Love, Erika

Back to School! Preschool Open House.

Today we got to go to Drew's open house at his school. School starts on Monday!  I can't believe summer is over. GAH. But he's really excited, and he has the same teacher and classroom as he had last year, and this summer, so he's very secure and happy and ready to rock. We just LOOOOOVE his teacher!  It's very comfortable to send him back to school, because it feels like extended family. He's still excited about the bus and the whole thing, so it's all good.

This year is starting off with an Apple theme!  He got to explore his classroom and get reacquainted with everything. It's been four weeks since the summer session was over, and I know in little kid time that's like 2 years, so it probably feels like a long time since he was there. It's great that he had a chance to go back and check everything out in a no-pressure environment so that Monday will go smoothly.  He's got some new faces in his 4-year old class, and some of his old classmates will be returning as well, so it's a good mix of familiarity and novelty. I got to meet his new OT and special ed teacher and look forward to working with them this year.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Preschool End of Year Celebration

On the next-to-last day of school, Drew's school had a end of the year "Celebration" that all the parents were invited to. There are only 2 preschool classes in the morning, so they marched both classes onto the playground field and the first class performed a rousing rendition of "skidamarinkadeekedink" and Drew's class did "the ABC song,"  Then they both sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" together, and recieved their certificates for the year. So cute!  I always forget how small these little kids actually are.

 
Opening notes from the school principle, Mrs. Doster.

 

We knew Drew wouldn't make it through this event, and sure enough when he saw all the parents there, and especially me and Dave, he started melting down. Poor kid. He was the only kid on the ground during much of the performance. :) He's easy to spot, that one. Just look for the kid trying to melt through the floor. I love how they kept all three autistic boys at the end of the line, with the aides all closely circling around prepared to grab any one of them that may bolt at any given second. Lots of wrangling going on.

Here he is so sweetly trying to do the gestures to Twinkle Twinkle through his tears.

And here he is with his teachers. Still upset. It took him a long time to calm down after this event. It was just too weird for him to have both Mom and Dad there, and all the other parents and everybody milling around with the teachers. He was freaked out for sure!

This is his wonderful speech therapist and occupational therapist:

And his awesome teacher.  We're so glad he gets to be with her again this summer, and in the fall for next year!

The First 100 Days; also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Drew!

It's time for an update about Drew!  He got his autism diagnosis on March 14th, and according to the Autism Speaks website, the first 100 days afterwards is a key period of time for gathering information, arranging resources, and developing an action plan. Here we are in mid June, pretty much at the 100 day mark, and I can't even tell you what a different place we're in now. A better place. A place of hope and optimism!

One thing that is really amazing, is that no matter how much you don't want your child to be labeled "Autism," it truly does open up a lot of doors and windows of opportunities and resources that would otherwise not be there. It was like they sent the calvary. Suddenly our lives are filled with even more teachers, therapists, doctors, and other professionals, and it's a wonderful thing.

 
Most notably is the addition of Drew's new private speech therapist, Cass!  We are so thrilled and thankful to have her working with us. Our previous speech therapist, Annie, who worked with Drew from age 2-3 is now in private practice with Cass, and together their practice is called New England Pediatric Services.  Cass is all. about. working with kids with autism, and we've been amazed in the 6 weeks or so that she's been working with Drew, all the insights she has given us about how he is, and why he is the way he is. We're learning so many things weekly about how the autistic brain is hardwired differently than a typical kid's is, and every week when she leaves Dave and I are like, "A-HA!!!! That makes total sense now."  There are so many things, I can't even tell you, that now we're realizing have all been because of autism, that make him do the things he does, or in other cases, NOT do the things that we expect him to do.  It's wonderful to have someone come every week to talk to us who is knowledgable about ASD and we can ask questions of. Priceless, really.

 

Another great outcome of the whole thing is even more services for Drew at his preschool. Even before the diagnosis they obviously knew a lot about him, and what his needs were, and probably everybody suspected ASD for him anyway. ;) But now he's got a new IEP in place for the coming year, with speech therapy, sessions with the special educator, 1:1 time with a classroom aide, and new.... for this year: occupational therapy and the development of a sensory diet!  We're really excited about this part of it and can't wait to see what she comes up with for Drew.

We even had a pediatric dietician come out to our house in April to evaluate Drew and his diet.  Apparently selective eating is a common thing for kids like Drew and the concern is that the rigidity with routines can get worse over time if not dealt with early on. LUCKILY she said Drew has a lot of strong points and his diet isn't as restricted as we think it is, and he's getting most of his nutrients, despite not eating many fruits, vegetables, and not too much meat.  This kid would happily live on milk and pretzels if we let him. But anyway, we switched him to Flintstones complete vitamins because they have iron in them, rather than the gummy vites he was taking. And found ways to get more calories into him..... and as a result he's gained about 2 pounds since April! 

Next up is Drew's 4 year well visit with his pediatrician..... hopefully she'll tell us we're doing a great job with getting him as many services as we can. I even called ahead and made sure they scheduled us for plenty of time for talking during his appointment. Those well visits are SO quick, and it's hard to have time to voice any concerns you have in that brief amount of time. I know we have a lot to talk about, so it's best to call ahead and make sure they block out the time for you. They love it when you do that! A little tip from me to you....

And at his fourth birthday..... he's really blossoming. We're so excited at how many things he's understanding, and communicating.  His speech therapy is really paying off. It's not so much actual "speech" because his articulation and vocabulary are just fine, but it's more his communication that is being developed. He has had so many delays with language and communication development, and it's exciting to see all of that come forward in leaps and bounds. We're starting to see negative phrases, and questions, and appropriate responses to questions now.....  and there's that great satisfaction of KNOWING that he knows what I'm talking about when I talk to him. There's not so much blind repetition of TV shows now, it's actually HIM talking and thinking and forming sentences and wanting to know information. He's really amazing.

He's so sweet. There's really something inside him that has driven him probably his whole life, and it's that desire to please and be kind and do things for people. He's very much a kind and gentle soul, and he loves to obey the rules and do things the "right way."  He's affectionate and caring, and looks out for Parker and wants to help Mom & Dad however he can. It's often surprising how he'll drag Parker's high chair over to the table for suppertime, and get out a juicebox for him, and take the straw wrapper off and put the straw in for Parker, totally on his own idea.

It's not all perfect and probably never will be.... we still have times every day when he shuts down, gets stuck in a repetitive rut, pulls out the dishwasher racks and does that weird scanning thing with his eyes repeatedly, can be difficult to redirect out of a fit, asks for milk 100 times in 5 minutes, can't settle down for  more than 2 minutes at a time, constantly asking for things back and forth between the family room and the kitchen, being strangely tired and lethargic at random times of day.... and always always always asking for things. Oy. That gets old. I remember that question in the evaluation for autism--something about Does your child only ever ask for needs/wants and never just makes friendly conversation. YES. That was true for a very long time, and is pretty much mostly true even now. It gets old so fast... first thing in the morning, no Hi Mom. Just want juice, want tv, want cheerios, want this and that and all kinds of things. All day long. Every 2-3 minutes.

But our good progress is coming regularly now! We have hope and optimism. He's doing great and we have lots of fun things planned for this summer. He's going to have a blast.

Drew Smiles!

 
 Drew's Preschool Picture - Age 3

We've decided that Drew's teacher is a witch. A good witch.  A witch of white magic. 

When school picture day rolled around, it was scheduled on a Tuesday which is a day of the week that Drew doesn't go to school, so he didn't get his picture made. I shrugged and thought, who cares, it's only preschool and <snicker> they'd NEVER be able to get him to sit and smile for the camera anyway, so it's just as well. I'd hate to put his teachers through the torture of fighting with him on that point. (but secretly, yeah, I was a little bummed.) Those Lifetouch portraits are SO bad and SO cheesy, but still.... there's something about a sweet school picture of your child that you cannot resist.

Later, we got an email from Drew's teacher inviting us to send Drew to school for re-take day (also on a Tuesday) so he could get his picture made if we wanted to since he had missed the real picture day. Yay! I was happy about that. I found a nice button down shirt in his wardrobe of Ben Clothes (and he willingly wore it, woohoo!) He looked so handsome.

When I picked him up that afternoon, I asked him "did you get your picture taken today?" and his eyes snapped to mine and he smiled so big and sweetly. That flash of recognition that he knew what I was asking convinced me that he did, and he had been okay with it. He can't answer questions about what he did at school that day, so to have that subtle response to my question was a great sign.

And ever since then--this is how I know his teacher is a white witch--Drew will pose and smile for a picture! This is something that he's never done EVER in his whole life (not on purpose, anyway). He has always run away from the camera, or ran right up to it. So I don't know what voodoo they did on him, but they taught him how to sit there nicely and smile for a picture. Fantastic!  This is a huge relief to me as his mother and a photographer. You may wonder why I never have many pictures of Drew on my blog? This is why. He just won't even cooperate. Never has, until now.

LOOK at the amazing smiles!  This is the smile of my baby that we all know, but never makes it to the camera (and hence the blog).

This is my sweet little boy who always asks "may I be excused?" before he leaves the table, and pushes his chair all the way in, and cleans up anything he spills, and carefully puts all his clothes in the laundry basket and tries so hard to put on his own shoes and is all "I want DO IT!" about everything. Mr. Independence.

 

 

Drew's Progress

Drew continues to progress by leaps and bounds. He's absolutely loving school. It was only after a couple of weeks into the school year that we had a meeting with his teacher and the team and they amended his IEP by increasing his services to three days a week at school, which includs a 3rd session of speech therapy per week and also a session with a special educator. I think it's been a huge success, and made a big difference.

 

Everything about him has been changing, and it's so awesome to be able to have him talk about things that he observes. He's very vocal about what he sees, and describes what things are doing, and now that his vocabulary is growing it's pretty funny to hear. Most of what he talks about is reciting from tv shows, like Curious George and Caillou. But he generalizes the information very well, and applies the scenarios from the tv shows to what's going on around him. It's kind of weird, but at the same time we're just glad that he's talking so much, and even though it's kind of scripted, maybe it's just the gateway into his learning style right now.

 
 
One thing that strikes me about him is how thoughtful he is. We encourage him to share, and think of others to the extent that any parent would in their family, but he seems to take it to the next level all on his own. When Dave comes home, he runs to get him a Pepsi out of the fridge and wants to take him an ice pack, and whatever else he thinks he might need. When he asks me for a snack or a juice box, he makes sure I give him two, so he can go take some to Parker too. (he'll hand Parker a juice box but doesn't open him for him, so Parker just ends up sitting there clutching it tightly. LOL!)   When we come home from school he always tells me that it's "time for Parker to take nap", which it is, and he's always looking out for what needs to be done and makes sure I don't forget anything. As in, he'll tell me "Mommy get dressed!" when there's 20 minutes left before we need to leave for school.

 

We're very close with his teachers, and exchange emails several times a week usually with his progress and what's going on with him. It's awesome to be that connected to them, and they're so great to answer any questions and keep us advised of what issues he might be having or what they're working on with him.

A huge skill that he's mastered in the past couple of months is taking turns, and using people's names correctly. For the longest time if we'd say "Goodnight Drew," he would just repeat "Goodnight Drew." He never knew how to address people's names. But between some special attention at school, and reinforcements at home, he can now properly address people with their names. He can say "Good night, Dad!" "I love you, Mom!" "Thank you, Parker!" It's very exciting.

 
He's so polite with his please and thank yous, and his speech is now becoming more complete with articles like "a" and "the" and he can also use "my" and "me". All new and exciting things that he's just started using recently.  Just this week he said to me, "I want some pretzels and milk, please!" Which kind of blew me away because not only was it a complete sentence, it also had a double request and also a please! That was the first time he'd ever said anything that complete.

 

From his most recent teacher update:

"I have been observing Drew during free and dramatic play time and have noticed
that he is showing much more interest in being with his friends and pretend
play.  Yesterday there was a group of children cooking in the kitchen area
(Drew loves to play in the kitchen area but usually would leave when a
group of children joined him) and Drew stayed and was playing right along
with them!  He was serving tea to one of the children at the table - so
cute!! "

 

It's exciting for us to see him making friends. Even though he has Parker, I think he needs more kids to be around on a regular basis, so it's great to see him becoming more comfortable. He's so affectionate, and loves to give hugs and always is asking me "Mommy sit!" to sit on the couch with him and snuggle. Sometimes when I tell him I can't right then, he understandly says "Mommy needs coffee." :)  And when he cuts flowers outside with his safety scissors, he brings one to me and says, "Mom, this flower is for you. I love you, Mom!"

Preschool Open House

Yesterday was the open house at Drew's classroom, and he got to visit his teacher and classroom and we the parents got to tour and explore everything before the upcoming school year starting next week. He seemed excited to have us there with him this time, and kept saying "Mom and Dad classroom" after we told him we'd be going with him that day. He marched us right down to his room since he knew right where it was. It was awesome for us to see his classroom in such detail, and it is adorable. They really think of everything. His teacher (and her team of assistants and other professionals) is so wonderful and patient and knowledgeable and we feel good that Drew is in their care.

It looks like the year is starting off with a farm theme, and there are pictures and books about farms and animals everywhere you look!

 
 

 

 

Drew has finished Summer PreSchool!

Drew has now completed his first 4 weeks of preschool in the summer program and the verdict was: he LOVES IT.  He absolutely loves it. He went twice a week, so eight days in total. By his fifth day going, not only did he not cry, but he walked right into the school building all by himself!  No escort needed. On the sixth day he even walked in by himself wearing his backpack on his shoulders like a big boy!

It makes us soooo happy to see him so excited to go. He grabs his backpack and marches to the car with such great intent, and seems to not be able to wait to get out and go to school!  He loves to look at the artwork that he brings home, he looks at it and smiles and points out various features of it.

 
Week #2:
"Drew did so much better this week.  He arrived a bit teary eyed but when I just act matter of fact and say good morning and direct him to his cubby to put his backpack away he usually settles right down and goes off to play.  He is really adjusting to the routines and schedule and seems much more comfortable and content here.  He transitions well from one activity to another and is beginning to respond verbally more often.  He enjoyed the visit from the police department on Wednesday and looking at the emergency vehicles and he even got to sit in the police car.  He did get a bit frightened and cried a little when the policeman turned on the siren for the children to hear however.  :)  
We are very happy to have him in our class and he seems happy to be here as well! " 

 
Week #3:
Drew did very well this past week.  You are right, he walked right down to the classroom and arrived happily – no more tears at all! :)  He is very cooperative and seems to really enjoy all the activities.  He smiles lots when we are doing silly songs and rhymes, finger plays, etc. that he enjoys.  He has become used to the schedule and transitions very easily from one activity to the next.  
 Our theme was “Farm” and the children loved all the activities with farm animals.  We learned the songs “Old MacDonald” and “In the Barnyard”.  We focused on fine motor skills, categories, and matching.  We have gross motor activities on Thursday and the children went on “hay rides” in the wagons with shredded paper for “hay”.  This was so much fun!
 It is hard to believe that this week will be the last week of summer program already, but before we know it we’ll be back for the school year!  Thanks for writing."

 

This thing trips me out. I wasn't sure what it was, so I asked Drew and he said "Flower!" I have it displayed on his chest of drawers in his room so he can look at it and remember making it at school to keep it fresh in his mind over the next month until he can go back again in September.

Overall this summer has been great for him in terms of learning and maturing. He actually was dancing the other day, which we haven't seen him do since before Parker was born, so probably a year an a half ago. It was so cute. He's also riding his "bike" now, a tricycle that he would previously not even want to get on. He doesn't really like to ride things. But all of a sudden, he's taken an interest in the bike and will get on and pedal by himself!

Another shocker was advancements in swimming. His last swimming lesson was June 17th, so it's been awhile since he's been swimming. I took him to the pool last Sunday just for the heck of it, and he got in there with his noodle and his bubble, and that kid swam across the pool!!! He had never done that before in his whole year of swimming lessons. But something finally clicked, and he was able to kick and doggy-paddle and make himself go forward.

He's still going strong with his alphabet obsession..... sheesh. Everything out of his mouth is identifying everything around him, and telling what letter it starts with, which he's been doing for 2 months now. So all day long we hear, "octopus, letter O!"  "Salsa, letter S!"  "Parker, letter P!" "Xylophone, letter X!" "Ice water, letter I" etc etc etc. The one that made me laugh was when he kept saying that Moby starts with C, and I kept telling him that no, Moby is letter M. But finally I realized in his thought process that C is for Cat, and that's why Moby was letter C to him. I guess that works!  He can read the words Drew, Stop, Mom, Dad, Parker, and can draw a letter A on the iPad.

First week of preschool

I'm happy to report that Drew has completed his first week of preschool (2 days of it) and seems to be liking it! Last night he kept asking to go to school, even though it was bedtime. So the fact that he doesn't run away and fling himself on the floor when we mention "school" is a very positive thing!

His teacher sent home the following update:

"Hello, Wanted to let you know that Drew had a very good couple of days at preschool. He cried a little at arrival, but we were able to get him engaged in some play activities and he got involved. He is beginning to learn and respond to the routines. Especially today, he did a very nice job and seemed to really enjoy himself. Our theme is Chef Woody (named after the school mascot "Woody" the Woodturtle) and we have been practicing role modeling and dramatic play by playing restaurant, making playdoh cookies, and exploring with beans in the sensory table. Enjoy the weekend!"

We looooove updates! It's so hard to know what goes on in there since we can't be there. But the fact that he is LIKING his school means so much to us. We love seeing him enjoy things!

First Day of Preschool

Today was an exciting day for Drew!  He started his summer program in the special education preschool. He goes 2 days a week for 4 weeks, and then starts up again in the fall for the regular school year.

We left bright and early to get there at 8:00. Here's Drew ready to go (with his mouth full of waffle). He's starting to like his backpack.

Walking with Dad up to the building:

As we stood there with the other parents and kids arriving, Drew started to get a bad feeling about the whole thing. He's looking a little wary here.

Then they started escorting the kids back to the classrooms and we had to part ways. On this first day they allowed Dave to walk back with him. He kept looking back at me and crying "MOM! MOM!" and that was when I got all teary. This was the last I saw of him.

So that was sad. But it's for the best. I hope he gets used to it soon and starts having fun, for his own sake. The four week program is much like summer camp with a laid back curriculum, and has a different theme each week which goes like this:

Week #1 : foods and healthy eating
Week #2:  To the rescue--safety, with visits from police and fire depts
Week #3:  Farming
Week #4:  plants, animals, and caring for the environment, i.e. trash disposal and recycling

Two and a half hours went by quickly and we didn't get any phone calls so we were thankful about that. :) Dave was talking to one of the parents when he went to pick Drew up, and she was raving about what a wonderful program it is. She said she would move here if she didn't already live here, so her kid could go there. I hope we like it as much as she does!

One of the aides reported that Drew eventually settled down and spent a lot of time being preoccupied with a rug with the ABCs on it. :) Whether they frown upon that behavior, I don't know, but that's typical of what he does at home too.  I think he finds a lot of comfort in letters and numbers.

We got him a couple of new Thomas engines for this week. At Target I picked out a few that he could choose from, and he weighed his options for a few seconds before deciding on Deisel. He was so happy to come home and play with Diesel again. :)

A pleasant find in his backpack today: a beautiful colored picture! Proudly displayed on the fridge, of course.