It's been a while since our last post. Phil and I were in Palm Springs, CA last weekend for his brother's wedding. My parents stayed at our house with Ryan and Julia, and we flew out there for 2 nights. We missed the kids a lot but knew they were in good hands. At one point we called to check in and Ryan got on the phone to tell me that he was watching the car races with his Uncle T and that his favorite car is the green #5. I asked him about it the other day and here's the video of his response:
Ryan still has a cough and had a rough week at school leading up to our trip to CA. We were getting reports of bad behavior during afternoon circle time just about everyday. To show some of Ryan's rigidness and the humor behind some of this, here's what happened on one of the days. Ryan was fooling around with another child during circle time so the teacher asked Ryan to change his seat. Ryan knows that one of the rules during circle time is that you don't move or change seats. So now the teacher is asking him to move his seat, and he is telling her no. He argued with her that you don't change seats during circle time and that she wasn't allowed to do that. His Special Education teacher had to speak with him about listening to the teacher at all times. Of course Phil and I also had several similar conversations with him all week. But that one story gave us a good chuckle. If you give Ryan rules, expect that at some point he may throw them back at you and call you out on it. We've learned that lesson several times!
This week I spoke with one of Ryan's teachers and she put him on the phone with me to say a quick hello. I made a big deal about him being a good boy in school that day so far. He remained good that entire day and when he got home we discussed how his teacher and I will be checking in with each other about his behavior. I showed him the notebook that she uses to write us a note each day. So this entire week the first thing out of his mouth when I picked him up at daycare was, "Mommy I had a good report today!" We made a big deal about checking the book and complimenting him on his behavior. He had 4 good reports in a row and we're hoping that the bad behavior during afternoon circle time has passed. Here's a video of Ryan excited about his good reports. You can play it on here or if you click the Rock and Roll Video link, it will bring you to the video on our You Tube account.
Rock and Roll Video
The Autism Speaks walk is on Sunday, June 5th in White Plains this year. I know that it is a very busy weekend for many of our family and friends. It is the same weekend as the Putnam County Relay for Life which is held on my school's campus and many of my teacher friends and families in Mahopac participate in this event to raise money for cancer research. Also, we recently found out that it is the same day as the baby shower for one of my friends. I know that she will understand if we attend the walk and I am unable to attend the baby shower. For a couple of months Phil and I have been debating if we are going to participate again this year. We have our reasons for doing it and not doing it, but most of all, we'd like to hear from all of you. We don't want to impose on people to join us again this year but if we have a group interested in walking, we will organize our Ryan Express team to walk. So if you are interested in joining us again, or if you didn't walk with us last year and would like to join our team, please let us know. We do need to make a decision soon!
Here are two links that you may be interested in regarding YAI conferences coming up in May and October. The International Conference takes place this May 2-5 in NYC. The Austism Workshop on Social Thinking is on October 11, 2011.
http://www.yai.org/resources/conferences/yai-conference/
http://www.yai.org/resources/conferences/autismconference/
I will end with one more video. In this video Julia tries to get Ryan to say "stinky underpants". He almost does it, in fact he starts to make the "s" sound in "stinky" but shows self-control and tells her that he doesn't say "bathroom words". Phil and I are constantly telling them that certain words are "potty words" meaning they are dirty and we don't say them. We were very proud of Ryan demonstrating this kind of awareness and that he did the right thing despite the peer pressure. Julia, on the other hand, still needs some more working with!
I was unable to upload it so click here to view it on our You Tube account: Stinky Underpants Video
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