We had a really good 2021 with the kids accomplishing some huge milestones. Nicholas doing well with his speech device and school, Daniel’s independence doing things on his own, and Grace finally feeding herself and going down the slide.

There’s so many things to work on with the kids, it’s hard to work on all of them, so we have to pick and choose. Here’s just a few things we’re going to try to conquer in 2022.

Nicholas’s independence — Wherever I am in the house, Nicholas is usually right there with me. When we sit down for meals to eat, either Steve and I usually have to sit with him, because he doesn’t like to be alone. This is something I want to work on this year with him, to be comfortable being by himself. Some of it has to do with his sister not being very nice to him, which we’re also working on. And, of course, we’re always working on daily living skills like dressing himself, bathing himself, etc.

Daniel’s attention — Daniel needs a lot of help with focusing and staying on task. Sometimes he doesn’t have the attention long enough to understand what we’re asking of him. He doesn’t listen to everything we say, which causes problems, so we’re trying to help him with his attention span. We work on it by asking him to tell us details about his day. In speech therapy his therapist tells him a story, then asks questions and he has to tell her what happened in the story. Even just a four-sentence story is challenging for him.

Grace’s communication — Grace recently got a speech device to help with communication. I don’t think it’s something we’ll need to use all the time like Nicholas. But I hope it will help with her anxiety and, hopefully, it’ll be useful before a meltdown happens. Also in situations where she has to make a choice between two things, sometimes she gets overwhelmed with making decisions like that. Grace is doing so well with imitation and saying longer sentences, but still needs a little bit of help with the back and forth communication.

Getting along — Someone is usually bothering another person at some point during the day. Like I said above, Grace is sometimes not very nice to Nicholas, and then Nicholas teases Daniel sometimes, and then Daniel bothers Grace. It’s a big circle. I think Grace’s is just an age thing, hopefully she grows out of that soon. Daniel’s is hyperactivity and impulsivity, which we’re also working on. I don’t understand Nicholas teasing Daniel, but I hope we can get it worked out soon, because Daniel doesn’t like it. I just want everyone to get along with each other.

These are just a few of our goals we’re working on for 2022. There’s always the little things like trying new foods, being able to tolerate sticky things on the hands, learning better balance, etc. We’re always working hard on things, and these are the biggest goals right now.