June 6 visit

Today we were slightly concerned going, because Jerry had one of his allergic reactions and was up quite a bit last night (he brought some of the right medications, so he's OK)--since he was up, I was up too.  Going to visit Alex tired is not good!  This kid wants lots of physical interaction (I'm afraid crafts are not going to be his thing!).  I had created a "goody bag"--a large ziploc bag with three small toys attached with a ribbon and duct tape to the outside.  Yeah, I feel like MacGyver here.  We bought a small plastic car, since he broke the other one.  Otherwise, we were pretty sure it would be back to the swings.

But even with both of us feeling at about 50% power, it went OK.  We open the door to his therapy room, where his groupa is regular day at 10am, and he gets a huge smile when he sees us.  Like I said, we're the ticket out.  Since Yana was there, Jerry was able to ask about whether he has been potty trained.  The answer was long and in Russian, but basically no.  I totally think he can; I strongly suspect they do not have the people and time to do this (she seems to be demonstrating he cannot really sit up without support).  So we will figure this out.

Today's activity agenda: swing! tiny slide that Jerry slides him down, holding him.  An empty bench swing, where we tried out the goody bag (mixed results--although he was interested in the "there it goes, now let's draw it back with the ribbon" idea).  Walk around on the merry go round (all this is kind of tough because we have to hold him for safety the whole time).  One new thing--they brought out his "second breakfast", and with me holding him in a sitting position, he fed himself.  That includes the kasha.  Not perfectly but honestly, pretty well.  He reached into the bowl that held a roll to get the bread crumbs.  That broke my heart...this child inhales every bit of food he gets (well, except when we got him a strawberry, offered to us by the staff there.  May have been too new a taste to him). Then we went for a short walk in the stroller, and back to the swing.

Paka-paka, Alex.  We'll see you tomorrow.  Hopefully with more sleep under our belts.