JUDGING

So apparently I really upset, someone. On my blog. When I said, RETARDED. (I went and corrected it so that all the world wouldn't pass judgement on me. I just want to remind everyone, that I am not perfect. Before you start shouting and passing judgement on me or anything I say. Talk to me. I may have missed it, or maybe it was meant to be there. I can always offer an explanation. I am not perfect.. I am not set in stone. I am new to all of this.




~Amy~

Love in all the right ways.

I have a life!!!!! I know it sounds STUPID :). I said from the get-go, that this was going to be raw. I do not want to gussy up my parenting. I make horrible mistakes. ALL.THE.TIME. You have no idea! Then I proceed to beat the hell out of my self over it. The reason I want to make this a raw, non sugar coated blog, is because I see all these other parents who make it look so easy. UHHHH, HELLO!!! So, now that I have that out of the way.... 

My baby boy turned 5!!!!!

I was thinking back to when he was born. I was picturing me holding him. Nursing him. Imagining an amaing life with him. A strong healthy boy. :) I also remember hardly anything but screaming for the next 4-5 months. Me crying wondering what was wrong with him. It had gotten to the point that I knew there was nothing I could do as he screamed. So I would just turn him out on my knee and bounce him for an hour or so. one out and watch TV. I had people question how I could be so cold to my own child. I wasn't being Cold. I was just doing the only thing I could. Little did I know he was already showing signs of Autism. He wouldn't Belly laugh and was a genius! Had his ABC's down by 2!

NOW, On to my serious blogging!!! :)

JJ hit a milestone over the last week. My friend invited us to a Vacation Bible School for the kids. I eagerly said yes! This was a baptist church, and I have to say, my kids LOVED it! The first day was pretty rough. He was very unsure as I walked away, but he toughed it out! I was proud! The next day we worked a little more at it. By day 3 he told me, "Are you going to stay with me? Because I like it better when you are gone." I was so excited! So excited I almost forgot to be sad... I was VERY proud!!! He was waking up every morning asking if we were going Again!!!




My font is being silly, so forgive me....


So he is up on stage and everyone is doing the moves to the songs. JJ is right in there with them, while spinning in circles! I couldn't keep myself from laughing. Not laughing as in, 'HA HA! your weird!' It was a laugh of "You are awesome and so cute. Not a care in the world, just doing your thing!" I looked over to my friends and said, "He is screaming autism right now!" She giggled in agreement. I love what he does. His little Autism Quirks Are what makes him, him! I am so proud of him!!!  <3 <3 <3




I promise to update more soon. I have quite the rant to go on. But I didn't want to mess up the awesomness of this blog!






~AMY~

Things to avoid for ASD kids.

I found a rather interesting article today. I knew about one of these before, Aspartame, but the rest I had no idea about!   Things that should be avoided for ASD kids. I thought I would give a quick morning blog since I found this. Have you seen a difference in your children with the use of these? I would love to hear some feed back!


~Amy~

OFFICIAL!!!

It's official! We have it on paper. JJ is HFA. Now we can begin. He will be seeing a speech therapist,and a little bit of OT. It was a HUGE sigh of relief. Yes, I said relief. We were anxious for this diagnosis, and we are so glad we have it. Yes, ,I said I was glad. This means we can begin getting him help where he needs it. I have been looking into a charter school here in town. I like the idea since the classes are small and he will have more one on one time.


I am now searching for funding to get him some in home Speech Therapy. In a couple weeks we will know better where he stands age wise. Then we will know more about how to help him in all areas. The specialist was able to point out things i never saw. Now, as a mom, I have to work on figuring out how his mind works. That will be a daunting task. I have to figure out how to handle different situations, and his reactions. What is a good punishment for different behaviors that he does have control over.


We are able to start up his meds again. Tonight was his first dose. That will help him so much with the anxiety. He is much easier to help when his anxiety is lower. 


He had a meltdown at the store. There was a toy he wanted, and I explained that we couldn't get it today and it spiraled down from there. My husband did cave, but I feel bad when he gets so upset. I don't if that is manipulation on his part, or if it really was what I call "A do or die" situation in his head. I really will be struggling at differentiating between the Autism, and the manipulation. I don't want to do wrong by him, and in the same i don't want to cave to his manipulations. This will be a struggle. A BIG struggle. 

In the past week, he has allowed me to put him in his bed to sleep. (Normally he is either in my bed, or on his mattress next to my bed) I don't care where he sleeps, so long as he sleeps well, but I want him to have the confidence to be alone, in his room, and know I m just down the hall. It was good to hear from his Doctor that it was not separation anxiety, but just his anxiety of the unknown. Even if he knows what to expect, he gets over flowing with anxiety. I love this guy. He has change my perspective on parenting, and life.


~Amy~

What a weekend!!!!

My sister had this AMAZING idea that we should go get 3 day visitors passes to the YMCA. BEST.IDEA.EVER! We took my littles swimming. JJ has never been a fan of water. He is very skittish and his anxiety is sky high. Even when i hold him tight and he wraps his legs around me. Today he made progress!! There was a lovely girl there that was so patient and understanding. She could have been off swimming and having a good time, but she really wanted to help JJ put his face in the water. SHE SUCCEEDED! I am soooo super proud! Lei was quite the swimmer as well! She has figured out how to swim under water. She needs to work on her teqnique, but she is doing great! Loves to swim under the water. Pushing off of me, before I can say "GO!" She loves it! Her little eyes were so blood shot from opening them in the water.


JJ begins his testing tomorrow at Silver Child Development Center. I am anxious to see how it goes. 4 hours. I have no idea how it will go, but I will be praying he can handle it. I am so beat tonight, Would love to blog more, but I have got to get to bed! Love you all!


~Amy~

Burping Bubbles.

Sweet JJ has learned some new words and phrases. I know he didn't hear them from me!. He absorbs everything around him like a sponge. He could be fully engrossed in his cars and nothing can tear him away, when he suddenly starts  blurting out what they say on the TV(Disney channel), not seeming to notice. Today one of the kids on the block came to me and told me JJ had called him a stupid B****. WHOA!!!!  I was certain that they must have been mistaken, till I heard it slip from his mouth as I came to the front door. I was speechless. I directed him to apologize, when he told me to Piss off! ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? We had quite the discussion about how unacceptable it is to say those words, and then I asked him where he heard them. He shrugged his shoulders and I am left with no answer.

JJ seems to be sleeping ok. I can see his anxiety is pretty high. He has had 1 anxiety attack in the last week, which is great when it comes to him with out his medication. As an anti vacc, anti medication mother, I hate to think he will need to be medicated for his entire life. I want so bad to get him past the anxiety. I worry that it is genetic. My dad, my sister and I have some bad anxiety. I would love to see him get off his meds and not have the chaos in his head anymore. But I do see how much it affects his behavior too.Maybe as he grows. and we continue with the specialist, we will find him a better way to handle his anxiety.

~Amy~

To eat or not to eat?

Where do I begin? I could list all the foods JJ won't eat, but the list of what he will eat is much shorter. He is a plain child. The day he ate a taco without tearing apart, I posted it all over facebook, twitter and other peoples phones. I was that excited! I am sure the man sitting next to us thought I was nuts. Wondering to himself why I would get so excited over something so simple and overlooked. This was the beginning. I could finally combine foods. The problem? Finding what foods can be combined together with out him gagging and telling me he didn't like it.


JJ has always been a strictly chicken, rice, potatoes and cheese kid. An occasional hot dog, (Minus the bun) and chicken nuggets. He would pick apart a peanut butter and Jelly sandwich without realizing that the kids around him were just taking bites. He still likes plain pasta, and chicken and rice, but we have moved along quite a bit. He will eat a sub sandwich most times as one whole piece. That is enough to comfort me in knowing he is being nourished. He prefers plain separated items, but we do what we can to encourage him. We have a 2 bite club at our dinner table. He knows that if he takes 2 bites and still does not like it, he can be excused. We try those items over and over, hoping that they will grow on him. 


Tonight, I have managed to acquire the bedroom all to myself. It is quite shocking, but very nice. We shall see how it goes!  Hope all have a great night. 


~Amy~

This button is broken.

Today has been a very long day. Melt down this morning that has led to more melt downs through the day. My buttons were more than pushed. They were MASHED. Like a nuclear power plant was going to explode, and the only way to stop it was to push a specific button. It was pushed... like a million times!!! Ok, so maybe not a million times, but man is that button worn out! 

Between being mean to his sister and doing things he KNOWS not to do. He has started running from me while he screams NO! If that in it's self is not frustrating, he does it outside. While running. Up the street. Screaming. The neighbors all have had a good look at me. Running barefoot up the road, begging him to stop. I am not small. I am about 200 lbs, and it is not a pretty sight. Only my closest neighbor knows of his diagnosis. I don't like to flaunt it for fear that people will treat him differently. So I am sure they are all wondering why I can't get my kid to behave. Don't worry about how i raise my kid lady! Besides, I'm not the one that named my dog Doo Doo!

Dinner time was same as ever. Plain food. Plain noodles and some spam, along with tangerines. I love to cook, and have had to keep it under control. His little taste buds prefer chicken and rice. Gets kind of dull after a while.. but at least he eats! Right? 

~Amy~

A Day without meds, is like trying to swim, in a pool of pudding.

I miscalculated, and we ran out of JJ's meds today. We do not have a car and rely on family to get us places. He is currently on Intunive, and it help him so much with the anxiety and getting to sleep. When he does not have his meds, we are normally awake till 4 in the morning. He is so hard to focus. He goes into his spells where he doesn't seem to hear me. I have to physically take his hand, and even then,, he winds up on the ground in a fit.


So you can imagine my surprise today when I gave him "The look", and he registered. There are words we do not allow in our house. Stupid, Shut up, poop, dookie, etc... Well, he looked at a friend and called him a name that used the word poopy. I looked over to see him immediately look up at me. I was already ecstatic that he knew it was wrong. I then gave him "The Look". Then you could hear him say "Ooooooh!" as though he had this epiphany about the look I had given him. Like "Now that makes sense! All those looks were for something naughty I did!" I was laughing hysterically inside. It was so great to know that my look will do it's job! Now, If I could just get him to clean the play room!


Today tested my patience. Big time. I was proud though. The weather was nice and I sent them outside to play.  They took off up and down the street with their friends, JJ played in the dirt as always. Lining up his cars on his "Dirt road" that he makes every day, only for me to sweep it up each night. I managed to get him in the shower tonight. As for dinner... looks like cheez its and some sprout TV!


~Amy~

A little diddy, bout Lei and JJ.

Let me start by telling you a bit about myself. I am 29 and married, with 2 beautiful children. My son JJ is 4, almost 5 and was diagnosed with HF AS. He is currently medicated for high anxiety and will be going on this week for a round of testing to see where we are and how we fall on the spectrum. We received this diagnosis back in August. 


My daughter Lei is 3. She is as NT as they come. She is what most of you call, baby 101. Textbook. She is all girl and the sweetest thing you will ever meet. Then you get to know her. She NEVER shuts up! She sings in the shower. She plays pretend with her dolls. She is such a cutie!


We realized that JJ may have some issues when he was a bit younger. He was always an anxious child, and hard to understand. He would intentionally hurt animals, but couldn't explain animals. He would hit or pull their tails. He had a VERY HARD time expressing himself to anyone. I didn't really think to see anyone until my mom brought up that something "wasn't quite right". She couldn't explain it. 


We saw a therapist who immediately realized what was going on. They referred us to Silver Child Development Center. From that point on, I read books, surfed the internet and talked with people who had the same experiences. That brought me here.


~Amy~

Just the beginning.

I am here to share my experiences. My triumphs, and my defeats. My advice, my support and my shoulder. Life can be hard, and it helps to know that there are other people out there that do understand and are willing to listen. It is not an easy journey, and it is exhausting, but is also the most rewarding and amazing thing you will ever do in your life. It is the funny, the success, the smiles, the accomplishments (no matter how small to the rest of the world) that we share with one another that push us through. They remind us that it does have it's good moments. 


The struggle that comes with raising a special needs child is one of the toughest. We need each other. As the parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles. We need to support each other.


I want to blog here daily about my son. His awesomness and life with him. :) I would love to hear your experiences as well. You can also connect with me via FB. Button up there on the left hand side!




~Amy~