Saturday, June 12 It's 9:50 pm and both kids are asleep in their own beds in the same room - making headway. Scott needs to flip and flop around in his bed for a while before he can finally settle down and go to sleep. He does not want me to pull his covers up (until after he's gotten the flopping out of his system, I guess). Once he's ready to go to sleep he covers himself up (even his head) and out he goes.

PLAY DOUGH - What do you know, we had a first for Cooper and Scott to actually play together (sort of). They spent nearly 30 minutes at the kitchen table making big spiders (Scott's creation copying the spider on his Spiderman glove) and a man and his dog on a leash (Cooper's creation). They were both very proud of what they had made. I was proud of 30 minutes with content, coexisting siblings.

Tonight was the first time to put food (spaghettio's, bread, pear) in front of Scott and let him know it's that or nothing. His behavior was so bad this afternoon/early evening that we really weren't in to giving him choices tonight. Good lesson for me - the boy doesn't need (nor does he do so well) with a lot of choices. After initially pushing his plate of food away and grunting, "Nyet," he ate every bite when he understood choosing wasn't an option tonight. I was happy to give him yogurt, ect. after he finished what I had initially given him.

Don't want to write of all the day's meltdowns and tantrums and all the not so pleasant ways we tried to deal with it, so I'll just call it a day. Sure thought that raising a son with Down syndrome who wasn't toilet trained until age 7, didn't start to talk til 4, ect. would have equipped me with more patience than what I have shown in the last couple of days. Failing miserably here. Will try to seek help on how to help our son and get our family through this. Know that we will, but aren't seeing it right now. Probably expecting too much, too soon.