I am likely cursing myself but I’ll knock on wood and hope.

We’ve seen some really nice improvements with Monkey lately.  He’s becoming really vocal and attempting more and more to repeat words when asked.   He has also spontaneously used a couple of new words this week (water and Tigger.)  Typically, we will see the improvements weeks before the teacher and the assistants do but they’re hearing all the same words and sounds from him at school.  It’s nice that he’s comfortable enough to “show off” for them.

Another area of improvement is sleeping.  Out of the last 9 nights he has slept straight through for 6 or 7 of them.  He slept straight through 6 nights in a ROW at one point.  Bliss!  He’s still sleeping on the floor and we have eliminated the melatonin.  He’s getting about 10 hours of sleep each night now which is just so nice.  I’d love more but, after the awful stretches we’ve had, I’ll take what I can get!

I think we may have also turned a corner on the school drop offs but it’s a little soon to know for sure.  I thought that Friday might have been a fluke but he has done really well this week too. 

Monday morning we used a combination of tickles and M&Ms as rewards and he walked to within 6 feet of the classroom door fairly happily.  Once Duhdee removed his coat, Monkey skipped the water play and took Duhdee straight to the swing room where all the other kids were.  Once in the swing room he let go of Duhdee’s hand and ran and jumped into one of the large puffy cushions and promptly forgot all about us.  He was still rolling around on the cushion when we left.

Tuesday we repeated the tickles and M&Ms system and he reached the same location outside the classroom door before he refused to walk further.  He was a bit whiney as Duhdee was removing his coat but nothing too awful.  Duhdee set him up at the sink to do his morning water play and walked away.  The assistant who was going to take over was still engaged in another activity so we stayed to keep an eye on him but from a distance and he never looked for us.  Once she was clear to join him we left and he was still happily filling and emptying his cups and toys.

So, I suppose, if McWhinerpants comes along with all these really cool improvements, maybe he can stay a little while longer.