Go Away!

Another day at home for me and the boys. This afternoon I took Quinn upstairs to change a dirty diaper and Cooper decided to come up too. Cooper ran to his room and started playing, his room is one of his favorite places. That is where his blankies live after all :) Quinn also happens to love Cooper's room, probably because he doesn't get to go in it too often. So after I changed Quinn's diaper he took off down the hallway to check out Cooper's room. Surprisingly, Cooper was happy to have him there. Quinn actually brought one of his books with him, but dropped it when he found something more interesting to play with in Cooper's room. Cooper picked it up and ran back to Quinn's room to put it back, so cute!!! So both my boys were playing happily in Cooper's room and I figured I would join them. Nope! Cooper would not let me in the room! Every time I tried to go in there he would push me back out the door and laugh. I guess he wanted to be alone with his brother :) It was very cute and Cooper got lots of practice saying important terms like "no" and "go away".

Quinn's nose was a bit better today. He certainly had lots of energy to get into lots of trouble today. He even managed to escape from the playroom while Cooper's ABA therapist was here. I hope he is all better by this weekend so we can all be healthy while we are snowed in together.

Snot

Quinn has a raging sinus infection. When I went into his room this morning to get him I couldn't even see his mouth because there was so much dried up snot! It was horrible, so I had no choice but to go get the warm washcloth and desperately try to get that crap off of his poor face. He hates that! He fought me hard and unfortunately a bit of skin came off with the snot :( I had to go back and rinse the washcloth before I could finish and when I came back into his room he had completely covered himself with his blanket, I think he was trying to hide from me!!! Oy! Anyway I went to the drugstore today to get him some antibiotics and while I was waiting I saw these wipes made specially for babies called "Boogie Wipes", they claim to help dissolve "boogies" so I bought them.....we will see.

Cooper had a slightly better day today and really hung in there with his ABA therapist. I was considering sending him to school tomorrow, but I highly doubt there will actually be school tomorrow. Today was Cooper's IEP, sigh. I sincerely hope then when my mother in law finally retires and no longer works for the school district she can start coming with me and being on my side with these things. Even when it is easy it is still pretty darn stressful!!!

So apparently Cooper becomes a completely different child when he goes to school. It was pretty unanimous that Cooper has a really hard time focusing. Excuse me??? Cooper is the most focused three year old in the world most of the time! Also, he is not showing off his new "Hi/Bye" skills at school at all...sigh. And when I tried to tell all the people in the room all the things he can do at home they just kind of looked at me like "Poor Mrs. Banta, she can't accept that her child is severely delayed." Uggg! But they did add the goal of Cooper answering "Yes/No" questions and typical peers will be brought into his classroom twice a week for 15 minutes at a time. This is fine since they said he threw a fit when they tried to take him over to the typical classroom. I did not appreciate the typical classrooms teacher's obvious distaste for this arrangement but that is not my problem. Cooper's teacher promised that while the typical kids are there one of the aides will be with Cooper to help encourage social interaction so I was happy with that too. I wish Cooper could just loosen up and be himself at school, but maybe that will get a little better with time. I hope!!!

This Sucks...

Well, first of all this does suck. Why does it always snow on a weekend??? And why is it snowing so darn much, don't they know this is Maryland?? Secondly, Quinn is sick...again!!! He woke up all snotty and has been sleeping on and off and just being low energy all day long. He didn't get into any trouble at all today, he is obviously not feeling well. The only excitement/energy he showed all day was when the counting DVD starting counting shoes, I guess he thought they looked yummy, LOL! Oh well, he doesn't seem to have a fever and while his appetite isn't huge he is eating a decent amount.

Speaking of watching TV, Cooper apparently thinks the new pickle commercial where the pickle snaps so loud it scares the cat is hilarious! I love it when he laughs appropriately, it is so normal :) On that note, I forced Matt to watch a chick flick with me tonight but I only did it because it was about Autism. Yup, I found another autistic love story. It is new on DVD and called "Adam", it was a good movie. The guy actually had Aspergers but close enough.

Today the boys didn't have school, that meant Quinn had the day off but Cooper didn't! First of all Loyola speech started again today. I told Cooper in front of Quinn that we were going to Loyola and apparently that really upset Quinn. I feel bad, I know Quinn has always loved going to Loyola but he just doesn't have time now that he is in school all day. Quinn stayed behind with Grandma Berta, which Cooper didn't like at all, he wanted her to come with us. Oh well, as soon as we got to Loyola he was all smiles! When his new therapist came out to get him he grabbed her hand and dragged her back to the room to get started. He did lots of great talking and the supervisor was really shocked by how much he has progressed in just the last month! Yay!!! I was really excited because the therapist handed him a babydoll and told him to give it a hug, Cooper actually hugged the doll tight and said "hug"! That is officially pretend play!! Plus maybe it means he will be ready for a baby sister soon??? After that we came home and he had ABA therapy. His new therapist is really great with him and he doing fabulous :)

Quinn has been doing okay. I think he has been having some stomach issues but otherwise he has been really happy and pretty well behaved. He was really good today about staying out of the way while Cooper's therapist was here. He had a fantastic time at horseback riding the other day. He was sooo excited to be back on the horse! What a sweet boy :)

Grandpa Quinn

One of the things we have been working on with Cooper is identifying family members. We have picture flashcards of all the immediate family members that he has memorized. We are super lucky that there are soooo many Grandma and Grandpas in our lives, but so Cooper wouldn't get confused only two people originally got those titles, everyone else he learned their first names. Well since he has mastered that we are working on teaching him to say Grandma Jan, Grandma Donna, Grandpa Don etc. He is doing pretty well with it, but he got a little confused and started calling Quinn, Grandpa Quinn! It was pretty funny and very cute :)

Fingers Crossed!

We have gone two nights without vomit, but are still keeping our fingers crossed!!!

In other news, Cooper said "I love you" the other day! Unfortunately he was talking to his blanky!!! :( I took him upstairs to change his diaper and he ran over to his bed, grabbed his blanky, and exclaimed quite clearly "I love you!!!". Oh well, at least it is a start, maybe someday he will say it to his Mommy too.

Tonight we went to my parents house to see my Uncle Guy who is visiting from California. Cooper loved Guy because he was up for lots of rough-housing and wrestling. Quinn was also very excited to be at Grandma and Grandpop's house. The boys were both very good and we had a nice night. Before we left we were changing Quinn's diaper and Cooper was suddenly very interested in Quinn's backside. It was really funny, he was tilting his head down to get a better look and then he even lifted Quinn's leg so he could see better. What a total goofball!!! I guess he never realized Quinn was the same as him when it came to behinds, LOL!

More Vomit

So apparently Cooper is going to throw up in the middle of the night from now on :( Last night I didn't even let him watch his shows, we watched my shows!! Then I tried to put him back to sleep without his favorite blanky(it was covered in vomit) and he screamed and cried. He didn't stop until an hour later when I finally brought a still damp but clean blanky back to him. Then he instantly started making his happy sounds and running around his room playing. He continued to play until almost 4 o'clock in the morning! Really, Cooper? Really? Then he slept until 2:30 this afternoon when I finally woke him up for therapy. Oy!

For the last half of his ABA therapy today his old therapist came over to go over stuff with the new therapist. Cooper was really excited to see Megan and ran right up to her and gave her a hug. But then he got really uncomfortable and was hiding behind me, it was so funny! I guess he didn't know how to act with both of them there. It was like a guy who suddenly finds himself in the same room with his two girlfriends, LOL! Poor Cooper, but he did get over it eventually and relaxed a bit.