Sunday, December 18, 2011

Busted!

Yesterday I was puttering around the house as much as my horrific cold would allow when the phone rang.  It was about time for the husband to call at the end of his shift so it took my brain a moment when the voice at the other end introduced itself as Donovan's music teacher at school.  Apparently, there have been some behavior problems and, with the Big Wintertime Show coming up on Tuesday, he thought the time had come for us to have a talk.

Ahem.

So all this ooohing and aaahing about how well Donny has been doing with his developmental milestones and all the while he's playing badass in music class!  I had no idea.  I promised the teacher I'd speak with him--and I have.  I hope he'll behave long enough for everyone to get thru Frere Jacque on Tuesday.  I've been having daily sit-downs with him about it since the call but I have this sinking feeling that all he's hearing is "BLAHblahblahblahblah."

Tuesday.  Its coming up soon.  Stay tuned.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Guided by Donovan

Donovan has been writing "songs" lately.  I use the quotations because alot of them are scales, which he has taught himself to play.  I guess he figures he is the first person to discover scales and thus has naming privileges.  At any rate, here is a short list of some of my favorite song titles:

* I read a book to myself
* A new friend: The Friend
* A bee tells its Mom and Dad that it wants supper.
* Your name isn't Frankenstein; its Captain

Is this how Robert Pollard got started?

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Well Hello There!

And the funny thing is? I thought leaving my full time job would give me MORE time!  I'm being facetious--it has indeed freed up much time but I havent used it to keep this blog up to date, that's for damn sure.  But part of that is thing have been so good and happening so fast...

So to get to it: Donovan is doing very well.  Very well indeed. My last blog post was about how crazy his schedule was but since then he has tested out of work with two of his four therapists (NO MORE HOME VISITS!) and we meet with the other two tomorrow.  The way one of them was speaking, she may pack up her worksheets and sign off with him too.  Her quote was, "its like he's a totally different child!"

And he is and he is'nt.  He's still silly and sweet and obsessed with his piano.  But he also has friends at school that he plays with--can you hear my heart singing? Friends!  And that has been, in my opinion, both the chicken and the egg of most of this.  Is he more social because he's made friends or does he now have friends because he's more social?

I like it too because his friends are at his level--some of the kids in his class are older, if not in age in attitude and/or interests.  There is, for example, this little subset of boys who play with these fighting tops--beyblades or something.  Which is perfectly fine.  Donny and his friends play a game they call "Go Down The Slide Without Using Your Bum."  And they play it every day.  And they hold hands and chase each other and just run, run, run just because they like to run.  He seems so much happier.  Not that he was sad but he's definitely happier.

I'm typing this as a break from completely tearing up the house (at 11pm on a Sunday) to prep the front room for the Christmas tree.  I realized in talking to Donovan a week or so ago that he has no idea what Christmas was.  Not in the biblical sense but in the Write a Letter to Santa sense.  I asked him if there were any toys he wanted and he said, "Hmmmm....no."  But he's super excited that we are getting a tree and he's pretty much memorized the Charlie Brown Christmas special.  He also thinks we should get Grammy Shanley a bike.  I suggested he draw her a picture of one instead.

More soon and with pictures!  Now back to putting the glassware back in the liquor cabinet, which I moved from the front room to the dining room to make way for the couch.