A Few of "Those" Moments

I've been having a few of those "moments" lately that only creep up once in awhile, but when they do, makes me feel a little "down" in terms of how some things are progressing.  We have been having a tough time in certain areas of Colin's development lately and while most of them are things I know he WILL eventually accomplish, it's really hard getting through in the present time.  

The hands down number one issue that we have been struggling with lately is potty training with Colin.  We had waited for awhile to even start because we knew that he wasn't ready and then once we found the right seat, we started after this past summer.  As I mentioned in a previous post, he does not initiate having to go, but rather, we try and keep him on a schedule so that he is going around the same times every day.  We were having some success for awhile where he put up a fight to get into the bathroom, but then would go every time on the potty.  He loved praise and then flushing the toilet so it seemed to be going ok.  However, lately, he is not having success outside the house, and here is getting worse.  Not only does he put up a big (often crying) fight getting to the bathroom, he won't even go once he is on the potty (although he did go once today).  

So, we are looking for some advice from some of you pros out there (although I do understand that the same things don't work for everyone).  Do we just keep pushing through on our schedule even though he puts up a fight and lately won't go, OR, do we suspend it for awhile and revisit the issue in a few weeks? a month? 

My difficulties in this lie in the fact I have a magic number in my head and we get closer and closer to that number...(stupid, stupid numbers)

Our second issue lately is Colin's (and Kailey's too) behavior.  We ARE consistent and don't let things go the more tired and weary we get of these things, but there are times where I feel as though I have said the same things 1,000,000 times and he still does the same things over and over.  While we have not had any issues reported from school (thank goodness), the way he has been with his sister lately is atrocious. What is more frustrating to me is putting him in time out and not letting him out until he says "sorry"; to get him to actually say it sometimes it is extremely difficult.  He knows exactly what he is doing. There are times that I have a hard time differentiating between what is typical toddler behavior and what may be influenced but his lack of communication, stemming from having DS.  I also know there are other  issues out of our control lately like the fact Chris has been traveling a lot with work but I still don't feel as though that's always the reason.

As always, Colin's feeding issues make the list but to be honest, it is what it is right now.  He is eating, drinking, and growing, however cannot introduce any new things to the few that he eats now.  We have had him eat some pizza here and there, and the beverage variety (although the amount he drinks is very minimal) seems to be a bit better as well.  We start feeding therapy on Tuesday (yay!) so I pray that even if it takes awhile, we start to see some progress here.  

While I am so happy with the progress Colin makes at school and the things they are working on there, every once in awhile, some other areas of development and milestones creep into my head and I get frustrated.  He has been increasing his vocabulary slightly and we are noticing that he is putting a few more words together to try and communicate something, however, the frustration on both ends is palpable when he isn't understood.  

While I am really happy that with guidance, he has become pretty comfortable with letters, shapes, and numbers, we seem to be stumbling with the colors.  The difficult thing is that there doesn't seem to be an app that I can find that is exciting enough to keep his attention, he could care less about flash cards, and keeping his attention on any certain object long enough to identify colors has been difficult.  There are times where he identifies a few successfully and other times its as though he takes a guess and is unsuccessful every time.  I have thought about doing some photoshop type things to put Chris or I with a color, but not sure how to go about doing this either.  It feels a bit overwhelming!  

I know that just like Colin, I go through some phases myself especially when it feels as challenging as it does right now.  There are times that I wonder if we aren't doing enough but when I rationally think about it, I know that we are trying as hard as we can in many different ways. While the way in which I handle things has changed with time when it comes to this sort of thing, there is one thing that doesn't change and that is the fact that these "moments" and "feelings" do make an appearance every now and then.  

I'll be honest, having Kailey take her crackers out of her bowl today and count them pretty successfully triggered some of these feelings too (even though I am really proud of what she can do too!).  

Some fun pics from the weekend of hanging out with Becker!

The three of them were giggling together during this picture!

Kailey was all over him!