One of those weeks - Yeeeeehaw

The week started with my mother calling on Sunday night to tell me that the family dog, Flower, had passed on. She loved the kids and would watch them as they played. If one of them fell, she would always get up and check to be sure they were ok. She was just a beautiful and loving dog, and she is sorely missed already.

Wednesday was therapy overload day. We started with OT. Joshua told me in the waiting area that he was wanting to do the spinning circle. I mentioned it to Mindy and that I was unsure what he was talking about. After a few minutes she was able to get his attention long enough to ask him if he felt he needed to spin and in true Joshua fashion he answered yes. Now, Joshua is not a spinner by nature. It just isn't one of the things he craves or even cares for really. But, I kept my mouth shut because she is the professional.

So, we head over to a different area of the large therapy area, and she has him lay on the scooter board. She wanted him to hold a plastic stretchy rope while she pulled him around the room in circles. Joshua had no interest in it. He was already higly distracted (hence why he said yes to her questioning his need for spinning), and this seemed to make it even worse.

So, after trying to do this for a good 5 minutes, Mindy finally gets out a giant therapy ball and has him lay on his tummy on top of it. She has him do this directly in front of a mirror. While he is lying on the ball he was to take a marker, take off the lid, then draw a picture on the mirror. If it were Jacob or Cassie, they would have been extremely happy to write on something new. Joshua hesitantly scribbled a bit, but he refused to cooperate with her. After scribbling about 3 things, he looked at her and said he was done. She made him get back on the ball and sit up on top of it and mentioned . I asked if this was one of those days where he would benefit from using a weighted vest and she nodded yes, but did not get it.

Anyway, his feet were nowhere near the floor when he was sitting on top of the giant ball, so she was able to roll it back and forth to test his ability to stay balanced. After several minutes of this she had him bounce up and down, and then he was allowed to choose a toy to play with. Mindy mentioned his body awareness has improved a lot and she was happy to see progress in this area.

Next was speech. Joshua does not cooperate for Jessica 3 out of 5 sessions. I don't know why this is. However, I have noticed that the past two weeks, she let him choose a large truck and he was willing to cooperate and do his "work" because of it. This week she skipped the extra step and went straight to the room, and he was far from willing to do anything. Eventually she asked me if I have thought about giving him fish oil supplements in order to help increase his concentration levels. She is supposed to give me more info next week on this. I asked her about the weighted vest and she said she thought it would probably work well for him but she would need to use it at the beginning of the session and not try it halfway through. {sigh} I also mentioned that he is in socialization classes and that the psych has him for 45 minutes plus and never has a problem with him because he knows what to expect when he goes to her. I mentioned that she uses the color coding chart and it seems to work well at home, so maybe that is all he'd need there too. She said we could try it.

Sometimes I really think I am either talking to myself or they think I am in denial or something about Joshua. I'm not. I know what seems to be working for him though, and they aren't using it. The psych uses cars and trucks to help teach Joshua what she wants to teach...I do the same at home...AND IT WORKS!!! It stinks that the "pros", people who went through training and supposedly deal with many children "just like Josh", don't seem to get what Josh needs. And it is frustrating and disappointing to deal with every week.

Socialization class the same day went extremely well. Mrs. G. had nothing but good things to say, so I was happy. :) And guess what? She had them for 45 minutes. Interesting that the same child on the same day could do "great", isn't it? grrr

Needless to say, since we don't have socialization class the week of Thanksgiving, I decided to cancel his other therapy appointments that week as well. I need a break and I think he does too.

Today, Friday, is Veteran's Day. Silas was off and so I decided to use the opportunity to take a little field trip. I was originally going to drive out to the beach and have the kids pick up shells for a project this week, but it was chilly compared to earlier this week, so I tried coming up with something new. Lucky for me, about a month ago our local news mentioned a website that has local events for kids listed. I bookmarked it and have often refered to it. So, in hopes of finding something to do, I headed to the site and found out there was a free barrel racing event in town all weekend. So that is where we went.

We missed the horse that held the day's fastest time. I was a little disappointed, but it was ok. There were tractors that were used between each set of horses and Joshua was extremely thrilled. He could have cared less about the horses. We just so happened to sit right by the parking area for them as well. :)

In the middle of everything, they called over the loud speaker that any child under the age of 10 that wanted to be a part of the corn run could enter the arena. Josh and Jacob both got very excited. Turns out Josh thought he was going to get a ride on the tractor. LOL Jacob had no clue what to expect. We handed them over the rail to one of the cowboys, and I left to find where to pick them up when they were done. I missed the entire thing, but Silas saw it. They were to run from one end of the arena, pick up a toy, and then run back. Jacob started out running and I guess he didn't hear the instructions so he stopped in the middle of the arena, and eventually figured out what was going on and finished the task. joshua never made it into the arena from the sounds of it, but they were nice and gave him a prize too. LOL He was just happy to walk out there and kick up dirt.

We watched until the end of the morning session was over. The boys said they wanted to go back to the evening set, so I took them and Cassie while Silas stayed home with the baby. One of the guys running the tractors remembered us from the morning and was talking to us when he'd park near us. He got a kick out of talking to Josh and had several conversations with him. Joshua even asked him what his name is. He replied, "My name is Vince. What's your name?". Joshua never gave his name, but he continued his conversation about how cool his tractor is. Silly boy.

Jacob enjoyed the horses. Vince and I were talking about the horses to him and we finally got to see someone beat the morning's fastest time, so that was really cool. Cassie was in awe of the horses and never took her eyes off of them while they were making their runs. The kids want to go back tomorrow...guess we will see what happens. :)