Candy from strangers

Today was a long day. Bubs is still recovering from his strep throat, and I myself am recovering from his strep throat as well (and I have an ear infection to boot!). We are having some serious serious issues with getting bubs to take the medicine. He is usually pretty cooperative. He told me that it 'tastes really bad'. I called the doc and they were nice enough to change his rx from a liquid to a chewable but unfortunately for all of us, those are equally as unpalatable to bubs. I have resorted to plain old forcing him to take it, which totally kills me. My heart aches for parents who have to give their children serious meds on a daily basis. I feel bad even complaining about this. It just makes me so uncomfortable and it happens three times a day for the next week. Ugh.
We did manage to go trick or treating. Bubs seemed to enjoy it and he wore his costume for the entire time. Last year he took off his elmo getup after the first house and he just went as a 'three year old boy'. His candy bag had ripped and basically I just felt as though we were begging random strangers for candy. This year I came prepared with two bags, I was ready, and I dressed up as well. I was a plus sized witch. I got the costume at walmart. It was black stretchy velvet with spider web lace sleeves. A lot like some of the getups I used to wear 'clubbing' back in the day. All I was missing was the combat boots and some cure songs. I was somewhat shocked at some of the costumes the tweenie girls had on. A lot of french maids and prisoners with fishnet stockings. Good god, my parents would never have let me out of the house in that, some of them weren't more than 11 years old. At any rate, bubs seemed into the whole deal. He would get a piece of candy from each house, inspect it and eat it on the way to the next house. He gave the rejects to my husband, who was more than willing to accept them.
Bubs was also more than happy to dole out treats back at home. That was a refreshing change from last year when he screamed bloody murder every time I tried to hand out some treats to the kids at my door. He just couldn't wrap his head around the concept that we actually gave candy away. How preposterous- he would scream at the poor kids and slam the door. This year he was scooping it out by the handful along with the complements- "I like your costume." It was really nice to see.

Speechless

This morning I was getting some juice for bubs out of the fridge. We have a picture on the fridge of his preschool class, three days a week bub leaves his center based school to go to a 'typical' preschool in the afternoon. He goes with a shadow and she fills me in on all the days shenanigans. So we have a class picture on the fridge and he periodically points out the kids and gives me a little interesting tidbit about them. Today he points at a picture of 'johnny' (don't ask me why, but I am changing his name) and says, 'that's 'johnny', he doesn't talk. He can't.' I was positively floored by that observation. Last week when I picked up bubs, his shadow told me that 'johnny's' mom came in to speak with the teachers, they thought he had selective mutism. I just couldn't believe that my son picked up on it. Amazing.

Licence to Ill

We have broken our two year plus change record on no antibiotics. Poor bubs has strep throat. I knew something wasn't right with him because he didn't eat any of his highly coveted pizza bites (oh and they are soy pizza bites, with whole wheat 'crust' and they are really expensive, so in essence they are health food, right?). There has been mass hysteria here over MRSA, an antibiotic resistant form of strep that manifests itself as boils. I noticed a little bump on bubs' back yesterday and of course that set me into defcon 1. I had already decided last night that I was taking him in today. It took me forever to get through to the peds office this morning. I kept getting the service even though it was after nine. I was steamed. Don't these people know my son might have flesh eating strep bacteria????? It turns out the computers on their phone systems thought daylight savings started this weekend so everything was screwed up by an hour. OK, I think I will reserve how I feel about daylight savings time for another post. So we get to the docs office and she said he looked OK. She said to 'keep an eye' on the mark on his back. Is she kidding, there will be two very neurotic eyes pasted on that thing for the next few weeks. It really looks like the tag from one of his shirts irritated him. She said that his ears looked good, his throat was clear, but to give him the throat culture for the 'hell of it'. Imagine our surprise when it was positive. Poor bubs. I used to panic when it came to antibiotics (See my yeast rant) but strep is a whole other ball game. Let er roll, I say,bring on the big guns. I haven't been feeling too well myself lately- my sinus problems have been bad, and now I have a sore throat. I begged my hubs to ditch one of his many jobs and come home so I can go sit in the walk in doctors office for a few hours. I have of course convinced myself that I too have strep.
Bubs is sleeping on the couch, poor little guy. I hope he feels better soon!

The elusive butterfly of yeast-part 1

I am a biomedical slacker. I didn't always used to be, I used to be really neurotic about it. I got kind of burnt out on the whole magilla, but somehow after reading Jenny McCarthy's book,I kind of got sucked into the vortex. But only halfway this time. I promise.
When bubs first got dx, or even before, I was online constantly looking up everything. In my attempt to convince myself that I had control over the situation I stumbled upon the D.A.N.!protocol. Don't even think about leaving off that exclamation point! So I dragged my son to the closest D.A.N.! doc I could find (we shall call him Dr.Well from now on). I plunked down enormous sums of cash and I agreed to do whatever he told me to do. We went casein free first, we went gluten free shortly after. It was relatively easy though given that bubs was 18 mo and didn't talk. He wasn't that much of a fan of solid foods at that point either. I had to go to dr. well every two weeks. It seemed like every time I went, he added another task to my list, the pressure just built each time I went there. I remember one time bubs had an ear infection and I almost went into apoplexy at the pediatricians office when they wrote out a rx for antibiotics. Dr.Well told me not to. I was torn. I didn't want bubs to be in pain, and I didn't want to screw up his gut. So I dragged my poor bubs to the other end of the island for a quick hocus pocus session with dr.well. It was a huge huge leap of faith, but whatever the hell he did, it seemed to help bubs and he survived, miraculously, so did I. Ok, I am veering off course here. The reason I am a biomed slacker is because it all just got way too much for my fragile neurotic mind to handle. Every time my son spinned a wheel or looked at something funny, I blamed myself. It was the lollipop he ate two days ago-yeast! Or that I couldn't follow the virtual caveman diet they told me to follow, basically nuts and twigs and boiled chicken. I just couldn't do it well enough. I couldn't make the young coconut kefir (even though I tried about 6 times). My son wouldn't eat broccoli. Oh, if he would only eat some fresh cultured veggies (sour kraut times ten!) then he would talk. I felt like no matter what I did, I wasn't doing it well enough. I did it for over two years. We schlepped coolers of food wherever we went, I made my own chicken nuggets, and crazy concoctions that my sister made fun of.

I thought yeast was at the root of all of our problems. If I could only get rid of the yeast. If you do any delving or dabbling into the biomed world, eventually you will come across the yeast issue. There are tests for it, expensive, kind of not sure about the validity type tests. But it's safe to assume in the biomed world that any kind of stimming, sleep issues, ocd behavior, skin issues, can be blamed on that yeasty beast. To treat it? Not that easy. It involves a variety of concoctions that kill the yeast causing die off, the herxheimer effect if you really want to get scientific. Die off isn't a pretty thing, but it's supposed to be good because after a week or so of hell you are supposed to be rewarded with a new and improved child. Of course this sounds sarcastic, but there's probably a bit of rationalizing going on inside my crowded head. The truth is, I don't know what works. I don't really know. No one does. It just involves a lot of blind leaps of faith. Even though I thought I was done chasing the yeast beast, I have been slowly but surely getting sucked back into the matrix. I have my threelac, I have my probiotics, have the caprylic acid- I even have the lauricidin. I am out to hunt down and annihilate that vague yeast monster. Even though I am not sure whether or not it's out there.

I just wanted to add as a caveat (my new favorite word) that my own biomed obsessions probably have very little to do with my child. I managed to live around 37 years on this earth under the illusion that I had control over my life, silly girl that I was. When bubs was dx, I was terrified and felt like I had to do something to help him. My goal wasn't to turn him into a science experiment, or change the core of his already wonderful being. I just wanted him to talk.
I've eased up big time since then, but I think I am getting nervous for him with kindergarten looming around the corner. I hope this post isn't to verbose- it's lookin a little wordy.

Guess What?

My son has a blowhole. Yup. Or that's what he told me. This morning when I was getting him dressed he said "I have a blowhole mommy". "Wow", I said, "You do?". "Yes, I show you, it's right here." and he lifted up his shirt and pointed to his bellybutton. I was kind of hoping that was what he was going to point to. Did I mention that his favorite channel is animal planet?

I think he's going to be on the debate team

First of all, it needs to be said that I love the fact that my son is speaking. I love every part of it, when he bosses me around, when he tells me 'no', all the sweet things he says, everything. I relish every utterance (as well as count the words in them too).That said, I think I have a future lawyer on my hands. Tonight the time seemed to escape me with phone calls and dinner and trying to figure out how to work my new blue tooth (it won't work, my ghetto phone doesn't have the capability). It was kind of a half an hour before I wanted to put bubs to sleep. We already had some chatter over the bath time. For some reason my tub loving son didn't want a bath. He insisted he was already clean and that he would have a bath tomorrow. He won his case last night, so I wasn't going to give up on the tub tonight. The trick with bubs is to make him think he came up with the decision all on his own instead of forcing him to do it. It just takes a lot of my already diminishing mind power to accomplish that task. I managed to manipulate a bath out of him. Ok, so I no longer have a stinky child, he has eaten and he wants to watch a show. Not a problem except for the fact that he picks 'nick's greatest hits vol 1' which is a conglomeration of around 6 or so shows. He made it through the first Dora and then a blues clues snuck in under the radar. So I gave him fair warning that once blues clues was over we would be going to sleep. "OK mommy" was his response. Yeah sure it is. So blue's ended and I shut the DVD player off. This is when he turned it on full force. "We can't go to sleep now!" he exclaimed. "I need to watch my show, all of it.". I'll spare you my lame-o responses, suffice it to say they all began with, "NO". In a nice way though, we had a great day and I wasn't half as frazzled as I was yesterday. "But it's still light out", he says. It's pitch black out being that it was 8:00 already about a half an hour past my desired lights out time. I don't know why I engaged in the discussion but I said " it is not". "The sun is out,mommy", "no it isn't", said I. "Yes it is" as he points out a very dark window. This went on for a few rounds. Hey you have to give him credit for trying. I think even he knew he had a weak argument, at best.At this point, planned ignoring was in order so I just went upstairs and set up his bed while he carried on. Poor guy, he was pooped. He finally came up, angry as anything, screaming and yelling, and eventually settling down. I think he fell asleep in less than five minutes. I guarantee that the first words out of his mouth tomorrow morning will be (after asking me where we are going today), "I want to watch my movie, mom".

I would love to roll with them

OK, I just have to pay homage to two of my most favoritest people. Who other than Dog and Beth could turn a hardened criminal crackhead thug running from the law into a sniveling, driveling, grateful for being apprehended ,mess? It's a virtual love fest every time. I love these two. They have successfully bumped 'cops' out of the running for my most beloved tv show. I love the opening intro when Beth jumps into her suv, on her way to snag a menace, with furious intensity, taking the time to grab a giant perfume bottle off her dashboard and give herself a quick spritz before peeling out. Love it, and I love that she wants to smell good for the criminals. I love her chutzpah. I love Dog too. I won't comment on his style though, because it would end up sounding mean, and my aim is true here. I love their big pow wow in the beginning of every show and I love the group hug at the end. I love how there is always a long lost child of one of them showing up and joining the family bizness. I hope this doesn't sound smarmy or sarcastic. I really do love them.

And another thing...

I changed my 'name'. Originally I had a hard time coming up with something that wasn't stupid. To be honest, momma kitten emerged from a joke my friend and I shared. We would sign our emails with various permutations of 'something kitten' given our state of mind. I am not really a cat person per se, it kind of evolved from a joke. Now my new name is totally serious. It is what I am doing in my picture, and it's what all stay at home mom's do all day, while watching 'all my children', isn't it?

I futzed with it

I changed the template. If I were smart enough and knew html I could alter the one I had to my liking. I just worried it was too distracting with the dots. Then again, I have no life. If anyone is reading and has a thought either way, please feel free to let me know. I am needy in that way.

It's a battle of wits and I am losing

The bowling saga continues. The good news today is that bubs was a good listener. I know that because when I went into preschool to get him, he proudly announced to everyone "I a good listener today". He also told me he was a good friend, which is always great to hear. So the bad news is that we had to go bowling. I don't know what bubs thought would be waiting for him at the bowling alley, but whatever it was, it wasn't there. First the shoes. We talked about it on the way there, how you have to wear special shoes to bowl. He seemed OK with it. We get there and there is an issue with the shoes. He ain't crazy about them. I personally think they look like something Bert and Ernie would wear on their feet while dancing the funky pigeon. After trying on two pairs, he settles on some stylin velcro ones. We go to the alley, he says he wants to go home. Then he changes his mind. He brings his ball up the the alley and with a quiet push, we're off and running. He finishes his turn and then I go. He says he wants to leave and he starts taking off his shoes. So after a little back and forth on this, I take off my shoes too. Fine with me, let's leave. So he changes his mind and says he wants to stay. Mind you, there is massive whining involved. I have a very low tolerance for whining. So this cycle of calling each others bluff goes on one more time and I have had enough. The nice man in the bowling alley didn't charge us for our 15 minute rental of shoes and two turns of bowling. I think my score was a 9, bubs scored a 7. I had to carry a squirmy, screaming , seriously disgruntled 49 pound child out of the bowling alley. Thankfully no one was in there to witness the festivities.
I tried to turn the afternoon around by taking him to the park, but I am not even going to go into that fiasco.
Tomorrow is another day. I am taking that bowling picture off of his reinforcer chart immediately.

A Clockwork Autism

Sometimes I think we live in two worlds. We have the nt world (neurotypical, non asd) and then we have the asd world, i.e., 'my peeps'. I think it's like a sub -culture complete with it's own language broken down into letters and acronyms. I remember reading the book 'A Clockwork Orange' and it had it's own dictionary in the back to explain what some of those crazy words were (I still remember 'oddy knockies' by the way). In the world of my peeps we have our most loved aba, with it's sd's,vi cv's, and fba's and the lovely meat acronymn (it has something to do with medical, environmental, and I cannot remember the rest). We even have abc charts, which might not be exclusive to aba. We have asd, hfa, as, and the most cherished pdd-nos. I personally love the nos, it's so vague yet so filled with hope. Then you have the realm of pt and ot and sometimes even st. If you are feeling adventurous there is a DAN! protocols with gfcf, clo, b12, dmg and it's brother tmg , as well as gse and ldn. They have oat tests (which have nothing whatsoever to do with oats). You might be considering tddmps (I might be wrong on those letters) or be using ala, or perhaps going the natural route with the ncd. You will be nervous for your upcoming cpse meeting and creating your iep , although these terms aren't limited to the autism community.

All snarkiness aside, I really do feel at home in my new found social subculture. When bubs was first dx, (love dx as an abbreviation, as well as rx and tx) we had early intervention at our home. Bubs got 19.5 hours of aba, and 30 minutes of ot two times a week. It was incredibly isolating. Basically you were imprisoned to your house and autism was the old ball and chain. Besides the fact that you basically are sitting home feeling sorry for yourself, your whole day revolves around accommodating a bevy of therapists and listening to their various and creative excuses of why they are going to be cancelling that day (uh, my dog has a hangnail, so I won't be coming). However, the thought of sending my little 2 year old bubs to a center based school for six hours a day was beyond my comprehension. After a very long year though, I changed my tune. Sending bubs to his school has really been a wonderful experience for all of us. He loves it, is doing amazingly well and I as a person (as well as a mom)have really gained a lot from him being there. We have a sense of belonging, of acceptance and the fact that everyone in his school was on the same journey. There is that instant camaraderie amongst the war torn - and although it doesn't necessarily mean meeting best friends galore (although in my case it has), sometimes the spark ignites and you find out you have much more in common with some people than just the asd. And sometimes other parents are just plain weird. But I am veering off course here. I guess my point would be is that as bubs grows, we find ourselves straddling these two worlds, one foot in each. Perhaps some would say the goal would be to leave our little comfortable spot and venture on down the nt side of town. We are in our last year at bubs' wonderful school so it will be interesting to see where we wind up.

No bowling

I picked up bubs from preschool and apparently his behavior was less than stellar today. They said he didn't want to write his letters and he needed a lot of redirection. He wasn't horrible, just not 'reinforcer worthy'. To reinforce sub par behavior would not really create the desired response. As a teacher I can totally relate to that. As bubs' mom, I just feel bad for the guy. So, no bowling. He is pretty upset about it. I explained to him why it wasn't happening, and he calms himself down but then five minutes later he starts up again with 'I want bowling' (and it's accompanied by whining, crying and climbing on me). I have to be honest, I feel really bad for him right now, but I didn't really feel like going bowling. Tomorrow is another day.

Preferred Reinforcers

Aba, or applied behavioral analysis, is a tightly run machine designed to increase desired behaviors and decrease undesired behavior.. So in our effort to increase those desired ones, like sharing, and sitting like a pretzel and my personal fave, 'being a good listener' while squashing those behaviors like randomly laying on the floor, general belligerance and sticking your entire fist in your mouth, we have come up with a plan. Bubs goes to a 'regular' preschool three afternoons a week in addition to his aba school. He is doing ok, but he needs to work on his overall behavior. I think he will do fine in school if he just learns that very hard lesson that sometimes you have to do crap you don't want to do. I think we all need a little help with that one. So I was really trying to come up with something motiviating for bubs, without it involving candy and large sums of money. Bubs is no fool, don't try to entice him with a measly sticker or some small little piece of crap. Go big or go home is his philosophy. He also would prefer to go somewhere as opposed to me handing him something. Shopping is one of his favorite pastimes, God bless him.

We just started our new plan this week. I drove around like a lunatic taking pictures of places I thought he might like to go to as his 'treat' for 'being a good listener'. There are caveats to this though (am I using that word correctly?). It couldn't be a place that we go to on any other day but Monday, Wednesday or Friday. It had to be somewhere motivating, and it couldn't drive me to the poorhouse (Target is a no-no!) It also had to be somewhere that would always be available on those days (not dependent on weather,etc)So far the list includes; the pet store,a.c. moore (he's a crafty little guy), Michael's,(they sell those plastic reptiles and sea creatures which my boy covets) Border's Books ,Dollar Tree (Love it there!) , and Chuck E. Cheese. Today I added bowling. I just have to do a drive by for the picture. I printed out little wallet size photos of the aforementioned places and laminated them. Yeah, I have a little laminator -isn't everything is so much nicer sandwiched between two shiny smooth sheets of plastic. Wednesday was the maiden voyage of my little plan. Bubs' shadow explained the deal to him and told him what he had to do to get the tokens. She showed him the sheet with all of my pics velcroed on. He picked the photo of chuck e cheese and stuck it on his token board. Apparently Chuck E. Cheese is a preferred reinforcer because bubs was the classroom helper that day. Yeah Bubs, but poor me, because I had to spend my afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese. What does that E stand for anyway? Excrutiating? Entirely overstimulating? Today I think we might be going bowling.

A full moon on halloween

I forced myself to go on a powerwalk this morning and this was my reward. I hope my neighbors don't think I am strange because I took a picture of their lawn.

Poor poor pitiful me

While I was at my parents house last weekend I went up to my room to look for something (what, I cannot remember). I found this picture of me and my sister from the eighties, probably 1985. Aside from the ginormous hair and prominent shoulder pads, I didn't look half bad. I was skinny. It really kind of took my breath away because even though the person in the photo was obviously me, I really couldn't identify with that person. I can tell you with strong conviction that although I was slim and trim, I am certain I was not feeling that way. I cannot ever remember a time that I felt 'skinny', except for maybe two weeks in eight grade when I dabbled with anorexia, and even then, well, it was eight grade, how much self realization do you do then? I couldn't even look at that picture. I put it back on my dusty dresser and left the room. Back at home I was trying in vain to organize all of the papers slapped on the side of my fridge and I took a good look at one of the pics I had of me and hubs (before we were united in holy matrimony)from around 7 years ago. Of course I was smiling, had well maintained blonde highlights and a nice funky outfit which probably came from a junior department somewhere. It's like another person in that photo. Someone looking back at me that again, I cannot even relate to. I also can confirm that I was struggling with weight and feeling like a big fat slob. I wish I could reach back into that picture and give myself a little shake, or perhaps a slight slap on the face. "Stop doing that" I would say. "Be happy with yourself-stop thinking that you are fat, you have no idea what fat really is, but you soon will, so enjoy that bod while it lasts".Of course now, if I see a picture of myself in the present moment, although that's slightly impossible because there are not many of me, I am utterly dumbfounded at what happened to me. My big fear now is that in ten years I will look at a picture of myself and think "why the hell didn't I do anything about this?".

Recently I got pulled over by a cop. I got busted talking on my cell phone. Actually I got busted holding up a cell phone to my ear, because as soon as I saw there was a cop around, I put the phone down. But it was too late for formalities. So the cop pulled me over, but there was something weird about it. It was like he was teetering on that fine line of giving me a 'stern warning' or taking the plunge and writing the damn ticket. A little hesitation. Whatever the hell kind of test it was, I failed because he took one look at me, and said 'I pulled you over because you were on your cell phone", took my licence and stuff and went off into his vehicle to write the ticket. I was sitting there for like an eternity and I couldn't help but think that ten years ago, this would not be happening. Ten years ago I would have been in my jeep wrangler with my blonde hair and cute clothes and I would have just gotten a speech and sent on my way. I was sitting there with a broken toe, schleppy sweat pants from target and a frumpy t shirt (and it was on a saturday night). To make matters worse I started feeling sorry for myself and I started to cry. Ugh. Could I be any more pathetic? My son was in the back seat saying 'don't cry mommy' which of course made me cry even more. I was so insulted.
Needless to say, I never talk on my cell phone while I am driving. I keep meaning to get a bluetooth thingy.

Mosquitos are mistakes

Yesterday was bubs' kiddie karate class. His bus had engine trouble so it was late getting home from school and we were subsequently late going to gym class. I never know what to expect with bubs as far as behavior goes. I try to think positive and hope for the best. So I was stressed because I didn't know how he would react to half a gym class instead of our usual whole class. In my haste to get there faster, I made a wrong turn off the expressway. Bubs knew we were going the wrong way. I told him that I made a mistake. Then I asked him if he knew what a mistake was. He said "is it like a mosquito?"(in his little bubs voice it was really cute). Now in my world it made perfect sense to me, given my son's growing interest of insects, and the fact that the words sound similar. I went on to explain what a mistake was. When you think about it though, when you are scratching your mosquito bitten arse off in the middle of August, mosquitoes kind of are like a mistake.


Oh, and he was great at gym class- a 'good listener' as we like to call it around here.

Jenny I got your number...

Jenny Craig that is. I needed to do something. I think I am just so fried on so many levels and while I really want to lose some lbs, I just don't think I can do it on my own. God, it's freaking expensive. This was my first week on it. For the most part it was pretty easy and the second I was tempted by something verboten the only thing that stopped me was that I shelled out five hundred bucks for this endeavor (five hundred dollars that were hard to come by) and that screwing up would not just affect me and my fat ass but the rest of my little family unit as well. I think that's how this diet works. It's not just guilt over the fact that you have let yourself go, it's that you have actually spent a small fortune trying to get some kind of control over your desire to constantly be stuffing your face. Control that you didn't have inside you. I was at a fundraiser event at a bar on Saturday night and they were passing around all of these greasy fried h'ors douvres that I really wanted to eat. I was thankfully able to restrain myself but it was not really because they were fattening and bad for me. It was more like how much I would hate myself when I got on the scale and wasted all that money (that as a stay at home mom, I didn't technically 'earn'). It's multi-tiered platform of shame, guilt and self loathing operating here,people. A trifecta of disfunction. I don't know if those poor 'counselors' at Jenny Craig are ready for my baggage. But they better be because I'll be there for a while.

Celebreality

I just read that Colin Farrell's son has Angelman syndrome. For some weird reason, and I feel stupid for admitting this, it always makes me feel better when I hear about a celebrity who has a child with a disability. Not in a 'ha, ha' kind of vindictive feel better way, but in a 'I am not alone' kind of way. Even though I know I am not alone, and I have lots of support, it still kind of makes it seem like it will all be OK. It's like when I was little and I couldn't sleep and I was allowed to leave the TV on, it made me feel less scared, like the monster couldn't get me because Welcome Back Kotter was on. I don't know if that makes any sense. First of all I do not wish that any one's child has a disability, but as a long as you're here, come on in and sit down. At any rate, he 'came out' to People magazine this week. He talked about how proud he was of his son and how he just took his first steps at age 4.

I now have to discuss Jenny. First off, I think what she did for autism awareness was amazing. Her media blitz last month got everyone yapping about autism, which I think is fabulous. I also feel like she wrote my story. Except for the fact that I am not a hot m.i.l.f., and my son didn't have the health issues her poor son had, and my hubs wasn't a complete jerk, she really wrote my story. I could relate to 100% of what she said, and how she said she felt. I have passed this book on to any and everyone who wants to know what it's like (for me). OK, that's the good, now here's the bad. Before I read the book, we had kind of tapered off on the biomeds. I was becoming obsessed with it, and I really put a lot of pressure on myself to be the perfect biomedical mother. The diet wasn't too tough although schlepping gluten free casein free foods in a cooler everywhere you went (including Europe!) was no picnic. The supplements were OK, a little bit tricky trying to disguise them and get them in without a fight. I stopped at chelation, it scared me and we didn't want to do it (although I am in awe of the parents that can- good for them!). It was a huge leap of faith but also a huge commitment to perfection on my part. Every time my son laughed or stumbled I wondered if yeast was overtaking his cute little body. Every time he would pick up a toy car and spin a wheel I felt a stab of anxiety that I wasn't trying hard enough with the vitamins and stuff. I worried that he had too much sugar or an infraction occured without me knowing it. I was a real drag. Bubs was doing sooooooo well, talking and interacting and just being so amazing. Since he started school and they take data on everything, which I love by the way, I figured that the data would show whether or not the whole protocol was helping. So I took him off. I had to do it for my son, for husband and for me. I was nuts. You know what, he kept going, he kept learning, kept talking, kept singing, kept being his great little self. I chilled and things got better all around. Fast forward to Jenny on Oprah. I watched, I cried, I laughed, I called my other autism mom friends. Then that feeling in the pit of my stomach came back. That little voice whispered; 'you are not doing enough, you have to do more'. Bingo, the biomedical spirit overtook me. I read Jenny's book, realized that I did most of the stuff in there at one point or another. I started back slowly, just a little clo. Is that eye contact improving? Hmmm, is he being more conversational? Did he just ask a why question???? OK, suffice it to say I was hooked and more obsessed than ever. I am contemplating the yeast treatment, we have three lac and caprylic acid poised in position and ready to go. Now my son is getting up at 5:45 am every morning. As I sit there trying to drag myself out of bed I start questioning myself- is it the clo? Is it the pro biotic I just started kicking up the yeast beast? The neurotic in me could go on and on and on. The little realist dwelling somewhere deep in my heart tries to feebly argue- 'He is just getting up early, that's all, no more no less'. The debate inside me goes on. Till I get burnt out on it again.

you are ruining my hair

Ok, I waited four long years to hear my son talk. Countless hours of aba, pt and ot. Many miles driven to DAN docs, emptying out my checking account for various potions promising 'calm and focus'. It's all paying off in a big way, and while it's music to my ears, it's also adding a whole new dimension to my day. I guess I kind of thought that when bubs finally started talking, well, then his dx would melt away. That all of the behaviors that placed him tenuously on the spectrum would fade when he could communicate with people. I guess I am lucky to see some of those things really fade, but then there are these 'other' things that start popping up here and there. Kind of like a criss angel mindfreak game of 'whack a mole'. I was told by bubs' school to watch for 'rigid behaviors' as they are asymptomatic of the proverbial 'child on the spectrum'. So is it normal for a kid who doesn't mind getting his hair shampooed to suddenly act as if you are dousing him with boiling hot oil? I innocently set out to wash his hair one night and usually what I do is kind of bob and weave with a pitcher of water while he is happily distracted with his beloved sea creatures. Usually he doesn't mind at all. So while I was attempting to continue this tradition I was faced with a very disgruntled boy. He was swatting me away and screaming at me. 'No' he said, "You are ruining my hair, You are RUINING my hair mommy". Now the autism momma in me is thrilled at the the fact that there are so many words in that sentence and that the pronouns are all in place. I was also wondering where he picked up the concept of 'ruining'. I don't remember teaching that one. But that same autism momma in me was also wondering if that was a weird behavior that I should be worried about. It's such a fine line between what is typical of a four year old, and what is typical of a four year old with autism. I have no objectivity and no frame of reference. Hell at this point I am pretty shot. Then we get the 'I am not wearing those pants, those are grey pants, my pants are blue'. I realized that yeah, most of his pants are blue. I had gymbucks and I got some new pants, some new not blue pants. Was the fact that the pants were not like his others making him 'anxious'? Or was he just being a four year old? Then he wouldn't wear the lovely new crocs I got for him, complete with lizard and spider jibbitz (did you know they make puzzle piece jibbitz???). Was it a need for routine and control? Or was it just peculiar toddler behavior? Rainman? Fishsticks on Thursday? God, it's been really freaking me out.
I really have to watch myself. I start perseverating myself on things. This morning when I asked bubs what he wanted to wear on his feet, expecting 'the usual' answer, he pleasantly surprised me with 'I want my new blue crocs, mommy'.

If a tree falls in cyberspace....

Hmmm. My first foray into blogging. I wonder if any one will even read this. I wonder what I will even talk about. It's a Saturday night, 12:12 a.m., to be exact. I should be sleeping but I am waiting for the Advil pm to kick in and then I can go upstairs and read my book and go to sleep.

This is my story. My son has autism. I am a stay at home mom. It has been a roller coaster ride for the four years my sweet boy has been on this earth and I am certain that I am not getting off this ride any time soon. I have a lot to say on this subject, and say I will. I also have a lot to say about other stuff. Perhaps someone will read it, perhaps no one will. Either way, it's out there for the universe to do with what it will.

It's been a very long day. I am going to get the proverbial 'feet wet' and hit post and call it a night.

~goodnight,
mk