Yesterday afternoon was a good visit. It is clear that Erik has never been taught how to play. He doesn't know what to do with toys and seems to feel safer watching us work the toys than him actively playing with the toys. Today we made a bit of a stride in that area. The caregiver put us in the sleeping area that has a mat on the floor. She tossed some stuffed animals at us and we decided to play. I came up with this silly game where I held a stuffed animal high over his head then slowly brought it down so that it sat on his head like a hat. Of course, he moved his head and it fell off. He was fascinated by this! I did it over and over and got tired of it, so Mark took over. It wasn't long after that that Erik was handing Mark the toys to put over, then on, his head! It doesn't sound like much, but if you were there, you'd see the progress. He is learning that you can have FUN with objects, not just hang on to them and wing them across the room out of frustration of not knowing what to do with them! It was a good visit.

Here he is, in "thinking mode". When he thinks hard about something, he gets a look on his face, and his babbling goes from a bland, "la, la, la" to a much more intense, quick, and higher pitched, "lalalala". It's so cute! He makes different faces when he's concentrating, too.

Here I am, in the early stages of the game.

Sorry for the duplicate photo, but this computer's commands are all in Russian and I don't know how to read "Delete" in the menu!! Everything looks like this: флшуідьуишієу".