The little things!

Moms of special needs children know that little things that other parents don't even think about can be huge things to us and our children.  We have made a lot of progress since my last post in July.  Thomas is doing very well in preschool.  He is verbal a lot of the time, which I attribute to our continued cognitive behavioral therapy games, OT and his new very well structured preschool with a teacher who understands Thomas's needs.  After two months of OT, Thomas is now sliding down many slides.   It was amazing to see him go down a slide without me at the bottom or sliding down with him.  This was a big cause for celebration!!

There is one slide though that he hasn't been ready to tackle.  It is a very steep slide, that even I thought was a little scary, on his school playground.  They go on this playground at recess and after school we often stay so he can play with friends and I get to observe how he does on the equipment.  All his friends can go down it and it has been affecting his play with them at times, because he won't go down this particular slide.  He has to go all the way around to the steps.

Thomas and I had a chance to go to his school playground today for a little bit by ourselves.  I thought if we practiced the slide when no one else was there watching, there would be no pressure on him.   Well all it took was going down once holding my hand and then he decided he was ready. I was really happy for him and could tell how proud he was of himself.  He was even climbing up it which takes a lot of strength since it is so steep.  Good proprioceptive work too!  He must have gone down it 100 times after that. Now he is confident on all 7 slides on his playground.  I really think this is all due to his sensory diet and therapy we have implemetned in the past 2 months.  This may not be a big deal to many parents who's children can go down all the slides right away, but for us this was an enormous success worth celebrating.  I could tell how proud he was of himself and I was so proud too!