Category Archives: SuperPizzaBoy

Motor Planning and the Nintendo Wii

This is what I wanted to name yesterday’s post but with my early onset Alzheimer’s I couldn’t think of the term until Baloney posted. Aha.

Anyway, as I was talking yesterday, kids with Asperger’s can benefit from physical and occupational therapy. Many of these kids have weak core muscles and so exercises are prescribed. SuperPizzaBoy hates doing exercises. We had a Nintendo Wii and now we have the WiiFit. So now, to a certain extent, SPB isn’t exercising, he is playing videogames.

He has a ball and his Dad loves it. Of course my Wii fit age came in 8 years younger than his actual age.

I know, I know, it just further reinforces the notion that we are supposed to entertain the kids. I really don’t care right now.

Getting In Synch

Kids with Asperger’s Syndrome tend to be out of synch with the rest of the world and even with their own bodies. One of the things that fascinates me about autism is that it is more than just a mental problem, many of these kids have physical manifestations of their disorder also. They may have verbal or physical tics, they may “toe-walk”, many of them have quite pronounced sensory issues (the whole world sounds, feels, looks like fingernails being scraped on a chalkboard) many of them are not very well coordinated, they cannot play ball or other complicated activities as well as “typical” children can. They participate in rocking motions or other repetitive motions. Some of them flap their hands when they get excited.

Many have problems with fine motor skills like writing or coloring.

All these things are a directly tied to their disability. This is something you never hear about in the magazine and newspaper articles, television shows or other accounts. These well documented physical characteristics make autism a definite medical issue as opposed to a “mental” issue. I cannot tell you how many conversations I’ve had with insurance company respresentatives where they say they cover “medical” problems, not “mental” problems.

All these issues can be addressed to when extent or another with occupational, physical, or speech therapy. Followed up be the parents working with the child at home.

SuperPizzaBoy, as you may know, has a variant of autism named Asperger’s Syndrome. He has been flogged with all sorts of therapy for his various deficiencies and we have seen a definite improvement in many areas. He has turned into a great swimmer for instance, he loves playing soccer and jumping on his trampoline, and playing video games.

He is still behind his “typical” peers but is constantly improving.

We had a breakthrough during a family walk this past weekend. Sweetie and I were walking the dogs and SPB was riding his Triton (a high tech tricycle that steers the rear wheels with two levers). His Mom walked off from us a little bit and I asked SPB if he was willing to try his most complicated coordinated multi faceted move so far and he readily agreed. I had my camera to document the event.

He did it!!

He did a high speed sharp turn on his Triton, while picking his nose, and passing gas! Note the steering lever in the right hand, the left finger up to the second knuckle, and the subtle left cheek raise (facilitates the hydraulics on farting). I, as an assistant den leader for a patrol full of wild hellions, I can say that in these skills SPB is almost up to par with his peers.

I am so proud of the progress he continues to make. I know that the various therapists that have worked with him would be proud of him also.

Book Review “Children of the Lamp” by P.B. Kerr

One of the things that Sweetie and I have done right is reading to our son SuperPizzaBoy. He had a story read to him the day he was born and every night at bedtime his entire life. He has not missed 10 bedtime stories his entire life. We have done the gamut from “Goodnight Moon” to “Treasure Island” to Bible Stories to “Hank the Cowdog.” . The only thing that I have refused to read to him is Bionicle and Pokemon stories.

When he was younger I read to him maybe 80% of the time. Now its about 40% of the time. He seems to prefer his Mom reading to him. I’ll admit she is much sweeter and better smelling than I am. Still he lets me read me read to him some. It is one of the highlights of my day.

Our most recent book is “Children of the Lamp, the Akenaten Adventure.” I read about 60% of it to him, Sweetie some, and SPB read a lot of it on his own.

I think that has made him a reader which will always serve him well.

It is about two kids, John and Philippa, who find out when they have their wisdom teeth pulled that they are genies (djinn in the book). They learn how to grant wishes, and spend time in bottles, and all sorts of other mystical powers.

They soon find themselves in Egypt dealing with the balance of power between good and evil in the world and the evil ghost of Akhenaten. I don’t want to spoil it but their is plenty of adventure in here for kids and it is written well enough to keep Dad interested.

This book is excellent for reading aloud. The voice cues are appropriate. One of my pet peeves is dialogue that reads “Lets get out of the cave, go down the road, and cross the bridge”, he whispered. So that you find out you are supposed to whisper the line when you get through reading it. Drives me crazy. This book lets you know up front how to read such lines. I just believe that when you are reading to a kid you have to sell it. The more over the top the reader is, the more SPB likes it.

I recomend this book highly for kids who love adventure. I give it four stars out of four.

Boys Night Out – City Center

I’m beginning to think that wives don’t like activities that begin with “G.” For example some react violently to Golf. Others don’t like Gambling. My wife, Sweetie abhors Geocaching. I say the word and the eyes roll. Oh well, I like it. I like it a lot. I’m obsessed with it. I find it to be lots of fun.

I work downtown and I’m always looking for a place to hide a cache. There are not very many geocaches in downtown Tulsa and most of them are mine. Most are small, what are called microcaches. What are fun though are big caches that are easy to find and full of stuff to trade. These however are hard to hide in an urban area.

At lunch last week I was walking around downtown aimlessly and I stumbled upon on a little crease, a hidden place, a great hiding place. I got closer thinking “I could hide a cooler in there.” I got even closer and found out that somebody had already beaten me to it. A homeless person was using it to sleep in. All I had was the cheesey camera on the Treo.

Its hard to tell from the photo but there is a sleeping bag, a back pack and some other stuff in there. Somebody is camping within about 20 feet of where hundreds of people go walking and driving every business day. I’m glad for him, everybody needs a place to stay. I wished that he had better but I guess it is his. Until he leaves, then it will be mine. Especially if Sweetie gets real mad at me.

I found another cache site about 60 feet away. Far enough I think that he wouldn’t be bothered.

The following Tuesday. Sweetie had her monthly book group meeting. My son, SuperPizzaBoy, and I always have a “boys night out” and we do lots of various things. We have been doing it since he was born. We have a whole series of “Boys Night Out” caches for geocaches that we hid during out monthly outings. It has been a long time since we have done one though. We have been playing miniature golf, laser tagging, swimming, shopping, and other things. It has been over a year since our last Boys Night Out cache. Since I discovered a hiding place in a great area, off we went.

First up, we eat. We went to Johnnies for hamburges. We usually go there or Mexacali’s for mexican food.
A part of geocaching is trade trinkets. We usually go to the Dollar Store for that. This time we loaded up at Walgreens. And then to the cache site.
We got to the cache site at dusk. It is right in the middle of downtown which is usually deserted this time of day. There were two guys standing yakking. They were within sight of where we wanted to hide the cache so they had to leave before we could do anything. They yakked and yakked and then yakked some more. All we could hear was “badab badab badab badab badab.” or “blah blah blah.” I don’t know what they were talking about. It must of been important, like talking about their wifes hairstyles or shoes or I don’t know what.
We finally loaded up in the truck and drove around and around. They left! Its like hey guys its a school night.
So anyway, we got out and hid the cache and got the coordinates. To do it right you have to take a bunch of readings and then average them.

It is very well hidden.
Then we went home. I filled out a web page for the cache and submitted it for approval. Geocaching.com has all sorts of guidelines and rules for caching. There are laws also governing the placement of personal objects. They are anti terrorism type laws enacted after 9/11. Geocachers have been prosecuted for placing caches on railroad abutments for example. You can’t place objects in any National Park. The City of Tulsa encourages placing caches in the remote areas of city parks. SPB and I have several. You have to get a permit and we have and it is free. The River Parks Authority requires permits also and we have one near the Bear Sculpture at 71st and Riverside and another on Turkey Mountain. We have 24 caches hidden and have found over 700.
I got notice of approval this morning. If you want to go looking for it, the coordinates are N 36 degrees 9.023 minutes north and W 95 degrees 59.241 minutes west. Its called “Boys Night Out – City Center“. SPB picked the name.
Oh, the homeless camp. I had a better camera and wanted to get a better picture than the one above so just before we left the area I walked over there to take a picture. I didn’t though. The occupant was in his hidey hole and appeared to be fast asleep. I backed up very quickly and quietly, without taking the picture.

The Day Before the First Day


Tomorrow is the first day of School for SuperPizzaBoy. He was feeling a little nervous about it so Sweetie called me and said we needed to do something special for the Boy this evening. I’m always up for something special so instead of running after work on the river trail I came home.

When I got home I found that he had been working on a Godzilla movie. He is doing the screen play. I loved it. His best friend Q is a Godzilla fan. He is coming over for a sleepover on Friday night. I can tell they are going to work on the movie in amongst the Pokemon discussions, video games, and pizza chomping.

The Boy wanted to go play miniature golf. So off we went. He did very well. You should have seen him a few years ago. He had no idea what to do. Now he plays pretty well plus he has learned how to cheat almost as much as I do.

Then we went to eat mexican food. He loves mexican food. Actually he loves the chips and salsa. The food is just a bonus. He got a sopapilla afterward. With honey. He polished that off also.

Bad news when we got home though. Time to go to bed, the dread words “school tomorrow” and “you have to get up early and get going.” Groannnnnnn.

Poor PizzaBoy. I used to try and tell him that he only had about 12 more years or so of school, then work for about 45 years, and then he can start sleeping in. In only about 57 years. That didn’t cheer him up for some reason so I quit mentioning it. I mean it is only 2065. It will be here before he knows it!

Meet the Teacher Night!


Tonight was Meet the Teacher Night at SuperPizzaBoy’s school. The school is a private school K-12 that works with kids with learning disabilities and Asperger’s Syndrome. There are only about 145 kids enrolled in all 12 grades so it is a very small family type situation. Mrs. Yogi is co-President of the PTO and I am her first assistant. So I was asked to cook the hot dogs for the picnic they have after the introduction.

So I cooked 500 hot dogs. They didn’t know how many they needed so they bought a bunch and I cooked all of them. I didn’t mind. Hot dogs cook fast and need constant attention so you don’t get asked to do anything else. The weather was nice and so were the people. All I needed was a beer and life would have been good.

Of course I missed the orientation and didn’t meet the teacher but she is the same teacher as lasat year. So I don’t think I missed much.