Heartstrings Walk & Jürgen's Birthday

On Saturday 18/8, Dylan, me, my mom, second brother & our helper Melba + Jürgen with his colleagues from the office went for the Heartstrings charity walk. During the mass workout (which many people did not join, just hanging by the fringes where they can't hear a thing from the main stage) at the floating platform, initially Mel was carrying Dylan, but I decided to let him loose, just holding his hand /shoulder occasionally. As it turns out, he was quite interested to sway to the upbeat music (his favourite "dance" style) and was quite glad to let me guide him to follow the instructor's moves sometimes. He was also keenly watching other people around us, enjoying the moment, and did not attempt to run off at all.

Anyway, as the walk was really slow (since we're with the VWOs to walk just 1 km), we decided to veer to the 6km route and interestingly, Dylan actually managed to walk all the way till about half-way on the return journey where he really got tired & wanted to be carried. We took turns to carry him & he was comfortable with uncle & later even a volunteer (a JC girl) who was keen to carry him.

It poured at the end of our walk, close to 11am, so Dylan had no chance to enjoy the bouncy castle / bungy bounce, & we got stuck in a shelter with the NTU volunteers where we get to learn about their various meaningful projects (spending time with older kids from MINDS, publishing a cookbook with input from the elderly etc.). Thankfully, Dylan was quite relaxed & easy to manage (with snacks). Even though he was keen to touch the rain with his hands, which I gladly let him for a while, he did not object too much when I decided it was enough & moved him way in. As the organisers were worried of lightning risk, we all had to leave for better shelter & Dylan again was agreeable to hang out at a golf buggy with Mel while I came back with food from the stalls.

He had his 2 hr nap, not immediately after we got home by bus, and was full of energy when he woke at 4.30pm & participated in the activities Gen had framed for us.

After dinner, I brought him for an hour's walk & stair-climbing and found he was quite willing to participate. During his break at the playground, he got overexcited trying to run away from me & fell off some stairs (3 steps). Got me worried but he was OK. Tried the horizontal bar pull ups with Dylan but mostly I was doing the work - but he didn't try to run off too soon & did seem to figure what he's supposed to do.

JüRGEN'S BIRTHDAY ON SUNDAY 19 AUGUST
Relaxing day for us! Dylan slept late & woke early (12midnite to 7am) & was very active. After church, he was quite cooperative as he waited with Mel while I collected Jürgen's birthday presents - all sinful & nice stuff.

He had a 3 hour nap where we got to really relax & for me to recover from the previous day's fatigue (I felt a bit sick due to extended period in wet shoes & trousers) & for Jürgen, the tiredness of the Bangkok trip + endless demands at the office, including visitors. As I try to let Mel off every Sunday to rejuvenate, the quality of rest we get on Sundays depends critically on the length & quality of Dylan's nap. Anyway, it's really great that even though Dylan woke several times (once after he poo-pooed in his pull-up diaper which was left on after we returned home & had to be washed), he was OK to let me hold him & lie down with him as he goes back to sleep. This is a great improvement as compared to a period when he would fuss & cry & refuse to let me comfort him when he sees that aunty Mel wasn't at home. I feel the RDI is really bonding us more. In various circumstances (eg in AAS or even outside), when someone else is teaching/caring for him, he would occasionally throw me a glance. It's very nice.

At night, we took a cab & went for dinner at Siloso beach, Sentosa. Settled at Sakae Sushi. While waiting for food, I relented & walked with Dylan barefoot on the beach towards the water. Although he did splash water with his feet & made me somewhat wet, he did not try too hard to charge into the water or insist on plonking himself down despite my objections which was typical in the past. Now he's actually able to resist the temptation and keep within mom's limit. He cooperated (though not immediately) when I told him we should go back to the restaurant and we will come back. During dinner, he made various escape attempts (but were thwarted by mom), finished his food then we went for a stroll right to the edge of the water where he got his feet wet again. We let him wash his feet at the nearby waterfountain & walked all the way to the end of siloso beach (Rasa Sentosa) & took a cab home. Nice evening!

Bangkok Trip 8-12 Aug 2007

We just came back from our 5D/4N family vacation from Bangkok yesterday! Just Juergen, Dylan & I - which Juergen pointed out is not a frequent occurence at all, the only other time being the rather difficult trip to Germany in mid 2006, when we stayed with Juergen's Dad (almost giving him a nervous breakdown with Dylan's crying out of ear infection pain & tantrums) and mum (where Dylan couldn't stay still & mess around with the delicate furniture & drove her up the wall, which translated to us getting earfuls) & friends (Walter's girlfriend & the Ackermann's). One other time was when we went to Angsana Bintan a day ahead & Hwee Leng & her daughter Melissa joined us later. Mostly we had travelled with our helper or my parents (or his mum), or both.

Anyway, it's a good thing we decided to stay 4 nights in Marriott Resort & Spa (rather than move to stay with our friends for the 3rd and 4th nights as that would involve further adjustment woes & possibly stress them out). It has a wonderful pool for many pool sessions with Dylan, and reasonably spacious grounds for walking. It also provided an oasis of calm after returning from the chaotic & overwhelming streetside/night market shopping experiences!

POOL SESSIONS
Dylan was quite keen to participate in the RDI activities, jumping in towards me, or together with me/ Dad. I was really overjoyed on the second day when totally unprompted, he even reached out to me to help me up when I "wasn't ready" to jump in together! Although subsequently the initiation attempts were somewhat prompted/staged, by my gently touching his hand while I'm still seated on this "island", I'm still really happy he's showing such engagement & initiation.

We're still not so well synchronised in jumping in together but he's definitely looking at my legs, whether I bend my knees, and trying to keep pace with me on the jump. When I introduced a variation, bending my kneees but instead of jumping off, I straighten them again, he didn't jump. Yeah! Once in a while, one of us actually jumps off way ahead of the other, & he squealed in delight. I then quickly grabbed the opportunity to say, "Oh no! We didn't jump in together this time. But it's OK, we'll do it together again".

Trying to invite him to swim towards a particular end of the pool is more difficult as he still prefers his own agenda, suddenly twisting off to another direction but he's at least not angry when I shuffle him towards my direction.

LIMIT-SETTING AT THE POOL (still not successful though!)
He did try & sometimes succeeded to run off to the nearby jacuzzi, and each time, I'll catch up with him, told him "No, no running off on your own" & bring him back to where he ran off, and gently & firmly make him tap my shoulder & point to jacuzzi, then we walk over together. He slipped & fell once on the escape path & bumped his head & cried, and pulled my hand to rub his head. At the jacuzzi, as he was tapping the earthen wall, making a handprint, I tried to engage him by pressing my handprint & helping him make his (intending to work on his turn-taking objective), but he rubbed it all with water. Didn't work, but will try again.

ATTEMPTED REPAIR ACTION
Once in the room, after I gave him his anti-yeast medicine (Nystatin suspension) which he really likes & can't have enough of, as I was off to the bath to wash hands, he managed to open the cap on his own, and when I came out, I found he had spilled alot of it on the floor & I was furious, and I exclaimed very loudly "DYLAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Mommy's ANGRY!" and when I took the bottle back from him, he immediately tried to make repairs by thrusting his hand out with the bottle cap, trying to close it back. As I was still furious, I said loudly again that I'm really angry, and he tried again to close the cap to the bottle I was holding. I softened and suggested to him let's clean up.

Must say I'm quite happy that he realised he did something unacceptable, and that he had to make repairs! Though Juergen commented that Dylan's repairs are too little, too late, & indeed too many impulsive actions, well, it's still a wonderful start that he is trying!

OTHER EXPERIENCES, SHOPPING AND MEALS
Dylan definitely enjoyed the 15 min boat ride from our riverside resort to the skytrain station (Saphan Taksin stn) at Sathorn Pier. We actually experienced almost the full range of transportation on this trip: plane, boat, skytrain, underground MRT, taxi, even tuk-tuk - very exhilarating! We could tell he really enjoys the boat & tuk-tuk rides! He also enjoyed the dinner at the Thai restaurant (he was really hooked on the pandan chicken and we had to order a second plate) and another night at the beer garden at the Lumphini night market - well, it's got white rice & all the crispy stuff (deep fried morning glory, soft shell crab etc.)!

Shopping was difficult with /for Dylan, probably overwhelming! He was touching everything & everyone he comes across - once he was intent on pulling a lady's skirt from behind (imagine the adults' desperate attempts to stop him before the lady gets shocked!). But thankfully no tantrums, just that it was highly energy-consuming for the adult, good thing our good friend (Can Seng) volunteered often to hold his hand/ carry him while we shopped. He seems to enjoy Can Seng's company but at one point, got too friendly & bit his belly unexpectedly for fun!

It's one of those holidays where you need a break after it, but it's very satisfying! I'm greatly encouraged with Dylan's progress, and Juergen's making the choice to join us fully on the second day to foster family solidarity! Glad he managed to have 2 days of golf too! We did /had a lot more shopping & yummy food than I thought was possible- thanks to Can Seng & Paul, with their local knowledge, and tremendous patience and help!

Last night, upon return home, I finally had a good night's sleep, right through the night!

Climbing stairs

Wow, even though Dylan was tired when I went with him for stair-climbing (tired because he again didn't/couldn't nap after his afternoon AAS class but mess around with his grandma), it's the first time he actually looked at my legs /feet prior to taking his steps forward. Even though it's like 2 out of every 10 steps that he did so, I'm still thrilled! Very encouraged too!

Earlier he also did more than 10 sit-ups with me, half of them horizontal, and half of them inclined with head down. When 2 of his uncles (my brothers) showed up downstairs to pick my mum up, he was very friendly towards them, allowing them to help him up to the monkey bars repeatedly, and he later particularly enjoyed 3rd uncle's holding & letting him fly like an aeroplane. No tantrums even as he was really tired by then. Really nice!

Pool session

Brought Dylan to Safra pool with Mel to help with filming and did 4 activities:
1. Dylan jump in from poolside into pool towards me (holding my hands)
2. Dylan float using swimming noodles and move towards me as I move backwards
3. Mommy and Dylan jump into pool together
4. Mommy and Dylan climb up and slide down a slide side-by-side together.

It was a good session! Although he did make various attempts to run off, twice successfully during activity 1, he did seem to enjoy and reach out for my hands and squealed in delight even before he got into the water.

With swimming noodles, he still finds them unfamiliar (being much more used to armbands), and often gravitated towards the poolside, rather than towards me, so need quite a lot of guiding.

The third activity started unintentionally. He was trying to stick one leg into the water while we were both at the poolside, and when I said not yet, he brought his legs back, and really watched out for my knees to bend (as a cue that I'm about to jump), then jump in with me together. We repeated that a couple of times and I noted he looked out for the signal often and tried to coordinate the action together with me!

The last activity was more difficult to execute, as the slide's slippery - while he waited, I needed to physically hold him back lightly to to guide his hands forward to indicate I'm going down.

Overall, a session that got me encouraged as I can see progress! We had fun too!

Dylan's class interaction

I visited St Gerard's again to pick Dylan up at 2.30pm. But he already ran out of battery by 2pm. Yen & Francis observed that he was already having low battery (very low energy level) by 1.30pm, although he continued to play the simple & modified board game, where the 2 kids (the other being 6-yr old Amanda) are assisted by a teacher each from behind, and are to roll a dice, which shows different colours, then pick up a geometrical shape with the same colour, and place the shape on different parts of a cardboard picture (eg. a truck) with velcro attached.

What's encouraging to hear from Yen is that Dylan often looks at Amanda's facial expression, then at Yen, whereas Amanda is only looking at the shapes and not so interested in anyone else. Francis also tells me of his trying out not to tell Dylan what exactly he's to do - but in this case, it's when Dylan's found on top of the shelves. Francis went up to him and said no sternly and just by holding his hand, Dylan sat down, and later came down of it.

I was also told that Dylan's been really affectionate, and hugs his classmates and his teachers as well.

Anyway, at home, I got him to do 10 sit-ups, counting down. He pulled up on his own, and initially keeps wanting to go away once he's up, but he allowed me to guide him to continue. Towards the later part, he doesn't resist my help anymore and was in fact anticipating the next lying down on my legs, and to pull himself up.

Meeting at St Gerard's & Play with Dylan

Spent about an hour with Ms Vasugi, Bimal and Dylan's teacher Yen. Very glad of school's open attitude. Realised that Yen is already quite good in her communication style, not repeating herself and she does wait. She's also effective at limit-setting - I'm quite impressed that she's firm and able to make Dylan understand he has to remain on the "ready" chair when he throw things around/ is generally not ready. Wow! My boy is able to accept this kind of limit without being physically restrained! Bimal helped in getting a balanced view on how school's objectives even though essentially instructional, can be achieved through simply slowing down, and through indirect prompts. I also shared Dylan's RDI objectives on resumption & turn-taking, and Yen suggested to let Dylan stay longer in school at least once a week where in the afternoon, they have started with playing board games.

After dinner, I tried quite a number of sequential activities working on Dylan's turn-taking objective. I find that he's still either so impatient with my slowing down the process of putting toy coins into the slot (sequential parallel) and wants to take over all of it, or he runs off now & then when we played with fitting pegs when we took turns with the sender-receiver roles. Thankfully, he does come back shortly even at times when I don't run after him. When I'm the receiver, he doesn't seem to get it that he's to pass the peg to me rather than press it into the foam board, so at this point, I have to obstruct his attempts to take over my role or to grab a bunch of coins/pegs at one go. He did seem to like looking at my placements which was in coloured rows. Being receiver, he's quite happy to experiment with placing pegs single layer, and the second time stacking them really tall & he finally decided to climb on the table and stack all 25 in a tall tower.

I let him do 7 sit-ups (pull himself up with me holding his hands) as well as wheelbarrow a little in the living room.

It was tiring but we had fun!