Ice cream success and soup

This morning was again a 6 out of 8 for Toby's checklist, pajamas and clothes on the floor being the exceptions. I'm finding they bother me a lot less than usual, don't understand that. I looked over the lists from the first day, of their behaviors to ignore and mine to stop. We've all been doing pretty well - there actually haven't been a lot of those behaviors from them, other than completely outrageous food mess and a lot of asking things to be done for them. Definitely the reminding is the hardest thing for me to stop doing, that keeps peeking out, but mostly it's under control. This evening Toby did 5 out of 7 checklist items - piano and contribution not done, and I kept my agenda to myself.

Our kitchen is unbelievable. There may be about three square feet of counter space left that is not covered with packages, dishes, cutting boards, food mess, and papers. I can't believe how calm I have been able to stay when I go in there - I just sort of hold my head and turn away. I truly don't think Toby sees it, notices it, or thinks it has anything to do with him. My suspicion is that when he can't find any counter space to use to make his food, he might start a conversation that leads him to some sort of clean-up.

I'm finding that this is turning into a very productive week for training for Toby. Whenever he has been confronted with the need for a skill he doesn't have yet, he has asked me to teach him. Tonight he wanted me to cut up a cantaloupe. When I responded that I couldn't do it for him, he asked if I could hold his hands while he held the knife, like we tried for the pepper. We did that successfully with the big knife for cutting the melon in half, and then he worked on scooping out the seeds. He put a half flat side down and I talked him through cutting it into quarters. He was thrilled with doing that by himself. I offered a suggestion for avoiding anymore knife work, which he accepted - the melon baller, which he loves anyway. He scooped out a bowl full of melon balls and packed them up for his lunch. The other 3/4 of the melon are still out there on the counter, but it felt like a great interaction.

Another one of these situations played out when he was getting some ice cream after dinner. First he couldn't find the scoop, because it was still on the counter from when he used it last night and had since gotten buried under the remains of today's meal prep. He found another scoop in the drawer but was having trouble getting more than slivers of ice cream out of the container. He asked me to help him and we used the same trick of hands-on-hands so he could feel the twist of the wrist to scoop out a ball. When he plopped it into his bowl, he said, "hey, that looks professional!"

Wonderful - but again he left the ice cream out on the counter while he went to eat his bowlful. I struggled with what to do - that is my most favorite ice cream in the world - but using the same trick as last night seemed just too obvious. Instead I said, "oh, cool, come look at this -" and showed him how the melting ice cream was dribbling down over the hard ice cream in the container and isn't that interesting? Hmm, yes, and back to eating. A little later I tried again, inviting him to come see how it had changed over time. No nibbles, not interesting anymore. At that point I had to clench my jaw and accept that I was going to sacrifice the Ben & Jerry's to the greater good. Later this evening I whisked the half-full container of totally melted ice cream away from Hazel's reach just in the nick of time, before it was everywhere. But it is still sitting out there on the counter. I am hoping powerfully that it makes an impression on Toby.

About as distressing to me as the wasted ice cream is the fact that Hazel is scavenging all sorts of food mess that Toby has left. Some of it is now almost 3 days old. Some of it is on the floor. And the safety situation of her reaching all these knives that Toby is leaving lying around has demanded my intervention.

Overall, I feel like Toby and I are both doing great with DNSN, and Dan and Hazel are relatively uninvolved. Tonight begins Dan's long weekend - he works four long days and then is off for three - so things will be very different with both of us here throughout the day. Sure to be exciting!