Sorry, missed a day. Yesterday morning was busy with Nikko's playgroup and Ronin's speech therapy. I woke up without the desire to get the kids ready to leave the house, but Denis urged me along and helped get our stuff together. I just needed a kick in the pants. It's a good thing we went, although we were late like the last time. I must aim to leave the house by 9a instead of 9:15, because there's obviously a 15 minute lag time. We sat in circle time and I did a little struggling with Nikko but I let him go while I stayed behind. He made his way around the room but managed to come back to the circle while we sang songs and Shirley showed pictures of vehicles. He picked a police hat for the hat song (which actually looked nice on him) and wore it for a nanosecond. Then the tambourine was being passed around. I held it in front of him, took his hand and started beating it. When I took my hand off he continued to beat the tambourine. Nice. After play time, we did a train craft where we [he] glued cutout wheels to a train and colored it with marker. Snack time was next and Nikko did a good job of signing More. We encouraged him to mix in Eat More. Overall it was good for him to be in playgroup because he got to play with different things (a school bus tent, drum sticks that he beat a drum with productively) and see how social other kids could be. Audrey behaved again, but got antsy at the end. I don't know how much longer she'll comply to being in the car seat. When I dropped off Ronin at daycare he cried and had to be carried off by the helper. When I picked him up, he didn't want to leave. We hurried home just in time for me to change a few diapers before Peter came for Ronin's speech therapy. It was a decent session where Peter began with corralling Ronin but ended up letting him roam around. That allowed Ronin to relax a bit more and be more functional with his speech. Nikko kept trying to crawl into the therapy corner, maybe because he was used to doing work/play there or was interested in the toys Peter pulled out for Ronin. But when Ronin was left to roam, Nikko left him alone.
As the day wore on, I decided to take the kids into the basement to run it out. We were there for a good hour, until Audrey got whiny from sitting by herself on the mats while I purged through some old rubbermaids. The boys had a different configuration downstairs because the A/C contractors were coming the next day and Denis had to move our crap from the utility room to the bigger room. There was a Nerf gun that had one dart missing, and I tried to show Nikko how to hold it. His low muscle tone in his arms didn't let him pull the triggers very well, so guess we'll have to do more climbing activities. We were watching Hi-5 and I saw him imitate one of the girls, Karla, raise her arms in the air. Nikko raised his arms in the air too. Interesting. I think Nikko started his chicken nugget strike during dinnertime, or was it lunch?
Today was speech. Gloria must have been in a good mood because she seemed enthusiastic with Nikko today. We started with the picture-to-real-object game again, using pictures of a toaster, bread and butter. Nikko originally put the toaster hand over hand, but the second time around he was able to put the bread in the toaster himself, and righted the bread as well instead of insert it upside down. He also did a good job with the puzzles she presented to him. Gloria was trying to see if Nikko was following directions verbally or visually. He seemed to be doing a combination of both, but visually still seemed to be dominant. For example, she'd ask him where a puzzle piece went (where's the cow?) and he'd scan the puzzle to fit the piece where it belonged. But he also seemed to fit the pieces because the shape fit, instead of identifying that the cow was the cow or the man was the man. He shook his head vehemently when he meant NO. We also had to break from the circle to try giving him some time to jump around. I held his hands and helped him jump on the couch like a trampoline (NOTE: we need to try to borrow the trampoline from Denis' folk's house. It's a good size, it's a one-person tramp so it won't let the kids go crazy, but maybe it's big enough for him to get his ya-yas out). But he seemed a bit more ramped up when we came back to the circle after letting him run his obstacle course. Gloria pointed out that knowing what times of day are better for him to jump or run would be key.
While the other two slept, I took Nikko with me to run some errands. The A/C guys were in the house all day anyway. We went to Target, Ulta 3 and IKEA. Nikko did really well holding my hand and not getting far away from me when walking places. He didn't bolt out the automatic doors of IKEA. He also wanted lots of fruit snacks, and I placated him to keep him happy. I thought it was really good for him to get out and see things and not rot at home on the couch. I'm trying to give him (as well as Ronin) the opportunity to walk places in public, holding my hand sometimes (like in parking lots) and walking solo as long as it looks safe. The day ended with him not eating real dinner. He's eating bread with butter and I hope this nugget strike won't last too long. Gotta get more Rhodes bread for him.
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