Free Time

 Mitchell is the only one in the family practicing his school work this summer.  Not only will he go back to school potty trained and talking a bit he will show them how he can spell.  In addition to these he also labeled turtle, horse and cat.  Have I mentioned how awesome he is.

Great America

Joe & Caroline waiting for The Eagle

Me & Caroline waiting for The Eagle

Joe, Caroline, Steve & Steven eating dinner.

Unacceptable attire for a 6 yr old but OK for overweight twenty-something.



We went to Great America a couple weeks ago.  The kids had Read To Succeed free passes from school and we had extras from our sister in law, Jeanna.  We brought along Joe & our friends Jack & Kelley too and had a great time.  We anticipated the crowd and purchased a 3 person Gold Flash Pass which allowed us to jump to the front of pretty much every ride.  The Eagle was not included on the Flash Pass so we waited in line for about 40 minutes.  Joe said he is never waiting in a line ever again since he had experienced the world of Flash Pass.  During 6 hrs of park time (I subtracted eating & waterpark) Joe was able to ride 14 rides.  That is awesome.  The Flash Pass is the way to go, worth every penny.

After we ate lunch we decided to hit the waterpark.  Caroline had her suit on under her clothes so just stripped down at the car.  Now park rules are no bathing suits.  We saw plenty of kids with their suits on going on rides so we thought it wouldn't be a problem to let Caroline walk through the park to the Waterpark entrance wearing hers.  So we all go through the line and enter the park and I turn around.  "Where's Caroline?" of course.  She's standing on the outside of the gate looking sad.  They won;t let her in without shorts.  We look around and can see from where we are standing 5 or 6 kids with just their suits on.  UGH.  Luckily the rest of us hadn't changed yet so  grabbed Joe's trunks from the bag and gave them to a worker to give to her.  That's where the picture of Snookie above comes in.  We walked behind this girl - IN HER BATHING SUIT - all the way from the front gate to the waterpark.  But Caroline has to put shorts on.  I sent an email ab out inconsistent park policies and training their people better.  Joe also was a little creeped out I was taking the girl's picture with my phone.

The day was a blast.  Joe made me go on Superman and I held back the tears.  We went on Viper last and it is my new favorite ride.  So much fun.  Joe won prizes for Caroline & Kelley, Steven won his own since he lad all day as he doesn't go on rides.  We did manage to get Kelley & Steven to go on Roarin Rapids and they had fun.  Mostly because I got drenched - always very funny.  We can't wait to go back again.  Next year is Season Pass time I think.

Potty Training 2

WOW!  About sums up potty training this week.  We went to Trinity Services Autism Family & Resource Center for potty training camp on Tuesday.  Armed with 20 pairs of underwear I had to sew 1"x2" pockets into, cookies, starbursts & fruit snacks for rewards, books, puzzles, ipad, gallon of juice and coffee for me, we arrived at 9am.  First try on the potty Mitchell went with little effort.  For the next 7 hours he continued to amaze us all with his expertise, as if he had been doing this for weeks already.  With more successes than accidents they sent us home with a 1hr off 5 min on schedule.  Yay!

We got home with 10 minutes to spare.  Mitchell wanted to go outside so with hesitation but understanding (we were in a 15x10 room all day) I let him out. buzzz buzzzz buzzzz.  Dam.  His urine alarm was going off as he sat in the rocks flipping me off in his head I am sure.  Ok reset the clock for 1 hour, we should be fine.  Fifty minutes later Mitchell runs upstairs as I follow, rips the alarm off his shirt & pees in our bedroom.  Has he lost his mind?  I am going to loose mine real soon.  Reset clock once again.  He must have just needed to get it out of his system because he had nothing but success the rest of the night.  Hooray for Mitchell.

The next days have been going great.  I left him with my Grandpa on Wednesday so I could attend a bowling luncheon I planned and he surprised all of us with his success.  He didn't want to get Grandpa in trouble I think.  He has been initiating with the Dynavox or by running to bathroom & banging on door.  It's amazing how he no longer plays in the bathroom so we can leave the door open in case he needs to go and no one is around.  Yesterday Abby & Andrew were over and ran came upstairs to tell me Mitchell was going potty.  He said he was at the back door so Andrew directed him to the Dynavox to see what he needed but then he turned it off so after a few seconds he lead Andrew to the bathroom and hopped on the toilet.  He even maneuvered his undies out of the way while sitting.  He is so smart.
This is going far better than I ever could have imagined.

I am in daily contact with the therapist from Trinity.  I email them our data sheet each night and she calls morning and evening to adjust our schedule.  This morning he didn't go when I put him on but 1 hr later he requested via the Dynavox.  Now we are on a 3hr wait.  Mitchell is a potty training Rock Star.

Oh one minor detail I forgot to mention, he hasn't pooped since Monday.  Hmmm.  Gonna look into that to see when I should start to worry.