We Need Bean Bags & A Train Schedule!

Gramma picked up Sebastian & Willow early this morning so I could have the day with Judah. Judah was very upset about not getting to go with Gramma. It broke my heart. Today I volunteered in his classroom. He pulled me around from activity to activity. It was fun, and I definitely learned a lot about his day. I got to see how it has changed since I last volunteered. The motor room is great, and Judah loves it. We must get him a bean bag!! He also enjoys walking the balance beam, calling them "train tracks". He loves playing chase with the other kids, running in a circle. The teacher was sort of in & out of the classroom activities, which surprised me because I later learned that they were short one staff today. The speech therapist was there all day, so it felt like their usual number of staff was there. Thankfully today Judah had all regular staff. They have been changing way too much lately.


This is what Judah's time with the speech therapist looked like, other than her occasionally playing with him throughout the day with other kids in the mix. I wrote this down quickly after we got home from school, so please excuse the bad writing. We had to get to the real speech therapy not long after we got home.

Therapist is basically doing what the staff are doing, but giving them pointers along the way (didn't seem to be anything that they weren't already doing or weren't aware of).  Her one-on-one with Judah in a private area was maybe 10 mins. This interrupted his daily schedule - he was playing with trucks, which he was really enjoying. He was not happy to be pulled away. She took his truck and used that to get him to go to the next room. He played with the truck in the next room as she tried to get him to the corner table to work with him. Again, he had no desire to go. She eventually got him to a private corner, the one-on-one destination. Once there he continued to play with his truck as she started the activity. He started participating at the very end. She incorporated the truck into the activity which helped. He interacted with her when he saw each clothing item she used.

 

After that he was not ready to go home, his last area of activity had been cut very short because of the sporadic one-on-one speech therapy activity. She had told me that she would just pull him away at some point, which interrupted his daily schedule. The daily schedule is really important, consistency is always important. But there was no scheduled spot in the day for her one-on-one and there was no opportunity for him to do that without missing his usual activities, which are very short.

 

I was surprised to see that they didn't do circle (reading, singing, puppets, etc.). I was VERY surprised to see that they didn't take the kids to go potty AT ALL. Also a bit disturbing was that they never had the kids wash their hands but instead had them rub their hands with a baby wipe before snack, just before not after, and I'm pretty certain it was just a baby wipe. And apparently napkins are sparse because Judah needed a second one & the aide (2 feet across the table from me), got his napkin out of the "all-done box" and handed it back to him telling him, "I guess you weren't all done!" The all-done box is where the kids dump their plates, drinks, etc.. it's a trashcan on the table basically. It was half-full when she got his napkin out. I learned that loud tantrums do sometimes affect Judah, he jumps & seems upset for a minute. Not all of the tantrums today did (and there were many!), but some definitely did. I learned that he knows the color green. I was sad to see Judah doing a lot of parallel play as opposed to playing WITH the other kids. I sort of wonder if he really even likes the other kids, he doesn't seem to invested in them like he is with his siblings.

 

Malinda at his private speech therapy said he has progressed a lot, she said he is a new child from when they first met. He sat at the table on his own for entire session today - even when I interrupted to tell her to stop feeding him Goldfish!! ;) She said he mimicked a lot of what she said today.

 

When we got home from private speech therapy Judah & I walked all of the trashcans down from the sidewalk to the house. He played in the rocks with his cars after that while I cleaned out the truck some. I found a misplaced Christmas present. Eventually Judah climbed in the truck with me & he saw the present as well. Now he has a new Mack truck!! He was so excited. I told him we could go in & play with it. It didn't seem like he understood me. When I got out & started walking to the garage he caught on. Maybe he was just excited, I was surprised that he didn't seem to understand. Unfortunately the new Mack truck holds tiny cars - I'm talking like cars the height of a nickel or less and width of a quarter or less. Scott searched the Cars section at Wal-Mart tonight & couldn't find any. I'll look online. Judah is sleeping with his new Mack right now. :)

 

I want to find out Salem train times so we can drive down to watch the train go by on a regular basis.

 

Judah has had no pain all day today! So the bout of constipation & pain lasted from Friday through Tuesday afternoon, too long, but at least it has completely disappeared.

 

I wasn't able to find any "underwear time" for Judah today. Today was so busy. Since the constipation is over this means we can get right back to the underwear. He has had many wet diapers lately so I'm thinking staying dry will likely take some getting used to again.

 

Sebastian decided to work on our non-working, refrigerator ice machine before everyone got up this morning. He has been convinced for years that he is fixing it or has fixed it. This morning things went very wrong & the light bulb in the freezer busted. I walked out to see Scott with his head in the freezer, most of the freezer contents scattered on the floor around him. He was looking for the broken glass, he found none. He forgot to look in the ice cube trays, I checked there later & found glass. Sebastian is the one who uses the ice cubes, plays with them, sometimes the other kids do too. So scary!!!

 

Judah & I danced to Sofia the First tonight. He never wants to watch it when his siblings are here, but sometimes he will watch it when they are gone. We danced to every single song at the end, and there were many! When I hold him & sing he looks into my mouth, with a sweet smile & sparkling, happy eyes.

 

He also spit out rice milk all over the tv stand this evening. I walked over to find a small lake of rice milk. I gave him a towel & he cleaned it up. When he spilled water in his room earlier today I did the same. I do the same with Willow. They both enjoy wiping up messes most of the time, but the point is to teach them to clean up their own messes. He also got rice milk all over a blanket & the carpet. Looks like we will be using our new, little handheld carpet cleaner tonight.

Sebastian & Willow came home from Gramma & Papa’s. Willow fell right to sleep tonight after a short game of tickling and me putting my cold hands on her face & tummy. She thinks EVERYTHING is funny before she falls asleep – even with naps too.

 

Scott slept in the boys bedroom last night. Apparently Sebastian woke up before his strand of Christmas lights turned on. So he tells Scott, "Daddy, when are those lights going to go off, I'm ready to get up!! Daddy, how much longer?? Daddy, I'm ready to get up & start my day!!" The lights finally turned on & Sebastian says, "Alright, see ya later!" and dashes out of bed.