Spontaneous something or other!

Last night I was sitting on the couch when Michael out of nowhere blurted out "We did puzzles!" I knew from the email from his teacher they did a big train puzzle today at school. I asked him who he did the puzzle with and he started to name off some of his classmates. I asked him who was his friend in his class and he named off all his classmates, teacher, and her assistant!

Then today at speech therapy, I told the ST how he did that so she was really trying to engage him in conversation. He was doing so amazingly well. He told her what he got for Christmas, his classmates names, and when she asked if we still had our Christmas tree, he responded "Yeah! It's on the grass!" (lol it IS on the grass still since James tossed it there). Then when we got to the car, he immediately started telling me (super excitedly) that we just did 2 puzzles in ST, "We did the house puzzle and animal puzzle! I did them all!" I asked him which was his favorite and he responded with "The house puzzle!" He has never spontaneously talked about something that happened like that before. He's been getting really excited to tell me about his day while he is being rocked before bed. Now I guess he realized he can tell me these things ANY time, not just right before I lay him down. <3

Michael and Rory

I know you aren't supposed to compare development of any 2 kids because they all develop at their own rate and blah blah blah, but I took this video of Rory last night and it reminded me of one I took of Michael at a similar age. Michael was actually about 2 months older than Rory is now in this video. This was the first time I heard him say "9" and "8". Also, what sounds like "what's that" is just a sound, not him making useful use of words.

Complete 180

Wow, speech therapy today was a complete 180 from last week. Last week we had an epic meltdown that ended with me dragging him out to the car and forcing him into his seat. Today he was chipper and cooperative and did pretend play! He even led a lot of the pretending which was super awesome!

It went something like this:


ST: What kind of juice would you like? Apple juice? Milk?
M: Apple juice! (pretends to drink) Mmmmm
ST: Ooh what do we have in our basket?
M: An apple! (pretends to pick it up and eat it)
ST: Oh do we have some sandwiches in the basket?
M: Yeah!
ST: What kind of sandwiches? Tuna? Grilled Cheese?
M: Peanut butter jelly! (pretends to eat)
Me: Oh can I have a sandwich too? What kind do I get?
M: Here mama, peanut butter jelly!
ST: Oh do we have some cookies in there?
M: Yeah! (pretends to eat one)
ST: What kind of cookie is it?
M: Brown!

:)

The ST and I got talking and she was telling me that the student that was sitting in on her session last week (during the epic meltdown) told her she was very impressed how I handled myself and Michael during all that. Then the ST told me that she thinks I'm meant to be Michael's mom because I handle him so well. I really needed to hear that. :') <--- happy tears!

Visit with Santa!

We've been delaying this ordeal for a couple weeks now after remembering what it was like the past few years. Since Christmas is on Sunday, we figured we better get it done already! We gathered the babies up after getting them dressed in their new Christmas-y outfits and got in the car. Everyone was happy and laughing - phew! Step 1 complete! We got to the mall and did a test drive of our -new to us- stroller. The kids thought it was tons of fun. Step 2 complete! We headed over to Santa and of course he was "out feeding his reindeer". No! The same thing happened last year. So we decided to go grab a bite to eat. This was traveling in dangerous territory...food and new shiny clothes...ahem. Michael only spilled a little bit of soda on his outfit, but nothing that was noticeable. Step 3 complete! We headed back to Santa and there was already a line forming and he wasn't even back yet. So we stood in line for about 20 minutes. Michael just sat in the stroller patiently but Rory was getting impatient and trying to run off into the stores. I chased her around a bit. She was about done with the whole idea. Finally, it was our turn. We decided to ask Santa to stand behind the chair like he did last year and try and have the kids sit on the chair alone. FAIL! Rory was scared out of her mind and would not sit down. She was hopping around, screaming and turning her butt toward the camera. Michael was being so sweet, trying to calm Rory down. After a few seconds of this crazy, we decided to have Santa try and sit on the chair and hold Rory down. Michael did AWESOME and let Santa come sit next to him without any protest. After a few screaming shots, we took Rory off of his lap. Michael then sat on Santa's lap! Santa started asking him if he liked Thomas the Train and of course this perked Michael up and he actually SPOKE to Santa! Then they both got peppermint suckers and were happy as clams after that. :) Michael did SO amazing and I was not expecting that at all. I'm so proud of him!

A conversation!!

I finally got smart and decided to get it on video. :)

It happened again!!

So today Michael's teacher sent me an email telling me what they did at school. I asked Michael what he did today and he said

M: I went to school.
Me: Oh yeah? What else?
M: I go on school bus
Me: Oh yeah? What else?
M: I did circle time
Me: Anything else? Did you go to an assembly (the teacher said they went to a school-wide assembly)
M: Yeah
Me: Did you make candy canes with the teacher?
M: Yeah

:) This is so stinking awesome!!

The most AMAZING breakthrough!

Last night I had the first semi-reciprocal conversation with Michael! Yeah, this sounds like no biggie, right? Not really. For months when I put him to bed, I'd ask him about his day and see what he would do/say. Usually it was "No way mama!" which recently turned to "Yeah!". But last night I asked him about school and he actually responded with spontaneous speech! I emailed his teacher to see if what he was telling me was really stuff that he did or not, but really it doesn't matter that much because he was having a conversation with me! I mostly led the discussion, but still it was amazing!

It went something like this:

Me: Did you learn about trains today at school?
M: Yeah!
Me: Did you play with sparkles (glitter)?
M: Yeah!
Me: What colors were the sparkles?
M: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple!
Me: Did you also learn about cars?
M: Yeah!
Me: What did you do with the cars?
M: Cars in a circle!
Me: You played with cars in a circle? What else did you do with the cars?
M: Down the slide!
Me: Wow what else did you do?
M: Blocks build a mountain!
Me: You built a mountain with the blocks? What else did the blocks do?
M: Going so fast!
Me: Did you throw them so they were flying so fast?
M: Yeah!
Me: Did you go outside and play?
M: Yeah
Me: After that did you come in and have a snack?
M: Yeah! Popcorn.
Me: You had popcorn? Anything else?
M: Red, Orange, Blue
Me: Were they cookies?
M: Yeah, cookies! Wheels!
Me: The cookies looked like wheels?
M: Yeah! Wheels! Tasty.
Me: What shapes were they?
M: Circles!

Then Rory started crying so I had to stop and put him to bed. I wanted to just stay and have this conversation FOREVER! <3


UPDATE!!! I just got an email from his teacher that said this!

"That’s AWESOME!  We did have popcorn!  And the red, orange and blue was a fruit roll up!  Yes, he did play with blocks and with cars.  He also played with the train.  So, he did give an account of his morning!"

*HAPPY TEARS!!!*

Picnic!

At speech therapy today, we did a pretend picnic. At first Michael was protesting it, but after a minute or two, he decided he wanted to play. It took him a bit to get the idea of playing with imaginary food, but he caught on and was playing along. He would pass me my food and laugh as I pretended to take a bite. He even pretended to take imaginary bites too! We would ask him questions like "What kind of cookies should we have for our picnic?" and he wouldn't respond. But if we told him "Oh look, chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies! Which does mommy get?" He would gladly make a decision. It was really cute. I bought the kids a bunch of play food for Christmas and now I'm pretty excited to play with them with it. :)

This Week

Wow, this week Michael has made some amazing progress. I can't even explain it. He's starting to really articulate his needs and engage with me and the rest of the family. We still have issues with communication when it's not in the moment, but wow, I can't even tell you how proud I am of his progress!

Here's a little snippet of him doing some pretend play and interacting with the family. I've tried to get some of these new little magic moments on video but they are so fast, that it's hard to capture them.

Adding to my last post...

I took this video tonight to further explain what I was talking about in my last post. Today Michael went to a birthday party for a friend of mine's son. This is our conversation tonight about it. The video is black because I was recording it in the dark as we rocked before bed. Every night I ask him questions like this to try and get him to engage in a conversation with me about his day. Tonight was actually a very good night. Most nights he won't even respond with yes, only his favorite "no way mama".

I was explaining in a little more detail to my friend about my last post as well. She said that her daughter typically will come home and she'll ask her what she did and she'll say "I don't know". The way Michael differs is he doesn't even understand the concept of you asking about the past. In neuro-typical children you could then ask details like "Did you learn about your letters?" and they will recall some of what they did and start to talk about it. Michael would probably only respond with something like "Yeah, letters" or "No way mama".

But as I was saying in the last post, he is doing awesome if you are talking in the moment. Although I did notice his conversation is very concrete. He doesn't understand abstract concepts like "that's cute", etc. For example, he will play Angry Birds and say "Oh the red bird flew so high! One pig left! We got them all! I won 3 stars!" But if you then said "What is your favorite bird?", he'd probably respond with "No way mama, my Angry Birds!" because he didn't understand what you were asking.

It's my blog and I'll whine if I want to

So THIS blog link has been circling my Facebook. I hate blogs and posts like these. I don't know why I bother reading them but somehow I get sucked in like a freaking black hole. Every time I read something like this I feel like I just got kicked in the gut. The universe is laughing my face saying HA! your kid should be doing these things and they are not! So I get sad. Then I get irritated that people are bitching about the fact that their kids are completely normal. Then I get mad at myself because I know somewhere during my day I do the same thing in my own way and I feel like a complete hypocrite jerk. So there's my circle of self misery. Yeah, like I said, it's my blog and I'll whine if I want to.

The Present

Oh man the last few days I've been thinking a lot. I've actually typed out several blog posts and then just decided to delete them. This artist brain of mine has never been good at forming things into words. I understand concepts and feelings best. I actually think that's one reason I can understand Michael so well. Anyway, that's not the point of this post.

In all of my thinking the past few days, I've realized something about Michael. He lives completely in the present. I know that this is part of normal toddler-hood, but by this age typically they start to understand the concept of past and future. Michael doesn't. When you ask him about something he did, he can't respond. When you talk to him about something that is going to happen, he doesn't understand. If I told him we were going to Disneyland to meet Mickey Mouse tomorrow, he wouldn't wake up tomorrow and be excited to go. He would have completely forgotten about it. And if we did go to Disneyland and met Mickey Mouse, when we left and came home, if someone said to him "Did you meet Mickey Mouse?", he wouldn't excitedly tell you his tale of meeting Mickey. Most likely he'd respond with something like "Yeah, meet Mickey Mouse". Which you might think he's relaying the tale of him meeting him, but actually that's just him echoing your words.

However, when you engage in the present with him, he's really growing. He is doing so much better at interacting and sharing. He actually asks me to take a turn when playing Angry Birds on his tablet. You can engage so much with him if it is something that is happening right now. During those times, back and forth conversation is emerging and it's amazing, beautiful, and so SO exciting!

It's working! :)

In speech therapy we've really been focusing on turn taking and back and forth conversation. The other night Michael was playing Angry Birds and was not letting me near it. I asked him "Michael can I have a turn?" He sat there for a second and then said "Sure! Go ahead!" I think my jaw about hit the floor. Then we played several rounds taking turns and he'd say "Mama's turn!" then I'd play and he'd say "Michael's turn next!" He was doing so great letting me play along. This is a huge change to what we were able to do even a couple of months ago.

Just a passing thought

The day that Michael comes home from school and is able to relay to me something, anything that he did that day, I'm probably going to cry. I'm excited that he is in school, but I wish I knew what he did that day and what he enjoyed, etc. But for now, I'm just rejoicing in the fact that he was okay getting on and off the bus all by himself!

Michael's First Day of School!

Today was his first day of preschool! I had the new nanny follow the bus in the car so I could ride with him. He did great! When we got to the school I dropped him off in the classroom. He was a little uneasy but gave me a hug and let me leave without fuss. I was working when he got home but the nanny said he happily walked off the bus. :)

I sent an email to his teacher asking how his first day was. She responded super quickly with this.

Hi Lindsay-
Thanks for the email-He did GREAT!  He stayed a bit to himself at first…I got him interested in a couple of puzzles, and then he seemed interested in what the kids were doing.  He got excited about circle and even sat with the group off and on for several minutes at a time.  Snack went well too…!  He took a piece of plum (didn’t eat it, but didn’t freak out) and he ate several cheese puffs.  He never touched his cup and tried to drink water out of an open cup!
Michael had a great start!

I'm so proud of how well he did! :)