On My Mind

It would be great if I could get together a coherent paragraph about anything, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards this week--I just feel all over the place.

We've got the tantrum thing in a good place and it's been a few days since we've seen a major explosion. There are people who will frown on this, but basically, Charlie likes to have music on. We either play a video or my iPod and he's fine. He'll play on his own, crawl around, whatever--he just doesn't go for the silence. I don't know what the deal is, but he's generally happier, so I think it's fine.

One interesting thing happened this week, though. I showed Charlie a braille book. The vision therapist brought it over when he was about four months old and I stuck it on the shelf and haven't looked at it since.

Charlie hates books. They disgust him and I have no idea why. I showed him the braille book, however, and it did get his attention. I'm not sure what the deal is. Is the print too small in regular books? Is it too difficult to run his eyes over the text? I don't know. I do know that he seemed to like the braille book. I'm going to try a couple of other things as well, but I'm definitely keeping it in mind that he liked the braille book--food for thought.

In gross motor, Charlie is kicking complete ass--we raised the step for him to pull up on, and he had it mastered in about half an hour.

I'm also TRYING to teach Charlie a little independence. In general, I pick Charlie up and move him from room to room. We have a schedule and it is largely dictated by me. I'd like him to have a little more independence. I'm trying to show him that he can, in fact, move from room to room without me. To do this, I'm plopping him down in the hallway near his room and the den. So far, he just sort of looks around confused, but I'm hoping he'll start to figure it out.

So. . . that's what we're up to over here! Tomorrow I go to the dentist because I've started grinding my teeth--gah!