Supermarket discoveries!

Our 'Kids First' home is getting a lick of paint, although it is taking a while to complete due to the painter only being available at the weekends!  Sampson (the painter - can highly recommend him by the way!) has a nasty habit of  sending  me a list of goodies to buy at the most inconvenient time (like a Friday afternoon!!!).  However, as luck would have it, Thomas had to miss tennis - has tennis elbow of all things!  Therefore, I had this brainwave of taking both boys to the supermarket and Thomas could film me and Nick 'doing stuff'.  Hah,  I knew as soon as we walked..........in the joint..... that it wasn't going to go as smoothly as I hoped.  Nick took the trolley and headed in a different direction to us and there was no way he was coming back! Sometimes you just have to go with it!!! Mind you, when it came to being with me and 'doing stuff' he did great! :)

The following clip shows a few things...... 

• I have been working on simultaneous interactions with Nick - he needs to coordinate his actions with my actions.  This has been a hard one for Nick and we have been practising it a lot over the few last few days. It is also the first time that I have used this particular pattern at the supermarket and he is actually doing very well, considering all of the hustle and bustle and those crazy distractions!

• A section of the footage shows a woman walking past the camera and stopping to look at what we are doing (I edited out the bit where she stuck her face into the camera and said "are you authorised?").  I left this piece in as a reminder about how my attitude can make a difference to someone who is being hostile!!  This has happened to me before at the supermarket, where I have been told to stop filming -and on that occasion,  my conversation with the security guard got quite heated and I left feeling angry!  This time, I thought it best to remain calm!!  I said 'my son is a special needs child and I am filming him", she immediately says "you are filming him for school?" ........... BINGO! "Yes, I am filming him for school".  I do find people a lot more understanding if I give a quick explanation about my boy - rather than getting on the defensive about the unwanted attention!

• You will also see Nick wandering off and he wouldn't come back to us when we called or gestured to him - we had to go to him, touch his arm and he would then come back to the trolley.......... Thomas was getting increasingly irritated at this and he said to me "Mum, you really need to set some boundaries".  I do agree with Thomas, however, it is all very well setting boundaries but it can be quite difficult to follow through with in a busy supermarket!  To be honest, in this instance, I actually didn't have an issue with Nick going off....... he was asserting his independence and he was very aware of what he was doing (in fact I loved it when he would look to us and give a grin and shake his head for "NO" whenever we wanted him to come back to us!).  It is also a learning curve for Thomas to learn the most effective way to 'connect' with his brother!

The following clip shows us unpacking the groceries onto the conveyor belt.  I am aware that there is not a lot of joint attention or co-regulation going on!  However, the reason I have added this clip is because Nick suddenly discovered that the conveyor belt moves!!  I was delighted to see him make this discovery and I found it fascinating to watch him trying to figure out what was going on (as did the lady behind the till!)  :-) I was also surprised when Nick noticed that there were still items left in the trolley and he took them out.

Have a great week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FRIEND LINDA 
WHO TURNS 50 ON FRIDAY! xx
~*~