Big Day Yesterday!

For starters..we got up early yesterday morning so we could get to Gainesville to meet some of Tom's friends and then to the first part of Eli's RDA evaluation. Eli got himself up in the morning, and much to my surprise, he came out to the living room walking funny. He'd apparantly put his own shorts on but put both feet in one leg of the shorts which was pretty cute. I figured I'd better check otu the diaper situation and get him dressed for the day. I take off his diaper and there is poop on his butt but not on the diaper! I am baffled so I look around and notice a dirty, poopy diaper on the floor..thankfully not spread around. Apparantly, Eli woke up poopy and decided to change his own diaper!!! AMAZING!! Not only that, he tried to get his shorts on afterward! I was so proud of him! I have been doing bunker potty training and trying to at least catch something by taking him every half hour so we are at least getting somewhere.

After we got it all together, we headed for Gainesville a little later than we'd anticipated, and got to Tom's work friend Tim's home for lunch. I really enjoyed our time with Tim, Lynne, and their 3 kids. They have a lovely home and a great yard for kids! Eli and Sophie had a great time on their playset and just enjoyed it tremendously. It was a great warm up for what was coming next, the RDA evaluation process.

So, we got to the RDI offices and first they had Tom go into the playroom with Eli alone and help him get comfortable and play with him for about 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, we waited in the office. Sophie was fascinated by her Daddy being on the TV screen and also knew her daddy was in the other room and tried to get to him. It was sort of hard on her, but the psychologist was amazed at her totally knowing where her father was. After 10 minutes of play, Tom and Sophie left for a while and went for a walk, while Eli and I worked together on several exercises, probably about 10 all together. It was really great. Eli did great and we had so much fun with one exercise, falling onto a load of bean bags, that he actually looked up at me and said, "That was FUN!". It was pretty tiring too, so when we got done, we set up scheduling for the next couple of sessions of RDA evaluation stuff, and headed out.

After some food and relaxation, we went to Orlando to meet up with my stepfather and his kids and my aunt and cousin. It was a really nice family gathering at my parent's timeshare place, a gorgeous 3 bedroom home with a personal pool/hottub setup. The kids had a blast and really enjoyed seeing their aunts, uncles, grandfather and cousins! It was so nice to see everyone, and it was especially gratifying for me to hear that they all thought Eli had improved a ton since the last time they saw him. Even my stepfather thought Eli had come a long way since he'd seen him in February. I knew Eli was making progress, but for me it's a day to day thing where I see all the ups and all the downs and not a big picture. It felt good to know that he's doing well from others' perspectives!

We had such a busy day that today we're pretty much just taking it easy and hanging around at home and relaxing. Tomorrow morning is Eli's IEP meeting so there's a lot to deal with then. I'll write that stuff up tomorrow. Meanwhile, back to a relaxing sunday after a great saturday!