Catching up

Sorry I've been really behind on posts. During the week school-wise, Nikko was pretty much doing requesting, greetings, vocab. There were no extraordinary notes on his reports. I took him to speech on Wednesday and Friday, and both days he started out kind of rough at home. It didn't affect his sessions, however. He continued to do well. After Karen's session she explained more about Nikko's level of speech, that he's really at the 2-3 year old mark. The problem for me is that the 2 and 3 year olds that I have right now have atypical speech. Their speech is more advanced than the typical, so it's really confusing for me to know where Nikko should be. Karen said I should expect him to say 2-3 word sentences, possibly 3-4 or 4-5 words. I should expect him to say a word upon request and hold out until he says it. I think that's fine and very in line with what we're doing.

On the home front, Nikko has been on an emotional roller coaster. His rigidity shows in the leaving routine. With the changing of the seasons, he's not used to being told to put on his Crocs instead of his shoes and socks. He's also used to hauling a jacket outside, but with some sporadic days of 80 degree weather he was thoroughly confused. I would tell him to put his fleece back and he'd look at me confused, then proceed to get upset and break down on the floor. That made for some difficult transitions out the door. He has no problem with wearing shorts instead of sweat pants, however. I'm hoping that this transition will pass quickly. The temperatures dove back into the 50's so we're in for some more rough times.

I've started keeping a food journal on Nikko. Still rough. But it will help me see if food infractions are causing some behavior problems. I might have to blame today's post-dinner refusal to finish his food and to lay on the floor ignoring my requests as a food infraction or a sugar overload. We went to a birthday party for cousin Ian and Nikko had frosting from the cake. He also had lollipops and some Smarties. I wonder if this made him more stimmy toward dinner. After Audrey's bath and before the boys', I saw him curled face down on the couch as if he were sleeping. He wasn't, but he was also scripting a lot. I coaxed him down to the floor for a diaper change and then I saw an opportunity to give him some deep pressure with two square floor pillows I bought from Costco. I put Nikko on top of one pillow and then put the other on top of him, saying "Sandwich!" He loved it, of course. It's an old OT game that's very appropriate for him.