Friday, September 5, 2008

Day Four - FOLLOW ME

Still no waving goodbye to Diva. We came home and straighted up the kitchen. We did some of our HANDLE exercises. Frog spent a little time outside in his fenced in front yard, then came in for some swinging with mom. We did a little potty training.

Our school day started with a trip to the garden to harvest the long awaited squash.



Frog's Dad and Diva did the planting this year. Because of Frog's new found love of uprooting every plant he sees, he's only been allowed to look at the garden from outside of the fence - until today. He was not as excited as I'd hoped, but he did look under the leaves at the vegetables with me.



And he stayed in the garden - stopping and coming back when I called him, while I harvested our tiny crop. Frog liked washing the lettuce and eating it better than picking it.




We explored the front and side yards for awhile and talked about why we don't run into the road as we watched large dump trucks come racing down the hill. I offered to help him ride his bike, but he was not interested. So we headed back inside for some Mr. Potato Head fun.

Today's game was "Let's make a potato head like Frog and one like Mom." Since I knew he wasn't going to build a potato head himself, I asked him questions about his face and when he responded (usually with a clap) I followed his answer and put that piece on his potato head. I also had to keep chasing him around with the activity as he insisted on moving from room to room. The strangest answer I got from him was that he hears with his nose. He told me this once before during a rapid prompting session. I'm still trying to find out if he is really not answering/getting the answer wrong, playing a joke on me, or he has some synesthete tendencies. When we finished his potato head, it asked him, in a very funny voice, if it could have a hat. That was Frog's favorite part of the activity. He chose a hat from two I offered and gave it to me to put on his potato head.



Later in the day he came back to the potato heads and slowly took them apart, piece by piece. I got the box out and we had a lesson in cleaning up.

We got two stories in. First we read Silly Little Goose. Frog did a good job listening to the story - we only had to move once (he wanted to sit in my chair). After the story I asked Frog to look at Goose and see if Goose had a face. He was not happy about this and fussed and fumed all the way through. Later, while he was playing in the bathtub, we went back to the Duchess Autumn poem. He listened to the whole poem this time and clapped at the end.

We finished our day with some music. I got all of the instruments out and played a few tunes on the piano, recorder, xylophone, percussion instruments and my violin. Frog listened from his swing in the other room, vocalizing along. When he came to join me I followed him around and used my violin to mimic his movements. He likes this a lot. He stopped me now and then to strum and pluck the strings on my violin. I ended up composing a rift that he especially liked. Maybe this will evolve into a whole new Frog inspired composition.

We are now eagerly awaiting Diva's return so we can go swimming before our NAET treatments.

2 comments:

Rachel said...

I love that he is "helping" you compose! I read with interest and admiration your recounting of the many ways you interact with Frog.

I am deaf and my mother spent years finding ways to communicate with me and connect.

Now that I am a parent myself, I realize how difficult and how easy this is. Difficult because it is the biggest job you will ever have, and easy because the innate bond and love makes it all worthwhile.

Thank you for sharing your beautiful boy with us. I, too am excited about GEZ and DUCKA and FISH! Way to go!

Anonymous said...

It's so nice that you get to spend so much one on one time with Frog. It's GOT to pay off!! :)