Dear Noah....

I have been working with you lately on "making your presence known" as you have a tendency to walk in a room where I am but my back is turned toward you....and you are very quiet....and do not say anything to let it be known to me you have even entered the room. I usually turn around and there you are.....and sometimes it startles me or catches me off guard.

I remember when you were little and would wake up in the middle of the night and need something.....you would walk into my bedroom.....but just stand there. You would not think about tapping me or calling out to me "mommy, I need _____"......you just stood there silently. Somehow I could sense someone was there and would wake up and find you standing there. You were still doing that even here last year.....at 7-1/2 years of age. Coming into my room in the middle of the night or early morning......but not saying a word. Just standing there. I have gone through the drill many times with you as to what you SHOULD do in that scenario.....and finally......a few months back......it sunk in and you now GET IT. IF you come into my room and need something.....you TELL ME. It was months of constant prompting....what to say and what to do in each step.

We had to go through that when you were much younger too.....as far as how to go up and even say hello to other kids. What you might ask them.......how you could ask their name...etc....because you would walk up to them but just stand there......not knowing what to say or how to act. I am thrilled to see you now not only participate in conversations.....but MANY TIMES INITIATING them...even with adults! You have made tremendous progress!

However......this new little trend of yours (not entirely new as you have done it before in the past but stopped it)......where you come into a room where I am.......and do not let me know you are there but you end up right behind me 9 times out of 10......sort of freaks me out sometimes! I know you do not realize that this seems odd or off or inappropriate. Trying to teach you this is very upsetting to you because you feel you are doing something wrong and end up crying and do not always understand. BUT I know you will GET IT one day soon.

Today we initially had a follow-up appointment to keep at your orthopaedic doctor......but we did not have anything yet to follow up on so I canceled. BUT YOU did not know this.....and I heard you get up earlier to go to the bathroom and you must have looked at the clock because I heard you say "OH NO!"........but instead of coming in to wake me and ASK ME about it........you just walked by my bedroom door and looked my way but went back to bed. Later when you did finally wake up......you came in and climbed on my lap in my office and said to me "You failed to wake me up 2 hours earlier than usual for my doctor's appointment you idiot!"

I was caught off guard by that but not entirely. For YEARS I did not let you read many of the Peanuts Comics and such because you did not and still are not very good at discerning what are and are not appropriate comments to make to someone. I am not even totally sure you understand what IDIOT means.........BUT.....you read it in your Peanuts Comics. Same as BLOCKHEAD.......and STUPID....which I have heard you recently blurt out in different situations! Same as OH GOOD GRIEF (which is acceptable in most cases...haha).

SO I have also been trying to work with you on those things. Especially before school. I can only imagine how well it would go over if you said something similar to a teacher! YIKES!

I guess you could sum it up saying we have been working on social skills a lot lately.

Today it seemed the heat index was 120 degrees outside. It was unbelievable! I did hear it was 110 heat index. Supposed to get even hotter later this week. So we took off to Indiana to an antique mall and walked around in there and explored. We had a great time and you loved the road trip.

It won't be long and school will be starting!

I love you Noah......to the moon and back again.....forever and ever I will!

Mommy
XOXOXOXOX