Back to School Soon!

This post has been copied from our "Care Page"
Posted Sep 1, 2013 9:30pm


I am sorry that I have been MIA lately…with summer coming to an end…and trying to spend time with the little ones before they head back to school, I have been very busy. Piper heads back to school on Tuesday, Hayden back to pre school on Thursday…and we made the very difficult decision to pull Brady OUT of public school and have him at the Autism center full time. In his progress meeting at the end of school last year the "officials" decided it was time for Brady to go on to kindergarden. Not because he was ready…but, age wise he could no longer stay in the pre school class with the teacher we LOVE, but rather HAD to move on to kindergarden. Mentally he is still like 3-4 years old regardless of his chronological age! So, Steve and I decided to have him full time 40 hours a week at the autism center where he gets intense one on one therapy 40 hours a week. We decided it would be better for him, and of course we still hold out hope that one day he will be "normal" and more importantly indistinguishable from his peers. We know that kids can be very cruel…and we did not want him labeled by his peers as the "retarded" kid. I HATE that word!! But, kids can be very mean and they don't forget. SO, our hope is…someday he will be normal enough (we all have our quirks…and that is OK) but we hope for potty trained, talking, not in need of a one on one PARA 24/7, and very few meltdowns…then at least he could pass for normal as far as his peers are concerned. If not…that is OK too…but we feel we needed to TRY to protect him from being teased. Then if someday he IS ready…he will just be the "new kid" and no one will be the wiser!
Another exciting development is, after 3 long years on the autism assist dog waiting list…Brady's name has finally come up!!! This will make life so much easier for our family! Right now we can not even go out our front door to visit with the neighbors, and their kids with out Brady trying to run off. It is very stressful! Once he has the dog, he will be tethered to the dog, and the dog will be trained to just lay down if Brady tries to run away. This comes at a very good time…since Brady is getting almost too big to ride in carts at the store anymore. With the dog…he won't be able to bolt in the store either!!
Diet update…Our family went gluten free as of January 1st, although it is hard to see changes since we are with Brady every day…here are some things I have noticed. Brady hardly EVER hits himself anymore. (that could also be a combo of the diet, and being able to communicate better) He has better eye contact. (not normal….but better) He makes more attempts at verbal communication, and says about 50 words VERY clearly. He still has word finding difficulty when trying to use spontaneous (not repeated) language. But like Steve says….who cares if it is one thing or a combination of many things that helps him get better…as long as he continues to make improvements…we will keep with the changes we have made. We also make every effort to buy organic when we can. We buy dairy products without hormones, and try to eliminate as many GMO's from our diet as humanly possible! We have not been brave enough to make the leap to dairy free yet!!
Potty training…Brady now stays "dry" most days. We set a timer for every one and 1/2 hours and we take him. There have even been a couple times he has pooped on the potty! Right now we are more trained then he is but we feel he "gets it"….cuz we put real underwear under his training pants, and he does NOT like it when he is wet…so he has only wet like once since we started doing that…except when he poops, then he wets too. But…it is coming along!! Slowly but surely! Funny how when you have "normal" kids how all those milestones just seem, well, "normal", and people who have "normal" kids can take it all for granted.

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