Monday, September 8, 2008

Day Five - GOT TO MOVE

Mondays are Speech Therapy days with our private SLP. Frog was up, active and ready to go today. He was a very happy camper at speech, but really reved up. He and his Therapist worked on body imitation, trying to form their bodies into the poses depicted on simple stick figure drawings. Frog had trouble staying on task and exhibited some delayed processing (forming the previous pose instead of the one they were trying for). Therapist decided to copy Frog instead of having Frog copy her. This held Frog's interest for a longer period of time. I'm going to add follow the leader to our games at home. At the therapy table, Frog did some vocal imitation with physical prompts. He choose to work on writing letters, but had a hard time staying on task and needed to flail his arms about, seek deep pressure from the Therapist and play with her hair. They moved onto a book about ducks. Frog did not stay actively engaged with the story, but he did not resist the story either.

After Speech Therapy we headed for the grocery store. I asked Frog to push the cart, but he indicated that he would prefer to ride. He did a great job during the 30 minutes we were shopping. He got a cookie at the bakery and choose some trail mix for the car. He tried to open the Frenches French Fried Onions, and complained when I said "no" and took them away, but there was no melt-down. We had to wait in line at the checkout stand. This is always the hardest part for Frog. He did great! No fussing, no complaining, no loud outbursts.

We left the store and took a drive to a local beach, listening to some classical music on the way. We spent an hour on the beach where Frog was free to run, climb, and explore.





It is always nice for both of us when we are in an environment where Frog can have some freedom to explore without mom hovering. And we had a nice lesson in natural consequences - walk in the water, wear wet shoes!

We went home to clean-up, put away the groceries, and get some lunch. After lunch we tried a little art. Frog was actually curious about what I was doing with all those bowls out on the patio. He came and explored the paint and water with me for a few minutes.




Our face project today was putting chocolate chip eyes on pumpkin cookies. I took this opportunity to work on Frog's pointing finger. I placed an eye and helped him make a pointer finger to push it into the cookie dough. I had him do 4 cookies (8 eyes). He did the last eye by himself.



We spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool - taking advantage of the sunny weather. He is playing the duck, duck, goose game with three people now. He is very tired this evening.

3 comments:

Rachel said...

Isn't it such a relief to get through a grocery store without a meltdown? I cringe inwardly when we approach a checkout line...

Great progress and patience for your little guy!

Love the beach pictures.

Thanks for reminding me not to hover so much :)

Frogs' mom said...

Hi Rachel,

LOL, when Frog was and infant he could not tolerate the ride in the car or the grocery store. I've never had so much help before - store employees would fall all overthemselves to get me what I needed and get me and my screaming baby out of there! These days is just curious or annoyed looks :0)

Anonymous said...

So glad to hear that your shopping trips are better! Daniel is 5 and I still have him sit in the cart- I can't imagine being able to shop otherwise. I love the activities you're doing with Frog and how you are incorporating therapy into everything. Way to go, Mom!