Month: July 2016

If there is one thing Eli is really good at, it’s imaginative play. He sees fun and adventure in anything. You see stuffed animals, Eli sees a villainous bear who fights a helpless monkey, give him a play kitchen and he becomes a five star chef. He loves building forts, playing hot lava, and pretending he’s stuck or hurt just so he can be rescued. As I type this he’s in the occupational therapy waiting room playing with a road map rug. He puts his stuffed Ryder toy on a caution sign on the rug and makes him catapult into the sky yelling “AHHHHHHH!” Then he walks him to a parking lot and pretends it’s a restaurant and says “YUMMY! Nom nom nom”When Eli is in imagination mode I can see how much he knows and is learning; things that I haven’t even taught him. I heard once that kids are like sponges, they absorb everything they see and hear. Eli learns things from his family, daycare, teachers, therapists, movies, everything!

Yesterday we were playing this dumb game on his iPad called plants vs zombies (I mean really?) but he likes it. These zombies try to walk to your house and the plants stop them. After playing for a while, Eli started walking around the house hunched over with loose arms, pretending to be a zombie. Other things are more productive like watching old McDonald songs on YouTube and learning all of his animal sounds. Watching his therapist perform a task and he copies.

Kids are amazing learners, even those with delays or disabilities. Eli has come SO FAR in the few months he has been in ABA, speech, and occupational therapies. It is so amazing to see how quickly he is picking up on everything. It gives me very high hopes for him.

I was looking into getting Eli a therapy dog for quite some time. One to keep him from wandering when we’re out in public and to help him calm down from tantrums. All of the nonprofit organizations for therapy dogs around here won’t help us until Eli turns 4, so until then I try and find opportunities for him to get used to animals. One of our ABA therapists took in a lost dog and I had her bring him to a couple visits. Most recently we offered to cat sit for my husband’s coworker.

The cat came over when Eli was napping and when he emerged from his room and saw a black cat outside his door he shut the door and hid in his room. When I came in to see if he’s ok he pointed past me and said “yeow. Yeow. Yeow.” The cat was scared the first few days and hid from all of us. But after a week has gone by the cat has really grown to like us, or at least just tolerate us; especially Eli. He calls the cat Yeowy. When he comes down from a nap and is looking for him he will walk around the house saying “Yeowy?? Yeowwy!!!” When the cat does something bad Eli will tell him “Yeowy no!”, when the cat is in his way he will say “Yeowy go!” when the cat is on the kitchen counter he will run up and say “Yeowy down!”. Of course because a cat is a cat, I try to be around to enforce Eli’s demands. I want him to know that he is heard but a young cat may not be the best audience.

The cat is going home soon and Eli will be sad; I on the other hand, am ready for it to go back to his home. However, I will say that I am glad we got to have this little experience because I got to see how Eli would react to an animal in the house. Now I want to get him a therapy dog even more! It gives him more opportunity to use direct language to another person besides mommy and daddy (he doesn’t address any of his therapists directly, he will do so more generally. Ex. Instead of saying “Richie go!” he will just tell him “go!”. When speaking to my husband and I he says “Mommy/Daddy go!”) With the cat he picked a name and addressed it directly, which I loved! I think he also got a real kick out of being in charge of something in the house! Overall I would say it was a very good experience for Eli!