"Awesome Day"

The title of this post was in the subject line of an e-mail from Samuel's special education teacher yesterday afternoon. I like seeing those kinds of words as opposed to "behavior log" ! Samuel did not script at school yesterday! He is given some time to do so during breaks, but during class time he did not! His aid mentioned the good news to me when I picked him up and I was just logging on to e-mail Samuel's teacher to ask her "Did you do anything differently yesterday?" Her e-mail to me asked the same question!

I find that when Samuel has had a good day I start analyzing it very closely to see what details must have contributed to the "good" results. Eventually I end up remembering that I need to give things a few days to look for patterns and trends in these "good" things. I also try to remember that sometimes, no differently than for you and me, Samuel just has a "good day". Yes, it's helpful to know the things that contribute to it, but I shouldn't analyze it to the nth degree thinking I'll be able to duplicate all the conditions on another day. It doesn't work like that for Samuel and life doesn't work that way for me either (as much as I want it to sometimes!).

While the scripting challenge has been with us for a little while, around that challenge good things are happening. Samuel's handwriting has improved remarkably. At the beginning of the school year it was a struggle to get him to write lower case letters. Now he is doing so without prompts most of the time. His letter size has also gotten much better. He is also starting to share his thoughts verbally with us. Sometimes he is teasing us, saying things like "Mommy, I'm going to script "Cyberchase". He tells me this with a grin on his face. Other times, however, he tells me about something he did at school. He told me yesterday "Mommy, we are going on a trip tomorrow." I asked him "Where are you going?" and he told me "On a egg hunt." They are travelling to a nearby town for a special needs Easter Egg Hunt today.

He really was in a good mood after school yesterday. He followed his visual schedule quite well and when it was finished for the afternoon he filled in some things himself, which he proceeded to do until I had to interrupt it with a short homework session before dinner. Then after dinner he and his brothers got to play outside and baby sister joined them.

I need to remember this day the next time we have a tough one!