Thursday, April 8, 2010

School progress / Ronin's Octagon

7a - My phone alarm woke me up, which hasn't happened in about six months. What happened? Nikko was in bed, babbling to himself. Ronin and Audrey were still asleep. I went in to Nikko, changed his diaper, and ushered him into the kitchen for breakfast. Ronin and Audrey did not stir until 7:40.

WOW!

Nikko's speech report: Today he sorted pictures in 3 categories!!! Vehicles, food & animals. I make him name the pix then place on a category sheet! Many pictures he named w/o a model, also worked on greetings, 1 step, colors & vocab.

That is also great news to hear! That means Nikko is learning that a car goes with other cars, a pig with a dog, a banana with a piece of toast. This is supposed to mean that he is learning what an animal is, that a food is not something with wheels that moves. Very promising. I have to ask the ABA therapist tomorrow how she works on colors with Nikko, because I find it hard for me to hold up a picture of a lemon and say, "Nikko, what color is this?" It's yellow, for sure, but he might not get past that he is looking at a lemon. The buzz word is "color", and it's an abstract concept that I need to find out how his teachers and therapists are tackling it. Ronin is working it out, but still confuses green and yellow. Today I was working on shapes with Ronin (more on that later) and when I said to him, "Ronin, what shape is that?" He'd take a moment to look at it and say, "That is blue!" I'd agree with him but ask again what shape it is, and he'd hesitate until I took my finger and traced the shape for him. Then, he would proclaim, "That's a rectangle!" Imagine if it's confusing for Ronin, who is smart as a whip, then for Nikko it must be doubly hard.

**TMI ALERT**TMI ALERT**Skip to next paragraph if you don't want to read about bowel movements! After snack time, I took the kids into the basement to play for a change. They did ok, making little messes with the toys in the toy bins, climbing on the foof chairs. We hung out for 45 minute when I noticed Nikko. Nikko was straining again for most of the day so I gave him a chance to try having a bowel movement without my intervention. I held him in my lap in a bear hug and when he struggled against me I held really tight. He got extremely angry so I let him go, but he paused and then grasped at me again as if to help him. I took everyone upstairs and basically gathered the necessary materials to help Nikko with his bowel movement. It took longer this time, perhaps five or six minutes, and I resolved to put miraLAX in his juice daily for a week or two, perhaps less than a cap, just to see if that will help move things along. Poor Nikko was screaming and crying at the pain. :(

Backing up to lunch, I had made french fries again as a side. Nikko knows what they are and tries to say French Fries. He doesn't have a sign for them so he taps on his cheek. I say, "More french fries, please," and then sign, sign, sign More. He refuses once, twice, then says, "More. French fries. Please." Voila! Gotta keep pushing for the vocal More.

This is a Ronin moment: During snack time, Ronin was sitting in his high chair, babbling away about random things. Then he said to me, "That light is an octagon!" I froze and said, "What light?" He pointed to the fluorescent kitchen light above. I counted the sides quickly and he was RIGHT. "Ronin," I said, "You're right! It is an octagon! How did you know what an octagon is?" Cheerfully he sang, "Super Shapes!" and that is a little diddy from that cartoon Team Umizoomi that the kids have been watching. I was totally impressed! He recognized an octagon. When I got more particular, however, asking him how many sides an octagon had, he fumbled and counted to four. So I assume he recognized what an octagon looks like without really knowing it has eight sides. Still, very impressive fact to come out of the blue. And he said there were two octagons in the kitchen, when indeed there were two lights on the ceiling. We continued to name shapes, mostly rectangles and circles, around the kitchen. And I must give credit to Ronin picking up knowledge from watching TV. I won't get rid of it anytime in the near future, I'll tell you that!

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