Happy Memorial Day 2013

Since Bobby's birthday party was a success, we decided to throw another party...this time for Memorial Day.  I started checking the weather forecast days ago and it was perfect for an outdoor party...low 70's and sunny.  However, when I checked the morning of party day it changed to mid 60's and rainy.  What??????  Rain!!!!  Doesn't Mother Nature know that I have planned an outdoor party!!  Oh well, nothing else to do but move the party indoors.

I didn't care, I still put up my Dollar Store decorations outside...well, the plastic ones anyway, the paper decorations had to move inside...

The house was decorated and the baby back ribs were in the oven, time for the guests to arrive.  We even had a special guest coming to play with Zoi!!!  Ellie, Natalie's dog, came over to party.  First things first, let the dogs meet and start playing in the fenced area before the humans start the party....

The dogs were fine and playing together well, so time for the party to begin.  The autism dads parked themselves in front of the big old TV to eat, drink and watch 65 inches of high def television.  They were happy!!

I am NOT sure how in the world this happened, but I do not have ONE SINGLE PICTURE of Bobby at this party.  I know, can you even believe it!!!!  I got the rest of the kids, but I repeat....not one single Bobby picture!!!!!!  Natalie found salvation from the crowd in Bobby's room and was a happy camper...

For this party, I provided the ribs and all of the guests brought a dish.  Shelly said that she would bring desert, so Sonny helped his Mommy make a cake prior to the party.  Sonny hasn't had a bite of cake since his 1st birthday party, but.....

He asked for a piece of cake, gave it a good sniff and ate the whole piece!!!!  Not sure if it is because he helped make it, but Sonny ate cake!  You may have to be an autism parent to understand how exciting this is....he asked for it and ate it!!!!  Joey had a piece too....

Joey and I built a few structures with Bobby's Magna Tiles...

We were so excited that Natalie, and her parents and dog, stayed at our house well over 2 hours.  Natalie success!!!!  After they left, Zoi came inside and was worn out.  She hasn't played that long with another dog for a long time, she laid down and Sonny came over to watch an Elmo DVD...

Joey was getting a little bored so I got out some card games.  Joey found some Grandma's to play cards...they weren't his Grandma's, but they are Grandma's none the less.  Let me tell you, the card game got WILD!!!!

The party was a great success.  The other Smith's left not long after the card game, but Grandma Carolyn, Mimi, and Aunt Dianna stayed until 8 pm.  Around 7:30 we got out the hot dogs and had dinner before they headed home.  It was time for Bobby's bath so that he could get ready for bed.  Four more days of school for Bobby!!!  Time for summer to begin!!

A Magna Tile Kind Of Morning

I gathered up all of the Magna Tiles that were spread throughout the living room, kitchen and dining room.  Instead of putting them all away I decided to build something...

Bobby walked in and decided to play too...

Oops, he knocked the tower over, so we built a new structure...

Bobby left the fun and went upstairs for a while.  He came downstairs sporting his swim trunks.  "Swimming...swimming...swimming" is the mantra of the hour.  I just can't get him to understand that it was 34 degrees when we got up this morning and now it is only in the 40's.  Sorry buddy, you are just going to have to wait a while.  He finally gave up (for a little while) and started working again.  He tried for a very long time to get a "roof" on his structure...

 Oops, the roof is collapsing!!!

Yes, that led to the whole thing collapsing (aka...being knocked over).  Now to find something else to entertain him while it is still soooo cold outside!!  I think that I should sign Bobby up with the Polar Bear club.  Pretty sure he could show those folks something about swimming in cold water!!!!

The Most Beautiful Sound That I've Ever Heard

I've been telling you lately about how well Bobby has been doing.  This school year has been the most successful one this far and the most exciting thing has been the increase in Bobby's verbal language.

Last school year, Ms. Kim started a photo album for Bobby.  She took pictures of all of the people that work with Bobby and the other kids that come in and out of the autism room throughout the day so that he could learn people's names.  She also added pictures of Mommy and Daddy and labeled everyone's names in the photo album.  Well, this school year he actually learned everyone's names and can verbally identify every picture in the photo album.  We also took this task to behavioral therapy and added pictures of people from Bobby's home life.

Early on we realized that it was important to only have the person's face in the picture.  I took in some pictures to therapy that I had of some of his autism classroom peers.  He focused on other things in the pictures (ie, the backpack that one of the kids was wearing).  He struggled in identifying Daddy in a picture in which Bob has sunglasses on and Bobby couldn't really see his eyes.  There is a picture of Bob in the group of pictures that we are working on in therapy that Bobby also struggled with...even though I cropped the picture to only get Bob's face, Bobby would say "Rhino" when he saw the picture because he knows that Bob was sitting in the Rhino in the picture because Bobby had seen the  uncropped picture and was there when the picture was taken.

It has finally "clicked" with Bobby and he is now labeling the people in the pictures with very little problem.  When Ms. Kim was working with Bobby earlier in the year on people, she got out a hand mirror so that Bobby could learn to identify himself.  He finally got that the boy in the mirror is "Bobby" and lately in therapy he is identifying himself in the numerous pictures of him that are in the identifying people program.  Ms. Kim continued to work on name identification with Bobby.

One day while at home, I'm not even sure what or how I said it, but I asked him his name and he said "Bobby."  After I picked myself off of the floor I asked him again and he repeated his answer.  OMG...he knows his name!!!!!   It wasn't long until he answered, "Bobby Miff."  I was so excited that when he went to therapy the next day I showed off his "new trick" to his therapist.  She was briefly excited too and then said, "that's not your name.  You're name is Bobby Sssssmmmmmmmith."  Since she knew that he did not have a problem with making the s or the m sound, she sat him down and he got rewarded for saying his name correctly.  He exaggerated the sm sound like she did for a couple of days, but he leaned to say his name.  Ms. Kim and Ms. Sharon taught Bobby to say his name!!!!!  Quite frankly Bob and I still get giddy when we hear him say it.  After all, we have been waiting years!!

So last night after his bath, I took a little video so that you could hear too...

Then at Grandma Carolyn's retirement party, a man that worked with my mom sat down beside Bobby and said, "when's your birthday?"  I answered for him and the next day in therapy was telling Ms. Sharon about the exchange.  Ms. Sharon:  "Well, he's going to learn the answer!!!!"  Me (in my head):  "O Lord, help us all!!"

Sharon got out two index cards and wrote "May 19th" on one and "9 years old" on the other (even though Bobby was only 8, but had only a few weeks until he turned 9).  First she had Bobby repeat the words written on the cards to her, then asked him "When is your birthday?" and had him repeat the words on the card.  I wrote the same words on index cards at home and we worked on it here too. We faded back to showing him the card, taking it away and then asking the question and were finally able to fade the card completely away.  This entire process took about 2 weeks, but Bobby rose to the occasion...

Sorry to those of you who have an iPhone or iPad, because I know these videos won't show up at all.

Honestly I had given up on the fact that Bobby would be answering questions.  We can't wait to see/hear what Bobby learns next!!!!!!

Bobby Turns 9

Warning! Warning! Warning!....this blog posting is going to be picture INTENSIVE!!!!

Yesterday my baby boy turned 9 years old.  Wow, the last year in the single digits!!  How is this even possible??????

We are just over the moon with how much Bobby has progressed during this past year and are planning to have a birthday swim party for him over the summer so that we can invite all of our friends and family when the public pools are open, but we still had to celebrate on the actual day.  Nothing major....cake, ice cream, hot dogs, presents and some of our favorite people!!!  Mother Nature cooperated with the party time...the rain clouds parted and the sun came out.  It turned out to be a perfect party!!

Bobby was in the pool when his friends arrived, so they got into their swim trunks and joined the fun.

It took Joey a little while to get in, but he finally jumped!!!

The boys had enough swimming so it was time to go inside to PARTY!!  It amazes me that I don't have any pictures of the food, but I think that I was so hungry when I finally had all of the food ready, that taking pictures was the last thing on my mind.  After dinner it was time for cake.  For those of you who don't really know Bobby....his favorite thing about ANY celebration is blowing the candles out on the cake.  He doesn't eat the cake, but he enjoys it more than anyone I know.  He gets so excited when he sees the candles being added to the top of the cake, so I add multiple types of candles to his cakes to make them special for Bobby.

Everyone's favorite moment of the party....I put the "happy birthday" candles on, the number "9" candles on and then opened the pack of 12 tall candles;  however, I only put 9 of the 12 tall candles on the cake.  Bob carried the cake into the dining room and started to light the candles.  Bobby ran back into the kitchen and got the 3 candles that were left behind and not put onto the cake, brought them into the dining room and put them onto the cake himself.  "Why Mommy Why????  ALL of the candles need to be on the cake!!!!!"

Yes, we have to light them again.  You can't just blow candles out once!!!

 It gets very funny here!!!  Sonny performed his Happy Birthday Bobby rap!  I mean....OMG...how funny Mr. Sonny!!!  Beat box rap!

 Look at Bob's face...laughing at the HB rap!!!

 Zoi is patiently waiting for some cake to fall to the ground...

 Sonny is helping....

Now it's time to open the presents....

He opened one without being prompted...

and then was done.  We carried the presents into the living room and prompted him to open a couple of them and then he got into the grove and opened them all....

 Joey is taking pics and video on his iPod...

 Bubbles.....

 Yay!!!!  New Magna Tiles.....

After presents, cake and ice cream the boys went outside.  Time to beat the daylights out of the pinata...

 Daddy gave some directions to Bobby and Joey helped Sonny.

 Joey hit that thing with some force!!!!

 Bobby gave it a girly love tap...

 Sonny gave it an even lighter tap...

 Joey is going to have to do this by himself or we are going to be here for hours...

 Sonny's turn....

 Bobby's turn....

 Alright boys, let a girl show you how this is done...

 Bobby and Sonny are gonna have to save each other from the flying candy when Joey wacks this thing open...

 Getting closer....

 Come on!!!!!

 It's starting to break open....

 Finally.......

 There were party blowers in there....

 Zoi's a little bummed...there were no dog treats in there!!!

Bobby gave Grandma a kiss through the gate...

Mimi and JR stayed on the safe side of the fence with Grandma Carolyn...

After Bobby gave Grandma a kiss, he looked at her and said, "Open the door."  It just amazes us when these phrases come out of his mouth, so Daddy unlocked the gate and let him out...

Then it was time to go jump in the trampoline...

 Since Sonny did a rap for Bobby earlier, Bobby decided he wanted to be hip too, he pulled the underwear up and the shorts down...

Not sure how these two decided to get their "ghetto" on!!  Maybe we need to check in with school and see if Ms. Kim is behind all of this!!!

Time to get some of the new toys out...

The boys decided to play on the hill in front of the house...

 Oh no Bobby, here comes Rosie the bulldog...

 She quickly ran past Bobby and straight to Mimi and JR and jumped right on up...

 Time to roll down the hill...

 Still laughing about Rosie jumping on Mimi and JR...

We all had a great time!!!  After all of the guests left, Bobby went into the dining room and started playing with the balloons...

Then he remembered that he got new Magna Tiles...

Then this morning it was hard to get him out of the door for school because he wanted to keep on playing with the new toys....

With all of the success he has had this past year, we are so excited to see what this next year has in store for him!!!