Muffins With Mom

Keeping Aiden busy during the day can be quite the task. One of his sensory goals for OT is:

"Persist at a purposeful activity for 5 minutes, with prompts if necessary."

which is one of a few short term goals to help achieve the long term goal to:

"Demonstrate simple praxis and organization of behavior by persisting at interactions with toys/equipment and imitating actions of others to enable purposeful play."

One way I have found that helps us reach this goal is to engage Aiden in helping around the house. He LOVES to help with cleaning up, laundry, sweeping the floor, feeding the cats, COOKING, etc. Not only are these activities filled with wonderful vocabulary, but Aiden is completely engaged until the end, which provides that needed sense of accomplishment and feel good of "I did it!". Even though it may take me twice as long to get these activities done, each additional minute is worth it.

So, the other day we made muffins.

Well, truly, Aiden baked and I directed.

"Open please mommy!"

We measured ...

and he poured ...

then stirred it all up (with a little help from mom).

He placed all the muffin foils into the pans,

and of course, we had to lick the bowl. YUMMY!

Even though we set the timer, he kept coming back to check out his muffins,

and like any good cook, insisted on tasting them before sharing with anyone else.