Day Sixteen - LAZY DAY

Frog woke late this morning. I don't think either of us slept well last night, but I didn't really hear much from his room. He grabbed his Vantage when he woke and I found him with the device in his lap, pushing letter after letter with fingers, hands, elbows, even his tongue. The result was a long line of gibberish - but at least he is playing with the thing on a regular basis now. I hope it's usefulness as a communication device is not far behind.



Frog helped himself to pumpkin muffins for breakfast - four of them to be exact - although most of the muffins ended up as crumbs on the floor. Added to the dishes left in the sink from yesterday's muffin making and dinner, we had a mess to clean up. I spent the morning in the kitchen. Frog drifted in and out to play in the bubbles in the sink. We turned Zac, the robotic rumba vacuum, loose on the crumbs.




One of Frog's new "chores" is to turn the vacuum on when I request him to do so. First I ask him to turn on the vacuum, then I sing the "turn on the vacuum song." Today was the first day I tried this. Frog loves to turn on the vacuum on his own - I want him to work on following my request. He needed hand over hand today, but I think he will get this one. By 10am the house was clean, but the Frog was not. He headed for a bath and I grabbed our stories.

Since he did not like Apples and Pumpkins yesterday, I gave him the choice between It's Fall (one we've read before) and Hello, Harvest Moon (a new book). He choose Hello, Harvest Moon.



He did a good job listening and even took a moment or two to glance at a picture here and there. When we were done, I read It's Fall (for good measure). He didn't pay as close attention, but he didn't resist the story either. Both stories reinforced the various fall themes we've been using - harvest, leaves changing color, cooler weather, geese flying south, pumpkins, and Halloween. Both have beautiful art work that I hope Frog will take some time to appreciate on his own when he is ready. I plan to ask questions following the stories next week and use them as a basis for our letter and craft work.

When Frog was dried and dressed, we turned on Little Bill on TV. He is not a big fan of TV, but likes to watch occasionally when nobody else is in the room. I asked him if he could take care of himself and stop himself from making a mess while I took a shower. He grinned. I told him I knew he could do it and reiterated what I expected.

As I got dressed after my shower, I could hear a lot of hooting and hollering from downstairs. I said "It sounds like you are having a lot of fun down there. Will mommy be happy when she sees what you are doing?" Frog clapped twice (yes) - so I headed downstairs. 15 minutes had passed since I left him in the living room. He was still in the living room and there were no new messes anywhere in the house!!!!!

Friday is usually our play date day. He met with our group on Wednesday with his Grandma. Today we were a little too late by the time we were ready. We decided to fix some lunch and head out to a park on our own. Frog had a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana and a bag of Doritos.

I choose a park near the airport where we could watch the planes fly low over the top of us as they took-off and landed. Frog was very good at visually locating and tracking the aircraft when I asked "where's the airplane?" We ran free on one of the baseball fields and Frog practiced stopping or slowing down when I directed him to "Wait for Mommy."

We visited the pond and watched the ducks.



We checked out the log cabins.



And we played on the playground. Frog had the place to himself and had a great time - especially trying to climb up the big twisty slide.









After an hour at the park we headed back to the car for a drink of water, and headed home to meet Diva when she arrived from school. Frog played in his front yard for a little while more, then headed for his room and fell asleep. A nap for Frog is not unusual these days. Especially on Fridays, when we have an evening NAET appointment - he sometimes anticipates the treatment and reacts with dis-integrated behavior or fatigue. I promise to post a full account of NAET on the 4-Frog blog when I have a chance to sit down and do it justice - for now I'll direct you to the NAET website and just say we have seen dramatic reactions and great improvements in Frog since we started the treatments in January 2008.