Headed in the Right Direction

While I would like to attribute our improvements lately in the potty and behavior areas to the return of a normal routine, it is difficult to do so because we have only been back to school for 3 days!  The most recent snow storm and cold spells have continued to disrupt our normal school routine (not that we were necessarily complaining!) and yet we have started to move baby steps in the right direction.  We are finding that Colin is fighting the potty slightly less than he had been and is more cooperative when it's time to go at home.  In fact, we are even seeing some bright spots where he will tell us once in awhile that he has to go.  

 

Posing in his new pajamas from Christmas from Grammy

 I feel as though he is becoming more excited with his successes which I also owe to his increase in independence.  We are finding that he is wanting to do a lot more by himself without any help at all and we see this a lot with things like dressing/undressing, brushing teeth, etc.  He is also improving with the ease in which he is able to do this so it has dramatically helped. 

While Colin and Kailey still fight like your typical brother and sister, they have also been playing really nicely together.  One of the challenges Colin has faced for a long time is difficulty in initiating play on his own but we are finding that this is making great steps as we often find him choosing different toys to play with and appropriately playing with them on his own.  In addition, he is also asking Kailey to join him and they are able to come up with different activities to play with together. I have to laugh because Doc McStuffins has turned my kids into hypochondriacs!  They need to see the "doctor" all of the time! 

 

Colin's communication and speech has been making some nice jumps lately as well.  More and more phrases are coming out of Colin's mouth than we can understand and we are having some nice conversations with him as well.  Just tonight I turned away from Colin for a second and he said "hey mom! I'm talking to you!" and it was as clear as anything.  One of the biggest challenges we face with him right now is the fact that he uses his hands when he is unable to effectively communicate mostly by pushing (someone is too close, he doesn't want to play with them, "leave me alone" sort of behaviors).  However, overall we have seen improvements or they have been correctable in the moment. 

 

One of my most favorite improvements I have been seeing lately with Colin is his attention span and interest in completing fine motor activities.  In the past, holding a writing utensil would hold his interest for 30 seconds TOPS but he will actually sit and participate in activities like coloring for much longer periods of time.  Some of his basic letters consisting mostly of lines are emerging so it's been fun to see.  We are headed in the right direction!