Quick post....

Just a quick post to say we're back in Kentucky. The weekend went well, overall. The drive is always a killer. We left at 11:45 Friday morning and got to mom's work at about 6:20ish, I think. So just under 7 hours. We stopped and had dinner though, along with a couple gas stops. On the way back we left at about 2:30 and got back at about 9:30, so another 7 hours (stopping for a late lunch and a couple gas stops). Thankfully Owen does wonderful in the car. He took a nap both times this trip (sometimes he stays up the whole trip!).

Anyway, this week will be busy. I have to go to the county clerk's office today to get my car registered. I should have done it by my birthday but left the title in Michigan. Oops! So I got a temp registration that expires tomorrow. I work 2-6 today then Owen starts a swimming "class" at the gym. It's not actually a class, more of a water safety awareness class. It's Mon-Fri this week at 6:30. So we have to book it from work to the class! But it was free through the gym we go to so we couldn't turn it down. He loves the water :)

Tuesday Owen does ST at 10 and PT at 11. I work 2-6 then have O's water class. Wednesday I work all day (10-6) then have O's water class. Thursday I work all day (10-6), then have O's water class and then we're taking him to Build-A-Bear. He LOVES watching the other kids make bears but hasn't quite figured out that he could do it too. LOL! So we'll let him make a special bear that he can bring to the hospital with him on Friday. Friday morning he'll go in to get his ear tubes done. He gets to skip both his Friday therapies this week. I have Friday off work so we'll just sit around and relax after his surgery.

That's our week in a nutshell :)

Oh, and a small update on the whole other family crap. So, originally when ex's sister called last week I asked if she wanted to meet at McDonalds (with a playland for the boys) on Sunday around 1ish for a late lunch on our way out of town. She said she did. Saturday night she called and said that she had to work at 1 and so could we do it at 10:30. I originally told her sure, then after I hung up got to thinking about it and figured out that I couldn't. It really messed with my plans that we had already made. So I called her Sunday morning and told her she was welcome to bring the kids to dad's house. She said ok, she would. Not even 10 minutes later she called back and said she might not be able to come because she was going to put her son down for a nap because he was cranky. I guess she told him (he's 3, btw) that he wasn't going to McDonalds anymore, that they were going to see Owen at his Grandpa's house. When she called me I could hear him yelling in the background "I don't want to f*cking go over there" over and over again. Nice, huh? I felt like yelling back at him "Well I don't want you to f*cking come over here". LOL! But I was the adult. I bit my tongue. Anyway, long story short... never heard back from them and didn't see them. Surprise.

Goodbye!

We're leaving in the morning for Michigan for the weekend. Be back Sunday evening :)

And a little gossip to leave you with.... a couple days ago, out of nowhere, ex's sister called me up asking when we would be back in town. Now, after they ignored all the visits last year my theory has been I will not call/contact them and tell them when we'll be in town, but if they contact me I'll be honest and tell them. So I did and she said she wanted to see Owen. I do not want Owen at their house (for safety reasons- smoke filled and guns laying around) and, obviously, am not letting anyone there take him alone. So I offered to meet her at McDonalds on Sunday afternoon for lunch on our way out of town (it has a play area so the kids can play for awhile). She said she wanted to do that, and then mentioned that ex has "really gotten himself together the last few weeks" and, apparently, has been trying to contact me and "he has been calling and texting you and you never answered". Uh. Yeah. Prove it to me with phone records. Bull crap. The last time he text me was on February 15th. I text him back and then he stopped, never heard from him again. And, yes, I saved all the texts from that day just in case it ever comes up. I was nice to him, while he was not to me. I answered all his questions and then he just stopped texting. I never received any calls or have any missed calls from him.

Sooooo.... it'll be interesting to see who, if anyone, shows up at McDonalds Sunday afternoon.

Anywho.... have a great weekend!

A few pictures

One of the suggestions Owen's OT had for him was to try and find a really tight shirt, like Under Armour. She wanted us to try and it see if it helps Owen fall asleep better and sleep better throughout the night. He really seeks deep pressure at night. At one point he was finding his way under his fitted sheet and sleeping under it! I put an end to that by putting little things on to keep his sheet tight. He sleeps under all his pillows and stuff, trying to get the deep pressure. So we were hoping these shirts might help. We lucked out and found some at Meijer a couple weeks ago on clearance! They only had one in his size and one in the next size bigger. Each were $2. Woo-hoo! Here he is tonight, wearing it for the first time. He loved it! AND he didn't even ask to wear a white shirt (he's worn a white shirt every day and every night for many months now).


Here he is reading The Cat in the Hat.


And here's a short video of it. He lost interest after a couple pages. LOL!

Just a quick update before I run to work....

Got some of Owen's test results back. His immune system is fine (errr.... really? Okay, not true. But he doesn't have any immune disorders). His other blood work is all good, except he's anemic. Big surprise. Doctor says to give him vitamins, to which I laughed and said if we could get him to eat vitamins I'd be throwing a party. So, no surprise, he's been anemic or borderline anemic almost constantly since around 12 months.

Woo!

Still waiting on the chromosome testing to come back. That should be a couple more months, I think.

Easter :)

Here are some Easter pictures for your enjoyment :)

Goofing around after church (I look like crap, but Owen's adorable!)

"Hmmm..... where is that basket..."

A bubble whistle!

VeggieTales! Thomas is so yesterday. Now he's loving VeggieTales so the Easter Bunny brought him some VeggieTales action figures. LOL!

Easter egg hunt!

Oops.

Found one!

Yummm.... chocolate......

Decorating cookies

Here he is, very proud of his creations!

Have a great night everyone!

Echolalia funnies

Ever since Owen first started talking (around age 3) he's had some form of echolalia. At first it was immediate echolalia (if I asked him a question he would repeat it back to me or, more often, repeat the last word he heard). Now he's moved on to delayed echolalia and some of it just cracks me up. The last echolalia jag he had was after we let him watch the movie "Barnyard". For quite a while after he was constantly saying "That's called boy tipping. Ha Ha" and cracking up. He obviously has no idea what that referrances (in the movie it's the cows who sneak into the boys bedroom and tips the boy out of bed) but decided to repeat it. Over and over and over again at random times. His latest phrase, which he started a few days ago, I have no idea where he got it from. It's "Don't do that again or..." and then he makes a motion like he's cutting his throat and makes a sound to go with it. It's disturbing, but I know he has no idea what he's doing. He's just repeating what he's seen. The problem is, I have NO idea where that's from. I'm guessing it's from daycare (they let him watch tv shows there that I don't, mostly Nickelodeon shows. He's not allowed to watch tv at our house, just movies that I approve of). I guess I'll have to have a talk with them tomorrow and see if they know what show/movie it's from and ask that they don't play it when he's there. Anyway, the funny that went with that is yesterday we were out with Jason's parents. They took Owen and I to Cracker Barrel for dinner. While there Owen had to go potty so I took him. He's in there, doing his business, when it strikes him to start repeating this phrase. Over and over again and he's so serious when he was doing it! He wasn't doing it in a funny voice. It was a serious one. People were coming and going in that bathroom and I about peed my pants wondering what the heck these people were thinking when they heard him. Sometimes I feel like I need to make a sign for him that says "I have developmental delays. No matter what I say- my mom isn't threatening me!". LOL!

Oh well. It's one of those things that if I don't laugh about, I'll cry. So I choose to laugh :) Even if it may seem inappropriate for me to be laughing about my son saying something inappropriate like that. So if anyone is reading this out there in cyber land that was at that Cracker Barrel last night (or Sam's Club. Or Walmart today) and heard a little boy repeating this phrase and his mom was laughing hysterically.... please forgive me. I'm not a bad mom!

I'll have an Easter post coming up.....

Back again...

and the rest of the day didn't go much better than the morning.

I got Owen to the daycare and he drove them crazy for a couple hours. LOL. Then they decided to take all the big kids outside. Cool. Let him run off some energy, right? About 15 minutes later one of the workers brought Owen into my room (infant room) saying he had to go inside because he wouldn't keep his "outside slippers" on. Okay. Great. So now I'm juggling the babies while trying to keep Owen from destroying things and hurting the babies. Wonderful. To top all that off he ripped his new shirt while he was outside and got his pants dirty. Which made him freak and try to take them off. Repeatedly. I couldn't go out to the car to get him new pants because I couldn't leave the babies alone in the room. So, too bad, sit in your dirty pants for a few minutes. Of course, Owen was pissed off and trying to claw at me as one of my parents walked in.

Did I mention how great this day was going?

So the work day finally ended. I needed to go to the bank but the drive thru one was closed. Great. So I took him to the one that's inside of Kroger. As we are walking through the parking lot insert a big old repeat of this mornings episode of the parking lot. Heh. Yeah, kinda losing my patience at this point. Picked him up and carried him into the store. And I have the scratches to prove it. Finally get my bank stuff done and carry him back out to the car. Where he screams "I don't want to go in your car and you can't make me!". LOL. If I wasn't losing my patience before, I sure was now with all these strangers staring at me thinking I was harming Owen (I was not, in any way, harming him). So I set him on the trunk and asked him to calm down. After a minute he did and told me that he wanted to go back into kroger and go grocery shopping. Oh boy. For the sake of a little bit of harmony I agreed. We walked around and looked at some stuff but didn't end up buying anything because Jason's mom called to say she was on her way to our house. So we left to run home.

So can I just say that after a day like today I am SO GLAD I get to sit in a classroom for 6 hours tomorrow with not another child in sight? Seriously- I'm thrilled to have to go sit in a boring classroom and learn things I already know. But I get adult interaction! And no little munchkin is going to kick me or hit me or scratch me! At the daycare I work at you have to take 12 hours of continuing education every year. So I'm knocking off 6 hours tomorrow (9-3) and another 6 hours next month. Jason gets Owen from 9-2:30ish (when he has to leave for work) and then Jason's parents will watch him for the last little bit. It should be interesting. Jason's watched him for short periods before, never anywhere near 5 hours though! He'll have to take him to his Tots On Turf class in the morning too, which should be interesting for him. Oh, and for those wondering about the spa package Jason got me for my birthday.... haven't done it yet. I can only do it on a Saturday morning and I've been busy every saturday morning. Next saturday we'll be in Michigan and the saturday after that will be the day after O gets his tubes in. Think it would be a bit mean to do it then. LOL! The saturday after that we have plans, the one after that is my next class and the one after that is walkamerica. So, it'll be may, at least, before I use it. Bummer.

And now Owen wants to type...

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Another wonderful day of OT.

We had 2 hours of OT this morning (1 hour in his feeding group and 1 hour of one-on-one). There was some good that came out of it, but not all. I could tell it was going to be a challenging day before we even made it into the building. We had to park at the far end of the parking lot because there were no empty spaces by the door. So we parked and I let him out. I took his hand and started walking. And he freaked. He wanted to walk alone with no hands. Nope. Not negotiable. He will run off and get hit by a car in an instant. He doesn't know/understand/get the importance of staying right next to me and watching the cars. So, nope, gotta hold my hand. He flipped. He flopped to the ground screaming and crying. Since we were now in the middle of the parking lot I tried calming him down and telling him to walk to the sidewalk with my hand and then I'd let go and he could walk into the building by himself. No go. He continued to melt down. I couldn't let him lay in the middle of the parking lot like that so I picked him up and brought him to the sidewalk. I set him down and told him he could walk. Nope, still flipping out. So I carried him inside, signed him in and we sat down. Where he continued to flip out. Screaming, crying, kicking, scratching, hitting (his newest one... he never used to hit or kick me :( ). I set him down and he bolted for the door to the parking lot. Repeatedly. Finally his OT came out and saw what was happening. She gathered the kids (Owen and 2 other kids) to take them to the therapy room. Both of the other kids happily went. Owen sat in the hall screaming. After a few minutes I got him calmed down and we decided we were going to scare his OT. So I took him down the hall to the room where he poked his head in and said "boo". The OT played along and all was well again. He did his first hour of OT (feeding) fine. She said he didn't do as well as he normally does- he only at the pringles and a rice cake. The other foods he would touch (most of them) but wouldn't put them anywhere near his mouth/face. Huh. After that OT was over and she talked to the other 2 parents we went back to the room again. We did some stuff with Owen (playing with shaving cream, using a big ball to make him into a pizza, bean bin, etc) while the OT and I talked about him. She said, in her opinion (as a therapist who has worked with special needs kids for many many years), Owen fits the autism diagnosis. Obviously, for all who know him, on the mild end (either mild/high functioning autism or PDD-NOS). She pointed out again and again things that he does that are "very autistic". I can't even remember them all.... there were a lot. The fact that he likes waffles (now) but will only eat Eggo waffles. Or the fact that he HAS to eat the waffles how they're shown on the box (blueberry waffles have a pat of butter on them, car waffles don't). If I don't put butter on the blueberry one he won't eat it. There are many many more that go along with it.

Anyway, we talked about the shoe issue. I think we have it narrowed down to he hates having his heel touch the shoe. He's fine with me putting on his sneakers- until we get the heel in. And then he freaks out. So we're going to bombard his sensory system (specifically his feet) and specifically right before we put on shoes. We're also going to keep doing the brushing every 2 hours. Hopefully this will be enough to get his sneakers back on his feet.

Argh. It's just been one of those days. Add on to that- there is a new woman working at the daycare. I don't think she'll be there long. On Wednesday she was supposed to be watching a handful (5, I think) of kids in the big kid room. I was in charge that night and it was only about 20-25 minutes before we closed so there were very few kids left. The kids were all sitting on a rug watching a movie. The new woman (*K*) was sitting with them. I told her I had to run down the hall to tell the other new woman, who was working the 1 year old room, that she could bring her last kid down to the big kid room since the day was almost over. I was down there talking to her, telling her how to finish up the day (what needed to be done before she could leave). *M*, another co-worker, came down the hall with Owen and asked if I knew he was outside (knowing full well that he's not allowed outside). Apparently one of the daycare moms found him outside and brought him back in! I flipped. I took Owen back down to the big kid room.

Me- "K- do you have all your kids?"
K- "Yes"
Me- "None are missing?"
K- "Nope, why?"
Me- "How about this one? Where was Owen?"
K- "Oh, he went out to the hallway so I thought someone else would see him"
Me- "Uh. No. Owen went outside and left. Another parent brought him back inside. Your job is to WATCH the children and do NOT let them out of the door until their parent is in this room."
K- "Oh, okay" (just kinda brushing it off like it's not a big deal)
(At this point K didn't know Owen was my son- it was only her second day working there)
Me- "You know, if I were a parent and drove up to my kids daycare and saw them wandering around outside unsupervised I would be extremely upset"
K- "Yeah, I know. But Owen's inside now"
Me-" Yes, but Owen is MY son. And I am extremely upset"
Insert "Oh shit" look on K's face. The conversation went on a bit before I dropped it. Yesterday I did tell our boss what had happened and word soon spread throughout the daycare. When K came in to work yesterday she was ripped into by a lot of people. I felt bad, in a way, but she HAS to learn to watch ALL of the children (not just Owen, but specifically Owen and one other boy who leave the room).

Anyway, gotta run to work. More later on how OT went.... kinda got sidetracked....

Words of wisdom...

from a 4 year old. As I was laying in bed this morning Owen told me, as serious as he could be, "Mama- if you stand in bed you could hurt your eye!". Ummmm.... ok. Not sure where that came from but good advice! I'll remember that next time I start standing on my bed. LOL!

Today is mine and Owen's easy day. Normally on days where we don't have therapy/doctor appointments we go into work early (9 or 10). But today we have no therapy and no doctor appointments and we're not working until 2:00! Woo-hoo! Tomorrow we have ST at 10, PT at 11 and work at 2. Wednesday we work from 10-6. Ditto Thursday. Friday is feeding therapy at 10, OT at 11 and work at 2. So not a bad week.... no doctor appointments! (And now I'm knocking on wood!)

If I were a betting woman....

I'd place my money on ear infection. Again. I think it's safe to say these ear tubes can't come a moment too soon. We knew he had fluid in his ears (one worse than the other) on Thursday at the ENT (but neither were infected, they just had fluid in them). About an hour ago he started crying and holding onto one ear. I asked what was wrong and, amazingly, he said "my ear hurts mama". That's the first time he's ever told me his ear hurts!!!! Amazing progress for him. Unfortunately he is in pain :( And, of course, he tells me his ear hurts RIGHT after the weekend clinic closes. Doh! But, we know it's "just" an ear infection (nothing life threatening) so we'll avoid the ER tonight when he wakes up screaming with a 104 fever (not that he's done that before. No. Never). Thankfully we have more of his ear drops that worked amazing last time so I'll put some of those in his ear that hurts (maybe both just to be safe) and hope he makes it through the night without waking. Tomorrow the clinic opens at noon so you can bet where we'll be (if he says his ear still hurts tomorrow).

Fun fun fun.

Cheeseburgers!

Owen and I were discussing dinner options tonight. Out of nowhere he said "mama- I want to try a cheeseburger. That's a new food!". So I booked it out to McD's before he lost interest ;) LOL!

We came home and he did eat the cheeseburger. Kinda. He got 3 fries, bite of burger, 3 fries, repeat over and over again.




However, when he finally got a bite of the actual burger it promptly came right back out.



Here's when he was done eating the burger...



And a picture showing exactly how smart the boy is. He took "bites" to get the fries, managing to miss the actual burger everytime (except that one time). Cute. He did get a couple bites with cheese though and liked that.


I'm impressed. It is a new food (kinda- he does eat all sorts of bread). But for him to even consider eating a cheeseburger is awesome! And for him to eat the bun that was touching the burger.... awesome! It was definately a good first step :)

Looks like O will be joining J...

in the operating room. He'll be getting ear tubes put in on April 4th. She wanted to do them on March 21st (next Friday) but I veto'd it because he's already missed 2 weeks of his Friday therapy- if he misses the 21st too then he'll have gone from Feb 29th- March 28th with no OT. And that's not cool! So we're waiting a couple weeks before we do it. She said he has fluid in his ears right now, but it's not infected (yet). She says more than likely he's had fluid in his ears since November (or longer) that just gets re-infected, clears up mostly- but not completely- with antibiotics and then gets re-infected. She said that by his age he should have grown out of ear infections, but he obviously hasn't. So we talked for quite awile about risks and benefits of getting ear tubes or waiting and, ultimately, I believe he needs them now.

She also brought up the possibility of getting his adnoids out but I opted out of that. I don't believe he needs them out at this time and the risks of that surgery are higher than just the ear tubes (he would need to be intubated for the adnoids, not for the ear tubes). Also I would rather not do anything with his mouth, he has enough eating/sensory issues already. He's finally starting to try new foods and I really don't need him regressing in that area.

We talked a bit about the actual proceedure and she said I'll be able to go back with him until he's asleep so we don't have to deal with the drama of them taking him away from me while he's still awake. I was thrilled to hear that. I'll be writing another social story for him because the one I wrote for getting his blood drawn helped a LOT.

Anyway, that's all for today :)

Snow!

Wanted to add a few pictures before I run to work. Here's some pictures from Saturday- it's the only snowfall we've had all year where something's actually accumulated and stuck for more than a couple hours! We got a good couple inches, which essentially shut down the whole town.






That last picture is Owen stomping on Jason's snowman he was trying to build. Owen had a blast :) Unfortunately we had not bought him any snow boots (no need for them here) so he wore rain boots instead. LOL!

Preschool, therapy and life in general.

We want to get Owen enrolled in a preschool this coming fall. He misses the deadline for Kindergarten by 2 days so we'll do preschool this year and K next year. So the hunt for a *good* preschool is on. From what we've found (with the help of Owen's developmental ped) we've got 4 options. The public school system, Growing Together, Childhood Development Center and Cardinal Hill. We've already ruled out Growing Together. It just.... I don't know.... gives me a weird vibe. It looks like a glorified daycare. That's not what I want. I don't really like the teacher/student ratio either. So that one is out. The Childhood Development Center doesn't look as bad. It still leaves the "glorified preschool" taste in my mouth though. The teacher/student ratio is much better though. They have therapists that come into the childs room and works with them, as per their IEP (which Owen does not have right now since we've stayed away from the school district so far). But, the downside, is it's a full day program (like I said- glorified daycare). I have not looked much into the public school system. O's developmental dr says it's good and they're great with SN kids. I would LOVE to get him into Cardinal Hill though. Currently he gets all of his therapy through Cardinal Hill so he'd be able to keep all his same therapists and he knows the building well. Some of his therapy (probably speech, at least) would be given to him during preschool hours. It's a 4 day a week program that's 3 hours a day. I think that would be *perfect* for him. But, it's really expensive (and, from what I hear, well worth it). Basically I would be putting my entire paycheck, week after week, towards it. While O was at therapy today I went to talk to the woman in charge of the preschool part. I got some info and filled out an application (there's a waiting list, currently). After I left I talked to Jason about it. He made a phone call and figured out that the woman I was talking to is his co-workers wife. Small world, huh? So he's talking to her again trying to figure out a time we can all meet up to talk. In an ideal world Owen would get into this preschool, continue to get his therapy there, and I would get a job at Cardinal Hill (would make life so much easier since I'm always there anyway). But, currently, there's no positions there that I could take. There's a couple PT positions but they're all evening hours.

Shoot.... time for work. I'll have to finish this post tonight! I have pics to add...

Sam!

Just wanted to let you know that I went to Old Navy today. I didn't really have anything in mind to buy, just kinda looking around. I ended up spending part of the gift card on a chemise. I usually sleep in a pair of lounge pants or shorts and one of Jason's shirts so I needed something to make me feel like a girl again. LOL! Now I just have to wait for it to warm up a little (it figures that *now* it snows when I buy this... it was in the high 60's the other day!). I'll go back in a couple weeks when they have more summer clothes out and see what else I can find :) Thanks and I'll keep you updated :)

Mom- I think O and I (and Jason if he doesn't work) might hit the mall tomorrow so I'll let you know if we hit Bath and Body Works!

Allison- I just placed an order with Amazon. I ended up getting a mixing bowl set (I really needed some mixing bowls), a book, (we own, and have watched, the first 5 seasons of this show and I LOVE it! We're waiting for season 6 to get cheaper so we can get it. I figure a book would keep me busy during all O's therapy hours. LOL!) and- to get it to $25 so I could get free shipping- another book for Owen and I (since he's finally getting interested in food I'm hoping a cookbook will interest him and entice him to try new foods!). Thanks again!

Shoe update

The things we do as parents.... LOL!

Owen's on a shoe strike, as I mentioned earlier. But he'll wear slippers. Unfortunately, slippers won't cut it on a day like today (freezing rain). Keep his feet warm? Yup. Keep them dry? Not a chance. But I had a lightbulb moment as I was eating my lunch after his appointment. He wants slippers instead of shoes? Sure, why not? So I eplained to him that his Thomas slippers are only for in the house- but we could go out and buy a special pair of "outside slippers" for him to wear outside.

I'm evil, I know.

So we went out to the store and found a pair of "outside slippers". He loves them and is -*SHOCK*- wearing them! But they aren't shoes. They're "outside slippers". And no-one better say otherwise! LOL!

Oh, and here's a rant for you. I have never felt so much anger towards a child before. Owen and I got off work early today (4:00 instead of 6:00) because the daycare closed early in anticipation of some nasty weather coming our way (in reality it didn't hit us hard until around 7:30 or so). So I took him to the mall right across the street from our house (if the weather turned nasty I could get him home quickly). I took him to play in the play area. He was having fun for a little while. Our kids play area has huge baby items to climb on (bottle, blocks, bear, etc). Owen was having a blast trying to jump from the bottle nipple to the bottle. Except everytime he made it this other boy would knock him down. Okay, whatever, boys being boys. This boy was older (maybe 7-8) and really should not have been in there anyway. After the 4th or 5th time I went over and asked Owen if he was okay. He said yes, he was having fun. So I mentioned to the other boy to please stop knocking Owen down. I turned around and walked back to the bench. I sat down for less than 5 minutes when I saw that Owen finally made it jumping from the nipple to the bottle and was standing up on it (it's about waist high on me so he was a good distance off the ground, but he's jumped from it before with no problems so I wasn't worried). Until the little brat turned around, saw Owen had made it to the top and KICKED Owens legs, flipping him backwards off the bottle. It looked horrible. Owen started screaming. I thought for sure he had broken his arm, the way he had landed. I immediately jumped up and ran to him. Just as the brat JUMPED off the bottle and ONTO Owen. Just as I reached Owen the boy then KICKED him in the head. I flipped out. I took the kids leg off Owen's head and push him aside while telling him to back away. The boys parents were sitting right there, inches away from where it happened. They never asked if Owen was okay (he is), never said sorry, never told the boy to say sorry or said anything to the boy at all (I know they saw what happened- they couldn't have missed it!). I couldn't believe it. They were seriously going to just sit there and let their boy hurt other kids. Owen could have been seriously injured! I flipped out on the parents. I admit it wasn't my finest moment but I couldn't believe it. I honestly held it together a lot better than I thought I would. Since there were other kids around I managed to not curse. But I did make it known that the boy was far too big to be playing there and far too dangerous to the other kids. The parents sat there staring at me. Never said a word. It was just.... weird. Very odd. And the little boy went right on bullying the other kids. Not surprisingly, most of the other parents packed up their kids and left after seeing what happened. I didn't want to punish Owen by making him leave- it wasn't his fault, afterall. So he sat with me for a few minutes then decided he wanted to play again. Now, if I were Owen I would have gone over and beat the tar out of the boy (yeah, real mature of me, I know). Owen got down from the bench, walked right past the boy and didn't touch him or even look at him. Yup, my 4 year old has better control of himself then I would. LOL! I was very proud of him. He played for a few more minutes then we left.

Well, here's the 3rd (4th? 5th? Who's counting) opinion on Owen....

Today was his developmental and behavioral ped appointment. It went really well, I think. We didn't do any tests at this time. We just talked to the dr, answered questions, asked questions and they observed Owen (there were 2 doctors). The dr's opinion is that he may or may not have PDD-NOS. He does not have classic autism (I agree 100% with that). At this time Owen is getting all the therapy he needs (I can't think of another therapy I want him in that he needs an autism diagnosis for) so we are just going to let it be with this opinion of he may or may not have PDD-NOS. The dr says there are definately developmental delays. Huge speech delay (which kinda sucked to hear because Owen's made SO MUCH progress in the last year with his speech, but he's still got huge delays). His eye contact sucks, but it's there sometimes. He definately has sensory issues (btw- today is, apparently, another no shoe day. I'm thinking I might go to the store later with him and see if he'll wear Crocs since they won't be as tight on his feet as sneakers are).

So the plan is to start him in preschool this fall (not sure where. It'll either be through the public school or through one of 3 preschools specifically for kids with developmental delays). The dr said that this school district is great for kids with developmental delays so he wouldn't hesitate to utilize the free preschool program. We will look at all of them in the next couple weeks and decide which fits Owen's needs best.

We will go back and see this doctor in about 6 months, after Owen's been in preschool for about a month. I have some questions that the dr wants me to have his preschool teacher fill out before we see him next, along with a set of questions for me to fill out.

In 6 months we'll see where Owen is and how much progress he's made. He did give us some suggestions on things to do with Owen and suggestions for his daycare teachers to do with him to encourage him to interact with the other kids (something he's really delayed in as well).

Just another day in paradise ;)

I'll start out by saying that the day actually went pretty well. No big complaints from me :)

I did end up taking Owen to get his blood drawn today. First we had to run to his ped and pick up 2 blood orders. Then we had to run to his neurologist/geneticists office and get another order. Then to the lab. Fortunately they are all in the same building (different floors and different sections, so a lot of walking though). The actual blood draw was not bad at all. I made him a social story getting his blood drawn (and Owen was the star in the story) and read it to him a couple times this morning before we left. It helped a LOT. As we were doing different parts of it he would repeat whatever the book said ("And Owen and mama went to the waiting room. They waited and waited and waited"). It was cute. He screamed a little when he got stuck but after the initial shock he was fine. He stopped crying before they even finished taking the blood!

Since he was a good boy (and because the social story said so....) we went to Toys R Us afterwards and he got to pick out a new toy ;) He went straight for a Veggie Tales DVD, he must have already known what he wanted. So we got that then I told him to pick out one more toy. We went through the entire store, stopping for about 20 minutes to play with trains, before he found the perfect toy- a Diego Rescue Waterpack. As soon as he saw it he decided that that was his toy. So we got that too.

Here he is playing with it tonight. It'll make a great summer toy but, until then, it's a bath toy ;) He's spraying Jason :)



Oh, and for a short shoe update.... he did wear his new shoes today. I put them on him this morning and he immediately said to me "These feel much better mama". So.... no idea what was going on yesterday but it's better now. Maybe he was just having an extra sensory day, I don't know.

Allison- I had wondered about the socks too. Just in case- I made sure to put a pair of socks on him that never cause him trouble. They're actually the only socks he would wear for quite a while. They're very tight fitting on his feet, as opposed to the ones he was wearing yesterday which were pretty loose.

Oh, also Allison, yes- we're supposed to do the joint compressions everytime we do the brushing. His OT said the whole process should take about 3 minutes. Except that doesn't include the time it takes to get him undressed and dressed again. Every 2 hours. We haven't started yet. I may start on Saturday since we don't have work/school.

Oh, I also have to brag about some good shopping finds today. The mom of one of the kids who is in Owen's group feeding therapy was telling me that Kmart was having a good sale on clothes so we went to check it out. I ended up getting a winterish coat for him (it's light enough for a Kentucky winter or a Michigan fall/spring) for $3 (a couple sizes too big since I had just bought him a new winter coat this year), a pair of Spiderman fleece lounge pants/pj bottoms for $3.50, a pair of penguin lounge pants/pj bottoms for $2.40 and a 3 piece Cars PJ set (short sleeve top, pants and shorts) for $2.40. Woo!

Well poop.

Today was pretty crappy. And that's putting it very mild.

Owen had speech therapy at 10, which went ok (his regular ST was out so he had a new one but he did alright with her). Then at 11 he had physical therapy. That went okay, until his PT went to put his shoes back on him. And he, apparently, threw himself backwards, screamed, cried, throwing a mother of a fit. She said it was not his typical "I don't want to do this" fit- it was more of a very disturbed "something is wrong and I can't explain it" fit. So, after almost 10 minutes of screaming (that I was oh so lucky to get to listen to from the waiting room) she brought him back out. Without his shoes on. I tried to get them on- no luck. He. would. not. put. them. on. Great. He did that this weekend too, but eventually put them on. So we went out to lunch with Jason and his dad, with no shoes on. After that we went back to therapy because he had an appointment with his occupational therapist too. I thought for sure his OT could get them back on (she's like a freaking miracle worker with his food! LOL!). But, by the end of an hour, no luck. We did get him to say that they hurt his feet. Okay. Except they still fit him. They're not new, he's had them for a few months, but we bought them a little big and he definately still has room in the toe area. Huh.

So, during the hour with the OT she was basically helping me come up with things we could do with him. She's starting him on the Wilbarger Protocol, which is a brushing program. In theory it should help with some of his tactile sensitivity issues. The short explaination of it is you use this specific brush and apply deep pressure with it and brush the child in a very specific way. You do it to fingers, hands, arms, back, legs, feet, toes. After that you do joint compression on fingers, wrists, elbow, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, toes and chest. You do this routine every 2 hours during the day, every day. She taught me how to do it and I bought a couple brushes from her so we'll probably start in the next couple days.

We also talked about an oral sensory diet and we'll be beginning that as well.

In addition- we are also going to start doing one on one OT with her, for a total of 4 hours of out of the house therapy every week.

So, at the end of the day- Owen's still not wearing shoes. We did go out and buy him a new pair but, because of issues that will not be discussed here (LOL) he ended up with another pair of sneakers. I didn't necessarily think that was what would be best, but it is what it is. He did wear them in the store but as soon as we hit the car he took them off again saying his feet hurt. We are brainstorming and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

So, all in all, the day sucked. And we had planned on going to get his blood drawn tomorrow morning. Ha. I may still do it, we'll see. What's one more crappy day?