Monkey outsmarts us on an almost daily basis. I keep thinking to myself “I need to blog that!” when he does something like this but it slips my mind. I have a few recent examples to share though.
1. Monkey looks at Duhdee and points toward the floor. He’ll sign/say “Help, look!” If this doesn’t work he will get down on the floor (with sound effects to let us know exactly how hard it is to get down on the floor, you’d think he was 40 not 4!) and look under the couch. At this point Duhdee usually gives in and gets down on his stomach to look under the couch. Sometimes there is something under there but most times it’s just an elaborate ruse to get Duhdee on the floor so he can jump on his back and tell him “go!” which is Duhdee’s cue that he should crawl around with a giggling Monkey on his back. Once, when I kept refusing to fall for this trick, Monkey placed something under the edge of the coffee table so I could see that there WAS something under there to look at! Yes, I then “fell” for it and he got his piggy back ride.
2. This past weekend we were visiting Duhdee’s sister at the campground they spend summers in. There is a pond across a small field from their campsite and Monkey is OBSESSED with getting to that pond. Duhdee and I took turns chasing him down and heading him off. After a while a game of baseball started up amongst the other kids. Monkey saw his chance. He grabbed the baseball and threw it to his left and Duhdee chased it. Monkey ran to the right and headed straight for the pond. It might have worked too but I was right behind him and Duhdee did realize what he was doing right after he turned away from Monkey, lol.
3. On Monday, at 5, Monkey was looking for Duhdee to turn on the TV so he could watch Curious George. Duhdee always turns on “George” while he cooks dinner but we’ve been cutting back on TV time so…he told Monkey no, that he could use the computer instead. Monkey was not impressed and stewed over it for a few minutes. Duhdee next heard “George” on the television in OUR bedroom. What?? We have hidden the remote control to prevent just this sort of rebellion! The kid has learned to turn the TV on and change the channels using the buttons on the front of the TV. That tactic didn’t last very long! Monkey is going to be very disappointed when that TV disappears I think. Darn kid!
An aside, the folks at the clinic were very impressed that Monkey has learned which channels “his” shows are on. He flips between 2, 11, 16 (the 3 PBS stations), 24 (Disney) and 25 (Nickalodeon). From what I’ve been reading lately though this is a pretty common FX skill 🙂
Oh yeah, it’s amazing how much Kyle’s TV skills outweigh some of his other skills. When we switched from cable to DISH, he picked up on the new numbers for the channels so fast! I owe some of my thanks for Kyle learning large numbers to television (NASCAR also gets a nod) :). He has the Game Show Network’s schedule memorized along with all the hosts. Last summer, he wrote down the schedule probably 100 times. I figured at least he was practicing his writing and working on clock skills, lol. Of course, when there is a change in schedule, he tells me about it.
Last night we went out to eat, and right on the hour or half hour, he’ll say, “Oh man, I’m missing….”
I think the “Oh man…” would be cute but I’m guessing it gets old, lol.
I have no problem with using Monkey’s interests in our favor, the OT does the same. At school, if he wants to use the squirt bottle (which is a great OT task anyway) he has to draw lines and shapes on a chalkboard first and then he uses the squirt bottle to wash it off.
Writing down the TV schedule is good therapy IMO!
One of my big amazements with Ian is that from the videos he has, he can pull out any one of them, look at the cover, and tell you exactly which video it is….even the ones that don’t really have pictures (we still have some VHS tapes believe it or not). When he was even younger he was always fascinated with the ‘logos’. Like Sesame Street…if he saw the logo on his toy, he would run his fingers over it, show it to us, etc.
I think there is actually a program to teach SN kids to read that revolves around logos. I can’t find a link on it at the moment but I know I’ve seen it somewhere.
I posted once before about Monkey recognizing an Igloo when we were doing flash cards and I was shocked. It turned out that one of the kids in his class carries an Igloo brand lunchbox that Monkey was fascinated with.