Great therapy and Halloween prep

Today's therapy was a total success! We decided to again try putting the OT before the ST, though for most kids it seems to work better the other way around. joshua is an exception though, just as I thought a month ago when I suggested it may be the case. There was a really positive buzz around the OT area...just a feeling of happiness and excitement, though I have no idea why really. Mindy set up an obstacle course...Josh had to go up the steps, down the slide like a snake, get on the scooter board and sccot over to the tunnel, go through the tunnel, over the bridge that was three very thin boards, then while on those boards and without falling, bend down to get a puzzle piece off the floor (this was the most challenging), jump across 3 steps, up the ramp, back up the steps and put the puzzle piece in place. Whew! Then he's start all over again. It was bustling with activity today and he had some trouble concentrating which at times caused him to totally get off his path, but Mindy was patient and got him right back on track in no time.

After OT, we went to speech. Jessica let Josh pick a truck out from the storage room. He wanted a "scooper truck" and after finding one we were off to the room. Jessica had several activities planned for today. For the past few weeks, Joshua has been quite aggitated when we get in the room, but today was great. He sat on his chair with no trouble and did all of the work he was told to do. They began with a book about pumpkins and the goal was to be able to identify emotions - one of his big challenges that we have been working on outside of therapy sessions. He did fantastic! We then moved onto a 3 piece puzzle game where he would choose an outfit for the bear and tell Jessica what the bear was dressed as. Next came a card game that went over opposites. This is something they have worked on in therapy, but we have been working on at home as well. He did wonderful, getting all but one correct. I was impressed, and I think Jessica was as well. She mentioned again that she wants to re-evaluate him because he is not nearly as bad as the first therapist seemed to have decided he is, and then we can get a better idea of what to work on. She plans on doing this on about 2 weeks. I am so relieved that we will finally have a true estimation of where he is and what he really needs help on. I really love our speech therapist!

In other news, we have been preparing for Halloween. We never have really done much on Halloween, other than dressing the kids up and going to my grandparents house to let them see the kids in their costumes and then go to some of their neighbor's houses so the kids get some sort of trick-or-treat experience. Well, this year that is obviously out, so I haven't decided what we will be doing. There are plenty of activities around town, so we're bound to find something. Anyway, Elena will be Sleeping Beauty, and Cassidy is wanting to be a princess. I am going to be working on her costume the remainder of the week. Jacob can't seem to make up his mind. He wants to be a Transformer, but I am not feeling all that creative right now, so we'll see what we come up with. And my dear little Joshua informed me yesterday that he wants to be Pocahontas. LOL I'm not sure what we are going to do about that one...maybe he'll choose something else by the weekend. LOL