why he didn't call us.  It hadn't occurred to him to go to a house and call us. I worry about how he handles a crisis.  He was hopelessly lost and scared and really didn't think to call.  Oh boy.  Plus he had no idea where he was when he was only 2 miles from our house.  As a friend pointed out yesterday,  this is one of many lessons where he will learn what to do in a crisis.  **I hope**

Our friends joined us for a bonfire after the ordeal, bringing my favorite wine from the winery.  Maybe next time we'll get to actually go try some new wines.

The joys of ADHD

As it has been said many times, people who have ADHD do not suffer from ADHD, their families do. Touche! Although, in retrospect, some of the things that come out of Devon's mouth make me laugh so hard...here are some goodies from the last two hours. These are randomly stated in the middle of a completely different conversation.

"So mom, do canned green beans give you kidney stones?"

"Someone asked me what I was most looking forward to about Thanksgiving and I said pie. Pie is wonderful, it tastes good, it comes in lots of flavors and it's a great number." He then recited 36 digits of pi, which he is memorizing...

"I need to know the cost of dorm rooms because when I go to college I'm going to have to pay alot of money to stay in the dorm and I need to know how much that costs right now so I can plan."

These statements are frequently dropped for 5 minutes, then brought up again, then dropped and brought up again until an answer that satisfies his curiousity can be found. Sometimes that seems to take awhile.

I do not always find ADHD so humorous. When Devon puts milk in the washing machine, or homework is crammed in his bag never to be seen again, or the mysteries of getting ready for school in the morning and how people do that without running up and down the stairs 20 times. (Literally 20 times.) Or that lost in transit moment that comes over him many times each day. "Wait, what was I doing?" he says as he holds his toothbrush with toothpaste on it and looks at me questioning in the bathroom mirror. The joys are endless. But with some routines and meds...(I don't understand anyone who is against meds for ADHD) we live day to day.

Modeling

In December of 2010, just three short, cold months ago, Greg met a woman named Amy at the fire station. Amy is a photographer and was doing a ride along with good ol' RFD to take some photos and hang out with some cool firefighters. While not on a call, and hanging out at the Station, Greg got to talking with her and she mentioned that her kids did some modeling. She showed Greg some pictures of her very adorable children. Greg promptly pulled out pictures of his four adorable children and asked if she thought they were cute enough to model too. Amy promptly agreed that they were. (I would just like to make a side note that this is a reason that we like her so much. Just tell me how cute my kids are, and you're in!) We have always thought that our kids were cuter than most, but also realize that we are their parents and have a feeling we might also be slightly biased. We love it when people agree with us. In fact, I distinctly remember laying in bed with Greg with Josiah when he was just newborn. He said, "People tell us all the time how cute he is, but do they really think he's as cute as we do, I mean look at him Tammy, he is the cutest thing I have ever laid eyes on!" We knew then we were masked with the eyes of new parents, so we never know if we should believe all the people who tell us our kids are cute. Greg decided that out beautiful children would love to do some modeling. Nothing major, just a couple of photo shoots and see where it leads. It never hurts to have extra money for college. Amy said she would love to photograph our kids, so we set a date for January 1, for her to come to our house. She graciously agreed to do family photos, individual shots, a couple of just Greg and I. All for the bargan price of $50! We whole heartedly agreed. This decision was not as cheap as one might think because we are now required, by me, to have coordinating outfits. We were visiting Greg's parents for Christmas, so on our way home we had a mad dash stop at the mall in Mankato, where we shopped for about 3 hours with 4 kids. Greg wasn't exactly enjoying himself, but he was a good sport. After all, this was his big idea. So several hundered dollars later, we found great coordinating outfits for our first shoot. Amy came out on a very cold January day. One of the coldest of the season and at 20 below zero, we all decided to take pictures without coats or hats outside. Freezing! You'll notice in some of the outdoor pictures what a beautiful rosy color our cheeks turned. Amy was great about getting me a CD of pictures and we had a ton of great pictures. Sadly however, we didn't have any really great ones of Ethan. Amy said she would happily take more pictures for no extra charge. So in February we went out again to meet Amy for more pictures. Of course, this meant we needed more outfits. So off to the mall I went with my mom and my sister-in-law. This time, we were just looking for stuff that would look good on each kid, rather than coordinating with each other. Hundreds of dollars later, we were ready for our second shoot. We met Amy at the Gonda building at the Mayo Clinic. After our second shoot, she called me and said, you are not going to believe this Tammy, but we got even better pictures of the kids. She was right on both accounts. I didn't believe it and they were better. We went through more pictures....975 pictures in all and choose the best ones. Which was incredibly hard. When you have that many, they are fairly similar. Amy once again met me in Rochester to go over the pictures during lunch at Chipotle. That week Amy was up in the cities, at a photo shoot with her own children, when she showed the "New Talent Director" some of the photos she had taken of my kids. He whole heartedly agreed that they were all amazing looking kids. So we made some "comp cards" and e-mailed the pictures up to Steve. We didn't hear anything from the agency, but we continued to flash our new pictures of our kids to everyone we knew. We were like first time grandparents. Boasting with pride about our cuter than cute kids. As it turns out, professional pictures are quite a bit nicer than the school pictures. And in our case, quite a bit cheaper. Near the end of March, we finally heard back from the Agency, and they wanted to meet all four kids. Surprise, surprise! So we once again stopped at the mall for new outfits. (Heaven forbid we show up in outfits that we had on in the pictures!) We headed to the cities and met with the agency. They agreed to sign all four kids and told them each why they were choosen. All four for their own unique looks. We agreed to put them on the website for a few more hundred dollars. That's how their major clients choose kids to shoot. Clients like Gap and Target and many others. A little less than a week later, their faces adorned the website and a day later they called with a photo shoot for Devon for the next day. So today Devon had his first photo shoot for Gopher Sports out of Owatonna. They sell athletic equiptment. They paid him $80/hour for two hours and $25 for gas. For this particular company I had to provide the clothes, solid, primary colored shirt and shorts, white shoes, and above the ankle socks. This provided me with another opportunity to go shopping! Greg and I were both working, so we had our social skills worker bring Devon up to Owatonna. We knew that Devon would be anxious about the whole experience. I was anxious and it wasn't me and I wasn't going, of course any kid would be nervous. They started out by trying to get an action shot of Devon hitting a volleyball. He said it was harder than he thought it would be. Then he had a break, then did some photos through a tunnel. The ad will appear in their on-line catalog in August. Lynsie took a picture of his photo shoot, but isn't allowed to show us, because Devon wants us to be surprised when the ad comes out. We decided for all the kids that any money they make will go in a savings account for college, but they will get to have 10% of their earnings. Sadly, the industry norm is to not pay their models for three months. That's the maximum and sadly, most clients take that long to pay. The agency takes 15%. So Devon should see a check in July. I'm so proud of him for getting through such a nerve wracking experience. He's ready to do more. Not so much that he's into fashion, but because he has dollar signs in his eyes. So we'll see what the next couple of months bring. Keep your eye on the ads. Maybe you'll see one of my kids!

It's just corn...

Earlier this spring, Ethan, Sydney and I diligently planted our new garden. The old garden was not getting enough sunlight, so Greg built us a new one. He plotted it, tilled and even built us a fence around it to keep out the wildlife.

Sydney, Ethan and I went and pounded in stakes, made string for straight rows, hoed the rows and planted our seeds. Ethan was especially thrilled. He loves everything about the garden. He loves weeding it, picking beans and peas, and watching everything grow. He helped water it too with the 200 feet of hose we needed.

Ethan has gone down several times to check the garden and tends to pick things that aren't ready yet. He insists they are. This week it's been the carrots. They beg to pick, wash and eat carrots...which I always say yes to. He loves eating lettuce and radishes too. The radishes didn't fare to well and are still in the garden, but he picks them anyway.

Today Ethan's brain is stuck. He's in a state of fear or chaos. So Ethan asked if he could pick some corn. I said, "No, we aren't going to be home for dinner tonight. You have to eat corn the day you pick it. We are having company on Monday, so we'll eat it then." So Ethan got 3 other kids to help him pick corn, because he interpretted that statement to mean, "Yes, let's all go pick corn right now." So I was interrupted from weeding my flowers for Sydney to ask if we could still eat corn when it breaks in half. I asked her why she was picking corn, to which she replyed...oh Ethan told us all that we should pick it. Aaaahhhhhh. (That's me, not Ethan.)

It's corn, it's not a big deal. We can always buy corn. I'm just sad that all our painstaking work in the garden was picked for nothing. I'm sad that my boy is in this state. The fear of school starting is back again. I'm sure we'll be stuck until we are 3 or 4 weeks into the swing of school. It just makes me wonder what in the world happened to these boys that makes them fear the school schedule, or is it just anything new that is scary? I know they've had many scary experiences in their lives. I just wish a hug and a kiss could take it all away, but of course it isn't that easy. Please pray for my boys for the next month. I'm sure it'll be a tough one for them.

Josiah Showers with a Bat

Last night Devon came upstairs after going to bed and said he saw a thing about 5 inches wide flying around his room. He got up and turned on the light, but he couldn't find it. I teased him by saying it was probably a bat. Hopefully it just ate bugs and wouldn't bite him while he slept. We assured him we were kidding and decided together that it must have been a moth. (Bats are not allowed...they freak me out!)

This morning, Josiah jumped in the shower before school. He saw a black lump on the shower curtain, but thought it was poop. (Which is also disturbing, but not always surprising at our house.) When he turned the shower off and moved the curtain, the lump moved a claw. Then it spread it's wet wings. Thank goodness this was not me because I would have been in hysterics. Joe quickly got dressed and came up to tell me that there was a bat flying around downstairs. (I'm not sure what he thought I was going to do.) I did what any mother would do...told him to get dad and locked myself in the bathroom.

Greg got up and went downstairs with all the kids. All of whom were screaming, and yelling. Not from fear, but absolute excitement. Josiah barely missed grabbing it. Devon came running up and was yelling through the bathroom door that he wanted the bat for a pet. He stomped back downstairs when I had to tell him, "No Way, No How!" Did you notice my great mothering instincts to protect my kids? I was not about to open that door for anyone. Greg finally whacked it with a broom and threw it outside in the bushes. Josiah was convinced that it was going to fly in the house again. I did not come out of the bathroom for at least 5 minutes after the bat had been released into the wild.

We have a huge bat house and we live by a creek. I'm fine with having all the bats as long as I never see them. They eat bugs and are great to have around. I, however, plan to never see or touch one. Thank goodness Greg came home a day early from his hunting trip, or I would still be locked in the bathroom.

March Mud

Some days I think I may have earned mom of the year. The jury is still out on this one however. Today was about 60 degrees and sunny. The first gorgeous day of Spring. Most of the snow is gone, which leaves us with a lot of MUD! I was inspired to go on a family walk or bike ride, but was somewhat dismayed by all of our mud. We have a lot of shade by our house, so our gravel roads have not yet dried. I knew it would be a mess if we went, so I decided to embrace the weather and the day.

For anyone who wanted to attend, we decided on a family bike ride and would see who would be the muddiest when we were through. All kids love mud and puddles, so why not embrace them. It originally sounded like a fun way to spend the day. It wouldn't take that long to clean up. So I had to do a load of laundry this afternoon...no big deal right. Well, the pictures can tell the rest of the story.

When almost home, the kids stopped to wait and saw the biggest puddle of mud in the farmer's corn field. They were slipping and sliding. They fell down a couple of times. They decided to make mud angels. They decided that washing their bikes when we got home would be fun. They threw mud balls and rubbed mud all over themselves. They were FILTHY!

The mud was a mess to clean up, but I think all the giggles might have been worth it...MIGHT have been worth it. Like I said, the jury is still out on this one.