ATM Get Cash Now

During 2006 when Riley was 4-5 yrs old, he became focused on words and spelling. At Disneyland, Riley loved the Tower of Terror ride which exits into a photo viewing area of riders in mid-plummet. Beneath the viewing screens, there is a window display full of old typewriters. Riley liked to hustle his way to the typewriters and check them to see if they were organized as other typing keyboards. His method was to find the letters in his name, and if these were in the same place, then it passed his inspection. The discovery: all the keyboards are arranged identically.

Coincidentally [and in retrospect, obviously], this was a year Riley struggled with frustration and learning to calm himself when life felt too fast. He screamed and cried a lot even with understanding support, it was so hard for him to keep up with his older brothers, he could see a big difference in reading abilities [and everywhere in life] where he hadn't noticed before. The entire family was frustrated too because as he went slower so did we all. We each were consciously patient and needed to re-examine our own expectations, this was difficult at the time, but now I can see it hugely impacted us as we are collectively calmer.

On Shea's birthday, November 28, 2006, we went to a video arcade after lunch. I was listening to a lot of chatter and noise coming from everywhere, when Riley's voice cut through with "ATM, Get Cash Now!". It was surprising, so I asked how did he read that? Riley explained that these words are like C-A-T or N-E-W which he knows already, and some of the letters he knew from names like Shea [sh sound]. He says the words he knew just popped into his head, and from knowing these he could form a new word.

Since then Riley has become an avid reader, he understands most of what he reads and guesses the rest. He reads menus, billboards, store fronts, he just beams and radiates happiness because the world is making sense. Reading has in turn created more questions, being gregarious and a talker Riley just says what's on his mind, so now we are managing frequent interruptions. At the moment, several people try to talk at once, and with multiple conversations the total volume increases rapidly. This doesn't seem to bother Riley, but it bothers everyone else, especially Kaden and Eric. These guys are bugged the most though it's notable that they are famous interrupters. Touche!