We have been watching a lot of Signing Time, which we borrowed from a friend. It's great, and Benji loves it. He's slowly getting more and more words into his vocabulary. He's still not communicating very well, but he recognizes and repeats words, and can do the signs to many of them. He tries to do the signs for the letters, but he's still working on getting those little fingers in the right place.
He has become really good with saying his alphabet. He enjoys saying it at random times, starting in random places ("P" is a particular favorite), and in a high little voice. It's pretty cute, if I do say so myself. In fact, during a talk at church, he decided to say it quite loudly. Pretty funny.
He recognizes a lot of animals. He can look at a book with pictures of animals and say "horse" or "dog," but he won't do it on demand. He'll only do it if it's when he wants to, or when we aren't 'paying attention.' He still says "quack" when he sees pictures of ducks.
He has his favorite words. It's currently "pen." But the sign for it is fingerspelling P-E-N, and his "P" sounds like "E." So he goes around saying, "E-E-E-N." He's also saying (and doing the sign for) "drink," which is pretty helpful.
He has decided that he wants to take naps . . . at 5:30 p.m. And I won't let him sleep past 6pm (I'm so mean!). He goes and goes and goes all day, then it gets quiet and I know he's fallen asleep. We're working on it.
He love to sit in laundry baskets. I'm pretty sure most kids do, but I still find it funny . . . except when there's clean laundry in it and his feet and hands are dirty.
I know I've said it before, but this boy loves water. He would play in it all day if I'd let him. I took him to the Gateway water fountain a couple of weeks ago, and he just loved it.
We cut his hair last week, and it makes him look so grown up! I love it, but it makes me sad at the same time.
We have been trying to potty-train for a few months now. If he would tell us when he needed to go, it would be a lot more successful. He does like to strip off his pants and diaper and just go wherever he feels like it. Yeah, that's my favorite thing. We have to put him in zip-up pajamas and safety-pin the zipper up at the top if we want him to keep his diaper on at night; otherwise, he's almost always naked and his bed is always wet when he wakes up. Gah. We can usually get him to go before his bath . . . we have to wait with him for about 10 minutes before he decides to go, and we have to wipe everything down afterward (aiming isn't the easiest thing), but it's a start.
He hates anything around his neck or on his face. He makes a choking sound when we try to button up shirts or safety pin his pajamas or even wash his face. It's kind-of obnoxious, but what do you do?
So that's my boy (for now). He's not always easy to deal with, but I love him so much.
3 comments:
He is a good boy. I so enjoyed your week or 4 days anyway, here.
He's such a sweetheart. Progress is SO exciting!!! :) You're doing a good job, Mary!
You are doing a good job! The too-close-clothes thing is very common with autistic kids. It's awesome that's he's signing and growing his vocabulary!
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