Sibling rivalry

Misha has sibling rivalry issues big time. Whenever one of us is holding Nikolai or playing with him, feeding him, or whatever, Misha is there, vying for attention. Even if he has just eaten, he begs off Nikolai's food. When he is just changed, he will beg to be changed again if we are changing Nikolai. I already blogged on how he will try and push him away, or put his foot on his head. I have now found out a good use for this.

I was trying to get Misha to follow a 2-3 step instruction set. Go to your room, get a diaper, bring it back so we can change you. Misha was not moving. No motivation. He just looked at me and wandered over to a book and wasn't going to do it. After several times of trying to get him to do it, I finally told him, "Ok, I guess will change Nikolai's diaper then." Shooooom, Misha was off like a shot. Ran down the hall as fast as his wobbly little legs could take him and was back in record time with not one, but two diapers, climbed on the couch and was lying down waiting for me to change his diaper.

I wonder if it will work when it's bed time. "Misha, I guess I will have to go put Nikolai in bed."

Misha is in

Ira is overjoyed. A while ago, she applied to have Misha accepted into a relatively intensive preschool run by a mental health group. They specialize in autism and have a very structured system.

So, Ira had me go with her to the eval. They did some one-on-one with Misha and ran him through their observation tests. They also had us fill out some intensive questionnaires. I blogged about them a bit ago.

Ira was crushed when they didn't accept Misha into the program. She decided to fight for it though and played all sorts of phone tag with them in order to have him retested. Finally, she got something set up for this past Tuesday. It was in Provo, not far from where I work, so she got me from work and we went together. I think she needs me for moral support...and to keep her from getting too combative. Mother Bear syndrome, sheesh.

I picked up on a couple of things in this eval. One, was that the original test was done without us. They observed Misha and didn't ask us questions. All the info they got from us was on the questionnaires, which were geared toward a mental health eval, not a special preschool eval. Two, the people doing the initial eval were interns. That could be why they didn't accept him the first time.

Misha does have some quirky behaviors that are autistic like. Social interaction is a major one...that is the lack of. He doesn't interact with kids his age. He barely interacts with his siblings and that is only when they dance with, sing to, twirl him or get him something he wants. He has a lot of interaction with Ira, myself, and Baba Liza. Then the list goes to Baba Cindy, Deda Robert, and then siblings. For instance, he barely interacts with Melanie when she is down from WA cause he doesn't know her. The wheel spinning, button pushing, the hesitancy to touch things or try new foods. The histerical laughter when we drive past phone lines...stuff like that.

So, Ira was on cloud 9 yesterday when they called and said he was accepted into the program. I still have hesitations, but that is from the length of class, not necessarily from the program. I guess we will see how it goes.