Love, Erika

Drew's Autistic Superpowers

It was right at the end of January that we started to become aware of some neat abilities that Drew has with regard to memorization of small details. Like the vast majority of autistic kids, he's a highly visual learner. Because his receptive and expressive language skills are a little bit lacking, when he hears things being told to him, it's hard for him to process right away. But if he can SEE something written down, or shown to him in pictures, it becomes ironclad in his brain and locked away forever. He's always been so observant, and notices such tiny little details and differences. Classic autism.

So we have this wipe-board calendar on the wall in the kitchen that we scribble all our appointments, therapists, events, etc on throughout the month, like any normal family.  As Drew became increasingly aware of months, dates, days of the week, time, clocks, etc.... he became sort of obsessed with the calendar too. It was like he would constantly study it and soak it all up, trying to find reason and predictability about it. Every morning he would get out of bed and fly to the kitchen to stand in front of the calendar and see what was going to happen that day, what happened yesterday, what was now coming up sooner than it was the day before.  He loved the fact that he could SEE it, and the great thing about it is that now he can read so we don't have to depend on his picture schedule so much. He can look at a calendar or day planner like any other person and just READ it.

He loves his routine, depends on it, and loves a schedule. His whole day and demeanor gets thrown off if he doesn't have his schedule outlined. Something visual that he can look at and know it's predictable and know what's coming next.

So I have a point...... I'm getting to it...... the calendar. We began to notice that he was memorizing the whole thing. He knew exactly which dates he did not have school that month, and could rattle them all off. When asked what days he saw Cass in January, he thought for a second and said, "6, 13, and 20." Which was correct. All 4 of us plus our cats had dentist appointments in January, and he could recall the dates and times for all of those appointments.  Obviously he had been staring at that calendar for the whole month so maybe it wasn't that impressive that someone witha  good memory could remember all that (although I know I sure couldn't!). So then Dave erased the whole board and started to write up everything for February. Drew was standing there watching in mind-blown fascination, and you could tell he was excited to see what he was going to write down. So Dave wrote down everything that we knew of at that point, and as soon as he got done, turned Drew around and started quizzing him about what he saw. And he got all of it right. Immediately.

Now I can't remember a damned thing from one moment to the next; that's why I write it all down. But Drew actually looked at it, and filed it away in his brain. Crazy.

So then we started testing him some more. We wrote down our address, and it was instantly memorized. Dave wrote down his cell phone number and after looking at it and repeating it a few times, it was memorized. He can even recall this stuff the next day without looking at anything.  It doesn't matter that he doesn't really know what the heck a phone number or an address IS, but he can memorize anything. He can barely even pronounce Goffstown, but he knows that's what he's supposed to say. 

One day in the car I verbally told him my cell phone number. And he was able to repeat it back to me like one time, but couldn't remember after that. It wasn't until I actually wrote it down for him that BOOM it was memorized. So he really does have to see it and lock it away. (it took me probably a good year to learn my own cell phone number, just for comparison...... sad, but true).

So finally we were joking about it with his therapists, and Dave said jokingly he was going to teach him Pi. And that night, he did. He wrote out Pi to eight decimal places and it was memorized. Here's Drew reciting it the next morning without having looked at anything since the night before:

I'm not convinced yet that he has a photographic memory, but I do know he has an extremely good memory from visual cues, so we will see. I think it's neat how his autistic superpowers are developing! 

Happy New Year!

I hope everybody has a wonderful New Year!  Thank you to all of you who take the time to stop by my blog and leave comments. I ♥ you all!

It was a very busy, full year. I know we're definitely in a better place at the end of this year than we were at the beginning, so I know anytime you can say that at the end of a year, you're doing all right. I think we're doing all right.

Some memorable events from 2011 were:

• Drew's autism diagnosis in March. Only good things have come from this, and as a result two very important people have come into our lives: Cass, his speech therapist, and Isabelle, his OT. Both of these ladies have given us such amazing insights into Drew and what his specific needs are and how to meet them. As a result, Drew has accomplished many things we never thought he'd be doing, and it's wonderful to see him develop and grow and turn into such a cute and sweet little guy who can now communicate. Which is priceless.
• My little business became official when I registered as an LLC this year. Woohoo! I'm lucky because I can take it as big or as small as I like, and it doesn't really matter if I fail. Of course, I'm not in it to fail, but it's great to be able to grow at a rate that feels right to me. I like the direction that I'm headed in, and I feel that my work is growing in a way that's bringing me clients that respect my work for its quality. I put in a LOT of hours into my work. Not only just the shooting and editing, but also blog post planning, website work, constant tweaking of pricing (and researching), constant learning from any information I can get my hands on..... it's truly something takes up much more of my time than anybody would ever know.
• Two trips home to NC this year! Most of my evaluations of a year are based on how many times I got to go home, and this year there were only two but they were great ones. And pretty long too!  Lots of good time spent with my family and friends, including my 15 year high school reunion.
• Our first overnight trips as a family this year happened with our two trips to Storyland. Very fun, and I'm glad our kids are at such great ages that we can enjoy it for the next several years.

 

• 

 

Amazing Drew

Time for an update on Drew! His development over the past 6 months can be called nothing less than a transformation. I realize that I haven't really talked about his work with his speech therapist Cass, who started with him in late April. Speech therapy is such an interesting thing, and now having worked with two of them in the span of Drew's short life I can attest to the amazing things they can accomplish.

When Cass first started working with Drew, she immediately targeted play skills. Huh? At first I was pleasantly confused about what the point was, but as always, I totally trust their strategy and knowledge about what they're trying to do, and how to get there. Cass explained that speech development is closely tied with imaginary play skills and social interactions, and even had this cool chart that outlined children's ages and typically what kinds of speech they're capable of, as well as the corresponding level of play skills. Fascinating, let me tell you. Drew was just 4 at that time, and some of his speech and social skills varied widely from 24 months to 36 months. It was kind of disheartening to find that out, but we were glad he was in the right hands. :)

Here's Drew and Cass at the walk for Autism that we did earlier in the month for the NH Autism Society.

So to make a long story short, as he started to learn how to play and interact with other people during play, the communication development started to form EXACTLY as it was outlined on the chart. Incredible. She explained that many kids on the spectrum have to be directly taught how to play, even the simplest things that most kids just do naturally. It was kind of painstaking sometimes, and he kind of freaked out a little bit when introduced to the Little People and how to make them "talk" to each other and such simple things. But within a couple of weeks he amazingly was starting to have imaginary interactions with them.  Before we started working with Cass I had always just kind of thought that Drew just wasn't very creative, because he never really played with things the way you'd think a 4 year old would, but as it turned out, it was the autism coming through. I just didn't know what he needed. Thank goodness for Cass and her knowledge of autism! So amazing. And now Drew carries on play scenarios with his trains and Little People and comes up with such cute things.

In the past month or so some other really interesting developments have gone on with him. First, he is now having nightmares and bad dreams and has become appropriately afraid of certain things. Which is not a happy thing, but it's great because it shows that his social/emotional development has reached a stage where he COULD have bad dreams. Even Parker, at age 2 has nightmares but Drew never did until now because his brain just wasn't wired up for it until now. He worries about the coyotes when they howl at night and is really afraid of them. It's interesting to see his fears develop because it shows a growing emotional maturity. (we show him videos on You Tube so he can see exactly what a coyote looks like when it's howling and he seems to understand that they're just dogs. He's comforted by things that he can actually see.)

Secondly, he's discovered music!  When I took him to Kindermusik back when he was 7-12 months old he would cry and howl and be miserable during it. Looking back on it, and knowing what I know now about his sensitivities and sensory issues with music and sound, I realize I was torturing the poor kid. I feel terrible. But some of that has mitigated and now he enjoys music and songs, especially nowadays: The Wiggles!! Yay!  We have had this Wiggles CD that we've played in the car on and off ever since he was a baby and he NEVER had any interest in it. Then all of a sudden in October he's all singing along with the songs at the top of his lungs, requesting it be turned on when we get in the car, asking for it to be turned up louder, and singing the songs on his on at home. His favorite song is Dorothy the Dinosaur, I'm sure because of the chorus of "D-O-R-O-T-H-Y!!"  Letters are like crack to him (that, and gummy bears...)

We covered a lot of ground in the past 6 months with Cass, and when she recently gave him an evaluation on language use and understanding, he scored a "Normal" score for his age for the first time in his life. He's never scored as "normal" for anything up till that point. :) :)

He's really turning into such a cool little dude, and he can now ask questions, relevant questions, and understand answers and reasons. He's curious and so, so smart with an intense attention to detail. NOTHING escapes this kid. It's so great to be able to talk to him, and explain things including time sequences and have him understand. He still can't tell time obviously, but he has a firm grasp of "first, then" and even a sequence of 3-4 things to happen. Which is so great, rather than have him be constantly surprised about everything that happens.

He plays this video game called Mine Craft and you dig and build and do all kinds of things, and Drew is like a wizard at this game. He's working the mouse in his right hand, and at the same time using his left hand to punch letters on the keyboard which do certain actions, he can build structures after searching and gathering materials, managing it all across 3 different inventories, and all kinds of complicated things. It looks way too complex even for me.

And finally, he can read now. Thanks to Dave's work with him at bedtime. What first started with sight words has now turned in to full literacy. He can read his own bedtime books, ads on TV, signs in the stores, and anything else he can find. It's kind of amazing really. He loves it, so it wasn't hard to get him motivated to learn as many words as he now knows. Cass was impressed because he even reads and understands the difference between the words "now" and "know" in the same sentence. Crazy smart little dude!

So he's really come a long way and we're enjoying him. It's interesting how he was always the "difficult child" to take anywhere, and now he's really the easy one. He doesn't flip out in public anymore like he used to (usually) and has mellowed out into a little guy who just wants to go along and be curious and check things out.  Christmas is going to be really fun this year. He's finally getting it! Even last year he just had no clue about what was going on. He liked it and all, but still didn't understand it. But now, he has full on understanding about Santa, and all the decorations and things that go with Christmas. It will be a lot of fun. :)

Preschool End of Year Celebration

On the next-to-last day of school, Drew's school had a end of the year "Celebration" that all the parents were invited to. There are only 2 preschool classes in the morning, so they marched both classes onto the playground field and the first class performed a rousing rendition of "skidamarinkadeekedink" and Drew's class did "the ABC song,"  Then they both sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" together, and recieved their certificates for the year. So cute!  I always forget how small these little kids actually are.

 
Opening notes from the school principle, Mrs. Doster.

 

We knew Drew wouldn't make it through this event, and sure enough when he saw all the parents there, and especially me and Dave, he started melting down. Poor kid. He was the only kid on the ground during much of the performance. :) He's easy to spot, that one. Just look for the kid trying to melt through the floor. I love how they kept all three autistic boys at the end of the line, with the aides all closely circling around prepared to grab any one of them that may bolt at any given second. Lots of wrangling going on.

Here he is so sweetly trying to do the gestures to Twinkle Twinkle through his tears.

And here he is with his teachers. Still upset. It took him a long time to calm down after this event. It was just too weird for him to have both Mom and Dad there, and all the other parents and everybody milling around with the teachers. He was freaked out for sure!

This is his wonderful speech therapist and occupational therapist:

And his awesome teacher.  We're so glad he gets to be with her again this summer, and in the fall for next year!

The First 100 Days; also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Drew!

It's time for an update about Drew!  He got his autism diagnosis on March 14th, and according to the Autism Speaks website, the first 100 days afterwards is a key period of time for gathering information, arranging resources, and developing an action plan. Here we are in mid June, pretty much at the 100 day mark, and I can't even tell you what a different place we're in now. A better place. A place of hope and optimism!

One thing that is really amazing, is that no matter how much you don't want your child to be labeled "Autism," it truly does open up a lot of doors and windows of opportunities and resources that would otherwise not be there. It was like they sent the calvary. Suddenly our lives are filled with even more teachers, therapists, doctors, and other professionals, and it's a wonderful thing.

 
Most notably is the addition of Drew's new private speech therapist, Cass!  We are so thrilled and thankful to have her working with us. Our previous speech therapist, Annie, who worked with Drew from age 2-3 is now in private practice with Cass, and together their practice is called New England Pediatric Services.  Cass is all. about. working with kids with autism, and we've been amazed in the 6 weeks or so that she's been working with Drew, all the insights she has given us about how he is, and why he is the way he is. We're learning so many things weekly about how the autistic brain is hardwired differently than a typical kid's is, and every week when she leaves Dave and I are like, "A-HA!!!! That makes total sense now."  There are so many things, I can't even tell you, that now we're realizing have all been because of autism, that make him do the things he does, or in other cases, NOT do the things that we expect him to do.  It's wonderful to have someone come every week to talk to us who is knowledgable about ASD and we can ask questions of. Priceless, really.

 

Another great outcome of the whole thing is even more services for Drew at his preschool. Even before the diagnosis they obviously knew a lot about him, and what his needs were, and probably everybody suspected ASD for him anyway. ;) But now he's got a new IEP in place for the coming year, with speech therapy, sessions with the special educator, 1:1 time with a classroom aide, and new.... for this year: occupational therapy and the development of a sensory diet!  We're really excited about this part of it and can't wait to see what she comes up with for Drew.

We even had a pediatric dietician come out to our house in April to evaluate Drew and his diet.  Apparently selective eating is a common thing for kids like Drew and the concern is that the rigidity with routines can get worse over time if not dealt with early on. LUCKILY she said Drew has a lot of strong points and his diet isn't as restricted as we think it is, and he's getting most of his nutrients, despite not eating many fruits, vegetables, and not too much meat.  This kid would happily live on milk and pretzels if we let him. But anyway, we switched him to Flintstones complete vitamins because they have iron in them, rather than the gummy vites he was taking. And found ways to get more calories into him..... and as a result he's gained about 2 pounds since April! 

Next up is Drew's 4 year well visit with his pediatrician..... hopefully she'll tell us we're doing a great job with getting him as many services as we can. I even called ahead and made sure they scheduled us for plenty of time for talking during his appointment. Those well visits are SO quick, and it's hard to have time to voice any concerns you have in that brief amount of time. I know we have a lot to talk about, so it's best to call ahead and make sure they block out the time for you. They love it when you do that! A little tip from me to you....

And at his fourth birthday..... he's really blossoming. We're so excited at how many things he's understanding, and communicating.  His speech therapy is really paying off. It's not so much actual "speech" because his articulation and vocabulary are just fine, but it's more his communication that is being developed. He has had so many delays with language and communication development, and it's exciting to see all of that come forward in leaps and bounds. We're starting to see negative phrases, and questions, and appropriate responses to questions now.....  and there's that great satisfaction of KNOWING that he knows what I'm talking about when I talk to him. There's not so much blind repetition of TV shows now, it's actually HIM talking and thinking and forming sentences and wanting to know information. He's really amazing.

He's so sweet. There's really something inside him that has driven him probably his whole life, and it's that desire to please and be kind and do things for people. He's very much a kind and gentle soul, and he loves to obey the rules and do things the "right way."  He's affectionate and caring, and looks out for Parker and wants to help Mom & Dad however he can. It's often surprising how he'll drag Parker's high chair over to the table for suppertime, and get out a juicebox for him, and take the straw wrapper off and put the straw in for Parker, totally on his own idea.

It's not all perfect and probably never will be.... we still have times every day when he shuts down, gets stuck in a repetitive rut, pulls out the dishwasher racks and does that weird scanning thing with his eyes repeatedly, can be difficult to redirect out of a fit, asks for milk 100 times in 5 minutes, can't settle down for  more than 2 minutes at a time, constantly asking for things back and forth between the family room and the kitchen, being strangely tired and lethargic at random times of day.... and always always always asking for things. Oy. That gets old. I remember that question in the evaluation for autism--something about Does your child only ever ask for needs/wants and never just makes friendly conversation. YES. That was true for a very long time, and is pretty much mostly true even now. It gets old so fast... first thing in the morning, no Hi Mom. Just want juice, want tv, want cheerios, want this and that and all kinds of things. All day long. Every 2-3 minutes.

But our good progress is coming regularly now! We have hope and optimism. He's doing great and we have lots of fun things planned for this summer. He's going to have a blast.

The Elephant in the Room

Where to begin talking about this? I have a lot to say, a lot to write, to feel therapeutic about it, but I also don't want to alienate my few blog readers so I will choose my words carefully.

Drew was diagnosed with autism last week, and so the past week has been a blur of tears, and questions, and frustration, fear, and numbness and quietness. At some point we just can't think anymore, and just kind of shut down.

We started our process with the Child Development Clinic in Manchester a long time ago. It was back in November that I first made the phone call to get the ball rolling, and it was shortly before Christmas that I sent in the huge pile of paperwork to them. Questions and insurance forms and psychological instruments and permission forms and all kinds of things. They said it would take a long time to get on the waiting list, and it sure was. Finally in March we made it to the "short list" and we had a home visit by Nancy. Nancy was wonderful and the entire purpose of her visit was just to get to know Drew and play with him in a no-pressure environment. It was brilliant. She came over, talked to us a little bit, and built some towers out of blocks with Drew, and talked about Thomas the Train with him. And that was it.  Two weeks later, when it was time to go downtown for his eval, all we had to do was tell him we were going to see Nancy, and he was so excited. Normally taking him to a new and strange place would have been a big problem but the promise of seeing Nancy and playing with more toys with her was magic, and it was so easy. We were so grateful already at this point, for an easy arrival with no drama.  Clearly they know how to handle kids like him. :)

So the testing process was a breeze. Drew was seen by a developmental pediatrician, and a child psychologist and we answered questions to the doctor while the psychologist played on the floor with Drew and observed his play and interactions and gave him some tests. They didn't seem surprised by any of our answers or concerns, and I think looking back on it, knowing now what I know but didn't then, that they already knew the answer when they left the room to have a conference and discuss their findings.

Even Drew's former speech therapist, Annie, came to be with us for the evaluation. She was and is so fabulous for our family and even though she hasn't had any work with our family for nine months now, she came to support us. I can't get over how wonderful and kind she has been to us all along. Drew kept staring at her; he knew that he knew her from somewhere but couldn't figure out where. :)

Anyway, so he has autism. It is a bizarre and huge and widely varying disorder, that appears to have so many myths and stereotypes associated with it. There is a saying, "If you've met one child with autism, you've met one child with autism." Ever since Drew was very young, we always knew there was something up with him.  We weren't sure WHAT but we always hoped it was stuff that he would eventually "outgrow" or would just get over in time. I don't know that we really allowed ourselves to suspect autism because of the main point that he's always been freely affectionate, and has good eye contact. I always thought that those were the hallmarks of an autistic kid. But it's not true (for every kid).

But now that we know, so many of his other issues all suddenly make sense in this context. all the things that we've had ongoing problems with him about all fit into this puzzle.  Like his speech delay, sensory issues and sensitivity to new/different situations, noises, and places, disinterest in interacting with other kids, picky eating, constipation, and probably so many other things that we're still learning about.

A few days after the diagnosis, a police officer was driving around our neighborhood in a cruiser and stopped to talk to us since we were all outside. He thought it would be fun to flash the lights and run the siren for the boys. Drew freaked out and fell into the driveway in a fit. Parker thought it was awesome. Drew was messed up for the rest of the day.

So, BLURG. This is getting long-winded.  His prognosis is good because he's very smart and continues to learn and make progress. They think he'll be high-functioning as long as he continues to get more early interventions. He's already maxed out the preschool in Goffstown, as he's in the special ed program for as many days per week as is available. We're looking into private speech therapy with Annie's business partner who specializes in ASD so we're excited about that.  Thank God for Annie and her help in knowing what we need and where to get it. I still think there's a reason why she came to be with our family, and I'm so grateful for all the therapists in the world who help families in tough places.

 

Drew at 3 years, 7 months

Drew is coming right along. We see so much progress in him, and so many surprises. I thought I needed to do a quick blog post to capture him at this point in time.

This month he got bumped up to 4 days a week at school! Very exciting, and very much needed. His teachers felt that he would benefit from more consistency in his school week, so we changed his IEP and now he goes 4 days. (well, he WOULD except that there has not been an entire week of school since Christmas due to the weekly Snowpocalypses)

This winter has been hard on all of us. It's hard to be cooped up inside with 2 small and energetic little boys who need much, MUCH more activity and interaction than can be had inside the house. We watch much too much TV, and play too many video games.  Parker is now at the age where he's discovered the iphone and iPad games and he's hooked. He and Drew fight like cats and dogs over them.  Parker is really into Monkey Preschool When I Grow Up, and Word World, and is well on his way to knowing all his letters of the alphabet (but that's another blog post).  Drew is still playing all kinds of things, but mostly he likes to watch old videos of things we did in the past, and his big favorite game is probably Angry Birds. He's pretty good at it!

Since they fight SO intensely over the iPad, anytime Drew has it, I tell him to go in mom's room and shut the door. And he does. He knows that's his safe place for playing iPad, and he's happy to go in there, shut the door, and get up on the bed and stay occupied for quite awhile (and no, I don't make my bed, nor do I have anything that matches).

 

He's starting to answer questions now. This has been something that was a joint effort between his team at school and us at home, and finally we're seeing progress. Previously he would never answer a yes/no question, he would just repeat the question back to us. But now, we're seeing some answers. MOSTLY just "yes" to things. but we're working hard on a "no" answer too. But hey, a definite answer is a big help in our daily lives.

And other good stuff happening......  he's actually telling me about things that he's doing!!  it's VERY limited so far, but I hope it will continue to other things. Right now the only things he'll tell me usually regard some letter that he made. Like, he'll come up to me and say, "make a Q!"  which means made a Q. And I go look and he's drawn a Q in the carpet.  So it's a BIG start. I'm psyched. This the beginning of him coming up to me and telling me something that's happened somewhere else.

This week for the first time EVER he answered an open-ended question about something he did in the past. I asked him what he did at school that day, and he said "Make a bunny!"  He has never answered any questions like that, so it was so exciting that I quickly emailed his teacher to confirm, and sure enough, he did make a bunny that day!  And the same thing happened the next day, more info. So now that he's starting to be able to convey information like this, we've started a Communication Notebook with his teacher, where we can keep track of his improvements in communication. She lets us know specifically he did that day, so that we have information to start conversations with him about it. I'm really looking forward to all the neat things he'll be able to tell me in the coming weeks and months.

A few cute things he's said lately:   he was talking the other day about some "A" that he saw.... and he starts going "A! A is for ant!" and I just go yeah yeah...... we go through this a million times a day, with all letters. And he continues on..... "A is for aardvark! A is for Ant! A is for anteater! A is for antelope! A is for alligator............ (and finally)  Those are all animals."  That cracked me up. He's never finished up with a summary statement like that, very cute.

Here he is watching Dad snowblow the driveway. 

Not surprisingly, he's reading a lot of words now. And spelling words. He's been obsessed with letters for like a year and half now so it's not at all surprising.

 

They say 3 and 4 year olds ask a lot of questions. Like "why? why? why?" I guess that's true if the child knows what "why" means. I've never heard Drew use that word and I'm sure he doesn't know its meaning. BUT he's beginning to ask a lot of other questions. His favorite is "what's that sound?"  And he's also using "who" for the first time. Like if I'm working on photos of a client or somebody he doesn't know, he'll look at it and go "who that?"

So I don't know..... he's come a long way, with still a long way to go. He's a lot of fun and we're enjoying seeing all the new things he's doing, and enjoying the ride with him along his convoluted path. One thing that's always been true: he is SO sweet, and so thoughtful.  He's a great kid who needs a lot of extra help and support...... and patience. His teachers love him, and that's a great thing.  He's got other issues going on which are really hard to deal with but hopefully we can get some answers in the next few months.

Drew's Progress

Drew continues to progress by leaps and bounds. He's absolutely loving school. It was only after a couple of weeks into the school year that we had a meeting with his teacher and the team and they amended his IEP by increasing his services to three days a week at school, which includs a 3rd session of speech therapy per week and also a session with a special educator. I think it's been a huge success, and made a big difference.

 

Everything about him has been changing, and it's so awesome to be able to have him talk about things that he observes. He's very vocal about what he sees, and describes what things are doing, and now that his vocabulary is growing it's pretty funny to hear. Most of what he talks about is reciting from tv shows, like Curious George and Caillou. But he generalizes the information very well, and applies the scenarios from the tv shows to what's going on around him. It's kind of weird, but at the same time we're just glad that he's talking so much, and even though it's kind of scripted, maybe it's just the gateway into his learning style right now.

 
 
One thing that strikes me about him is how thoughtful he is. We encourage him to share, and think of others to the extent that any parent would in their family, but he seems to take it to the next level all on his own. When Dave comes home, he runs to get him a Pepsi out of the fridge and wants to take him an ice pack, and whatever else he thinks he might need. When he asks me for a snack or a juice box, he makes sure I give him two, so he can go take some to Parker too. (he'll hand Parker a juice box but doesn't open him for him, so Parker just ends up sitting there clutching it tightly. LOL!)   When we come home from school he always tells me that it's "time for Parker to take nap", which it is, and he's always looking out for what needs to be done and makes sure I don't forget anything. As in, he'll tell me "Mommy get dressed!" when there's 20 minutes left before we need to leave for school.

 

We're very close with his teachers, and exchange emails several times a week usually with his progress and what's going on with him. It's awesome to be that connected to them, and they're so great to answer any questions and keep us advised of what issues he might be having or what they're working on with him.

A huge skill that he's mastered in the past couple of months is taking turns, and using people's names correctly. For the longest time if we'd say "Goodnight Drew," he would just repeat "Goodnight Drew." He never knew how to address people's names. But between some special attention at school, and reinforcements at home, he can now properly address people with their names. He can say "Good night, Dad!" "I love you, Mom!" "Thank you, Parker!" It's very exciting.

 
He's so polite with his please and thank yous, and his speech is now becoming more complete with articles like "a" and "the" and he can also use "my" and "me". All new and exciting things that he's just started using recently.  Just this week he said to me, "I want some pretzels and milk, please!" Which kind of blew me away because not only was it a complete sentence, it also had a double request and also a please! That was the first time he'd ever said anything that complete.

 

From his most recent teacher update:

"I have been observing Drew during free and dramatic play time and have noticed
that he is showing much more interest in being with his friends and pretend
play.  Yesterday there was a group of children cooking in the kitchen area
(Drew loves to play in the kitchen area but usually would leave when a
group of children joined him) and Drew stayed and was playing right along
with them!  He was serving tea to one of the children at the table - so
cute!! "

 

It's exciting for us to see him making friends. Even though he has Parker, I think he needs more kids to be around on a regular basis, so it's great to see him becoming more comfortable. He's so affectionate, and loves to give hugs and always is asking me "Mommy sit!" to sit on the couch with him and snuggle. Sometimes when I tell him I can't right then, he understandly says "Mommy needs coffee." :)  And when he cuts flowers outside with his safety scissors, he brings one to me and says, "Mom, this flower is for you. I love you, Mom!"