Enchantment and Jupiter reading

  I used to take benadryl every night to sleep.
Now I read or listen to audio books.  Before the ipad and nook I had to wind up the flashlight every ten minutes to read. Wind up flashlights are genius however the loud winding defeated the purpose of relaxing and trying to nod.  Now when I sometimes wake at 3 in the morning I grab my ipad that sleeps with me like a teddy bear and read.


  Recently I downloaded Enchantment by Orson Scott Card.  I first came across Card when my oldest spawn were very small and still rubbery enough to sleep well in the car.  The superhero and I were running bundle hauling paper routes so we could work and take the boys with us.  I would snuggle up the two spawn in their car seats and off I would go to transverse the Kansas country side drinking coffee and listening to audio books.  Eery and unexpected things happen in the middle of the night and it was the perfect setting to indulge in my love of SciFi.


  I listened to most of the Ender series and since smile when I come across Cards work when I am browsing the online libraries for books to load to my iPad.  I was dubious to start a book about Sleeping Beauty.  The story grabbed my attention from the first sentence and  I can assure you that this is no ordinary rendition of the old tale.

  The main character is a runner.  He runs because he loves it.  I had no idea of this when I chose the book.  I don't recommend reading the wiki page about any books unless you don't mind spoilers.  Its not a how to run or even the story of a runner but its the story of Ivan and he is a runner and it makes up who he is.  This would be a great story to listen to when you are out running and listening to your iPod.

  Jupiter is learning to read and write.  This is huge.  For those of you that don't already know, Jupiter is my nine year old son who has autism.  He is nonverbal and uses an iPod with communication apps to communicate. This year we decided to home school him.  He also gets therapy in the mornings and  in the afternoons.  Our schedule is dictated by his sessions and the benefits of school fell miserably short compared to the negatives. He would learn these horrible coping mechanisms from watching the other kids.  These problem behaviors were cutting into his learning drastically.  The Homestead is ran by the woman that we moved here to get services from in the first place.  Finally it seems like Jupiter is getting what he needs and I am not at all suprised that we are doing so much ourselves.  Such is the reality of autism.  But we do have some stellar guidance.

  So Jaymon is teaching him letter recognition and I am teaching him word recognition and then we will blend the two together.  I am also teaching him to type the words on his iPad. He picked up scanning the word left to right on his own and it has been so incredibly encouraging to see him pick all of this up so quickly.  His vocal imitation has really taken off lately as well.

  All four of the spawn are homeschooled and it works so much better this way and everyone is getting their needs met.  Life is good.