Taking the Scenic Route

c&p from a parenting board I post on

Several years ago this woman found a sick, malnourished lion cub in the jungle. She took the cub home and fed him and brought him up until he was too big to keep anymore. She then made arrangements with a zoo in Colombia to take the lion. Here’s a video of what happened when she went to visit him in the zoo for the first time: http://www.telestereo.com/Archivos/video.html

You can just see the love.  Amazing

Ok, nothing earth shattering, but we have noticed a few things, although it is all subtle.  (stop here if talking about poop bothers you)

Physical:  He drinks a lot more.  LOTS.  His appetite is down (and he is starting to be suspicious of food we have ready for him, and tries to hang out with us while we prepare his food), his poops aren’t as runny and much smaller in size, and much less frequent.  He also started coughing, which could be a cold, allergies, or a sign that there is a yeast/bacterial overgrowth and there are toxins being released as some of that dies off.  However, it isn’t in a volume that leave the poops stringy at this point.

Behaviorial:  He is really stimmy.  It was in the “what to expect” list, and I have heard from the ST who has several kids who started the same time as he did, that all of them are really stimmy.  Zane is the opposite in that he seems more lethargic, and the other kids are literally bouncing off walls and can find zero focus.  He is quite a bit more “chatty”, although you can’t really understand him, so it feels like an increase in volume, but only a small increase in usable language.   He does seem to be using more “full sentence” scripts at home than the more typical “one word” scrips we usually hear.  Again, some subtle changes, but not some huge breakthrough.

So, it is worth continuing at this point.  After talking with the mom of his “friendship group” cohort, I think I might add in some additional probiotics into his yogurt.  She does that with her daughter and it seems to be helping her.

On a funny note, you have to feel sorry for the Clinical Educators and ST students at the university.  A huge chunk of their clientele started the enzymes at the same time (because we all went to the meeting with the author), so she is seeing client after client that is fairly unpredictable from the usual patterns.  I am sure all the parents are hungry for changes too, so she has to deal with us parents as well.  I bet it feels like tornado season at work these days.

Last night I spent 40 minutes sitting on the floor waiting for Zora to pick up the Candyland cards she threw on the floor.  (Zane was playing with them, she got mad and angerly pulled a good chunk of them on the floor).  In that 40 minutes I saw her try the “puppy dog/I’m too dang cute to clean” look, try to run away (multiple times), stamp her feet at me, pout, cry (ranging from pitiful to really, really ticked off), a few attempts at hitting an biting (which I shut down immediately), one attempt at the “broken arm” strategy (after a temper tantrum, she came up cradling her arm like she had broken it), and multiple tries of “oh, look, a star/gumdrop/ice cream cone “let’s distract mommy”, ect on the card.  Finally, she started picking them up like it was her idea all along, complete with hand clapping and cheers after each handful of cards. 

I can not believe it took 40 minutes.  I was so glad to see her finally start picking up the #$(%)$*@#& cards because I was pretty sick of the battle of wills, but I was actually more happy to see her extraordinary tenacity and the incredible depth of communication/manipulation tools she had.  It was a marvel to watch.  It was hard to keep a stern/neutral “mommy face” on while she pulled new trick after new trick out of her bag.  She is amazing.  I can’t believe how easy it comes for her.

My budding artist, obsessed with faces.  “eye, eye, mfff”

With her own sense of fashion

Zane at Hippotherapy today, outside for the first time

edit:  California, has the stupidest state judge in the Nation

They have now passed a law that you can’t homeschool your child unless you have a teaching degree.  What morons.

http://cbs13.com/local/home.school.ruling.2.670708.html

edited to add:  After a friend pointed out my title, I changed it to reflect a more accurate view. 

Also, want to take a moment to comment on this myself.

First, I really resent the fact that the judge used homeschooling as an excuse to remove these kids, when it CLEARLY wasn’t the true issue, nor was it the first issue with this family.  It was because the prosecutors were either too incompetent to force the changes for real reasons, or they were harassing this family without justification.  The family has been in court multiple times, and this was such a reach it is unreal.  To make such a sweeping statement that goes contrary to previous law (and common sense) is just stupid.

Second, I am particularly upset about the implication that you can’t teach well unless you have the piece of paper.   At the university level, you don’t require any sort of official “teaching certification” to teach, you just need a degree and show competence in the subject matter you are teaching.  My dh is a great teacher and holds no degree in teaching.  In fact, I doubt most people who teach at the university have a degree in teaching, (unless, maybe, you are in the education department.)

I am an adult, a parent, and an advocate and perfectly capable of teaching my child.  I care about his education and am well read in educational theory, appropriate lesson plans, curricula, and speech and language issues and therapies, and occupational therapies, and am constantly striving to increase and improve my knowledge on how to help my son (and, eventually, daughter) be as successful as possible.  I might not have gotten grades on everything, but I am every bit as competent as many of the professionals I deal with, and very willing to admit when I am stumped by something and willing to seek out better answers from the experienced.  (something professionals often don’t have the luxury of)  And, as much as they care (and they do care a great deal), they are never going to have the level of passion I do about my own children. 

If they don’t think that public school educated adults are capable of teaching, then what the heck are they wasting their time doing?

At home, there aren’t any significant changes, although he seems to be using full sentances a bit more, and a bit more eye contact.  In therapy, he looked mostly like he was irritated with me pulling him away from his video game and he didn’t really want to be there.  *sigh*

We started the GlutenEase, in addition to the Lacto.  We finally go the vitamins in the mail, and we planned to start him, but he didn’t want anything that the meds could be hidden in, so hopefully tomorrow we can start them.

no change.

Started out with enjoying the trash being picked up

Then we went to shoot a commercial for the Autism Walk in April

Zane meets up with an old friend there

Susan Peters, one of the anchors for our local ABC channel was doing the ad.  The first take Zane tried to take off his shirt, but he did ok after that.  Echolalia and shooting a commercial in front of a crowd of Autistic kids can create some funny outtakes as a phrase gets echoed across several different kids in a wave.  lol.

Then, his first day of Hippotherapy!

waiting

excitement builds

And here he is, doing his stretching.

Video of his first moments riding

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Video of a happy boy

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