Today was mediocre. There was some progress, but Tony was or the edge of crankiness all day. We didn’t get much of anything done as far as the book goes, but I worked on introducing the new concepts we decided on yesterday with Jay. Whitney and Marlaina worked on the data entry aspect of our learning program, updating our log sheets, creating a user-friendly weekly maintenance sheet, and setting up phase two. Whitney got a lot accomplished, but she couldn’t have done it without Marlaina’s Excel prowess.

Tony and I spent most of today outside, and I found the environment quite helpful for introducing new concepts. For example, the tape that had been hung to prevent the new grass from being trampled or mowed by the landscapers served very well for the abstract concept of over/under. It was fun for Tony to actually be able to crawl under the tape and be picked up by me as we both went over the tape. He made a pretty good approximation for over when we were finished one of the walks and he wanted to go over the gate inside the house (echoic.) In his room I got under the table and said “where is Parker? Is she UNDER the table?” Tony didn’t say under, but after I got out, he went under the table. I asked “where is Tony? Is he UNDER the table?” Then I tried your name is . . ., he finally ended up making an approximation for his name, but only after I said “can you say Tony?” Another new word approximation for today: ‘cool.’ This happened when we were over by the fan and I said that it was blowing cool air onto us, it too was an echoic.

We worked on ‘where’ by hiding on opposite sides of a tree outside. I didn’t actually get him to say where, but he did say ‘right here’ and ‘right there.’ It was there also that I introduced in/out while we were working on ‘where’ by climbing into the tree and saying “where’s Parker . . .here I am, I’m IN the tree! [waving, jumping down] now I’m OUT of the tree! [waving again.] Also while we were outside I tried to do big/little by asking him whether some huge branches on the ground were big sticks or little sticks. All he wanted to say was ‘sticks’ oh well, we’ll keep trying . . . maybe next time!