Cole meets the OT

I would like to start off saying Cole has a wonderful Early Intervention team. I don't know what we would do without Noreen and Melissa. Noreen arranged for Cole to have a session with his OT therapist today. We had her here a couple times before on a consult but its been awhile since she was here. So today we had a consult for Ot and were able to reintroduce Cole to his OT therapist. I have to say the session went well and I got some great ideas. We are now doing the brush therapy.I don;t know if anyone else is trying this but its pretty cool. They gave us a square brush that is not rough and you use it to brush against his back, arms, hands, legs and feet. I was told to try and do this every 2 hours but of course we have yet to have time. Today we had EI, PT and then we had to run to the store. Cole decide when we got home he wanted lunch and a nap. I am hoping that tonight I might be able to get some time in tonight for this. I was also given the idea about a bean play area where I can use dry beans and hide some small toys in it. Cole played at PT with this today and loved it. So how many people have therapist that they can't imagine not having in there life? I know its weird to ask but I can't imagine not having Noreen and Melissa in Cole and my life.

One of those weeks...

Its been a little while since my last blog. I have been with getting on track with Cole's sessions and also with work. I have started some new books to help move Cole a long and help with whatever I can for him. As most people know for my blog we do sign language and also PECS with Cole. He seems to do well with the PECS for a schedule and sign language to ask for something.  Although he only has a few signs we still try and sign as much as possible at home with him. Cole has learned the difference between signing for bubbles and milk since he uses your hand to sign these two. I am hoping that means he can tell the difference now. This week has been a week of a lot more stimming, meltdowns and well the terrible 2s coming out. It amazes me how Cole has been pretty good up until now with stimming and meltdowns. I know that a lot had to do with just family issues and well the trip to Chuck E Cheese for a birthday party but I am hoping that we are back on track now things will get better. I would like this week to get Cole's magnet board up so we can start his picture schedule for the day and also so maybe we can reduce any kind of stress for him. I would also like to be able to get some time to work with him a little extra on his EI stuff. I feel like before I did so much more work with him and now that I am working I don't do as much. Hopefully I can start all this on Monday. Also Monday we have a meeting to set up his OT through EI. I am super excited in hopes that this will help Cole a little more. Hopefully Monday I can get on to blog about the meeting and when OT starts. So how was everyone week? Anything interesting happen?

OT through EI

I wanted to blog this Monday but it seems that Cole is not agreeing with that. We have had a rough couple days. His evaluation went great Monday night. He actually took really well to the therapist and actually did better then we thought with the evaluation. He did try to hide in his ball pit a lot but we were able to get a lot of the evaluation done. The sensory part of the evaluation was a just a lot of questions about how Cole reacts to different things. They also did some fine motor skills with him and we was able to do some but it seems he qualified with just his sensory questions. Normally it takes Cole a few visited to warm up to people but this EI person had this friendly personality about her. I was so thankful since Cole decide he didn't need a nap that day. I was also hoping that since he didn't nap that maybe he would be in bed a little earlier but I was wrong. Cole went to be at 10pm and was up this morning at 7:30am which he is never up at. So we sent up an appointment for us to review and also see how many times he will get OT in two weeks. Hopefully we start seeing more improvement.

Busy Week

I have wanted to blog for the past couple days but didn't have much to say. I did want to blog before this busy week starts. Cole has his normal EI sessions which is 4 times a week, an OT evaluation through EI and then his 2nd session of PT this week. We also have a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese on Saturday. I am hoping to post what we do at evaluations and I know I will be able for OT since its in  my home. I am always amazed at how well Cole handles his week. Having this many appointments is overwhelming to me sometimes yet Cole seems to handle them with easy. I do know that Chuck E Cheese will be the hard one this week since he is scared of all people who dress up. So I am preparing to have a few toys ready in the car to be able to keep him busy when they come are on the floor. The other challenge is that Cole doesn't eat anything so we will have to feed him before the party and then again after since the party is over and hour away from us. Thankfully my family lives up there and I will have a few places I can go so that I don;t have to  order out. So any words of wisdom with all this activity this week? How do you handle a busy week with your child?

1st day of PT

I was taken by surprise that Cole took right to his therapist today. He loved the gym that they had and probably wishes he had more time in it. We started out letting him run in the gym for about 5 min before we went into one of the rooms off the gym. In this room it had a table and chairs along with a few toys. Cole went right to playing with the toys as the therapist explained that she planned to work on sensory more then anything so once we got that in control we could do more of the PT.  Cole didn't mind her applying a massaging pressure to his back or abdomen. Then she put 1lb weights on his ankles and that's where it went down hill. She wanted to keep them on for 5 min to start and let me say that 5 mins was the longest 5 mins ever. He cried and it took a lot to direct him away from the weights but it wasn't horrible. I thought that at that time Cole would not want her to touch him again. Thankfully he was hesitant but let her touch him again.  She also tried putting him on a board that spin. He enjoyed it but seemed to not want to stay on it for too long. The session ended with us getting homework of use having to do 2 massages a day with different feeling fabric and also working with the ankle weights at home. Cole also got to spend another 5 min in the big gym running and playing. So tomorrow starst his new massages and looking for 1lb ankle weights. I am hoping to make them at home so we can possibly avoid any more fits but who knows. Any one else use ankle weights on their child?

PT

Before Christmas I found out Cole was approved for PT (Physical Therapy). I was excited since I know Cole has poor core muscles and tends to need help with certain tasks. We live in an apartment on the first floor so he has not had much practice with stairs unless we go to a friends house. He is not horrible at it but I worry if he tries to go up or down by himself.  I knew that the therapist who evaluated him wanted to take his case on but would not be able to do that until after the holidays. So as I was about to call today to see what was going on with making his appointments when they called me. The call was a reminder that Cole had an appointment tomorrow at 11am. I told them that we were not made aware of this appointment but we would take it since I didn't want to prolong this so we took the appointment. I am hoping that Cole will enjoy this but I have a feeling that since they will be putting demands on him he might not. The gym is really nice and I Cole loved running around it the last time we are there. I am hoping that tomorrow I will be able to get some pictures and blog about the whole experience we have. I will also include Cole's goals that we will be making. I know we have a lot. Also next week we have an EI OT appointment. Hopefully we get approved for that.So until tomorrow.

Temple Grandin Movie

I struggled to find something to blog about today. I took yesterday off since not much had happened and I had worked the evening shift at the hospital. I literally just finished watching the Temple Grandin movie that aired on HBO and all I can say is amazing. If you want to see into a life of a person with Autism that is the movie to watch. As I watched it and the intense sound from the ceiling fan or the sound a marker makes on paper drove me crazy. I can only imagine what Cole feels. I would suggest this movie to anyone who works with children or has family with a child with autism. My mind id racing from everything I just watched and for some reason I can't get the words out. The only word I have is WOW and AMAZING.  I think the autism community is luck to have such an insight into what people or children with autism feel. I know that we will have more people sharing there stories of how it feels to have autism and I am sure they will wow and amaze us.
While watching the movie I was a little sad to know that every day common things for my husband or me could be struggles that Cole is going through. I do know that even though I was sad I was amazed at how she was able to find a way to calm herself. Temple Grandin knew what she needed to calm her and acknowledge when she needed it. She was brilliant in being able to see the world in pictures even though it was sometimes a struggle with kids picking on her. I can only hope that one day Cole will be able to give me insight into how his life is and hopefully be thankful I pushed to help him.

New Years Resolution

So one of my New Years resolutions was to be a better parent. I noticed the last week as I am trying to complete a task like cleaning, I had a short fuse. I know that no one is the perfect parent but I would like to try and get close to it. I also know that some days you will have a short fuse. I think the problem we are having is that Cole will do what Cole wants and doesn't seem to listen when you tell him no. He doesn't seem to understand that some thing he does could get him hurt and that's why mommy and daddy say no. So with all that being said I went to the library armed with a list of books that I wanted to look at. I was able to get a few books and one DVD that I wanted. The DVD is actually an exercise sensory friendly video. I don;t think Cole will understand but I am hoping that I get ideas of things to do that could get his energy out. I plan to take notes and start making a plan to hopefully get things back on track for Cole and his life. So I will blog about the books and DVD when I am done reading them and hopefully it will help someone else. Does any one have a suggestion on a good book to help understand and help for a game plan for autism or no verbal children?

Discipline

I try to blog about current things going on in my life and today I figured I would write about what obstacle I had yesterday. I was so glad I blogged early yesterday before my day really started or else I wouldn't have had a blog for yesterday. Cole made sure to test the limits yesterday with both parents. My husband continued to tell Cole no, get down no touching the tv, your going to get hurt, and we don;t stand on our table. Cole apparently feels he needs to sit on the tv stand we have and then poke the tv hanging on the wall. No matter what we did to teach him that he can't do this it didn't matter. We tried removing him from the situation, tapping his hand, redirecting him and time outs. I have yet to find a method that works and feel like maybe I need to keep working with redirecting him and the time outs. I hope as we continue this and if my husband and i show a united front that maybe we can get some where with this. I am also open to suggestions that any parent could have for me. I am not above asking for help and admitting that I need help. So please tell me what do you find is the most challenging when disciplining your child? What seemed to work best for you? Do you feel like the lack of communication causes more outburst of bad behavior?

Happy New Years 2012

Happy New Years to everyone who reads my blog. I rang in the new years at work while Cole and my hubby fell asleep before the ball dropped. Cole is starting his new year off with his 3rd bouncy/ball pit house and having a week vacation from EI. This week was pretty uneventful when it came to things going on. Cole did have one play date at our house with the boys ( my friends triplets who are a year older). They played with all his toys but loved the bouncy/ball pit house the most. The story behind Cole being on his 3rd bouncy house is this: Santa brought Cole the bouncy house for Christmas but mommy and daddy decide it would be wise to put it up the day after Christmas. We didn't want Cole to fight us to leave the house to see family on Christmas and decide it would be best to leave this gift wrapped. I decide the day after Christmas I would set up the bouncy house. As I was filling the bouncy house I noticed that the top part was not holding the air. So off this mama went back to exchange the bouncy house. I have to say the return line for Toys R Us was not so bad the day after Christmas. Cole ended up on his 2nd bouncy house before he even got to bouncy on his first. The bouncy house was doing fine so we thought and I believe it was either Thursday day or night my husband noticed the middle part seemed like it  needed air. So we borrowed the air compressor from a friend again and filled it back up and it slowly started to leak air again. By Friday we knew something there was a leak and my husband set out to find the leak. He found the air leaking from the middle section on the seam. We tried patching it up but it seems there was another leak some where else and well it was slowly losing air again. Once again I was back on the return line yesterday so that Cole could start his New year off with his bouncy house. My husband was great and actually set up the bouncy house for me so that I cold nap before work. We are hoping this will be the last one since we have now had 3 bouncy houses in less then a weeks time.I do plan to email the company in hopes to find out what could be going on with all the leaks we had on the seam line. The didn't send any repair kits I just happened to have one from another blow up toy. My husband and I are hoping this new year for Cole will be that his bouncy house doesn't get any more leaks. As for my goals for the New year I plan to go back to school to learn more about Autism so I can better help Cole, I hope to be a better mom, and to be more positive. I would also like to blog more and get some more followers. I planned to start this year off right and keep it going. So what are your New Year goals? Did you set any?