He signs drink!

Garrett has been signing drink at ABA for a few weeks now, but he would never do it for me. I've still been doing hand over hand and making him sign before I give him a cup and he would just grunt and get mad at me. Today, we did the same thing. I made him sign hand over hand the first time. He took a drink and handed the cup back to me and then made the sign with him hand and I pushed it to his face and said "drink". The next time around, he did it by himself!

THIS IS HUGE!

I was sitting on the couch tonight watching a movie with Bronson. Garrett was playing with some toys in front of us. Suddenly, he walked up and climbed on my lap. He does this every once and a while, so I didn't think anything of it.

But then he grabbed my hands and put them on my face.

He initiated a game of peek-a-boo!

This is BIG!

Update to head banging

We met with a physician's assistant at the base clinic on Friday. She said that Garrett has a hemotoma and that if the behavior doesn't stop, he will eventually develop a bone callus.

No bueno.

She did recommend a helmet. I picked him up a martial arts sparring helmet at a second hand store. It doesn't fit him correctly and he hates it. I sent an email to his OT, since we won't see her again until Friday. I'm also thinking about sending an email to his developmental pediatrician and see if he can get Tricare to cover a real "special needs" helmet. Those are pretty expensive since most of them are custom fit.

The PA said that the next step is anti-anxiety meds. She said that's the last resort, but unfortunately, it would be next step if we can't get him to stop with behavioral therapy and the helmet doesn't deter him. I would HATE to put him on meds already. He's still so little.

Head Banging

The head banging stopped for two or three weeks. He's doing again and now he's hitting his head even harder. I made him an appointment with a doctor in the military clinic. It's not his regular doctor, so we'll see what happens.

I'm pretty sure that our only options are medication, a helmet or just continuing with ABA and trying to find a different behavior that fills the need.

I really don't want to put him on medication. He's so little.

Eye Stim

Garrett has been doing something with his eyes for the past two months or so. We call it giving the lights dirty looks because that's what it looks like he's doing. We usually stop him before he gets too into it. Today when I picked him up from ABA, he was doing it while I was talking to his therapists. I didn't stop him because I was getting a recap of his session. After a minute it went from what you see in the video below to rolling his eyes back. I finally put my hands over his eyes and said that it was creepy. One of the ABA therapists said that it's actually stim. I've never let it go that far, so that had never occurred to me.

Today's Update

Garrett woke up with a runny nose this morning. It wasn't too bad, so we packed up and drove through the slushy snow to ABA. When I picked him up, they said that he had done great with his program but wouldn't eat or drink. They said he was pretty grumpy and that his nose had been running constantly. At least he did his puzzle and shape sorter!

After a nap, Garrett had a fantastic speech session. He did the shape sorter. When he was finished putting the shapes in, he tried to reach his hand in and grab one of the pieces. His therapist said "Open?" and he replied with "oh oh oh". One of the highlights of this week's session was the blanket swing. We've done it with Garrett before. He liked it, but never really communicated that he wanted more, just that he like it. Today, we did it once and he repeated the therapist when she said "Wee!". When we stopped, we both let go of the blanket. He stood up and came over to me. I asked him what he wanted and he took my hand and put it over the corner of the blanket and said "Wee." I'm so excited! Unfortunately, the blanket swing takes two adults, so I can't do for him all the time.