R's school is shut down with sickness of teachers
YIKES
And its a rainy dreary day !!
The weekend is off too obviously AND he has monday off - so yikes a 5 day weekend and sine RE currently loves school - I am afraid he will be soooooo bored

Course Correction

I think last night I answered my question a bit myself- the evening - and I did this for one hours only - was REALLY different - I literally just let him take charge of the agenda
So when he showed me the sign for Swing
We went outside and I swung him hard - I did not continue this for a long time - After a few pushes - I would stop and wait for him to show me the signs for "more" "swing" - which he did for a while but when he stopped - I did not Prompt him with a question "More Swing ". One of the FT prinicples is to assume intentionality and so I assumed that when he did not show me the sign he did not want to be swung
He led me to the ball pit and we took turns putting the balls in the basket ( baby basket ball lest I give the impression that I have a basketball prodigy here LOL )
Then he took me to the wagon - I put him in it and dragged him around for a bit on the street in front of your house ( I SHould totally have asked him which direction he wanted to go in ) We also played with Mr Stick ( I tried to pretend that the twig also wanted to go for a ride in the wagon )
Then he made me stop in front of our neighbour's house - she is ga ga about him and he ignores her when she kisses him and stuff but always wants to go to her house - ( I have asked her if its okay we stand on her porch when she is not home as R likes to stand at her door and try to turn the door handle ) and she said she is totally fine with that -
ANyway I could see she was not home and normally I discourage him from trying her door and he cries but today I let him - he walked to the door - showed me all the things he wanted to do on the door - oh you want me to turn the handle , which side should I turn it ... oh its not opining ?.... what should we do next ... shall we knock..... oh you want me to ring the bell -
Finally I showed him that her car was not parked in the driveway
ANd so we left ( WITHOUT any tears BTW )
And then R surprised me yet again - he took me to the side door - which she had once taken her through LAST FALL - I could not beleive he remembered ... and so we went on
It was an enchanting hour ( but exhausting ) but I truly followed his lead and build many circles of communication and I think for the first time after 8 months of thinking I was floortime - that I actuallly did it
I am so proud - I am slow but atleast I still managed a course correction

Not really Floortiming - YIKES

How STUPID am I!!!!!
And while I would rougly consider myself to be a Floortime Mama I realized I am not truly doing Floortime

The principles that I have been following well are

Getting down on the floor and playing
Starting up with a little imaginative play
Opening and closing many circles of communication ( but not necessarily in a row and not necessarily starting with the child’s lead )

The things I have been doing badly are

Extending the circles of communication in a row and

Starting the circles from following the child's lead

I was listening to the Stanley Greenspan Podcast titled “how to follow the child’s lead and still move them up the developmental ladder” and a sentence really struck a chord with me – “if when you are doing Floortime with your child and you can predict the response that your child is going to make then you are not really doing Floortime…..if you can predict it then you are basically doing rote patterns of play not really Floortime… and the child is basically responding from a memory pattern not really creating a new interaction ”
Well I honestly can predict what R is going to do pretty much all the time – because there are these typical games we play – example
I will sing and we will do the actions to song or I will say 1….2 …..( build anticipation ) till R has the great look of expectation on his face and is already giggling and go Tickle tickle tickle tickle ( with tickling him )
Serena Wider his colleague also mentioned that Sensory activities while they are a lot of fun are not the end all of Floortime – Well that is exactly what I have been doing

I will describe yesterday evening after I got back from work – yesterday I actually was mindful of this and tried to use playing dumb as a Technique but it was a big struggle
4.15 – 4.45 – snuggle on the couch
4.45- 5.25 – play with pillows on the bed – make “baby sandwich” – laughing and tickling
5.30 – 6.30 – ABA therapist
6.30 – 7.00 – nothing – R is busy stimming post therapy
7.00 – 7.30 – feed him dinner while he sees Little Einstein’s –sing the songs in the episode and he and I will do some of the actions
7.30 – 8.45 – read book together with him on potty – 5 minutes – spend an hour in bathtub while he holds up various numbers and alphabet for me to say , sing to some Sesame street Songs
8.45 – 9.30 – rock him to sleep ( or not as in the case yesterday ) – 9.30 settle him with a Math DVD and some Animal crackers and tell DH that R is now his !!!

Two Sleepy evenings

R has again started sleeping badly - its this horrid cold he is fighting and as always when he does not sleep well at night - I have to fight all evening to keep him awake and its just such a battle !
Plus it ends up being a LOT of TV - so last night R actually did the following after he came home from Pre K
ABA - I hour in which he cried a bit becasue he wanted to fall asleep
Swing and wagon outside - 30 minutes
Bath and playing with bath toys and singing songs - 1 hour
Television - 2 maybe 3 hours - Baby Einstein Numbers DVD - still loves it, and Little Einsteins - Mr Penguin Ice Cream Adventure - big favorite every evening
YIKES - but I was really really trying to just keep him awake till bedtime ( 8.30 pm or 9.30ish ) cause ifyou let him sleep any earlier - he will be up at 2 or 3 IN THE MORNING
I really really hope he has slept last night and that we have a better evening

Reclaimed it !!!

Yes we did it
We finally reclaimed the weekend from Chores
DH chopped all veggies on Friday night - we did lanudry Friday morning - I actually came home at lunch and started it and I changed sheets and towels in the evening when DH and R went for Musical Gymnastics
I cooked in the morning when his ABA therapist was here and by 11.30 it was ALL DONE!!!
Wahooo - Saturday morning and no more chores for the whole weekend
I also did a pretty good job of playing with R one on one and opening and closing circles of communication
Today I also read this post on the Autism board and I realised that I need to do more
But I still want to do a little celbratory gig that at the very least we had a real fun weekend with lots of play and music

Reclaiming the weekend

Yesterday was a much better evening inspite of the fact that R has a bad cough and cold.
And also becasue he was tired and sleepy in the evening
This was becasue

1. He was not tired as there was no therapy in the evening
2. We did not go out anywhere or do anything like The Mall or anything like that
3. We just sang songs and played

Funnnnnn
This evening will be baaaad because we may need to go to Kroger
or something like that
I am really trying to finsih all our errands and cooking and stuff as I am trying to reclaim the weekend
The weekend has become such a ordeal of chores!!!!

Phooey on me
I suck
Yesterday I yelled at R because he would not take his cold medicine
Really yelled
And in anger !
I am so ashamed
He cried so much so much so much
He is such a sensitive child
And the net result was

1. he did not take medicine
2. he was sad and DH said every time he woke up in the night he was in tears
3. all the crying made him snottier than ever
4. I was so horribly guilty

Well atleast today evening he does not have a therapy session and I will try to make it a fun evening filled with Songs and Sensory and lovey

I took a bunh of easy to take cold medicine - those cold strips, the shower soothers and the Baby Rub

DH got him to take some Delsym so hopefully he will be caughing less

My cup of guilt runneth over

This week i have been sitting ion my fat butt and not doing a thing - R has been feeling out of sorts which is ofcourse all the more excuse for me to just sit on my butt and not do floortime or any of the other things I need to be doing ( including but not limited to exercise )
Today my aim is very very simple - do one hour of flooritme and do exercise
Also get started on Bloody Performance review at work

Well I did something really amazing yesterday - I cleared out the guest bedroom and turned it into a "Pretend Play" and :"FIne motor skills room"
With a pang - I also suddenlty realized that for some reason I like to plan for what I am going to do rather than actually do it
I keep trying to go to more seminars and read something more whereas in reality I need to be more in the present and DO all the things I want to do with R
I espeically realize it when I find myself - wanting R to leave me alone so I can do something so we can play together later
How strange and ironic that is