How about them executive functioning skills?

This morning, about a 1/2 hour before we left for school, Monkey came in to the bathroom and asked for help getting one of his bath toys out of the net bag they are stored in.  I thought it was funny because he never plays with them anymore now that he takes showers and it was especially odd because even when he was still taking baths this particular toy was not one of his favorites.  I helped him get out his wind-up Elmo toy and he took off happily.

Once we were all ready to go I noticed that he was still holding the toy.  Duhdee asked him if he was taking the toy with him or if he was leaving it at home.  Monkey did not respond but he started to put the toy down on the counter of his play kitchen.  When Duhdee grabbed his coat, however, he stopped and decided to keep the toy instead.  I took it from him briefly while he put on his coat but he quickly reclaimed it.  MOST days he would have abandoned the toy at this point.

On the way to school we played our normal games, the latest of which is my torturing quizzing him on the colors of the M&Ms before I’ll let him have one.  We started this game mostly because, if left to his own devices, he will only request RED M’s and we were running low on RED M’s, lol.

So, we arrive at school and Monkey was getting increasingly upset.  Fridays are hard.  He is tired by the end of the week and the last thing he wants to do is go to school, poor kid.  I sat in the truck while Duhdee walked around to let Monkey out and I noticed he was still holding that Elmo toy.   After I got out of the truck Duhdee asked him if he was taking the toy with him or if he was leaving it in the car, Monkey kept the toy.  He has NEVER kept the toy past this point.  Any time he has taken a toy in the car he ALWAYS leaves it in the car when we get where we are going.  Interesting.

Now we walked into the school and down the ramp to his classroom and he is continuing to clutch this toy.  It got to the point where he had to decide between letting go of Duhdee’s hand or handing over the toy to get an M from me.  He let go of Duhdee’s hand.   When we got in the classroom I had to take the toy away from him so he could take off his coat.  He grabbed his picture from his cubby and ran to check in. 

As soon as he was done Duhdee told him to come and make a choice for his first activity of the day.  He began signing and saying “water” as he ran to the choice board.   He picked the water table picture out of the array of choices and came straight toward me.  Duhdee made him stop and read his sentance “I want to play water table” and directed him toward the smocks.  At this point we had all realized what he had been planning over the last 45 minutes!  I asked the teacher if it was OK to let him have the Elmo toy, normally they do not let the kids keep toys from home in the classroom during the day.  She didn’t have the heart to tell him no once she saw how well he had planned this out.  As soon as I handed the toy to him, his face lit up and he started waving and telling us “Bye!” 

Our last look of him before we left was of him with his Elmo floating in the water table and a huge grin on his face.