The First Week

I don't want to get too excited, but the first week back went well. Gus's teacher reported that he was fine even if a little distracted by the afternoons. She gave him reading time at the end of the day, which helped. I'm happy to see that she's pretty adaptable, at least so far. We're going to target a few areas to work on with him: keeping his hands to himself and off of other people's things; keeping his internal dialog to himself are two that I'm thinking of. Hopefully we can work out some strategies that will help him self-regulate.

I've been reading a book called Positive Discipline, and while I'm still working my way through it, I do feel that the approach will leave a child feeling more empowered than the alternative discipline models. So far, I've seen better cooperation from MM and Gus has needed minimal redirection. They're both taking more responsibility in the house and are adhering to the new school-time routines. Maybe I can share what I'm learning with Gus's teacher for a better outcome than last year. By the end of the year, his self-worth seemed to have decreased (in my opinion), his anxiety had increased, and he ended up on medication. I am not interested in going that route again. If they can't meet his needs without making him feel down on himself, then perhaps it's time to give homeschooling a try. I don't know if I can do it, but I'd rather try than have my son feel unsuccessful because other people are frustrated from having to redirect him so much. That's what he's there for-his IEP even says so!

Anyway, I don't want to get into a rant. I'm going to stay positive as long as I can and hope for the best. How is the school year shaping up for you if you've got school-aged kids?

How Amazing is This Boy?

Tonight, Gus was a little amped up, so I told him we'd go out for a little bike ride after dinner, which we almost never do. On a whim, I told him to try out his sister's old bike - the one without the training wheels. Three tries, and I swear he was riding, all on his own! He's a natural! I'm amazed and so very proud! He's got me beat by two years - I didn't ride a two-wheeler until I was nine.

Once he got the hang of riding the little bike, I took the trainers off his bike and went riding around the block. He's still got to get the hang of starting off, but that'll come quickly, I'm sure.

This is the site where I got the 'instructions' for teaching a kid to ride, which I learned about from a discussion at AutismVox.

On our way home, Gus took a bad spill. He forgot to turn and went over the curb and landed in some grass. He was completely fine - he's got amazing reflexes when it comes to falling - but the bike handlebars somehow twisted all the way forward. So when my husband and I - brilliant as we are - tried to fix them...

It's a very simple concept: lefty-loosey; righty-tighty. Someone forgot to mention that you have to be facing the thing you're trying to loosen to the lefty, not the top, because then you're turning righty and the nut is becoming tighty. It only took us an hour to figure out why it was getting harder to turn the nut despite the blasts of WD40. Good thing our kids are smarter than us.

So Gus's bike is all fixed and ready to go! Yay, Gus!!

Some Possible Answers

Since taking Gus off his medication, I've looked for some alternative ways to help him focus during the school day. He's had a great week, only one less focused afternoon. That's pretty darned good! The weather is a big factor; he's just naturally more hyper and has a harder time during the colder months. But it's looking like physical activity and noise have been playing a big role as well.

It seems that when Gus has lots of physical activity on a daily basis, he's more focused in school. This is not surprising. Exercise increases serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine and endorphins. The neurotransmitters control alertness, emotions, and concentration, while endorphins are natural mood lifters. So, I've made it a point to make Gus exercise for about 10 minutes every morning with a peddler - an exercise bike without the seat part - spending 5 minutes working his legs and 5 minutes working his arms. After school, he's been either swimming at the beach or walking or something else to get him out and moving. I think that if I can work something out with his teacher in the fall where he has a break midday to do some exercises, everyone may have a happier school year.

The other change we've made is that Gus now uses headphones in the classroom. It seems that when he doesn't have to be anxious about noise, he can concentrate better on his work.

So I'm feeling optimistic about the possibility of a drug free school year to come. Now I just have to find an exercise regime that we can afford and that will be interesting enough for him to want to do it every day.

Unexpected and Curious

Today marks the fourth day of Gus's Strattera re-trial. Our first go at the medication ended after about six days because his behavior became wild on the afternoon of day six - to the point of endangering himself and the other people on the school bus. The doctor and I worried that increasing the dosage would make matters worse, but the results have been surprising.

Gus's behavior at home this weekend has been vastly different than what we heard from school. He's been very calm for the most part, sleepy even toward the afternoon. Yesterday there was one brief bout of grumpiness because he wanted to play a computer game and his sister wanted to watch TV, so he locked himself away in his room for a while. But there's been no name-calling or rudeness. As a matter of fact he was at a birthday party at a very crowded place and was just great. Around 5:30 he got a little burst of hyperactivity; last week it came a little earlier than normal - about 3ish.

One small issue he had last night was that he kept getting out of bed whereas he is usually the first to fall asleep. It was especially weird since he was completely exhausted from the day. But sometimes being too tired can effect the ability to fall asleep, so I won't panic over it.

Now, he'll be getting to that point where he started having serious problems early in the week. It seems that the increased dosage pushed back the bout of wildness enough that he hasn't had any bus trouble yet, but we'll see. If there's no major change for the worse on the bus, I'm willing to keep him at this level for a while longer and I'll probably even let teacher know by Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on when I speak to Doc. I'm sure she'll be pissed that I didn't tell her sooner, but scientific studies are often done blind for a good reason.

Perhaps too soon

Gus had a horrendous day on Monday, which led to a phone conversation with his counselor and with her once again trying to convince me to try him on medication. I was getting very worried about his impulsivity, so I spoke to his pediatrician (the specialist he sees is also leaning towards medication). Everything is in place to decide on a medication trial - either Focalin or Strattera.

The funny part is that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, he was great at school. Not a single complaint from his teacher, and he even got to go with her to the school plant sale where he picked out some marigolds for me.

This does not sound to me like a child in need of medication. Maybe we're jumping the gun on this.

I'm reminded of a Dave Matthews lyric from a song called You Never Know:
"But rushing around seems what's wrong with the world..."

You're not kidding Dave.

Rush to vaccinate, rush to medicate, rush to integrate.... Can't we just slow down a tick?

Two Weeks Later

We've been able to maintain our dairy-free diet for two weeks now. Gus still won't touch any of the other milks, not even the chocolates or vanillas. But otherwise, it's gone fairly well. I think that I'm having to redirect a little less in general, more so when he's kind of tired.

The real test for me was what his teacher was going to say. I didn't tell her that we had made any changes and I spoke to her on Friday. Now, during the week, there hadn't been any negative reports. But when I asked her if she'd noticed any difference in him, she said she hadn't. The only difference was that he wasn't taking things off of the aide's desk. I've asked her to let me know if she does see any changes.

Even if there isn't a significant difference in his ability to focus, I definitely feel that he's more 'with it' and more conversational. Maybe the other part will come in time. It's only been two weeks after all. So we're sticking with this plan at least for a while longer.

We're getting as much calcium supplementation into the kids as possible: fortified juices, multivitamins with calcium and calcium gummies (those are a huge hit). Those things as many calcium rich foods as I can get my kids to eat seem to be working out fine. I was very excited to find that Apple & Eve now offers calcium fortified juice boxes. If I could find a decent non-dairy mozzarella or ricotta cheese, we'd be golden!

If you're trying a dairy-free diet, please share your experiences! We'd love to hear them!

Niceness

There are nice people in the world. I’ve probably met both of them, but it’s good to know that they do exist.

We took the kids to the lake today, probably for the last time this summer. It wasn’t very crowded: just us and a woman with a brood of girls from ages ranging (I’m guessing) from about six up to perhaps thirteen. Clearly they were not all hers. And they were not all very nice, either (for that whole story read my post in Quite Frankly).

But we’re discussing the nice guys right now, the two lifeguards who had the goodness of heart to be kind to a slightly quirky little boy. My mother-in-law pointed out that Gus is a very likable and sweet child, and of course I agree, but that doesn’t always stop people from giving him looks or ignoring him because they don’t understand his means of communication or being flat out mean because he’s making those engine revving noises between each thought that excites him. Sometimes people are not so compassionate, but the lifeguards were, and I will never forget that kindness.

Gus had decided to take his boogie board into the water for a spell, just after the lifeguards had decided to take a dip. This is very unusual for our lifeguards; we rarely see them in the water. At first, Gus was just hanging out, trying to climb on the board and splashing back into the water. Then he got the idea in his head to strike up a conversation with the lifeguards. Now, I couldn't hear the entire exchange, but I know there was some talk of different Disney movies, and I can extrapolate the rest. Gus probably asked if they'd seen each of the movies that he's seen, probably said that he's seen movies that he hasn't, and more than likely told them all about the upcoming live show at Disney World featuring the Choo-Choo Soul and the Imagination Movers. I'm fairly certain that Gus inquired as to why they were in the water at all as well. Let me just point out that one of the guys is probably going to be a senior in high school in a few days and the other is heading off to college.

Instead of blowing him off to finish their discussion of Halo III or whatever it is that boys their age talk about, they spent no less than an hour hanging out with Gus. After a while the older of the two even started holding the board so that Gus could get on and fling himself off. They totally engaged him and it was just the most awesome thing to watch. There was no impatience, no raised eyebrows or cocked heads when he did the little humming thing he does sometimes. The three of them were like old buddies.

I got in the water after a while so that my father-in-law could keep a closer eye on my daughter, and the boys chatted with me on and off, and didn't push away when Gus tried to interact with them some more.

They really were lovely young men and I wish only good things for them. Some people just deserve it.

Back to School Shopping

We did our back-to-school shopping and I have to say, I was totally floored at how well Gus did in the store. I normally dread taking the kids anywhere near a store alone, but school starts next week and we had nothing better to do, so I tried it. I thought it would give me an idea of how Gus is doing with the sugarless diet. Very well, apparently.

Usually taking the kids to a store means constant squirming, trying to run off, whining, crying - everyone knows the drill. Before we left I ran through the two main rules: stay with mommy, stay in the cart. I repeated it just before we got out of the car. Then we struck gold and found one of those double carts - fun carts, my kids call them. They're much more comfortable for he kids and much easier than having to keep one sitting (usually Gus although he's a little big for the front of a shopping cart) and holding the other's hand. He didn't try to get out of the cart once. I even had to unbuckle him to check the length on some pants and I left him unbuckled for a few seconds while I looked for a different size, and he still didn't go anywhere. That is a MAJOR accomplishment on his part.

His MM started getting antsy before Gus did, but when she started whining and having a fit about not getting something or other that she wanted, he didn't react much. In the past, I would have had a double meltdown on my hands - a triple meltdown once I started to lose it.

As it worked out, she calmed down relatively quickly and we got out of the store without incident.

It's kind of funny that I was reading Whitterer on Autism (another blog and one I highly recommend) earlier and she posted about feeling like her son was a different person after he started taking medication. I'm feeling something similar with Gus. It's odd not to have him running around like a lunatic, not having to struggle with him in a store until my arms want to snap off, or to see him so calm I have to keep asking if he's okay. It's quite surreal. If just removing the sugar from his diet can keep him this level, I sort of wonder what he'd be like on medication. I'm not quite ready to find out, but these have all been very interesting developments.

Another Step Forward

Last night, for the first time ever, we went out and left the kids with non-family babysitters. Yes the plural is intentional; I'm not totally insane. Gus's godfather and his wife came over, had dinner and then put the kids to bed. I am pleased to say that neither of the kids gave them a moment's grief and all was well.

Now, I wouldn't have left them with just anyone. Our friends both have training and lots of experience in dealing with special-needs adults - it's what they do for a living. So I felt confident that if Gus had a meltdown or went into a little hyperactive burst, they wouldn't freak out. As it turned out, Gus did do a bit of climbing and racing through the house crashing into the walls, but they put a stop to it quickly and in a way that I thought was very clever. It wouldn't have worked if I tried it, but that's because I'm Mom and they know me well enough to know what my threshold is. But a new person, well, she might not put up with much, so best not to push her. Kids are just so brilliant.

MM tried to weasel an extra story, but godfather shut that down easily too. She said she needed two people to tell her a story; he replied that he told her two stories so it was the same as two people telling one story each. I think by the time she reasoned that out, she was probably asleep.

I doubt we'll be going out like that again any time soon, but there is a wedding (husband's family) that we'll need babysitting for very soon. So thank goodness we've found someone!!