We've been waiting 5 years for this day....

With all Owen's communication issues that he's had his whole life, I have never once wanted the kid to be quiet. Even when he's screaming "NOOOO" at the top of his lungs, at least he's talking and it's music to my ears.

But lately he's been making HUGE strides towards the typical kid area of "talking back". And boy is it hard not to laugh when it happens! Here's one example....

It's bedtime right now. I put Owen to bed and, within minutes, he was turning his light on and playing (grrr.... this is a recent thing too). I turned it off, put him back in bed and explained that his body needed time to rest. He disagreed. A few minutes after I left the room he was back down playing with his trains (light off this time). I gently guided him back to his bed and explained that he needed to stay in bed. Here's our conversation...

Me- "Owen- it's time for bed. Please do not get out of bed to play with your toys. If you want a book to read in bed I'll get you one"

Owen- "NO! I want to play with my trains"

Me- "You can play with your trains in the morning. Right now is bedtime. Do you want a book or no book tonight?"

Owen- "Trains! I want TRAINS"

Me- "I'm sorry but if you get out of your bed to play with your trains I'm going to have to take them all into my bedroom so you can get some sleep"

Owen- "No you will not"

Me- "Owen- trust me when I say I will. I cannot let you stay up all night playing with trains. Please go to sleep."

Owen- "FINE. I'll just read a book then"

and throws himself dramatically onto his bed. LOL!

Ahhh..... bliss..... I've been waiting for this day for a loooong time :) Remind me of this when he's a teenager ;)

A few pictures...

Here's some pictures for the day :) We put up our Christmas tree today! Owen loves it! He got to decorate it and, well, he did it the only way a special little boy would :) He would ONLY put the circle ornaments on it. He refused to put any other ornament on the tree at first. It was cute. Here he is with his decorated tree... he's very proud!

Here's the pile of rejected ornaments...

As he was rejecting them he would say "not today snowman/santa/horse/whatever" and put it on the table ;)

Then he decided that he wanted candy canes on the tree. So Jason, Owen and I went out and bought candy canes. 2 boxes so he would have plenty to put on the tree. He put 3 up and declared "that's enough!" and refused anymore. Gotta love it. He did decide the star had to go on the top too. So here he is with his finished tree. He's making a sad face because I told him he couldn't eat his cheez-it crackers until he got his picture taken. I know, mean mommy.

Happy boy!

He thought he was being sneaky with the pringles ;)

Our computer room is right next to Owen's bedroom (doors are literally 2 inches away). I put Owen to bed and then Jason and I went to the computer room to do some work. I heard O moving a bit in his bedroom but thought nothing of it (he usually goes right to sleep with just a little moving around). A little bit later I turned around to go to another room and saw this....

What a stinker! How he managed to get all 4 of his stuffed animals and his favorite pillow into the hallway and fall asleep without us knowing... I'm not sure! (He sleeps with all those things -Bob, Snoopy, Rex and Greg- every night)

What a night!

First I have to say.... looks can be deceiving. Owen looks so cute and adorable in those pictures I posted last night. Little did I know what was lurking beneath that ;)

He refused to go to sleep last night. He listened to his music for a little bit and then was done so we put that up. We thought he was going to sleep so Jason and I went downstairs to work on some other stuff. We *never* have any troubles from Owen with going to sleep. We heard his door shut a little bit later, but we figured he just shut it to go to sleep (he's been experimenting with shutting his door and wanting some privacy so we're trying to respect that). At about 12:30 (yes, after MIDNIGHT) I went upstairs to grab something.... and saw light coming from under his door. So I peeked it open to turn off the light... but Owen wasn't in his bed. I open the door all the way and do a quick search- and find him wide awake on the other side of his bed reading books. Uhhh.... no. Go. To. Bed. Child. Turned off the light, put him in bed and go back to my bedroom to grab something. Turn around and he's turned back on the light and is playing. NO! Rinse and repeat a few times. Finally I get tired of this game (though Owen certaintly wasn't!) and get ready for bed and get into his bed, with my arm over him to keep him from escaping ;) He fell asleep around 1:00. Jason and I decided to sleep on the couch and loveseat while his dad slept in our bed (he stayed the night to keep an ear on Owen while we went out shopping). I fell asleep around 2:00. Our alarm went off at 4:30 and we were off :)

We hit Meijer and Walmart before Jason was too ill and had to go home. With his allergies, if he's in tight spaces with people wearing a lot of smelly purfume or people who smoke his allergies go off big time. And that's what happened. Poor guy felt like his head was going to explode. So I took him home and he took a shower, took some meds and drank some tea. Once I knew he was feeling a bit better he went to bed and I went back out. I hit Lowe's, Bed Bath and Beyond (where I got this for Owen... he'll love it!!), Target, Staples and Home Depot. I didn't get a lot of stuff, but I had fun :) I ran by McDonalds on my way home for a quick breakfast for the drive home. I made it back home around 9:00, in bed by 9:10. Owen was up by 9:30. What a stinker. Since Jason isn't feeling well I let him sleep and got up with Owen. I didn't even get 20 minutes of sleep. It's a good thing I'm still young ;) It's now almost noon and Jason is still sleeping, Owen's playing with his Leapster and I'm cleaning and getting ready to put out Christmas decorations. Jason's parents stopped by a few minutes ago to drop off this cute shirt Sue bought for me. It's got a bunch of cute snowmen on it. She had to fight the old ladies at Macy's to get it though. I think she and I are going out to Target later today once the crowds die down. There were a couple things I wanted to get but none were doorbusters or things that would be gone by this afternoon so I waited on them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Apparently pictures are going backwards today.... and I don't feel like fixing them ;)

We got Owen an MP3 player and a set of headphones. We got it for "therapy purposes" because he's not been handling crowds and public places as well lately. Lots of meltdowns. Lots of overstimulation. Just not a good combination with the holidays coming up. So, we got him an MP3 player and Jason just got done loading some VeggieTales songs, Thomas songs and some classical music songs onto it. Hopefully this will help him when out in public (along with his jogging stroller, which he still loves to crawl into and pull the shade down over him so he doesn't have to see the motion outside it).

As you can see... he loves it! He asked to sleep with it tonight, which we'll let him (and then take it away once he's asleep.)

Jason and I.

Mama and Owen. Check out what he's wearing!!!!! It's a miracle! LOL! Well, actually, it's sorta a miracle and sorta a lot of therapy stuff going into it. Underneath the shirt he's wearing a white undershirt and one of his absolute favorite shirts- they're like Under Armor shirts..... very very tight. He loves them and begs to wear one everyday (btw- if anyone needs any ideas for Christmas for him he would LOVE a new one.... they sell them at Target for $13 (hoping they go on sale soon!!!). He likes black or white, long sleeves. He would gladly do without a toy and get these instead!). The dress pants made it about 1 1/2ish hours before we shed them in the car and changed into his preferred pants (sweat pants) right before dinner. But he actually wore them! And he says he wants a Christmas tie so he can wear it on Christmas. So the hunt is on for a cute one...

Owen and Jason.... Jason had to dress up too as inspiration for Owen to do it... and it worked. Owen loves dressing like Jason. He loves everything Jason does.

And Owen being a little ham :)

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and enjoy this weekend. We will be putting up Christmas decorations this weekend so hopefully I'll have pictures to post soon!

It's been a fun week... and it's only wednesday!

We had our ARC/IEP meeting for Owen on Monday afternoon. All things considered, it went pretty well. We "got" everything we wanted for Owen (aide in room, lock on door, various things in the classroom to help him, ST every week, social skills help, etc). Except OT. The OT (who wasn't there but we did get on the phone for a little bit) didn't want Owen to have any OT, other than her talking to the teacher about ways to help Owen. I don't agree. And, the more I think about it, the more ticked off I got. He's been having a REALLY rough couple weeks (really bad sensory wise, to the point where he won't wear ANY shirts except those really tight, smooth feeling exercise type shirts). It's sucked. Right now he gets OT 2 hours a week at a private place (one hour is sensory/fine motor, the other hour is feeding). Once he starts Kindergarten I'm more than likely going to have to cut private OT to 1 hour per week (just the feeding) because of school/work schedules. So we want him to pick up the 1 hour/week at school. The OT was soooo against it and said it would be a waste of time Basically, what it boiled down to, is she's only at his school 2 days a week. If she's seeing Owen for 1 hour/week she won't have time. Someone that she's seeing is going to get bumped or something. TOUGH LUCK. Whether my child needs OT or not should NOT be determined by how many days she's working. Hire another OT if you have to! The OT was basically saying that the teacher was fine to work with Owen this year and we would see how he was doing in Kindergarten to determine whether he needs OT there. Even Owen's teacher was very much against this. She said that K here is more like 1st grade. They are expected to be able to sit still and do their paperwork. Right now ds won't even make a mark on a paper without freaking out. Why would I want to just wait it out until next year, guaranteeing he's going to be so far behind in K that he's going to have a hard time catching up?!? Why not help him now and hope he gets started in K on the right foot???

So, anyway, we ended up compromising and doing 60 minutes a week for 3 weeks (which will get us to Christmas break). After Christmas break we'll meet and see how much progress Owen has made.

Of course, then there's Owen's advocate... who was livid that this was the situation with the OT. He's headed up to central office to talk to the higher ups and see what he can do. We our advocate!!!

So anyway.... yesterday after work we went to the gym. Owen was pissed off because he wanted to go home and eat a donut (he has a little bag of those tiny powdered sugar donuts) and not go to the gym. No dice. I told him he could have the donut after the gym. Not good enough. Freak out occurs. I carry him into the gym (to get out of the cold) while he's freaking out. Who should we see right inside the doors? Yup.... the OT who says he doesn't need any OT. Yippee. She motioned for us to come over, so we did. She and I talk briefly, Owen freaks out when she talks to him. Eventually she's holding him somewhat. He's pissed off. Starts clawing at her face. I try to stop him, she stops me and says "I need to see this". Okaaaaay lady. Have fun! He freaks out for a little while longer before I take him away and bring him to the kids room. I sat with him for a little bit and then he eventually calmed down and ran off to play. When we were done working out we went back and got him and were on our way out.... when we ran into the OT again. He was much nicer to her this time but I still felt a little bad because he got her good on her neck. She's got some nice little scratch marks for Thanksgiving

Dentist

Owen went to the dentist this morning and did GREAT! We've been going every 3 months instead of every 6 months, just because it's easier on him that way. We do a little more every visit. Maybe in another 5 years we'll get to do an entire cleaning and exam in one visit. LOL!

But, seriously, this time he did awesome! He let her brush his teeth with a plain toothbrush, use the scrapper a little (this is new for him but he had a tiny bit of tartar build up between two of his teeth so we needed to get rid of it) and then brush his teeth with cotton candy toothpaste! This was GREAT progress for him! Then the dentist came by and looked at his teeth and counted them. This was a HUGE amount of progress for him. Now, don't get me wrong... he didn't enjoy this one bit. He screamed and tried to get off the table about half the time we were there. BUT there are 2 different screams- there's the "ouch you're hurting or scaring me and I need to get out of here right now" and there's the "I'm pissed off that you people are holding me down so I'm going to kick and scream in protest". He was doing the second one, which is reasonable for him. He does it every time. If he were ever scared or in pain I would stop them. But if he's just being stubborn... sometimes you just need to get over it ;) The dentist said his teeth look perfect, no worries at all. Next time we want to try to get x-rays. So after his appointment today we took him back to the x-ray area and showed him the chair he'll sit in and the camera so hopefully he'll be okay with it next time. Between now and then (March) I'll run by the office again and take some pictures to make him a social story, since those help him so much.

Wow.

There's snow on the ground. In November. In Kentucky. This is kinda unheard of. Jason is blaming me for bringing my "Michigan weather" with us :) Owen is LOVING it! Now he wants me to buy him a pair of snow boots and, if he'll actually wear them, I'll happily give in to that request!

This is how Owen fell asleep tonight, which is pretty much how he falls asleep almost every night. The boy loves his books. He's not met a book yet that he didn't like.

And once I took the book off to put it away, I figured out his little secret.... he didn't want to wear those pj's but it's COLD tonight (see above pictures!). But he agreed to wear them, because he knows he wakes up cold and then can't fall asleep and then mom gets a little cranky. LOL. So after I gave him his goodnight kiss and left the room he unzipped them. What a stinker! The other night he completely took off his pj's and covered up with the blanket so I wouldn't see it. LOL! (And yes, he has a Christmas blanket on his bed already. Because he's spoiled by Jason's mom who wants to buy him everything under the sun. Ha. Great. She also bought him a Christmas towel set for his bathroom because "he needed them because they have Christmas trains on them". Sure. Uh-huh)

And on to some not quite as fun stuff (actually, kinda boring I'm sure if you're not Owen's mommy! LOL!). Anyway, we got 11 pages of Owen's evaluation results back this week (from the school). There's still more, but it's a start. I won't write all the results since that would take a long time but basically he doesn't qualify for a "classic autism" diagnosis. Duh. We knew that. He does qualify for an "autism spectrum disorder" diagnosis. Again, we knew that. We've known this for years. But we had to go through this whole evaluation anyway just because that's how the school does it. So, surprise surprise.... Owen's on the autism spectrum. Bet you all are shocked ;)

There was obviously a whole lot more to the evaluation than that and maybe I'll go into more detail later. But it's late and Owen has a dentist appointment first thing in the morning. Yippee.

I will say though that the evaluation said that he's reading at a 2nd grade level right now (in preschool!). Yay for Owen! And everyone who asks is shocked to learn that he taught himself. I swear I'm not sitting here giving him reading lessons (like he would actually sit for them if I tried!!). He totally taught himself. The only thing I do/did is tell him what a word is when he asks. Usually after he asks once he knows it for good and won't ask for that word again.

We also started a new food thing this week. Owen got into a really long rut where he started dropping foods again and refusing to try new foods. Not cool. It's been going on for a little while now so it was time to crack down. Jason, Owen's OT/feeding therapist and I talked about it and decided to try a weekly menu for him. He's obsessed with lists and anything written down so we thought this would work well. For every meal he had at least 2 foods that he likes and eats well. Then some meals he had a food that he's previously eaten but doesn't anymore. And some meals there was a brand new food. The new foods were usually at dinner. He got all foods presented to him at the same time. He chose to eat the "favorite" foods first and then asked for more of them. In order to get more of his favorite foods he had to at least interact with the new foods. This could be smelling, touching, snake testing, biting and spitting out or chewing. It all depended on what his previous experience with that food was and how he was handling it. Nothing was ever forced (we don't believe in force feeding. Food should be fun, not stressful) and he never went to bed hungry. But at times I think it was a battle of the wills between he and I! But, over the course of this week he tried (and liked!!) celery (he ate about a 2 1/2 inch piece!). He also tried a bite of cucumber, but didn't care for that. He touched a hard boiled egg. He also bit a piece of chicken and spit it out (was pretty indifferent on the taste, it didn't seem to bother him too bad, but he definately didn't want it in his mouth!). He also put a piece of spaghetti in his mouth but couldn't handle it and gagged until he almost vomitted. That one obviously got spit out immediately. We were at the gym on Monday and they were giving out free hot chocolate. To my surprise, Owen wanted some (it's not something he's ever drank before). He asked for some with mini marshmallows, whipped cream and hershey's syrup on top. And then he DRANK IT! And THEN he asked for some more the next day and drank it. And then again tonight for dinner!!! We've been making it with water (which is how the gym made it) but we may play around with milk and see if he'll drink it that way.

Yay for me!

I found out today that I got a raise at work. Woo-hoo! It's another $.50/hour. I also found out that I got a weeks paid vacation that I can use anytime between now and next November. Yippee!!!

Why, oh why, does he always make me eat my words?

Yesterday I talked to Owen's pediatrician about various things with him. I mentioned that the inhaler seemed to work the last time we used it and the coughing/wheezing stopped. But we left it in Michigan (good job on my part, I also left his winter coat there). Owen's insurance will cover another inhaler, but won't cover another spacer (he needs this to use the inhaler). Great. So I talked to the ped and told him that. Owen hasn't been coughing or wheezing so we decided to just let it be for now and hope we can make it another 5 weeks until we get back to Michigan to get it. The ped obviously said if we need one to call him and he'll write a script (and I'll just pay for the spacer out of pocket).

But Owen had been doing well so I told the ped we didn't need the script right now and I would call him back if anything changed.

And then last night hit. 102-103 fever all night, coughing and wheezing pretty bad, can't sleep well at all, etc. It wasn't bad enough to take him to the ER, but bad enough to keep us all awake. I actually slept in his bed for part of the night just so I could keep a close ear on his breathing (and had a monitor on in his bedroom the other part of the night so I could hear him from our bedroom). He definately needed his inhaler. Just hours after I told the dr we were fine without it. Yup, that's my boy. LOL!

Today he's been fine. 99-100 fever but up and playing. He did stay home from school and I took the day off work just so I could keep a close eye on him. Of course, Owen's dr doesn't work in this office on Friday's though. He works in a different office (at the hospital). So I called the nurse at the dr's office and she's out of town too. WTH? So I left a message with the other lady who works there, but never heard back from her. I can imagine she's busy being the only one in the office (there is 1 other dr who works there but I've only met her once).

So now I'm deciding between crossing my fingers that tonight goes well or calling his dr's home phone number (which he gave me and told me to never hesitate to call) and seeing if he can call a script into the pharmacy. Hmmmm....

Heard back from the school....

And my child is not typical One of the people on his eval team called me yesterday to say that part of the evals were done (the autism eval was done) and the results show he's not a typical child. Well...... duh. Again, he's not severe enough to be diagnosed with "classic autism", which we all agree with. They did give him the diagnosis "autism spectrum disorder", which we expected. So.... woo! At least we all agree on *that*. She did say also that it doesn't matter if they diagnose him with classic autism, ASD or PDD-NOS- the same services will be available to him since in this school district it all falls under the "autism" category.