Services/ New beginnings

Cole has a list of services that we have elected to have on top of what the school provides. The list always seems like its never ending and I wonder sometimes when Cole gets to be a boy. There is a fine line between getting the help and letting him enjoy his childhood.  With that said I'm still trying to see where that line is. With that said lets talk services.
For school Cole has the basics: Physical Therapy 1 time a week, Occupational Therapy I believe 2 times a week and Speech Therapy 4 times a week. Cole is also on a trial for his Augmentative Communication Device. Right now he has an IPad with the Lamp program on it. We are 2 weeks in and I'm not sure what the trial will bring at the end. We started the process because Cole has had some self aggression and the Behaviorist at the school believe that this along with meds would help this aggression. It seems that now its more for function of Cole being able to get help if he is ever lost.  in this process Cole has had some aggression towards the tablet and that's what we are hoping to lesson. With all this going on PT has now told me that Cole needs outside PT and possible leg braces from his toe walking. It seems he is losing his endurance and that is now an issue. We are now working on getting into PT but its amazing how the waitlist for everything.  That sums up the school services
Home Services are different. We are currently involved with CMO (no clue what that stands for right now) which is working on providing at home ABA and we have Nurturing Parent (family counsuling) I am also part of the PPP (Public Partnership) program and home respite. Its amazing how many programs are out there that you don't know about unless you are connected with people who know these stuff. Once again when it comes to home programs its amazing how many hoops you have to jump through along with the lack of workers they have.  Currently ABA is waiting on techs so once Cole is approved we need to have that happen. PPP program was almost a year wait and a lot of messed up paperwork. Apply for that was a job within its self. Thankfully I refuse to give up on something that would help Cole. The PPP allows me to hire or provide service myself on helping Cole learn skills he will need for life. It was worth the wait but my hope when I actually write about it in a separate post that maybe it will help other parents apply to not lose hope.  Last service is respite and probably my favorite. This allows me to have a much needed break from life. It allows me to go out alone or maybe with friends. Without having CMO in the house I would have never known about the PPP program but am so thankful that they shared. I know being part of Preform care has other benefits but the important one for me right now is respite.  I'm pretty sure I went over all services Cole has. I know that that ABA is a new chapter along with this communication device. I cant wait to see what Cole takes too.
What programs do you have for your child?  When you tell other parents are they surprised about the program?  I've had mostly good feedback on the programs when talking to people. Of course there is always one who overhears and tries to spin it in a negative way. Remember to not listen to them, you know what's best for your child and what needs to be done.  

Return

It's been a long time since I wrote. I'm not even sure what my last post was about. I kept trying to get back into this but it's been rough. We had a lot of changes and I think talking about it made me realize we had some regressions. So I'm going to to be honest my goal is really to catch everyone up that checks this blog and then to help with the education on programs that we have.
Catch up time:
I'm now raising not only Cole but his little brother(yes I was crazy enough to have another) as a single mom. Dad is in and out and we are at the point of only video chatting for now. Cole is now 9years old and in 4th grade. He is in an autism class but goes to mainstream for elective classes.
I've jumped on the CBD oil for Cole and has helped so much with the migraines he gets. Oh yes cole has been getting migraines. The CBD oil has been keeping his migraines at bay and we are lucky for that. I will do a CBD post soon.
Cole has started having self aggression of hitting himself or punching his legs, or scratching. We called CMO which is a division of Preform Care (NJ Division of Developmental disability). We have had In House Support, Nurturing Parent and a advocate for mom (not sure what the real title is for this person).  I am so thankful for this support.  We currently are in the process of ABA therapy through CMO for home.
With that the two month we also have done the evaluation for a communication device and are now on our 4 week trial to see how cole does with it. I will be posting about this process in a seperate post. Along with Coles school PT talking about Cole starting outside therapy for PT due to toe walking. She has talked about foot braces and that it may be something we need to look into.
With all this I think I gave the cliff notes or quick notes on what ibe lacked on bloging over times.  I am going to try and do at least one blog a week with everything we currently have going on and the process we went through.

Cole is amazingly strong and has continues to show me how strong we are.
I look forward to growing this blog and helping as many special needs parents as I can.

♡♡ I am his voice, He is my heart ♡♡

Communication

Well this post took longer to write because I was not sure where I wanted to go with my post.  I finally decided to wait until after Coles parent teacher conference to write.  SO we have made big strides in this household.  Cole is finally talking!!!!  I am so proud of him.  His teachers, aides and therapist have made this all possible.  I work with Cole often but it seems that the techniques that his team has given us has finally started working.  Cole can say, spell and write his name. He can say Dan(his brother), milk, phone, please, and a few more words. He will try to say any word you ask. Sometimes its perfect other times its not even close. No matter what we tell him "Good Job Cole" which he has learned to say.  After talking to his teacher she is so impressed with how Cole has improved.  I spent years working on language with Cole.  We did sign language, PECS and also trying to help him sound out letters.  Its almost like a switch clicked on and he started talking more.  I can only imagine what doors this will open for us with Cole.  He might actually be able to tell me what's bothering him one day.  I know I am getting ahead of myself but I waited 5 long years for this and plan to enjoy every day. I am sorry this is short post but I will try to keep updating as changes come a long.

Starting again

Hello

I spent a lot of time not blogging like I wanted to. We have had a lot of changes in the house and improvements.  Cole is a big brother which is first and most important.  He wasn't sure about it in the beginning but actually loves his brother more then anything.  We learned that Cole has migraines which stinks but we started meds. The meds have been a big help and Cole only has one migraine since the meds. We started getting Coles diapers paid for by the insurance. This is a big help to our family. We also got Cole a handicap plaque and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Cole has learned to say his name and is trying to talk. His teacher this year has been amazing and I don't know how I was lucky to have 2 amazing teachers. Last but not least Cole seems to be learning to express himself a little better. He knows how to give kiss to mommy if sad and to get a parent when brother is crying. I can finally say things are going awesome with Cole.  Life is still busier then ever but we have managed to continue to work and adjust out house to try and help Cole communicate. I have a lot of different items to write about but figured I would start with an update about life. I am sure I missed somthings but will hopefully be able to remember while blogging. My goal is to blog weekly and see how it goes from there. I hope that who ever reads this enjoys and will ask any questions that you might have. 

Start Again

Its been a long time since I blogged. My original plan was to blog daily or at least weekly but life is crazy for me and well I always put so much on my plate. SO I am back and hoping to blog as much as possible but I don't plan to set a goal for it yet.

So new things in Cole's life: We moved to Forked River and started a new preschool. Its so much better then his last school and the only complaint i have is that its part time. He seems to love his teacher and aids. My mom is now living with us. Cole is now on yearly MRI's which could change to 2 yrs if next yr we have no change. We got to skip the VEEG this year which was great.We started sign language since he is still nonverbal and doing great. Cole started potty training which is one of the biggest news we have. I am just so proud of him. Also come this December he Cole will be a Big Brother. YAY.

Its amazing at how much Cole has grown this year and also how much he has accomplished that has made me so proud. Since moving we are now finally getting on a schedule which is making life a little easier for Cole and actually me too. He has therapy 3 times a week. He goes to OT, PT and Speech. All of his therapist are on board and are signing to Cole in hopes to get him to sign the words and communicate with all of us. We have about 10 signs right now and can put together 2 words so far. This was picked up in a matter of 2 weeks which amazed me. Soon he will out sign me if I don't keep practicing.  Its amazing at what a child can pick up when he is eager to communicate. I just hope he is getting all the signs he needs to get his communication out. I still speak as I sign to him but all i get from Cole is his sign and sometimes some sounds. I have hope he will talk but just think he needs more time.

Cole's new school now has ABA, he is getting speech, was evaluated for PT and will get evaluated for OT next week. I went to his first IEP and got everything I asked for and more and on;y had to spend 10 mins with the team. I guess my only other complaint would be that I am still trying to figure out his speech therapist at school. She seems great when speaking to her but worry that its taking Cole so long to accept her. When he likes you he accepts you pretty fast so I am wondering what could be holding this relationship up. So hopefully I will get good progress soon from speech at school.

Cole's MRI this year showed no change and I have been assured that the White Matter Disease is really not a worry any more. Cole did great for his MRI and even seems happy when he was leaving the hospital. We spent a half a day and everything seemed to go fast. I am hoping that Cole will one day not have to get these done unless he has a problem that he can communicate to us.

Potty training was one of my happiest moments this year. I changed Cole's diaper and put him on the potty and seemed to take to it from there. We are still in pull ups but he will pull me to the bathroom to pee. He went from not interested at all to wanting to potty. I wish I could say we tried this or that but really it happened when Cole was ready. I am hoping to continue and by Christmas have him in underwear. That's actually a gift we are asking Santa for. I know its not fun but its something that he concord and I want him to get a gift for it.

Last but not least we are preparing Cole to be a big brother. I am not sure if he fully gets it yet but I am trying. This pregnancy has been harder then Cole's but this baby is acting like Cole did in womb. We are having a boy and Cole will have a playmate one day. I hope that he will love having a little brother. I often wonder how other autism parents handle having another baby. I know we decide to go for it because I didn't want Cole to be an only child. I was surprised to find out that we only have a 22% chance of this baby having Autism. I know people would wonder why I would take that chance but in all honest i love Cole autism and all. He has taught me to appreciate the small things in life.  Something i wasn't doing.  No matter what this baby ends up as I will love him just as much as Cole.

With that note until my next post. Enjoy life and appreciate the small things in life. Even small things should be celebrated.

School Year in full swing

Since my last post things have been so busy I haven't done much but make adjustments to life and just keep running. I am amazed at how well Cole adjusted to his first day of school and also proud. I worried about Cole going to school and in the end he loves it. Everyday daddy gets Cole on the bus with no fighting. He seems to like both his bus aids and we are getting great notes home.  He seems to be sitting more for class now and its following into home life. I have noticed great improvements. He follows direction better, listens most of the time, and overall looking for structure school offers. After the first 3 weeks of school I noticed his weekends were not structured enough and that he was looking for it so I am no in the process of giving him more structure. I am not a structured person so this is an adjustment for me but anything to make Cole's days better are what I will do.

I also noticed that since school went well and we had no regression that some behaviors have come back. He is back to chewing on everything. We found something like the zvibe for Cole to use but he seems to not want it. I plan to see what his OT recommends since we are back with this. He comes home with a wet blanket piece or his jacket is wet from him chewing on it. Hopefully we can get this back under control. Any suggestions are welcomed.

I also had a I hate autism moment this weekend. Cole and I spent most of Sat. visiting family. We started at one members house and ended at anthers. Normally Cole is pretty good with this arrangement since most of our family is an hour away. On our last visit Cole just seemed to be out of control and since my son is the first child in the family who has autism its a learning process for everyone. I try my best to educate and most of my family try to work with it. I have over the last few years to get parent advice or been told I have been a bad parent by people and I think with Sat. all those feelings came back up. I was offered advice and by no means was the person mean about giving it. They actually took the time to say that if they are doing something wrong to let them know. Unfortunately I am still learning what works and what doesn't. I value this person opinion in my life greatly and at that point just felt horrible. I wished Cole could have that normal childhood with out having to have me explain or educate. I started questioning my parenting skill and everything I do for Cole. I know by no means do I let him get away with being bad and try to discipline to the best of my abilities. I also know that if this person knew I was upset they would have never let me leave the house. I think it was just my weekend to be mad at the autism and needed the time to maybe find new methods with Cole. As i was writing this I started getting upset again. I know that i read about parents going through a morning period and then after that its goes from there but I think there will always be these days where i still get upset. Like everyone else he is my baby and i want nothing but the best for him.n Have you had an i hate autism moment?

School

Well Cole will be attending school for the first time this year. I am amazed at how fast the time has gone. I feel like it was the other day when Cole was being evaluated by Early Intervention. I thought the day would never come when we would say bye to his therapist from EI and we would be preparing for school. Cole's EI therapist have been such a big part of our lives and not having them here has felt like we are missing family. Thankfully I have cell numbers and Facebook pages for some of them and we can stay in touch.

As for the start of school I am almost ready with his belongings but emotionally I am far from it. I know that he is going to thrive in school once he gives it a chance but it will be a big change in life. We had our first IEP meeting which was not at all what I thought it would be like. We were in and out of the school within a half hour. Of course missing from his IEP is the OT that I was told they will be doing so I will now have to call the child study team this week. Also while i read over the IEP I noticed that its seems like Cole will be pulled out of class for a lot of things. I wonder if they really plan to pull him out or they just put that on there to remind them of what extra things he needs. I plan to make a list of questions I have for the child study team and ask when I call them. I also wanted to make a list of some questions I have for his teacher. We are suppose to actually meet with his teacher this week sometime. Of course I have no clue when since the teacher is suppose to call us. Hopefully I hear from her tomorrow. We also have a dry bus run on Friday since our school district buses the children. I was not going to put Cole on the bus but I know it will be a lot harder to drive him in and drop him off. He is very attached to me to say the least and I already know I will be crying his first day. My only concern is because is no verbal I will have no clue what is happening on the bus. My greatest fear is that something will happen and I will have no clue that something bad is happening. I have yet to hear anything bad in my district but still worry. I am hoping to find comfort when I meet his teacher and we do a dry bus run. I am also hoping that with school Cole will communicate more words, follow directions better and be able to sign, point or communicate when he wants something. I really have basic goals for him where the school has a lot of other great ones. My hope is we can handle this transition with no regression but my gut feeling is that we will regress before it gets better.  So how many people thought their first IEP meeting would be longer then it was? Did you feel all the goal set were all good goals? How do you feel about your child starting school and are you ready?

AEEG, VEEG, MRI, OT fight, Birthday

Things have been busy on and off since my last blog. I seem to have taken a break from blogging and just from everything it seemed except Cole. Since my last blog Cole has graduated out of the EI program, had an AEEG, VEEG, MRI, fighting insurance to pay for OT and most important Cole's 3rd birthday. As I look at the list ir doesnt seem like that much but the last few months have been so stressful.

First I would like to say that Cole's MRI has no change once again. We will still have to moniter the cyst and white matter but because there has been no change we will only do an MRI now every year.  My hope is that this is never an issue and we can hopefully only have to do an MRI if Cole is having any effects from the white matter or cyst.

Finishing EI was very sad. It didn't hit me until after his birthday. The last week of EI we had his 3day VEEG and were in the hospital for the begining of the week. By the end of the week he had only one appointment left and unfortunatly Melissa was sick. Had i known that the week before was our last week I might have tried to add more time. I know Cole misses it a lot and his days even though I keep him busy its not the same. EI was such a big part of our life and now its like an empty spot in our life. How many other people feel this way about their EI group? We were so lucky to have such a wonderful supportive group of woman from EI. I would like to thank Lauren (case manager), Noreen (DI), Melissa (DI) and Becky (OT) for all the help and support they gave us since COle was 15months.

As for the EEGs Cole had gone through, I hope I never have to do that again. We started with an AEEG which is a 24hr ambultory EEG. His neurologist wanted to do this so that she can make sure the regression Cole has was not from a seizure. We went through a problem with the hook up since the EEG depeartment thought it would only be a 40 min. EEG. Thankfully i fought long and hard and got him to have it for 24hours. I didn't want to have to repeat the test or have him hooked up while awake. I was able to have him hooked up for this one while he was sedated from his MRI. it worked out so much better.  After getting the results which showed a small discharge we had to go for a 3 day VEEG.  His doctor wanted to find out why Cole had the discharged and make sure we were not having seizures.  It was hard enough spending time wondering if Cole had seizures but then his insurance company messed up and put it in as outpaitant. We spent 4 days fighting to get him in for monday and for the insurance to fix their mistake. It was a long and stressful week. One i can say is finally behind us. As far as the VEEG it was a long 3 days at the hospital. Cole set the alamr off 2 times but thankfully it was only from the way he was pushing on a lead on his head.  I spent the 3 days with Cole while my husband stayed home and cleaned for me. Unfortuantly only one parent is allowed to stay and the hospital is over an hour away. SO the end report was Cole is still to be watched but she believes the discharge was from him pushing on the lead. I took it as good news and we now dont have to follow up until Dec.

Lets move on to the insurance problem that is still ongoing. After Cole started OT and has been going for a couple months we get a call from Children's Specialized Hospital telling us that his insurance no longer covers OT. I was caught off gaurd and was stunned since up to this point Cole's insurance covered almost everything and only problems we had were paper errors.  After a long fight which is still going on i was able to get the Hospital Help program to pay for OT.  The insurance is saying because Cole has Autism that its a chronic condition and that his policy doesnt cover chronic conditions. I am just stunned by this and feel like they are discriminating against children with Autism. Even though Cole has his OT covered i feel its the principal of them covering it that I continue to fight. SO i will try to keep up my blog and let you know the outcome of the fight.

Last topic was the biggest one: Cole's 3rd Birthday. It was wonderful. Not as many people there as the rsvp said was coming but it was nice. We had it at a park were the kids could play and just have fun. We did coldcut platters and salads and ended with cupcakes and rice crisp treats. It was a rough start since I ran lat all day but in the end the party was good and the kids had fun. The best thing about the party was Cole actually played with other kids for a little. He did go off to so his own thing but I was happy just that he had some interaction with other kids. All in all i think his party was a sucess and hope to actually have a smaller one next year for him and at a house that we are leasing with a backyard. The only bad thing about the park was it was not fenced in so i had to elect my sister to keep an eye on Cole while i set up and did stuff like that. I still cant believe that Cole is now 3 years old. The time has pasted so fast and makes me a little said.

I believe that sums up most of what has happened since I last blogged. I know that I didnt blog about the school evaluation but i plan to do that next. We are still in the process with the whole school thing but I would love to let everyone know the process we have been through. I will also update pictures of Cole's party and his EEG.  So what is new with everyone else? Has anyone else gone through the process of any of the above mentioned?

DDD and SSI

Well while on my break from blogging and anything else I could get a break from I started the process for Cole to possibly receive SSI and DDD. For the people who don;t know what they are SSI is Supplemental Security Income and DDD is Division Developmental Disability. My hopes in applying for both of these would be that Cole will be able to get funding to try different therapies like therapeutic horseback riding. I plan to make 2 separate blogs about the process I went through for these services since they were both time consuming and lengthy process. I am actually just passed the paperwork part and am moving on to the interview part.
SO how many have applied for either of these services?  Was there a service you applied for that was time consuming?
Until tonight when I have more time to actually go through the process.

Return

Well I seem to have taken time away from posting and just everything in life. I don;t know if I needed a break or if I just had nothing to say. So since I don;t remember the last thing I posted I figured I would update. Cole has regressed once again. His EI people believe that it was his motor planning that regressed and with that he lost his 2 words. I was sad but not enough to cry. I knew that this could happen but well I just hoped that it wouldn't happen. We went through a rough patch with all his therapy sessions. He would cry as soon as he saw his EI people and the therapy was just sad to sit through. He also became more attached to mommy if that is even possible. We have been able to get Cole in to out patient OT and PT and now we will have speech also. I tell you that every time i do an evaluation with Cole it breaks my heart. I get the reports and he is never close to what his age is. I would like for just one report for it to say he is at his age level or exceeded it. I hold hope for the future to one day get that kind of report. So Cole will finally be ready with outside services for when school starts.  We are also applying for SSI and DDD for help with Cole. It took a little whole for me to actually accept that Cole might need that help. Of course the paperwork is amazing. I feel like I will never get it done. The process just started and I plan to start blogging on that. I don;t know much but I would love to help anyone I can. Well hopefully I get back on to update and also let you know how the DDD paperwork is going. I hope everyone is doing good.

The Break is Over

I wanted to start by saying I took a break the last few weeks in hope to regroup from the home front issues. We spent a few weeks wondering what was going on with Cole along with having a bunch of testing done. Its funny how I will look at everything else that could be bothering Cole before looking at the problem of Autism. Well we finally got our answer which is that Cole has regressed. When y husband gave me the new I wanted to cry but my brain keep saying "You knew this would happen."  The day I found out I was at the dentist. I had planned to speak to his EI lady but had to leave in the middle of session for my dentist appointment. I figured I would speak to her the next day about it but she beat me to the punch. After the news I knew I had to take a closer look at what was going on at home and what I could do that might help Cole more. I tend to find ways to make my days busier then they need to be. I will pick up extra projects, do a million errors or just spend the day running. I decide that i needed to step back from almost everything. I knew i couldn't step back from work and Cole;s therapy but everything else would wait. So that's why I took a break from the blog and also from my social meet up group. My family is finally in a better spot as fair as getting back in the step with therapy and just having some down time with Cole. We changed our therapy sessions to involve my husband or myself to help Cole with demands. We finally had his OT appointment and we started the school meetings. My hope is to actually get Cole prepared for school with no more regression. So that is the update and although my hope was to blog more I feel like I might only be able to blog once a week. If i can do more I plan to but first will be trying to get Cole back to where he was. So how is everyone else doing? Is everyone ready for Easter?

Update of the past few weeks.

I am not sure when my last post was but things have been so crazy. I have been picking up some extra hours at work and trying to keep life straight at home. Over the past few weeks Cole has been off his game. He has been acting abnormal and started to worry me. We had times where he wanted no one but mommy to touch him, he wants to be held and not walk like normal, we haven;t heard mama or dada from him in about a month and his sleep has been off. We were able to get him in the doctors last Monday to discuss our concerns and hope for an insight of what might be going on. We agreed to try an antibiotic since 2 weeks before his appointment he had a fever for 2 days and that was it. His doctor wanted to make sure that the infection didn't linger. We agreed to give the meds 5 days and we would see if that helped. Unfortunately it seemed that nothing changed and then next thing I know he is holding his head and putting his fingers in his ears for long periods of time. This was unlike him and started to make me wonder if he was getting headaches from the cyst on his brain. Well Friday of that week came and I explained what new stuff was happening and to be on the safe side she admitted us through the ER for a CAT Scan. Thankfully the hospital visit wasn't horrible expect that we did the CAT Scan without sedation. I was good not to have to sedate Cole but was hard holding him while he cried so much.  The CAT Scan came out fine and we were off from there. I was glad that I no longer had to worry about the cyst but wonder what could have him acting weird. I continued keeping his schedule since we don't have a great one but wanted him to have some normal in his life as possible.  Come Sunday night after having a play date it seemed Cole had a stomach virus. So I know why Sunday he was not himself but we still haven't had any success with anything else. I did put a call into his neuro doctor. Hopefully she will shed some light onto what is going on. Has anyone else been through this? Do you tend to blame something in else in life before looking at the real problem?

Update March 2012

Well its seems impossible for me to be able to blog lately. I am either working or running around doing a million things and have yet to figure out how to blog on the tablet we got. Maybe its just that I don't type as fast as I would like too. The last couple of weeks have been like most therapy for Cole, work for me and just family drama along with trying to get Cole some play dates. We did do storytime at the library for kids with special needs. Cole loved the fact that the room was big and he could run laps. I did get him to draw a picture with the other kids so I guess I should feel lucky. Cole has also had some off days where he is sleeping a lot more almost like when he is sick and it seems like he is running a fever but not running one. I am not sure what is going and if it continues I plan to take him to the doctor. I just hate to take him since he is not a fan of the doctors since his EEG.  We also had a speech consult for this month and we plan on signing a lot more with Cole which means I need to start learning more sign language. I rented some DVDs from the library and need to try and make some time to watch and learn. Has anyone had to learn sign language for their little one? What does you days normally look like? Do you ever feel like you need more time in your day? I know this last question almost everyone feels whether you have a special needs child or not. I wish I had a better scheduled day so that I have time to do everything. Maybe one day I will figure that out. Also how did you get yourself on a schedule with your child if they need it?

The week begins

Well Last week I had a sick child and have yet to figure out what made him sick. He ran a fever for about 3 days. He refused to eat or drink so it took a lot for us to get some kind of fluid in him. After having a rough night where Cole was up every 2hours we finally woke up back to normal. He was ready to eat as much as we would give him and couldn't get enough fluids in him.  Needless to say I was happy to have a happy and not sick child again in my apartment. Of course we were better for the weekend and that means we want to go out. I was thankful that my father had a free day and Cole was able to spend Sunday with him. I got to see my son and father enjoy hanging out together and I got to have an adult conversation with my step mom. I can say that after spending time with my father Cole went to bed earlier then normal and slept in this morning. It was a great day and night for us. Hopefully I will be able to start Cole on an earlier bed time soon. I would also like to get Cole in his own bed and a lot of other things. I have a list a mile long of things I would like to do. Hopefully this week I can we will get through a whole week of his therapy, and possible make a picture schedule up. I don;t know if it will work but I am looking for anything that could help transition easier. So do you have a list of things you need to get done? What is at the top of your list of things to do?

Ankle weighst and PT

Cole has his new 1lb ankle weights. He loves them so much he will bring them to you to put on. His first day was a little rough since He didn't want to do his EI and we added his ankle weights but after they were on a little he forgot about them.  He wore them only for EI because he had PT later that day. His PT lady loved his new weights also and said they would be perfect for him. Later that day I let Cole play with the ankle weights and then I put them on my ankles. I wanted him to see how great they were. After playing with them for a little and mommy wearing them Cole decided that he wanted to wear them. Since Tuesday Cole has brought me his weights to put on him. I am so proud that he is doing well with them and am thinking we will have to work on getting 2lb weights for him.  He also figured out how to slide them off his ankles. I guess I should have seen it coming but it only took him 3 days to figure it out. Hopefully this doesn't start the trend of him taking them off. So today I have 2 questions for everyone. One is how many of you have weights for your child or weighted items like a blanket? Second is how many people have an IPad or Tablet to use with their child? I am looking into a tablet for Cole to use which will be a blog for another day. Have a great day.

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?