Mands: 11

Tony started his day off with a cup and a waffle in bed at 8:30. First he manded for his ‘cup,’ then ‘eat,’ then he made an approximation for waffle. So when I arrived he was ready to go into his room and get down to business. The TV was on and an commercial was on with a telephone number listed on the bottom of the screen. Tony walked up to the screen, touched a number and tacted it while he pointed ‘three,’ ‘five,’ ‘eight,’ and so on. He didn’t tact every one, just the ones he wanted to. Most impressive!

He was ready to learn, first we colored. While he was scribbling I too scribbled. I scribbled with each of the colors we are working on and asked “What color is this?” He did well tacting these. Then he remembered the fun he’d had yesterday painting. He apparently saw the fingerpaints up high on the shelf. He raised his hands up in the air and said ‘aben!’ I said “What do you want, do you want up?” He said ‘up,’ so I lifted him. At this point I did not know yet what it was that he wanted. We looked in the giraffe, compartment by compartment. Each thing he pointed to I pulled out and asked if it was what he wanted. He pushed them away repeatedly and seemed to be getting mildly perturbed. Finally he pointed to the shelves and we got what he wanted – the blue finger paint. I had him tact the color of the paint.

We had some success with animal and animal sound tacts by using the magnets while he was already enthralled with the magnets. We were really cock-a doodle dooooooooing well and really getting into the baaaaaa, baaaaa of the sheep – tons of fun. We definitely need a wolf, coyote, bassett hound, or werewolf because I think he probably has a real talent for howling too! Maybe we can get him copies of “Werewolves of London” and “Hey There Little Red Riding Hood,” you know, for educational purposes, of course. We also managed to work on body parts with the Potatoheads. I had to use some hand over hand, but at least he wasn’t pushing Potatohead away this time. Another interesting thing we did was make giant versions of the letters of his name with pipe cleaners. I’m letting him call them sticks, by the way. He easily tacted the letters and I’m pretty positive he knows T O N Y is Tony, his name.

I brought the dolls with us on our walk because they have been feeling left out lately. I didn’t get any motor imitation out of him other than hand over hand, except for ‘jump!’ The only thing he wanted to do with the dolls was throw them, then bury them in a leaf pile and have them pop up. We did some running, jumping, stomping, and his new favorite: shuffling! He tacted ‘leaves’ on a bush, then made an approximation for ‘flowers’ as he pulled some azaleas off a bush, crumpled them up and threw them on the ground. Not what I would do with a flower, but he is a two year old boy and I guess that’s probably what they usually do with flowers.

When we got home he started getting a little whiny. Anton said it just means he wants something and we just need to figure out what it is . . .it was food. Anton made him some chicken and waffles, I put him in his chair and found an episode of Blue’s Clues. After the show we went into his room. Since we’d had a very productive morning, I let him take it easy so he would still be receptive when Jill arrived. We did some watercolor painting and jumping on his trampoline and he was very excited when someone came to the door and it was really Jill this time!