It’s always a day of celebration for Owen when he gets to go to therapy. And today’s celebration started at about three in the morning. He wanted to make sure I knew he had to check in at therapy today. He went through all the steps and then requested his tablet. I told him he needed to go back to bed. I explained that we still have several hours before we needed to get up for school. He went back to bed three more times. I finally gave in and let him take his tablet when it was close to five. The morning went quickly. When we were getting ready to walk outside he started yelling at me and wouldn’t come. I told him that if he didn’t stop yelling he wouldn’t have his tablet in the car on our way to therapy. He kept yelling. We got outside to wait for the bus and the running began. He kept coming back next to me asking when our neighbor was coming out to tell him bye. When she did I talked to her for a few minutes explaining how he likes running now and then he started getting agitated because she wasn’t leaving. I tried to explain she would be leaving soon but he kept getting upset. He was very anxious about our neighbor not pulling away because he wanted to race her. I told him to breathe and count to ten. He wanted to run on the sidewalk as she drove away. She pulled away and he started running. It’s his new favorite thing. He came back to me and ran in the opposite direction. He started dancing around the stop sign saying “that’s a stop sign.” When he came back to me he was singing “it’s a rollie pollie rollie pollie and I’m bigger than this.” It was the song I made up for him when he was little hoping the words and motions would help him work through his emotions and keep him from having meltdowns. Years later he will still randomly sing it when he is upset and it helps him to center himself. When I picked Owen up from school I didn’t bring his tablet. I explained that he could have it when we got home after therapy but he wasn’t getting it in the car because he yelled at me. I knew this would not go over well so I started asking lots of questions. I need him to understand how your actions matter. I told him we were going to the Easter egg hunt at our church on Saturday. He said that he was going to ride his bike to pick up the Easter eggs and deliver them to his friend. He then said he was going to hand our other friend his Easter robot BeatBo so that she could get his extra eggs. I love how he is creating stories and what he wants to happen in the future. He did amazing at therapy and he was ready to check in, more than once. The little victories like stretching, touching his toes, and being able to read the cards are the amazing blessings I cherish because I know for every one skill he has learned it has taken many steps of faith to get there. Believe in yourself and the rest will follow. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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