Ariana's Posts

Any Moment Can Become Therapy

Posted on by Ariana
Tony’s foot, a few minutes after injury, before ice…

I had stepped out of the house during the last few minutes of physical therapy earlier this week to take out the trash. When I came back in, I noticed Tony was limping as he walked over to his speech device and asked me to help him. Apparently he had used his foot to move one of the kitchen benches out of the way while putting away some toys, and he unfortunately injured his foot in the process.

In asking for help, that didn’t mean he liked the help I had to offer.

Ice?

Didn’t want to keep it on, with or without a cloth underneath it.

Ace bandage? Couldn’t even get it wrapped before he was ripping it off and saying “uh-uh.”

Because there was swelling involved and he didn’t want to walk on it anyway, the first thing we worked on was icing. I started out with just a count of 10 seconds, giving him an MnM for each period. Since the intervals were brief, I didn’t bother putting a cloth underneath it. He was eventually able to work up to several minutes while scrolling through pictures on my phone, a preferred activity.

I like using frozen peas that have been banged against the counter to break up larger chunks because I feel like it conforms better to whatever needs to be iced…

For the bandage, I just started with having him tolerate it draped across the foot without being wrapped…so, just contacting his skin. I was able to get him to tolerate a few minutes with it loosely wrapped around his foot- again while scrolling through pictures- but this remains an item that will need more targeted practice going forward so that he can tolerate the use for the amount of time required for an injury. Because he’s still not going to keep it on for more than a few minutes regardless of the reinforcer used. We’ve not really done any work towards tolerating this type of bandage before because he’s not needed one, and we had more pressing matters to address first, but from here on out this is going to be added to his hab therapy schedule.

This is a screenshot of a still that was in the camera via the app carousel when Tony was scrolling through it to locate my photos so he could look through them while wearing the ace bandage…

For the most part we’ve needed to rely on Ibuprofen and reducing his physical activities and therapy schedule as it heals. His swelling is mostly gone, his limp is improving, and he’s trying to do some running and jumping despite my attempts to discourage him in that.

So many times I find something comes up when we’re not in or expecting to be in a regular therapy session, but it still requires a therapeutic approach to work through. The most important thing is to follow his cues in terms of how long he’s comfortable tolerating something and what he considers to be a desirable item to receive in exchange for doing so.

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Where Stress & Caregiving Collide

Posted on by Ariana
Me, waiting for results of the diagnostic imaging last Friday, wondering why we’re all sitting here in tops that have a huge gap between the ties in the middle of the chest in a room with nearly floor to ceiling windows and no blinds, all photos by Ariana

I had a series of revelations recently about what some of my more significant stressors are and how they are impacting my health. The contrast was made by comparing some blood pressure readings, interestingly enough.

A couple of months ago I needed to take Tony in to a follow up I had with my allergist because nobody was available to babysit him. He’d never been to that office before, and medical settings still aren’t his favorite even when he knows he’s not the one being seen. And for me, the parts that were most stressful were the parts where they were trying to take my blood pressure and I was worried he was going to run out the door while I was strapped to something that would get ripped out of the wall if I had to chase after him. 140 was the top number, which is insanely high for me. Overall, our little man did at least stay in the room with prompting, though he jumped up and down all over the exam table while I was talking to the doc, ripped paper off of the exam table, and generally was living his very best ADHD bouncing around all over the place kind of life. He did at least shake hands with Dr. B, and I wasn’t sure if he would since he’s never met him before.

When I got home, my blood pressure top number was 112. Contrast both of those with an appointment I had with an optometrist a couple of weeks ago, where Tony was at home with his dad, and the top number was 109.

Typically, even when I’m anxious or only moderately stressed I’m well below the upper limits of normal. But there are a couple of things that will max stress me out, the first of which was a scenario that occurred at the allergist’s office, where I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep Tony safe and get my own exam done at the same time.

Me, the day before I got one of my acidic eye products in my left eye last week…

The second is medical situations that arise where I could or will definitely need to get in to see a specialist ASAP, because often there still isn’t anybody available on that type of short notice who can provide coverage unless Andy happens to have a day off that coincides with whatever problem cropped up. He works at an urgent care, and so that’s entirely a matter of luck. That wasn’t a factor with scheduling the diagnostic mammogram, that really was a matter of limited availability for appointments, but it is often why certain concerns that crop up I/we take care of at home.

I am luckier than some, because I am married to someone who works in healthcare. For example, my husband closed up a laceration on my scalp a few years ago using a technique he was taught that involved knotting together strands of hair because he was at work when it happened and I didn’t have any babysitting options, so I put pressure on it until the bleeding slowed, dumped clotting powder on it, and then he closed it up when he got home. He checked a recent eye injury to make sure there wasn’t an ulceration (the rest of everything I needed to know for how to care for that I’ve learned from previous eye injuries). Anything I am unsure if I will need a doctor for or not he can tell me more specific feedback about whether he thinks I will or not.

skipping makeup for several days is a must in this type of situation…
Today, returning to makeup 😀

But that doesn’t mean I can find someone to babysit Tony in the time frame that is needed if I do.

And sometimes, it really sucks how that feels.

After the blood pressure revelation, I started trying to increase my meditation, piano practice, puzzle assembly, and anything else that I could squeeze in self-care wise. And for a while, life just took that adjustment and just met it with even more stress. Sometimes that is how life is. Part of why I am trying to focus more on positive things with my posts is because as much as anybody I need reminders that the good parts are still there sometimes.

Because they are.

Even when it’s hard.

Even when it’s stressful.

And those are the parts I want to live every second of my life for.

A great thing that happened this week: Tony succeeding for the first time in making it all the way to the top of this climbing apparatus.
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My Experience With A Breast Dimple And A Little Too Much Google

Posted on by Ariana
The dimple/dent line on my breast, May 19th, 2023. Photo by Ari

If you are not already a subscriber to this blog or on my e-mail list, I know exactly why you are here.

You read a news article several years ago with the story of a woman who wanted to raise awareness that a dent or dimple in the breast can cause cancer. I definitely think that woman rocks for raising awareness of this, because certainly it can be a sign of cancer… or something else. And, you just found one of these dents or dimples on your breast, and after looking at Google, maybe freaking out some, and then calling your doctor, you googled to try and find any first person accounts of that type of thing being caused by something benign.

And, you didn’t find much. And so now, you’re maybe freaking out just a little bit more.

Which, is how you as a person who doesn’t have one of our son’s rare genetic disorders and works in a field that doesn’t encounter them found me…

So, I am 47 and that picture above is a carefully edited picture of my boob so that it cannot be easily identified as such (I’m actually not really squeamish about showing more of the picture, but therapists and other professionals do read this blog so cropped it is), and I have marked the dimple/indent line that I observed three weeks ago. And, I did exactly what you did if google has led you here…and I found one first person anecdotal account of something like this being benign during the time I was searching before I finally decided google was freaking me out and closed the tabs because pretty much every other first person account I read was talking about how theirs’ ended up being caused by cancer.

And it was like pouring gasoline on my stress level and flipping a blow torch on it, if I’m being perfectly honest, and it took a lot of work for me to find my positivity and hang on tight. All I could think about were the people who needed me, who will continue to need me. And that may be something you are feeling the weight of also.

Today I was officially told that there was no cause for concern for me, and just driving home feeling that joy isn’t enough for me to fully punctuate this experience. I want to give you just one more positive story to hold onto to maybe keep the flames of stress at bay. Because I do know how much that helps to have a little bit of hope when you have to wait such a long time to get testing done. And if I hadn’t been willing to drive to a facility an hour from my house, I would have been waiting more than double three weeks, it would have been into July for any diagnostic appointments on my side of this metropolis.

I want to put my arms around you if you’re the hugging kind and hold you tight if that is the kind of wait you’re in for, because I know it doesn’t help. Since I can’t do that, I’m giving you my experience instead.

Yes, make that appointment and definitely get it checked out. Maybe it will be something that needs treatment, so it is so much better to be safe than sorry, and the quicker you catch something the better the outcome.

But, it definitely could also be nothing you need to worry about negatively impacting your health. So, virtual hugs from me! Hang in there, and maybe put the google down- on this subject at least- after you finish reading this.

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June Gratitude & Some Reading

Posted on by Ariana
Tony, sitting and waiting while we registered him for school, photo by Ariana.

To Tony’s Entire Therapy Team:

Thank You…

Each and every one of you took time out of your busy schedules in some way to either show up at meetings or write documentation to help our son’s educational advocate better understand his needs or to speak to those needs directly to school district representatives. This has been such a long journey for our family to get to this point, and each of you have had a role in the successes that have brought us here. None of this would be possible without the work you do, the expertise, and the time you contribute. I am beyond grateful to each of your for sharing even more of your time as we work to provide the smoothest transition possible back into the school system. Thank you.

A General Content Note:

We are going to remain busy for a while as we support extra meetings and assessments heading into Tony’s August reintroduction into our public school district. I am thankful that as my POTS improves, I have more and more energy every day…but part of the journey I need most right now is to find more of a balance where I recoup some personal time. When Tony’s new RBT comes in, and I’m not needed, I’m taking time to work on my ukulele skills or just something that has nothing to do with therapy and everything to do with self-nurturance. So, I’m still gonna be keeping the posts a little bit shorter for the next month or two at least. And, because I just know I have a limited desire to think about things that are too serious right now, and I know some of my loved ones have more serious things going on in their lives, my reading recommendation is going to be strictly for the fun of it.

Some Reading To Consider

Weapons of Old, Kent Wayne

Some time ago, I recommended the first book in this series because I really loved it. This is the second book in his young adult series, and I loved it enough to give it one of my currently-oh-so-rare-public-reviews. So, naturally, I am recommending it here also.

That being said, we need to get the disclaimers out of the way. First, for my religious loved ones who have certain criteria for what is appropriate content for media consumption, this book absolutely meets your cleanliness standards. That being said, just a reminder, many of his blog posts feature significantly more mature content as regards to sexuality. So, this book and the first one are definitely safe reading for your standards, the blog posts are best not to stick your toes into if you want to avoid descriptive sexual content. Second, the author and I have chatted regularly on-line since the release of his first book. Now, he’s under no obligation to continue to chat with me, and he has never, ever asked me to even finish reading any of his books much less review them (thank you for that, BTW). As limited as my current ability is to go out and interact with people who are not my son’s therapists, I really have been super grateful for those conversations and that interaction. So I naturally have biases because of that, but I’ve worked really hard to keep them out of my opinion of this book.

So, because I did review it on Goodreads, I’m not going to be super thorough here. Kent demonstrates enormous creativity in his world building in this book, and because I have read some of his other stuff, I can see his evolution as a writer and I think this book showed considerable skill in that regards. And I really cannot say enough good things about the creativity portion. I turned 47 recently, and I’ve been reading fantasy since elementary school, and so many ideas are just rewarmed up from book to book, but literally I’ve never encountered some of the types of things he describes in his world building for this book, and I loved that. And some of the scenes just really cracked me up. When I said I was exhausted a couple months back, it was the emotional kind because of all the things that have been going on. I was struggling to find my enthusiasm for reading when I started this book, and it was just something I was doing because it’s a rescue habit for me to be doing the kinds of things that help me feel better when life is hard (I just trust that if I follow through, the feeling will eventually find me), but the humor in the earlier parts of the book sparked a reawakening of my ability to feel that love of the moment in reading, and by about half-way through, I was anxious if I had to stop reading it because I wanted to see what happened next. So for those reasons, I am happy to recommend this book to any fellow fantasy lovers.

Ariana's Posts

Gonna Pin The Positive…

Posted on by Ariana
Some good things are already here. All photos by Ariana.

My body was humming cheerily this morning after jogging nearly 20 minutes of our outing to practice tricycle skills. I just finished my second cup of coffee, and it makes me think about how much I have to be grateful for even when things are busy. Two long years it has taken to build up enough caffeine tolerance to jog that much and to drink coffee again (like many individuals with POTS, I lost caffeine tolerance when symptoms first emerged).

But more good things are coming, I can feel it. This is a busy time, where meetings and appointments are starting to pop up as we work with our son’s advocate to officially begin Tony’s reentry into the school setting. And there’s a whole lot of other things that need to be done outside of these meetings and the therapy hours I am responsible for providing.

So, this week’s shared happy happening is going to be short: after only working with Tony for 3 days on the motor planning aspect, our little man is able to independently access a kindle profile using a 4 digit pin.

Yes, he remembers all of the numbers on his own. He sequences all the numbers correctly every time at this point and nobody needs to tell him or prompt him for anything on it, plus he’s nailed the motor planning aspect in record time for him. For kiddos like my son who have motor planning deficits, that means their brains understand what they need to do but can’t get their muscles to do it without a fair amount of practice (sometimes a significant amount of practice), and immediate imitation is usually a struggle for an individual with motor planning delays. I was so excited my first impulse was to put a video up before the “not a great idea from the security side of things” warning nipped on the heels of that thought and laid it to rest in the “not the best idea” graveyard.

So, you’ll just have to take my word for it…though certainly other therapists have witnessed him doing it, because he’s feeling pretty proud of himself and sometimes looks downright smug as he shoots one of us a glance that says “I don’t need you to do this for me anymore so I can get into this kindle any time I want!” And as I look forward to more meetings in the weeks ahead, I can see that other good things truly are coming up on the horizon.

Meeting make up. More of that’s on the horizon too, lol! 😀
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When Hope Blooms Happy Moments

Posted on by Ariana
Tony & Ariana at Funbox Arrowhead before it closed, Photo by Andy

A happy moment can bloom more quickly than expected from the seeds of hope. In my gut, I felt like Arrowhead was the place we needed to do our crowd work with Tony on March 31st. I noticed as we were pulling in that the Funbox park was up and functional, and I told Andy “maybe Tony will be up to walking around the perimeter when we’re done in the mall.”

As we were leaving the work we were doing in the mall, I walked us towards the bounce park. I noticed that Tony wasn’t afraid, and a look of interest was on his face. I walked us up to the entrance, and he still didn’t look afraid. I asked him if he wanted to go in, and he said “yes” on his speech device.

He appropriately tolerated the wait to sign all of the waivers. He tolerated having to wear new to him socks that were slightly tight to be allowed on the bounce structures. He tolerated speakers blasting songs such as “Boom Clap” and “Shut Up and Dance” the entire visit without any signs of distress. He tolerated a gradually increasing crowd of noisy kids and adults, and his behavior was 100% safe.

We laughed and we climbed for about an hour- which is tolerance higher than anything I expected to see when he said he wanted to go in. We slid down bounce slides higher and steeper than slides he’s willing to use at our local neighborhood parks. His happiness lit a spark of joy in my soul, it was such a beautiful and happy moment that I hadn’t done more than hope would bloom and come to successful fruition on a “some day” when we drove up to the mall that day. But for that moment, it was the day and the joy.

Additional Therapy Strategies Being Used:

Within the mall itself:

-using the family bathrooms can help him feel more comfortable using a restroom where there are lots of people and hand dryers present.

-Trying to find a motivating activity, such as eating a very preferred food, can help him associate the environment with positive things.

-He needs to be allowed to refuse to go into anywhere in an environment with that many people to prevent him feeling like he needs to be scared enough to push.

For the Funbox Bounce Park:

-Walking around the perimeter can create a familiarity with the structure

-Bounce houses at quieter events are preferred activities for him, so sometimes preferred activities can be leveraged to increase tolerance of other stimuli that he struggles with under different circumstances.

-Sometimes entering near the opening time for a place that can become crowded helps (for a place where there are fewer people there at first) because the crowd builds around him gradually.

-Leaving while he was still happy. For a kiddo with sensory issues, leaving while they are still calm and well-regulated is the best approach because it assures that the memories of the activity and location will be happy ones. If not every moment stayed happy, trying to leave on the happiest, calmest moment possible can still keep / leave a positive final impression of a location.

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The Dirt King Rides Again

Posted on by Ariana
Tony pedaling his trike last week, photo by Ariana

A few years ago, before the start of the pandemic, Miss Emily and I were trying to work with Tony to improve his tricycling skills during a habilitative therapy session. At that time, we were still experiencing easily a dozen or more attempts from him to run off per any type of outing. There was zero directional flexibility from him (if you asked him to go anywhere but where he wanted, he could easily at that time engage in 30 minutes or more of a sustained effort to use his full body weight to push to what he wanted), and we had zero compliance from Tony with a verbal request to stop from anybody at that time, even me.

Even with the both of us, we felt like it was too much to safely manage and help him improve his skills given the size of his tricycle (he’s needed an adult-size tricycle for several years now) and we were worried that it would roll in front of a car or something worse would happen while we were trying to keep him safe. So with a pang of sadness, I mentally pinned it on a list of goals for “some day.”

Some day is now. He’s generalizing requests to stop and directional flexibility during community walks to his new RBT quite well. Attempts to run off are dramatically reduced to the point where many outings won’t have any. Any attempt to push past me now just looks like a minimal lean into my upper body that doesn’t use his full strength or weight before he pulls back with a verbal prompt, and even those, they are on the path to total extinguishment within the community. So I decided now was the time to dust off the Dirt King, reinflate the tires, and hit the sidewalks.

Because it has been a few years, he needed help initially remembering how to place his feet, how to pedal, how to steer. In less than 2 minutes, pedaling was back. In under 15, he was doing better with steering than he was last time we tried to help him improve his skills. By day two he was able to pedal uphill with minimal assistance by me, albeit frequent breaks certainly were needed.

I have to jog now to keep up with him on flat or downhill stretches of the sidewalk.

He pedals with focused glee, giggling, whooping, and laughing as he hauls past people out for a stroll. I watched his eyes light up and he gave a verbal “yeah,” his face practically split from grinning as he passed a group of cyclists recently. Almost I could hear him thinking “I’m one of them now!”

He gets off the trike sometimes to rest, or to flap and look at cars driving by. He’s thrown one tantrum at a street corner I wouldn’t let him cross yet because of the volume of traffic, but his overall cooperation with directional instruction equals what he demonstrates on community walks (though he’s been having so much fun he usually doesn’t like being told it’s time to go home). He calmly takes denials for parks we pass that he would like to go to, literally all of the elements for him to maintain this as a leisure activity within the community are present.

Helping him improve these skills and his stamina for uphill portions is easily a one person job now, and I am thankful every day my POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) has improved enough that I can do that jogging to keep up with him. Kind words from people we are passing about how well he is doing have fueled the joy in my heart. Maybe some day there’s a bike in his future. But for right now, the Dirt King rides again…and we’re both having a blast with it 😀

Some additional therapeutic strategies I am using:

-always bring the skittles. Tony doesn’t care about praise, he cares about candy.

-gently pushing down on his knees at the speed he needs to go when he needs to start slowing down, paired with verbal instructions and reminders of why. He has motor planning deficits, so his muscles need help feeling the motion of the desired outcomes.

Why could this still be a useful activity for an older kiddo with developmental disabilities? (you can click on the title for a link if interested)

Moderate cycling exercise enhances neurocognitive processing in adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities, by Vogt, Tobias

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May Gratitude & Some Reading/Viewing

Posted on by Ariana

A Bit Of Gratitude…

To the EMS Coordinator for the Buckeye Valley Fire District (who will remain unnamed here) for helping me resolve a longstanding billing concern related to our son’s ambulance ride to the ER back in 2016, THANK YOU <3. For those of you who are family or who have been reading here for a while, you already know I have nothing but loving to send the way of our local fire team as it is for everything they did that night. Members of their team even started mopping the blood off my kitchen floor while we were discussing the need for an ambulance ride after they got a bandage on Tony. In a perfect world, I would be perfectly on top of every little detail of every circumstance in our life, but stepping into the world of parenting a child with significant needs can be beautiful, but rarely perfect, and almost always overwhelming when it comes to the sheer volume of things coming at me that need to be taken care of just for him alone. You have my deepest gratitude for taking the time to hear my need and immediately do something to help me address it.

A Note On Content

I took time off from writing posts here this past month, but certainly not from therapy, and definitely not from life. We’ve been busy…really, really busy! And, there’s still a lot going on behind the scenes, and some of it is just the sort of thing that can suck all the best emotional colors out of one’s day if allowed to do so. And just for me personally, I don’t want to loose focus on the good stuff, because it’s still going on too and just quite frankly, much happier to look at. I’d just really rather soak up and dwell in the positive (may it start to flood in rather than trickle!), so posts are resuming, but they will be very short, and just mostly highlights of something happy. Because we’ve reintegrated ABA into our schedule (which is going great, BTW), I haven’t really had much reading time with everything that is going on, and in keeping with that my recommendations are going to be short and focused on nothing heavy. Much love, Ari

Just a few happy moments from this past month…

Some Reading/Viewing To Consider

“At 60, Bret Michaels is ‘still fast, still fun,’ but needs ‘a little more maintenance,’ “by Melissa Ruggieri, reporting for USA Today

I was born in the 70’s (I’ll be 47 this month), I grew up in the 80’s, and many of us here know I have a longstanding love of hair metal bands just in part because that’s what I grew up listening to. And I make no apologies for any that. This article is really something I recommend for one reason though: this man’s attitude about life as expressed in the article rocks every bit as much as the music, and it’s a great example for handling chronic illness or other difficult circumstances of a lengthy duration.

Steps You Need to Protect Your ENERGY and Create a Positive Life, The Mel Robbins Podcast, by Mel Robbins

I was listening to this while I was doing dishes, and very much liked the strategies she recommended for dealing with negativity, either within oneself or when it is coming from another. I have found it’s pretty easy, when one’s life is in crisis mode, to feel like the lemons and grapefruits are just coming in faster than they can be turned into a sweetened beverage for others to drink, so to speak, and to struggle to handle every stressful moment with grace. And definitely when I feel like I am living in that space, the negativity rolling off of someone else can impact me more, so I found this to be a very useful and timely episode.

*All photos for this post were by either Ariana or Andy

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Something New, Something Zoo

Posted on by Ariana

Friends, Family, & Loved Ones: I am going to be taking the next month off from writing here. I am stressed. I am overwhelmed. There’s a lot going on, and we’re once again needing to support a more beefed up therapy schedule as our son’s new ABA provider has begun services this week. There are some important things going on that need my full attention and I am in a self-care deficit.

So, I am taking a writing breather for the next month. But, before I go, I just want to leave you with a couple of the happier therapy moments from the past several days.

We’ve been working on expanding our little man’s tolerance for new things, and recently he was willing to try seasoned curly fries for the first time. He was also willing to try climbing on a twisting ladder that scares him. Trying new things is very hard for him, and there once was a time where it would take him months to be willing to even touch new items that were purchased for him. This was actually the first time I’ve asked him to try curly seasoned fries, though he has had Taco Bell’s seasoned fries when they carry them. Just even the shape and the different fast food chain are enough for him to reject an item for too much new-ness or being different.

We also were able to take him in to the Phoenix Zoo this past Sunday, and weekends (especially when the weather is nice) are much more crowded. I gave him almost complete directional control because of the number of people there, and he was able to stay calm and tolerate it fairly well because of that. The hardest bump for him was when we had to go into the guest services area because I had recently renewed our membership, and even though the current one hadn’t expired, their system wasn’t accepting the card because of the renewal, but even that he tolerated with only a minor outburst. He also stood in a bathroom line near their Mandrill exhibit for roughly 10 minutes (a bathroom with a hand-dryer in use) and he was calmly able to do what he needed to in there. For me, there is so much hope in what I saw in those happy moments, so much hope for even happier moments to come.

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Picturing The Path Of Increasing A Few Functional Skills In Public Spaces

Posted on by Ariana
Practicing sitting calmly in a library in Goodyear, we sat for more than 20 minutes, this is only the second time we’ve done therapy work at this location. Photo by Hannah

My loved ones, I am going to keep this week’s post pretty short. I’ve been eating stress for breakfast, lunch, and dinner lately and I’d like to go regurgitate a workout and hunt through the internal wreckage for some glimmer of inner peace outside of the glittery shimmers gracing my eyelids. Even when that’s how I’m feeling on the inside, we’re still progressing through therapy goals and moving forward, and I am ever grateful for that.

As our little man has become calmer in and more tolerant of public spaces, we’ve being gradually increasing the level of functionality. Some trips he will push the shopping cart for close to an hour, we’re now starting to ask him to locate items before we’re in the aisle that contains it, we’re expecting him to carry his speech device the entire time, we’re expecting him to follow another member of the party (scanning and looking for them if they are out of sight), and we’re expecting him to practice sitting and waiting for periods of time approaching 20-30 minutes. We are continuing to work with him to enter bathrooms that have hand dryers when others are in them, and he does need someone giving him verbal prompts some of the time to maintain awareness of others near him so he doesn’t bump into them with the cart.

Some of these pictures were taken by me, but if I’m in the shot, those photos were taken by Hannah. These are a few pictures from last Friday. He’s been working very hard, and as always, it is an honor to be the mother to both of my beautiful children.

Following, looking for, and finding Hannah at a local Target.

Waiting with him and trying to talk him into going into the main bathroom because the family bathroom is closed, sometimes he needs frequent reminders and I have to stand in front of him as a physical prompt that he can’t go into certain places. It took him about 10 minutes to feel comfortable going in.

I give him skittles randomly for walking and pushing the cart safely, I walk next to him to help direct his attention to things he needs to avoid running into and so I can grab the cart if needed. Sometimes I still have to prompt him to ask for things, here he just wanted to grab a bottle of water instead of asking for it.