A Good #2 / Dirt / Mom's BDay

TMI TMI TMI...
Nikko has still been drinking juice from the cup, and had a few big spills that I didn't erupt to as badly as yesterday. Paper towels, Windex and some blue shammies are my buddies now. And after a good therapy session, after his snack, I changed his diaper and saw, for the first time IN AGES, a semi-normal bowel movement. It wasn't the size of an apple or a kiwi, it wasn't rock hard, and it didn't reek as they all have in the past. I wonder if it was the doing of the Benefiber, but I'm not going to knock anything around for another week or so. Some of my ASD board girls would understand how it's perfectly normal to get excited over the make-up of your kid's poos! LOL!

Nikko's preschool report:...Nikko was mad at me [Mrs. McCarthy] outside because I wouldn't let him kick the dirt. He was okay with redirection to play with bubbles.
Yesterday on the way to Costco with Ronin and Audrey, I looked at the playground around 10a and saw Nikko's class playing in the playground. Many kids were on the swings with the teachers pushing, and a few scattered kids were on the jungle gym apparatus. I saw Nikko running up and down a patch of dirt (really, a bare spot on the grass) that was next to a short staircase and a wooden fence. I'm familiar with the spot because Nikko has walked on it before; it slopes downward from the level of the jungle gym ramp to the mulchy ground level of the swings. Nikko probably discovered that he could kick up some smoke by shuffling his shoes into the dry dirt. That's probably what Mrs. McCarthy was talking about, and I totally appreciate the redirection. I also know how mad Nikko can get when you remove him from a stim/favorite thing to do. I keep thinking back to his angry reaction at Pirate Cove and seem to use this in my head to gauge future activities. It made me sad, in a sense, because this afternoon we were planning on taking a walk with Mom and Atz at a little park across from The Glen, but I knew that this park had a splash pad water feature aside from the playground equipment. Nikko would want to splash/play there, and it wasn't an option today. We plan on going to Flick Park tomorrow, so I want to save the water for that.

Today was Mom's birthday so we headed out to the Penepacker's house to meet everyone for some Thai food. The kids played in the backyard along with the Penepacker girls. Nikko had fallen asleep on the way to their house and when I carried him in from the car he continued to sleep on their couch for almost an hour. I had to wake him up and brought him outside into the sunshine. Surprisingly, he wasn't cranky. He leaned back on me until he was fully awake and then was able to venture a few feet away from me to smile and watch the other kids run around like crazy in front of the garage. Nikko found an interest in the little bobsleds that hold two kids that you can pull/drag with a rope. I fed the kids first and then let them go into the basement to watch tv, and Nikko did really well by leaving me to eat dinner with the adults. He would come back upstairs to check on me, but then spin back and return to watching Toy Story on TV. It was not a bad day for Nikko.