Morning Musings

Hello, all!

Well, Ben decided to sleep in today! Unfortunately, I couldn't fall back to sleep after Jer left for work! Oh well, I have a little time to enjoy some coffee with my newspaper and to blog. :o)

Jeremy is working overtime today, so he will be gone until Monday morning. :o( Weekends are lonely without him. But, I'm sure we'll find something to do with Aunt Jen and Grandma Nancy (not to mention, we have lots of Christmas shopping to do!) Also, we often get lots of Floortime in on these weekend which is a good thing!

Ben's report from school yesterday said that he said "ball" several times with prompting! Again, good that we are starting to hear more vocalization. He has also said his version of "up" several times spontaneously (without prompting) to be picked up. It comes out more like "pah", but we know what he is saying. He's also been very affectionate the last week or so. I got many hugs and kisses without asking for them yesterday. :o)

I forgot to mention, Ben took a nasty fall this week! I was upstairs grabbing a load of laundry and I heard a terrible bang and screaming. I came down to find that he had apparently fallen off the kitchen table. :o( From the bruise and scratch on his back, I think he scrapped his footstool on the way down. I feel so bad about it. It used to be that he was pretty predictable and I could leave the room knowing he wouldn't get into trouble...not so much anymore. He has been climbing a lot lately. It's actually a good thing as he is typically "gravitationally insecure." We just have to be more careful with watching him.

Lets see, what else... Oh, I think we are starting to see some readiness signs for potty training! He never seemed to mind a dirty diaper before, but has been showing discomfort from it now. He won't sit down after he goes and will sometimes back his booty up to me as if to say "hey, there is something in here." :o) So, we are thinking about trying to begin the process after the holidays. Not sure how it will go as children with autism are often difficult to potty train, but I got some good tips from other moms and staff at CHIP, so we'll see!

We have temporarily halted the therapeutic listening (music.) For some reason, Ben is sometimes resistant to it at home and I don't like to force it on him. Patty said that it needs to be consistent for him to benefit, so we are going to take a break. Also, she said that she has another child she'd like to try it with (we've been borrowing their equipment everyday.) I may go ahead and buy our own equipment. It seems that part of Ben's resistance to it is that is slows him down a bit. We don't have a fanny pack to carry the CD player in, so Ben is sort of on a leash while listening. :o) But, I'm not sure that is the problem as Patty said he loves doing it at school and he doesn't have a fanny pack there. I plan to talk to her a little more about it Monday, so we'll see...

Well, I think the little monkey is starting to wake up. Hope all is well with everyone!!

Love,
Julie