So, today was R’s birthday party.
I always tend to be concerned about how the Monster’s going to handle having so many people, familiar and unfamiliar, in his familiar terrain. He’s not that bad when it comes to the sensory overload of the folks being here, but… there’s always the aspect of not quite being in an interacting mood. Continue reading
Yes, we got dumped on last night.
Thursdays are one of the busier days for me with the Monster, since I pick him up from school to take him to gymnastics. (Again, I’m very grateful that my employer is flexible enough to understand that I need to do this, and to make up the time later.) Though, yesterday was filled with the concern about the weather turning. Continue reading
As I mentioned a few posts ago, the Monster’s not much for a diversified diet when given his way about things.
Certainly, there’s been a little bit of an evolution at times – first the narrowing when he was younger, from “anything” to “almost nothing”, and now the faintest shimmers of hope in getting him to eat other things. Continue reading
The Monster loves cake.
Okay, so most five year olds love cake too. And the Monster has, correctly, correlated “cake” with “birthday” to realize that in general, going to a birthday party means getting cake. So the Monster likes birthdays.
He hasn’t quite… grasped the rest of the birthday concept yet. Continue reading
I’ve made plenty of references to it before, but the Monster is a picky eater.
We’ve gotten accustomed to the fact that his choice of cuisine’s been narrowed significantly over the years. When he was a baby, he ate just about anything put in front of him… but today, our dining out is limited to places where they serve things he’ll eat. Continue reading
With the rare exception, we’re getting through most days these days without a single accident.
It’s nice progress – the Monster is slowly but surely getting a grip on telling us when he needs to go to the bathroom, and seems to largely be holding it until appropriate opportunities when we’re out and about and he’s in his cloth underwear. I can’t remember – barring mornings where I’ve not brought a pair of briefs downstairs – the last time we felt a need to put him in a pull-up outside of bedtime. Continue reading
So we’re about half-way through the holiday break, and we’ve had really few enough disruptions to the status quo.
The Monster’s gotten into the routine – skewed as it is from his regular routine – of going to the JCC each day for his mini-camp. We don’t seem to be having too many real issues, after having made some adjustments to keep his sleep schedule somewhat aligned to the new day. Continue reading
As the year is drawing towards its close, and we’re trying to assess where the Monster is with things – especially in light of the possibility that he might be integrated next year (with help) into a ‘normal’ classroom… we’re left with trying to evaluate what more we can do to encourage his independence.
Most of the time, he is fairly independent. He can use a regular cup (though with us, he prefers not to), and he’s shown that he can use a fork and spoon just fine at the table most of the time. I might not be prepared to let him have milk in his cereal, were he to show willingness to do it, or to give him soup, but he’s mostly handling things himself on that regard. Continue reading
I know that, like a lot of other parents in our boat, we’re dealing with what to do with the Monster while the schools are closed for a week and a half.
When I was a child, I used to look forward to holiday break – it was the first of a whole span of week-long interruptions in the school schedule that, at least from that point forward, I could expect every six-or-so weeks. Now… it’s more dread about what to do with the kids while they’re both at home. Continue reading
Yesterday afternoon, since it was a nice day, we took the kids to the playground around the corner.
Going to the playground means watching the Monster and R while they’re around ‘typical’ kids. And that brings up all kinds of other issues, most principal among them being the fact that there’s the obvious grounds for comparison of the Monster with other children. Continue reading