More to add to our bag of tricks

Speech report, speech report... this is SUPPOSED to have pictures, but our camera DIED today. What will I do without it?!

Oh, well. Here's what we talked about today:

GUM - we're ready to try this again (he loves it but played with it after awhile and I got more than a little tired of picking gum out of things). She suggested 1/2 piece sometimes, 4 pieces other times for different strengthening of the muscles in his mouth.

CHEWY TUBES - just a therapy resistance band cut into 1 ft. length, tied in a knot at one end. He can wear it on his wrist, chew on either the knot or the other part. It's more age appropriate and all that. So we have two colors: red is softer and the blue is more resistant. I'm not sure which he'd prefer because he WILL NOT even touch them. He has an instant aversion to them for some reason. Grace knew right what to do with them so I'm going to let her show her big brother how fun it can be. :)

NUK BRUSH - these are common enough and another alternative to the pacifier. I got one of these from our ST, too.

BACKPACK - we loaded up his backpack today and he loves it. He loves putting things in it, taking them out, wearing it around. He went to the door and said, "buh-bye." He gets to practice pushing and pulling and using a zipper. We'll be playing backpack a whole lot more.

PLAY FOAM - I finally found this at Target and it's fabulous stuff. The girls love it as much as Carver. It's exactly like playing with rice krispie treats when they are still warm. Cool stuff, more resistant than play doh and less messy. It leaves a little gummy film on the counter/table and the beads sometimes turn up after the fact on a shirt or something, but otherwise it's perfect.

TOOTHBRUSH - I finally got that vibrating toothbrush yesterday and Carver LOVES it. He's going to break the bank buying new vibrating toothbrushes. His ST said it's wonderful for his mouth, on his lips and cheeks - all over. Let him have it all the time, maybe one for actual brushing to leave in the bathroom to stay clean and another one for anytime.

I think that's it. We talked a bit about potty training, where he's at and how it's good enough for now. He wants to sit on the potty, wipe and flush. But the feeling the need is obviously not there. she encouraged him to climb into his booster himself, which he should be able to do with some practice. It's so easy to just do those things for him. It's BETTER to let him learn to do it himself.

Next week she's going to do the evaluation, preschool language testing and speech related tests. This is the evaluation that will go towards his preschool eligilabity. Hopefully he'll be grumpy and uncooperative, right? the school district will evaluate him in the other areas (motor skills, etc...) closer to his birthday. I'm not too worried about next week. It'll be nice to have everything decided and squared away with preschool, but until then I'm just going to be grateful with what we've got and all the progress I see in Carver. He said "dirt" out of the blue yesterday and took turns so nicely at the park with our friends. I couldn't ask for more!