Thursday, April 15, 2010

Team meeting & tummy bug

A long day with ups and downs. No school for Nikko, so he spent it mostly in the living room playing with cars along the edge of the couch. I don't know why I was so crabby this morning but Ronin was really getting on my nerves, unfortunately. He was indecisive about what he wanted to eat and I didn't want to waste food, which is exactly what happened. I think I was influenced with the fact that later in the day was the ABA/School Team meeting so keeping the living room neat was a priority. It was pointless to keep it spotless until around 2pm so I tried not to bark at the kids so much, but I still did. Ronin fell asleep on the couch next to me around 11a, probably still lacking sleep from missing his nap yesterday. Nikko kept creeping up to him on the couch and peering into his face. When I shooed Nikko away, he'd grin mischievously and try to circle back around to Ronin's face. Nikko had a little accident while I was changing Ronin; I turned around and he was almost at the point of ripping his diaper off again. Upon closer inspection I saw that he had smeared the armrest of the couch, so I had to haul him in the bathroom and Denis was around to give him a quick shower while I cleaned up the armrest. I snacked the kids around 3p because our meeting was at 4p. Nikko and Audrey had an abundance of peaches while Ronin didn't want to eat anything.

Maria had called me to say Linda Hoeck wasn't going to make it to our meeting, but did I still want to meet? I could have cancelled because Linda is such an integral part of the team, but I wanted Nikko to keep moving forward with new drills and not to become complacent so I kept our meeting. She was the first to arrive, followed by Mrs. McCarthy, Ms. Winters and Mrs. I. Melissa came next, then Denis came home, and finally Jenna rounded out the group. Nikko's behavior was in complete contrast to our last team meeting because he lay tummy down on the floor pillow playing with a car or with his dragon, and then later he leaned back in my lap, ultimately falling asleep. Maria went over the drills in the binder and we were able to talk about what Nikko can do, as well as what he's not doing. Nikko seems to have skills that are not generalized yet (are still particular to whomever is in front of him) such as coloring within lines, drawing straight lines, naming colors and matching. He can build a tower of blocks for Mrs. I but has difficulty doing it in ABA. He has some definite 1-step directions down like stand up and sit down. But for many other things, as pointed out by Mrs. McCarthy, Nikko can do an activity if highly motivated, if angry, or if he chooses to be in the right mood that day. Almost on his own terms. It made me a bit sad that Nikko didn't make a huge amount of progress lately, but from another perspective that might not really be the case since he is verbalizing like crazy, able to repeat words, can script things, and sings and sings! Maria must have noticed my disappointment because she said aloud that some of Nikko's skills may look like he's forgetting altogether, but he's making gains in others. Guess that's how the cycle goes. I have been pushing Nikko to include the word More when requesting something, but the team said that what is more important is that he is requesting things by name at all, that More will come so don't push it. They encouraged me to continue to build his vocabulary, and that will help him to communicate, request and complete tasks. Modeling the word helps in the beginning, but Ms. Winters also said model the word, have him repeat it, then put it out of sight and bring it back, waiting for him to say what it is. "You can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he tries to GRASP that word," she noticed. I try to think back on how Ronin learned to speak so well (it certainly wasn't through Pete's speech therapy) and it was me labeling things, me speaking phrases and Ronin repeating them even if he didn't know what they meant. And picture books. The conversation gravitated toward colors. Mrs. McCarthy said that he can say some colors, but it's not consistent. That was really the common phrase of the meeting, Nikko is able to do things but is NOT CONSISTENT. I have to keep putting a color label on things and hopefully he'll start to soak it in.

When the meeting was over, I laid Nikko on the floor pillow to let him sleep at least 30 minutes. The team left around him. Ronin was running around Nikko and, ironically, putting his face right into Nikko's until I shooed him away. Nikko woke up later in a daze, but not upset or crying. He was slow to start. There was one point where he looked at me as if he were about to cry, but didn't. He sat on the couch until dinner was ready and I ushered him to his chair. Nikko sat but didn't eat any of the mac cheese unless I speared it with his fork and fed it to him. Nikko just didn't seem in good spirits, so when I took his temperature with the ear thermometer it read 100.3 on average. I gave him some cold meds hoping it would help. It was while I was dressing Audrey for bedtime that Denis made a loud remark from the living room. When I went in, I saw that Nikko had thrown up on the couch. Luckily it was bath time for the boys so I took care of Nikko first. I bathed him and dressed him and read him The Koala King while we waited for Ronin to finish his bath. Nikko seems to pick this story first, and then we read Chicken Little next because it's the next story in the book. After I read the prayer book and was about to shuffle the kids into bed for prayers, Nikko stood up from Denis' lap, turned to face us, and then threw up in the middle of the area rug right in front of me. I saw all the peaches he ate at snack time splatter on the cream rug. Denis took Ronin to bed so I could change Nikko's clothes and sop up the mess into a plastic bag. I gave Nikko a little juice so he wouldn't have to sleep with the taste of throw-up in his mouth, then ushered him back to bed. I took up the carpet into the living room and later doused it with Carpet Resolve -- but I think the stain won't come out, quite honestly. I hope Nikko felt better after throwing up (I know I usually do). He let me put him to bed and sing to him. He let me leave the room, and I heard him babble for a short while about 10 minutes later. I checked on him later and he was asleep. Will he make it to school tomorrow? I hope so. If he has a fever in the morning, then no. But if he feels fine and acts fine, then he can go. I hope this was just a temporary stomach bug that will disappear by the morning, and I hope no one else gets it!

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