Brag Day Wednesday

typeset

Sorry, Assembly.

The kid met with the head of the RDI/social thinking program and we walked away with invites to spring break camp, a social skills group, and summer camp. It was bad, but it was good--and only you guys get what that means. This is the most optimistic I've felt since he aged out of EI. 

typeset

-auntie- said:

That's great. RDI and Social Thinking are terrific for higher functioning kids who need the skills to be Ok in the mainstream.

We should be getting another AW in the next couple weeks, no?

"He's so smart it's devastating to see him so prompt dependent. It's going to start affecting his self esteem." Hearing my concerns for him articulated by someone else independent of me waving my arms and jumping up and down was such a load off my shoulders. Now if only we could make headway with the school. 

I'm in denial about the other thing. 

MirandaHobbes

That's awesome, @typeset It must feel awesome to have a plan.

DS turned 6 this past week. It is amazing how much mature he is compared to last year. He can put up with so much more, and the whining has decreased significantly. He had a McD's bday party (which I highly recommend- zero work for the parents and cheap to boot!) and while only 4 of 17 invited kids came, it was the perfect balance and the 4 were boys he enjoys hanging out with.

His birthday present from us was a Wii U with Mario world. He has only played a couple times at friends houses and at Target so it is all new to him and DH and I. We set it up in the living room and it's been a great family activity. Instead of carting his Ipad to his room by himself after supper we all play a few rounds. He's picked up some wonderful trash talk from DH. DH was shooting fireballs at a bad guy and saying "woohoo, make it rain!" DS laughed and said, "yea, make it rain...FIRE!" I love that he caught that.

CrocusPocus

@typeset that's great news about the camps and group! So nice to have those options/offerings! Hooray for optimism.

@mirandahobbes sounds like a successful birthday! A 5-kid party is much easier than an 18-kid party and it's nice that the kids who came were "good ones." Wii U sounds fun - I love that the Wii is a family activity. We enjoyed ours together when we had it too.

My brag day Weds is that DS has said tons of spontaneous full sentences this week. There was a time (even this time last year) that I didn't think that would ever happen. They're still basic and very concrete ("Daddy, you have black hair!") but they're music to our ears!  

kcisthebombdotcom

Dd can spell (and attempts to write) her name when asked. She's also counting to ten by using her fingers and actually doing it right. We went to a party on Sunday and she was loving showing off her skills to everyone. She joined in play with the kids for a bit. She also grabbed some rocks and played hopscotch on my uncles walking path since they did it on a tv show--and they say tv is all bad. :P she also drew a picture of a person, pointed at the picture, looked up at me and said "daddy"--first time drawing with purposes. Lots of new stuff this week.

Lovenyc

Little man is finally saying MORE without being prompted. Huge victory for him and he was so incredibly proud of himself. This has been a very good week.

typeset

-auntie- said: They may be overstating the self esteem piece, a lot of these kinds of kids are oblivious to expectations and/or don't see them as applicable to themselves. 

He has a visual reminder every time he fucks up with the delayed reinforcement objective board through his preschool ABA program. He gets an X and is denied edible reinforcement. This is a one-size-fits-all approach with the goal of eventually enabling the kids to "independently regulate their behavior." ABA has done so very much for us, but I hate this. He's also at a point where he can't have a conversation without looking to be spoonfed his lines.

I don't know if self esteem is correct or if it's anxiety over not getting the unwritten rules, but we've seen some signs that he's taking things to heart: "the playground is too hard," "other kids are too hard," "I don't want to be myself on the playground" (when called out for escaping through catastrophic fantasy--he's often a character or under attack during these unstructured times: fires, dragons, monsters, etc.). He bursts into tears from simple social corrections. Most often it manifests as a shutdown. He just stops engaging. The social desire is one of the things we have going for us. To see him stop wanting to try or to lose that? Oof. 

algalphys

DS is talking so much more, lots of two word combos and new words very often. I can't imagine how much better he'd be with more st.

Me on the other hand, kicked the crib post so hard Monday night that I smashed and dislocated my little toe. I'm in a half cast right now but I'll be getting a walking boot next week...just in time for our trip to Vegas

hopecounts

DD has spontaneously started using 3 word phrases the last couple weeks in ABA, school, and at home.

They had mastered 2 word phrases in ABA but were/are still working on expanding that skill but she is popping out with 3 word combos on her own (Go Gran's House/ More Milk Please/Daddy play now/etc) 

typeset

algalphys said:

DS is talking so much more, lots of two word combos and new words very often. I can't imagine how much better he'd be with more st.

Me on the other hand, kicked the crib post so hard Monday night that I smashed and dislocated my little toe. I'm in a half cast right now but I'll be getting a walking boot next week...just in time for our trip to Vegas

Ouch! You know which half of that I'm loving. 

august06mom

DS1 is on spring break this week, and he and DS2 have actually been getting along amazingly well. They still annoy each other, but they're actually playing with each other -- chase, wrestling, just being silly together. DS1 read him a bedtime story tonight while DS2 sat on his lap. Since the best I can usually hope for is that they ignore each other, this has been amazing.

JoJoGee

Lily can count to ten (but sometimes skips 7).  She's saying so much more... Yesterday, after coming home from school, she pointed to the T.V. and said "I go."  And, she got invited to a classmates birthday.  I don't know if all the kids in her preschool class were invited, but I know it feels nice to be included for once.

Assembly_Reqd

More funny than a brag.

Nate signed "sorry mommy throw poop" to me today. I asked him to tell me sorry though.

He's in a poop throwing phase and I was lazy before nap and didn't put his footed jammies on backwards. The good thing is that he is slightly constipated so it it just a bunch of rabbit turds tossed about.

funchicken

DD1 got her report card for the 3rd quarter, and she's shown significant improvement in math. The Dev. pedi said the same thing at her appt last month which is fantastic considering she hadn't shown any improvement in the six months prior.

greyt00

Yesterday morning DS1 said "I love you" uninitiated by someone else.    It was to his grandfather, I think, but I wasn't even jealous.  What a nice surprise!  It seems like he really felt it, even if he didn't really know what he was saying.  He looked so happy.