What I've been up to lately

Is creating a dark room. Sounds fun, huh? In December when we got Grant's 1st program with NACD, one of the activities is for him to watch tv in a dark room 3-5 feet away. Add to that: make sure he will not be able to play with the tv buttons. Just about all of you who read this blog have been to my house and know that it is small. It would be one thing if we had a spare room or something that we could make into a dark room but we don't so we were really stumped at what to do. At first Joel and I thought that there is no way we can do this one.

Well, five months later and about 5 brainstorms later we finally have a solution: Grant's room! All of his toys are put up in the closet and his room is the least distractable. Within about 24 hours of Joel and I coming up with this plan, we had bought a tv/vcr combo off Craig's list for $20, got about 30 VHS tapes from my mom (Thank you, Mom!), a black sheet to cover his window during the day, two extra pillows (to be comfy), and two yellow pillowcases. I went to my friend's house one night this week to sew on velcro to the sheet and then I put sticky velcro on the wall around the window. It works perfectly and we can put it up and take it down easily when we need to. We rearranged Grant's furniture to maximize being comfy on the bed while watching tv. So for the past couple of days, we have been watching tv throughout the day on Grant's bed in a dark room 3-5 feet away from us. It's been wonderful! I told Joel last night that this is my favorite activity now because I can actually relax (and snuggle) while 'working' with Grant, and I'm putting forth the least amount of energy for this activity. Joel said, "Well, this is what normal parents experience when their children!" Grant (and Kate) has never really watched tv much. We're not big tv watchers to begin with but he has always been more fascinated with the buttons than with what's on the screen.

It took up 5 months to figure this one out but I'm just so excited that we did. The rest of Grant's program is going well. I feel like I'm starting to come out of the 'adjustment phase'. I'm still learning what works and what doesn't and I'm still learning how to make it fun for Grant. Yesterday I gave him a pair of sunglasses after he worked really well with me and he seemed to like that. I've never done that before with him so I'm going to try to do more things like that. I also have a bunch of stickers, which both kids love, that I use after doing really good at a certain activity. Coming up with motivating things is hard for me. And with Grant it has to be random. For awhile I was giving him "candy" after he did a certain activity and he got to the point where that was all he was literally thinking about. It was like he couldn't even think about what he was supposed to do! Stickers are the same way. So I just try to change it up and that seems to help.

If you have any great ideas that you think might work with Grant, let me know! Also, if you have any old vhs tapes that you don't need or want, feel free to pass them on to Grant! Anything family friendly is great! You can keep praying that we will get program done everyday, that I will stay positive, and that Grant will cooperate more and more. Also, praise the Lord that things are going better now than they were before!