Boredom and Games

When I am bored, I play games.

Most of the time they are video games.

I only have a certain amount of time each day to play video games.

It’s my “screen time.”

When we travel, I get lots of screen time.

When we are at home, if my parents are busy, I get lots of screen time.

At other times, I ask to play video games, and my parents get very angry.

When I do something wrong, my punishment is almost always to lose video games.

I get very upset when this happens.

I feel so stupid for doing something wrong.

I hate that my parents can take away the thing I like best.

I don’t think it’s fair.

It’s not showing me understanding like they ask me to show my dad and brother, who I love, but who are also the one who give me the hardest times.

When I am not allowed to play video games, which I’m very good at, I play board games.

That rhymes with bored.

I am bored when I play board games.

Get it?

But I’m not really bored by some games.

I make up my own games.

Here is one of many games that I’ve made up:

Sometimes, my brother thinks my games are very fun.

Other times, like when I ask to play my game “Island Chess,” which is a game with multiple chess boards, bridges, and boats, he says that the game is too hard to understand, or that I’m cheating.

I don’t cheat.

I don’t lie.

A lot of people tell me they don’t understand the rules of my games though.

I guess they just don’t see it the way that I do in my head.

 

Email

My school gives us an email account.

My friends from fifth grade have been emailing me throughout the summer.

“What have you been doing?”

“Have you seen anyone?”

I wrote that I saw Johnny and Jimmy.

Summer has been a little boring, so I don’t know what else to write.

I have to “think of the other person” and “ask them a question about themselves.”

So I do.

And my friends write back.

Sarah shares about what her brother has been researching: Solar freakin’ roadways.

I think that freakin’ is a bad word.

I hope I don’t get into trouble for reading it.

I wonder if I should tell her to tell her brother that he shouldn’t use that word.

The video is interesting, though.

A good idea.

I like how Sarah wants to change the world.

I’m glad that she’s my friend.

Jimmy emails too.

He asks me what I ate for dinner.

I tell him, but he never writes back.

I’m not sure why he asked.

I’m not sure why he didn’t write back either.

I even asked him about his summer.

7/27/17

I wake earlier than I wanted to.

I fill the extra time by completing small tasks that would have begged my attention throughout the day.

I feel accomplished.

I drive kids here and there; to and fro.

I answer email, much smaller in volume, as I wind down one position and start to think of another.

I text kids in their various places – checking in to see how their days are going.

I read: the Bible, my book; I complete my required DuoLingo lessons.

I make dinner, wash the dishes, and read some more.

I finish a long nonfiction book and write a review.

I choose a shorter book from my TBR pile as a reward for reading something long.

I long for bedtime.

I make sure that everyone is showered, has their teeth brushed, and has completed their tasks for the day.

I look at my calendar and write on my to-do list for tomorrow.

I wake up an hour and fifteen minutes earlier than I needed to.

I complete some tasks before heading out to work.

I run my daughter to camp, make my sons lunch; visit the bank and read.

I enjoy the things that I am doing, but I notice that it sounds like a checklist of life, instead of living…

Vacation – Mom’s Point of View

We usually just hang around the hotel when we go on vacations.

Since we may not be back to San Antonio again, I wanted to really see the sights.

Unfortunately, it was very hot, and some of the things I wanted to do were a little boring for the kids.

We went for a boat ride on the River Walk.

That went well.

Afterward, we waited a very long time to eat at a popular restaurant.

My family complained that they didn’t like to eat Mexican food.

My uncle really wanted to take us there, so I asked for their patience.

We went to visit some of the missions, but the kids didn’t really want to do the scavenger hunt that was sponsored by the National Park Service.

It was very hot, but there was some neat history there too.

We went down into an underground cave on another day and ate at a great BBQ restaurant.

The kids did not love it, but at least my husband did.

My uncle, being that he’s 70 this fall, needed a day off from taking us around.

I thought that would be a great day to go to Sea World.

I knew that we would not be able to go to Fiesta Texas.

My husband hates amusements parks.

Too noisy.

Too crowded.

And in this case, too hot.

I thought Sea World would be better.

Water, shows in the shade, animals.

It was okay for a little while.

Then things went downhill.

The two younger kids were having a good time.

But, Jacob and my husband started to get bored and tired.

Then they started to get on each other’s nerves: stop complaining, I’m tired, I’m hot, I’m bored, that’s enough!

We went home about 2 p. m.

The tickets were very expensive.

When they’ve both had enough, though, there’s nothing to do about it, except remove our whole family from the situation.

The pool helped.

A nap helped.

Sea World was maybe not the best idea.

{Sigh.}

Vacation – Dad’s Point of View

Jacob is frustrating to no end.

Here we are, a thousand miles away from home on an expensive vacation and he’s complaining.

He’s bored.

He can’t play his video games.

He’s hungry.

He’s tired.

It’s hot.

All of these things are true, but why can’t he learn to deal with them the same way the rest of us do?

I have Aspergers, too.

I can’t just lie down in public whenever I want to.

He is embarrassing and stubborn.

I just lost it when we were at Sea World.

He just wouldn’t stop complaining and hanging on his mom.

All I ask is that he acts his age.

I don’t know any other eleven-year-olds who act the way he does.

When he started to cry (have a meltdown) because we wouldn’t buy him tokens to play video games at the arcade, I’d had it.

“That’s it!

We’re leaving.”

“But Dad,” the other two kids cried.

“Nope.

Jacob has ruined it for everyone.

We are leaving.

No souvenirs at the gift shop either.”

I was able to calm down later, at the hotel.

My wife took the kids to the pool while I rested.

Why can’t we just enjoy normal things like other families do?

Vacation – Brother’s Point of View

I was really excited about going to Sea World.

I love animals.

We don’t live anywhere near a Sea World so this would be a great chance to see animals up close that I only see on tv.

We got to see a beluga whale, which I didn’t know could be trained.

Of course, we saw dolphins.

The best part was the orca show.

I really wanted an orca stuffed animal to take home with me, to show my friends that I had been to Sea World.

I’m not sure if Shamu is a boy or a girl.

I’m going to find out!

There was pizza for lunch.

All you can eat.

I also got a huge ice cream, later on, to cool down.

It was a little hot.

We didn’t sit in any splash zones, so we didn’t get to cool down that way.

I thought it would be fun to watch some boat races, but it was too hot out in the sun.

We saw a climbing tower and me and my brother started a competition for who could climb through it the fastest.

I won one time; he won the other.

It was a great day.

Then, we had to go home.

The best part was that we got to go swimming afterward.

The worst part was that I didn’t get a Shamu.

My friends might not believe that I went.

Maybe I can show them some of the pictures my mom took on her phone.

Vacation

This year for vacation, we went to San Antonio, Texas.

We went to visit my mom’s family.

They speak Spanish and English.

I was in a Spanish club in third grade after school.

Some people say that I have a good memory and should be able to learn Spanish easily.

I don’t know about that.

I tried to learn Spanish on Duo Lingo.

It’s an app that helps a person learn a language.

The person can earn points and badges.

I like games that let me earn badges.

But after the easy words, I had a hard time getting points.

I kept getting the answers wrong.

I also couldn’t pronounce things very well.

When we were in San Antonio, which was my first time being in the state of Texas (I wrote it down in my journal of places I have visited), it was very hot.

Everyone there kept saying that it was not hot because it was not over 100 degrees.

I disagree.

It was hot to me.

Sometimes, we had to eat food that I didn’t like.

Enchiladas, or tacos, or refried beans.

Guacamole, my mom’s favorite.

I don’t mean to be rude, but no way!

I don’t understand why, when I don’t eat these foods at home, I have to eat them when we are on vacation.

We stayed in a hotel with a pool.

Every afternoon, we would swim.

That was fun.

I made up games to play with my brother and sister.

I also make obstacle courses and timed myself.

We spent time with my mom’s family.

I was named after her uncle.

He’s actually her great uncle.

He’s big.

And loud.

He’s also very nice.

I didn’t always like the food he gave us to eat.

He took us on a ride on his golf cart.

That was fun.

We saw cows and horses.

I don’t like to touch animals though.

They are dirty, so I don’t want to touch them.

We went to Sea World.

I liked the climbing play park they had there.

Most of the time we had to watch shows.

They were really, really boring.

I got hungry and started to feel very upset.

When I don’t eat, my blood sugar drops and I start to feel very upset about everything.

At school, I can eat snacks any time I want.

My mom had the school write it down so it’s official.

When we are not home, sometimes I can get very hungry.

I was also very tired because of how hot it was.

We went into the shade to cool off.

I wanted to lie down – I was so tired.

Mom told me that I could not lie down in public.

She said I had to make my body match everyone else around us.

What if they were not tired, but I was?

How is that fair?

I finally got something to eat.

Eventually, I felt a little better that I could walk around again.

We left early though.

We do that a lot.

I was happy when we got back to the hotel and got to swim in the pool.

I had had enough for that day.

Summer Camps

Each summer, I get to go to two camps.

Two summers ago, I got to go to a math camp and a K’nex camp.

Last summer, I went to Lego camp and cartooning camp.

I created a whole book of cartoons.

I learned about Charles Schultz.

He created the Peanuts cartoons.

My mom got me a lot of Calvin and Hobbes books.

I think they are extremely funny.

There are a few that I don’t think are funny – I don’t actually understand them.

The first camp I went to this summer was a robotics camp.

One of my friends, Johnny, from fifth grade, who was in seminar with me, was there.

The teacher was also a teacher I will have in the middle school.

Johnny and I got to be on a team together.

We completed robot challenges.

We had to make our robot drive into Sonic to get a cheeseburger and drive back out without crashing into anything.

Another time, we had to have our robot drive on a black line through cups, but not crash into the cups.

At the end, we battled robots.

I would go to this camp again.

I had fun.

I went to cartooning camp again too.

This summer, I just drew more and read more comics.

It was fun.

I laughed a lot at the other students’ comics.

They laughed at mine too.

Here is a picture of one of my cartoons:

Swim Camp

My mom signed me up for a swimming camp, which was the first way that I wasn’t bored this summer.

I am okay at swimming.

Not great.

My band teacher coaches the swim team.

I like my band teacher, but not enough to join the swim team.

Jimmy was there.

We were in the same third, fourth, and fifth grade classes.

We were in seminar together too.

But for some reason, he didn’t talk to me at all while we were at swim camp.

He was put in a lower group than me.

He shouldn’t feel bad about that, though.

He was learning, just like I was.

I tried to say “hi!”

But he didn’t “think with his eyes,” which is what my speech teacher taught me to do, when I want to get someone’s attention.

My swim teacher was really nice.

He was a boy.

I talked to him about video games.

Sometimes he had to work with the other students in the middle of my talking to him about video games.

I guess he was busy teaching other kids how to swim.

I passed a Level 3 at the end of the week.

My brother had to repeat Level 1 twice and finally finished Level 2, even though he took swim camp one more time that I did.

I hope he doesn’t feel bad about that.

He was just doing the best he could.

They don’t let you pass a Level 2 until you are ready to put your face in the water.

I learned that last summer.

Pool Party – Sara’s Point of View

Mom said that I could have a pool party to celebrate the end of the school year.

She said it had to be small.

She said I didn’t have to share the pool with my sister either.

Yes!

So I started to make a list.

I could invite six people.

We talked it over at lunch, Hannah and Katie, and me.

We put three boys on the list.

A party with boys!

Hannah wanted to invite Ryan.

Katie asked me to ask Joey.

I invited Jacob.

He’s nice.

He’s really, really smart.

I like how smart he is in math.

I am going to be in seminar with him next year and am really proud that I passed the testing to get in.

Everyone accepted my invitation.

I was so excited that I forgot to help my mom with the food.

I got out all of the pool toys.

I wanted to make sure everyone had a good time.

I wore my new bathing suit.

When Jacob arrived, he jumped right in the pool and started to make up games.

They were fun.

He’s really funny.

He’s not really someone I can “talk to.”

I have my Hannah and Katie for that.

But if I want to play a game, or do some math, or talk about music, Jacob is great.

I like talking about those things.

Sometimes.

He’s very easy to be around, even if he isn’t always interested in what I have to say.

I know he is not trying to be mean.

I cannot wait for sixth grade to start!