OT: Day 19/30

Today was the Star Center's Halloween celebration, so everyone wore costumes. Ms. Renee wore a purple wig as called herself, Purple Polly. I considered having Turbo wear his Spider Man costume with the muscles, but was convinced otherwise by my loving husband who threw in the tidbit of advice, that I may be battling him come Monday about wearing it again. No costume won out.


Turbo also brought his finished Happy Face Chart to show Ms. Renee that he had completed all of the 10 squares by applying chap stick. However, we diverted from the chart just a little bit and gave him a Happy Face when he did something that was totally out of the norm for him. One was that he tried something new to eat at dinner. He loves broccoli, loves it, but anything other than butter on it, and he is repulsed by it. So that night, I put cheese on it. Not too much, but enough for him to see it. At first, he didn't want to even look at it, much less eat it or smell it. But after convincing him that a Happy Face would be put on his chart, which in turn would be come a prize from the treasure box from Ms. Renee, he reluctantly tried it. And the world stopped. He liked it! In fact, so much that he ate the rest, and then at lunch the next day, asked for more, and then again at dinner! Gracious, if I had know that a Happy Face chart with the promise of a trinket toy from a treasure box would be the trick to get him to try something new, I would have done that a LOOONNGGG time ago! Now, I need to find myself a small treasure box, and start filling it with stupid toys that will just break an hour into its play history and toss it in the trash. $ store, here I come! Not to mention those free boxes that can be found at garage sales! WHOO HOO!

Another happy face that he got was for staying at the table and eating his food without getting to a '5' on his volcano! And the third one was for him to blow his nose without having a major meltdown, which was a goal for him to meet set by daddy.

To begin the session, they chose from the book to make out their plan for the day. Turbo's great idea was to take a large inner tub and put it in the ball bit while he rode the zip line down and landed in it as the target. He did this a few times, when he asked Ms. Renee to get in as well.






While at the top of the tower, Ms. Renee worked with him on the Volcano language. Turbo's engine was pretty high at this point. His eyes were distracted elsewhere and his body couldn't stop moving. At home, this would drive me nuts, and if Ms. Renee was honest with me, I'm sure she has had these moments where OT has gone out the window, and overworked, overtired, stressed out mama takes over her body. But, she was calm, and continued to talk with Turbo, offering things to help self-regulate himself. Although the "story", which in turn will become a strategy wasn't completed, she did get him to help her with it, and moved on. My OCD wouldn't allow that; which is something I need to work on.


Moving on to our next activity: Teddy Bear picnic. Turbo climbed into a hammock and was asked to feed a teddy bear that I was holding some food while he crawled back and forth getting it. This was to help him close out any and all visual/auditory stimulation. What I didn't get was that this was a play-practice of eating new foods. The bear was to be Turbo when he reacts to eating new foods. Instead, I just played and didn't use the time to help teach him how to use strategies to keep or bring his volcano activity down. Once it was over, Ms. Renee modeled what she was wanting me to do. Sorry, Ms. Renee, but you've got a dense mother on your hands; dense and extremely exhausted - you're gonna have to beat it into my head if you want me to understand! ;)


In her model play, she rejected new foods that Turbo tried to give to the bear. She played like the teddy bear sniffed it, touched it, looked at it, ran away, etc. What she was trying to get from Turbo was strategies from him on how to "just eat it". He gave her some cues, but only because he got the cues from mom and dad in the past. Something we need to work on at home....add to list at 122.

On a brief side note: Here is Tank, decked out with his snacks, drink, his own chewie toy, and a toy remote control. Now, most kids have a lovey as a blanket, or a stuffed animal. Tank's lovey is proving to be a remote control. And really it could be any remote. If they work and change the channel, great! If they don't, great! He just wants to hold it. Should I be worried? Ehhh...moving on.


One thing she introduced to him on the zip line tower was his water hose (shooter). She revealed that everyone has a water hose in his/her pocket. When our volcanoes begin to reach those 4 and 5 levels, it is necessary to use our water shooters to put them out. She equated to him that water in the hose are his strategies. I'm not sure how much he absorbed because there was so much going on around us, but again, we can work on using that language at home.

She set up the barrel for him to straddle, and gave him a Nerf gun with suction cups. They both drew on the window 5 volcanoes. For each of the volcanoes, she asked Turbo to draw what the "red stuff" looked like at each level.

His job was to use his water shooter (hose) to put out the volcano as she helped him with different strategies at different levels. He choose to breath deeply in most cases, which is where practice needs to come in to teach him to use different strategies at different times.



Here is the second video of him looking at his Stick Kid cards that are on his backpack. We need to implement these a bit more at home.



To end the day, we went into a quiet room and played Ping Pong Ball Word building. Simple game. She wrote letters on the ping pong balls, gave him a straw, put a small container on the floor and asked him to "Build-A-Word" (Word World TV show on PBS) as he blew the ping pong ball with the straw into the container. As he did it, he would make the sound of the letter with my help.



Then it was my turn. Sorry, no video of this one as it was rather humbling crawling on the floor with my "sit-upon" up in the air for all to see...

One thing I mentioned to her is that with me staying at home with him, ALL THE TIME, I have become known to him less as a friend/playmate and more of the disciplinarian. Yeah, he will play with me some, but when dad gets home, that is when the real play begins. I don't mind it, but if we are going to be doing more school at home rather than in the public school, our "relationship" has to improve so that he can he see me in a different light. So my job as an uptight mom, needs to let the dishes go (which doesn't seem to be a problem these days, SHEESH!), and know that the laundry and house cleaning will still be there when he is napping or in bed for the night (YEP! Experiment tested and completed...still gonna be there). So I need to repair and rebuild that relationship for both of our sakes. Job number 123...