The Moments....

.....they just keep coming. And if I don't put them down somewhere, I'm likely to forget them all.

There are 2 stories about Rachel and/or Simon for tonight. The first is a continuation of their bedtime ritual. The behaviors have been "morphing" a bit over the last few weeks. And now, after a lot of experimentation, I think we found our new series of nightly events. Some of it I love, other parts just leave me floored.

For a while, Simon refused to give Kevin a hug because he was determined to keep Rachel from making changes to what he was comfortable with. But Rachel had learned to get around him, so now he will jump into Kevin's arms to say goodnight. Then he'll climb into Rachel's bed for songs. And Rachel will have climbed into Simon's bed. All right, confused yet? Well, after I finish singing the songs, they both climb out of the other's beds, and climb into their OWN bed. Then they innocently go through the final goodnights with me and when I leave the room, Rachel starts her conversation with Simon, and Simon jumps out of bed and tries to get into some kind of trouble -- usually climbing into the forbidden chair and he has now discovered he can pull the cover off of the vent so it's now a new favorite troublesome activity. Rachel falls asleep first, and Simon will either fall asleep in her bed, or on the floor. Before going to bed myself, I move him back to his own bed, and he may or may not still be there when Kevin leaves for work in the morning.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is Rachel and her potty training. About 8 months ago, I remember sitting in parent group with MCITP discussing potty training children on the spectrum and descriptions of how difficult it can be. Let me just say, this is so NOT the case for Rachel. It's been 2 weeks. She spends all of her days in underwear, from the time she wakes up until about 30 minutes before she goes to sleep at night. And when she wakes up, for the last 2 nights, her Pull-Up has been DRY. She's averaging 1-2 accidents daily, and successfully going to potty about 10 times daily. And, even from the reports I'm getting from school, it's been EASY. A big part of this is that SHE is the one who initiated potty training, rather than someone else putting expectations on her. I am so unbelievably proud of that child, words just can't describe it.

Hopefully, I won't hold Simon to the same expectation. Right now, he's no where NEAR ready to begin potty training. But when the time comes, I hope he is as successful. But everyone is an individual and Simon will train in his own way and in his own time.