The screwdriver

Denis' Dad and worker Abe came over to start putting up the swing set. During speech Denis took Ronin outside while Nikko was in the living room with Gloria, Audrey and me. Nikko wasn't very cooperative in the beginning, wanting to go outside as well, but I wanted him to work. He took Gloria's pictures of Hot Dog, Banana, Toaster and Bread and lined them up. He seemed more interested in lining them up than in putting the plastic banana or hot dog on top of their respective pictures, but this is exactly the kind of exercise we need to do with him to get him to see that they are the same thing. Yesterday morning before playgroup Nikko had taken a picture I had of crackers, and a banana picture, and toted them around. I took real crackers and put them on top of the picture so he could see they were the same thing. So, in essence, I've been doing Gloria's job. Ha ha ha. Gloria says if Nikko can nail down this picture/object concept, he'll do much better with PECs in preschool. Kinda makes me want to tell Gloria that she should have incorporated these picture/object exercises months and months ago, instead of doing a final push with them these last weeks of ST. Grrrrrr.

The rest of the day passed by weirdly because we mostly watched the memorial service for Michael Jackson. The kids didn't argue for us to turn the channel, and Audrey was the most fidgety for attention. We did get another chance to take Nikko outside while the two babies napped. I wanted to help put together the slide at least because I had read the directions and knew it could be assembled while the others worked on the structure. Nikko was watching Denis and me drill screws into the slide to secure it. He took a long flathead screwdriver and put it into a screw hole, turning and twisting it as if to get that screw deeper into the hole. I think he was imitating us, or maybe even imitating my father-in-law because I was using a drill, not a screwdriver. It was cool to see Nikko acting like he was helping fix the slide and I said to Denis that we should get him some play power tools. Denis remembers the toy tool set Shelly brought to OT once, and at the time I figured that Nikko would just stim off the screwdriver or use the drill in a stim way. But the more Nikko becomes exploratory, the more I'm going to have to take more risks and expose him to more things, not just automatically assume that he will revert to old ways. This is both true and untrue, as I recall the fish pond vs. water table incident. Or with safety issues, he may still be a magnet to swings and possibly get knocked out. Regarding the power tools, I should try them on him again and see if he will be more purposeful in his play. Not much else happened tonight unfortunately. Tomorrow we don't have anything on the calendar, but Denis' dad will come back to finish the swingset so I've been told. It's supposed to rain, so I hope it will still be workable conditions. It's not finished yet but when it will be, oh joy the boys will have! I've got to look for some wood stain to protect the finish.