Great Day!!

Michael had a really great day today. I gave him a toy that he's had for a few years, but never played with. It is a nesting woodland animals set, similar to the classic Matryoshka dolls.

He spent much of the day taking them apart and putting them back together and trying to figure out how to line the top and bottom up correctly. It was so nice to have him play appropriately with a toy for so long.

What was even better is that he wanted to interact with us and the toy. He'd bring the animals over, sit in my lap, and ask me to help when the pieces were stuck, and just generally talk about the animals when he wanted to make conversation.

Additionally, he helped a lot with making his cookies and cleaning up. Definitely a great day!

Total Exhaustion and Good Stuff

I can't even begin to express how exhausted I am right now. So, it's going to a quick entry tonight and then off to bed.

Michael has a Christmas book that he likes to read in the living room. He never talks about it, but it's one thing he does to get away from everyone and have some quiet time. I found out that he has been playing with a mish-mash of train toys downstairs, and one of the main characters is Santa driving a train. Apparently, he has quite the story he acts out. So, reading comprehension plus imaginary play equals one very happy mommy.

Other than that, school has been better this week with many more stars and many fewer meltdowns. He's still not eating and drinking enough during the day, but he's starting to make up for it at home. Definitely a good thing!

Small miracles, Huge Smiles

This weekend we saw a minor miracle at our house: Michael pulled all the books out of his school 'book bag', dragged his baby doll over to a chair, and read every book in the bag to the baby. This is amazing in so many ways – he NEVER reads out loud. Some of the worst battles we ever had were trying to get him to read out loud while doing his 'headphone homework' between Tomatis loops. He doesn't have a lot of pretend play, but he was actually propping the baby up so he could see the book, and asking the baby questions. It was so adorable. Plus, he was reading with inflection, and clearly had favorite stories.

I know that none of this is remarkable for typical kids his age. But for him, and us, it is huge. I was sad to back up the bag of books and send them back to school this morning. But, when I told his teacher what he had done, she assured me there would be another bag coming home soon. Never did I imagine I'd be excited about getting homework!