Chasing birds

It's been a really long time since I last blogged. And entirely too many good things have happened since then. My kids grew bigger, Gabe learned to ride a bike, and Zane conquered his fear of water! 

Recently Zane has taken up the hobby of bird chasing. And I don't mean bird watching. I literally mean, he chases birds in the hopes to catch one. And I'm convinced that one day he will catch a bird. In all of his bird chasing, I have been reminded that life with autism is kind of like chasing birds. You keep chasing the hope that your child will talk normal, or learn like his peers. You chase the dream that he will have a best friend, or won't meltdown because the Lego set he really wanted was sold out and he can't verbally describe his disappointment. You chase a dream that society will accept his quirky behavior and won't judge
him or worse yet, make fun on him. And in all that chasing you realize that sometimes you can't catch that dream, but you still still have to chase it because one day, you will catch it. And that day will be a day to celebrate. 

It's summer time.

YAY!  Our summer plans....SWIMMING.  Gabe loves the pool.  I think he might have been a fish in a previous life.  Zane is not a huge fan of the pool.  He is starting to like it more, but cries the first 15 minutes you put him in the water. 

So, we survived our first year of public school.  I wish I could say it was a great adventure, but it pretty much sucked.  The last part of Gabe's school year was wonderful.  His autism support teacher helped him more in 3 months then what the IU did in the two years they were "offering" him services.  He has had two good IU experiences....his wonderful speech therapist he started with at 3 and Mrs. P his kindy teacher.  I'm just glad the year is over and am looking forward to a good year next fall!

We are coming up on the one year anniversary when Gabe stopped eating food.  My how time flies.  He is doing great in the eating department now.  He still coughs at times while he is eating, but nothing severe and he manages. He hasn't choked in at least a month.  Yay! 


We from this....                                                                        

To this.....a happy little 6 year old.  I am so proud of all of Gabe's hard work. 

The Magical Autism Shirt

Gabe is now in an autism support class and doing WONDERFUL!!!  I can't say enough good things about his teacher.  He is reading more, counting like crazy, and doing math!!  I never thought we would get past the behaviors in the class to learn.  She is a true teacher in every way.  That being said....Mrs. Wonderful Teacher sent home an order form for some blue autism awareness shirts.  Of course we ordered some for the entire family :) 

It's a great shirt in more ways then one.  It's cute, it's good quality, it shows our support for autism awareness, and it's MAGICAL.  No I'm not crazy.  It really is magical.  One day Gabe and I were at the store and he was begging for a toy.  Everyone that has children has been in this situation.  It's not fun.  Whining and crying.  It stinks.  Instead of allowing Gabe to buy yet another toy that would sit and collect dust I offered him juice or a lollipop.  He refused both and continued to whine about the toy.  During check out time I once again gave him the option and reminded him once I paid there would be nothing.  Well, it happened....I paid....and the whopper of a meltdown began.  EXCEPT....this time Gabe was wearing the magic blue shirt :)  Normally when my six year old acts like a two year old I get stared at, people offer parenting advice, some tell me he's a spoiled brat (I beg to differ since he didn't get the toy), some snot, and some even point!  Well....magic shirt takes that all away.  Suddenly people are empathetic and caring.   Not one person said a word....they all smiled and nodded in this understanding way.  We left the store....and I felt good.  Gabe of course was still screaming and crying.  But that's to be expected sometimes.  Long live the magic blue shirt!! 

CORN!!!

Zane had allergy testing done and he is allergic to ragweed, all tree pollens, and CORN!  So naturally I want my child to be free from ear infections and congestion so I start reading every label for every food he eats....and everything has CORN in it!!!!  Packaging, processing, fillers, derivatives, it's everywhere!  I don't know how to escape it.  They even powder our fresh fruits and veggies with a corn wax to keep them looking fresh.   Matt and I started off small and removed just corn proteins from his diet.  So that meant no maize, corn, corn flour, etc. that would still have it's proteins attached to it.  Zane still continues to have ear infections and congestion.  He also has terrible tummy pain and wakes during the middle of the night. :(  So we now have removed corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup.  We are also trying to avoid as many derivatives as possible.  Removing the derivatives seems the hardest.  Citric acid, dextrose, maltose, etc.  It's everywhere.  I can't imagine getting all of that out of his diet.  If I were a stay at home mom I could make everything from scratch, unfortunately I have to work. The plan...one little step at a time.  I am going to start working on some corn free recipes ....and go from there.

In the mean time I have found a few things that seem to be 100% corn free.  The best one of all is Chobani Yogurt.  Zane absolutely loves it. And it's safe for him to enjoy!

Sending Gabe into Battle (an old blog entry I never posted)

Every day I wake Gabe up at 0700 to get him ready for school.  And everyday when I kiss him goodbye I feel like I am sending him to the front lines.  He never complains about going to school, but he never says he likes it either.  Most days I sit and wonder what the school will do to ruin my sweet little boy.  Yep, he can throw a temper tantrum that's unbelievable, but most times it's autism related!  I can't imagine what he must feel like sitting there in that class with all those highly verbal children that seem to effortlessly move from one activity to the next.  How do I help the school understand how frustrated Gabe is with not understanding what is asked of him and not being able to communicate?  How do I explain sensory processing disorder?  How can someone who knows nothing of sensory disorders help him?  How can I expect his teacher to understand that the florescent lighting in the room could be a trigger to Gabe's behavior.  Lighting, sound, people moving, rapid changing of activities.  It's all overwhelming to my little autie.  Every single sensory system in his body works over time.  Sounds are super loud to him, movement is fast and sometimes scary.  What will it take for them to understand, how long will it be until they completely destroy his passion for learning????

Latest app!

Well we loaded another app on the iPad. This one is called sentence builder. Gabe played with it a little tonight and wow it is an awesome app! Gabe made sentences with just a little help from mommy. It uses pictures and Gabe has to build a sentence from what he sees. An example: there were two brown dogs in the picture. Gabe had to build the sentence "these dogs are brown". This might become a favorite work time app!

iPad apps are WoNdErFuL

Gabe loves the iPad, the iTouch, or anything electronic for that matter.  He was playing the computer at 2.5 years old, but not talking, go figure!  So we have been using apps for awhile on the iPad and iTouch and I thought I would give a shout out to a couple of them.  First on the list is Proloquo2go.  It's a fully functional AAC (assisted communication) device.  Everything you need to say in one little app at a great price compared to desk top type AAC devices.  Gabe is verbal, so he does not need a fancy AAC device, although we have used them in the past and they are amazing and helped Gabe to a great degree.  And it's something we still go back and forth on, but for now P2G is awesome!  Gabe has severe language issues and word process, word recall issues.  So asking for certain items, or trying to tell me something he did at school can be extremely frustrating for him.  Words don't always flow quickly, not to mention motor planning is a huge issue.  We call it mush mouth.  When Gabe says too much at one time and no one can understand him.  Proloquo2go bridges the gap for Gabe and decreases those communication breakdowns. 

Next on the list.  Stories2Learn.  This is a social stories app.  It allows you to customize your child's social stories.  Finally there's an App for that!  Gabe loves to run in wide open places and doesn't stop to look for cars.  He even struggles to stop when mom and dad yell STOP!  So we made a social story about that.  On Trick or Treat night we made a social story about walking with mom and dad, no running, saying please and thank you.  We all had a blast and Gabe did a great job walking with mommy and daddy!

It's even easy enough my 25mo old can use it.  He's already "spelling" words :)  Okay...so you can't spell them wrong, but it's still great for learning letters.
The next app I plan on downloading is sentence building!  It's a total language based app. 

Happy "pod"ing