Summer update

We've had such a busy summer, I can't believe how quickly 9 weeks flies by!

My littlest sister got married, and cosmo was the most handsome little page boy you ever saw, we went on our first ever family holiday, we've moved house and this Friday we have tenants movin into the house we own.

At the beginning of the holidays we got the final diagnosis that cosmo is indeed autistic, albeit very high functioning. It's interesting to note that the paediatrician was very clear to me that this label does not affect his potential or necessarily his development. It's a diagnosis of the way his mind works, not what it's capable of.

For example, I've been told before that autistic children don't know how to recognise other peoples emotions. What we've discovered is, although cosmo hasnt learned to differntiate emotions by himself, once you teach him the cues (eg tears = sad, shouting = angry, teeth showing = smiling/happy) he can readily spot these cues in other people. He also picks up details that help him process what others are feeling (the boy must be tired because he is wearing pyjamas).

I won't deny the summer has been very hard for him. A lot of people, a lot of change, but he's been doing very well. I'll be glad to get back into term and a bit more of a routine with him though. It should help calm things down a little.

This week he has learned to write! He can write his own name, so I'm confident he could write many other words (he happily spells them with fridge magnets) but he is completely unwilling to try. In fact the only reason he wrote his name is because he got a cars sticker for doing it. I'm not pushing it. I know he can and we'll practise later. I'm just excited because this is a huge step forward in his fine motor control.

We've also been working on a few other things since we moved including potty training (hell for about 4 hours, but relatively painless for the last few days) and choosing his own clothes.

Now that cosmo has a wardrobe he has been allowed to choose his own clothes each day (much easier than digging through drawers) and my father would be proud. He likes to choose smart shirts, everyday, regardless of what activity we are doing. I'll let it go for now, but once the novelty wears off I may have to have a word about choosing appropriate clothing.

We've also been at the library a lot. We've been taking part in their summer reading program and Cosmo loves that every book he reads sends money to sick children. He considers library books to be his 'work' like daddy, because he's earning money (even if he never sees it).

Lychee has been working hard too, her confidence in the swimming pool has improved massively and her speech is coming along well in terms of intonation and vowel sounds. 'heyow' for hello and 'mimimi' for milk etc... And she now reads about 50 words, nearly time for fast mapping...!!!

Catechism

The Puritans used catechisms, creeds, and confessions to disciple their flocks.  A catechism is the process of instructing believers both young and old in the basics of the Christian faith.  The Greek word for "instruct" or "teach" is katecheo from which we get our English word "catechize."

 

Catechisms provide basic summaries of the church’s teachings to ensure that all members of the church understand the essentials of the faith for themselves. Most catechisms generally have questions and answers accompanied by biblical support and explanations.

 

The Puritans developed their own catechisms, including theWestminster Catechisms in the 1640s. Written to provide children, new believers, and church members alike a short but comprehensive summary of the Reformed church’s doctrines, theWestminster Catechisms are the most important and influential of all the Reformed catechisms.

Helpful Catechism Resources

• The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th-Century Catechism, by Kevin DeYoung


• Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God, by Bruce Ware


• The Big Book of Questions and Answers, by Sinclair Ferguson


• Small Children’s Catechism, by Chris Schlect


• A Catechism for Boys and Girls, from Sojourn Church Louisville.

 

Have any good ideas on how we can use catechisms in the church today?

Let me know in the comments section.

 

Cynical? Me?

Last week Cosmo's daddy was tucking him up in bed and during their chat Cosmo asked Jesus to be his friend. His dad was very pleased with this, but I was pretty cynical. The fact is, I don't think a three year old understands what he is saying when he says something like this. I think what he means is 'right now that sounds cool' rather than 'I want to dedicate my life to God'.

 

Turns out I might be wrong.

 

A few days later, it was Sunday and time to go to church.  We've had a little trouble recently, because there is a boy in children's church who doesn't get on with Cosmo. I'm told that Cosmo didn't start it, but I'm not dumb enough to think that he is completely innocent either. I've walked in to see him kicking that boy.

 

Over breakfast though, Cosmo suddenly announces that today, at church, he is going to forgive his nemesis. Really? I think, but out loud I say 'what a great idea'.

'Yes', he continues 'because God and Jesus have forgiven me and I am going to forgive him'.  Cue my jaw hitting the floor. Maybe he really does get it...

'And then I can ask him if he wants to be Jesus' friend too!' Now I really am wandering if this is all some elaborate dream, but I hold back on my excitement and think it is probably best to reserve judgement until after church and see how they manage 90 minutes in a confined space together.

 

I needn't have.

 

When we went to get him from children's work the leaders were all gushing about how wonderful he had been. Further questioning has revealed that his nemesis did not want Jesus to be his friend :0( but that despite having been spat on and told that he was hated, Cosmo did not retaliate and continued to forgive. In fact, by the end of the session his nemesis seemed to have forgotten all about their feud and was willing to sit next to him during the story time.

 

Wow. I am completely floored. I really have nothing else to say, but Wow.

 

Happy Shavuot!

Yes I know this post is late, I was hoping to run it in the week running up to shavout so that you could enjoy the celebration too, even if you've never heard of it, but I forgot. Sorry about that, but you could always enjoy it next year?

Shavout is a time when the Jewish people celebrate the giving of the Torah. It is also the date of the birth of the church and the time when the first christians recieved the Holy Spirit. What gifts! The Word of God, followed by the Spirit of God. It really is a time to be celebrated.

Obviously you are welcome to celebrate in anyway you choose, but I thought I'd share how our family celebrates to give you some ideas.

Firstly I plan a special meal. It's traditional to eat plenty of dairy as milk is all the nutrition a new born needs. Likewise, we are God's children, and his word contains all we need.

Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

1 Peter 2:1-3

We always eat tagliatelle with cream cheese and chive melted over it, tossed with chopped mixed peppers. I know it sounds boring to eat the same thing every year, but it's only once a year, not every week, and it means I don't have to think about shopping/cooking too much. No-one complains about having roast turkey again at christmas, right?

We also try to serve lots of sweet things, a strawberry and lime smoothie with plenty of honey always goes down well (blend a punnet of strawberries with the juice of a lime, two cups of water and add honey to taste).

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Psalm 119:103

It's traditional for Jewish families to read the book of Ruth on Shavout. I love this, because I bet they have no idea why. I'm told it's because it's a story about lovingkindness. I'm not really sure what that has to do with the festival, but I do know something else; Ruth's story is a story of a gentile bride being redeemed and counted as God's people. It's a beautiful love story, but more importantly a picture of Christ and the church. There's a great study on this here. What story is more fitting to celebrate the day that God gave His Spirit to His gentile bride, the church?

The final tradition is to read each other stories from the bible for as long as we can stay awake. Staying up all night reading God's Word is a rare and beautiful time to spend with family. This is where homeschooling comes into it's own, because we all get to have a lie in the next day!

It was so precious to hear Will helping Matt tell the story of the 'ten rules' that Moses was given (another great passage to read on this night). It's also worth having plenty of snacks ready for your late night to sustain everybody. Cheesecake is a good option (more dairy) as is ice cream and anything else sweet. I found candy letters this year. Great for spelling out 'sweet words'.

So if you don't already celebrate Shavout, think about it. It really is one of my favourite biblical feasts.

We have had a week of 'firsts' it seems!

 

This week Cosmo baked his first loaf of bread and his first ever cake from scratch, following a recipe and measuring all the ingredients (age 3 years 5 months). I obviously helped with the oven and holding the bowl still whilst he vigorously mixed it, but both the bread and the cake turned out to be totally edible, and two people have asked for the cake recipe as it was so good! [You can find it here]

 

He also learnt to use a calculator. He loves maths, but I'd never shown him one as I thought it was best if he learnt the concept of times tables etc using old fashioned lego bricks to work out the answers. However, this week his addition and subtraction have become much faster and more accurate, and his times tables are really improving. My mum thought it would be fun to show him what a calculator does. Would you believe this is his new favourite toy? He has even taken it to bed with him instead of a book!



The most exciting part for him is that he can now work out sums including numbers up to 9999 (he understands four place values thanks to more.starfall) where previously he only worked in figures up to around 30 (running out of lego blocks, plus attention span!) but the calculator always gives him a fast, accurate result. He's still not happy about the idea of division. I think we need to work on the concept with the lego bricks a bit more, but he's confident with multiplication, addition and subtraction, which I've got to be honest, I never expected him to be at this age.

 

I've frankly been stunned by how easy this has been so far. I thought teaching concepts in things like maths would be very  difficult and I wouldn't know how to explain it properly. The reality is, if I just keep showing him plenty of examples, he actually picks up the concept himself.

 

I hope Lychee is this teachable...



But the thing I am probably most proud of is that this week he worked out from his pocket money which coins he needed for the sweet he wanted at the corner shop (4x5p) went and chose the sweet, queued up and purchased it all by himself. Obviously I went with him (can't account for other people) but for his part he was completely confident and competent to make this transaction by himself. He thanked the clerk, but when we got outside he was disappointed when he realised he had forgotten to add 'please' when answering the question 'what would you like?'

 

We are lucky that the local corner shop seems to have the same staff in every sunday afternoon, so he is quite confident interacting with them. It would be interesting to see what happened if I took him to a different shop. I wonder whether he would still manage to complete the transaction or whether he would be shy?

My Baby can read too!

I write a lot about Cosmo's development on here, and not so much about Lychee so far. I feel like this is fairly predictable as she is so much younger and doesn't do much at the moment.

However we have had a fairly major break through recently, and using the YBCR system she is now (at 9 months) consistently recognizing the words 'tongue', 'wave' and 'hi'.

It's a little earlier than Cosmo (not surprising as we got her started on the system earlier) but also a little less consistent than he was. She started to recognise words a month or two ago, but didn't always respond to them and only recognizes a few. Cosmo showed no signs of recognition, but then at around 10 months he could suddenly read with a startlingly wide vocabulary.

Not sure if it's a boy/girl thing, just thought it was interesting to note.

If you are interested in using the Your Baby Can Read system, you can buy it here.

 

Milton Keynes

This week Matt's class at school were doing a project on Milton Keynes. It came up in conversation at the dinner table, so Cosmo decided that he too would like to do a project on Milton Keynes.

 

Unsure of exactly how to proceed I decided that I would ask him what he'd like to know about Milton Keynes and see if we could find out the answers using google. Some of his questions weren't answered exactly (e.g. 'how many parks are there?' turned into 'how much area is devoted to parklands?') and some of them I flat couldn't find the answers to ('how many cars are there in Milton Keynes?') but there was plenty there to work with.

 

I'm also really proud of his drawings. For a long time he has refused to draw anything other than '1's or 'l's. I think this is a real confidence issue. He has just been unwilling to try to draw anything he wasn't confident he could succeed at.  He drew a railway track and a bridge (unfortunately I wrote on the picture upside down, but once he told me what it was I realised it was actually pretty good!) and trees that were incredible. I still had to talk him through how to draw each bit ('draw some brown lines to make trunks, not do some green scribbles at the top') but once I had taught him to draw a tree, he was drawing them all over the place!

 

We also found someone called the 'Milton Keynes Guru' who answers (publically) any questions you might have related to the city. Will composed a lovely email for him including questions like 'Are there any cars in Milton Keynes that are as fast as Lightning McQueen?' and 'Are there any car companies, like DinoCo, based in Milton Keynes?'

 

We put it all together in an A3 presentation to show Matt and Cosmo talked him through it when he got home.

 

You can see our booklet here.