Play With Me, Part II

Day 6:  Play With Me,  Part II

Coleman continues to play with his ‘guys’, methodically lining them up in perfect formation several times each day.  In the morning, he comes downstairs, stands in front of them, and then looks at me.  “Hi guys!” he says, staring at me.  He wants me to say it.  “Good morning guys!” I exclaim.  In his best deep, sing-songy character impersonation, he leans close to the guys and says “Good morning mama!”  And this begins his every day. 

As time went on and play seemed elusive, we decided to hire our own therapist to come to the house three days each week to work with Coleman.  This was long overdue, and I wish we had fought the school for this earlier when I feel like it would have been more impactful.  Still, the woman that came was quite strong in play skills and she was instrumental in bringing puzzles into Coleman’s world – something he had shunned every time we had tried to introduce them prior.  Unfortunately, Coleman was not happy that we were suddenly invading his free time, and aggressive behaviors, before now a rare occurrence, now surged whenever she came.  His aggression was intense with her, and he spent more than half of the two hour session crying, yelling, hitting, and laying on the floor uncooperative.  Coleman’s behavior escalated and we began to see it even when the therapist wasn’t coming.  School noticed a change too, and informed us his behavior had deteriorated over recent weeks.  The therapist that was working with Coleman was not a BCBA and I think Coleman’s aggressive behavior escalated because she gave so much attention to it – she tried to reason with him, talked to him how it was not nice to do, gave him too many chances.  Ultimately, he learned that this bad behavior was effective in escaping something he didn’t want to do, and so he started using it in other settings.  We ended up letting the therapist go, but I miss how good she was with him when he finally became cooperative.  We are hoping to find a replacement soon. 

Coleman, now 9 years old, is finally finding interest in play.  He’s not necessarily skilled at it yet, but far more important is his desire for it, initiating the play or asking for it.  For example, he loves to do puzzles and has become quite good at them.  He’s extraordinarily visual, so most of the skill is likely through visual repetition, but I watch him with a new puzzle, starting with corners and working his way in which shows the skill rather than the memory.  He also loves drawing, and is finally asking to color from time to time.  We use markers instead of crayons – they have an easier drag on paper – crayons require a stronger grasp and heaver push on the paper, and his grasp is so faint, he drops the marker quite a bit. But he’s getting better at it and his grasp is improving.  He still has a hard time tracing a straight line or connecting dots, his movements not yet smooth enough to start and stop at the right spots.  His OCD frustrates him when the line is not exactly covering the dots, or perfectly on top of the line is he supposed to tracing.  Lately, he has been asking to draw pictures – and by drawing I mean me holding my hand over his hand and drawing what he requests.  And it will come as no surprise that what he requests are drawings from his shows.  Most often we are re-drawing Steve’s clues from Blue’s Clues.  You would be surprised how difficult those simple little drawings are to replicate.  He scripts to me as I draw, in his best Steve voice, “A big round body, a circle for the head, a circle for the snout, and a squiggly line for the tail.  There, you have a pig.”  He watches my drawing closely, making sure every circle is exactly closed, every dot even, the squiggly tail starting and ending at the exact spot it should.  I can feel his grip on my hand, and when I don’t connect a line he tries to go back to close it.  But his movements are jerky that the correction instead turns out to be a scribble line which frustrates him even more.  So we are really working on coloring – trying to help him have some control with the marker as he colors in simple shapes.  And every time, we practice writing his name, by signing each drawing.  And he’s really got “C O L E” down pretty good.  The M A N is not yet quite there. 

In terms social play, absolutely Coleman has come so far.  He has an enormous love for other children.  The majority of his day is in the Separate Class, but his absolute favorite parts of his days are the times he can be with all the other kids.  Gym, Art, Music, Spanish and Recess.  He loves them all.  Coleman’s desire to be around other kids has grown steadily year over year.  He still tends to be more of an observer than a participant, but he’s slowly engaging with other kids.   He loves the park, and laughs as the other kids run around playing tag.  He chases a few feet behind everyone, unbeknownst to them, including himself in their games and laughing and scripting all the while.  We go to the park nearly every weekend, and I have a feeling I’ll be going for many, many years to come. 

This year we discovered another place Coleman loves:  Kidzone, an indoor bouncy house place.  He adores bouncy houses, and this place is a warehouse full of them.  We go there so frequently that the owners know Coleman by name and even gave him a red employee shirt of his very own.  Open play at this location is random and limited due to bookings of private birthday parties.  Even so, the owners are good to Coleman and if we call, they let us in at the end of the day, when the parties are all over, so Coleman can jump around for a while.  Kidzone is a one of the only places Coleman will run and play without me by his side.  I usually drag one of the girls with me, but sometimes our neighbor Jake comes along.  Jake is the same age as Coleman, and he is as good as gold to him – patient and protective.  He knows Coleman is different so he takes special time to watch out for him.  The two of them run around from bouncy to bouncy, jumping and chasing each other.  Coleman doesn’t follow Jake’s instruction very well, and sometimes rambles on in one of his many scripts, but Jake doesn’t seem to mind.  I am so grateful for this little boy – and his family for sharing him with us.   

Jumping on a trampoline is another favorite activity for Coleman.  While he loves the bounce of the trampoline itself, he finds far more enjoyment in the chaos and fun associated with several kids laughing and jumping together.  We usually go to Uncle Ronnie’s or Auntie Debbie’s house and he can last for hours on that thing.  I’ll admit he can be a tough playmate out there – his play is not terribly collaborative, more Dictator in style – as he orders everyone to jump, fall down, play Ring-Around-The –Rosey, etc.  But we are working on turn-taking…it’s a work-in-progress.     

Perhaps the game we play most often is hide and seek.  We first started to show him the game by hiding his guys under a towel.  “Oh, where could they be?” and then the big AHA when we found them.  I remember one day he hid his sneaker.  “Where is your shoe?” he asked with a big smile, and a lilt in his voice.  I knew he wanted me to play.  So we went looking for the shoe.  He was just smiling away.  But when I asked where it was he looked at me confused, like “Aren’t you supposed to tell me”  We all tried, but none of could find the foolish shoe, and Coleman was unable to tell us.  He kept saying “Ohh, there it is.”  And we were all like “WHERE!??????”  I have no idea where we actually found it.   Hide and Seek has progressed since then, thankfully, but he remains painfully bad at the game.  We keep reminding him he has to be quiet and hide. But he gets too excited hiding. 

His favorite time to play Hide and Seek is the end of the day, when I come home from work.   Each day, as the after-school bustle subsided and dinner began, Coleman started on Billy.  “Where is mama?  Can you hide?” Billy would say “Not yet.”  He’d ask the same question about every three minutes.  Billy finally came up with the phrase “When the time is right, you can hide” which seemed to hold him off a bit longer.  Maybe every 10 minutes.  Now, when Billy sees the car pull in the driveway he yells “The time is right Coleman!!!” and I watch through the front window as Coleman runs laughing across the kitchen from the playroom to the family room, where he climbs on the couch and throws a blanket partially over himself and waits.  I come in, stomp exaggeratingly through the kitchen yelling “Where is Coleman?!”  He squeals in delight, sometimes yelling “I’m right here!” and I pull the blanket off to his laughing, delighted little face.  Every night, exact same thing, for more than a year now.  Playing at its best.