Monday, April 27, 2009

Vitamins - More or NO More

I'm going to have to ask the therapists about this problem I keep having with Nikko. I have those Gummi Vites vitamins for Nikko, and tried to give him 2 a day. Well, he has them constantly on his mind and he frequently pulls me to the cabinet where we keep them, stands in front of it signing More Please, and starts wailing if I don't comply. Explaining to him that he only gets 2 a day doesn't mean anything to him. Giving him one and then warning him that he won't get another doesn't mean anything to him. Stating NO or NO MORE sends him into a temper tantrum/tirade and now he flings himself onto the floor like a belly flop near his chair and he writhes and wriggles while screaming. It's not a pretty picture. If I give in, which I have, then he gets a vitamin but I start racking up excess vitamin points in his column. If I don't give in, I have to wait out his tantrum. He'll calm down eventually, but it takes a while. It's worse when he decides he wants a vitamin and everyone is calm or someone is napping. I'd rather save the vitamins for situations that are dire or when I need to persuade him to be quiet. Or, I'd like a substitute "treat" for him that's not a cookie or sugar-laden, but it's something he'll eat. Grapes don't make the cut for this one. The vitamins shouldn't be the "treat", I realize. Perhaps I should look for some sugarless gummy bears? And if I do get some, and then Nikko comes up to me at random times during the day asking for a gummy bear, do I give it to him or try to enforce that he only gets it at certain times, which is what I'm trying to do now and not succeeding?

We didn't go anywhere today, but I did break out the new Super Grove KidKnex toy I bought the other day. At first, Nikko liked it in its entirety. I tried to mimic walking and talking and flying. But he would take off a part and then walk/run around with it. Then another. The head was gone, then the cape. Later it was an arm and a leg. By dinnertime he was running around with Grover's trunk of a body and then by bedtime it lay pitifully on the living room floor. I probably defeated what Bo the DT is trying to do with the Elmo KidKnex doll she brings over, and that's playing with it by identifying body parts and feeding it and the like. I'll resurrect Super Grover tomorrow and see if I can get Nikko to play productively. He took an interest in the pizza and pizza cutter, and while he originally stimmed off the spatula yesterday I noticed that today he didn't carry it around much at all. I think he got it out of his system. We first encountered the spatula in OT last week and Shelly hid it after a while, but even though I bought a similar pizza kit with its own spatula I didn't take it away from Nikko. Hence, he probably got it out of his system. Nikko isn't sitting consistently in his chair during mealtimes and I'm wondering if I'm going to have to start strapping him in again. I don't want to, really, because he's probably just being a restless 2 year old. But he's not finishing breakfast, and the other mealtimes are hit or miss. Tomorrow we have playgroup with Shirley, and I'm hoping we'll be able to pull off getting out the door again in a timely manner. I guess I need Audrey to wake up at 7a to get the ball rolling. I'll have to prepare the food bag tonight to avoid a morning rush.

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