Morgan has been on quite a roll the last few days. He was in rare form for his therapist appointment with Laurie Thursday morning. She's usually the one he won't do anything for, but performed very nicely and she said it was his best appointment ever. Then Jill (the other therapist) came later in the day to meet with me and Josh and watch us fight over answers to a very long questionnaire. Morgan assumed she was there for him and couldn't understand why he wasn't getting the attention. He kept marching through the room and looking at her. She finally pulled a toy out of her bag and he came running, anxious to please.
Then we've been working on some basics with Morgan - where's your eyes, where's your hair, etc., which he has picked up quickly. We've also been reading books and finding different things in books - where's the baby, where's the daddy, etc., which he also loves and does well at. I'm trying to get him to point to real people, but no luck there yet. We did play hide the cookie where I hid it under one of three bowls and he had to find it. Given his sweet tooth, not surprising that he figured that one out pretty quick - I even moved the bowls around and he still got it.
His therapists say we have to expose him to new textures and gave us a "texture" grocery list. So far he's liked the soda and milkshake, but not the raisins. He was also willing to touch the floam (like shaving cream but safer for kids), but didn't want to hold it. He did tolerate it on his shoulders and back. Tomorrow we'll try eating ice chips.
Tonight was the most impressive I thought. I drew pictures on the magna doodle and he had to guess what they were. This was especially impressive given my drawing abilities. even Timothy couldn't get the picture of the swing - but Morgan did! "wing!!" he yelled. He also got cat and car. At one point I was trying to think of the next thing to draw and he pushed my hand to the tablet and said 'GO!'. To keep Timothy into the game, I was taking turns drawing pictures for Morgan and words for Timothy. He read dog, sock, and food without much hesitation. He couldn't get smile, but that was a tough one.Then we read an elmo book where Morgan was more than happy to point out all the elmos and say elmo for each one. That's sort of a gimme.
I did manage to fit in some reading on autism spectrum disorder, which is what Jill and Lauri think Morgan may have. Tough call. I'm not convinced, but did read that sensory integration is a common approach, so at least I know why they want me to feed him pickles and rice cakes. He does have several of the symptoms, as does Timothy. Anyway, Jill and Lauri stress that they aren't able to diagnose and that IS what the doctor is for. Of course, we couldn't get an appointment until September with the doctor they recommended, so they're going to get some more names. Funny thing is that most of the symptoms relate to those things I find most amazing, like reciting back entire commercials (one of Timothy's favorite pasttimes) and spinning objects (still a staple for Morgan). The theory for Morgan, though, is that learning is not possible without normal sensory processing, and so the sensory stuff has to be dealt with before he can move on. I dunno. But whatever, he seems to really enjoy the extra attention he gets from Jill and Laurie, and has made what I consider to be incredible progress over the last few months. Certainly his tolerance of new and crowded places has grown exponentially, which was a biggie before. He didn't pitch a fit on christmas or at Mandy's on cookie day, so that was a huge improvement from the "Ruby's birthday party fiasco of 2002".
Timothy and I played monopoly junior today - twice. Fun game actually, and he learned that if he was out of $3 bills, he could use a $2 and a $1. (Of course, it didn't help him understand that there aren't $3 bills, or $2 or $4 bills, but that's beside the point I guess). He lost the first time and won the second. We also played charades for kids, which was fun also. For kids that can't read, there's a different set of cards with pictures. One was a picture of a little boy crying. It was the only one Timothy wouldn't do. He just wouldn't do it. He conceded his turn and didn't get to move the game piece along. Weird. We didn't abide by the no talking rules. For example, Timothy was racing around the room making car sounds. Josh guessed a car, so Timothy said "nope, I'm yellow". That made Josh realize those weren't car sounds, they were bus sounds.
Josh's friend Amir that had a son a month ago called today to say that he understands why I used to get mad at him for asking if we were getting divorced and why Josh wanted to stay home with the kids and a variety of other things. It was cute. he also now understands why you never leave home without the pacifier! hee hee.
Well, I guess that's enough babbling from me. Jill will be back on Monday to work with Morgan and I have a few questions for her. Also plan to ask her to give us actual activities we should be doing with him, and for how long.
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