Two Days til the Big Trip

Two days to go...I'm almost ready to leave for my "Broads' Retreat" on Block Island. I am so nervous about leaving the boys, but so, so, so ready to see my old friends and have "girl time". we haven't gone away since the year before we adopted J., so we are very overdue.

My sister is here, learning the ropes. (Thank you a million times, Sis). My little Sister will actually be on the retreat.

We are in the grip of a serious alphabet obsession, so I leave you with one of my favorite phonics videos from the PBS show "Between the Lions". It takes me back to the music of my college years.

Sloppy Pop

Applied Behavioral What?

I was going to call this post "Flunking out of ABA", but it was tongue in cheek, and I don't feel all that glum about it.

After a surge in imitating words from B., ABA hasn't yielded many noticeable results lately. Outside of ABA, both boys are doing well. G. is using little phrases here and there ("come on, Mom", "My turn", etc) The phrases are echoed from DVD's, but he uses them appropriately! He was in a phase of reciting entire Backyardigans episodes, mostly in his own jargon. That was getting old, but he seems to be moving out of it.

B. is progressing in his own way, at his own pace. He knows what he wants more than he used to, and he notices other kids more, and he is great about being affectionate.

Now to the flunking out of ABA part. G. has had them stumped from the beginning. G. knows his letters, numbers, colors, shapes and so on, but he was not going to do a thing for the ABA therapists. Nada. Every week, the head therapist would tell me some new approach they were trying with him, to the point that we joked about it at home. B. tries hard, but imitation is not his thing right now(oh, those mirror neurons!), so he has them stumped, too.
Lately the ABA center keeps scaling back on what they are working on with both boys. Each week they cut back on something. Last week they decided not to work on motor imitation anymore because they are "not ready" for it (fine with me, it was just stressing them out). Then they decided not to focus on fine motor skills. Okay. Today they said they are going to try to make them "feel successful" and really reinforce eye contact and pointing. For three hours? That's a lot of eye contact and pointing.

The therapists themselves are wonderful and warm. But I have to say, I don't know how long we are going to stick with this G. learns things on his own, no matter what we do. B. has definitely gotten something out of the ABA, so I'm more willing to send him for longer.
I'm formulating some questions for the lead therapist, but deep down I'm relieved that ABA is not the be-all and end-all for us. For whatever reason, the twins learn more by playing at home than they do at any therapy we've tried. We do a mix of sensory integration, hanging out, being silly, going to playgrounds, watching movies and goofing off. We eat a lot of gluten and casein. And starting in the fall...preschool. We are going through with it this time! Really, I mean it.

I'm glad we are giving the ABA a try, and I think we'll stick with it through the summer. Part of each week, and the rest of it will be the usual summertime business.

Alphabetical order, hoopdeedoo style

G. loves to name the letters, but had never tried to put them in order. Here's his first shot (It starts in the middle, goes right, then left, and then skips back to the far right):


And one more sleeping picture, this time with the dog.


You can see from these photos that even when your only criterion for choosing a carpet is dirt-hiding capability, you can only do so much. :)

J goes into business

Won't even try to explain my lack of blogging...

Ever since a family with five kids moved in next door, J's life has changed. He's over there, they are over here, we're all playing in the front yard (only possible when one twin is asleep or I have an extra grown up). J. is in heaven.

Today he has spent the entire day helping them sell lemonade, and he cannot stop smiiing.

Knock on Wood

I feel superstitious about blogging this...is it real?

B. is having a mini language explosion. He is using words to ask for things, usually repeating what he has just heard, but also saying things spontaneously, some of the time. In the past he has sporadically come out with surprising things ("kite!", "clothes", "boy" and so on). This is much more consistent, and he is saying the words to us, rather than to himself.

He's excited about his new powers, and wants to be able to do more. He'll come up to me and "talk" in a perfect imitation of the dog from Blue's Clues. I talk back to him the same way, and we have happy little exchanges with all the intonation of English, but no actual words.

Sending out a big thank you to the universe!

Thinking about Exhaling

At the twins' eighteen month check-up, a little light went off in my head which said "autism". The first month after realizing this was the hardest, partly because no one believed me. Feeling sure that I was right, I went into a flurry of researching, reading, and generally freaking out. By the time they turned two, no one tried to argue. The last year and a half or so, i've often thought of my state of mind as "waiting to exhale" The phrase comes from the novel by Terry McMillan, which I read in the early nineties. My life is so different from the women in her novel, but the title exactly fit the feeling I had.

For the first year, I threw myself into Floortime, combined with what I could figure out about Sensory Integration. I put all kinds of pressure on myself (and the rest of the family), trying to create "circles of interaction". G. seemed to respond, and B. remained ever-cheerful and pretty much happily self-absorbed. Finding the Signing Time DVD series jump-started our communication, and gave me more hope, but I was still worried and driven.

That whole time, I never relaxed, never stopped spending every day wondering if I was interacting enough, engaging them enough, should I be doing GFCF, etc. I'm still this way, some of the time, but I feel...like I'm thinking about exhaling.

I don't know if it's turning three or starting at the new ABA center, but the twins are changing. G. is talking and making connections (he looked at a little CD player, glanced at me and asked "Telephone?" B. is showing interest in activities (coloring, painting, looking at books), and is repeating all sorts of words to get what he wants. More importantly, he is seeking us out for attention (which he used to do a couple of years ago). In G., it's a speeding-up of his usual learning style. In B. it's sometimes a subtle change, but a really, really nice one.

The twins have always been sweet and wonderful. And now it's great to have the experience of "When did he start doing that??" with them--that feeling of realizing they are growing up, and you don't know if you are ready. I feel it all the time with J., and now I'm beginning to think it about all three of them.

Moving right along

Haven't been posting because I've been interacting with live people (grown-ups, specifically) more than usual. Can't seem to fit both the blogosphere and real-live adults into my life at the same time!

I'm feeling very good about keeping the twins home. They are still doing ABA and OT. G. is taking off with language, and is seriously obsessed with letters, numbers and colors.

B. has been saying some new words ("cook" is one of them, which makes no sense in this household, unless he's suggesting that I try it sometime) Also "ice cream", a word everyone should learn as early as possible. Today I was trying to get him to say "baby" to request a Baby Einstein DVD, and he said "Signing Time". That one knocked my socks off.

J. is very, very interested in Spiderman, although he still secretly likes Disney princesses. He is trying to write his name, which is fun. He is also determined to get the twins to play with him. He can get them to laugh, by lying on them and putting his face right up to theirs.