What is it?

Duncan's only word is his approximation of "yoo hoo"

But we stopped buying them

he was squirting them out.

throwing them down as soon as he got them

add choices

in iprompt, we can't edit. i'll have to make a new schedule and delete the old one, if we add choices.

Right now it is set up for some kind of drink.

It has been this way for about a week or more.

We bought some capri suns which are in the squeezeable pouches, but he squeezed them out too.

sometimes he drinks hot choc, sometimes not.

For his nightly melatonin pills, I give him water sometimes.

Is this what caused his aggravation today?

I didn't just bring him a drink - or a yoo hoo when I saw he was awake.

So was he just aggravated?

I thought, well, he's going to have to make a choice. I used sign to ask what he wanted. Did he want a drink?

Many times he led me to the pantry. He - oddly - even insisted I set my coffee down.

Twice, just as the door was unlocked and opened, he pushed it shut and led me to either or both the fridge and the spice cupboard.

He uses sign to ask for salt. Then points to Vanilla. I am trying to let him know which extract he is asking for with sign and pics, because a couple of times he gets lemon.

He puts it in the palm of his hand, sometimes with a pinch of sugar too.

He still continued to ask to be let into the pantry.

Once just grabbing a straw and running.

Finally, he stood, looked around and very deliberately pointed to - even touched - the can of powedered cocoa.

Ok! I said. Thrilled at this true communication.

I made it and brought it to him.

He pushed it away. Pointed for me to go.

Dammit.

Later, with the hot choc on the counter next to him, he leads me to the fridge. He points to the choc syrup and milk.

No I tell him and show him the hot choc.

He yelps angrily, grabs the drink and runs off.

Shit, I think. I hope he doesn't spill that all over.

But I don't have time to sit with him every second I have other things to do.

As horrible as it was, I haven't even recorded here that every other moment that we weren't going through the "drink" trials - there was a whole other thread of inquisition.

"Hurt?" I asked, pairing it with the sign for hurt.

I signed hurt again. "Ears?" I asked. "Tummy?" I asked. "Hurt?" I asked.

In the end, he finally drank the hot choc. I toileted and dressed him, then brushed his teeth.

He got on the bus and seemed fine.

If I get duncan dressed too early, he'll just get undressed.

I feel as if I am still caring for a toddler. He was up at 5 or earlier and I woke up too. Not his fault that I was awakened at midnight and couldn't go back to sleep until 3 or so.

It was Brett having his usual midnight snack, but I did bounce up thinking I was catching Duncan making a water mess.

supports

Been using the iPrompts app for iPad. It's really more to be sure that he can understand us than it is for him communicate with us, though that is the ultimate goal.

The picture with inset of sign language has helped us.

Sign is his best hope of communicating with anybody, even though his signs are just approximations.

I used the calendar Ardene made in Boardmaker to indicate that this is a Friday and we'll have a party tomorrow.

broken glass

NO LIGHTBULBS! [in addition to the NO WATER PLAY!] appears to have spiked Duncan's interest in lightbulbs and glass.

The day I put the lightbulb sign up next to the hall light fixture, D moved a stool over and removed both the sign and the lightbulb.

That was Friday and we just found the bulb this (Sunday) morning

Ok - just returned from extracting glass from his foot. Showed him the lightbulb PEC the whole time.

water damage

The cabinetry around the kitchen sink are damaged: bubbled, seams on the sliding shelves pulled apart, swollen.

When I open the cabinet to get a pot or pan, it's filled with water.

There was mold in the wall behind the sink.

His obsessions cost us so much