Jan 4

I am late on making the calendars for the kids this month. I need to get them done before dinner or I might have a meltdown on my hands. I know you are probable wondering what a calendar has to do with Autism. After Avion started preschool through Early Intervention and he got put into the pm class, I started to struggling with Avion to get him to school. In the morning he would be all excited about school but when it came time to get ready for school he would just fight me to no ends. When I told his preschool teacher this, she said that Avion really works well with pictures and I should try a picture calendar with him. So that evening I went home and drew a square box with double doors on my calendar on all the days that Avion went to school for that month. Then I showed Avion this and told him that every day that has the school picture on it was a day that he has to go to school. So the next day when he had school, I told he that is was time get ready for school. He started his fighting like normal but instead of me battling him like normal I said lets go look at the calendar and see what the calendar says. As soon as he saw my hand drawn picture of the school, he say school and happily got dressed, ate lunch, and got his shoes, coat and backpack on with no fighting. From that point on I was a firm picture person. I drew pictures for everything Avion was going to be doing. When Avion started Kindergarten, Zidan was also starting Early Intervention Preschool. I couldn’t have two different schedules on one calendar, so I made a blank template and at the end of every month I make a new one for the upcoming month. But the reason it was so important to have the calendar done before dinner was over is because it is his night to put away the clean dishes. Since he turned 7 that is one of his house jobs he gets to do twice a week. And every time it is his night to do dishes he has to look at his calendar to make sure I’m not trying to get him to do dishes on the wrong night. Well I got his calendar done before dinner and up on the wall to and so the meltdown was eliminated.

At dinner, I served chocolate pudding. All my kids were very happy. I’m not sure if I have said this before. But Zidan doesn’t like to feed himself. He would rather go hunger then to feed himself. And chocolate pudding is one of those food items he still won’t feed himself without a battle. So once he got his chocolate pudding, he grabs his spoon and the bowl and pushes it toward me. I say oh thank you and take a small spoonful of the pudding. I try to give him the spoon so he can have a bite. Zidan refused to take the spoon, so I ate some more pudding. I try to give him the spoon again. And he refused again. This time I take even a smaller amount of pudding and feed it to him. Then I get a bigger size of pudding and I show him it and then I eat it. At this point Zidan is not happy with me because I’m getting all the pudding. I try to give Zidan the spoon and he takes the spoon and grabs the bowl of pudding and puts it next to David. David takes the spoon and the pudding and tries to give it back to Zidan. Zidan refused so David says to Zidan thanks for the pudding and takes a bite. Zidan grabs the spoon and pudding from David and sets it in front of him and takes a shaky spoonful of pudding and puts it in his mouth. He did finish all the pudding and only spilled once. I’m so proud of him.