Working up a sweat

Ronin had a fever yesterday that went down, but went back up today. He is in decent spirits, although he ususally starts the day sluggish and I have been trying to give him extra attention because he feels bad. Because of this, I didn't put going outside on our agenda for today. However, when Audrey and Ronin were down for naps around 2:30 I seized the moment and told Nikko we would go play outside. He has been in the living room with us, stepping up onto the purple hippo stepstool facing the mirror wall, spreading out his arms, and jumping off. He'd do variations of this, but he would do it so much that he would be all sweaty. For the better part of the day I'd say he had a sweat going along his hairline. Now that I think about it, it's probably another form of stimming, like his crashing, but it seems a tad more complex because it involves him looking at his reflection, climbing up onto the stool, and then jumping & landing with arms spread out. The crashing is mindless and is just back and forth. I haven't tried to stop him from the stepstool activity on purpose, but I have laid in his path and he simply alters his way to the mirror.

I took Nikko outside and opened the garage. He did a bit of wandering, but then I hauled out the sidewalk chalk and started drawing a runway for him. He sat down and took some chalk to draw lines on the paver bricks, and even made a crude circle around himself. I made some paw prints "walking" toward the lawn and he ran alongside them. When I took out the bubble machine I knew that Nikko wouldn't want to do anything else. He enjoyed putting his face up to the machine, turning his back so the bubbles popped along the back of his neck. I wondered if I'd have trouble prying him away from all this, but then Audrey cried through the baby monitor so I had to close up shop anyway. Inside, Nikko went back to his mirror activity, but paused every so often to sit on the couch armrest with a truck book or look out the picture window. Hi-5 was on the telly, and while I was in a dozing state I swear I heard "Hi" come from Nikko's mouth. I looked up at him watching TV but couldn't tell if I had been dreaming or really did hear "Hi". It was probably involuntary, or possibly the kids on TV, but I'd like to think it came out nonetheless. I felt bad for Nikko the rest of the day because he wasn't tired enough to take a nap. Of course, he got tired during dinner and was starting to droop. I let him sleep for 30 minutes on the couch but woke him up because I didn't want him to go to bed too late. Sometimes we'll put him to bed, Denis will leave the room and Nikko will still be awake, jabbering to himself or, on very rare occasions, walking around the room. He was awake for a half hour after we put him to bed last night.

Bo the DT called me today, back from Poland, and ready to do some make-up sessions with us. She'll be here tomorrow around 10:30, for possibly the next 3 or 4 Tuesdays. Nikko hasn't seen her in over a month so I don't know how he'll react to her again. Still, she'll try.