Josh watched Timothy get on the bus today and noticed that when he sat down, he got up on the seat and the girl in the seat in front of him also got up on her seat and they hugged. I asked him who it was that he hugged. It was Isabel. "Sometimes the teachers don't like you to hug at school," I said. "Or Kiss!" he exclaimed. I asked him if the teacher had to tell him no kissing, but he said no, she had to tell Isabel. I couldn't get it out of him if it was Timothy she was kissing, but assume it was.
Timothy also told me that at the library the librarian made him move to a different table because he was talking to his friends. Although pleased to myself that he had friends and was socializing, I reminded him how we are supposed to act in the library. He said he got to be the line leader to go back to class and he saw Mrs. Booker's face and she winked at him. "So what did you do?" I asked. "I winked back, just like this," he said with a wink.
Timothy seems to be doing well in kinderglarten. It seems most of his friends are girls, though he does throw a boy's name in there once in a while. He brought his first library book him - Emma's Yucky Brother, which we read tonight and was cute. He had had an incident of pushing a little girl that he told me about, but now announces proudly each night that he didn't hurt anyone that day.
Morgan is also doing well. He's walking the hallways independently now, though still cries at the ramp. Since he doesn't like the hallway, Miss Dana set up his favorite blankets in the hallway this week and they sat out there for a while to get used to it. Can you believe that? I can't believe the attention he gets. Miss Dana has called several times to ask about different things he does and if we've found a specific best way to deal with them, also quite impressive. The OT (Miss Mary) sewed him a weighted vest that he wears when he is there. Miss Dana called to ask my permission first - but he always wore the loaner from Birth to 3 so proudly at home that I said it was fine. It doesn't seem to make an actual difference to me, but he likes wearing it, so whatever.
They were very pleased with him this week. On Wednesday he almost fell asleep in Dana's lap and since I'd told her the trouble he is when woken up, she quickly asked him to go do his schedule. "Okay" he said, then turned over, ignoring her. Miss Dana said that she is specifically impressed that Morgan uses "I" to refer to himself. For example, when in the hallway, she kept repeating "you're safe" as they walked on the ramp part. He then told her "I safe".
Anyway, Miss Dana called last night to say that the dept of social services had been out observing the kids and agreed to fund a new assistant teacher (a parapfrosseional, or “para”) that would be just for Morgan, so starting Monday, it will be one person's job to deal solely with him. Miss Dana will still be working with him a lot, but I have a feeling that the other kids in her class have not gotten much of her attention so far. Despite the sting that Morgan is such a handful that he needs one on one attention constantly, I feel really great that the system is providing such service. It's only been a couple weeks. I had to waive my right to 5 day notice to have a meeting where they would get my approval to have this new assistant - isn't it weird they even had to ask? Anyway, it'll get added to his IEP that he'll be receiving 1: 1 attention for the foreseeable future. Or more like 4: 1 since he's got the new lady, Miss Dana, Miss Mary, and Miss Estelle - the speech therapist.
Morgan doesn't like to hold hands, so that's what we've been practicing. I hold his hand and he leads me running through the house. Now that he's taken to it, I'm forced to run for quite some time - probably good for me. One of these days we'll switch so I'm leading, but we're not quite ready for that yet.
On the subject of not being ready, I asked Miss Dana about potty training, and I could tell through her sweet response that what she was really saying was 'yeah, someday before college, but it'll probably be close!'.
I did get Morgan to walk down the one step from the kitchen to the mudroom, while holding his hand, so that was good. He's stopped doing feet on the belly (where I lie on my back and flip the kids over my head), which he used to really like, so that's a bit odd, but not the end of the world.
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