We’re getting into holiday mode again.
Setting aside that Hanukah starts tomorrow night, there’s also Thanksgiving on Thursday (supposedly) and the long weekend that follows. And, as part of that weekend, we’re going to be seeing all the grandparents for a change.
So for us, this means starting to prep the Monster for the people he’s going to be seeing, not only so that it’s not a ‘surprise’ really to him, but so that we can try to know that he might develop some level of enjoyable expectation for the whole thing.
He’s plenty interested in going to see his grandparents – he asks frequently enough if he’s going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, though I think that’s as much for being able to go destroy the makeshift kids’ playroom there as anything else. And he does mention going to Bubbie and Zayde’s houses as well, so we know that telling him about going up to visit is going to be something he has some sense of. The work now is getting him excited about his cousins.
I remember, at least for my own part, that the best part of going on family visits was seeing my cousins. He has enough cousins who are close enough in physical age to him, if not developmental age, that he should be able to have something to do with them… and that’s what I do want for him in the long run. Aside from R, they’re probably the kids who would understand best about him as they all get older, and they’re also people he’s going to see for the rest of his life, God-willing.
This morning, we started talking about the weekend plans.
Talking about his cousin Z is easy – he sees Z every so often since that part of the family is close by, and they’ll be spending the night together on Thursday (since all of the parents are going to a football game, ergo my ‘supposedly’ above). Then on Saturday or Sunday, he’s going to get to see his other cousins when we visit with my family… and I still get the impression that they are more of a nebulous concept for him, since we see them perhaps thrice a year. Still, after a few repetitions, he’s definitely seeming like he’s interested enough in going to see them…
I think we need to get a visual story program so that we can work on his remembering who people are. Granted, I could probably use the same thing…