Quinn has a great new speech teacher at school. She just started working with him on using assistive technology to communicate. Here is the update that she sent me today. It sounds like he is doing great!


I wanted to give you an update on Quinn's speech therapy!
Last Monday I spent about 2 hours in the classroom to see where we could best start introducing the assistive tech. I felt that the most highly motivating time of day is snack! So, today, I took him to my room where it is nice and quiet and had him request the food (cheese curls) by pushing a switch with a picture symbol on it. I only gave him little pieces of cheese curl to increase the need for interactions. Overall he did great.
After about 30 minutes of practice, I had Miss Ronnie come out and see how I did it with him so she could carryover in the classroom. She was very happy to see how well he did. He was also very tickled with himself! He made lots of different sounds while he was working with me.
I set up the device for use in the classroom with the appropriate pictures. As he progresses, I will up the expectation level. I will continue to pull him out of the classroom once a week and provide support for the classroom.
I know you want him to use the multi-button and we will build to that.

A Weekend in Annapolis

Quinn and Cooper in the bathtub.

Something appears to be missing, water maybe?

Cooper enjoying the playground.

Quinn enjoying the playground.

Quinn spots someone's shoes and makes his move.

This great big playground and he wants to play with a bucket!

Cooper sliding down the lighthouse.

Quinn considering his options.

Ahhh, brothers....

Quinn getting ready to slide.

Cooper sailing the boat.

Reading a book in the food court.

This morning Cooper's OT came over. He really likes his OT but he doesn't usually cooperate much. Today he must have been in a really good mood, because he did awesome. First she tried to get him to play with his cars in a new way. She took a book and used it as a ramp for his cars to go down. He shocked us both by totally imitating her play! That is a big deal for Cooper. Also, she has been trying to get Cooper interested in coloring for a while now, he just isn't into it. But today as she was making notes he came over and was very interested in her pen. She handed him the pen and let him scribble on her folder. Not only did he let her show him how to hold the pen correctly, he also imitated drawing circles and vertical lines! He was really into watching her write his name, he may be writing COOPER on all his blank art papers before we know it!

This afternoon Quinn had his first session of the semester at Loyola Speech. He fell asleep on the way there and was very unhappy when I woke him up. Once he realized where he was he really cheered up though, he loves Loyola! When we walked in he went straight to the room he had camp in and wanted to stay in there. I had to carry him to the room he had therapy in and once he saw it he went right in, pulled the chair back from the table, sat down, and looked at his new therapist like "I'm ready, entertain me." What a goof :)

What else happened today? I got some lovely roses delivered from my absentee husband. Quinn and Cooper went to the mall for dinner and fun with Grandma Jan and Grandpa Don. And me and Grandma Berta had a wonderful relaxing meal at the Cheesecake Factory!

Cooper had his second day of preschool today. It went pretty well. He kept running out of our classroom and going to the older kids class. I don't know why, maybe he saw something in there that he liked when we walked by, or maybe he decided he should be in there because they were the same size as him. Whatever the reason we fixed it by closing the door :) I don't know if Cooper did it on purpose, but right before circle time he managed to spring a leak. A prepared mother would have just changed his diaper and put on his emergency pants. Emergency pants, those would have been helpful. Instead we made a mad dash back home to change (and put emergency pants in our bag), and got back just in time for circle time to be over.

Other highlights from Cooper's day....

1) He is a total bully. He kept taking toys from the other kids and for some reason they let him. This one little girl followed him all around with this sad look on her face while he played with her train. Oh well, he does it nicely no grabbing or pushing. He just takes whatever they are playing with nice and gently...sigh...

2) Cooper only likes the short slide outside. That is because it is faster, much faster. He loves it when he flies right off and into the gravel.

3) For some reason Cooper thinks pouring a bucket of sand over his head is really funny. Half the other parents agreed, half really didn't. I didn't really mind, it was kind of funny. At least he pours it over *his* head.

4) Cooper was playing outside with the basketball toy. He is really good at putting the ball through the hoop. He was doing this quietly when all the other kids came out and exclaimed loudly that there were "Balls!" Right after this happend he ran up and put the ball through the hoop saying loudly, "Ba, ba, ba, ball!" Way to go Cooper!

Quinn had a good day at school too. His teacher tells me she is trying to teach him to pull down his pants. Umm, is that really something he needs to learn right now? I am assuming she means in conjuntion with diaper changing/potty training, but he already knows how to pull down his pants, didn't you read my "Wild Nights" post?

Tommorow Quinn starts speech therapy at Loyola again. Wish us luck, we are hoping for some words this year!

I don't really care for Mondays, but this one was okay. Quinn went to sleep last night with no trouble, so he was awake and happy this morning. He had a good day at school and his teacher tells me that the new speech therapist sat in on class and observed him as promised. He was a little tired when he got home today. Usually he shrugs off his bookbag and walks right over to get in his highchair for lunch. Today he dropped his bag and went to lay on the sofa, weird. He still didn't take a nap!

I had Cooper's teacher on our calendar today, but she never showed up. This happens a lot when you have so many therapists to schedule. I bet she comes tommorow. I never know for sure if it is me or them who screwed up, but I guess it doesn't really matter. Cooper was glad to have the day off.

I found these great DVD's that are supposed to be like music therapy. Cooper likes them but Quinn isn't interested for some strange reason. They are great, they teach stuff like Hello, Goodbye, Stop, Stand in Line. These are things my boys really need to learn if they are going to survive pre-school, especially Cooper...Quinn can probably just slide by on his charm alone ;)

We had meatballs for dinner, Quinn was thrilled. They went right through him though...yuck!

Wild Nights...

Quinn had a wild night last night! He was still awake and playing in his room at 1 AM when I gave up and went to bed. Then I woke up at 2 AM and still heard him, then again at 3 AM and he was still laughing and chattering away. I don't know what happened in that room but at 8 AM when I went to get him up for school he was sound asleep, laying on the futon, and completely naked! Yikes! Apparently at some point in the night he had a poopy diaper and decided to take care of the problem himself. And while he was taking off his pants and his diaper he must have figured, may as well take off his shirt too. What a goof! Well, thankfully he is a good boy who understands that poop is gross. He took his diaper off and placed it neatly on the windowsill, he didn't mess with it at all. I also found no evidence of pee anywhere so it wasn't a big disaster.

I could not wake him up though. He was so out of it that he didn't even open his eyes when I put on a new diaper and redressed him. So I let him sleep and then finally woke him up around 11AM. Grandma Donna thinks it is because he ate sugar before bed last night. We won't be doing that again, at least not on a school night! So while Quinn slept I went to his school and had a meeting about getting him some assistive technology. It was a sucessful meeting because the schools full time ST decided to take over his therapy, we have been getting the run around with lots of different ST's over the last year. She is also going to start him with a 6 button voive output picture board so he can learn to ask for things like "snack", "book", "outside". If he does well with it we will get him one for home too. Pretty soon he will be asking me what I had for dinner and where I bought my shoes! :) For those that don't know I have an adult cousin who uses a board like this and those are her favorite questions.

Cooper had a good morning playing with Grandma Berta. He really loves the ginger snaps we got for him and kept demanding them all day long. I tried to get him so say "eat" to ask for it, but he would only take the cookie and then go in the other room and say it. Oh well, it is a start.

Quinn tackling Grandpop Bill.

And cuddling post-tackle.



"Look, there's Grandma Donna!"

What a day! Talk about being shocked right out of vacation mode.

Quinn went back to school today and he was so out of sorts that he actually cried when he got on the bus. Thankfully he got over that quickly and his teacher said he had a great day at school.

Cooper started preschool at the Co-op today. He is in the two year old class on Tuesday mornings. Mommies stay with the kids in the two year old class so we are both going to preschool. I don't remember my knees hurting this much when I sat in circle time when I was in preschool though :( Cooper did really well, for Cooper anyway. I was very proud of how he handled himself especially when the other little boys tried to play with what he was playing with. He managed to sit through most of circle time too. He did great at snack (of course), and he rocked on the playground. He was thrilled with the climber/slide they have there and was the only kid who didn't mind that everything was wet...that is my Cooper. He ran around to all the puddles and splashed in them! The other mother's didn't really appreciate that their kids followed his lead. Well, my kids get messy and I don't care...sorry! Anyway, Cooper seemed to enjoy his first day. He didn't even mind that when we got home we had a suprise visit from Ms. Dorothy. She left a cool toy for him and that made him very happy.

All in all it was a sucessful day!

Back from the Beach!

We are finally back from Ocean City! Here is a link to our pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/anmns1977/OceanCity2008