Above is the result of a wonderful and amazing 30 minute art session with Zach this afternoon. Doesn't look like much, for him this is truly, truly something.
First, he came up to me out of nowhere, while I was on the phone actually, and said "Mommy I want to cut the circle out of the paper with my scissors, okay?" So I made a big circle on a piece of paper, and set him loose with his scissors to see what would become of the circle. I didn't help him one iota - he held the paper with one hand and cut with the other. If only his Occupational Therapist could have seen it!!! They've only been working on this for like two years! So once the circle was cut, he asked for markers. This is the first time ever that he's asked me to color. Ever. There have been a very slim few other times that he's been willing to color, but only at my suggestion or prompting or more often, bribing. So color he did - taking the caps on and off all by himself, and doing exactly what he wanted to do. He proclaimed that he wants Daddy to take it to work :-)
Next, because he had done so well with the circle and I wanted the greatness to continue while he was in that mode, I asked him if he wanted to color in his Curious George coloring book. You must understand that we have probably 75 coloring books, not one with any coloring in them. He likes to look at them occasionally, but never color in them. So he said yes, and then said he wanted to color a picture for Liam - a friend at school. So he did! Then he said "Next, I will color a picture for the girl friend Emily." Putting aside that he's talking so well also, he wants to keep coloring!!!! HUH??? So we got out the Pooh and Tigger book this time and he chose Tigger for Emily. Good stuff. I just had to share all of this with those of you that read and know what a struggle any type of art work has been for him for years - both on the attention span front and on the motor skills front. I was and am beaming with pride!
An aside here.... Emily and Liam, for whom the pictures above are for, are his two best buds at school. We had some being-left-out and hurt-feelings issues about mid-way through the year with the boys Zach now dubs "the mean boys" and Liam and Emily were Zach's salvation. Truly. They fully accept him, and willingly want to play with him - believe me I know as I've had numerous conversations with their moms. I just needed to know for my heart that he is really liked by these kids - not just tolerated. Emily has proven time and time again how fond of Zach she is. Each morning at carpool she hugs and kisses him :-) One day last week Zach came running to the car at afternoon pick-up saying "Mommy, mommy! Emily gave me a pirate map!!!!" And the teacher said that yes in fact she did - she brought it to school, all the kids wanted it and fought over it all day, then at the end of the day they had to ask her who it was for and she said Zachary. If I could pick her up and squeeze her, I would! Then today Zach walks to the car wearing a Varsity red paper hat. Again, compliments of Emily :-) Man I love that girl!!!
So things are really and truly going so well. We had the Kindergarten placement meeting last week, and he will be totally mainstreamed (in a typical class with no aid) and get Speech Therapy an hour a week. That's it. If you would have told us almost 3 years ago when we started this that he'd be mainstreamed by K, we'd have laughed. EVERYONE in his life (professional-wise) had said that we could hope for mid-Elementary years mainstreaming. But no one thought Kindergarten! We couldn't be more proud of ourselves and our boy. I know I'm gushing and bragging and anyone reading this probably wants to puke - but damn it, I just don't care :-) We deserve the pat on the back!
Pirate Zach at THE Emily's birthday party this past Friday! Cinderella was there and she didn't want to leave the boys out, so they did the princesses and pirates theme. Zach was more than thrilled with his face painting!!! He gave me his best "
argh!" face!
