The ABT repairman

Nikko had a great first week at ESY. He transitions well when we drop him off at his classroom. I thought there wouldn't be any speech therapist for him over the summer, but there's a guy named Brian who does group speech and sometimes pulls the kid out for some therapy. His Weekly Note: Nikko played with a farm set and practiced requesting wants/needs and saying "more" often benefiting from models from the SLP. He also did a great job identifying objects shown in pictures.

There was no ABA today. Instead, while the little ones napped, a repairman from ABT came over to install the new front panel of our dishwasher. Nikko was curious about the guy. While he sat in front of the dishwasher to unscrew the inside door, Nikko crept up to him and seemed to be observing. I was sitting nearby so that Nikko didn't end up on top of the dishwasher. Nikko stepped in and reached over toward the man's left pocket, so quickly that the guy didn't even move to react. But I saw Nikko reach for a ball point pen in the pocket so I quickly grabbed Nikko, laughing off the reach, and physically turned Nikko away toward the living room. Nikko started to whine a little so I turned on a train DVD and tried to engage him in some puzzles. I suddenly got nervous that Nikko would throw a fit and keep trying to break away from me so he could bother the ABT guy. Ronin made some noises from the bedroom so I had to go in there and order him to go to sleep, while keeping an eye on Nikko so he didn't bolt. As I sat finishing a puzzle with Nikko, I was bothered that it mattered to me that the ABT guy might think Nikko was strange. I was basically keeping Nikko at bay in the living room until the repair was complete.

There were some major thunderstorms rolling through Chicago today. It made our 40-minute drive to Lombard into a two-hour ordeal. We were meeting up with the in-laws to celebrate my MIL's birthday and Father's Day. Nikko had unbeknownst to me dropped a wooden fish on the floor of the pilot and became agitated, kicking my chair, and wailing. Fortunately he got tired and fell asleep when we almost arrived at Sweet Tomatoes, our destination. During dinner he didn't have a great appetite, but he wasn't acting ill. The trip home was much faster, of course.