Blame it on the moon

Uneventful weekend mainly due to Audrey having a fever since Thursday. Today (Monday) it broke and she was in good spirits except for a lingering hacker's cough. Unfortunately she threw up in the car right as I was getting everyone buckled in for a Costco run. I debated for 15 seconds whether to bring her inside for a full change but gave up when I pictured the boys getting antsy in the car without me. I mopped her up with paper towels and pressed onward. I thought our Costco outing would turn out fine because I gave Nikko a candy cane and the other two had lollipops right before we hit the checkout lanes. As we walked toward the exit I saw Nikko getting antsy. I think he saw the Costco cafeteria and wanted to sit down, possibly have a snack of churros. It's that darned memory he had the last time we did that. As I breezed by, he got whiny and stood near the tables. He wouldn't walk toward the exit so I had to usher his crying self out the door. He decided to go noodleman on me and so I had to pick him up and balance him on the handlebar of the shopping cart. I paused in the large, echoy foyer to put on the kids' hats and zipper their coats, Nikko doing his high-pitched wailing. It was worse outside because he wouldn't walk. He actually tore away from my grip and ran a few steps back toward the store while in the parking lot and that irritated me. As I tried to pull him by his arm, a guy who corralled shopping carts stopped to give me my wallet, which had fallen out of my back pocket during my attempts to drag Nikko across the parking lot. I was really thankful to that guy and later thought about the enormity of losing my most valuable plastics in the snow. Note to self: no longer put wallet in back pocket during excursions with Nikko. Nikko was screaming the whole way to the car so I was happy to deposit him into his seat and strap him in. He didn't calm right away and it was only until I got to McDonald's did he settle down. I really don't know if the cafeteria was the thing that set him off. I think it might have started right after I left the checkout lanes. I steered the cart toward the tables and had to move things around in the cart to make room for Ronin to sit, since he wasn't going to sit up front with Audrey. The boys sat at the cafeteria table (with Audrey telling me to put her down, but I refused) while I shifted cart items. I put Ronin in the cart and Nikko was trailing us. I think he thought we were going to sit down and eat. (sigh) Or I can blame it on the eclipse of the moon tonight. But it's overcast outside and I don't know if full moonbeams that don't permeate clouds is as effective as full-on full-moon craziness. Whatever.

Kathy had trouble with Nikko during ABA this morning. She said that even though she read Sarah had done this, Kathy took the book to Nikko near the toy kitchen to complete drills instead of making him sit at the table. I can almost hear Maria telling them that they are supposed to make him go to the table no matter how much he refuses, but Kathy has admitted that as of late, Nikko seems to be more defiant about sitting at the table to do things, and he seems to be backsliding in this matter. That's kind of a bad thing to hear, so I hope in next week's team meeting, to be run by Jenna, that this issue gets addressed. When two of the three ABA people working with your son are having similar difficulty, then something is amiss and needs to be fixed.

Winter break has started until January 3rd. I think the kids are already bored so I may have to break out my copy of Toy Story 3 so that they are entertained until Christmas arrives at the end of the week. I don't blame them, really, but they are getting on each others' nerves as well.