Granmom

Andrew is working on people recognition, it's a program at his school (school's a bit part of his life lately, so it's the source of all kinds of fun). He's doing awesome. The school asked for some pictures of people Andrew sees on a regular basis, and they use them as flashcards to help him to learn to recognize and label (known as naming in the regular world. . . hehe) people in his life. He has a number of pictures he can whip through pretty fast, and we're working pretty hard on generalizing it to the people he sees and knowing who they are.

One of the pictures in the crowd is that of my grandmother (this would be his grandmother). He generally sees her weekly, twice a month at the rarest. He knows who she is, he will give her hugs, they're good friends. :) He also knows her picture and has figured out that she's the person depicted in that picture. But he learned mom before he learned her, so she's not grandma, she's grandmom.

Have you ever thought about how you say grandma? We were given a chance to really reflect on it, because Andrew wasn't putting the "D" inside the word. We realized no one does most of the time, so we decided not to push it. Consequently, when he sees my grandmother, and I ask "Andrew, who is it?" I get a very happy, very definite, "Granmom". My grandmother loves it, and states she is entirely satisfied being granmom for the rest of her life. She also just about cried when he said it to her for the first time this last weekend. It was definitely a good moment. :)

Potty Training

Promise, this won't be some detailed post as to the stats of Andrew's potty training. He's started it, through his school, it's going tremendously well, and I am really impressed. Now on to the part that makes me laugh.

One of the things inherant in Andrew's therapy is the reinforcement of good behaviors. That comes down to, when praising Andrew for doing something well, appropriately, or as asked, we do "whatever it takes" within reason of course. If he likes goofy faces, we make them, if he's into being thrown into the air, go for it. M&M's, potato chips, you get the idea.

Well Andrew's praise of choice, for potty training, is to "brush teeff". Specifically, that means fill the sink up with water, get out his toothbrush, and play in the water for a few minutes. He does actually run the toothbrush across his teeth on occasion, but mostly he plays. :) Now you can imagine this, can't you? We take him every 30-60 minutes to the potty. Each time he wants to "brush teeff". This child is going to have the cleanest teeth in the Nation, don't you think?? But hey, he loves it, it's easy, and it's working!! Besides, he's also getting his hands washed. . . eventually. :)