Asking, improving

Nikko has been asking for very specific things lately.

"Chocolate-a-pop-tart?"
"Cheese sandwich?"
"Shrimp chips?"
"Potato?"
"Apple juice?"
"Bouncy house?"

I have to prompt him to say I WANT, but all these things are asked independently. I tend to get "Fish sticks" and "Biscuits" mixed up. Because Bouncy House was the only non-food item he requested, I had to unfurl it downstairs and turn on the mini generator to get it going. The kids jumped in it yesterday and today he wanted a repeat. I'm afraid he's going to request it from Kathy tomorrow, and she'll have to refuse him the use of it, unfortunately. It's just too big to keep filling up and de-airing it frequently. I was feeling lazy today and really didn't have any motivation to put it up. I even refused him at first and he was very upset about it. But I relented since he asked me for it. After snack time I had a burst of motivation to plug away at purging things in Nikko's room. I'm hoping to set it up as a reading area and make more room for storage. The purge is coming along, but I really have to be in the mood for it.

Nikko was engrossed with the GeoTrax train set for most of the day. I think he saw Ronin depicting a scene in one of the GeoTrax episodes where a train becomes derailed, because by mid-afternoon I saw Nikko taking his yellow engine and hang it off the side of the tracks while the train cars remained grounded. While the kids played with the trains, I put on a new cartoon called Bubble Guppies on. There was a scene where a duck was being chased by a pig and Nikko seemed to be watching and laughing at the overdrawn misfortune of the duck. It humored me that Nikko was understanding what he saw on TV. The other kids seem to like this new underwater adventure so I'll keep it on the DVR for a while.

This evening I went to a PEPS meeting at Fairview. It was in regards to IEPs, and while the information wasn't as relevant to me as I thought it might be (re: Response to Intervention process [RTI] and talks about both obtaining services w/ or w/o an IEP, as well as having the right to obtaining data on your child's performance in school because it should all be quantifiable), I eavesdropped on a conversation one mom was having with a psychologist regarding food allergy protocols at Westbrook. After their conversation I chit-chatted with the mom about IEPs vs. 504s and was surprised that Ronin might need an IEP for his food allergies. That's confusing, but I think a conversation with the school nurse might help clear things up. It was nice to talk to this mom because even though her son was in kindergarten, we had enough in common (we both LOVE the McCarthy/Winters collaboration) to have a conversation, whereas I have seen the other moms at these meetings and their kids are older, thus we really don't have anything to talk about. I will be in their shoes in the future, but right now I find it hard to connect in real life with others that are in the same boat as myself. Nikko's classmate's mom (Faith) wasn't at the meeting tonight. Nikko was invited to a birthday party in two weeks so perhaps I'll have a better opportunity to meet some moms then. Maybe.