Tony has recently been going through a fascination with Christmas. In fact the first thing that he asked for was the Elmo Christmas DVD. He refers to it as �El-mo Santee Clause.� He watched movies like this the throughout the day, ranging from Wiggles, Christmas to Nightmare before Christmas.

He got a new toy today from the �mystery bag.� It was a cowboy with a horse, which he named �daddy.� He kept it by him basically the entire day. While he enjoyed his new toy, I asked him the normal questions, �A chair is for us to��. I asked him several like this to which he answered correctly.

Later in the afternoon Danielle came over. We went outside but not without putting on the necessary bug spray. We drew on the sidewalk with his bucket of chalk. While he did this I drew some pictures(star, heart..) which I asked him to identify. It only took him a second to respond with the right answer. After finishing with the chalk, we hopped on the bus. He sat in the front seat and pretended to drive. We tried to convince him to take a wagon ride, but he seems to be relunctant to leave home without his mom for more than 5 minutes.

After Danielle left, he manded for chips. They were no where to be found. We were out. Marlaina redirected him and said that we would go to the �store.� Tony got extremely excited. He continued to say store over and over again. We got in the car and he behaved the entire 2 minutes of the car ride. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, he started talking to the store, telling it hi and asking what it was doing there. When we went inside and put him into the cart, he began to accommodate himself, putting his cup in the cup holder and turtle in the space in front of him. The first thing we did was go to the chip aisle, where he became increasingly excited. He said yes to every kind of chip imaginable, from veggie chips to spicy ones. As we walked through the store, he contently sat and ate his chips, knowing very well that we were shopping for him.

When we got back to the house, it was Wiggles Christmas back int the DVD. This was on replay for the rest of the day. He had a lot of energy even though he continuously rubbed his eyes and yawned. After hours of playing and Wiggles Christmas, he had to be hauled off to bed.

(Dad/Anton’s note: Tony seems particularly smitten with spending time with Jennifer. Not that he doesn’t love his other girls as much…because he truly does…but we had to literally drag Tony away from his room and Jennifer this evening to go to bed. And HORRORS, his Elmo Saves Xmas tape died in the player, and Tony was so tired and so peaceful, he didn’t even bat an eye when I suggested Elmo’s Wild Wild West tape. He was half-asleep (lids at half mast) by the time I shut the light off and partially closed his door. Amazing day for him.)

I forgot to write the blog yesterday, so I will be doing today’s and
yesterday’s blog.

Yesterday when I arrived, I was informed by Marlaina of a problem in
Tony’s playroom. Apparently, water had leaked in from somewhere and
so half of the floor was soaking wet. So Tony and I had to do play
and do ABA in the living room until the problem is fixed.

The day started out as usual with Tony pretend playing with the little
people. After he was done playing with the people, he wanted to bring
his music backpack out of his room. The bag had several things such
as a drum, maracas and xylophone etc. Tony seemed to enjoy making
music on all of them. When he pulled out the drum, I patted it twice
and tried to get him to pat it twice as well, but Tony seemed to
really like the noise it was making and patted it multiple times.

Later in the afternoon, Marlaina and Anton had to take an important
business call, so I decided to take Tony outside so they wouldn’t be
disturbed. At first Tony was excited to go outside, but as soon as we
closed the back door he started screaming for his mom. So I picked
him up and tried to redirect him by jumping and running with him.
When this didn’t work, I then tried to spin around with him. He
usually enjoys this, but this was not working either. I then
remembered that I was wearing his Wiggles backpack which I had packed
with a few things to keep us busy. I then put Tony down to try to
grab something out of it to distract him, but he tried to run off and
when holding his hand tried to drag me back towards the house. I knew
that going there was not an option now, so I picked him back up and
headed for the pond. He enjoyed looking at the pond, and calmed down.
Which I was happy about because I hate seeing him upset.

On our walk home from the pond, Tony manded for “bus” so we headed for
the bus. After playing in the bus for a little while, he then asked
for his mom. I figured we needed to buy a little more time so I told
Tony lets go look at my car. He seemed excited to do this, but when
we got there he said “open door” and then I realized I did not have my
keys. I was thinking that was going to be a problem but Tony was fine
just looking through the windows. We then headed back to the house.

Once back at the house, we watched a few shows and then headed back to
the bus once again. We were sitting the bus with the door open when I
heard some ducks. I figured they wouldn’t be in the parking lot, but
to my surprise about 10 ducks showed up at the door. So Tony and I
headed back in the house to get some bird seed to throw to the ducks.
He seemed to enjoy giving them food and then he went back in the house
to go to sleep!

Today was not too eventful, Tony and I did a lot of painting and I was
able to get a lot of ABA done with him today! He knows almost of all
his intraverbals and is doing well on everything else. We also played
in the bus and ran around outside for awhile. His behavior today was
excellent as it has been the past week. He only got upset one time
and was easily calmed down. See ya next week!

Mands=31
(Jennifer) When i first arrived, Tony was busy playing with his trains. He said
my name for the first time. It sounded like Jen-na. After finishing
with the trains, he tried to run off into the playroom. He accidently
tripped 🙁 He got upset for a minute, but got over it quickly. We
went into the playroom and the first thing he wanted to do was build a
bed. He manded for the pillow, the turtles and the blanket. After we
finished building the bed, Tony then wanted to watch “Wheels on the
Bus.” As soon as we started the movie, Danielle arrived.

(Danielle) When I arrived Tony and Jennifer we were watching “Wheels on the Bus”.
After he finished the movie, we got Tony to go outside. As soon as
he was out the door, he manded for Jennifer to pick him up and
immediately said “gooo”. We ran around outside for about 5 minutes
and then Tony said “house”, so we headed for the house. As soon as we
were outside the front of the house, Tony wanted to go inside the bus.
He manded for me to open the door and then wanted me to shut the
door. It was a very hot day so I tried to get him to leave the door
open but he wanted it shut. But I ended up persuading him to let us
roll the windows down.

Once back inside the house, Jennifer and I did a little ABA with Tony.
By this point he was tired so it was a little difficult, but we did
manage to get some done. The rest of the day Tony was very tired but
adamant that he was going to stay awake. We watched a few shows
Fraggle Rocks, Elmo Happy Holidays and Wiggles. Then Tony was off to
sleep!

Mands=15
Today was a really good day for Tony. When I first arrived he was
busy building with his blocks. He would build one house and then it
would fall over and he would build another house in a different style.
This was pretty cool because it shows that he knows what parts a
house needs and that a house does not have to have one certain style.
Another thing I noticed was that whenever the houses would fall down
Tony did not get upset. Usually, when something is not in the exact
order or falls over Tony gets upset and I am frantically trying to put
it back together. This was not the case today, he was calm and then
decided to start building again.

Today Jennifer was here for training. While Tony was busy watching
Fraggle Rocks, his new favorite movie (which seems to have replaced
Nightmare) , I was explaining to Jennifer what we do and showing her
around Tony’s room. After the movie, we painted for a little while
and then decided to go on a walk. While on the walk, I showed
Jennifer where Tony likes to go and the places we try our best to
avoid. Once back inside, Jennifer and I did some ABA with Tony and
got him to tell us what letters he was eating out of his french fries
(Tony has alphabet french fries.)

Overall, Today was one of the best days with Tony in the last week. I
was really impressed at how he is not getting upset when things fall
out of place or he gets something on his hands. Latley, he has also
been having seperation issues with his Mom, but none of that was
evident today. There was only one instance when he got a little
worked up because we couldn’t find his markers, but he was easily
redirected. Hopefully, there will be more days like this.