Moses' newest breakthrough

Moses has learned another great skill this week!  Since he is the “baby” in the Cornerstone family, and because of his age, he likes to throw temper tantrums.  Often his tantrums are a result of his inability to adequately communicate what he needs or wants, and in the end, everyone wants to stop him from crying, so they figure out what he wants and give it to him. 

         Knowing all of this, I have been working with him on expressing himself using words and sign language, not screams and tears, to communicate.  Maybe I’m spoiling him further, but there is one thing that I’ve discovered motivates him well in this endeavor: sugar.  Each time he’s in our kitchen and sees our container of sugar, he points to it excitedly.  I decided he should learn to say and sign the word “sugar.”  I helped this vocabulary term along by giving him some sugar granules in his hand each time he asked for sugar with his words.  For the last few weeks, I have said, “What do you want?  Use your words,” but I have always had to first give the response, “Sugar please” for him to say it back to me.

         But yesterday, after he pointed at the sugar, I again said, “Moses, what do you want?  Use your words.”  And he said, “Sugar please,” while using the sign language I taught him, all without me first prodding him with the answer.  I was so excited!  And of course, I gave him some sugar in his hand as a reward.  So he’s learned to communicate what he wants (which is almost always sugar now) but now my dilemma is: When do I stop giving him sugar as a reward for communicating? Whose really training who here?

         Thought I would share this great next step in Moses’ development.  And by the way, he is walking everywhere these days.  There’s no leaving him behind anymore, whether it’s a game, meal time, or whatever- he follows the children and gets involved.  Every day, his gait is strengthening and he can walk farther without stopping to rest.  Yeah, Moses!

Love you all,

Abby