Love, Erika

NC Zoo

 

Big Wheel!

Spring is here! Time to get outside!

Drew is not a kid who automatically enjoys hanging out outside, so he needs to have some very specific activities that he enjoys to motivate him to stay outside. He always loved his tricycle, but last year he totally trashed his front tire and wore it out. It was pathetic to see him try to ride that thing with the plastic wheel going WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP as he flopped around the cul-de-sac on it.  And he's not entirely at a great comfort level with his big boy bike yet. He does ride it, but it's hard for him, and he's a little nervous about it.

So Dave and I knew that we needed to get him a FUN option for this year. Clearly his old tricycle was not going to cut it, and he's not quite ready for the big bike yet as a fun option, so Dave found him this crazy big wheel and it goes FAST. He loves it. It has an awesome flag, too, and he has such a big dopey grin when he's ZOOMING around on this thing.

Yesterday, 80 degrees......

I have some fun HDSLR video too, but I have no idea how to edit it....... ;)

Drew's Autistic Superpowers

It was right at the end of January that we started to become aware of some neat abilities that Drew has with regard to memorization of small details. Like the vast majority of autistic kids, he's a highly visual learner. Because his receptive and expressive language skills are a little bit lacking, when he hears things being told to him, it's hard for him to process right away. But if he can SEE something written down, or shown to him in pictures, it becomes ironclad in his brain and locked away forever. He's always been so observant, and notices such tiny little details and differences. Classic autism.

So we have this wipe-board calendar on the wall in the kitchen that we scribble all our appointments, therapists, events, etc on throughout the month, like any normal family.  As Drew became increasingly aware of months, dates, days of the week, time, clocks, etc.... he became sort of obsessed with the calendar too. It was like he would constantly study it and soak it all up, trying to find reason and predictability about it. Every morning he would get out of bed and fly to the kitchen to stand in front of the calendar and see what was going to happen that day, what happened yesterday, what was now coming up sooner than it was the day before.  He loved the fact that he could SEE it, and the great thing about it is that now he can read so we don't have to depend on his picture schedule so much. He can look at a calendar or day planner like any other person and just READ it.

He loves his routine, depends on it, and loves a schedule. His whole day and demeanor gets thrown off if he doesn't have his schedule outlined. Something visual that he can look at and know it's predictable and know what's coming next.

So I have a point...... I'm getting to it...... the calendar. We began to notice that he was memorizing the whole thing. He knew exactly which dates he did not have school that month, and could rattle them all off. When asked what days he saw Cass in January, he thought for a second and said, "6, 13, and 20." Which was correct. All 4 of us plus our cats had dentist appointments in January, and he could recall the dates and times for all of those appointments.  Obviously he had been staring at that calendar for the whole month so maybe it wasn't that impressive that someone witha  good memory could remember all that (although I know I sure couldn't!). So then Dave erased the whole board and started to write up everything for February. Drew was standing there watching in mind-blown fascination, and you could tell he was excited to see what he was going to write down. So Dave wrote down everything that we knew of at that point, and as soon as he got done, turned Drew around and started quizzing him about what he saw. And he got all of it right. Immediately.

Now I can't remember a damned thing from one moment to the next; that's why I write it all down. But Drew actually looked at it, and filed it away in his brain. Crazy.

So then we started testing him some more. We wrote down our address, and it was instantly memorized. Dave wrote down his cell phone number and after looking at it and repeating it a few times, it was memorized. He can even recall this stuff the next day without looking at anything.  It doesn't matter that he doesn't really know what the heck a phone number or an address IS, but he can memorize anything. He can barely even pronounce Goffstown, but he knows that's what he's supposed to say. 

One day in the car I verbally told him my cell phone number. And he was able to repeat it back to me like one time, but couldn't remember after that. It wasn't until I actually wrote it down for him that BOOM it was memorized. So he really does have to see it and lock it away. (it took me probably a good year to learn my own cell phone number, just for comparison...... sad, but true).

So finally we were joking about it with his therapists, and Dave said jokingly he was going to teach him Pi. And that night, he did. He wrote out Pi to eight decimal places and it was memorized. Here's Drew reciting it the next morning without having looked at anything since the night before:

I'm not convinced yet that he has a photographic memory, but I do know he has an extremely good memory from visual cues, so we will see. I think it's neat how his autistic superpowers are developing! 

Drew's First Race

Today Drew did his first race as an official registered participant: The Millenium Mile in Londonderry. He did so awesome, and was soooo excited all day long waiting to go. He kept saying proudly, "I'm a big boy today. I'm bigger. I'm taller now? I'm big today."

He got his number:

It was hard for him to stand around and wait, because you have to get there soooo early to find parking and stuff, and then wait around as the crowds throngs get bigger and louder, and the music blares louder, and the guy talking on the VERY LOUD speaker gets louder. Poor Drew. He almost lost it, but he reeaaaaalllllllly wanted to do this so he pulled himself together and got through it. His self-regulating abilities are becoming very impressive!

After I dropped him off at the starting area with Dave, I went and drove to the finish line so I could be ready to take pictures of them when they came across.He loved people cheering for him and was just beaming with pride, and a little bit overwhelmed too. We bribed him with gummy snacks for finishing and he was absolutely hellbent on getting to those.

I had the most amazing shot of the finish line, with the two of them crossing over. I had worked and planned and positioned myself in the most particular way to get lined up for this awesome shot but right as it happened this big frizzy haired woman with a Ron Paul bumper sticker across the back of her shirt got RIGHT between me and Dave & Drew. SO irritated. REALLY???

Santa Baby Rewind

Not much new to share, so I'll post some cute baby pics from when the boys were both 6ish months old. This was a cute age, but I'm soooooo glad we're well past that now. :) I love the fact that Parker wants me to tell him about Santa every night as I'm tucking him in, and he talks about him flying in the sky, and opening presents and about how we went to the mall today to see Santa, and Drew sat with him but Parker was scared and sad. He TOLD me this. Something about how Drew asked for a dinosaur and Parker wants a train. That kid is amazing.

Making good on Halloween

Tonight Halloween was redeemed!  We had a great time trick-or-treating and the kids had fun, so I've made my peace with Halloween this year for the most part and had decent closure. Oh well. October was kind of messed up and disjointed and out of control, except for the first week during which I was having an awesomely fun week at home in North Carolina!  Back in NH, from a job perspective I shot some of my very best work of the year this month, and was so happy with the photos. On a personal level it was a little too chaotic and disappointing with not being able to go to Spookyworld or out to dinner for our anniversary, and having Halloween snowed out. And not to mention probably the worst thing overall is that our neighbor across the street who created such fantastic graveyard scenes for Halloween  the past few years passed away about six weeks ago so he was really, really missed this year. So sad that he went before he could see his favorite holiday one more time. So it wasn't the greatest Halloween year ever but everybody had fun (eventually) and it wasn't completely cancelled, only postponed, so I guess we'll take it.

Turns out, our "new" day for Halloween was beautiful and 55 degrees (not bad for this time of year!) so it was pretty nice. We managed to get all our leaves in the yard all cleaned up, which is a month-long HUGE process, and hopefully it is mostly taken care of. The leaves seem to really be holding onto the leaves late this year.

So Parker wouldn't wear his monkey costume tonight as expected so I pulled out his hamburger suit from last year. It still fit pretty well, although snug in the arms, and he was fine with it. I don't really know what the difference was, but he was pretty opinionated about it, so I let him have it.  They were so excited about candy, trick or treating, the lights we put outside, the candle in the (mostly furry moldy) jack-o-lantern,and everything else. AMAZING how Drew and Parker both arrived at an understanding of the holiday at the same time.

Amazing Drew

Time for an update on Drew! His development over the past 6 months can be called nothing less than a transformation. I realize that I haven't really talked about his work with his speech therapist Cass, who started with him in late April. Speech therapy is such an interesting thing, and now having worked with two of them in the span of Drew's short life I can attest to the amazing things they can accomplish.

When Cass first started working with Drew, she immediately targeted play skills. Huh? At first I was pleasantly confused about what the point was, but as always, I totally trust their strategy and knowledge about what they're trying to do, and how to get there. Cass explained that speech development is closely tied with imaginary play skills and social interactions, and even had this cool chart that outlined children's ages and typically what kinds of speech they're capable of, as well as the corresponding level of play skills. Fascinating, let me tell you. Drew was just 4 at that time, and some of his speech and social skills varied widely from 24 months to 36 months. It was kind of disheartening to find that out, but we were glad he was in the right hands. :)

Here's Drew and Cass at the walk for Autism that we did earlier in the month for the NH Autism Society.

So to make a long story short, as he started to learn how to play and interact with other people during play, the communication development started to form EXACTLY as it was outlined on the chart. Incredible. She explained that many kids on the spectrum have to be directly taught how to play, even the simplest things that most kids just do naturally. It was kind of painstaking sometimes, and he kind of freaked out a little bit when introduced to the Little People and how to make them "talk" to each other and such simple things. But within a couple of weeks he amazingly was starting to have imaginary interactions with them.  Before we started working with Cass I had always just kind of thought that Drew just wasn't very creative, because he never really played with things the way you'd think a 4 year old would, but as it turned out, it was the autism coming through. I just didn't know what he needed. Thank goodness for Cass and her knowledge of autism! So amazing. And now Drew carries on play scenarios with his trains and Little People and comes up with such cute things.

In the past month or so some other really interesting developments have gone on with him. First, he is now having nightmares and bad dreams and has become appropriately afraid of certain things. Which is not a happy thing, but it's great because it shows that his social/emotional development has reached a stage where he COULD have bad dreams. Even Parker, at age 2 has nightmares but Drew never did until now because his brain just wasn't wired up for it until now. He worries about the coyotes when they howl at night and is really afraid of them. It's interesting to see his fears develop because it shows a growing emotional maturity. (we show him videos on You Tube so he can see exactly what a coyote looks like when it's howling and he seems to understand that they're just dogs. He's comforted by things that he can actually see.)

Secondly, he's discovered music!  When I took him to Kindermusik back when he was 7-12 months old he would cry and howl and be miserable during it. Looking back on it, and knowing what I know now about his sensitivities and sensory issues with music and sound, I realize I was torturing the poor kid. I feel terrible. But some of that has mitigated and now he enjoys music and songs, especially nowadays: The Wiggles!! Yay!  We have had this Wiggles CD that we've played in the car on and off ever since he was a baby and he NEVER had any interest in it. Then all of a sudden in October he's all singing along with the songs at the top of his lungs, requesting it be turned on when we get in the car, asking for it to be turned up louder, and singing the songs on his on at home. His favorite song is Dorothy the Dinosaur, I'm sure because of the chorus of "D-O-R-O-T-H-Y!!"  Letters are like crack to him (that, and gummy bears...)

We covered a lot of ground in the past 6 months with Cass, and when she recently gave him an evaluation on language use and understanding, he scored a "Normal" score for his age for the first time in his life. He's never scored as "normal" for anything up till that point. :) :)

He's really turning into such a cool little dude, and he can now ask questions, relevant questions, and understand answers and reasons. He's curious and so, so smart with an intense attention to detail. NOTHING escapes this kid. It's so great to be able to talk to him, and explain things including time sequences and have him understand. He still can't tell time obviously, but he has a firm grasp of "first, then" and even a sequence of 3-4 things to happen. Which is so great, rather than have him be constantly surprised about everything that happens.

He plays this video game called Mine Craft and you dig and build and do all kinds of things, and Drew is like a wizard at this game. He's working the mouse in his right hand, and at the same time using his left hand to punch letters on the keyboard which do certain actions, he can build structures after searching and gathering materials, managing it all across 3 different inventories, and all kinds of complicated things. It looks way too complex even for me.

And finally, he can read now. Thanks to Dave's work with him at bedtime. What first started with sight words has now turned in to full literacy. He can read his own bedtime books, ads on TV, signs in the stores, and anything else he can find. It's kind of amazing really. He loves it, so it wasn't hard to get him motivated to learn as many words as he now knows. Cass was impressed because he even reads and understands the difference between the words "now" and "know" in the same sentence. Crazy smart little dude!

So he's really come a long way and we're enjoying him. It's interesting how he was always the "difficult child" to take anywhere, and now he's really the easy one. He doesn't flip out in public anymore like he used to (usually) and has mellowed out into a little guy who just wants to go along and be curious and check things out.  Christmas is going to be really fun this year. He's finally getting it! Even last year he just had no clue about what was going on. He liked it and all, but still didn't understand it. But now, he has full on understanding about Santa, and all the decorations and things that go with Christmas. It will be a lot of fun. :)

The Year that Halloween Got Cancelled

I had this nightmare...... that 2 days before Halloween there was a crazy blizzard and it dropped more than a foot of snow on New England, and the damage was so bad that they had to cancel Halloween.

Hmmmm...... not a dream. Very much a reality. I CANNOT believe this happened. I don't think I ever imagined in my wildest dreams that something so unthinkable could happen, but it did. 8 million people without power for days on end. What the HELL just happened, was all I could think. Bitter much? I'll tell you who was bitter--ME. The damndest thing I ever saw. Ridiculous. We lost power Saturday night and got it back just today, Wednesday, around noon. They had to cancel Halloween because nobody had power, so no lights =  no trick or treating. Unreal.

Anyway, the first day of the power outage was the regularly scheduled trick or treating at the mall. I took Drew knowing this could very well be the one and only Halloween activity he would get to participate in. Meanwhile I  think I would rather have stabbed hot needles into my eyes, than fight the crowds at the mall for this joke of an activity. UGH. Heinous. I LOVE Halloween, you know this, but I swear this is truly one thing that is so incredibly painful that I hope to never go again. The stores run out of candy within the first 45 minutes so it's just a madhouse trying to throw elbows and get around. But Drew has a great time and doesn't know that this is NOT how it's supposed to be. He's so shy and doesn't want to merge to the front of the crowd so I have to chuck him up there just to procure one little Now & Later for his candy bucket (which he can't even really eat). so it's just lame. But he still loves it, so that's what matters. Here are a few of my really bad photos which ironically look like a pretty tame experience. I don't know how I manged to make it look peaceful and fun in the photos. :) It was NOT, believe me.

Anyway, I'm not done with this topic but they're planning on rescheduling trick-or-treating for this weekend. Hopefully the jack-o-lantern that we carved on Saturday night before the power went out willl not rot before then. :)

The Fall Goes On...

And time marches on. I love this time of year but can't seem to get a grip. We need 2% milk, but with each trip to any kind of store I can't seem to remember to get any, even when it's clearly written in huge letters on my list. So I'm beyond the place where list-making seems to help. I'm just insane. I can't get it together. 

At any rate, I tried to get some photos of the kids today while the last few leaves are clinging to the ends of the branches. Won't be long and they'll be all gone.

Drew is excited for Halloween, and seems to mostly remember going trick or treating at the mall last year. And keeps asking when we can go do that.  He loves to wear his monkey costume, although he's certain he's going as a ghost this year (he's not.)  Parker also has a matching monkey costume but is resistant to wearing it, so who knows if he will wear it for trick or treating on Halloween night. I'll have to bust out his hamburger costume again from last year (which still kinda fits) and see if he'll wear that if necessary.

A Romp in the Leaves

I've been bemoaning the fact that October is half over and I have barely had time to notice the fall..... and now the leaves are falling off the trees just as hard as they possibly can and the colors are so vivid now. Today while waiting for the bus I decided to take my own advice (that the time is NOW for photos!) and get some shots of the kids playing in the leaves.

Look at the big guy Drew!! He can so take direction now! Loves having his picture made, and mugging for the camera. I was thrilled. He was also all excited about his sweater, his shoes (new black Chucks), and the leaves, and everything. :) Happy kid.

I'm so happy that I took the 30 seconds to go back in the house and get my camera. I have these beautiful photos as a result that I wouldn't have if I'd been lazy, or decided to do it "later." Time marches on, and doesn't wait for "later" or "next time."

And also.... little brothers don't care if you're trying to take a picture or not..... ;)