Come so far

There are times that I cry tears of joy when I see how far Carson has come. There was a long period of time that we had to work with Carson everyday, all day to get him to use his words. Now we are getting more and more unprompted words from him. We still have many struggles but these wins we do get are huge in our eyes. 

We started with picture cards to get him to tell us what he needed/wanted. We made picture books with family members, teachers, classmates, and friends to have him look at to help with names. 

We went from 1 word requests, to 2, to 3, to sentences. 

Rewarding him with favorite snacks for using words and doing work. He still uses the reward system for work at school and we do it at home too.  He knows when he starts something and finishes he can have a reward, whether it be snacks, ipad or something else he wants at the time. 

He does well with daddy saying, tonight we are going to shave, and brush teeth. Every other night baths are thrown into the routine. And the hair cuts. We still get stomping and storming at times, because the boy is stubbern, he does things on HIS terms. 

When we started taking him to the dentist, we drove 2 hours to State College. And they were wonderful, but it was hard to take an entire day for a 30 minute appointment. Thankfully the transition to Shane Blake here in town went super smooth. Carson knows if he is good at the dentist he gets to go to McDonalds after. A couple weeks ago we went to the dentist and on our reward trip to McDonalds we sat in the drive thru FOREVER before we could even get to order window.  I looked ar him and said how about pizza at Fox’s. Figured I would get a firm no. He said yes, pizza.  He adjusted well to the change, and we got better food too. (Thanks Tiff) 

A week ago I got a message from his teacher saying that she is so pleased with his unprompted requests. He is doing more and more of them at school and at home. 

Today, I painted our dining room/kitchen floor while I had an empty house. When he got home from school he walked up, looked around with a big smile, turned to me and said Good Job and gave me a big hug! Made my day. 

It might be 15 years in between, but to know and see how far we have come makes this momma super happy.