6/11/09

There was more good news on the autism insurance front this week, if you are interested check it out: http://autisminsurancemi.blogspot.com/.

Tyler had a good night last night. He was making lots and lots of sounds, even daycare commented on how she was hearing new sounds. Dad did a great job of gros smotor play with Tyler that really got him babbling. Dinner also went well, he was doign good at feeding himself, but did ask to get down a few times to play a bit but we got him back in the chiar. I forgot to say on the blog the other day that I accidentally made him vomit at dinner. Many kids if they eat something they dno't like they'll just spit it out, Tyler's response is much more drastic becuase he feels it more drastically than a normal person. So I tried to sneak in some refried beans while he was distractd with something becuase sometimes he may like it and just not be willing to eat it based on the way it looks. Anyway, he did not like it and before I could reach in and get it back out, he vomited. Oopsss sorry buddy. Luckily it did not affect his desire to eat the food that he actually did like. But dinner last night went well. We all went for a walk/bike ride after dinner. The boys are getting really good at peddaling their bikes even up the small hills. I discovered yesterday that singing and standing in front of Tyler and walking backwards, really motivates him to keep peddaling and keeps him engaged so we did lots of singing yesterday which was fine. We also tried to a lot of signs for things we saw while we were out, trees, airplans, leaves, etc.

When we go on walks, I usually keep at least one toy in the back of his bike in case we stop and talk to any neighbors. Last night Ben and Dad and Clifford were quite a a ways in front of us and we saw them talking to some neighbors and kids. By the time Tyler and I got over there Ben was riding his bike around the cul de sac with one of the little girls so Tyler and I kind of parked by the adults and I got out his phone to play with. He did very well at staying with us and understanding that we were not gonna be riding bikes for a few minutes. He did get bored with the phone though and then he asked me if we could leave (can't really explain how he does that, but he always has a way of getting his point accross). So by then some other little kids had come up to pet Clifford so I asked if they would play ring around the rosie with us so that was great, we played maybe only 3 or 4 times but Tyler participated in the group without hesitation and got a kick out of all the kids falling down. Then we moved on to simon says, Ben was doing good on his own so I helped Tyler play simon says and he never got frustrated or anything. We played for a few minutes and then he kind of started runnign a bit so we just played some gross motor games, swinging, etc. and soon after it was time to head home for bed. It was just really great to see him play with other kids, even though I supported him through it all, he ws so happy doing it and niterested in doing it. Last summer was completely different, we couldn't get him to stay in a yard and he wasn't intersted in anything other than walking on the sidewalk and stopping was very frustrating for him. GO TYLER!

So the other cool thing.... right after dinner Tyler was playing on one of his computer games. One of the games on there is really just him pushing a letter and the computer saying the letter. This can get stimmy for him so we look for ways to engage him and make it more functinoal. Anyway, I tried something new. I started making the sound of a letter and then he'd have to pick the letter I was making the sound for. So I'd go "ahhhhh" and he'd push A and I'd say zzzzzzzzz and he'd push z, etc. He seemed to really like doing this and after he'd get it right I'd sing the little leapfrog jingle (the a says ahhh, the a says ahh, every letter makes a sound, teh a says a), it was his reward for getting it right. We had lots of fun doing this and once again I realized that Tyler knows so much more than we know.... He didn't get any of them wrong which means he now knows all his letters (captials and little), shapes, numbers (at least 1 - 10) colors, and now his letter sounds.