Boogerness

Tater lost his TV privileges today. He had a stand-off with his Occupational Therapist in therapy today. A 30-minute stand-off and the result is that he will not be able to watch Blue's Clues with his brother this evening. Now, Tater loves him some Blue's Clues and he will be very upset that he can't watch it. The question is whether he'll get that he's missing out because he refused to draw a stupid line on a piece of paper 6 hours earlier. I know. It's harsh, but we were trying everything to get him to draw that line-something we know he can do, something he does all the time but refused to do so today in order to pass an OT evaluation the therapist needed. He didn't do it and I had already said if he didn't do it, he would lose his TV privileges. So, now, I have to punish him and he won't even know why.

I never thought I would be having these type of discipline issues with Tater. It's frustrating because there's only so much we can do to get him to do what we want/need him to do. His therapists and we are always looking at how much he isn't doing something because he doesn't want to vs. because he really can't. It's so hard to tell the difference. But if that kid is going to be worth anything in this life, he needs to suck it up and do the things he doesn't want to do. He's going to have it harder than the rest of us and it's better that he learn that now rather than later. It's not fair and I hate it for him but I love him too much not to push him harder than he wants to be pushed. Plus, I know he can reason because today during a trial off the vent I told him if he couldn't calm down he would have to go back on. He immediately calmed down. It was funny how fast he calmed down because he didn't want to go back on that vent.

The really funny thing about all this is that I love it. I love that he's being a typical almost 2 year-old. I love that he hits his brother for no reason. I love that he gets mad when he doesn't get his way. I love all this because it's means he's actually typical for his age. He's never been typical for his age. It's great that he's on track for something even if it is the least appealing thing for him to be on track with. Pray that I have the patience to deal with it.

(totally unrelated, a picture of the 4 of us):