How about good news first?
4/8/11 School Report - Speech: Good speech day today. He requested songs on his own. He answered "what" questions with field of 4 pictures with 70 accuracy. Good greetings in office & picture naming. HE had good attention at my center today too. Given a category picture - handed it to the correct person pretty independently!
On Friday, Nikko also had a good speech session at private speech (before school). It started out rough because the infamous jar of candy sat atop the reception counter and for the third straight week he was reaching for it and making it his sole focus. When Karen came to get him, he resisted at first. Nikko even looked like a fish on a hook for a minute when he flopped on the floor while she held one arm. Thankfully he stood up and willingly walked away in a whiny huff. I continued to hear his whines for a good ten minutes. After the session Karen told me that he pulled out all the stops at the beginning because he didn't want to cooperate verbally (aka was being lazy, those are my words). One of his shoes had fallen off and he wouldn't say Shoe to get it back from her. Frustrated, he took the shoe off his good foot and put it on the "lost" foot. As if that made things better! But he did end up saying, "Karen, SHOE!" And so she gave it back to him. That is awesome.
Another thing he did was to run to the light switches in defiance when he refused to name what he wanted from a toy closet. Apparently he stood in front of the light switches, put his hand on it, and then looked over his shoulder at Karen to see her reaction. She was stoic. And he couldn't believe she wasn't telling him No or to get away or do something else. Of course he tired of that tactic. It kind of amazes me that she is getting Nikko to respond by not giving in to his demands. Does that even make sense? It sounds really stupid as I typed it. Basically she is getting results because she is not giving in. The thing I find enviable is that he is responding to her, within minutes, whereas here at home it is taking a LONG time for him to respond when he initially doesn't want to. It took 20-30 minutes for him to react and whine with me because he wanted pizza and I wouldn't give it to him unless he said I Want. Same old story. The minute I start to model "I", he rockets into whine mode. We took a break because he ran away and didn't come back for a bit. Later on, perhaps after he forgot about our long requesting session, I tried the Cheese Puff tactic from last week:
"Nikko," I led him to the kitchen counter where the pizza slice was in sight. In a semi-excited voice I pointed to the plate and said, "What is that?"
He looks, and says, "Pizza."
Quickly I said in a muted voice, "Iwantpizza."
Nikko said, "I waaaaaaant...pizza..." and as he drew out the "a" he looked at me as if he knew that I had caught him at the right moment to get him to repeat what I wanted him to say. I immediately praised him and gave him the pizza.
HOW HARD DOES THAT HAVE TO BE????????? Exasperating. Really.
That was probably the only shining moment of our day except for the short reprieve we took in the afternoon to take the kids to the park to play since the weather was exceptional. Nikko woke at 5:30a, opening his door on his own and wandering into the nursery, I took him into our bed to try to get him to sleep more. I don't know why he woke up so abruptly. Basically he was having poop smears, running to Ronin/Audrey's bedroom and ripping off his diaper in an attempt to take it off and possibly clean himself up. He wiped poop onto Audrey's Tinkerbell body pillow (not salvageable), the area carpet (also not salvageable) and then left some random wipes with poop smeared on it in Ronin's bed and the floor. He did this twice in their room. The stench of poop made me want to vomit, especially because I'm sporting a runny nose and coughing today. Temperature. Great. Denis and I cleaned up the messes and bathed him twice, but he managed to escape our sight a few more times today and take off pee diapers, plus one other poop one that was manageable. This behavior is so heartbreaking to me because he cannot seem to communicate what he wants, freely. I have to watch him like a hawk, watch his signals (putting a hand on his butt) and ask him constantly if he wants a diaper change. I found two PECS pictures of a diaper and started enforcing that he give me this picture when he wanted a diaper change. I have to keep putting it in his hand to give back to me, because he is not picking it up of his own free will. I am lamenting this behavior and silently cursing the gastro for not stepping up to help me more. I must rethink my strategy for this; he will be ten years old by the time he develops a regular poop pattern!! ARGH!
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