What's in it for me?

We have started The Boy back with Occupational Therapy again. He's got some OT issues we'd really like to address, and left/right hand dominance is near the top of the list. The Boy loves letters and numbers and can be persuaded to hold a pencil or marker (grudgingly... how often do I mention that word?) and will scribble them out but we aren't 100% sure if he is left-handed or right-handed and we wanted to take him to somebody to see if they could figure it out. I hate the idea that I will make him a righty when he may really be a lefty at heart.

The little guy was having none of it today at his first OT appointment. My husband and I watched thru the two-way mirror as The Boy practiced his well-honed "avoidance behavior" skills. His therapist, Miss M. was very patient as Our Hero lalalala'd and sang to himself the whole time she was with him, the whole time she asked him so politely to "draw a circle" or "find the rabbit" or "make an x". He looked around, he rocked on his chair (and fell backwards on the mat, we knew he would) he got up, went to the cupboard and opened and closed the doors and did everything he could to ignore her. He couldn't see the value of working for her....yet. But then she said to him, "Okay, draw me a circle and then we can go to the gym." You never saw a faster circle being drawn, and marker dropping to the table and the best eye contact in the world as The Boy got right in Miss M's face and said hopefully, "GYM? Now gym??" Funny how a little promise of going to a therapy room where one can go swinging back and forth and around in circles in a purple bag filled with plastic balls and suspended from the ceiling can make a kid remember he can draw a circle upon request.

Well, now that he knows what he's playing for, maybe he'll be a little more co-operative next time. Just the idea of that swing makes me nauseous, but The Boy loves it.

(please note: The little guy was in the swing as I took this picture and feet in photo belong to Miss M. She is not wearing the swing.)