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.