A New Routine

Whew, it's been a long time between updates. Honestly, it has been a very tough month for all of us, and we've made a lot of changes.

We are still struggling a little to get Bug out of the car. He still asks to "get dressed" and we cannot figure out what he's talking about. Luckily, he doesn't seem to get as distressed as he used to (although he still has his moments). We have had an easier time getting him out of the car. Typically if we say that we have to go really really fast and run, he's more cooperative. I also feel like he's more aware of the actual places we go. He has correctly pointed out Lowe's to me as we were driving past and he has used his book of pictures to show me where he wanted to go. We also make sure to tell him the name of where we are.

About a month ago, I started spending a few minutes with Bug before bed, so I could talk about our day with him. I ask him what his favorite thing we did was, give him a chance to answer and then sometimes say what I think it was (a lot of times it's pretty obvious). Then I tell him what my favorite part of the day was and then we say a little prayer together. It's fun because a lot of times he'll get a little smile on his face when I talk about what we did. Then this weekend, he actually told me! "Library. Look at movies" It was pretty neat to hear him answer a question with a non-scripted, completely novel response.

Sunday school has not really been a productive time. While I'm grateful for the exposure to his peers, he doesn't currently pay any attention and mostly does what he can to avoid doing anything. I'm hoping that being in preschool will help him out.

Speaking of preschool, Bug FINALLY started the early childhood program last week!

It was quite the adventure finding a program for him. We opted not to do the initial program we looked at because it started so early. Bug already struggles with sleeping at night and I was really against the idea of waking him up early every morning to get him to school. We looked at a couple of preschools, one of which we felt pretty good about, but after a couple of visits (and a lot of miscommunication), they felt that they didn't have training to help him make the most of his time. They said they'd only take him for 2 days a week but strongly recommended we enroll him in an early childhood program instead. Around the same time, the Early Childhood coordinator called me and told me about a class that started later, which after meeting with the teacher, we decided would be the best fit. It was a long, stressful and kind of disheartening process, but we feel good about the class he's in. Because he's with other special needs kids, we are also looking into other afternoon activities that would allow him to interact with his regularly developing peers.

So far we've had two days of school and it seems like he's doing ok. Today it was hard to get him out of the car, but the aide said that once he was in the building and calm, he was fine. I think it'll be a good thing, even if he needs to get his little protest out of the way.

Speech: We have had a lot of upheaval in speech. Kathy went on vacation a couple of times, and we took time off and I feel like it's been forever since we have had a consistent schedule. We are switching back to Laura on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. Hopefully he handles the change well. We did see a different therapist two weeks ago and he did pretty well. It was funny because Bug started 15 minutes later than he normally had been, and he knew it. We'd have normally finished at 11:30, but were scheduled until 11:45. Right at 11:25, he asked JoAnn to come get me--which is what he always did with Kathy. It was kind of amazing actually! :)

OT: OT has been our consistent and our bright spot. Geri has a student with her this semester, Frances. Eli insists on Geri doing his swinging, but other than that seems pretty comfortable with Frances. We've been working a lot on puzzles and he's getting quite good at them, and even seems to enjoy them at home. I found a pack of small, 4-9 piece puzzles, that he can do a couple of them. With help, he can even do a 24 piece floor puzzle.

Bug is also doing very well on the trike at OT, even with steering and turning around corners. At home, he is less interested, but I was able to get him to pedal a little on his trike this weekend.

Also, I realized that I never thanked you all for the support with the Autism Speaks walk! We had lots of fun.

The next few weeks are going to be very full. We have our first full week of school this week, plus our new therapy schedule and finally a PRT training session too. Please say some prayers for us that things continue to go smoothly and that we all keep our energy up! Hopefully now that I at least know what we're doing each day, I can focus on blogging again!