The kids spent about 45 minutes at the pool. Christian, Nico and Vanessa decided to leave. It was too cold. Jonathan did not want to go, but he left with the crew without much of a complaint. He has really bonded with Christian and Vanessa this trip and imitates Christian a great deal. When they got back to the room, they played for a while as we all were getting dressed to go to the shops.
At the Broadway at the Beach shops, we stopped by a kids' play area. That was awesome. The kids loved all the rides. Jonathan got on every ride. 2 years ago, when we went to Hershey's park, Jonathan did not want to go onto any rides but one. That was another frustrating and traumatizing trip. This time, he was excited about everything. There was one where the kids sat alone in a small car and it would take really sharp curves. The first curve everyone was a bit scared as they didn't know what that was, but after the first one, they all regulated it and they loved it.
We walked around and fed the fish again. Jonathan was very talkative today. We got on a boat that took us to the other side of the shops, and Jonathan was so excited to be on a boat and to see how we went under a bridge and to see the ducks in front of us and yell at them to get out of the way. It was a fun time. When we got to the other side, we got our picture taken by a professional setting with a surfing board and a fake wave. I cannot show it in today's blog because I have to scan it. But I will put it in tomorrow's blog. The kids all cooperated, they all had a great time posing and the pictures came out awesome.
After that, we went to see a 3D movie. Daddy thought that they would not like it because they did not care about the Robinson's 3D movie. But we tried it anyway. I am soooo happy that we did it. We went to see a "Deep Sea" documentary in 3D. Vanessa fell asleep 5 minutes into it, but Jonathan was totally interested. He would not stop asking questions. He wanted to know what every animal was. When he realized that each animal eats another one for survival, he kept asking what the next animal was going to eat before the narrator could tell us. When they showed sharks, he got a bit scared to see them in 3D and told me "I already saw sharks yesterday" and I said "yes at the aquarium" and he said "yes. but mommy, what do sharks eat?". I told him that they ate fish and he put the 3D glasses back on. It was a very wonderful moment for me to spend 45 minutes talking to Jonathan about every animal that was on the movie. I never lost him during that time and he was the one that initiated the questions and comments.
After that, we stopped by to get temporary tattoos and Jonathan got very excited to get one on him. He picked the one that he got (teddy bear with a heart). He was so proud of his tattoo. He got it done without hesitation. No sensory problems.
Jonathan seemed so normal in many occasions during this trip. And like my friend Brooke said, if you didn't know that he had a problem you wouldn't guess until you heard him talk (his voice and tone are still a bit rote and his expressive language sounds like a 2.5 or 3 year old child). But he has been curious, positive, interested, normally bored at times, accepts changes sometimes easier than Vanessa as his receptive language is better than Vanessa's, etc. But he is still obsessed with the GPS device. The moment he sees something that reminds him of a map or a GPS, he uses language that he learned from listening to the GPS, but he is very engaging and gets us very involved. At the resort, he played with his car toys from Disney's Cars movie and guided them as if he were the GPS. So he still has a long way to go to reach the stage of what we consider "neuro-typical", and he may never become 100% "neuro-typical" but he is achieving a higher learning potential. I am more concerned about him being able to fit in our society than his eccentricities. And his behavior this week gives us great hope that he will be able to live with both.
We had a fabulous vacation.
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