Raisin Bran

I tried the “raisin bran” activity with Henry this morning. Let me just start with saying that between this kid and his sister, they must go through 2 boxes of raisin bran a week. This must explain why the kid is so regular. This is great, except for days like today when he decides he has to go a minute before the school bus is supposed to arrive. I digress…

He was already about half done when I decided to give it a shot. We didn’t have much time, or cereal left in the box so I had maybe 4 or 5 spoons full in my bowl. First I tried to get his attention just through some eye contact but that didn’t work. At one point, he went to take a bite and I make a noise, something like “ah, ah, ahhh” and he paused just as the spoon was entering his mouth. I put the spoon to my mouth and when I closed my mouth, he closed his… first try! We continued, 4 or 5 bits until my bowl was about empty. Each time I had to do the “ah, ah, ahhh” to prevent him from taking the bit but we’ll work on it. I also really tried to ham it up with the “yummy” and “wow, I love raisin bran!”. Not sure if he was really paying attention to that but who knows.

I feel like this was a fairly significant moment. You gotta understand, when we’re at home or our at a fast food joint, the kid does does everything he can to avoid others at the table when he is eating. He will literally turn it body completely around to the opposite side of the person next to him. The maybe one time a week we all have dinner as a family, it’s like pulling teeth to get him to sit at the dinner table with us for more than a couple of minutes so I was really surprised that he was willing to participate in the activity, even if it was only a couple of minutes.

Phone Consult

We have a phone consultation with our RDI consultant this evening and just wanted to jot down a few questions/requests so I don't draw blanks when the time comes:

• Q: Can I get some suggestions on how to mix up our breakfast routine? Like I said in the previous post, I'll not give him what he asks for all the time and watch how he reacts... that's working but his responses seem like they're becoming rote. A: Switch around tasks (breakfast w/ getting dressed) and throw in surprises along the way.
  
• Q: I'd also like to get some suggestions on small activities to do with him while he's eating breakfast or if there are a few minutes between the time he finishes breakfast and when he starts getting dressed... something very quick that might be he may find hard to recognize as a formal activity. I get such little time that I want to make the most of it. A: eat cereal with him and try to scoop together, say "yummm".
  
• Q: Is it okay to ask one-word questions or should I try to avoid them all-together? A: Yes, it's fine but also ask him something that he won't like... to get his reaction.
  
• Q: He seems to be doing okay getting dressed in his room but do you think the time would be better spent if we did it in the activity room? A: As long as he's not too distracted, it's okay.
  

Our Morning Routine

I think I need to change up my morning routine. It seems pretty non-eventful but perhaps that's a good thing? I've been doing about the same thing with Henry every morning... putting a bowl and cereal in front of him, we pour it in the bowl hand-over-hand. Once he decides he wants to eat (sometime that can take a few minutes, depending on how distracted he is) he says "I want the milk", then I pour the milk hand-over-hand. Then he says "I want the spoon" and I give him the spoon. He'll sometimes hand the cereal box to me for a refill, we fill the bowl, he asks for the milk... then we pretty much sit there... Henry will recite some book or television show he watched two years ago mixed with squeals and those other strange noises he comes up with, meanwhile Rose will do whatever she can to get my attention. I've mixing it up a little lately, like when he asks for a spoon, I'll give him a knife, he'll say "no" or I may give him something funny like an ice cream scoop and he'll kinda think it's funny.

The getting dressed part of the morning is always rushed so there hasn't been time for "I'll wait". I think he'd be fine with walking around naked all day so there's absolutely no motivation for him to put on his clothes. If it were freezing, he'd rather find a blanket than put on clothes. He has no concept of embarassment, especially when it comes to being naked. I guess we need to work with him on that. He likes in the "No David!" book where David is walking down the street without his pants but I don't think that translates. He does sometimes want privacy when he's using the bathroom, so I guess that's a good sign, but then again, he's almost always wants privacy.

Guys Weekend

T and Rosie were out of town over the weekend so dad and the Hankster had a weekend chock full o' RDI goodness. Henry's grandparents were also out of town so we took care of their dogs. Because their house is in easy waking distance, this gave us quite a few opportunities to do the "walking" activity. I had not done this one with him before. I thought he did pretty well. I would pace for a while, I would top, then he would stop, I would then take a big, slow step forward and he would mimic me... but not every time. He did look up at me a few times but it seemed that most of the time he was staring at my feet so he could tell when it was time to start walking again. Sometimes he would try to pull me but when he did, I wouldn't move.

Theresa suggested that I implement the walking activity into the activities in his gymnastics class so I did that that went really well. There's one thing they do where they have a multi-colored mat and they're supposed to hop onto each color. We did this together, holding hands, like the walking activity and he totally looked at me for guidance... it was like a video right off the RDI website. He would look, I would nod, we would jump... it was VERY cool. The same thing happened when we emptied the dishwasher later that day. He was a little unsure whether what I handed him to put away was a big fork or small fork and he would look to me to make sure he was putting it in the right place, I would nod or shake my head no. He may have been doing this with his mother so he might have had some practice, but whether he had practice or not, it was still great watching him look to me for guidance.

We also built a mountain with bean bags, I think that was on Saturday. He was actually very excited about doing it this time. I didn't want to push my luck so we did it twice and moved on. I've been doing that activity pretty much the same each time, slowing down the swinging of the bean bag, pausing after the "here we....". I need to think of some ways to change it up.

Activity Variety - Theresa

Since I last posted, i've mostly been working with Henry on some variations to the games we've been playing. We cut up a cucumber salad on Sunday, and he did very well with his role. However, he would start to get upset when i did something off the norm, like eat the cuke instead of handing it to him. That caused a guttural groan of disapproval. We rebounded though, and were able to finish off with cutting the cucumber and then cleaning up.

I've tried a few variations on the mountain-building game too. When we run and jump in the mountain together (henry's favorite part of course) i vary it using different speeds - sometimes we run fast and sometimes in slow-mo. When moving slowly, he has to keep pace with me so we can jump in the pile together. I tried this again tonight (Wed) but had a hard time getting him to regulate with me...he was just too excited to jump in that pile.

I also tried to make a game with emptying the dishwasher, though since most stuff is breakable i had his role be handing me the item, and i would put it away. I don't know if it was too late in the evening, maybe i didn't structure it well, or maybe he just didn't like it, but after we finished the top rack he was like, "all done, no more!" yeah kid, i feel the same way sometimes.

anyhow, i keep trying to vary up the activities and thinking of new ones b/c we both get bored pretty quick. I echo Aaron's sentiments about the activity room starting to be associated with "work" for Henry. Henry begrudgingly follows me in there, but i wish there was some way to make it more inviting. I guess once he gets better at dealing with distractions, we won't have to use that room as much anymore.

Otherwise, I've also been trying to incorporate some of the RDI basics into our routine, like slowing down speech, indirect prompts, and declarative statements. I think the statements are really paying off b/c Henry has had quite a bit more spontaneous speech than before (caveat that with before there was none!) So he will occasionally make a very short comment on something, though often this might be a spin-off of a comment i've made (hmm...does this count for spontaneous??) for example, he got a toy elephant from his Nana in the mail today and I made a few comments about its features. A few minutes later i hear him say "elephant has big tusks" hey, it wasn't exactly what i said and at least it didn't come from "Dora the Explorer", I'm taking it as a positive sign. Good to know he's actually listening to me. I'll try to write more later...unfortunately Rose and I will be out of town this weekend for a funeral, so looks like Daddy will be doing most of the activities for the next few days.

The Weekend

I did a couple of activities with Henry over the weekend, nothing too exciting. We did the "bean bag mountain" activity Saturday morning. He didn't want to do it initially (shocker) but after 5 minutes of trying to pick him off the floor, he gained some interest and begun to participate. His teachers at school call him "noodle". The name comes from his ability to lose all muscle function when an authority figure is trying to get him to do something he's not wanting to do. Anyway, it seems like he's seeing this whole "going into the activity room" as therapy or a school activity and immediately refuses to participate. Once he decides that this may be something he's interested in, he relents, plays along for 5 or 10 minutes, then proclaimed his classic "okay, no more". Theresa said she could hear me and I was talking too much during the activity so I guess I need to watch that.

Now, I know that I'm supposed to get him to participate, even if he doesn't necessarily want to - but that's easier said than done when it comes to the noodle boy. Even if he's not wanting to do something, I've been working on grabbing his hand or wrist, not taking "no" for an answer. I'm really working hard to take his hand in a nice way... and not being too forceful. I think it's working. So... I have a question - I realize that he will eventually become more and more confident in performing these activities with us and because of that, he will be more motivated to participate -- but what if he is confident performing a particular activity but that activity is just not that interesting to him and that's the reason he's not participating? I guess what I'm trying to get at is, how do we tell the difference? Sometimes that's what I feel is happening though maybe I'm just being impatient.

We did a pretty cool activity outside on Sunday. He helped me pick up the sticks that had fallen off the trees over the winter. We would hold hands, I would motion to a stick on the ground, he would pick up a few sticks, I would pick up a few sticks, then we would walk over to the wheelbarrow, I would say 1, 2, 3, throw and we would throw the sticks in. I would make irregular pauses before the "throw", he would look up at me... it was great. There were a few large branches that we picked up together, walked it over to the wheelbarrow, etc. In between throws, he kept wanting to push the wheelbarrow and I let him... his little reward for participating... hmmm, is that too "ABA"? After 8 or 10 minutes, he was over it, but that was fine... I think it went pretty well.

Small Victories

Yesterday I got back from my trip and the house was a little chaotic. Henry spent most of the afternoon running away from Rosie and me, exiting a room almost as soon as we entered. We did all three play for a little while in his room, though nothing spectacular. After I put Rosie to bed around 7, I tried to tempt Henry down to the activity room to do some mountain building. He was psyched to have a little "alone-time" with Mommy, but very NOT into do anything together. Truthfully, I was too tired to fight about it, so I just quietly left the room and slowly walked outside and sat in the yard. My assumption was that Henry would just hang out inside, stimming off some book or something until I came back in, but little did I know about three minutes later he came outside and slowly made his way to join me on the lawn. It was great to see that he was actually seeking me out, instead of just playing on his own! We proceeded to practice blowing dandelions all over the lawn (I'm sure Aaron will be happy about that), until Henry's uncle, aunt, and cousin showed up for a visit.