He woke up a couple of times between 5 or 5:30. He was stuffy, and lay back down on me and would sleep for a little longer before sitting up again. After a couple times adjusting on me he crawled off the bed and down to Carly and fell back asleep until Carly woke him up before 6:50. He had oatmeal and watched part of a Shaun the Sheep, then we got going.
We drove to school. We walked in together and Carly headed to her classroom. It was about 7:30, so we went to the library. Looked at the art in the entryway again, then at the free books. August remembered he wanted to get another book that he could write in and take apart. We went in the library and over to the left, where he found an electronics set like his (different set from the same company). We played with that for a few minutes. He wandered out of the library and enjoyed the wind coming in through the automatic doors when someone walked in or out.
He wandered back into the library and to the kids room. There, he found a lot more toys to play with, including the big box of Lego Technix. He found a claw machine that someone else had made, and quietly and happily added to it for 10 minutes or so. On his own, he then took it over to the shelves, where he knows other kids sometimes put their creations to try and save them, and was ready to leave.
We walked to his classroom and looked at the schedule and talked a little about the day, kind of like we used to. We’ve all realized that transitions are his hardest moments, and he complained last night about the teachers making him do things. Maybe understanding the schedule better will help him feel more in control.
I also reminded him of the pillow and had him squeeze it for a minute. We then put it in his box and he calmly walked over and sat next to Marion for the meeting. Didn’t see another teacher yet. I left, but came back in a second later to leave his raincoat in his cubby. I heard Marion telling someone it wasn’t polite to make up words to the song “we’re all trying to sing together”. She wasn’t talking to August, thankfully, but then I heard him say “Well, not me.” Indeed, as they started singing it again he sat there, not doing the hand movements. Couldn’t tell if he was singing along or not.
I walked home. Got lucky in that I didn’t get poured on. It had really poured for a minute before we drove to school. Finished all the work I can do on the website until they give me more to do.
In the afternoon I rode my bike up into town to get cash at the ATM. I stopped at VIPizza to get one of those calzone things with egg in it and took it with me to the school. I went by the preschool and saw August playing outside, then went to the auditorium and ate. I had a few minutes and sat in the library. I got the info on the house to rent in Even Yehuda and forwarded it to Ada.
I went down to pick him up. Just Marion again, although Minnie was taking the kids to the bus. Marion was looking at August’s sheet. All green stickers, but she said it had been a rough day; all of the difficult moments had occurred with other teachers. The only solid example was running into the classroom and hiding under the table. August came and said “A lot of little problems…no crying.” Later, he would tell me and Carly that he had run away from Ms. Michele when they were learning about the welcoming project. They were just looking at examples of things they could do, and he ran away because he was bored. He went under the table to ovoid getting in trouble. So, difficult to classify the day. No mentions of hitting or spitting, and it sounds like the issue of boredom might be coming through. Marion said that there was a problem every time they tried to get him to move to something new. And she said the whole morning went just fine up until 11:30 or so.
I was helping Marion clean up the big mess that was the colors area. August didn’t want to help, but it sounded like he was a reason for it. When Marion found all of the missing stuff in a big garbage bag in the atelier it looked like it was an adult that had scooped it all up. Kind of odd. Think they were short handed today. Anyway, that ended when August threw a big plastic tray to the other side of the table and it broke in two. Will try to take superglue tomorrow to fix it.
We went up to the entrance of the library and I held him until Carly arrived and we headed home.
He and Carly went upstairs to wrestle while we waited for Deborah, the speech therapist, to get here. He was really excited about her getting here at 3:45 and ran down the stairs so fast that I was afraid he was going to slip.
They chose to sit on the couch. Carly and I were at the other end of the room. Deborah started with a 60 piece puzzle and worked on it with him. He completed that, and was very proud of getting it done. They also played the board game where you ask questions to figure out which person the other player has chosen. And they did a story sequencing game. And she asked him a lot of questions.
We learned that she had talked to him in the morning. He drew an angry picture of Ms. Minnie this morning and crumpled it up and threw it in the garbage. Now she asked him to draw a happy picture, and he drew Deborah smiling. She asked him to add things, and he added freckles and gum and other things.
When they were done we let August watch things on his iPad and we talked to her. Not sure we learned much new. She said his language is fine, but could use some work on certain sounds—he has a sort of lazy tongue and doesn’t raise it much in his mouth (like for the ‘l’ sound). Although he does do ‘t’. (Also, she said he couldn’t do the ‘l’ sound when she asked him to, but on Friday I practiced with him and he was doing it pretty well.) She took his difficulty with the puzzle and the sequencing game as signs of organizational issues. When I suggested his difficulty with the sequencing game might have more to do with the story dice, as he would just start telling a story based on the order of the cards, which is exactly what we do with the story dice, she dismissed the idea.
And really the same with puzzles: he’s never been interested in them, so he isn’t fast with them. So her conclusion that these are signs of an organizational issue don’t really convince me, as he is fine organizing other things (tools, blocks, etc.). But her conclusions about school seemed to make more sense (about being overwhelmed by sensory input, not knowing what is expected socially, etc.). She said, for example, that he’ll go into a room and sit on a table instead of a chair. She also said she was happy that she came to the house; he is a very different person at home than he is at school. And she was impressed that he sat with her for an hour and a half and didn’t lose interest or get frustrated when she asked hard questions. In conclusion, she said she could do some ST with him, but said the priority would be with the OT, Shari.
She stayed until around 6, then August wrestled with Carly. They then came down and played with the circuits set. I was submitting our recent insurance claims. She took him up and gave him a bath. He came down, hungry, and I made him oatmeal. We then read Scrubba Dub, Carlos in Skybrary, then read part of Hilo 3. ‘Necromancer’ was a word of the day.
I took him up to bed. He reminded me that yesterday the visualization was of a caterpillar being caught by August. Today we did a millipede visualization. I started singing to him, “Take Me to Church”, and I think it was the first time he’s asked what ‘church’ is. So we talked about that and religion. He volunteered that he didn’t believe in God, but then said he (August) was the one that made the universe. I said something about how that made him God, without thinking, and he picked up on it, saying, “Yeah, I’m God!”
That got him talking about the size of the universe, and I tried explaining how the universe could be finite but not have an edge. Last time he said it was confusing. Today he seemed to be understanding it, and following along as I explained it would curve in a 4th dimension, like how we perceive the surface of the earth as flat, even though it curves through a third dimension.
He was quiet, and seemed close to falling asleep when, like usual, he had one last comment: “I really think that tomorrow I’ll get the reward.” He then fell asleep, sometime around 9, but I fell asleep for awhile as well.
Legos in the library:
Simile 1:
I have a cute…:
Simile 2:
With the ST 1:
With the ST 2:
Circuits kit project with music:
