The weekend and finding fun games

Well, this weekend without the books went really well - despite the added craziness of having houseguests, we were able to do lot of things with Henry. Saturday, we did a lot of time in the yard, playing with balls and on the swing and on the bike. no pressure - we just had fun with it b/c aaron's family was visiting and it was relaxed (no videos to do :). Sunday, Aaron headed up to the dover race with the fam, so i had the kids to myself all day. It went very well. I filmed a few things, which you will see on tues, but mostly it was just Hen, Rose and i hangin out. I got some alone time w/Henry when i took him to gymnastics class - lots of good opportunity for RDI throughout the class....especially use of non-verbals for transitions - like holding my hand out, or using eye gaze on where he should go and what to do next. and he paid attention pretty well.

We also went to the store after the class and he picked out a b-day cake for Poppy (his great grandpa). we went back to my mom's and had an early dinner and the cake for Pop - Hen helped put in the candles and then blow them out - he was a role-player in the whole process, which was great and really made him feel good about himself - he was just extra smiley today and in tune. I think he liked having that alone time with mom - i need to try to schedule that in on a weekly basis if i can - aaron has mentioned he could come home early one night a week - that might work well.

Proximity, patience, and limiting words was my mantra for this weekend and i think it worked well - hen seemed on a much more even keel. i watched the video you sent - actually i had already seen it from the site, but i think it was a great example of setting a welcoming environment - i'm going to have aaron watch it tomorrow.

Oh, so my three activities that i think Henry would enjoy are playing on the musical instruments, anything to do with the swingset and yard (maybe even a Dora the Explorer type scavenger hunt, we were having fun with things like that this weekend.) and building with this magnetic ball erector set. i think as time goes on i'll have more - eliminating the books (or at least limiting the time with them to about 15 min a day, as well as 15 min of computer) has opened up a lot of new options.

Lots of Interaction tonight

wow...maybe putting away the books was good idea. Henry did really well tonight with no distractions. He actually stayed in the room for a long time with Rosie and me - we sang lots of songs, played musical instruments, played a bit with the plastic food. He didn't do any puzzles. I did give him about 15 minutes of computer time while i made dinner, but otherwise he was very much around. I think this is going to really help us find those "play" type of things we are looking for to incorporate into RDI activities. I'll keep you posted how it goes for the rest of the week.

We put the books away

One of Henry's worst obsessions are his books. When he's in his books, it's difficult to pull him away and it's even more difficult to experience share - so we put them away. He has a couple reserved for bedtime but other than that, he's finding other things to get into. One thing he's picked up again are puzzles. Puzzles were an obsession a year or so ago but has since waned. What I'm finding with the puzzles is that I can give him 1 or 2 pieces at a time (giver-putter exercise) and he lets me help him put the puzzle together (experience sharing). We'll see how long this last but we're happy to see something positive come out of this so soon.

Videos for Phone Consult

Aaron RCR



Theresa Objective 6



Theresa Objective 5

Playtime!

well, like we spoke about on the phone, i spent most of the weekend and today seeking out and testing some fun play activities to do with henry so that the majority of our RDI work doesn't involve housework - poor kid, he was working harder than any five year old i know doing laundry, dishes, cooking and watering plants. ha! however, it has been difficult to find play activities as you know that he likes and that i can involve myself in...especially since the majority of his favorite pastimes, like reading and playing on the computer, are such solo activities. As i mentioned on the phone, i've tried to insert myself into a few of his favorite computer games and that seems to be working well....except that they can be very distracting so it's hard to get him to reference me. we also did some hanging out in the bean bag room, but my creativity was pretty low during that time so we ended up just hanging.

tonight, i scored bigtime by starting up a quick game of hide and seek (really i was trying to get hank and rosie to hold off on wanting dinner til 5, so i had 1/2 hr to kill). The game was basic in that i would go hide while they counted to ten, then i would periodically say "where's mommy?" until they started to determine which room i was in and where i was. I really couldn't believe that henry played along like he did - i think i hid like 6-7 different times and there was a lot of great "anticipation" and emotion-sharing in the game - and of course big tickles when they found me. hen was even able to wait and count to ten to give me a chance to hide - i hate to say but i think he and rosie are about on the same level with this game. interestingly enough, the game ended when rosie found me before he did....he didn't like that one bit!

as i mentioned, i did a bit of taping this weekend working on objectives 5 and 6. tonight, after rosie went to bed (and b/c my throat is sore) i decided to do the mommy's lost her voice game. we didn't have a lot of activities that we HAD to do - just to brush teeth, put on pjs, click off the light, etc...but i was able to get a lot of non-verbal back and forth with henry to do them. he also read ME a story before bed...and would check in with me as the story progressed to occasionally see my response to something or an indication that he was on the right track....it's amazing when you shut up what happens! one interesting note on that though is how henry would be able to say some of the story verbatim and then other parts he would just fill in with blahblahblah...i wonder if that's what he's unable to process when i read the story to him??? weird.

we got the RCR stuff and i'll probably read through it tonight. yesterday i finally applied for that scholarship you gave us the info on, so we'll see where that goes. i'll let you know.

Video Review #4

Hangin with Dad - Part 1




Hangin with Dad - Part 2




Pouring Activity




Handholding Activity

Aaron's Notes - 8/29

For the past 3 mornings, I've been trying to get Henry to eat cereal with me - like we've done in the past chanting "scoop, ahhh-ummmm" but he doesn't seem to want to go along with me. Either he doesn't want me interfering with his food consumption or I'm going at it all wrong and I think its the latter. I know were not working specifically on coregulation at the moment but what can I do to make this go a little better?