Ring Around the Rosy

I haven't posted in a few days but everything has been going pretty well.  We have had our good days and we have had our bad days just like any other!  However, today turned out to be a pretty good day! I watched 2 of my nephews today and so Dylan saw them just before he went to school.  When he got home (which by the way, as soon as he got off the bus he looked up at me and held out his arms wanting me to pick him up! Can you say, "acknowledging a parent!") I mentioned that he missed his cousins.  He immediately lead me to the van and was ready to go.  I wondered if he wanted to go play at their house because he has gone there a few times lately and so he may have been expecting to play with them when he got home!

We ran a few errands and anytime we passed a fast food place with a playground, he broke out crying.  We had to get creative and drive down some back roads to avoid any more melt downs.  We got home and made dinner and Dylan did his thing of watching shows on our bed and downstairs, just his regular routine.  Brandon mentioned that it seems like he comes up to get us more often than he used to if he is left alone by himself for too long, so that could be considered being more aware of his surroundings, right?

After dinner was cleaned up and put away is when the night got really fun and made this old Mom super dizzy!  He was really trying to interact with us, mainly Brielle and I.  He was super happy!  I just love his little smile when he gets in these moods!  Brielle has really been going out of her way lately and really trying to involve him as much as possible.  I think Dylan has caught on and is starting to open up to her, which I absolutely LOVE!  While we were at the store earlier, he was having a little melt down.  Brielle said she had it under control and grabbed his hand and walked with him!  So while we were playing at home it continued and Dylan kept gravitating toward Brielle and I.  Before long we started to play Ring Around the Rosy and Dylan full on participated!  He was even coming and grabbing our hands and initiating the game himself.  Desi and Boston got involved a bit, but anytime it would have made it so Dylan had to hold Desi's hand, Brielle made sure to hurry and switch it up so that me and her would be the ones holding his hand.  She knows that he will not hold Desi's hand for some reason, so she wanted to keep him involved.  However, I have noticed in the past week or so he is starting to tolerate Desi a teeny tiny bit more.  He lets her lay by him for a short amount of time sometimes now! We honestly played for a good 30-45 minutes, so you can imagine the spinning in my head now almost 2 hours later!  But to get that kind of interaction and playing that we were seeing, I would do anything for, even if it makes me sick!

Potty Training

Well potty training hasn't gone so well today. We started out thinking We would attempt both kids but after Brandon ran Brielle and Boston to a movie with Cody and his kids and I ran up and downstairs atleast 10 times(getting new pullups, running the poopy pullup to the garbage, coming back down after to see Desi decided to poop more on the floor, etc. and Dylan had pooped on the couch earlier) in the time Brandon was gone for 30 minutes or so.  I decided we would just focus on Dylan for the time being!  I tried to take him to the bathroom every 30 or so minutes but I think he only peed a handful of times.  Maybe I am jumping the gun or maybe I(and Dylan) am not really ready for this.  I don't want to wait too long and have him just get used to it and think that this is what you do, but I hate potty training!  I think I will just continue to put him on the toilet as often as I can and then next week when he is out of school for the holiday maybe we can help it connect.

In other news, Brielle is an amazing big sister!  She is always, more recently, really trying to get Dylan involved.  I think Dylan really has a bond with her.  She started talking to him and let him lead her upstairs.  After a few minutes they came back downstairs with some bubbles.  Brielle said Dylan threw her hand to them, so he chose them.  She literally had him playing and interacting with her for a good 20 minutes.  I can't get him to focus that long!  She was blowing the bubbles and would try to get him to blow bubbles too.  He was really trying!   He kept hugging her once in a while and just smiled!  It was so fun to see and see the love he has for his sister!  It made this Mom's eyes fill with tears of joy!

We also decided to try the hair cutting thing again... Lets just say this time was a little better!  I would say his reaction was more of being tortured rather than killed.  He was downstairs while I was getting things ready so Brandon went to grab him.  When Brandon brought him up all it took was for him to see me cutting the garbage bag( I lay this down so hair doesn't get on the floor) and he lost it.  He got a little amprehensive when Brandon wouldn't let him go, he panicked.  His little heart started beating out of his chest and he was sweating up a storm before I even was ready to get him in the chair.  However, by the time we started cutting his hair he was already calmer then he was when cutting his hair last time.  He cried off and on the whole time and squirmed a little bit but compared to the last few times it was a lot less dramatic.  Hopefully this gets easier as time goes on because I delay his hair cut as long as possible for this reason.  I have been tempted to take him to get it cut to see if cutting it with scissors rather than hair clippers would be easier for him, but Brandon had a good point today and really didn't want him to cause a big scene at a salon.  I was so tempted to just stop in the Walmart hair salon while we were there today and test it out, but we decided not to.

Mom(meaningful use) and some random things

Proud Mommy Moment:
When I walked to the bus to get Dylan today they told me someone was excited to be home!  They told me that when they turned to come in the Cul De Sac Dylan started saying "Momma" and got really happy!  Now if all his jibbering lately with the "mamamama" isn't saying "Mom" then I don't know what is!
Also, I got an Iphone a couple weeks ago and it has the health app that tracks your steps.  Lets just say following this kid around has its perks!  There has been some days that I have walked 3 miles and that is not leaving the house and not having my phone with me constantly!  On average it says I walk about 2 miles a day, ha ha, who knows how many he does! He will get this Mom in shape one of these days!

At Dylan's IEP meeting a couple months ago his teacher was talking about him following commands but more or less implying that he follows the ones that are consistent and that he expects.  I mentioned one day I told Dylan we were going downstairs and he headed right down.  She seemed to think that was because that is a normal routine of ours, but I just shrugged it off because I didn't feel that way but felt he actually listened and did as I asked.  Anyway I bring this up now because tonight we were having Boston play the Wii because Dylan brings that remote to us which means he wants someone to play so he can watch.  Boston is usually very willing to be the one to play.  After a little while Desi wanted to play and tried to get the remote from Bos, so I told her she would need to find the second remote so she could play(it actually won't work on this particular game, but she is 2 and doesn't need to know ha ha).  Well before I knew it, I was being handed that second remote that was clear across the room, not by Desi but Dylan.  Now you can't tell me that is a "routine" command and that he did not understand what I was saying. I wasn't even talking to him in the first place.  That just made me pretty excited!

We have a note!

Dylan has been back in school for almost 2 weeks(9 school days) and we got our first note today.  Last time Igot one almost every day(or so it seems) the first week back, so hopefully his body is adjusting a little better this time.  The note said that "he did not eat his lunch and just cried off and on throughout the day."  Nothing too big, but not the happy boy he had been lately.  He was super happy when he got home and don't worry he ate for  10 the rest of the night!  I was surprised by the note because he left for school happy where as the past 2 days he kind of put up a fight.  He even threw himself down one day as we were walking to the bus.  The Bus Aide commented and said, " That was new!"  At least to her but to us we see it all to often!  That was because he discovered a chocolate snack cake thing my Dad had given the kids right as the bus got there, so he was not happy I took it away.

He is continuing to strip down naked again!  We had got to where we didn't worry about him and let him do his thing on his own for a while, but that freedom is gone for now.  I told Brandon I need to listen to my intuition more often when it comes to this because I have the thought to check on him for that reason and when I do most of the time it is correct.  In fact, it saved me twice today!  I went and checked on him once and he was naked and just about to use the bathroom, on the floor.  I got there in time to get him on the toilet and save me from a disaster!  Later in the evening, we had just had dinner and I was cleaning up while Brandon was looking at something.  I had that feeling again and told Brandon that I was feeling he needed to check on him.  I honestly expected Brandon to come up and say he was fine and disprove my comment earlier, but he came up with a naked little boy and said I was right, ha ha.

He seems as if he is stripping down when he needs to go to the bathroom, so I told Brandon that we are going to work on potty training this weekend!  We will see how it goes and if we follow through or not ha ha.  I figure we will try the route of taking him to the bathroom every 30 minutes or so this weekend, so that gives us 2 full days to test it out before sending him back to school.  The problem with this is Brandon and I usually go stir crazy and need out of the house when we have had enough of following Dylan around and getting him out of the fridge a million times an hour, so hopefully we can stick it out and it clicks for him!  I also figured we may as well try it on little Desi while we are at it because she is starting to show signs of being ready too!  Wish us luck!

The not so good, but not so bad day!

Today has been good but we are seeing a little bit of regression.  He is still a happy little boy but the regression we are seeing is the one I would much rather not deal with at all, ever again in my life.  He has started to strip off the clothes again, which leads to the diaper, which leads to poop being spread who knows where.  He came home from school and I went down and he had a poopy diaper, so I changed him and I figured we were good and safe for the night.  I was making dinner and Brandon went down to check on him and came up and asked me if I would like to clean Dylan or clean up the mess.  I chose Dylan, ha ha.  I never actually saw what it looked like but Brandon said it was a good(aka: not good) one and had it on the couch and walls and floor.  After I bathed him, he went down again and I finished cleaning up the kitchen from dinner.  Brandon went down again 20 minutes or so later and this time Dylan was naked but luckily not messy this time.  This may be the beginning of the regression stage, but I guess we will have to wait and see.

The Wrestling Match

This morning Dylan and Desi were standing at the fridge deciding what to have for breakfast.  The problem is Desi had spotted the Pepsi earlier and I was trying to hide it from Dylan because we are trying, unsuccessfully but trying, to decrease our sugar intake around here.  Anyway, I purposely had the half of the fridge shut so that Dylan wouldn't see the Pepsi and went to grab a cup to get him some Apple Juice.  In that minute that I walked away to get the cup, we had a wrestling match break out!

Desi was trying to point out the Pepsi to Dylan but I think she got to close to him for comfort.  For some reason he allows the others to get close to him, but he does not like when his baby sister gets close.  I hear some really sad and heartbreaking cries break out from both of them.  I turned around to find them on the ground and Dylan pretty much has Desi in a headlock.  I thought about being the nice Mom and hurrying and grabbing my phone to take a picture, but the cries were too sad.  I broke them apart and Brielle quickly came and comforted Desi while I comforted Dylan.

 I don't think Dylan liked what he had done and seemed to be really sad about the decision that he made.  Tears just fell from his eyes and he cried his really sad cry.  It really was not a cry like he was hurt but a cry of sadness and the look on his face you could just see how sad he was.  Poor little Des just really was trying to help him out and had no idea why she just got thrown to the ground(pretty carefully though, I never heard a crash).  And incase you are wondering, he spotted the Pepsi and that was his drink for breakfast, that and frozen waffles(actually still frozen) that seems to be his go to meal lately!

ATEC Scores

A lot of parents have mentioned this online test that you can do called the ATEC and so we have done it twice now, once in February before stem cells and then again at the end of September before the second time of stem cells.  I don't remember if I posted about this before, so just for my own sake I wanted to document both of these so we can look back and see the differences.

February 21, 2015 results:

Speech, Language, Communication: 24
Sociability: 24
Sensory/Cognitive Awareness: 19
Health: 19
Overall Total: 86

September 27, 2015 results:

Speech, Language, Communication: 23
Sociability: 20
Sensory/Cognitive Awareness: 21
Health: 15
Overall Total: 79

So it went down, not a lot but down is the direction we want!  The goal is 0 and when you are at 0 that means there are no characteristics present of Autism.  This is a test anyone can do on the internet and it is based on what we, as his parents, see, but we are also around him the most so we should be able to judge accurately.  We try to answer as honest as possible and sometimes that is difficult when you know he should be doing these things but doesn't.  So if it is something he does once in a while we don't give him credit while doing this test.  We want to be honest with ourselves and not try to rank him higher just because he may have said something once in like 3 months or something.  I hope to see these results go lower and we will try again in a couple months and see what it looks like!