8/18/08

This weekend was a reminder of how far we've come and just how far we have to go. Went to the sprinkler/fountain park yesterday. After playing in the fountains for a while, Tyler started running around the perimeter (which is a big circle) of the fountains laughing. You all may think this is normal, however, I know and knew that if I had tried to get him to go in the opposite direction, he'd strongly resist, so that's exactly what I did (I swear I"m not mean, that's what I'm supposed to do). So I ran out a few times and said stop and got him to giggle thinking stop and go was funny but he wasn't really wanting to go in a different direction, so picked him up and turned him around and bounced him in the other direction, singing and laughing and trying to make it fun. As soon as I let him go, he immediately, bent down and went to bang his forehead into the concrete. Normally I'm prepared for this which I was but he usually gives a bit more warning so I can get into proper position, this time he just went quickly and luckily I was able to catch him. Tyler loves to run in circles and if at all possible, it's not something we should let him do freely, we should either get him to engage in other activities or make the running around into an activity of some sort where he's interacting with you and he has an active role in the activity. However, he came out of the near head bang very well and didn't seem to be too bothered by it all which was great.

This morning I witnessed something fantastic. I dropped him off at daycare and he was very attached to mom this morning, wouldn't let go of me and kept pulling me to different places in the house and then he pulls down on your arm which means he wants you to sit down. he pulled me over to the vacuum cleaner. He loves the vacuum and we've worked on this as a routine, in fact, I've actually gotten a bit of constructive criticism in regards to our vacuum routine in the beginning because it was too entertaining and not enough of an interaction/role for Tyler. That really wasn't that long ago, i mean in terms of months, maybe 3 or 4 at most? What I tried to do in the beginning is to get him to say "on" and I was taught to turn it off about every 10 seconds or so and model the word on and wait for him to say it or some sort of verbalization before turning it on. Ok, so back to what happen today. He brought me to the vacuum and pulled my arm down and probably about 15 times said as loud as he could "ahh, ahhh, ahhhh, ahhh, ahhh" No prompting, no anything, he just was saying on and using vocal communication, eye contact, and a gesture to get me to respond. It was killing me not to turn the vacuum on but their son was sleeping on the couch right next to the vacuum. I said "On" back and said we can't turn it on now and gave him lots of praise for talking.and tell me what he wants and then found something else for him to play with. I was a very happy mama & therapist today!