Future Tense

While I’ve mentioned over the last few entries that the Monster’s been showing improvement in some of his verbal skills, one thing that is clearly not improving is his grasp on tense.

The Monster grasps present tense and continuing tenses quite well – he can tell you what he’s doing at any given moment and what he is in the process of doing, even to the point of ‘very near future’.  (“going to grandma and grampa’s” would be an example of this.)  Ask him where he was, or where he will be, and he gets lost. Continue reading

One of THOSE Posts

And again, everything comes back to poo.

Obviously, one of our ongoing frustrations – and not an uncommon one for parents in our situation – is getting the Monster toilet trained.  While his IEP includes this as a goal, so we’re not going it alone, this is something he needs to master at some point if we have any hope of his getting mainstreamed down the road. Continue reading

Eating Time

I remember when I was a veritable bottomless pit at some point in my teenaged years through my mid-twenties, when I used to be sucking down food day and night.  I think most teenaged boys do that at some point, frankly.

All of a sudden, well before his teenaged years, the Monster’s turned into that bottomless pit. Continue reading

A Turkey of a Day

So much for my hopes that the Monster would be cooperative in a culinary sense.   He really had no interest in the turkey even though it looked like chicken, which he does eat, and veggies were verboten.  However, at least he had a muffin, so he didn’t go to bed hungry, and ate like a demon this morning when he got up. Continue reading

Traditions

Some traditions are harder to keep than others, sometimes.

For the wife, Thanksgiving is a day to get up, eat breakfast, and watch the parade while trying to figure out what we’re going to bring to dinner.  (Well, that and go through the Black Friday circulars.) Continue reading

Therapy

Today was our first visit to a behavioral psychologist for the Monster.

So far, we’ve been really unable to find an ABA practice that is covered by our insurance (as mentioned previously – ABA is not required to be covered by law here in Maryland), and we’ve been working with Kennedy Krieger for a number of studies and for developmental pediatrician visits.  As part of the battery of these services, we finally got the Monster in to see someone on the psychological side of the house to start working on the other issues. Continue reading

Out of Sorts

So I have this wild, wacky feeling that the Monster’s still on the sick-side of things.

Granted, he’s clearly now without a fever and the like, but this was the second morning in a row that he’s been uncooperative and uncommunicative at breakfast time.  It goes beyond yesterday’s comment on not understanding what he wants – today was a meltdown that seemingly started from the moment he got out of bed. Continue reading

A Spoonful of Sugar

Well, the Monster’s fever has broken, from what we can tell, so he’s going back to school tomorrow.

I have to say that it’s been interesting, dealing with his first real illness as a child.  He’s never really been sick – perhaps a sniffle or two, but nothing like this – and it was interesting to deal with. Continue reading