Sleep happened for Owen once he got through the initial up and down last night. We both slept a few extra minutes and then it was coffee time. It’s always a coffee dance it seems in the morning. I love that he wants to spend the morning with me before he goes to school though. It’s one of my favorite parts of our day. He was very cuddly this morning or he wanted to steal my covers. I couldn’t decide which. We didn’t have much time before we needed to get out to wait for the bus. This meant that he wasn’t going to have much more time with his tablet. Trying to convince him sometimes to get dressed is difficult. He like all of us wants to do what he wants to do and getting dressed is not always one of the things he wants to do. I am continuing to try to promote his independence. It’s so important for him to be able to get dressed on his own. I had him go to his dresser and he needed to get his pants out for the day. He knows where the jeans are in his dresser, but he struggles with the idea of trying to figure out which drawer he needs to be in. also the drawers themselves are a challenge because he has to open it and pull out the clothes that he needs, then figure out where to put his clothes and close the drawer. That in itself is many steps. He still has not mastered, putting his pants in the correct direction. When he goes to put them on instead of grabbing them across where he would hold them open and just put his leg into each hole he takes them and grabs them where the zipper would go and the back so even though I’m handing them to him and trying to get him to put his hand on the sides, he then immediately changes to where it’s sideways. When he does this, I have to explain how he is wrong without sounding like it’s a problem.. However, he grabs them, but he needs to focus on what leg goes in which hole. His frustration comes when he’s trying to put his pants on and he has them backwards and I tell him that he needs to take them off and try again. We go through the steps but it’s still hard for him to comprehend once he gets his pants on or working towards being able to zip and button his clothes. Zipping is a lot easier for him than buttoning or snapping his clothes shut. I’m giving him ways to be able to adjust what works for him with buttoning or zipping up but it’s still hard for him. I also don’t want him to be frustrated when he’s putting his clothes on because that leads to more meltdowns and him not wanting to put his clothes on. We finished getting dressed and we were out the door. Today he was thrilled to be talking to Siri about all the different languages. I love how enthusiastic he gets about asking for every word and then hearing it in all the languages. His favorite, I think, is “buffalo buffalo buffalo in Arabic.” When his bus turn the corner, he was so happy. Over and over again he wanted to make sure that his next few days were going to be fine. It’s always a struggle when his routine is greatly changed and so thankfully he went to school today, tomorrow he’s going to go visit some friends and then Sunday will go to church. I reiterated to him this over and over again. I want him to feel confident in what is happening. I want to make sure that he understands that even though one day his routine isn’t what he expects it to be that he can still have routine on other days. When he came home from school, he didn’t want to go anywhere, but he wanted to stay home. He has been downloading and then deleting and then downloading and deleting again all of the different apps. I’m not sure why he has decided to do this. He got upset when he could not reload YouTube because he was downloading all of the other apps that I took off of his tablet to make room for new apps. I was able to help him get it back on and then he proceeded to delete it again. He also downloaded one of the apps he has in Spanish. He had a pretty good dinner of shrimp and then he asked for more shrimp. He again wanted to make sure that his schedule for tomorrow was going to be exactly what he thought it would be. He asked me numerous times if he was going to get to watch Mickey Mouse with our friends. I told him that it would be up to them what they did tomorrow. I explained to him that he needs to tell them what he wants to do and ask them if they want to do it. I’m trying to build those conversation skills with him. It’s hard to go back and forth with a conversation when you know what you want to say but you don’t necessarily know how to say it. I gave him a little extra time tonight on his tablet so that he can make up time for the morning since we slept in late. This Curious George thing has been amazing. He still is going to sleep without me in the room and tonight he fell asleep quickly. It’s amazing, truly amazing. I’m hoping that tonight is just another night in the string of great nights. Tonight’s prayer, “Dear God, Happy Thanksgiving, Amen.” I’m thankful for his laughter and his smile because they always make my day. Your smile is part of your story. Always remember that your story is the song worth singing. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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