2/17/09

it looks like everyone is starting to be on the mend.. yahoo! We are gonna keep Tyler home from school one more day to make sure he's not contagious.. i read on the CDC website that the flu is contagious for 5 days after the onset of symptoms.. we dont' want to keep spreading it that's for sure.

I'm not sure if you are aware but OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is a common behavior for many with autism. Obviously repetative behaviors is at trait that Tyler exhbits, i.e. spinning but I've never noticed him to have anything that I would consider to fall under the OCD category until this weekend. Ben and Tyler and I were going to head up stairs to take a bath. Tyler understands the "let's go upstairs" phrase and he also understands bath and the sign for bath.. in fact, he requested bath last night. so cute. Sorry, got off track. SO Ben and I were at the gate at the bottom of the stairs and Tyler was playing with his piano which is right there too. He went to leave his piano but then looked back like oh.. shoot I didn't do it right.. then he went to walk away again but you could actually see him hit the wrong key, his finger slid so he looked back and sat down and you could see the struggle going on.. he knew he needed to go take a bath yet, his mind would not let him leave until he did whatever it was he needed to do on the computer. Poor thing.. what an awful way to feel. I haven't figured out what the sequence is yet but when I do, I'll help him break it so he doesn't have to do it all the time and so it doesn't get worse. I just found it interesting as I've not noticed any OCD behavior before.

Oh and yesterday, Tyler did something else new and it was really great. I was changing Ben's diaper yesterday morning after he had gotten up. Tyler had already been up for a bit and already had a glass of milk (rice milk of course). as I was changing Ben's diaper, Tyler come over, hands me his cup and signs "milk"... yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.. The only time he's signed milk or even requested a drink appropriately is when prompted by us holding the cup out of his reach so he has to ask for it.. now he did it when he wanted something to drink. Hallelujeah! The boy can now request to eat and drink if he's hungry or thirsty. Sometimes I read back as I'm writing a blog and think how strange it must be to everyone to read the things i get excited about compared to what a parent of a typical kid gets excited about. Ha.. so what. the kid asked for a drink. big deal.. to me.. IT WAS A HUGE DEAL. In fact.. I left Ben there on the carpet, no diaper (potty training got postponed due to flu) and ran to get Tyler some milk right away, you rock kid!

Ben is super cute, his language is just so developed, it's amazing how much of an adult conversation you can have with the kid. Let's see.. in the mist of me being sick with the flu he said out of the blue "mommy, you are so beautiful"... ahhhhh.. and then yesterday when I was making dinner and he was playing with bubbles in the sink, he said, "isn't that so ridiculous". I'm not sure what he was talking about but it was funny. It's also a hoot when he realizes one word has two meanings, i.e. bank of a river and bank that holds money or even funnier when there are two words that he thinks are the same, i.e. penis and venus. He told me his penis is just like the planet. I laughed so hard. Oh and he offerred to read Tyler a book the other day when I was holding Ty cause he was not feeling well at all. He's also starting to really connect with the info I tell him about TYler's autism. Ben asks "why" for everything and I try to be patient and give him as many answers as I can cause how else will he learn. anyway, he often asks why he can't flick his fingers when he has crumbs on them or what he can't get down and play w/o washing his hands so I tell him about Tyler's autism. he's starting to answer the question for himself now instead of saying why.. if i say, Tyler can't do that or Tyler can't have it, he'll say, "cause Tyler has autism?". I'll say yeah baby, cause Tyler has autism. Then he'll say, why does Tyler have autism? Well that's one I don't have an answer to so I just say I don't know.

We haven't been able to plan much for the boys birthday due to all the sickness we've been dealing with but hope to have something soon. we were hoping to have it somewhere that TYler would have something to do that was safe and fun and non-chaotic so he could be part of the party too but not be overwhelmed and expected to sit still and open presents. everythign we think of is just turning out to eb super expensive or open to the public which on weekends may be too much for him so we are still in the process of thinking....