Today didn't turn out like I had hoped. The morning was ok, with Peter arriving at 9:20 for Ronin's speech therapy. He sat trying to entice Ronin to play with something other than the Percy train on the parking garage, but Ronin was pretty engrossed in it. Ronin was able to step away and point at some pictures in a book, or interact with some play food, but he kept going back to Percy. Nikko didn't get involved, but showed some curiosity at some of the open picture books. Audrey kept creeping over and wanted to climb up on the parking garage, but I had to keep hauling her back. Peter mentioned that Ronin seemed to be perseverating on the Percy train... and wasn't that an autistic trait? I stopped to think about what he said for a second and said, "I don't think Ronin is perseverating [which means stimming, running his train back and forth to satisfy a visual need, almost mindlessly], not like how Nikko perseverates." Peter sort of agreed, but said I might want to get Ronin off of Percy so he doesn't keep perseverating. Honestly, my first internal reaction was defensive. Ronin shows no autistic tendencies at all. I felt that he was just very much into Percy today and liked carrying him around, kept trying to ram Percy through a narrow opening in the parking garage and just wouldn't let up. When he mentioned the autistic trait, I think my voice even got tinged with defense. But I let it roll off my shoulder and put it away until I could blog about it later. When I've seen Ronin do any crashing, he's usually just copying Nikko. Sure, I'm watching Ronin and Audrey for any signs of autism, but I truly don't see it. There's lots of eye contact, speech (for Ronin) and communication for both.
Nikko must have been hungry early because it was 11:30 when he dragged me to the kitchen to eat some mac cheese. It was around 1:30 when all the kids were done with eating. I mused over the idea of going to Costco just then, but Ronin hadn't had a nap yet. I decided to have an outing after naptime. Unfortunately, when all kids were awake and snack time was done, I started some final diaper changes and noticed that it was raining outside. That crushed any hopes I had for the kids to play outside when we got back. I was still planning on going to Costco, and perhaps even nixing that to take the kids to the play area at Woodfield Mall, but then Nikko had fallen asleep on the couch. That decided that. Audrey was soon to follow so I was left with Ronin for half an hour. Funny, Nikko didn't seem to notice that his red sleeved shirt was in the wash. Well, I take that back for a second... this morning I approached him to change his diaper and had a red onesie in hand. He saw it and tried to put it over his head. I helped him, but obviously didn't tie anything around his waist; he accepted that. Throughout the day, Nikko was doing his own thing, looking at picture books and watching tv. I'd come over and point at some things, flowers, baby, shoes. He would point at some of the same things, too. He would come to me and take my hand to entice me to have a tickle game with him. He would also come up to me, put his face into mine and smile until I acknowledged him back. Pretty nice interactions with Nikko. I don't know what tomorrow will hold for us. Denis mentioned possibly swimming after work but the weather might not hold. The weather's been changing a lot, lately. I also thought about visiting Dad to see how his eye is doing... he had a corneal abrasion yesterday while working with the lilies in the backyard. He's recovering for 4 days, can't drive because he can't see well out of one of them. I also might try Costco again, since I do need to get some diapers very soon.
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