8/31/09 - Is summer really gone?

Can't believe how chilly it was this weekend, had to put coats on the boys, crazy!

Ok, well I do have to say that with all the behavior training I've had, definetly feeling like a failure when it comes to Ben and potty training. Our reward chart is not working and I decided to once again take a break from potty training..feeling like Ben is feeling too much pressure. Sigh. I'm thinking once Tyler starts school next week I'll ask them to start charting wet/dry times so we can move forward with potty training Ty and then hopefully Ben will see how much attention Tyler is getting for going on the potty and then the peer pressure (doc said this is highly motivating for kids) will cause Ben to want to go too, we'll see. i cannot wait to get rid of that diaper expense..two kids in diapers for 3.5 years.. I've had enough.

So Saturday night was shot night and Tyler's crib party was about 2 hours long this time. I live in fear that he's gonna climb out of his crib and get hurt or caught or something. Then I think if I had him in a regular bed, I worry about him roaming the house while I'm sleeping and getting into all kinds of trouble or god forbid leaving the house and wondering off. I am very thankful that he doesn't yet know how to open doors! Steve has gotten into a habit of cuddling/rocking Ty to sleep so I told Steve this weekend he had to break that habit before we move him to a big boy bed.

So today's update probably isn't going to be the happiest. Tyler seems to be really taking joy out of upsetting Ben. So yeah I understand that many siblings are like this so it's not necessarily abnormal behavior but it's just upsetting in that they aren't normal siblings. They really don't play together or interact together at all, we try to make most of their interactions positive so that they will continue but it's difficult when Tyler is picking on Ben and Ben lives in fear of Tyler biting him. we were at the lunch table on Sunday and Ben wanted to know what kind of dinosaurs we all were.. I told him I was a velocirator and he said no, you are a plant eater not a meat eater, you are a (forgot what he said) and then he goes, what kind of dinosaur is Ty Ty and he says.hmmmmmm Ty Ty is a T-Rex because he bites just like a T-rex. sigh.. There were countless time sthis weekend that TYler went after Ben. A coupl eof times we were there so we could stop it and a couple of times we weren't but ben is so anxious about getting hurt that he starts crying right away an then Tyler is getting excited about that. So yesterdya Ben and I did a little role playing. He played Ben and I played Tyler and I prentend to go after him and we discussed that Ben should say "no Tyler" as Tyler definetly knows what No means and he should say it like he means it and then go find mom or dad if we aren't there and tell us what happend. We also warned miss karen that Ty seems to be going after Ben so that she can watch out for it. We are going to try to keep those two a bit separated if we aren't in the room so if I'm in the kitchen cooking, I'm gonna have ben come in there with me and help cook or paly with dinosaurs, etc. so I can monitor better how the two are interacting. Tyler has left a few pretty bad bite marks on Ben's back so I don't blame him from being scared and there's no way I can change the behavior if i"m not there so for now I'm gonna try to prevent it from happening when I'm not int he room.

Ok on to the next not so great news. This weekend is when we chose to break the "i don't want to go on a bike ride" tantrum... We gave lots of warnings of what we were diong and instead of a bike we were gonna use the wagon for Tyler, This way he can play with som eof his favorite toys while we walk around/bike around but he's still participating in the walk. We had his toys in teh wagon and we went outside and he refused ot get in teh wagon (ben already on bike). Not necessarily a problem cause I can get him in the wagon regardless of his refusing, however then I realized (had just chagend both diapers) that he had pooped.. SHOOT! Steve goes want me to take him inside to change him? I said,, I have to think about it cause I don't want him to get out of the wagon ride just because he's throwing a fit and that's what it will seem like if we take him inside right now. The whole time we are having this conversation Tyler is literally writing in my arms/wagon while I try to get him in there. So we decide neighbors/screaming and all to bring the diaper stuff otuside and change him outside in the wagon. He was definetly not happy about this. So now we are in the wagon.. Ben is riding his bike and Ty's crying..however he is not trying to escape the wagon so success #1, yeah! About a quarter o the way in the walk Tyler wants to escape (still crying) I stand him on the sidewalk and say you can walk or you can ride in the wagon. he grabs on to me and sobs... (heartbreaking to stand your ground sometimes).. I say Tyler, you can ride in teh wagon or walk. Keep in mind the wagon is full of some of his fav toys, I'm really not a big meanie!! Ben and dad are way ahead of us at this point.. hence the reason it takes two parents most of the time. I cannot keep Ben save while doing what i need for Tyler. So we eventually get in the wagon.. and thens truggle with the "sit down" command.. but alas.. I did prevail.. so sitting and crying.... I'm once again pullign the wagon and we catch up with Dad... so about 1/8 mile from home.. crying stops, yeah! I keep telling Tyler once we get home, we are gonna play on the on the swings and slide in teh backyard. So as we park the wagon the garage and walk in the backyard Tyler starts crying again (he'd live his life inside if he could) and so we play as normal and Steve starts swinging Tyler aroudn by his arms, legs, etc. and finally we get him happy. We did not take him back inside until he had been happy for a couple of minutes. The key here was to ensure that the throwing the tantrum/fit did not get him out of doing what we wanted. It's really important that Tyler doesn't alway sget to do what Tyler wants and when he wants and we can't coddle him through each situation. As we were on tehw alk I said to Steve, so you are never gonna pick Tyler up again when it's time for a bike ride/walk right? Becuase this is the result.. he's gotten out of doing it a few times and dad has carried him and breaking that behavior chain is not so fun! He goes NOPE! Sometimes in the life of Tyler you don't realize that you are creating a pattern until it's too late. We both are guilty of that.

So anyway.. i'm sure next time isn't gonna be so great but hopefully it will be better than the last and we can keep moving forward. We are gonna get a picture of the wagon and a picture of his bike and then show him the pictures before we go outside so he can choose what he wants and carry the picture with him as a transition item. hopefully this will help him as well. Again..the key here is putting supports in place before he gets upset, not after.

So that's that. No much good stuff for the weekend. Ben peed all over the chair and floor in the dining room, Tyler almost slipped and fell in it. Steve and i were grouchy to eachother, Tyler was trying to beat Ben up and thought it was funny and Ben has developed a serious 3 year old attitude with talking back. boo hoo.. but we did take them to the Hands on Museum and to the park so all hope was not lost in having some family time.

The meeting with the new speech therapist was fantastic! I'm really looking forward to working with her. I like her philosophy on how to teach speech and her priorities.... let's get Tyler talking :) So he has his first one on one speech session next week and then at that meeting we will discuss a longer term schedule for the school year, yeah! She is really excited that Tyler is interested in words and reading and has already given me some tips on how to get him to associate the spelling of a word with the object so I'm hoping I can get that going this weekend maybe.

There is some info going around on the list servs right now about the possibility of the mandatory vaccinations of school aged kids for the swine flu. In responses to those emails, everyone is reminding each other that Michigan is a waiver state and you can sign a waiver to opt of of vaccinations for religious or political beliefs. Also, keep in mind to please verify the ingredients if you decide to get your children vaccinated. There is a misleading sentiment out there that mercury has been rmoved from vaccines, but it has not been removed from all vaccinations. Thimerisol is a form of mercury and can be found in many flu shots and will possibly be an ingredient for the H1n1 vacation so please make sure you know that before making your decision. I don't want to push my philosophical views on anyone, I just want to make sure that people have all the information to make an informed decision. one of my friends told me her doctor said they can't separate out the MMR vaccination so my friend said ok and had them all done at once. Very frustrating..

As for as pushing my views, I don't want to do that, but I will share my experiences and my opinion moving forward. I believe that there are unnecessary vaccinations such as the chicken pox vaccination which I think causes more harm than it does good. how harmful is chicken pox really? also, newborns getting hepatitis b vaccinations just seems downright silly if the mother does not have hepatitis b. How many newborns are sexually promiscuous? The vaccination debate is not whether or not vaccines are necessary, it's why not make them safer, why give unnecessary vaccinations, why do we suddenly have 36 necessary vaccinations vs. 10 not that long ago. Why can't we split them up over a longer period of time. Why do the ingredients need to be so toxic. If you read the book Healing and Preventing Autism, it lists what vaccinations and their ingredients and it's downright scary. Tyler was very very very very sick after his 12 month and 18 month vaccinations. I think I've mentioned it at least 3 times in this blog but i literally kick myself every time I think about how i learned about biomedical treatment of autism, 1 week after Tyler's 18 month vaccinations.. which essentially were supposed to be his last until he was 4. I was worried from the time he was 3 months old that he had autism yet for 18 months I continually pumped him full of all kinds of crap. He's always had autism, no doubt in my mind, but the severity... the severity to which he would have had it will never be known. his sensory/eating issue kicked in full blast after his 12 month vaccinations.. i remember at 9 months event though we were worried about his lack of speech, etc. he was laughing and smiling at that doctors appt. he loved people faces and to look at them.. I remember that about when we got our carpet put in and he liked to watch the carpet guy and smile at him. Another huge mistake, getting carpet pulled and laid back down with a child at risk of autism. sigh. Anyway, his 18 month vaccinations left him lethargic, vomit ting and downright miserable.. for days. He was already on antibiotics for another illness.. exactly the reason we should not have vaccinated him as his immune system was lower cause he was already sick and on antibiotics and I think that's when he got his second dose of MMR. SIGH.. makes me sick to think about what could be different had i not gone through with those last set of vaccinations.... had I started the diet much sooner in his life.. had I... see you can't go back so I'll stop with the "what ifs" but that's why I feel it's important to share our story so that maybe someone else doesn't have to say "what if?" ya know.

Ok I'm off my soap box. Tyler was a signing little maniac this morning. SOOOO FUN! I had a baby Einstein video on when I got him out of bed and brought him downstairs to change his diaper, get dressed, etc. Those movies are pretty object focused, hence the reason he likes them, and each object that came up, he singed to me. Flower, butterfly, elephant, horse, cow, he was just having so much fun communicating with me. Made me so happy.

New reward chart worked great yesterday for Ben.. he got a sticker at lunch cause his diaper was dry all morning and then he got to choose a dinosaur toy after snack time cause he stayed dry in the afternoon.

082509

Here are some pictures of Tyler at Splash Camp. The theme for the last week of camp was "creepy crawly" and you can see in one of the pictures, Tyler is touching a frog. We also found out that Tyler touched a turantula.. ewwww... I might have had a heart attack if I did that. So the newsletter said that Tyler's favorite parts of the week were teh "flight of the bumblebee" toy and jumping around in the ball pit. In terms of feedback from the therapists:

Music: Tyler had an increased level of independence ni terms of sitting without staff support during music. More frequently this week, he was able to sit alone on his capart square without being on an adults lap and he wa sable to watch adn engage in teh session when sitting alone.

Speech & Language: Goals focused on transitioning from playtime to speech time, focus and joint attention, listening skills & more consistent use of gestures. Tyler has shown increased group participation and focus on people and faces. He is more independent at the speech table especially during songs & stories.

Occupational Therapy: Tyler has done very well this week! He has transitioned much better to the OT room in the morning and has a higher level of participation! He seems to respond well to moderate pressure provided in short bursts to help calm him in the morning.

So this week, Tyler is kind of in vacation mode, taking it easy at daycare :) He did the coolest thing this morning. Tyler often signs for things he wants or makes sounds for them but rarely makes the appropriate sound and sign at the same time. The key there being appropriate.. eh still makes sounds but not always the cooresponding sound. Well this mroning he walked up to me and said "buh Buh" and I turned to look at him and he was signing "book" yahoo! We keep his Tag books in the kitchen so he has to ask us for them. I was so super excietd that he made the right sound with the sign :)

We started a new potty traniing plan with Ben today, hopefully it works. Found a bunch of dinosaur stuff in the dollar bins at Target yesterday. Bought a bunch of it and put it in a bin then last night after boys went to bed I made a reward chart. Kinda looks like a calendar. Each day has a square for 20 days. Every day that he has a dry diaper all day at daycare he gets to put a sticker in a box and then grab a toy from the bin. Hopefully this will work. he has to do it for 20 days and then after that he gets to go to teh zoo to see the animals which means he watns to go to teh Toledo zoo. He seemed pretty excited about it this morning so let's hope it works and we can get down to just having one kid in diapers and then we can start working on Tyler in the fall. School pretty much does most of the work for us for Tyler and we just follow whatever they tell us to do.

8/24/09

Just found out there's a natinoal campaign on September 9th, asking "how much longer" they have some pretty strong literature so far. http://www.national autismassociatio n.org/howmuchlon ger.php Anyway, more details to come once I get them. The one to Obama is paticularly moving in my mind.

Ok, camp is all over :( and I forgot to bring the cd so I can load the pictures. I'll hopefully get to do that tomorrow so you can see what a great time Tyler had. Camp provided all snacks, drinks, etc. And one of the snacks lat week was pineapple which Tyler loves. He ate all his pineapple, grabbed the aids hand, and went over to the pictures of the snacks and pointed to the pineapple and signed more. Poor guy doesn't know the sign for pineapple so he figured a way to get his point across, in fact, note to self, look up sign for pineapple.

Also, at daycare last week, I was picking up the boys and Tyler was trying to tell me something. he signed the color 'red" and then was gesturing to the door. So I went to the door which opens into the breezeway and said Tyler, what do you want that is red? He went out the open door and grabbed the red frisbee. So that night I looked up teh sign for frisbee and told daycare so now he'll know how to ask for a frisbee. See..imagine how frustrating it is to be Tyler and not know how to tell someone what you want. That's where most of Tyler's behavioral issues come from, if anyway. He just gets frustrated when he can't get his point accross. I'd probably have a lot more behavioral issues than he does. So, as I always, i just want to remind everyone, watch Tyler's hands, even if you don't know what he's signing, you can at least tell he's wants something. Also, give him opportuniities to respond. We took the boys to the park yesterdy and Ty was swinging on the tire swing, some other kids wanted on so I added 2 more kids on the tire. I knew that Tyler probably wouldn't want to stay on the swing long but since he's swinging, he can't exactly stop hanging no to sign all done. So whenever we are swinging Tyler, we often stop the swing and ask if he's done. If he still wants to swing, he'll sign swing, if he is all done he'll sign all down or gesture to get down. I was right, he didn't want to stay no teh swing with the other kids very long but he did do it for a short time and wasn't upset about it at all so that's good. You just have to make sure to give him opportunities to communicate and really work with him to figure out what he is trying to communicate.

Which brings me to my next topic..speech :) I have a meeting with the new speech therapist tomorrow, yeah! I've heard so many good things about her and am really looking forward to meeting her and coming up with a plan for Ty. I so badly want Tyler to talk and be able to interact with Ben. Ben lives in fear that Tyler is gonna bite him and as much as we try to support a positive relationship between them, it's very difficult. If Tyler could talk, Ben would be so much mor einterested in him and then Tyler could tell Ben when he's upset rather than using biting as a form of communication. remember.. behavior is a communication tool rather good or bad. I was jsut talkign to Steve this weekend while we were in the kitchen. He had tried to take the boys on a bike ride but Ty wasn't intersted. I said so Ty wasn't interested int he bike, he said no. He goes are you having the same problem? I said, I haven't tried to take them in a while. I asked if he brought a transition item and he had. Then he said, last time i tried to take them, Tyler refused to get on the bike so I just carried him or (i can't remember exactly waht he did).. and then a bell went off in my head. I said so, last time Tyler threw a fit and you didn't make him follow through with what you asked. So this time, tyler through a fit and same result. He's gonna keep throwing a fit if we keep carrying him vs. him having to ride the bike. midn you he likes the bike after we get going, he's just not a big outdoor play kinda kid unless it involves water so he takes some extra effort. So I said, ok we gotta break that cycle. Next time we are all home, we'll all go together so that I can work with Tyler while he takes Ben. Probably not gonna be so pretty (sorry neighbors) but we've reinforced him crying to get out of bike ride so now I gotta get through that and follow through with the bike ride demand. Funny to think of a bike ride as being a demand. Anyway, I'll try a new toy or someting to transition and try going a different way on teh ride and see if we can get him happy about bike ride again. It definetly takes two parents, in fact whenever the boys are out with us in public it still takes at least 2 parents adn then if one of us has to use the bathroom it gets pretty hectic. The grocery store trip (very quick) was rough yesterday. Tyler doesn' twant to sit in a cart anymore. we used to be able to giveh im a few toys and do a quick run through the store with ben helping to push cart, well now Tyler doesn't want to sit and then he gets overstimulated by all the lighting and different colors and Ben is bouncing of the walls. It was definetly a quick trip :)

081909

Tyler did something really cool at camp yesterday. One of the boys was playing with 2 rings and then there was another one accross the room on a table and Tyler went and got that ring and gave it to the little boy. So cool and very social of our little guy! This weekend he was playign with ring sat the public pool we went too and anotehr little boy as well as Ben at tmies were taking them from Tyler and he was knida melting down, even if he got replacement rings so it's cool to see that he was so willing to give up a ring that wasn't even being played with. Or it's slighly possibly he just knew that all the rings went together and it was bothering him that they weren't together.. but I like to think it was the first reason:)

Ok so it's family movie night tonight, we'll see how it goes, it all depends on whether or not Tyler has taken a nap today. We are watching lady & the tramp.Ben gets really excited about making a bed on the floor and he has sat through all of the movies so far, impressive!

I keep forgetting to mention how well Tyler is doing with eating new foods lately and not vomitting. He had cantelope at school the other day and loved it! Also the night before last I was giving him a vegetable mixture (corn, carrots, green beans) and he was no problem eating it, didnt' even make a face. Now I will say that when I was letting him eat the meal on his own, he was never choosing to eat the vegetables but if I could them on the spoon or fork for him, he'd eat them. In the past anything where there was a mixture of textures/sizes/etc. in one bite would have made him sick. I'm just really proud of how far he's come in terms of his eating. I definetly think he eats more than Ben. Speaking of which.. Ben has really grown the past month or so. He is now towering over tyler but a good 1.5 inches or so.... it's possible that this winter they may actually be in different sized clothes for the first time. Even their shoe sizes to this point have remained the same!

8/18/09

Ty has stopped throwing parties in his bed at 3 a.m., woo hoo! So hopefully he's feeling a bit more rested now :) It seems that his body is starting to adjust to the B-12 just like last time, yeah! The headbanging for no apparent reason has also went away, that only lasted a week or so, thank goodness. Hard to protect the kid when you have no idea what's causing it. Before when he'd headbang I could usually tell he was frustrated so I could have my hand ready to block if he did dive to the floor to head bang but when it comes out of the blue, it's pretty hard to protect him. The chewing on his shirt however, continues. We go back to teh DAN doctor soon so we'll talk to him about this and see if there is anything else we can try.

believe it or not, this is the last week of camp! I'm attaching a picture of him riding a pony at camp last week. I can't believe he hasn't once cried when I dropped him off, he must just loev it there and I love all that they do. I can't wait to get teh CD of pictures from camp. A lot of the notes from camp talk about Tyler engaging in play time with his peers which definetly makes me happy. Can't beileve that soon we'll be back into the regular school year! We'll defietly be talking to OT once he gets to school about his chewing too. And then if little Mr. Ben would decide to be a big boy all the time, we can start the potty training process for TY. school initiates this for us, yeah!

So Ben did great last week with the potty training and as promised all summer long, he got to go see the dinosaurs at the zoo. He was in heaven. However, now he keeps going potty in his diaper, underwear, pull up or whatever you have on him and when you say it's time to go potty, he resists a bit. Sigh. None of hte reinforces I tried before worked and I can't afford to take him to the zoo every weekend so I'm gonna have to come up with a new plan.

8/13/09

I decided today to show some of the things i always talk about. Here's a picture of the medication I had to give TYler this morning.. this is just his morning medication mind you, still much more to give him throughout the day. As you can see there are ten different bottles in that picture of various sorts of supplements. Also, as I mentioned yesterday, last night was family movie night. I reference many times how difficult it is sometimes to do anything as a family and this video will kind of show you what it's like. Contrary to my prediction, Tyler actually did nap yesterday which means he was not tired after dinner like normal. So in an effort to try to make family movie night be successful we put one of TYler's favorite movies into the tv in the foyer and then we all sat in the living room watching the family movie which would never hold Tyler's interest.. this is how it looked. This is how much Tyler runs when he's really happy or if he's understimulated. So when we say that it's hard to take Tyler, places, especially out in the open without a lot of things for him to do, this is why. He doesn't do "normal" thinsg like play with other kids or dig in a dirt pile or show off for adults, etc. He needs structured activities at all times or else he'll run. That's about all for today, Ty struggled with music time at camp today:( Tomorrow is water play so hopefully he'll have a better day. He wasn't nearly as chatty this morning has he has been and he was chewing on his shirt a lot so I'm wondering if maybe he doesn't feel good. I had a friend tell me yesterday how her baby was really upset and they couldn't figure out why or how to fix it, cause obviously the baby can't talk yet. I said, that's how we feel with Tyler and have felt that way for 3.5 years. He can't tell us what's wrong.

8/12/09

So here's how the cycle seems to go. On the day Tyler needs a shot, he actually naps, i.e. the medication is wearing off. Then he gets his shot after bath and then he's ready to party. he was up until 10:30 last night. He only napped for just over an hour so it definetly wasn't the nap that was causing the insomnia.. Now today, he'll start rubbing his eyes around noon.. my predictions are that he will not nap and around 6:30 tonight he'll be beside himself with exhaustion. Which makes me feel bad for teh little guy but it is family movie night so we'll be able to spend lots of fun time with Ben if Tyler is in bed by the time we start the movie.

Last night Tyler was so engaged in play time with me. Sometimes I'm so optomistic about his future, last night the only missing element was speech.. he was right on, engaged, happy to be playing, had very little odd behaviors (other than chewing on his short, grrrr) and kept coming to get me for more play time. If he were talking, you would have never known he had autism. Those are great moments.. but then there are moments where I can't seem to break in. I can't get him to look at me, play with me, stop stimming.. those moments are hard. It's a reality check really. We read some horrific stories about teenagers with moderate to severe autism adn with all those hormones running through their bodies they have some pretty god awful behaviors. I hope that as time goes on.. I get more of the Tyler I had last night and less of the Tyler that gets lost in his world.

Steve and I watched a movie last night where a son had cancer.. and it was really sad. And we thought not that we wish anything upon our kids or anyone elses.. but at least with cancer, there is an end. You either beat it or you don't. Obviously it's not that plain and simple and those parents may lose their child completely where we still haev our child and for that I am grateful. But there is some peace at knowing when you'll know the outcome for your child. We just fight and keep fighting but really never nkow whether or not we are gonna make any significant impact on Tyler's life. we won't give up, I'm not saying that and again I'm nto saying that I wish TYler had cancer instead of autism, I'm just saying that I wish I could know by a certain date, if Tyler is not better but this date, that's it, he'll have this degree of autism eternally and then I will just accept it.

The great news is.. Tyler is eating really well and Ben is also continyuing to try new foods and also doing really well on the potty. He's really excited to see the dinosaurs this weekend and specifically wanted it to be "mommy" time so daddy and Tyler are gonna go do something else fun.

8/11/09

Here are some pics of our trip to the pool this weekend. I remembered to bring in the summary notes from splash camp last week. Music Therapist Feedback: The primary goals of musick therapy were to encourage socially appropciate group behaviors (sit in circle with peers), increase participation in structured experiences, and encourage singing/signing basic social vocabulary (hello/goodbye). Tyler consistently stayed in his seat and appeared to enjoy the gros smotor movemetn and music experience during the "airplane" song. Speech Therapist Feedback: Tyler adjusted well to new surroundings. Duringp lay centers, we were letting him have a choice of acitities and then focus on pairing signs iwht the verbale name of each sign. Having him focus on the therapists while they sign was the goal. he initially did not want to leave playtime and go tot eh table but eventually he did so with minimal prompts. Occupational Therapy _ Tler did well the first few mornings but struggled at the end of the week. He is willing to try anything when given verbale driection and support. As I was dropping Tyler off at camp today, I saw the farmer getting his animals out of the trailer for the petting zoo. Really excited to see how that goes. Also, Tyler is doing really well at eating at camp and sitting appropriately, etc. so that makes me happy. He is having very little behavioral issues which is also fantastic! Still hasn't cried ocne when I dropped him off. Whined a bit today when we pulled up but did great once we got inside. He's so happy to be there. Also, I forgot I hadn't posted this yet, but here is Ty playing his piano. I want to get him a new one soon. I found one that has a play book and the keys are colored to help learn how to play songs, etc. So I'm thinking that he'd really like that and he'll have more keys to work with, etc.

8/10/09

Really great news clip to watch on a girl with autism. http://abcnews. go.com/2020/ MindMoodNews/ story?id= 8258204&page= 1#atabc

Also a good reminder for us all to remember to talk TO Tyler not about him as if he's not right there. Everyone forgets that he can hear and is aware that you are talking to him, even if he doesn't respond. I sat down at dinner the other night, he was playing with ab book and eating and doing his own thing, Ben was talking away and I sat next to Ben. Then I said, "hi Tyler".. he was not looking at me and then he waved hi. He is listening to us... so please everyone remember that although he cannot talk, he can hear you and is very very smart.

Speaking of being smart, he's starting to get interested in words in his books instead of pictures of objects, letters or #'s. He'll point to words and want you to tell him what they are, I think he's starting to memorize them. We also said "bye bye" to his booster chair finally..and are going back to the basics. Although it's appropriate for him to use utensils independently for his age, he's finally doing really good at touching his food. He'll pick up sticky and messy things and used to have an aversion to any of his food so we are gonna start giving him little bits of food here and there so its not overwhelming and he can get his hands messy. Very good from a sensory standpoint and of course we want to encourage him to feed himself so we felt this was a good move. So finally for the first time in years... there are no infant seats at our table, wahoooo...

Speaking of growing up.. Ben is finally interested in being a big boy and wants to go on the potty. He did pretty good this weekend. Daycare this morning was rough for him but I think he gets playing with the other kids and forgets. When he's home I'm gonna try to keep him in underwear so he can feel when he's going and stop it and then go on potty, this happened a couple of times this weekend. We also say it's time to go potty vs, asking if he needs to go, especially when he's busy playing something he really likes and this seems to help. And of course get really really excited when he goes. We are going to see the dinosaur robots this weekend if all goes well.

Ok back to Ty.. so far we've noticed the following negative things from the new supplements/medication: insomnia (nothing major), loose stools, and increased headbanging. The positive things.. he's so super chatty, happy, involved and not chewing as much. He's not napping at all but is just worn out by dinner time so he goes to bed shortly after dinner which is ok if we are home (hard to go anywhere after work that's for sure) and it also allows us to have some on on one time with Ben.

Camp is going really well. They send a newsletter home on Friday's with pictures, so cute. At the end of camp they are gonna give us a cd of pics so I'll post them at that time. Ty did really good eating today, had cantaloupe, I haven't been able to get him to eat this before. He is having a Little bit of trouble transitioning but in general is doing well at all activities. He's playing well with the aides and even some other kids and participates in the sit down activities which is great. My meeting with the new speech therapist is the week after next and I'm super excited to get that moving forward.

Still really happy with the fact that we changed DAN doctors... he sends out weekly informative emails about upcoming sessions, etc. and also sends out information on nutrition and I just feel like he really cares about autism, adhd, etc. even if he doesn't know each individual kid, you can tell he has a passion for what he does and is dedicated to helping everyone feel better and lead healthier lives.

8/4/09

So things seem to be going well with the new supplements. Whether it's a result of the new supplements or not, Tyler is chewing on his shirt less, a lot less actually. He also is really really chatty right now. Making all kinds of sounds most of the time, daycare even commented on how he seemed to be immitading sounds a lot. So the B12 shots may be working too, and we increased the dose so that may be why. Ty is starting to have just a bit of insomnia though, nothing major but I heard him a few times in the wee hours of the morning playing with toys in his crib. Hopefully as his body adjusts, this will diminish over time, that's what happend when we intially started the B12 shots, took about 2 months to stop the occasionally insomnia he would have. BUt he's already has pretty much given up naps most days and is always so tired by dinner that he really neesd to get that full night of sleep for his next day. Then again you read horror stories of kids with autism who never sleep, never.. their parents are up with them all night. I can't imagine that and am very thankful it's not us. Speaking of being thankful... I got a google alert the other day about a blog where a kid with autism (non verbal) was also battling cancer and going though chemotherapy.. I can't imagine dealing with that on top of autism, let alone the damage that that treatment would cause in the world of autism. THey continued biomed therapy through the process.

On to other news. We got some updates on Tyler's initial urine results from the doctor, he emailed me of course (love that!!!) one of the test he ran was for food sensitivities and the one food item that we need to remove is eggs. It's a bummer too cause Ty lvoes eggs and it's such a good source of fat and protein for him. Luckily we've checked most of his prepared foods and not many of them have egg so hopefully it won't be too limiting on his diet.

Splash camp is going great. We went to orientation on Friday and it got me really excited. They are super organized and there are so many experts there to work with TYler and I got to meet the aids in his group too to kind of talk about his personality and how to interact with him, etc. They were all wonderful. There was so much attention to detail on their schedule. This week is transportation week and they are having a train come in to give the kids rides, that happens tomorrow actually. The following week they are having a petting zoo come in to the camp and then the follwoing week they are having a bug expert come in and talk about show the kids bugs (ick) i mean cool. So in general though they schedule the day around a physical activity vs a more subdued activity. I.e. they'll go from playground time to speech to OT to music therapy. They provide all teh snacks and all are GFCF so we don't have to worry about his diet while he's there. Yesterday when I picked up Tyler he was sittin gin a circle with the other kids while one of the music therapists played the guitar and they were singing bye bye to all the kids. SO CUTE to see him sit in that circle. I wish he could be at camp 8 horus a day! So anyway, he was great when Steve dropped him off yesterday and today when I went to sign him in, he started grabbing my hand and whining a bit but then one of the aides came out and played with him and a farm toy and he was just fine. he must really like it there.

I'm in the process of reorganizing our toys to get a better system going. When I went through all of Tyler's paperwork the other day (literally bins full) I pulled out some useful stuff we've received over time that talks about songs, actvities, game ideas, play, etc. I'm gonna give a set to daycare too and then have steve and his mom read thruogh it this weekend so we can use that to set up some better structure on the weekends and try to get the boy smore doing the same thing or at least some parallel play instead of us going back and forth between the two which is not rewarding really and I swear the boys don't get as much out of it. I really like how excited Ben is too cheer on Tyler's speech. in face the other day, he initiated, hey mom, Tyler's trying to talk, yeah, Tyler! I love it so I'm hoping we can find ways to get him excited about encouraging Ty to do other things. Maybe this is a turning point in their relationship? by the way the other day Ben was worreid Ty would b bite him if he got any closer (they were both in a slide tunnel together with Steve at the end and Ben was trying to get out but had to pass by Ty, etc.) steve goes, he won't bite you, Ben goes, yes he will, he has autism. Funny cause, we've never said Tyler bitse cause he has autism, ever. Ben drew that conclusion on his own.