Sunday Funday

Today Abra and I went out for a few hours around town.

All in all we had a great day! We shopped for shoes(she did so well waiting and trying on), read books, rode a horse carriage downtown and hung out on West Cliff.

Lately though, at the mall, she has been bumping people and/or taking off their glasses. I always knew this was a behavior to look for and prevent but now it seems as though I am constantly switching from her left to right side to stop her from reaching for people or reaching for glasses. We go through the rules before going into the mall and while we are there, she will even independently go through them herself. "Safe hands", "safe feet", "safe body". This is something we didn't have to do before and she would do great keeping her hands to herself. This has only been a recent issue in the mall though, so I am thinking she is getting bored with it. I say this because we took a horse carriage ride through downtown and she sat right next to a lady with HUGE sunglasses on and never had a problem. Abra even turned to her a few times during the ride and said "hi". I was pretty hesitant to let Abra sit right next to her but it actually went really well. Abra was also very happy and content with the ride so, although she requests to go to the mall, I'm starting to think she is just bored with it. So, for now we will do other fun stuff! We went to Capitola Book Cafe today to hang out and read books. Abra has been doing so well reading and seems to really enjoy it. She will now wait in the chair for me to go pick out more books, wether we're at the library, or bookshops! I have never taken Abra to this one before but that has been the goal of my respite with her, to get her out in the community doing different things every time I am with her. Abra has been asking me for car wash lately and that's another fun thing we do (when my car needs it) but today since she grabbed glasses I said "no car wash". She repeatedly said "sorry glasses" "not ok" I acknowledged her apology and then we quickly moved on to our next activity. I haven't been using chips as a reinforcer because it hasn't really seemed to work with me, but I think what would/has worked best is finding patterns in the behavior she exhibits and then adapting the daily/routine schedule accordingly. For example, we won't be doing mall for awhile, or only when we need to shop. I also know that strategy wouldn't work across the board for everything!