A Nice Weekend

As usual, the weekends go by too fast. This weekend was the Spring Westchase garage sale. Our neighbors smoked an entire pig and had BBQ sandwiches for sale for all of the "shoppers," although I think the people in the neighborhood ate more then half of it. Charlie and Addison really enjoy spending time outside and "socializing" with the neighbors. Charlie especially never seems to want to come in -- I think he would hang outside all day if we let him. Charlie is definitely most comfortable around people he knows. He walks up to all of our neighbors and hugs them and calls them by name. Miss Addison is quite the social butterfly and really thinks every house on our cul-de-sac is hers. She even walks into our neighbor's house, opens up their pantry and points to the top shelf for an Oreo cookie. If their door is not open, she has been known to hit it until someone opens it, then she'll proceed to walk in and demand her cookie. At least Charlie is more subtle. ;)

Charlie had a great day at swim lessons on Saturday. He is comfortable now at the school and really likes his teacher. Another instructor came in at the end and I thought this would make him anxious, but he just went right with the flow and really seemed to enjoy himself the entire time. He is actually swimming now, albeit not very pretty. Every week the distance gets a little longer. He has finally gotten the notion of kick and seems to pretty much get "reach and grasp." In fact, he is so excited to kick, he kicked the whole time he was in the water, even when she was trying to hold him. It was quite funny to watch -- it was like the instructor was holding a little round-up toy that was just waiting to be let go. In fact, he entertained quite a few parents in the waiting area who were too busy watching Charlie to watch their own kids. I even heard one couple ask another mom if Charlie was her son. She said no and the other woman just said "He is just so fun to watch!" The other commented about what a big smile he had on his face the whole time. Things like that just warm my heart.

After regressing somewhat on potty training (and admittedly some of this is our fault for not putting him on the potty as often as we should), Charlie had a better weekend. I kept putting him on the potty over and over as he seems to have really developed a preference for his diaper and tries to get off the potty almost as soon as you set him on it. He did pretty good today, though. Early Saturay morning (about 2 a.m.), he came into our room crying and said "bathroom." I was pretty out of it and really just thought he was repeating the word. Then today on the way to the beach he said it again 2 or 3 times and when we got to the beach, his diaper was newly wet. So, I do think he was trying to tell us that he had to go potty. This is a huge development for him as he never really told us before except maybe 2 or 3 times. We would just blindly sit him on the potty to see if he had to go. I am hoping this happens again so I can really reward him and hopefully encourage it in the future.

We went to the beach today. Both the kids love the beach and want to stay in the water the whole time. The water was a perfect temperature and there was a nice breeze. Charlie sat in the water and seemed to love the sensation of the waves washing over him. Addison was very interested in the boats (or "bo" as she called them).

We had a play date with our friends this afternoon. Their son was just diagnosed with PDD. They are going to go to the same doctor for a more definite diagnosis. Seeing the two boys together really shows how similar, and yet, how different kids on the spectrum are. Charlie's friend does a lot of repetitive behaviors such as lining up things, turning things over, climing something over and over, etc. His mom said that he will turn all of his cars over on their backs and just spin the wheels. He will also line his parents up on the floor and make them lie totally flat. I did observe some of this, but again, if you don't know what you are looking for, you would never guess this little boy was autistic. He communicated with his parents more than Charlie communicates with us, though. Both boys spin and have some sensory issues and both did their own thing and did not really play with each other. Addison followed her new friend around almost the entire time. She really was quite interested in him and took his toys away repeatedly. He was a good sport about it.

After a couple good days, Charlie was a bit more "spacey" today. He seemed to be in his own little zone for a good part of the day. We try not to allow this to go on for very long and swoop in to make him join the group. We did have a couple more instances of spontaneous speech. Yesterday he looked at his hand and said "five fingers" and today he looked at a piece of garbage and told Adam "that's trash." We get excited about the small things in this house now! :)

We go back to see Dr. Carnavale tomorrow for an official diagnosis and discussion about treatments.