11/9/09

Busy week this week! First off, the intake at the Autism Collaborative Center went great, staff were very friendly and we felt very welcomed. It also was so good as always to talk abotu Tyler and his history and how far he's come, I love thinking back to where we once were. So we actually start music therapy, today, yeah! On Mondays Tyler will be in school from 8:45 - 1:45, in speech therapy from 2:00 - 3:00 and then off to music therapy (mom may have to speed!) from 3:15 - 4:00 then back today care to get ben and home for dinner before Tyler passes out from exhaustion! So we are hoping to eventualy fill most of his afternoons with more "therapy" type stuff so that we can enjoy family tme on the weekends and not feel so much pressure to ensure Tyler is doing "therapy" type stuff. Anywaay, so music therapy today, tomorrow we have another appt for Tyler to plan more after school activites and Wednesday we have an IEP (individualized education plan) meeting at school for Tyler; these occur annually. I actually reviwed his current IEP in preparation for the intake appt at teh collaborative center and since it was a year ago, it was fun to see how far he's just came in that year, yeah Tyler. Anyway, busy week moving forward for him. Once we get this week squared away, we are gonna get Tyler back into the DAN doctor.

In terms of the weekend, the boys are doing great. Actually had a wonderful moment of independence. For the first time ever, I took the boys to the park with just me to supervise, then we went out to eat (first time alone)and then to the store. It was great and the boys were great. slowly but surely I feel like things are getting easier and more independent where it's not so hard to get out of our house and leave the safety zone.

potty training is going so/so. Tyler is still going once or twice day on the potty but Ben has turned back into not wanting to go. IN fact, Ben has been very defiant lately on about every issue and we are trying to get him a lot of postiive attention but it's tough because he's constantly doing something that unfortunately gets him negative attention. I do believe he's becoming more keenly aware of Tyler's condition and perhaps is a bit jhealous of that situation as well as normal 3 year old stuff and I think he may be getting bored at daycare. SO we are gonna try to address all those things and make sure he's getting one on one time with parents and doing some things for just Ben. most sib shops (support groups for siblings of kids iwth autism) don't start until age 5 so we have a bit to go before we can do that.

Ok that's about all for now.