It's not yet 8pm and I am tired. I have more energy to bathe Benny in the mornings or earlier in the day. I ought to bathe him tonight. He is 9 and, due to his autism, cannot yet bathe himself. I have been taught how to teach him to bathe himself - I dislike this task. It requires a laminated page with all his body parts (not actual pictures of him - it is color realistic cartoon-type pictures) in sequential order to be washed. I am to point at the picture, point to his corresponding part, then, hand over hand with a wash mit and liquid soap on the mit, I am to help him stroke from upper part to lower part and count with each stroke, 1-2-3-4-5. As he would learn, I am to "fade out my prompts" or fade my help, so it would be moving my hand from his hand, to his wrist, elbow, etc until he could do it without any physical help. I have learned verbal prompts are the hardest to fade out. I have also learned Benny is very prompt dependent and, in some things, even having me in his view has been a "prompt" to his way of thinking. The technique can be "shaped" - how he actually holds and works his hands - over time.
So, I seldom do this teaching. I bathe him. Lucky for us he is only 9 and not yet stinky!
While Ben was out with the young man that spends guy-time with him each Sunday, I began this blog, sponge-painted some of my kitchen walls, knitted, and admired pictures on a website, http://www.fiberfarm.com/. Those of you that like farm animals and a dream of starting your own business someday, farm-type of business, would love this. It is the site belonging to a woman that has a sheep farm in VA and her business is wool. One can buy CSA shares in her wool business. I would love to go there someday. I would love some pictures from her website. I love sheep and chickens.
Eliza visted the Minuteman Votech with her friend and the friend's father and then she and her friend hung out here. They jumped on our trampoline with Benny. Kayla has been in her room all day with few appearances for junk food or to complain there is not enough junk food in the house.
I began to get out and set around some Christmas decorations. I have amassed more since Mom passed away last January and ,her ceramics, along with the ceramics she painted both my grandmothers that came back to her after they passed away, were divided among my brothers and me. Oh, the simpler memories we attach to objects that take us back to holidays and times we were children and did not have a clue about the adult concerns of the world. I remember going to Mass each Christams eve, then to my aunt's and home late. My brother, Michael and I slept little, if at all. We heard Christmas carole singing late into the night while in bed. At the time all those young years, I thought it was Santa and the reindeer as they flew away from our home. (I grew up in a row home and, in actually it was our neighbors and their family having their celebration.). Once we heard no more singing, we began our sneaking downstairs. I think we knew every creak in the floor in the hallway and stairs! We were often heard and sent back to bed ... only to try, try and try again. One year, Dad came to the basement for a short time to watch Mike and I trying out our new roller skates in the basement.
Well, to bathing my son and to bed. Tomorrow is a new day and it is a short work-week.
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