“You’ve Come a Long Way Baby” (With Apologies)

The apologies are two:
1. For using the line from such a sexist advertisement
2. For using the term “baby” in connection with Ricki

However, Ricki has come a long way. As recently as two years ago, going to the supermarket with her was akin to taking a course in Kamikaze piloting: Not for the faint of heart. She would be likely to do any/all of the following:
-beg (begbegbegbegbegbegbegbegbeg) for me to buy her a drink, a candy, or the like.(Even if she just had one. [And this would be done in a tone of voice indicating that she had just arrived from Biafra, and people would look at me with dagger looks, wondering why I was torturing that poor kid with Down syndrome. More than once people have offered to pay for the drink.] And not only did she beg, but even if I would refuse, she would go and open the drink herself.
-sit on the floor
-open packages of toys/food, those spreading the contents around.
-every few moments come to me with a request to buy “this” , an item taken off a shelf who knows where from…..

Anyway, after a few such excursions, I started seriously doing behavior work with her.

Yesterday we went to the supermarket, the first time in a LONG time.
-She begged for drink , but less, and (barely) refrained from opening any bottles
-She did not ask for a lot of stuff, and didn’t take things off the shelves
-no sitting on the floor
- she almost opened a package of marshmallows, but refrained in the end

All in all, she was quite good.
PROGRESS

(Of course, she grapped candy when she was on her own in the small local store a week ago, but lets not dwell on that right now….)