Emerging No's

2/23/11 - When handing off Nikki to Lisa this morning [at speech], he took her hand easily. When I got down to his level, he said, "bye mommy!" Lisa and I both praised him for that.

2/25/11 School Report - Speech: Naming things in building, kids names, request by color: red car, etc.

Nikko had speech this morning with Karen. While we waited in the lobby, a little boy named Alex (with his grandmother?) had a bag full of toy cars and shared them unselfishly with Ronin and Audrey. They all played nicely with each other, lining them up in the middle of the room, even cleaning them up and understanding that (with reminders from me) they would not be able to take home Alex's cars. What was great about this was later at night, at the in-law's, I was able to remind Ronin about what a good sharer Alex was, and that Ronin could be like Alex and share his toys with Rex. He did.

As for Nikko's session, it was a good one. He put together a puzzle and was able to easily identify the objects on each puzzle piece. Karen did some verbal prompting but tried to encourage Nikko to use his words for things. Last week, I could hear him crying and protesting up a storm because he didn't want to play with a sleigh and she tried to get him to say No Sleigh! This week I could hear him cry again, but not for nearly as long a period as before, and Karen said she was able to get a No Sleigh out of him much quicker. Progress!

The kids had school and then we went to the in-law's for dinner. Nikko has been carrying around a plastic chocolate ice cream cone, burp cloth and two fish (blue and orange) for a few days now. He brought them tonight and ended up getting into skirmishes with Rex because Rex wanted the fish too. I saw a few instances where Rex was chasing down Nikko for a fish, and vice versa. Unfortunately, I had to intervene on several occasions because Rex needed to know that Nikko would be unrelenting in pursuing his fish back. Rex would lose every time. I tried to redirect Rex from Nikko once, but in the end I broke up one bad tugging skirmish at the top of the stairs and then there were no more fish fights.

Note to add: Today was day three of Nikko not pooping. I called the gastro's office and they told me to increase his dosage to two teaspoons of Lactulose twice a day. It was at one and a half. I asked them if I should unplug him now, even though he is not straining, or wait until he is straining to unplug him [with a suppository]. They told me to wait until he is straining because if I unplug him and he is not straining, then the suppository will only get the stuff out right near the bottom while he might have more poop higher up in the intestines. Gee, fun stuff. So I'm hoping that tomorrow, with the increased dosage, Nikko will strain hard enough to actually pass his bowel movement and I won't have to resort to the suppository. I have not caught him straining per se, but tomorrow since he'll be home all day I'll have the chance to keep an eagle eye on him. I have seen him leaning over a bookcase, but if I see it tomorrow with no result then I will help him push things along.