Chores and school update

 So we decided to put this little one to work helping around here.  His first assignment: Wash Mom's SUV.   He likes to run his hands along it when we step into the garage and Mommy was getting pretty sick of having to wash Grayson's hand off immediately because it was BLACK with dirt.   The below picture was posed perfectly.  Don't get ahead of yourself though, it lasted about .2 seconds and then he decided to sit down, play with sponge, and watch the water run off the car. (See above photo.)

 Grayson's school experience has continued to be FANTASTIC.  His teacher is amazing.  She was texting me pictures the first and second week.  The second week went well also.  He cried a bit in the beginning when being dropped off, but was able to self soothe within 10-15 minutes. He has been taking part in circle time and continues to grow more comfortable in his environment.  Shoes and socks still come off several times throughout the morning. Teachers dont seem to mind since he is happy and more comfortable like that.  Can't blame him though.  The only time we have shoes on around here is when we are outside.
 Since then I have been picking him up between 11 and 11:15, before lunch.  We wanted to ease him in slowly.  But after talking to the teacher, she thought he was ready to stay for lunch, so today we tried.  It went flawlessly! I got there around 11:40, just in case, and I got to look in and see him sitting at the table with all of the other kids, enjoying his lunch. The way they do it at school is: each child gets a paper plate and one item at a time is taken out of their lunch box and put on the plate.  As they finish, it gets replaced with the next course.  There were about 18 kids today, so I guess G was getting impatient waiting for his food to be replenished.  We know he is just like his Mama, he likes his food!  I could see the other children were calling for the teachers to come over and help them.  Our little man with no verbal skills couldn't do that.  So he improvised.  He took his lunchbox, swung it around over his head, and then threw it on the floor.  That got the teacher over there lickety-split. :)  He got his next course of Goldfish.  Happy little boy sat there and finished his lunch and his water.   I am so excited that he did so well with this addition to his school schedule.   Now I will pick him up at noon, when lunch is over, right before nap time.
Below are the pictures I received from his teacher.    Day 1 of school eating snack at the table.

 Outside on the playground, with a basketball.

 Ice cream day last week.  The ice cream truck came and each child got to choose a treat.  At 9:30 AM, but whatever. :)   I chose for him before I dropped him off.  Chocolate bar.  Teacher said he kept holding it up to his mouth and trying to take a bite but it was too cold.  She ended up giving him a spoon and he ate it that way.  Again, whatever works!

We have been following up with the Developmental Pediatrics to get Grayson some sort of diagnosis.  We start our evaluation on July 18th.  We are hoping that we will continue to receive great tools and strategies to help our boy continue to progress as much as he has over the past eight months.

Last weekend we went over to Melanie and Jamie's house for swimming and BBQ.  Grayson did a great job and spent well over an hour in the pool. Sat on the steps and played with the water, stood on the side and jumped in to Mommy, and he even let Miss Melanie take him and have him swim over to me.  The smiles and giggles were great.

May/June 2013

 I know it has been a while and we haven't taken a whole lot of pictures over the last 6 weeks.  But here is the menagerie of pictures that I do have.  Being a goofball in the tub.

 He loves to sit at his picnic table and read books.  Here he is looking at a sticker book from Dinosaur Train.  He scans the whole page and even gives some of his favorites a kiss. :)

 Mother's Day this year.  We went out to brunch and then Mommy got the afternoon off. :)

 Depending on the day, Grayson has become attached to his blanket that he sleeps with.  Sometimes it needs to come downstairs with him from the beginning of the day, sometimes he could care less.  This was a day that he needed it all day long.  He decided to lay down on it on the kitchen floor.

 He loves to play the game "You better run."  He runs squealing away from whoever is chasing him.
Grayson is doing so well with all of his therapies.  He now sees his developmental specialist on Monday mornings and his OT on Wednesday mornings.  His tolerance level for what they want him to do his risen dramatically from when we started back in October.  He also performs better when I am not there, so I set up the monitor from his bedroom and I go into the kitchen to watch his session.   He is extremely comfortable with both therapists and they are amazed how much progress he has made.  He continues to do well in social settings; parties, restaurants, play dates, you name it.  No progress on the speech front yet, but he is experimenting with his voice all the time.  He "sings" a lot.  He is such a happy little boy with the best disposition.

Another big event! We started pre-school last week.  I went to talk to the teacher the week before to just give her the heads up about some of the challenges that he has, and we went to do a trial the next day.  He did really well and we ended up staying almost two hours.   I think that was a great idea, if I do say so myself, because he ran right in to the first day.  He had no problem saying goodbye, I got a great kiss and was on my way.  He is going to be going on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday AMs to prepare for next fall since that is my new work schedule.  We think that the social interaction with other children can only benefit him.  That is my biggest goal with him being there.  I am hoping he will pick up some good habits and maybe see how much of a benefit language is.  He has NEVER been somewhere that is not in his own home with somebody else watching him.  He lasted until 10:30 the first day.  Then he got upset when it was time to go outside, which is surprising since he LOVES the outside.   The teacher ended up calling me and asking me to come get him because he had been upset for about an hour.  The school is 2 minutes from our house and I already happened to be in the parking lot. :)  I spoke to both of his therapists while he was napping and they thought he had done a great job for his first day.  We thought maybe since he had never seen that playground before that it overwhelmed him.   Nevertheless we decided that pick up for the following day would be at 10:30.  I was nervous that drop off the following day would be horrendous since he left so upset the day before. Thankfully, that was not the case!  He ran right in as he did the day before.  They have a webcam so we get nothing done other than watching what he is doing.  We were hysterical because all of a sudden we see a barefoot Grayson walking across the room.  Later the teacher texted me a picture of him sitting at the table with the other kids eating snack.  Said "Barefoot but happy!" I will take it! The next day I pushed it until 11:00.  He did great!  I am going to pick him up between 11 and 11:30 for the first several weeks.  Going to give him some time before I expect him to eat lunch there.  Let's hope this week goes as well as last week went! Below was our mini-photo shoot before I took him to school that day.

 I couldn't resist snapping this shot.  There is this show called "The Backyardigans" that he likes to watch.  For some reason, he thinks the song at the beginning of the show is HILARIOUS!  He smiles and cackles every time!

 Here are some more great shots of the game "You better run."  Running to Daddy for safety.

 And then we see the camera and have to act the part of a ham.  If only I could harness this power, I would be a millionaire.

 Father's Day 2013.

The last six weeks have been rough around here.  My mom, Grayson's Grammie was diagnosed with lung cancer.  We appreciate all of the positive thoughts, keep them coming, we sure could use them!