October 19, 2020
Bradley likes to turn on every Go-Go Smart car he has and then leave them to make little humming sounds that try to drive me absolutely crazy. You see their batteries are slowly dying. Once the battery is officially dead, I ditch the batteries. He has so many that my pocketbook and my sanity could not survive replacing all the batteries. So I only replace a few of them. Most of the time I have to go through every single car and test it to see which one is actually on. Either way, last night I had Madison pick them all up for me and she tested each to make sure they were off. Apparently, she missed one. This morning before we left for therapy, Bradley paused on the way out the door because Madison had forgotten a car, so Bradley had to pick it up and go put it away in his box of cars. Leaving the living room tidy, we were able to walk out the door and head to therapy.
Too bad mom asked him to wear a sweatshirt. That was a major wrench in his plans, and then dad didn’t want to let him change his shirt... so mom thought we could compromise. I offered to let him change his shirt if he wore his sweatshirt. So he put his new shirt on and then put his sweatshirt on and walked out to the car - grumbling all the way.
Once in the car, he proceeded to enjoy watching Cars on the DVD player in the van. And when I say he enjoyed it, he was busy all the way to therapy trying to repeat every phrase from the movie and at the top of his lungs. There wasn’t a ton of clear phrases, but there was a whole lot of us hearing him yell, “McQueen” and a whole lot of sound effects that McQueen makes that Bradley was copying pretty well. Luckily for Bradley, he was super cute as he was trying to copy what he was hearing for two reasons... 1. He slept even less last night than usual (how the heck is that even possible? I have no idea!) and 2. Within moments of getting put in his seat, he did mange to wriggle out of his sweatshirt from the top down, all while not coming out of his seatbelt harness. Once we got to Therapy and he stood up out of his seat we finishing unzipping his sweatshirt and he didn’t have to wear it to therapy.
He did great for both therapy sessions and when we got home I had to put him on his Zoom session with his school. He fussed quite a bit, might have thrown his juice cup in frustration, but after some breathing and working through it - he came around when they mentioned pumpkins. Since they were having some trouble getting their video to load, I let Bradley share the pumpkin that Sydney got for him, along with the other two small ones we have, along with one that Madison brought home, and another larger one that Sydney brought home and had drawn a face on it for him. He was quite proud of all of them, and managed to listen, if not concentrate on the story they had for him and the other little girl that was in class today.
We finished class and he came and asked me for his movie, which he enjoyed for a bit. He came into the kitchen and asked for a popsicle, so I made him eat his lunch and told him he couldn’t have a popsicle because his behavior therapist was due within the hour. So he took a bite of peanut butter and jelly - determined that he wasn’t a fan - then opted for peaches instead. He enjoyed them and then decided not to ask for a popsicle again, and just headed back to the living room instead.
When his movie died, we took care of his diapering and meds and then when we came back out we decided to watch some Mickey Shorts and don his IronMan Costume. He finds the Mickey Shorts to be quite funny and he usually laughs his butt of. This time he found it more interesting to keep watching Eric and I as we chuckled through them, making faces at me all the while.
By the time his therapist arrived, he had decided he was too warm in his costume and had stripped that off. He didn’t want to answer the door today, but he did come running (he may complain, but he loves his therapist) and gave her a very enthusiastic “HI!” And then worked through “Come in please.”
I learned that he is tall enough to reach the top of the phonograph Eric gave me, because on top are his Token boards. One for earning a popsicle and one for earning his movie. He took them both down and then took a careful look at them both before handing her the token board for earning his movie and tried to put the popsicle one back. I almost lost it. Smart boy. She told him she needed the one to earn his popsicle first please, so he agreed and gave her the correct one and then sat down to get to work at playing. It was still pretty awesome. I love seeing all the times that he is trying to outsmart us, trying to manipulate to his advantage, being so much a typical little boy. It makes my heart so happy!
He worked for his popsicle, but when he came to the kitchen and I asked him what he wanted, he decided to change his popsicle choice to a cookie. He was super clear and super happy to have a cookie instead. It was really great.
He of course was slightly more stubborn than his usual, but then he was a busy guy and really working his little brain to try to out maneuver all of us this afternoon and evening. He is way tired now, and sacked out. He worked really hard today. It doesn’t seem like much when you lay it out like I have here; but my goodness, my little boy had a very full and busy day today. Every little sound and every little attempt to communicate is such a big deal, and so much work to achieve - at the end of the day it is super exhausting. If we could get his brain to relax some more, he might sleep more. But given his moderate apnea, if we could help him breath better at night...he might sleep better and be ready to wake up and talk to all of us.
But that’s ok, one day at a time. One great day at a time, especially when he puts in the kind of work he did today.
No comments:
Post a Comment