Today was a pretty normal Saturday at our house. Greg got up and made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, just like he does every Saturday. Then we started getting everyone bathed for church tomorrow. Victoria is always first, because she is usually in pretty desperate need of a bath by the time she finishes eating her pancakes. :-). After I got her out and dressed, I checked on Jonathan to make sure he was okay. He was standing in the family room spinning his toys, so I started running the second bath while I cleared the table. Hallie heard the bath water running, and came to the kitchen to ask if she could get in the bath. Hallie is still non-verbal, but manages to communicate pretty well through a combination of sign language and charades. I explained that I was going to bathe Jonathan first, but would do her after that. I asked if she understood, and she indicated that she did. She was clearly disappointed, because she LOVES her bath, but she didn’t argue. She went back out to the family room, and I continued clearing the table and scraping plates into the trash can. A moment later, I heard Jonathan starting into one of his fits. I ran out and discovered that Hallie had tried to communicate to him that it was time for his bath. She had taken his toys out of his hands, and tried to direct him to the bathroom. He was very frustrated, and she was completely confused. She couldn’t understand why he would be upset when she was just trying to communicate the happy news that it was time for his bath. She then tried to rub his arm to make him feel better, and that just upset him more. I picked him up and gave him his toy back, and he started calming down, but then she began to cry, because she thought I was upset with her. I tried to call her over to comfort her, but as soon as Jonathan saw her running back toward him, he started crying and kicking all over again. She then cried harder, and ran away. It took me quite a while to get them both calmed down, and I never did finish cleaning up the kitchen. Greg had to finish it for me. But we did get all eight kids bathed, so I guess that counts for something, right?

Later in the day, Jonathan went up the stairs by himself to find the other children. This is the first time he has gone up the stairs without one of us. He only stayed up there a couple of minutes, but we are encouraged to see him working through some of his fear. It is also encouraging that he has a growing curiosity about the other kids. Even though he doesn’t interact with them much, he clearly enjoys being near them now.

Now Greg is working on chicken nuggets for the kids. They will eat out in the family room while watching some TV. This is a weekend tradition at our house, and our kids love it. Jonathan is still not very interested in watching TV, but he does like sitting on the couch with Greg, Hallie, and me while we eat our dinner. Then we will try to get them to bed a bit early so they are ready for church tomorrow. Jonathan did well at church last week, and we are hoping that it goes well again tomorrow. Wish us luck. 🙂