morning recap.

i think things went pretty well this morning.

i mean, it's not a natural environment that they stick you in.  we're locked in a room with an observation glass with a handful of toys and a few chairs.  billy and i were instructed to sit there and try to interact as little as possible, only offering finn reassurance if he came to us for it.

so he's in a strange room, with strange toys, and a strange person (the child pyschologist) trying to play with him.

right off the bat, finn started exploring.  he is very cautious and slow to warm up to everything- new people, new toys, new anything.  so the fact that he wasn't hanging on me or hiding in my hair was a huge plus. 

my next fear was that he would completely ignore the strange child psychologist altogether.  that's kind of his defense mechanism- he's very shy.  but he didn't ignore her at all.  whenever she pulled out a new toy or activity he paid attention to her.  he didn't always interact correctly... when she sat him down at the table to have a pretend birthday party for the baby doll he didn't blow out the birthday candles.  but he also didn't throw everything on the ground and walk away.  he sat there and took all of the candles out of the cake and waited for her to sing her stupid fake happy birthday song and then he got up and left.  ha!

i was watching for some of the things we've been working on and i thought finn showed some of those things well.  she showed him two rubbermaid snack containers- one with goldfish in it, and one with teddy grahams in it- and he chose which one he wanted.  choices are something we've been working on.  he also handed it to her so she would open the container for him, even though he doesn't know how to verbally ask for help.  he also "checked in" with billy and i a few times- coming over for a hug or a touch or some kind of reassurance in this strange setting.  that shared attention is a good thing.

he didn't make the best eye contact with her and he didn't respond to her calling his name during the session, but i'm happy that he displayed more of his good skills than his bad.

about half way through the exam finn started to get really tired.  he had been running around the waiting room showing off his stair climbing and walking backwards skills to his physical therapist before the exam, and he really wore himself out.  so towards the end of the session he grabbed his blanket and the psychologist and hugged her like "please lady, can we just take a nap now?"  it was sweet.

then the developmental pediatrician came in and asked us some questions about finn and gave him a look over.  finn was really tired by then and went into a fit of hysterical giggles playing with his talking tomcat game on my iphone while she examined him.  she thought he was pretty cute.

we go back in a couple of hours to talk to the team and hear their recommendations and the game plan.  right now finn is napping.  overall, we're happy with the way the morning went.  thanks to everyone out there rooting for us!  we love you!