And then there were five.

After disrupting our schedule to go through the attic for long lost DVDs, and to carry awkward or heavy objects to her truck, my Mother ended her over extended stay with us. She made her trek back to her own house after being with us for 10 months.

If not for worrying that her grandson will miss her immensely, I would be downright cheerful. One less person to clean up after and take menu orders from. No squeaky hearing aids and constant chatter before I reach the bottom of my first cup of coffee in the morning. One less female to compete with for the bathroom at any given moment.

The interruptions really bothered me as they seemed to come at moments when I would start hard work sessions, the "Teach me to talk" program on the computer, or floor time. I knew for sure that today would be a wasted effort. His sensory needs wouldn't be met and he would run rampant through the house once again today, bouncing from one thing to the other, trying to keep himself at high arousal.

I gave in to giving him a couple pieces of sour chewy candy to at least get some work for his jaw muscles and feed the sensory needs of his mouth. Spouse had the same idea after hearing my woes of the day and brought home a small bag of jalapeno Cheetos. The result was of course he ate no dinner, he picked at a few raw carrots until deciding throwing them at his sisters was a better idea.

After dinner was over he sat in my lap and touched the screen on the objects I asked him to show me. He is rewarded with music and moving pictures and a man's voice saying the name of the object. The temptation to keep hitting "horse", his favorite animal, or "Book" that has a great classical piece that plays, is great, but he stays with my request as I say, "Alright!" and "Good Job!". After 15 minutes I let him touch whichever picture he wants. He touches horse, book, and telephone over and over for a bit and then tells me "No." when he wants another group of pictures to choose from. He stayed in my lap for over a half hour and I was granted kisses and hugs.

He let me read a book to him at bed time for the first time in months, though I think 'Mr. Brown can Moo. Can You?' may have been a bit of an instigator. Instead of climbing into his bed he stays awake making every noise in the book over and over and over followed by "The End!" every so often. My thoughts wander back to my Mom and what she would say about all the racket coming from his room.

"Oh would you listen to that! To think not that long ago we didn't know if he would ever talk!" She does have an annoying habit of keeping the little things in perspective sometimes.

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On a side note, a funny thing happened this weekend and my husband just doesn't get why it was so funny. So if you would to take the time, let me know which of us has the challenged sense of humor.

My Mom went to the Bingo with my Grandma. Mom wins the first game and gets around $25. She then goes on to win the next game and wins a very considerable amount more. Realizing she had the money to now make her house fully livable, she stands up, shaking her fist over her head and yells, "I going home! I'm going home!".

My Grandma looks at her, pulls her back into her seat, starts patting Mom's knee and says, "Now TeeTee calm down. We can't go home yet. We gotta finish playing Bingo!"