In Which Connor Wishes He Could Find A Decent Exterminator

This morning Connor and I went to the library and picked up his theme box for the week.  We're doing bugs, and the box contained a bunch of fun things to look at and touch, including books, plastic insects and arachnids, and a number of puppets. 

As soon as we got home I set Connor up in his stander and I began my torture session (ie sensory therapy) with the items in the box.  There were two butterfly fingerpuppets that fit perfectly on his thumbs and two that fit on my fingers, so we tried those out for a while.  I told him all about butterflies while carefully demonstrating how to make the puppets look like they were flying. 

Connor had other ideas about what to do with his puppets; ideas that involved them not touching any part of his body.  He seemed to think that if he held his arms stiffly out at a 45 degree angle from his body and then flung his torso from side-to-side this would somehow dislodge the butterflies.  When that didn't work, he tried the arm-flapping method.  Pretty much all of the pictures I took of him look like this as a result.  Isn't that a wonderful facial expression?  He looks like he's having a great time!

He didn't cry, though, so that's a good thing.  Hopefully by the end of the week he'll be relatively used to these. 

I let him squirm for about five minutes and then took the puppets off and replaced them with our vibrating bee toy (not from the box but in our theme)-- if you put it in the tray attached to his stander the vibration is strong enough to be felt through the whole frame.  He was much more enamored with that toy, and he had a fun time turning it off and on.

Then we read a quick story about bees, and after that we were off to the audiologist!  It turned out that Connor would have desperately needed new earmolds even if he hadn't lost one, as he's grown significantly since the last time they were done.  We gave Connor the choice of whatever color earmolds he wanted, but he didn't express any interest in picking his own color, so I did it for him.  There are a ton of cool colors out there to choose from-- we ended up going with a lovely translucent blue, which I thought would be easy to find if he manages to yank them off the hearing aid and throw them away again.

That's going to be significantly harder for him to do, though, thanks to the new torture device that the audiologist and I discussed today.  Since Connor refused to keep his hearing aids on at school (he literally pulled them off as we entered the building) and has a tendency to jerk them out any time he's tired/pouting/distracted/bored/etc, we've tried a variety of ways to keep them on, none of which have worked.  The only time he is okay with wearing them is when he's at home, where it's very quiet and safe.  That just won't cut it; especially as his hearing continues to worsen.  So we're pulling out the big guns, and buying him one of these.

That's right: once Connor's new earmolds come, he'll be sporting a lovely hat every time we're in public until he gets the idea that he can't pull his hearing aids out all of the time.  Actually, I guess it's more of a bonnet.  Apparently (according to our audiologist-- let me know if you can find the study) it's been shown that these particular hats have material that's thin enough to allow unobstructed hearing, and they don't cause any feedback.  They have a tie, which means Connor won't be able to get the hat off by himself.

Connor hates hats with a burning passion, so this should be a pretty good incentive for learning to keep his hearing aids in.  I'll do my part by keeping the hat on him and just feeling horribly guilty about the stress I'm causing my poor kid, even if it's for his own good.  I'll probably applique something to his hat to make it slightly more cool, but I doubt that will help Connor feel any happier about wearing it; even if I put a dinosaur on it. 

Oh well.

~Jess