Friend visit

Today a first happened. A neighbor boy that we know from the bus stop came over to play with Jordan. At first he asked if a hat he found on the playground belonged to my little prince. But when the little prince asked him to come inside and watch Garfield with him he said sure! After just a few minutes he said he had to go home and ask for permission to come over. He was sure his parents would approve so assured us he'd be back in a few minutes. A few minutes later, he came back and played with little Prince Charming for an hour. Then he told us he had to be home, but he'd come back if he could. A few minutes later, he was knocking on the door again! He stayed for a couple more hours, I made extra food just in case he was there so he had a corn dog and french fries with us, politely thanked me and put his plate in the sink. After a while they got a bit rowdy, but not too rough. The neighbor boy accidentally locked himself in the bedroom while they were playing the three little pigs. With a shotgun. I've never heard the story that way, but it's all good! :-)

With all the problems we've had with socialization and sharing and communicating, this was a huge step.

After bath time tonight, I gave the little prince a breathing treatment (he has an upper respiratory infection that's irritating his asthma) and he fell immediately asleep! The only problem with his behavior today was new as well. "I told you..." to whatever he says. He's ordering us around! He's always been wonderful about asking politely for something but now he's trying to order us around. Hopefully he doesn't try that anymore.

Busy week and a good boy

We've had a wonderful weekend. The little prince has been very well behaved, doing what he's asked when he's asked, even going to bed withttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhouhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift a fuss. We bought him an Easter present of little plastic bowling pins and bowling balls to say "thank you for being so good" and he really seems to like them. What he likes best is making us set up the pins for him even though he's perfectly capable of doing it himself. :-)

I have a rather busy week ahead. A possible boudoir photography shoot tomorrow, running to Kalamazoo to get photo paper, receiving a photography order from a shoot last week, Relay for Life Team captain meeting, receiving final payment and pickup of photos taken this weekend. Still working on the cancer quilt project, and have a couple orders for autism awareness bags that I need to start. I'm knitting a baby blanket for a friend, but since I'm new at knitting it's coming along very slowly. Hopefully it will be done before she has the baby!

crocheting for a cause

I've been crocheting a cancer "quilt" for a while now. the idea is to get all my crocheter/knitter friends to participate with making 6 inch squares and I'll sew them all together and see how big we can make it. I have enough squares between what I've done and what's been turned in to me to make a throw blanket. I'm impressed with the response I've received so far. I have others pledging to send squares by my deadline of May 31. The quilt will be auctioned off at the local Relay for Life event. I'm hoping it brings in enough money to make all the time and energy worthwhile. I don't know though, because I live in a small community, but it's a worthy cause...it could go either way.

I recently took a break from the cancer quilt project to create an Autism Awareness tote bag. It amazed me that there are no free patterns out there for autism awareness. I decided rather than buy a pattern (which in itself was hard enough to find) I'd create my own. This is the result.

more progress

I love seeing how much progress m little prince makes. He's started using not only complete sentences, but putting more than one together and making conversation. I'm in pretty close contact with his special ed teacher. He started writing at school and while he doesn't like to do it, maybe because it requires sitting still, he wrote 2 whole sentences at school a couple weeks ago and I nearly cried with pride.

bad start to a good day (hopefully)

Yesterday my little prince had no school because of road conditions. I receive a text from the webmaster of the public school's site and also a call from the school itself. When I got the call I turned off my alarm so I could sleep in. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn it back on for today. So today i wake up at 8:43 (the bus comes around 8:10, class starts at 8:45) and hurried to get the little guy ready fro school. I actually debated a minute on it because he's been coughing and the weather doesn't help his asthma. He got his antibiotic, cough syrup, and a breathing treatment this morning. So I get him together and out the door to find the car was covered with a layer of ice. Hard, dry, stubborn ice. I didn't comb my hair or bother to put on socks, let alone shower(!) in order to get the little man out the door as quickly as possible, but now I have to scrape hard, stubborn, dry ice off the car. I finally get moving and about a quarter mile down the road, the defroster heats up. I take him to class and get back home in time to get ready for work. so my diet is completely shot, I had a frozen breakfast sandwich as I was running around getting things together.

Teacher meeting

I met with the Little Prince's teacher today. He told me that Jordan was having issues focusing his attention on his classwork and instead wants to run around the room and climb on tables, etc. It was the same conversation we had at conference time. I asked again what I could do to help but was told "just keep doing what you're doing" as if that's an answer! I signed a paper saying it was ok to have an occupational therapist observe little prince charming. I don't know what good that will do, but the sp. ed. teacher thought she should have a peek at him so I signed it. I told the teacher that I didn't like how he kept saying Jordan "can't" do something unless someone is there prompting him. I prefer "won't." I also reminded him that my personal goal is to have Jordan fit in with the rest of his class and I thought his attitude was kind of a cop out. Not my original words, but I believe he grasped the sentiment. He had told me that the gap in Jordan's behavior vs. classmates' behavior was going to continue to grow and I told him I was told last year that after a couple years he would be right where he was supposed to be. He told me I was lied to. I still choose not to believe this. I think that if the teacher believes this he isn't trying as hard as he should to get Jordan's behavior up to grade level, or even appropriate age level. He said Jordan functions as a 3 year old. And "there's a reason 3 year-olds don't go to school." The Sp.Ed. teacher was very helpful though. She gave me specific goals she wants on the next IEP and ideas to reach those goals.

maturity

I can't believe how much the little prince grew up over Christmas break. All of a sudden he decides not to give me a hug and kiss when the bus gets to the bus stop. He yelled "goodbye mom" as he ran away from me! I alternate between being proud and petulant.