Taking the Scenic Route

We will have a small family birthday celebration tonight, but here are some birthday musings

Things he accomplished this year

• He no longer chews holes in his shirts on a regular basis.  It isn’t totally gone, but dramatically better.
• He can mostly get dressed by himself.  He can zip up a coat with help, he can usually get his socks and shoes on (although he can’t tie them yet, but really, who cares), he can usually get his pullup and pants on the right direction, and can usually get his shirt on right.  Still can’t button with typical shirt buttons, but can do bigger buttons in OT, so that is coming along.
• He can mostly brush his teeth now.  We still have to help make sure he has done a good job, but he can brush and he learned how to spit the water in the sink.
• He can mostly brush his hair now.  He is fortunate in having hair that rarely looks like it needs brushed, so if he misses chunks it isn’t a big deal. 
• He wears clothes more at home.  Shirts and a pullup at least. 
• He reads quite a bit.  Except for a few letters and numbers that we are working on, he writes with more accuracy.  He is decoding Phonics based words along with whole words and is spelling the same way…some things are spelled phonetically if he hasn’t learned the whole word yet.
• Although we have to prompt him, he is able to tell us when he doesn’t feel good sometimes.  It isn’t totally reliable, but it is a start.  He will tell me something hurts spontaneously at times now.  There is no way to know how much he does this, obviously, but it is a great thing.  It is also wonderfully kid-like that a bandage often solves all.
• A few weeks ago, for the first time, when a kid/peer said “hi, what’s your name?” he answered “Zane”.  Just like that, no hesitation.  I about fainted.
• In the last year he has been able to greet and answer the receptionist at his ST/OT place when she asks who he is there to see.  It sometimes takes some prompting, but less and less.
• He let the doctor look in his ear and nose with no fuss.  In fact, he grabbed the otoscope and helped put it up to his ear in one exam.
• Gives his sister a good night kiss every night before bed.  He also wants to buy her presents, fights with her, tells her to go away, pushes her, hugs her, and occasionally shares with her. 
• Hugs from the front for people he knows well.  (instead of the backward lean hug)
• Able to verbalize that he is “sad” or “not sad” or “happy”.  He can’t elaborate usually, but the fact he can recognize it and tell us, and can then answer questions so that we can help figure out what is going on is a HUGE deal.  HUGE.  Did I say HUGE?  HUGE!!!
• Starting to do some novel pretend play instead of just imitating pretend play.  Not a regular thing, but he does some now.  For instance, having Mickey Mouse play video games with him the other night, or not copying exactly on an art/craft project.  He used to just lose it if he couldn’t make it precisely like the modeled version, but now he is able to deviate from it a bit and be happy with it.  In fact, sometimes he purposefully deviates from the model and makes it his own.
• When he got sick this year, the last few times, he didn’t regress to non-verbal.
• He actually got sick a few times this year.  At this point last year Zora had been sick more times in her life than Zane had.  He actually catches colds and stuff now.  It is very different.
• He gained the ability to attend to a teacher enough to take a class at the YMCA without us.  They call in an extra lifeguard just to make sure he is safe and help him, but he is able to handle it without us.  Very nice.
• He is adding modifiers to his sentences.  His favorites over the last few months have been “too ____”  (too big, too small, too hot, ect).  He also sees every thing as “broken” or “fixed”.  He likes to describe things, expand upon descriptions in books.  (like in “Where’s the poop”, he will describe each poop and the animal that made it, like “rock poop”…lovely example, I know.  lol )
• He was finally able to demonstrate a high intelligence to others this year.  After taking the Weschlers and scoring in the high 90s, with a 103 degree fever and double ear infection, several professionals have guessed his actual IQ at 140-160.  (the Weschlers are notoriously bad for autistic kids because they are very language dependent).  Zach and I think it is actually higher than that.  Honestly, I think some of his language delay is because he is such an advanced problem solver.  He finds incredibly ingenious ways to get around the language delay and get what he needs.  His problem solving skills are shockingly brilliant.
• The fact that he can take a test at all is a huge improvement from last year.  He finally gained joint attention.
• He demonstrated math skill that is quite advanced for his age.  Adding and subtracting double numbers and fractions, for instance. 
• He has begun to be able to make up stories.  We can’t understand them all, but he is doing it and we can catch enough of it to get the general idea.  He is also starting to actually “play” with his toys.  Build actual things with his blocks and have a “story” that goes with it instead of just making patterns, for instance.
• He is now able to follow 2 and 3 step directions.
• He can wait in line now.  He doesn’t like to wait in line, but he understands how to and can do it now. (most of the time)
• He seeks out playmates and wants to be part of the group more now.  He actively works with other kids and does the best he can to participate.  It is awkward, but he is trying.
• He can use a pencil and a scissors correctly.  He can even grab it and figure out how to use it without help.  He is also able to use a gluestick without help.  He can sometimes use a regular glue bottle, but has problems with squeezing it most of the time.  When he writes, his pincher grasp is getting better and he is starting to bend his fingers and moving towards writing with fine motor instead of gross motor.  He is actually able to write small now on occasion.
• He figured out not only his trike, but a two wheeled bicycle this year.  He is still on training wheels, but was able to ride it.  Tolerated the helmet and knee and elbow pads too.
• He has begun to recognize when he has a dirty diaper at times and seems to want to use the potty.  He goes through the whole routine and does self talk to help him remember what to do…”pull down pants, pull down diaper, sit on seat, try and make a poop or pee, wipe the poop away, pull up diaper, pull up pants, wash hands”.  He just doesn’t actually poop or pee yet.
• He has self talk.  It is external now, but he is gaining self talk to help him remember things.  It is probably transitioning to internal self talk because there are things he is able to remember the routines to now that he couldn’t before.
• He sleeps.  He goes to bed, usually stays in bed, and sleeps between 8-10 hours a day.  I didn’t think that would ever happen. 
• Began to have temper tantrums this year and started to actually misbehave, on purpose.  He would also do things like try and hide things behind his back so we wouldn’t see them and sneak into the kitchen to get something after we told him no.  We were suddenly faced with actual behavior and discipline issues for the first time with him.  He had meltdowns and unintentional behavior problems, but never defiance.  It was good to see.
• His eye contact is improving a lot from last year.  It still isn’t there for people outside the family much, but there is hope that it will be there.  He always has done things at home long before he will show it to anybody else.  (and he doesn’t show us for a while either)
• He is sometimes able to relate what he did after an event/therapy session.  He has a ways to go with this, but he is now able to give at least an answer most of the time, even if it is just a one or two word answer.
• He is figuring out how to tell time.  For the most part, he can tell you the time if it is the first half hour, but as the little hand nears the next number, he gets confused.  (for example, if it is 10:20 he gets it correct, but if it is 10:55, he will read it as 11:55)
• He has left and right figured out.  I still have problems with left and right.  lol.

My “goals” for Zane.  Don’t have an official IEP, so here is the homeschool version:

• That we are out of diapers, at least for the daytime.  I seriously am just so sad and frustrated with potty learning. 
• That when I call his name, he responds to let me know he hears me.  Something informal like “yeah” would be great. 
• After I call his name and he says “yeah”, I can ask “where are you?”  (like when he is in a different room, or has gone around the corner in a store and I can’t see him, or walks away through a corn maze) and he answers, even if it just “here!” and not an actual location, it would really save the heart-stopping moments.
• That he eats a vegetable.  Any vegetable (we will consider tomatoes a fruit for the sake of argument, because he will eat tomato sauce sometimes) would be fine.  Carrots, peas, green beans, broccoli, lettuce….one of those would be particularly great because they are easily accessible and people assume kids will eat at least one of those.   There is hope, he did actually eat a pancake this year for the first time. 
• That he will willingly let somebody cut his hair in the typical, sit in a chair and have somebody comb your hair fashion.  He is getting big and holding him upside down and making a game of it just to get the hair cut is getting harder and harder to do.  It works, I am glad I have found something that works, but it is hard to cut hair at the speed of light on an upside down head.
• He pronounces the letter “L” correctly.  I am really ready to move on to something new in ST.  Please get this soon.  If I have to listen to the lambs named La, Li, Le, Lo, and Lulu leaping over lions laying in the lawn licking lollipops in one more lesson, I am going to lacerate my frontal lobes.  Arg.
• In church, that he learns to sit reasonably still on the actual chair instead of the floor in front of the chair.  That he doesn’t talk during the prayer (as much as you can expect a kid to, not perfection, just able to handle it for the 10 minutes or so before the Children’s church.)
• That he finds some synonyms or other ways to describe stuff to expand out “broken” and “fixed” into more accurate descriptions…not “broken”, but untied, melted, unbuttoned, unzipped, messy, dirty, ripped, unplugged, off, seperate, eaten, ect. 
• Learns to ride his bike without training wheels
• Learns to catch and throw a ball from about 5 feet away or more.
• Learns to follow body language.  For instance, if I look at an object I want him to pick up, he understands what I want.
• Sees his sister as a person all the time, and not an obstacle to get around, or thing that is holding his stuff with no regard for the fact that he might hurt her.  Some of it is typical sibling stuff, some of it is that he seems to forget that she has feelings and opinions and is an actual person.
• He can independently dress himself, brush his teeth, floss his teeth, wash his body and his hair with no assistance or oversight. 
• He learns to tell time and can add time.  (if I say we will go in ten minutes, he knows what time we are going to go)
• He learns how money works and how to add and subtract bills and coins.
• That he can have a phone conversation where the other person can understand what he is saying and is able to maintain some semblence of an actual conversation.
• That he shows improvement in enunciation, appropriate volume and speed of talking.  I want to be able to hear and understand what he does say.
• That he is able to tell me the sequence of events after a period of time away from us, like in therapy or a visit or a class. 

My “wishes”

• That he is able to tell us if somebody hurts him, physically or emotionally.  That he can tell us what happened, how it happened, and how he feels.
• I hear a spontaneous “I Love You”.  He echoes it, I know he means it, but he has never said it with no prompt.  I want to hear it. 
• That everybody in my family can hear that from him to them.

Zach:  What is this?

Zane (after a few momments thinking):  That is a tire string.

Love it.

Zane is sick, but he didn’t regress to non-verbal.  In fact, last night he was playing a game where it gave you a few letters and some blanks and you have to fill in the blanks to make a word.  (with help on spelling)  He is now saying his ears hurt, ”ears owie”, so we have a call in to the doctor for some meds for him too.  I think it is the first time he was able to tell us that though.  WooHoo!

Zora, despite the fact she is a mess now, woke us up this morning with kisses and giggles.  She would give me a kiss, then run around the bed to give Zach a kiss, giggling all the way.  It was a great way to wake up.

Bat Pumpkin

This should have been taken sooner, but we kept forgetting.  On halloween at speech therapy, they had him make a “bat pumpkin”.  The picture on the box was a big pumpkin.  The pumpkin they had was the one you see here on the right, the little pumpkin.  The whole time he was doing the project, he was a bit dismayed that the pieces were “too big” and although he was coping ok, you could tell he wasn’t very happy.  When we got home, he took the big pumpkin that I was planning on cooking with and took all the things off the little pumpkin and put it on the big pumpkin, finally pleased with the result.  The sticky on the pieces isn’t great, so the pieces keep falling off.  When either kid finds a piece missing they say ”uh oh” (and Zane adds “it’s broken”) and then fix the face.  (which Zane declares “all fixed”).  It is quite adorable. 

Zane made some playdo at speech therapy.  It was well played with.  Zora found it and had a good time “cooking” with it.

Then Zane got it, asked for some cookie cutters, tried to flatten the dough (pretty dense and hard to flatten), and used the cookie cutters.  Then he dug out a pan, put them in the pan, and told me they were “cooking”.  So cool.

That face!  lol.

My darling husband

To say he hates spiders would be an understatement.  He went to the garage tonight to find a pair of pants (for the interview) that hadn’t made it’s way to the closet and discovered a box of clothes with the missing pants among some other clothes.  He also discovered a spider.  A biiiig spider.  A spider that had him running into the house.  He needed to finish getting the clothes out, so he rolled up his pants, tucked them into his socks, and used a stick (the piece that goes in the back of the trike to help guide it) to pick up each piece of clothes and shake it. 

And Finally, A Second milestone for Zane at bedtime tonight

Zane regaled Zach with a story tonight at bedtime.  The first time we have heard (or at least understood enough to appreciate) a unique narrative from Zane.

All. day. long., Zane has been asking for an ice cream cone.  He was obsessed.  We let him have one earlier in the day, but we told him no more ice cream today about, oh, a million times or so.  (only to have him ask again about 30 seconds later).  By the afternoon Zach was getting really frustrated and went on a bit of a rant…”NO, N-O, NO more ice cream.  Don’t ask again.  NO.  N-O.  No more ice cream today at all.”  Zane finally got it, but started crying, really hard.  He came to me, crying, and crawled onto my lap.  I said “that wasn’t what you wanted to hear” and “I know you want ice cream, but not today”, ect.  Zane, after hugging me a bit, sat up, looked at me and said “I sad”.  I was stunned. It is the absolute first time he has ever verbalized a feeling.  Totally unprompted too.  AND he said “I” instead of “Zane”.  In stunned silence, I pulled him to me to hug him again while I tried to gather myself (because clapping and jumping up and down would have been a slight bit inappropriate) and reiterated what he said “I know you’re sad, I’m sorry, it is hard to be sad”…and couldn’t stop myself…”but that was a really good job of using your words”.  Probably NOT what he wanted to hear.