9.23.2008

head, shoulders, knees and toes

Holden's finally settling in after the move. He's doing great, actually. I always hesitate to say "great", because I know by now that these "great" episodes are usually followed by a regression at some point. But, for now, I'll take it and relish in it!

He seems to be talking more. He has some spontaneous language now. He will come to me and say "joo" for juice. Or "cookie" for ... well, cookie. He will tell/ask me to "o-pen" things for him. He'll try his best to say "fly" when he wants us to "fly" him in the air. I can tell him we're going bye bye and turn off the TV and there's no tantrum. He will get his shoes (almost always independently), put them on and go to the door. He's repeating EVERYTHING he's asked to now. In therapy, and at home.

He loves loves loves to sing. I'll catch him doing the hand motions and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star a lot. The only thing that's really understandable is "twinkle", but I know he's singing it. I taught him Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes last weekend. I sang it 3 times and then he started doing the motions with him. Now he'll say "head", "knees", "toes"...but he's not so good yet with "shoulders".

Body parts - he can/will now identify on command: head, nose, ear, mouth, tummy ("tum-tum" as he puts it), and toes.

When I ask him at night if he wants me to rock him to sleep, he'll look at me - smile, and say "rock".

When we pick up Zoe from school, he will smile the biggest smile and say "HI!!!" to her. She just loves this, of course.

He's bringing me things. Which may not sound all that impressive. But, he's never brought me anything...except maybe the remote. He'll bring me his juice cup and take my hand, look me in the eyes, smile, and say his version of "thank you", and hand it to me. I just smile and say Thank you! back and he'll go get a block, or toy, or whatever else he can find to bring to me. Which is great that he's enjoying the social interaction with me.

And the biggest, most impressive accomplishment over the last month...he'll now kick a soccer ball! Independently, for the most part. Dietrich's been taking him to the soccer field nearby and we used a little ABA type reinforcement to get him started. He loves to be thrown in the air...so, we would tell him to kick the ball and sometimes help him do it, and then Dietrich would pick him up and throw him hight in the air. We've faded out the reinforcer and he will just kick the ball now...and have fun doing it! This is really cool to see, since it's something we worked on a year ago and didn't get anywhere. At all.

He's discovered his reflection. In everything. Store windows, ovens, toasters, etc. etc. etc. Because he's such a visual kid, it can be pretty distracting for him. So we're working on that. The paper shredding has diminished a lot lately, but he continues to flip through the yellow pages of the phone book a lot. I just tell everyone that he's memorizing it for me so I don't have to go online and look up numbers all the time.