Today was a rough day during some parts with Tony. He woke up bright and early at 6:30am as reported by Marlaina. Tony had already started eating when I arrived to do my daily feeding routine with him. I was glad to hear that he had tacted all of his food before eating though! We didn’t start much of anything because of the early arrival of Jill with speech. Tony was delighted to see her of course. Parker and I think that we’ll be able to teach Tony “who” very quickly because Jill is so highly reinforcing he will always try to say “who” in order to see her!

After speech Tony manded for “car ride” and Marlaina suggested we take him for a run in the park. A short drive later Parker, Tony and I arrived in Ion. We were pleasantly surprised to see another young boy (also named Anthony) playing with his sitter near the slide. Tony was very excited to have a playmate and so was the other Anthony. They took to each other well and engaged in play with a side bar on the playscape and some mulch off the ground. One would throw it on the bar while the other would subsequently knock it off and laugh. They played so well together, smiling and giggling the whole time. Tony had a few rounds of sliding and climbing on the playground after that. Although today he seemed frightened of going down the slide by himself. He liked going down in my lap though. We worked on “down”, “up” “over” and “under” while we were here.

About 25 minutes later, a large class of big kids came in. Tony was so excited we had to leave because they were playing a big-kids game of baseball (he likes chasing balls). We went to Chick-fil-A for some fries after the park and then we headed home. As soon as we got home Tony became cranky. It was clear that his early rise for the day was making him quite tired. Anton took him to bed for a nap. Meanwhile, Parker, Marlaina and I killed time painting the bus (it’s really coming along!). Only 30 minutes or so later Tony woke up screaming. Marlaina went upstairs to get him and he came down very upset. He was shaking and his body was stiff. Marlaina calmed him down as she held him. He cried for almost 10 minutes straight until she decided we might need a car ride to soothe him. He calmed right down after a few minutes in the car. There’s a clear reinforcer for you!

When we returned, Parker and I took him into his playroom. We let Tony take the lead on all the activities because he still seemed upset. We think now after noticing his behavior and smelling a very strange diaper that the problem might be related to a slight overdose in vitamins. This might have been causing him some gastro instestinal upset. Poor Tony!

To sum things up we had an easy day for Tony. I’m thinking tomorrow will be better if we don’t have any more tummy trouble!