I've been harping a lot lately about getting B out in the community more. I totally understand the rationale behind having him in therapy for the majority of his waking hours. He needs it and it's the most beneficial place for him to be. That said, I really fear that he is in a bit of a bubble and will lose his "public skills" (for lack of a better term) if he doesn't practice. Plus, it makes me much more nervous to take him when it only happens once in a great while. And it is sometimes a very great while: we have gone for a couple of weeks before without him ever being in the car. It's a crazy shift from our pre-therapy life. I think we're going to incorporate more community time in his therapy schedule soon. In the meantime, I'm just taking every opportunity (canceled shifts etc.) to get him out. This afternoon was one of those times. He was free after 11:30 and we hit the childrens museum with big brother and our pca in tow. All in all, it was a very fun and successful outing.
It has been a couple of months since I've taken him there but we used to go fairly often so it's definitely somewhere familiar. He was GIDDY when we got there. Uncontrollably so. There were a lot of differences in him since the last visit: some good and some bad. On the bad side, he has a lot more obvious behaviors than he used to. There was a lot of singing, a lot of jumping and flapping, haphazard running, putting water and toys in his mouth and absolutely no volume control. We got some stares but I am totally over that - he's so much more important to me than what anyone else thinks. It did make me wonder where all the other kids like B are though. Believe me, I can spot them now and aside from one kid with Down Syndrome, everyone seemed pretty darn typical there. My guess is they are either in full-time therapy too or their caregivers just don't bring them. It would be easier to stay home for sure.
Now on the PLUS side, he was more engaged than before. I remember going one time where I could barely get him to leave the security of his stroller. He still retreated there a couple of times but he was willing to try new things and he had a blast. He drove the bus which he hasn't done before, painted with water outside, built with legos and was totally mesmerized watching himself reflected on the tv in the music studio. I'm pretty sure he has never noticed himself in that before. On top of that, he transitioned seamlessly from place to place (not even "typical" 3-year olds always do this). And he had some great vocals "go outside, water, cup, turtle, bus, circle, all done". I even ran a few ABA trials successfully - this therapist mom is never off duty. We had one slight meltdown when we took big brother to McDonalds afterwards for ice cream. Believe it or not, it was because we tried to get him to taste ice cream. What kid cries over someone GIVING them ice cream? And I was really glad that we brought our pca. I still need to be able to give him my FULL attention because he takes off and needs constant supervision. It seemed much fairer for his brother to have someone giving him that kind of attention too - even if it couldn't be me.
Both boys crashed on the drive home. A good time was had by all. Here are some pics:
Driving the bus. This was cool: he said "beep,beep bus" while he was doing it.
He wouldn't go in this turtle but he thought it was pretty cool nonetheless:
Painting!
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