Starting Second Grade Already?

He's off! Jake just boarded his bus, bound for second grade, and I'm not gonna lie.  I'm doing the happy dance!  Today is the first day in MONTHS that I've had all to myself. I'm resisting the urge to go back to bed.  I have way too much to do to catch up after an entire summer with kids in tow.

This summer has been amazing though.  After an ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR in which the teacher did nothing.  I kid you not. Nothing.  I'd walk into class and find kids standing on the table, others running around, shelves cleared, and no work being done; Despite countless meetings and discussions with principals and Directors of Special Education, therapists, and everyone I could talk to, Jacob digressed instead of progressed last school year.  There was no inclusion last year.  How could we when he had begun hitting and spitting again? When he was found in the middle of a five-lane road, within feet of an active railroad line, and at a school that borders a highway? I spent most of last year clawing my out of a pit created by a teacher who didn't care about the progress of the kids.

I may have cried when I found out he was getting a new teacher--one he'd had in preschool and is gung-ho about making sure the kiddos have the best education possible.

The second Jacob started Summer break, I went about the business of fixing everything that broke during school.  We went to a developmental neurologist who recommended a book, "1-2-3 Magic" By Dr. Thomas W. Phelan - Because it's 18 months later and we STILL didn't have an ABA provider for Jake. Two days into implementing the book, and we began to see results.  MAJOR results.

He went from flopping and throwing tantrums for thirty minutes at a time, kicking, screaming, spitting, and attempting to bite, to 10 seconds of showing displeasure, then complete compliance.  No drugs (he was diagnoses with ADHD and they wanted to put him on Ritalin). No spankings.  No arguing. No frustration.  He is now manageable. Hallelujah!

He's beginning to talk too.  When he gets made, he'll sign entire sentences to me, which I try not to laugh at. But it's so darn cute to see him scowling as his little hands are gesticulating wildly telling me why he's upset. I love it!  When he speak,s he signs and tries to speak the words at the same time.  Every day he gets a little bit closer to being understandable. And he's gone from saying one syllable of one word, to trying to say two or three words at a time.  It's glorious!

His independence is increasing too.  Last year he wanted me to dress him and make his food. Now he dresses himself, and is beginning to work the microwave to help me fix him simple meals too.  I expect he'll be making his own sandwiches and other foods by the end of the school year.

Plus, there haven't been any elopements in months.  My stress levels are dropping and I'm having opportunities to enjoy my son, rather than just manage him.

Life is good.  Change is good--as long as it's in the right direction.  My little boy is growing up.  Not only physically, but emotionally and cognitively.  I think I'm gonna just sit here on my first day of school and bask in that knowledge for a little while.  Yeah.  Life IS good.

Wrist Wraps: The Unexpected Solution to Sensory Issues

So I went through a phase several months back when I was doing a lot of product testing.  Companies would send me their products, I test them out, then I'd blog, Tweet, or Instagram about whatever I was using.

For the most part, most everything was good.  Occasionally, I'd find something so wonderful I'd buy more when I ran out.
One  of those unexpected items were wrist wraps (If you go onto Amazon you can find the for under $10).  If you don't lift weights, you probably don't know what they are. But the concept is simple.  It's a thick elastic band, much like an ace bandage, that wraps around your wrists and Velcros at the end.  It's designed to strengthen your wrists when you're lifting heavy weights.  Since my kids are big into lifting because of sports, I decided to get a pair of wrist wraps.

Lo and behold, little Jacob got a hold of my wraps and LOVES them!  I think it's a sensory thing for him.  He'll put them on and take them off several times a day.  At first he needed my help, but now he can pretty much do it all by himself.  He wraps the elastic around his forearms as tight as he wants it, then runs around the house doing his thing until he decides he's done and takes them off.

I figured after a day or two he'd be tired of the novelty. But it's been nearly 6 months now, and he still pulls them out and wraps his arms.

I'm finding he also likes having the weight of my arm over him while he sleeps, and I've heard them talk about getting him a weighted lap blanked for school to see if that will help settle him down.

I guess the moral of this story is: As a parent of a special needs child, I must always think outside the box.  You never know what your child will find beneficial.

FINALLY....an Explosion in Speech!

For anyone who has followed me, or my journey with Jacob, you know that speech has been one of our biggest struggles.

Getting ready to go to speech therapy! 

Not only is he getting 30 minutes of speech at school each day, but he has another 30 minutes per week at a private agency.

Jacob's progress has been excruciatingly slow.  But there's been progress, nonetheless.  When he started at Youthful Horizons, he was essentially mute.  He didn't even grunt much.  We had him using Geminii system, but he got bored quickly.  And I think that's because the Geminii system is geared more towards people with Autism.  There was very little emotion in the programs, and it relied heavily on repetition.  All good things, don't get me wrong.  But he was bored. So we topped out on his progress pretty quickly, then backslid for a while. And, at $99/month for the program, we couldn't afford to keep using something that wasn't working.

About that time, we found Debbie at Youthful Horizons She and Jake have been an awesome fit.  She's mellow, nice, and she has all the best toys--at least Jacob seems to think so!

I've learned to appreciate the process of learning to talk.  First there is learning to push out air forcefully enough to make noise. Then you must learn to control your muscles enough to manipulate your lips enough to create specific sounds. And don't forget about placement of the tongue, jaw, and awareness of the cheeks, face, and other muscles.  All of these things had to be addressed in proper progression, while concurrently teaching him other means of communication via the PECS system and more sign language to enable communication RIGHT NOW.

Jacob is nearly 6 1/2 now.  Sign language is still his primary language, but now he's added a few words to his vocabulary.  He can say things like purple, bye, dad, mom (pronounced ba), Elisha (pronounced uheesa), he calls Courtney (seesa), bus, please (pronounced psss), blue (boo), there it is, that, dog, Craig (his PT), and occasionally, when he's in a good mood, I'll here his say Debbie.  13 words and 1 phrase. 

I'll TOTALLY take it!

And on those days when I'm frustrated that he still prefers to yell rather than use his words, I remind myself that we couldn't understand his older brother (who is normally functioning and actually quite smart) until he was 12! 

Patience, grasshopper.  Patience.

Stopping To Smell The Roses

 Last post I talked a lot about all our plans for this summer, and how excited I was to be to be doing 'nothing' with my children. Here we are more than half way through the summer and we have done none - count 'em ZERO of our 'nothing' planned activities this summer.  But you know what?  Amazingly, I'm OK with that.

 One of the biggest lessons I've learned from being a mother of a special needs child and 3 other above-average intelligence siblings is to just go with it.  Hope for the best, but expect the worst.  I guess I wouldn't exactly say expect the worst, because sometimes I can actually get stuff done.  But I've learned not to get bent out of shape if things don't happen the way I want them to.

For instance, NO - Jacob still is not potty trained.  But, if I let him run around nekkid (which is his preferred clothing status anyway), he does make it to his potty toilet about 80% of the time.  If he's clothed, he'll end up wetter than if he'd jumped in the swimming pool.  There seems to be some sort of disconnect having to do with the whole 'take your pants off before you pee' thing.  I don't know.  But I'm happy with his progress and still hope to have him potty trained by the time he starts back to school. 

 Although I never got Jake into swimming lessons, I've seen tons of improvement in his gross motor skills.  For instance, a few months ago, he wasn't able to navigate the McDonalds play area.  He could go up, but couldn't go down, and spent most of his time yelling for his sister to come help him.  At 5 years old, she wasn't too keen on following her little brother around helping him up and down the obstacles.  And I don't blamer her.  Today, we went to McDonalds and Jake didn't need help a single time.  He can go up, down, through the netting, down the slides, through the tubes, and is completely independent.  Not to mention the fact that at home, he does somersaults, jumps, tackles, walks up and down the stairs without any assistance, and a whole myriad of other tasks he couldn't do at the beginning of summer.

 

Plus, Jakes's been trying out a new program we discovered to help with his speech (he's still only doing a couple consonant sounds) called the Gemiini program (www.Gemiini.org).  He's 2 days into it and already mimicking some of the sounds, pointing at the animals, and his babbling has begun to accelerate.  I'm cautiously optimistic.  I'm sure I'll give an update on my next entry. 

The toughest part about the summer time has been the change in his schedule.  Jacob does NOT like to have his schedule messed with.  And going from several months in the strict schedule of the early intervention class to being home all the time and dealing with the chaos of our large family, there have been some adjustment periods - i.e. he acts out by getting hyper and getting into nearly everything he can get his hands on.  I've spent most of my summer just going from mess to mess to mess cleaning up after the boy. 

 At first, it drove me crazy, but after a while, I realized that he was just curious.  Jake is an active boy with an active mind.  Without the stimulus of school, he is busy trying to find other ways to keep his mind busy.

We've still gone to track meets, and play dates, lots of time with extended family, reading books, exploring, playing outside, etc.  We still plan on going camping, and tomorrow our family will be watching a minor league baseball game complete with fireworks afterward (That should be exciting!).   But I no longer worry about my long to-do list screaming at me from the kitchen table.

So until next time, just know we're be-bopping around the house, doing our own thing.  Although we don't look like we're doing much, we take time to stop and smell the roses, enjoy the little things, enjoying that fantastically wonderful thing we call family and health, and bask in the sunshine of life.