Just before Thanksgiving, Luke really turned the corner with school and his after school program. He seemed to really start liking things at school and the counselors that he played with afterwards. His daily behavior reports from both were great!
When he has good behavior at after school, they reward him with play money ("bucks") that can be exchanged at the end of the week for a prize. The better you are, the more bucks you get, and the better your prize. Bad week - get a pencil. Good week - get a toy car. You get the idea.
Luke hadn't gotten any bucks during the first two months of school. He seemed upset about it, but couldn't seem to get the hang of how to behave properly. But something finally clicked for him in late November, and all of a sudden, the kid had some bucks! Not many at first (we got a lot of pencils), but over the weeks, he was doing really well. Rolling in the dough.
On one particular Friday afternoon, Luke came home with a sneaky look on his face. Nate prompted him to tell me why he was so excited.
"Mommy, I turned in 5 whole bucks today and I got something for you."
Good thing I like pencils. A lot.
Actually, I am just kidding. From the hidden hand behind his back came a little bottle of silver nail polish.
"I got this for you because I know you like your nails to look pretty. Can we paint your toenails?"
I was so taken aback! Luke loves his pencils and other silly prizes when he trades in his bucks, so for him to use his hard earned money to get something for me was very touching.
We didn't have the opportunity to paint my nails for several weeks. The polish sat on my dresser, and he would occasionally point to it and remind me that we had a paint date.
On New Years Day, the time was right. Luke was excited to help me paint my toes. We sat down, I showed him how to hold the brush (his occupational therapist would be so proud!). He did a couple and sat back with a grin to admire his work.
"Sparkly!"
We hope you're having a sparkly New Year! I have a ton of photos and stories to share from Christmas time. I will post those soon. It struck me as funny that with days off of work, I didn't have a lot of time to sit down and write blog posts! Between family and fun and catching up on some much needed sleep, I rarely touched our computer. I suppose it was the best kind of distraction.
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