The last year with Adam has been amazing.
He now:
- brushes his own teeth. He is still tender and sometimes asks me to brush for him, but the important thing is that he doesn't fight it! He has a new SOFT Optimus Prime toothbrush and he likes the "sparkling" toothpaste.
- put up with haircuts by scissors. If his hair is sopping wet. And he's in the tub. We haven't attempted a full cut yet - he's rocking his Monchichi look again - but he let me trim his bangs, around the ears and the back of the neck AND giggled through it. We might keep the Monchichi until summer if he will keep allowing me to trim as needed.
- quickly figures out passwords by careful observation. My parents had to change their password because he was putting himself on the computer while he was supposed to be doing school work. On our kid-allowed computer, we tend to put the password as words we want the kids to learn to spell correctly. We've started with the longer middle names in the family. Adam can now type Copernicus and Nicholas and got Benjamin quicker than the other kids - it only took him 3 times asking after 'benj' to be able to type it in correctly.
- has a love for Kit Kat and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. He likes to sing the Kit Kat song, which his older brother (12) does not appreciate at all.
- tolerates music. I occasionally get requests from him to turn it down, but no more meltdowns over having to listen to it.
We just got a weighted vest from his OT, and she modified his Transformer blanket into a weighted blanket. The house has been in general disarray due to my own emotional/psychological state, related to work and some other home issues, so they have not yet been regularly employed. Actually, the entire week has flown by and I was startled to realize this morning that we have had these things for a week.
We have had some major meltdowns lately. Fortunately, Adam just rages and doesn't get destructive. He'll make swings if you are too close, but he doesn't go out of his way to destroy things. I think what's happened is that his energy cycles have shifted, to where he is no longer falling asleep in the early afternoon during car rides that have to be made, but now he is exhausted in the early evening. This was causing a MAJOR problem with having speech therapy in the evenings. We had one Thursday session where I spent the entire 30 minutes pestering Adam, trying to get him to wake up, which only made him angry, and then getting into the car, knowing he was going home, turned angry into a meltdown. The following Tuesday, I tried to avoid a meltdown by promising a burrito, to get him into the car to go to speech. He ended up refusing the burrito after it was bought, and promptly fell asleep, with 10 minutes left until speech. I apologized to his therapist, and changed his schedule the next day. Monday is now a Therapy Day for Adam. He has OT in the late morning and ST in the early afternoon - we were also able to go from 2 sessions a week to only one a week! My goal now is to feed him dinner in late afternoon, and then get him to bed by 6. Otherwise I have an over-hyper stimming Adam trying to stay awake, and it is absolutely going to drive me crazy. Meltdowns are tiring and frustrating. Hyperactive stims are just about more than I can handle.
Right now Adam is lying on the bed, loving on his baby brother. "He looks like me!" Well, yes, but without the dark Monchichi hair. "He's being nice to me!"
"Adam, Josiah's out of the bathroom. You can brush your teeth now!"
"With the sparkly toothpaste?!" Adam ran out of the room.
We have been strongly recommended to try ABA therapy for Adam's meltdowns. Since school started back for me - and I am sure this is a factor for Adam - we've had days where he's had a meltdown for both his OT and SLP, involving hitting and throwing things at his therapists. Not acceptable. I have an intake meeting for ABA next month. I'm also finally about to upgrade to a smart phone (I think?) and I think that will be nice for Adam. He's much more willing to use a stylus than he is to use actual writing materials. Although, on that note, he has been a little more willing than before in cooperating in doing school work. My mom is using Math U See instead of Saxon for Adam (Josiah still uses Saxon beautifully), and I think it's going well.
Monchichi Prime, pre-trim. He patiently allowed this costume to sit in his closet for 10.5 months, with the promise that it would come down for his birthday. He got to wear it for his birthday party and it barely came off for the next 11 days until Halloween. It was practically destroyed by the time Halloween came - note the HUGE runs and stretched neckline! Good thing Adam didn't notice, or care!
My parents recently picked up a young Gordon Setter, approximately 4-5 months old, and I've suddenly, out of the blue, decided how much I WANT this dog. Their other dog is a 7 month old Cheagle - a Chihuahua/Beagle mix - who is obnoxious and coveted by all of the boys. The boy he lives with considers him to be his own personal dog, and does not always appreciate Adam trying to get some one-on-one time in with 'his' dog. I want this Gordon Setter at my house, for my boys, as a companion-type dog for Adam. I'm not concerned about it being able to do specific assistance tasks for him, but basic obedience commands would be nice. I'm not sure exactly how I can go about that, as I have a house that I'm having a hard time keeping up with, a teaching job I'm having a hard time keeping up with, and 5 boys who don't get as much attention as they deserve (thanks to the previous two complaints!) And here I am trying to add a dog to the mix! I've told my mom to bring the dog over at Thanksgiving, and we'll see how long I can convince J to keep it around. Maybe I can pick up a free doghouse from Craigslist or Freecycle.
