Mands: 12

A pretty good day for Tony today. He had a nice speech session with Jill. At the end of his time with Jill he broke out in song, “Goodbye Jill” was the tune and she hasn’t sung it to him for at least a month and a half! Good memory Tony! Our lucky little one got to enjoy two car rides and a trip to the pool, whew – big day.

I would really like to buckle down and work with Tony on the new ABA program, but he seemed to be on the edge. When I was strapping him into the car seat and I couldn’t find the specific marker he’d seen on the floorboard he began a familiar whine that is sometimes followed by much louder whining and then crying, yelling, screaming or all of the above. I found the marker and tragedy was narrowly averted. Then there was the time I was trying to clean up his room before Jill arrived so they would have room to play. Tony came over to the table where I’d just picked up a plethora of markers off the floor. He proceeded to dump the whole lot of them back onto the floor. It didn’t look like he wanted any of them to color with, so I said “Let’s clean up these markers, Tony.” I started singing the clean up song while I turned him around to face the mess he’d made. He was not thrilled. I did hand over hand to pick one up. He started the whining. I said “okay, just one – let’s just put one in the box,” and we did. I picked up the rest. Another time he began the whining a few times was when he and I were in his room playing with small legos. Every single time he had trouble attatching legos to his existing structure he started this whine. I said “use your words,” and asked “do you need help?” Sometimes I coerced him into uttering a small “help,” but sometimes his whining and sounds of frustration and distress just elevated in volume.

We ended up watching shows, as we have been doing a lot lately. Of course it is better than screaming, but not as good as ABA. I know he is intellectually ready for the new material but his emotions are going crazy. Hopefully tomorrow between Whitney and I we will be able to get some work done with Tony. Maybe outside or at the pool or park, that would be great fun!