Wormy worms!

OH WORMS!


Let me backup here a few steps.  


On Friday's, our home school instructor comes.  We turn in all of our weeks work and little by little we're getting Tommy to work for HER rather than him just working for me.


Well, Tommy NEEDS science credits.  This has been challenging because most things science related, Tommy has major sensory issues with.  So Teacher shows up... with what looks like a brown paper lunch bag.  It's closed. Tommy is so curious.  I don't even think he managed to sit in the chair. He paced around the kitchen turning in each piece of his work and going over what each piece of work covered.  He's doing very well with this and is getting MUCH better with answering his WH questions that she requires him to answer.  I just sit at the table and shadow.  Pulling him back into the kitchen to stay at least partially productive. 


She sits the bag on the table furthest away from him. (I had no idea what was in there either, but wasn't overly concerned about it).  Tommy on the other hand, WANTED it.  At one point he walked over and grabbed the bag and started to leave the room.  He took my redirection and returned the bag.  Teacher explained that when we were done turning in the work, we'd go over some papers and then she would let him see what was in the bag.  At this point, he realized if he wanted what was in the bag, he was going to have to do SOMETHING.


We finish turning in the work and she starts handing me the weeks worth of new work for Tommy.  she then pulls out some 3 pieces of paper. Worksheets. She looks at me and says, "Tommy needs some science".  I see the papers on, worms.   I calmly take my hands and cover my face and give her the "omg what have you DONE?!" look. lol!   We quietly go back and forth on "can he handle this?" My answer... TRY. The worse that will happen, is he'll throw up.  Let's just try.  So she so very quickly goes over the three pages of worm information.  She talks about the life cycles etc.  I see him just looking at the black and white picture of the worm and flaring his nostrils.  Then, the moment came.


She reaches in the bag. As she starts pulling out the container, she say's "Tommy, what do you think is in here?"  He replies, "I do not have an answer". She pulls out a white Styrofoam bowl with a lid on it.  She is as far away from him (still at the table) as possible.  She slowly takes off the lid.  There's soil and a big, fat JUICY earthworm right there.  A REAL one! Slithering around.  His eyes were giant.  He sat up tall and peered over to sort of see. He watched it for about 20 seconds. I, held my breath the entire time.  She's pointing out the different parts of the worm WITHOUT touching it.  He calmly turned his head away and says "i do not like the worm. Please put it away".  Teacher did.


I was stunned. STUNNED!!!! He can't even walk down the candy isle without gagging. He watched the earthworm for 20 seconds. He didn't freak out. He didn't curse. He didn't flee. He COPED! He used his WORDS!  At that point, we let him go watch his videos.  I am so glad I had him try.  Sometimes I tend to hold him back because I don't want to put unnecessary stress on him.  He did it and I am so proud of him.


We laughed about how he'll never ever want to see another brown bag again ever lol.  That brings me to yesterday.  I had snuck out and went grocery shopping alone. I found these things called Balloon Helicopters.  DING! So I came home, put it in a brown paper bag and wrote "SURPRISE! (no worms!)"  


So yesterday, we sit down to do our home school. I have a list of things we're going to be doing.  At the end of the list I put SURPRISE BAG!  He was very nervous.  I had to keep reassuring him there were no worms.  We did all of our work, and he got the bag.  We assembled the helicopter and let them buzz through the house.  


This kid amazes me everyday.