Today

Preschool was much better today.

Apparently he settled himself, spent time with the children instead of apart from them, sat in a new spot at lunch and commented on the fact that he had the same sandwich as one of the other kids, and had no objections to doing activities and taking part. Yay! This is great.

Chat chat chat
With his constant rubbish-talk, I've gone to ignoring and humming when he tries to engage me in it. If he asks a real question or makes a statement or tries to look me in the face, I respond straight away.

It seems to have made a difference today. After a few unsuccessful attempts at making me answer questions about a TV show, he gave up and went elsewhere.

Try again tomorrow.

Talking

My dear sweet boy just WILL NOT SHUT UP!

Boy, he can talk the back leg off a donkey. Most of it is rubbish, sadly. Occasionally we have a good exchange.

A lot of it today is "What does this mean? What does that mean?" He does seem to understand the answers, so I'm happy about that, but honestly... it just doesn't stop. I'm going crazy quickly!

Poor me

Yesterday Bright Eyes had a great morning, and a rotten afternoon. Something triggered off his anger - maybe he was tired*? - but he just spent the afternoon yelling at everything and everyone.

One of the things I find most difficult about him is the lack of 'prosody' in his voice. He is not able to fine tune his tone, pitch, expressions or volume. It's either on or off. And when it's on, it's loud and really really annoying.

I feel guilty about not liking his voice, and yesterday I lost it with him several times. Of course, this does absolutely nothing to help anybody. It makes him louder and angrier and gives me a sore throat and more work to do to calm everything down.

I was feeling very sorry for myself and rang my mum, whose first words were, "Oh, darling, you poor thing. I feel so sorry for you." Aaaah. With that, I could breathe again, and felt ever so much better. Thanks Mum!

*I think he probably was tired. He's been getting to sleep about 10.30pm and sleeping in until 9 for the last two months or so. But last night I couldn't believe that he was conked out at 8.30!!!

SCRIPTS!!! AAGGHH!

This morning Bright Eyes woke up with these words on his lips, "Gordon the big engine pushed and pulled Thomas the small blue Tank Engine."

And that was it for the rest of the day. It was Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. Scripting from stories, asking questions about them (rhetorical questions that he knows the answers to), relating everything back to a stupid little blue engine. I wish Rev Awdry had kept his train mania to himself all those years ago!

In between talking about Thomas, he was checking our digital clocks and informing me every few minutes of what the time was. He particularly likes times like 10:10 and 11:11 and I think I heard all of them from 9:09am onwards.

Our consultant's advice for scripts: remove everything that triggers them. That means hiding: the trains, videos, pictures, puzzles and books about Thomas. It also means restricting his computer time for the next little while.

At first, I didn't want to do this. But it has become so bad that it's a necessity. The trains are even taking over Easter. Apparently Jesus didn't die on the cross - he died on the track, and lives in a train. Hmmm....

My first step today was to cover all the digital clocks. It certainly has gotten rid of the persistent time-telling, although he did lie in the bedroom beating his feet against the floor yelling, "Numbers, Numbers! Numbers!" for a few minutes.

Tomorrow I'll have to go out and find a non-ticking clock with hands so I can actually tell the time (or maybe just get my watch fixed...)

Logic and connections

When I was a little girl, I truly believed that all dogs were male and all cats were female. It seemed impossible that you could get female dogs or male cats. I have never mentioned this to the children, so I was interested in this little exchange with Bright Eyes yesterday.

Him: "Do boys like dogs? Can they play with them?"
Me: "Girls like dogs too. All children can play with dogs if they want to."
Him: "No. Girls play with cats."

Questions

Bright Eyes has this interesting quirk where he asks me questions to which he knows the answers.

For example: he is playing trains with the dog.
"Is it for boys to play trains with dogs?"

Or: he is watching the stereo numbers flash by and it gets to 500.
"Does the lounge room have hundreds?"

Or: He's eating his cereal (Rice Flakes, which he calls 'R&Fs')
"Can James like R & Fs?"

Or: He's thinking about words and spelling
"Is it for Jemima to have an 'l'?"

Is it a hangover from the old way we used to talk to him, asking him questions we knew the answers to?

Yelling

My big challenge this week is Bright Eyes' angry voice which he uses at every opportunity, particularly with his baby brother.

He yells "Right now" when he's frustrated with his sister and he will scream "Noooooo" at the top of his voice whenever his brother approaches.

"Where's your beautiful voice?" I say in response, but it doesn't always work.

It's wearing me out today.

Storytime

Here's a conversation we had today. It's a first to have him tell a story.

Bright Eyes: "Salty likes to tell stories. [That bit is a script.] Bright Eyes is a boy likes to tell stories too. I like to tell stories."

Me: "Really? Can you tell me a story?"

Bright Eyes: "This is a story about Mum. Mum likes go for a walk. One day she walked Bright Eyes. [mumble mumble, his brow furrowed as if concentrating.] Mouses. Then walked on the path. That's the end of the story."

And yes, he told a true story. It was the story of our walk to school in the morning. We had gone for a walk, and pretended to be mice to ease the tension he was feeling about not going in the car. First we walked on the grass, then on the path.

Age matters

Bright Eyes' quote of the day.

"I'm not four any more. I'm ten."

I love my children

What a great day. I really enjoyed the children today. They were a pleasure and a joy to be with.

Some of the highlights:

Problem solving. The picture shows Bright Eyes getting a solution to his problem of being thirsty next to a bubbler that was just too tall for him. I thought that was pretty good. That's his sister walking up by the way. She likes to get into photos...

Bright Eyes and his sister in the pool. It was too cold for me so I sat and watched as they jumped in together and had a ball. Bright Eyes referenced her, waited for her to jump and sought out her face for the emotional response after the jump. He invited her (not bossed her) to join him, and copied what she did as well.

A complicated game of cubby-houses. I rearranged the lounge room so there is a great space behind the sofa - perfect for a cubby house. It's out of view too, so I don't worry too much about the mess. The three of them set up beds, problem solved when the baby wanted all the beds to himself, and played happily in the morning, not even missing their normal TV time.

Bed time. Bright Eyes and his sister go to bed together in our room. They read and play for a while until it gets dark. Tonight when I went to calm them down and say goodnight, the two of them were tucked up together pretending to be twins, looking as cozy as could be.

Original speech. I can tell when Bright Eyes is using his own words compared to a script (even when I am unaware of the script) because he gets his parts of speech slightly wrong. I find it cute, and I'm encouraged by it because it shows he's processing and trying things out. Today, I put a hot pancake pan under the tap and it did that big sizzle steam thing. He was standing nearby and reeled back, saying "I'm afraiding of the hot!"

RDI therapy time. We played a game today which worked really successfully. We had a bounce on the mattress on the floor, then fell over together and looked at a card from a simple 'charades' game. It gave an object or a simple action so we talked about it, and then acted it out for a minute or so. A couple of times he didn't want to do the action (skipping and fishing) so we chose another card which he preferred.

Then we did an up in the air game, landing wildly on the mattress. "I'm a boy, and I'm broken" he said. He would crash, and then say "I'm broken" so I would be a doctor and fix up legs and arms, ears and nose. He took a turn to fix me up when I got broken.

Finally, I let him use the Thomas trains he brought in with him and we played an interactive pretend game, chuffing around together and talking to the Fat Controller here and there. It wasn't a script he was following, although there were elements of the stories he knew in the play, but a genuine shared experience.

Talking about... what?

I often share the cute (or coherent) things Bright Eyes says on this blog. The reason is that they are reasonably few and far between. We were outside today on the swing set and this was his conversation to me for about five to ten minutes.

“I’m Sam, You’re Elvis. Elvis! Elvis! Sam and Elvis. I’m Sam, You’re Elvis. (mutter) Sam, Sam... (louder) I’m going up. Up. Up. Mum! I’m going up there. I’ve got my blue and yellow. My blue and yellow and black. Hmm. Who’s that? Mum! Who’s that up there? You’ve got mumble mumble car. Red car is fixed. Black car is broken. Mum! He’s got a broken wheel. He’s got an ouchie. Mum! I’m Sam. I’m Sam. (not looking at me but clearly telling me to get off the swing) Get off, Sir. Sir. Sir. Get off. Let’s get off the fire truck. [Me: No. I want to stay on.] Let’s get off together. Let’s stay on. Wee-oh-wee-oh-wee-oh. We’re doing it. Sir. Red and blue and yellow and black...”

I know that most of the time he was talking about Fireman Sam (a lovely British kids TV program), but its hard to join in with the game sometimes because he has a strict way he likes to play it. There are days when I tune out...

Duck duck goose

Bright Eyes just loves to play duck duck goose*.

Today he and his sister and dad were playing a version of the game, but using different words. I think his sister began it by saying 'Muffin, muffin....eat!' and then (ahem) 'toilet, toilet.... flush'.

Bright Eyes got creative and added his own words: 'broom, broom, sweep', 'Veggitales, veggitales.... eat it' and 'Shane, Shane... David**'.

I'm sure that counts for something in RDI-objective-land... I'll just have to find out what.


*That's the game where a child runs around the circle of sitting children, tapping each on the head and saying 'duck' until he chooses one and says 'goose', whereupon the chosen child hops up and races around the circle trying to catch the first one. Geddit?

**Shane and David are the Umbilical Brothers, physical comedy geniuses and the stars of the brilliant new 'Upside Down Show' on ABC Kids TV. Bright Eyes just LOVES it.*

Cute

Bright Eyes had a great day at preschool today. Lauren, a little five year old, who has taken him under her wing turned to him and said, "You're so cute Bright Eyes".

He looked at her and said, "Yes. You're cute too."

Quotable

Overheard while on holidays:

After being told to wear shoes on the grass because it had prickles in it: "The grass has got freckles."

"Look at the foams," pointing to the ocean waves which were white with foam.

"McDonalds has a great playground Daddy," was the first thing he said one morning at breakfast, the day after he had been out with grandparents.

Getting Help I

By the time Bright Eyes was two I was ready to get some help.

Everything I did was scattered over the period of about 12 months, and was complicated by the fact that I became pregnant and gave birth in the middle of it all.

At the beginning of this stage I just thought his problem was delayed speech, so I rang the local health centre and booked in for some speech therapy. They brought him in, had a look at him and said I should join the 'tiny talkers' program they had. I went to one session, took home the literature and tried to do everything they said, but nothing really seemed to work.

I went to the GP a little later. "I'm concerned about his speech. Do you think he could see a paediatrician?" He was a nice GP and wanted to save me some money. "I think the paediatrician would just refer you to a speechie - so why don't we try that first," he said.

I duly went to six sessions with a lovely lady who tried some things, said that he had lots of language but was not using it appropriately and in not so many words said that I wasn't tough enough with him. He did seem to improve a little from the therapy, but it was expensive and I was heavily pregnant so we didn't continue going. I thought I would just try to keep doing what she had showed me.

Things started to get worse. When the new baby was born Bright Eyes threw tantrum after tantrum all day long for hours at a time. He would run away, crawl under the furniture, kick and scream and resist anything I tried to do. I couldn't take him anywhere because he was uncontrollable. I even resorted to buying a 'Supernanny' book and tried to implement some 'naughty spots' because I thought he was just a very difficult little boy.

But again, nothing worked.

As the year went on and Bright Eyes approached the age of three, it was becoming more and more apparent that he was not just 'picking it up' and things were not improving.

My GP father in law said to me, "I think you should get this child to a developmental paediatrician. He's got some problems."

So I went down to my GP and said, "Please write a referral to a developmental paediatrician." She did so, and I made the appointment. Unfortunately the next one wasn't available for another three months, so I had some waiting to do.