An Accumulation Of Growth

Holy moley! Judah had some major progress today! Yesterday was awesome too. But today I saw a boy that I didn't know. It was the absolute best day I've ever seen him have thus far. I'll try to scribble down a few examples on here, but basically he was repeating lots of what everyone in our entire family said. He was doing what I asked him to do, right after I asked him. He was just a new boy.

I wrote my mom an email, trying to give her a good peek of what Judah's progress looked like today. They are out of town right now. Here's what I shared:

 

Hope you all are having a good time. No crises to report today. Judah had an unbelievably progressive day, he seemed like a new little boy. "Hi Judah!" (willow) "Hi Baby" (Judah). "Judah turn the light off" (me) - Judah turns light off. The other 2 kids are outside while Judah & I are inside. and he says, "Shoes on!!" I pretend to not understand him & make him do the work. He goes to his room & pulls out a pair of shoes. Unfortunately they were not outdoor play shoes & I had to encourage him to find a different pair. That confused him I'm sure and he handed me a pair that did not match. He started to put them on and then said, "rocks.." (socks) and looked in his pajama drawer. I opened his underwear drawer and said, "socks". He looked over & grabbed a pair. Once he saw that I was only going to assist with pulling his socks over his toes, he just went ahead & finished the job, shoes too. He didn't even get mad. His goal was just to get outside! haha. Lots of cool stuff today! He was smiling bigger than I've ever seen this afternoon. This was during his massage- and it was at Daddy! I think Scott was about to cry. That lasted for a while!

 

Willow is spouting out sentences & phrases that seem to be coming from out of nowhere! Her language is rapidly exploding! Her enunciation isn't so great at times. She says "nickas" for fingers now. I was saying something to her about fingers tonight and I said "nickas" instead of fingers. She nodded her head & said "That's right Mommy, nickas, nickas." and went back to eating her dinner. When I was massaging Sebastian's fingers tonight (he had requested a massage) she said, "Ohhh, the nickas.." hahahaa.
 

Sebastian also had a great day! He read his mailbox card with ease today. This week we are doing a cat theme using words with the short a &  short I sound. Today's word was lick, because cats do a lot of licking! Yesterday's word was kitten. The first book in his serious of Scooby Doo phonics books is about Scooby Doo encountering a cat - and it focuses on these same vowel sounds. So I'm trying to reinforce it by reading that with him & of course doing activities with every mailbox word (the best part). Tonight we made suckers! It was so simple! Parchment paper on a baking pan, paired Jolly Ranchers spread widely apart, 225 degrees for 10 minutes, roll lollipop sticks in each pair, cool for 20 minutes & enjoy. ALL of the kids enjoy suckers, so this was a great one!! Bash & I made these at the end of the night while Daddy & Judah were at Home Depot buying a fridge (YES!!! It comes Saturday.). Bash was the only one who was able to enjoy a sucker tonight - he really liked his green apple creation! He had fun making it too - watching it melt in the oven & rolling his popsicle stick in the hot melted candy. Judah & Willow will be happily surprised tomorrow for sure.

 

Sebastian & I talked at different points in the day about how to keep calm & the consequences of being hyperactive, etc. He said to me, "Mom, can you help me stay calm tonight?" We had talked about different ways to stay calm earlier in the day, so I asked him what he would like me to do. "Can you do my massage tonight?" He's been wanting to experience Judah's massage. I'm not sure if it helped (he giggled through most of it), but I stayed close to him the rest of the evening, trying desperately to keep him focused on himself & having conversation with him that I knew would spark interest & questions. He has been asking night & morning for quite a while for Scott or myself to brush his teeth for him. I did this for a week, showing him how to do it in a way that could actually be effective, haha. But when that week ended, I told him he was on his own. That was weeks ago. I thought it was important for him to continue with this on his own, to raise his confidence & just to get better at brushing. When he was making the usual request for us to brush his teeth tonight, I was standing right by him in the bathroom (basically looming over him to squash any hyper behavior that might seep out). But the thing is, he asked for my help and immediately told me why he wanted it. "Because I want to know if I'm doing it right." We had no idea that was what he needed. Realistically he could have told us before & we may have said, "Bastian you know how to brush your teeth!" Tonight I realized that he asks us twice a day to help him and we say no, assuming he is just playing around, good lord. We suck at parenting! Instead of brushing his teeth for him, I watched him brush his teeth & gave him verbal guidance every once in a while. Again, he's wanting to do things right, follow the rules. I think we just need to remember to praise him more often and remember that he is just six. I'm sure that would help him get his confidence up in areas he struggles with. 

 

Unfortunately Daddy & Judah walked in while Sebastian was still brushing his teeth. Judah had to potty. He had just told Daddy, "potty" and then went to the bathroom. That's a small miracle. So of course Scott wasn't going to have him wait until Sebastian was done brushing his teeth! Once Daddy entered, Sebastian immediately brought the hyperactive, crazy night time kid back to life.. putting things on Daddy and laughing hysterically. I worked my butt off to keep him focused. Scott left as quick as he could - he knew what to do. We both tried really hard to keep Sebastian in a good place tonight. We wanted him to go to bed on a positive note, with no consequences to deal with tomorrow (losing TV, etc.). We wanted him to get into a new routine & feel confident that it was okay. By staying beside him all night, I was also helping him to keep his focus off of Daddy. Daddy is always his target. And Daddy could easily keep his distance tonight because there was no need for him to help Sebastian in any way, I was on top of it (literally, haha). Before Sebastian got into bed I told him how proud I was of him. He crawled into bed as I left the room. Seconds later I hear him asking me to get Scott because he wanted to tell him goodnight. Scott & I both cringe - thinking that Sebastian is going to lose a privilege tomorrow minutes before he nods off! He seems to feel compelled to accomplish that every night. Scott was in & out of that room as quick as possible. Success for Sebastian. That was not easy!!!

 

Anyone heard of the Feldenkrais Method ? This has been recommended to me a few times by a nurse I know. She thinks it could be effective for Judah. Feldenkrais is about using movement to strengthen your mind & awareness (I think). I'm probably going to sign up for a class to experience it myself - I'll likely be doing this Sunday afternoon. There's a workshop here in Salem soon (the class is in Portland), but it's $75! To drop-in on a class is $15, sign me up.

We're still living out of coolers.
 

Judah got no fish oil (we are afraid to use it since the fridge went out & we haven't bought more yet). He took 1 vit d. (I've been putting 2 on the posts but it's really just one!!), 1/2 a bethanecol twice. I put Oxymag & B-6 in his milk, he hardly drank it. Same with the docusate sodium, I only gave him one dose & he hardly drank it. No l-carnatine- we're out. No Miralax, no dmg w/folinic acid- still waiting on it to arrive!!! B-12 shot scheduled for this evening. We finally figured out where to get more needles - pharmacy at Wal-Mart. No bowel movements.