Progress in Doodleville

Since school has started just three weeks ago we have a different Doodle. 

He's changing daily, he seems more alert and more interested in things in general.  He LOVES to play with Jimmy now, before he wouldn't give him the time of day, although he needs to take him in small doses.   He's able to wait a little longer for things without freaking out and melting down (insert big sigh here) and he's eating bananas and drinking out of a cup.  He's gotten really good at feeding himself and he seems to be a little more independent at home.

The best and most encouraging change for me is that he is making different sounds and he's making these sounds on purpose...he's gone from vowel sounds only to now doing some dehdehdeh's and some fuh-fuh-fuh's.

I even put my big girl panties on and took the Doodle and Jimmy out to dinner tonight at Applebees--we went a little later in the evening so there would be NO WAIT--we went to a family restaurant with lots of noise (to drown out the Doodle), I brought snacks--and as soon as we sat down I explained our situation and told the waitress that he was Autistic and has NO sense of time or waiting and asked if she could bring us chips and salsa right away.  It worked out great.  Once the chips and salsa came he was completely entertained until his dinner came.  We ate and when I could see things were getting a little sketchy, I asked for to go boxes and the check and we were there before any damage or screaming could be done.  I had to explain to Jimmy that unfortunately he had to kind of pick up the pace and eat that we didn't have time for a lot of conversation.  I think he understood but I felt bad for rushing him.

All in all I'm watching the progress and it makes me so happy.  I'm doing my best to take things for what they are and not get my hopes up too high and understand that the Doodle's development is on a completely different schedule and wave-length than most.  Que Serra Serra.

Progress

Finally. 

A little progress around here. 

I thought the Doodle would be 16 years old, drinking out of a bottle and completely chewing off the nipple and choking on it...He is now drinking out of a "training" cup.  Before, you could not even touch a sippy cup to his mouth without him screaming, kicking, crying and even gagging.  It was strange, the second the new plastic nozzle-thingy would even touch his lips, he would almost throw up.  When you have a kid on seizure medication you do not want them throwing up.  So I bought every single kind of sippy/training cup there is, all different types and it was always the same thing.  We'd try cups with straws built in, sports bottles, everything.  A couple of more issues we have is that he refuses to drink any other liquid besides his Vanilla Soy Milk.  No water.  No juice. Nothing else and if you try, he gags and throws such a fit, he'll go on strike and then it would take him all day to accept his bottle again and I worry about dehydration.  But finally, a training cup! It's pretty cool really because his BPA free bottles, which I love, have graduating spouts--which takes his bottle and turns it into a sippy cup.  The plastic on the spout is perfect because it's not too hard of plastic, it's still fairly soft and squishy.  I have to cut the opening a little bit so that the liquid comes out faster because I'm trying to get him off the sucking...and more on the drinking.

He also still can't suck out of a straw...I get the run around on this one on who is going to help him.  The OT says it's his Speech Therapist and the Speech Therapist says it's the OT.  Hmmmmm.  How about we all work with him and try to help him with it instead of looking for a loop hole in a job description?

So we have made some progress, although I wouldn't exactly raise the flags and bake a cake because this was a 12 month milestone that we are hitting at age 4. But, that's ok, I'll take it.  Better late than never as they say.

Progress

 

This might not look like much but for an autistic Doodle it speaks volumes! A lot of autistic children don't know how to play with toys or have different ways to play with them. This has been the case for the Doodle. They might obsess about spinning the wheels or opening the car doors and not play with the car as it might have been intended in an imitation type of play. So out of no where, all by himself tonight he took his little Jeep that goes with his Daddy garage and wheeled it around the house. He rolled it and for a minute he was perfectly content playing by himself. Then I interrupted him to take a couple of pictures to document this MILESTONE which through him off track and then he immediately began obsessing about opening and closing the hood of the jeep...taking it on and off and on and off and on and off.

Baby steps.

Progress or Hopeful Thinking?

I'm happy to say that the Doodle is two days seizure free. Could the new medicine be working already? I'm going to remain hopeful.

Grammy and Jim took turns watching Dominic today so I could have some friends over for a scrapbooking day and Birthday lunch for my favorite cousin, Deanne. The one I used to lock out of the house naked and who I blamed spilled chocolate milk on our white shag rug when she didn't. We ate. A lot. And scrapped. A lot.

But most importantly, today was a big day for Dominic. He learned how to peddle his bike! Before he would sit on it but couldn't get his feet to peddle to make the bike go--now he peddles all around. I'm so excited that his little noggin is cooperating with his feet and that he can do this. Might not sound like much, but for Dominic this is HUGE.

The stupid cat got out today. She's still in heat and climbed through one of the holes she tore in our screen door. I hope she's happy now; probably knocked up. Little whore.