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Puzzled Mommy

~ A blog about my life with my beautiful boys & Autism.

Puzzled Mommy

Tag Archives: aba therapy

Mondays, Meltdowns & Change

19 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by Puzzled Mommy in My blog

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Tags

ABA, aba therapy, Autism, change, day off, dora the explorer, God, meltdown, night terror, school, therapists, therapy, work

Bubbles with Rachel

Mondays are always such a draining day. Monday’s are my day off and they are longgggg. Ha! Ha! We all work long and hard around here!

I woke David up at 7:00AM and got him out the door to catch the bus to preschool. I turned back around and woke Christian up for breakfast and a quick Dora the Explorer show before his first ABA therapist rings the doorbell. Ricky woke up shortly after that.

Naomi was the first therapist to show this morning and she got the bright side of Christian – when he really wants to play and learn. Naomi stayed from 8:30AM-12:00PM. Their session went pretty well but i think Christian was a little tired.

We had company over the weekend and Christian went into a bit of a sensory overload with so many people in the house. He never wants to sleep in his room but of course he wanted to last night because of our visitors. Ugh. Last night, he also had a night terror and kept telling me,”I want to go home!” (sobbing). Those night terrors don’t hit all too often, but when they do, they can be lengthy – plus i don’t think he was understanding what i was saying (not truly awake and all).

Anyway, Julie arrived at 12:30PM or so. She did the second round of therapy with Christian until about 2:30PM. We had a sub show up shortly after that by the name of Sam, who was supposed to stay from 2:30PM-5:00PM, but Christian konked out on him pretty much instantly. Poor guy!

In between all that we had David arrive from preschool around 12:00PM and he looked like he had fun (covered in green paint). I made everyone a gluten free version of spaghetti and everyone devoured it. Yay! It was after lunch that was a big downer though. David noticed something or someone was missing. A huge meltdown was surfacing.

David lost his first ever lead therapist this Friday – Rachel. Rachel was not only David’s very first therapist, she was his lead therapist at one point and right up until Friday, she was with him for a session everyday and some days, the entire day. Rachel left us to move to Texas and i often joked that i was going to have to move to Texas too, so that she could continue ABA for David. She was not just a therapist, but a friend and really just a part of our family – we often joked that she would just need to stay at our house and in exchange we would give her the Cars race car bed.

Today David looked to the door as he did Friday when Rachel left – he knew something was changing, something was wrong. I don’t want to say he’s regressing just yet but i can tell that a mini regression may be in progress. Today was rough.

David melted down for a few hours and gave his new therapist, Tracy – HELL. I felt really bad for Tracy. David literally ran away from her each time he saw her – we need to try to build rapport again. He really didn’t want to work with Julie today either. He didn’t eat, sleep, work or play well at all. It’s so hard to see this change in him. I shutter to think of how it will be a school for him tomorrow.

There are huge changes coming for David with his therapy schedule and i can’t say that i like it. I wish that everyone could find a way to make things work and find a way to meet in the middle. It’s really frustrating. I don’t want David to lose those ABA hours that he desperately needs either. All i can do is pray that God will sort things out and that he will place his hands on the hearts of everyone involved in David and Christian’s therapies – give us all understanding, patience and open our ears and eyes to what the most important focus should be – David and Christian.

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A Saturday at home

25 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by Puzzled Mommy in My blog

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ABA, aba therapy, Autism, bikes, boys, compression vest, exercise ball, fruit, grass, jungle gym, laundry, medicine ball, mud, organic, OT, outside, plants, play, PT, river rock, rocks, Saturday, sensory, sensory table, swings, therapists, trampoline, trees, trikes, water table, weighted belt, wood chips, work

Christian and David with Grandma

Today seems to be a pretty calm day for both boys. There have been no melt downs, yet, but there have been a few tantrums and some rebelling. I’m usually at work every Saturday, but my mom is sick so i stayed home with the 3 musketeers.

This morning i thought there was going to be therapy for both Christian and David. So far no one has shown up, called or text. It’s okay though. I’m not one to set my whole day around ABA therapy either way. I try to do my own thing on days like this. I don’t necessarily ask for matching or check the schedule, but i do place David’s compression vest and weighted belt on (if necessary), roll him and Christian on the huge exercise ball, play with the medicine ball, have them help me with laundry and of course hit the swings outside! I suppose i do more OT & PT then ABA but i try to give them a bit of rest on the weekends – they’ve been working all week, after all.

The boys love going outside to play. It’s something i can use “first and then” with for Christian, and it’s something i can have David point to, touch, or say, “out, ready, set, go!, up, off, fun, phone.” (my camera/phone).

David loves hanging upside down on the swing and enjoys playing chase with Christian. Christian loves rocks, the slide, the swings, and rocks. Did i mention he likes rocks?! Since we have a huge amount of river rock in our back yard, i usually have to take rocks out of both of their mouths and pant/jacket pockets. Ugh!

There’s mud, wet grass, wood chips of bark, a water table/sensory table, slides, bikes, trikes, balls and a few plants out there too, so the boys really get to fill those sensory needs. I  think the next things we need to invest in would be a trampoline and jungle gym.

I’m looking into starting an organic garden and planting some more fruit trees. My hope is that the boys will want to help pick the fruit (like they did with our lemon tree) and maybe they’ll want to water the garden with me. They’ve been pretty good at helping with some of the house chores like picking up, putting toys away, loading the washer and loading the dryer!

We’ll see how tonight goes – i’m praying that they get some sleep and much needed rest.

 

I suppose it’s nice to hear that you’re amazing

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by Puzzled Mommy in My blog

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Tags

aba therapy, allergist, Autism, breakfast lunch dinner, cause skin irritation, Dermatology, Eczema, GFCFSF, Gluten Free, grandma and grandpa, Kaiser, laundry soap, moms, Regional Center, Sleep, warr

(This post was originally written February 4th)

This week was really a test for me and my family. We were literally going a hundred different directions each day with this new schedule of ours. Let’s start with my hubby. This semester he has class from 8:00AM to 1:00PM on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s, he works after his school day is over on Monday until about 6:00PM & has Wednesday and Friday off from work to actually be a student. Oh did i mention he has night class Tuesdays & Thursdays from 6:00PM to 8:00PM after his full work day of 6:00AM to 5:00PM? He also works on Saturday’s and Sunday’s from 6:00AM to 2:30PM.

My week isn’t much better. I’m off work Sunday’s and Monday’s. When i say “off” it’s more like i’m home with my 4 year old, 3 year old and 11 month old infant sons. I make sure my son David goes to preschool every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning from 8:30AM to 11:30AM and once he is out of school he is dropped off by the bus so that he can have ABA therapy for the rest of the afternoon. My Tuesdays and Thursdays are filled by dropping off both David and my oldest son, Christian at preschool together. David has ABA therapy all day both days. I head off to work from 8:30AM to 5:00PM and back to the school i go to pick up the boys. My infant son, Ricky is at home with grandma and grandpa. Somewhere in there i have to figure in breakfast, lunch, dinner (trying to go GFCFSF), cleaning the house (with products that won’t make my family itch to death or make eczema flare up), laundry (with soap that’s homemade & hypoallergenic), baths for the boys (mild soaps – that won’t cause skin irritation or make eczema flare up), and sleeping. Ha! what’s sleeping?!

This week I had a series of appointments set with Kaiser for David and Ricky. Wednesday afternoon was an appointment for David with the Allergist, Thursday afternoon with the ENT, Friday morning for Ricky with Audiology & Friday afternoon for David with Dermatology. Phew! I’m glad that’s over. $120.00 in co pays later i pretty much discovered that the doctors were telling me the same things. The synopsis of each of these appointments was, “You are really well informed” and “Your children are very lucky to have you.”

I suppose it was nice to hear that i’m an amazing mother, i’m well informed, i’m on the right track, and i’m doing what is recommended and then some for my boys. I guess i was caught off guard. It’s amazing to me that i got more information from other Autism moms and support groups then from the experts. I’ve had more friends tell my what to look into and what to stay away from then the doctors have told me. Who are the professionals around here?

I’m just trying to balance everything but i’m noticing that this is really hard. That’s not even mentioning the recent blow that CVRC gave me on January 30th – that’s another blog post to come.

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