Dakota's Days - Homeschool Blogger

the most wonderful word!!!

Sun, 31 May 2009 11:52:00 -0500

Yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good day. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong did. After dh got home I was telling him about the day & Dakota was watching me. I could see by his eyes that he could tell I was upset, that in itself is a miracle as I have NEVER known him to notice another persons emotions. But what really blew me away was when all of a sudden he looked me straight in the eye & said "Sorry Mommy" You could have knocked me over with a feather. He saw emotions & he responded to them! In my eyes however the thing that stood out the most was that he said mommy. He will be 9 in August, I can not remember that I have ever heard him say mommy. He can say many things but they are almost all echos of what he has heard but even as an echo *mommy* was not in his vocabulary. Amazing how one little word can make such a drastic change to a terrible day.

ok who can give me info on this?

Sun, 7 Sep 2008 20:38:00 -0500

If anyone has any ideas or answers for me Id love it if youd leave me a comment with them.

These are some of Dakotas newest things...

MUST touch back of knee with toes of opposite foot with EVERY step. Fine at home but makes trips to the store take FOREVER.

getting dressed means that he lifts his foot, touches the inside of the opposite leg with his toes, puts his foot down, lifts it again, touches opposite ankle with his toes, puts foot down, lifts foot into pants. If I am trying to help him so we can hurry it can get VERY old very fast.

Going potty is a very similar routine to getting dressed.

Fake, purposeful coughing OVER & OVER & OVER. The first time he did it I thought he was choking.

A noise that sounds like a braying donkey that he will just suddenly start doing out of the blue & do it OVER & OVER & OVER & OVER. One time it was close to 5 minutes before we could get him to stop.

He MUST touch my leg with his foot. He will stand beside me & put his foot RIGHT against my foot or my leg. Several times now he has almost tripped me because I have walked past him & he has put his foot out to try to touch my leg. Or I have been standing at the sink or something & he will walk up beside me & I turn just as he lifts his leg up & trys to put it against my ankle or the back of my knee. So far I have not ever had anything in my hands but I am very afraid he is going to do that sometime when I have something hot in my hands or the baby or something.

Walking up stairs means step up, step down to touch the last step with his toes, then up again. So going up stairs is basically one up, one down, back up. One up, one down, back up.

Im just not sure how to stop this stuff, or if I should even try. He is VERY hard to break of these habits until he moves on to the next one.

I guess I never came back to add these

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:49:00 -0500

Right before we did the cake he decided he didnt want to wait any more so he helped himself, SIGH!!!

So like a good mommy I improvised.

he got a veggietales playset, which he LOVED.

& some Veggietales books. Here he is reading one of them.

All in all it was a good day.

Today is Dakotas birthday

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:20:00 -0500

he s 8yo. His birthdays are always a bit hard on me. Most times I am able to accept that as hard as life is with him I know that God makes no mistakes & he is this way for a reason. His birthdays are when I struggle though. Looking back & remembering the perfect baby I gave birth to. The first year of his life, & then the regression . Its hard to mark the passing of another year when he is still struggling with things other dc would have mastered 3 years ago. I just want to stop time & give him a chance to catch up.

We will have cake, we will do presents & then I will probably go take a bath & cry for a bit. Life moves on & its not going to stop just for him. I will rejoice in who he is rather than who I thought he would be. I will hold him tight & be thankful he is my child. I will look to the future & not become bogged down in the "could have beens". I cant imagine life without him. He is a true blessing to us.

Dakotas doggy

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:54:00 -0500

She is not special trained but has seemed to know from day 1 that he is special & needs her to watch him. She sleeps right beside him at night, barks if he trys to climb the fence, lays with him to watch tv. When he swings she lays by the swingset watching him & if he is in the yard & anyone comes too close to our fence she barks at them. He loves her & she fully believes she is his personal dog.

recently heard

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:35:00 -0500

He has been getting his own clothes out of his dresser & getting himself dressed most days. Yesterday he wanted me to help him. I was rushing cuz we had an appt in town & I handed him his clothes & told him to dress himself, that I knew he knew how. He just stood there, looked at his clothes & said "I think we have a problem"

his speech

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:29:00 -0500

I am asked on occasion about Dakotas speech. I still consider him non-verbal because he dosnt really use his own words to express himself but really he is quite verbal. He talks constantly but it is pretty much all repeated stuff. He almost never uses his own words to relay an idea. If he needs to get something across he will use a word or phrase that he has heard elsewhere, most times in a context that makes his point but not always something that would make sense to an outsider. For example... "Seatbelts everyone!!" (Magic School Bus) is generally a request to go in the car somewhere. "what kind of cucumber are you?" (one of the Veggietales shows) is his latest expression for when he is confused by something. "Alfred, we have a problem" (Larry Boy) sometimes with & sometimes without Alfred at the beginning, or "What are you thinking?" are his comments when he is supposed to do something & dosnt want to.

I have heard him repeat entire scripts from veggie tales shows, including changing the voice for each character, & I have heard him sing songs yet he cannot/willnot answer a basic question. He can read words aloud that we cannot get him to say when not reading, of course when reading them he sounds them out then puts them together. That is actually how he learned to speak in the first place, making each letter sound then putting them together into the full word.

Some things he does use properly though. For example, if he has an accident & messes himself many times he will come to me & say "bath??" (started one time when he had diarrhea & got a bath after each accident cuz it ran down his legs )

He is FINALLY starting to follow directions though. I can simply call him from across the room that its time to "go potty" or "come inside" & about 95% of the time he will come right away, as opposed to me having to escort him. Also he has finally reached a point where I can say "go ask Daddy" or "go to Daddy" & he will go to dh. Up until just a few months ago if I said that he would look around blankly & dh had to call to him & one of the older dc would have to take his hand & walk him over to daddy.

sandwich maker

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:24:00 -0500

A few days ago my 10yo made himself a PB sandwich & left everything on the table. I was nursing baby R & saw Dakota walk up to the table & survey everything. He got himself out bread & opened the PB & I started to tell him to wait & then decided to watch & see what he did. He picked up the knife, calmly & carefully spread on his PB, put the other piece of bread on, closed the PB (thats more than my olders remember to do at times) & walked away eating his sandwich.

Im not sure why it surprises me, my other dc were quite proud of the fact that they could make PB sandwiches by themselves by the time they was about 5yo but with Dakota I many times forget to give him chances to try that stuff. I know he is almost 8yo but with him not really speaking much & his seeming lack of understanding of so many things I guess I forget that he is capable of that stuff too.

would you believe????

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:25:00 -0500

this is the same child who not that long ago would flip out over touching anything gooey or squishy.

what a wonderful day!!!!

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:39:00 -0500

the last week has been TERRIBLE with Dakota. He went into a MAJOR overload last Sat & has been off ever since. Even to the point of not sleeping one night. Usually when he does this it means the beginning of a major downhill spiral that consists of him not sleeping for several days, behaviour getting worse & worse until he finally crashes from sheer exaustion. Thankfully he slept wonderfully the next night & we didnt go into that spiral. He has been really hard to handle still though & it has been wearing at me. Today though we had a WONDERFUL day. Several great things that I needed soooo much after this last week.

#1.. G. had been REALLY wanting to go to a buffet place near us. We had told him maby for his birthday so even though it is a bit late we went there today as a combo G. & Daddy & Fathers Day meal. Just as we was finishing up an older lady came over to me. "You have such wonderfully mannered dc, are they all yours?" I proudly told her that yes they were. She told me "They are so well behaved! I had my back toward your table & didn't even realize I was sitting near a group of children until my friend commented that she wondered if they was all from one family cuz she had come from a family of 8. They are all so well mannered & just wonderfully behaved. Its a pleasure to see a family like this." Oh boy did I need to hear a compliment like that!!

#2 After leaving there we went into Petco to get something since they was right next door. As we checked out the cashier told me "I just cant believe how well behaved your dc are for having such a big group of them".

#3 While at the buffet restaurant Dakota did GREAT! He waited patiently in line, came with me to pick his food, went back to the table & sat quietly & ate. When he was done he asked to go & we told him not till everyone was done so he sat quietly & waited so patiently. You would have never been able to tell he wasn't a typical child, he acted totally normal.

#4 We stopped at the farm store to get chicken feed. He walked quietly beside me, holding my hand. As we was leaving he asked for a sucker They sell wonderful suckers that have NO food coloring for fairly cheap so I got him one. I had to let him go to pay & was a bit worried he might run off, dh had taken the other dc to go look at something in the garden center so wasnt there to help, but he stood beside me quietly & when I was done he reached for my hand & walked calmly to the car.

#5 Then to the farm. I was getting worried he might overload but we had to stop there for a bit. He played in the dirt right near me the whole time. Once he started to walk away but returned as soon as I called him . When it was time to go I was trying to push baby R in her stroller & carry her car seat both because everyone else had their hands full with something. (in case you are wondering why we had both there the stroller had been left there before & I had her sitting in it while I did something & I wanted to take it home. She had been asleep when we got there so I had taken her car seat out to let her sleep in it.) I set her car seat down for a minute to wait for dh. He said he would bring the seat so I started toward the car with her in the stroller & Dakota. Dakota stopped & picked up the car seat to carry it for me I thought it might be too heavy & told him "thats ok , daddy will bring it" He turned & looked at me & said "be a helper, be a big helper" (its a line from his favorite Veggie tales book) He carried the carseat all the way from the garden to the van & then tried to lift it in for me even. I cant hardly believe this is the same child from just a few days ago, hes acting like a totally different person.