Noncompliance again

1/13/11 School notes - Bathroom: Nikko pooped. It was more like diarrhea. Grayish/brown. He also made regular brown poop on the toilet. Very gassy.
And on the back of that report: Nikko was on the toilet and I went in to ask if he went poopoo - He said "I did! A bunch and bunch of poopoo!" He said it 2 times! Yay! :)

Did I read that correctly? I reread that paragraph and am shocked and stunned. First, he pooped on the toilet at school. He has rarely ever pooped on the toilet at home. That is amazing. Second, he said something that was totally in context with the situation. Where did he get the words bunch and bunch? I'm really, REALLY happy that he said something, twice, but imagining normal-sounding phrases to come out of his mouth is just so surreal. I would like to get this caught off-guard in a good way, more often.

I wish I could say his 8:30a ABA session went as smoothly. Sarah came to play with him and I think he didn't want to sit at the table with her. She said that she blocked him from escaping the table by sitting next to him, and barring him from crawling underneath the table, so he gave up trying to get away from her and sat and cried and screamed for 15 minutes. It was a LONG 15 minutes. I think five minutes into his tantrum I sat up hear and realized it was still going on. However, unlike on Wednesday, I didn't make a move to go down and save him. His cries sounded angry and mad, but I figured that he should stick it out with her, that there was still plenty of time to get work done. Good thing I didn't go downstairs because he did stop crying after 15 minutes and then continued to work at the table the rest of the session. He challenged Sarah and she didn't give in. Fine.

I think Nikko is challenging everyone in authority around here. Not only has he been noncompliant with Kathy, Sarah and Rebecca, but today when he got home from school he tried to pull that stuff on ME. It's winter and there is a lot of gear the kids wear to leave the house for school. When they come home, the floor is littered with their socks, shoes, backpacks, jackets and hats. It's more stuff to put away than usual, but I still demand that the kids adhere to our routine of putting their shoes back in the cubby, their hats in the cubby bins, and to hang up their backpacks and jackets. They do it at school, they can do it at home! I know they are probably cranky, tired and hungry from getting off the bus, but I still want them to put their gear away before having their snack. Today, Nikko sat at the kitchen table and wanted cheese puffs. I said, "First put away backpack, shoes, jacket and hat. THEN cheese puffs." Well, Nikko didn't want any part of that. He sat and whined & cried. I repeated my request and he flatly refused to budge. I tried to drag him, made him pick up his jacket which he angrily released to the floor, so I walked away from him. He was still pretty mad, but I kept repeating my request. He stood up at one point so I quickly ushered him toward the cubby area and shoved his backpack into his hands. He was protesting, but eventually caved in and [angrily] hung up his stuff. THEN I put a bowl of cheese puffs in front of him. As promised.

One more instance this evening when I thought I was going to lose another battle was clean-up time before taking a bath. Denis was home by this time so it was better to have his support in encouraging the kids to pick up toys. The three were sitting around the Hungry Hungry Hippo game, fighting of course. I decided that they could not play with it during clean up, so I quickly disassembled it and put it in the box. Nikko was pretty mad because he wanted to play with it. "FIRST clean up, THEN Hungry Hungry Hippos," I announced to him while putting it up on a shelf slightly taller than him. Nikko was whining/screaming for it, but I started putting toy cars in his hands, then figurines, and any toy that needed to be put away. Nikko's demeanor soon changed to laughing/whining as he kept dancing in front of the shelf, expecting to get the toy but being interrupted by me making him put away other toys. It took a good few minutes to get the living room cleared, and as promised, I took the game back out and put it on the floor. This First/Then concept is really of the utmost importance for him right now. Nikko is impulsive, but is learning that he needs to accomplish what is first before being allowed to do/have what is next [then]. I am wondering if I should put another schedule in place here in the kitchen for putting away outerwear. Maybe there are too many steps to remember without being prompted.