Author Archives: Crystal

Good News

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Justin has made incredible progress in the last few months: his conversational skills have vastly improved, he’s much more confident socially, and the anxiety that used to paralyze him has virtually disappeared. Even his behavior interventionists can’t get over how far he’s come. It makes me want to weep when I remember what a mess he was last summer. I’ll never know if it was the autism program that made the most difference, or if it was going to kindergarten, or even if he just grew into some skills as he got a bit older, but it doesn’t matter. He’s got it together now, and I feel so blessed.

More good news: the school has finally acknowledged that Justin is a super smart cookie, and they’re now working on getting him a more challenging program. At first I was told they don’t really do enrichment stuff at the kindergarten level, plus they had their hands full with Justin’s social issues. But there’s a new resource teacher now who seems to recognize that Justin is on the verge of tuning out due to boredom, and now that his social skills are so much better they’re able to focus on enriching his mind. I can’t begin to explain how excited I am about this. My son rocks!

Stream of Consciousness

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It’s so cool to peek inside Justin’s head. I just had to share this example of the notes he’s been keeping on his iPod:

“It’s Friday And New Year’s Eve Is A Spechail Day My Grandparents Are Staying We Left A Present For Auntie Tanya We Opened The Other Presents My Grandparents Were Not Here Christmas Day I Had My Field Trip To My Puppet Show And My Vision Screening At Kindergarten Us And The Afternoon Class Went Up On The Stage For My Christmas Concert I Was Sick For Sharing On Teusday On November I Had My Other Field Trip On A School Bus To The Hospital I Saw Megan To Take Her Home Here And Kurtis To Kindergarten My Parents Had There Christmas Party On December 11 While We Were In Bed During Night Time Not Quiet Time I Remembered My Rules For Quiet Time No Talking I Never Talk In Bed No Going Across The Bed I Never Go Across Beds No Standing I don’t Stand On Someone Elses Bed In There Bedrooms My Parents Never Ask My Grandparents It’s Okay”

OK, so every word is capitalized and there’s an almost complete lack of punctation, but considering we thought he was just typing out the names of the kids in his class, this is amazing. I don’t fully understand why he does so much better with written language than verbal stuff (that must just be the way he processes things) but it’s really neat to get a sense of what’s been going through his mind. Good stuff.

Happy New Year

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OK, so I’m one of those losers who doesn’t get around to writing about the new year until the new year is five days old. I’ve had good intentions of writing about the family visit, but other things (cooking, cleaning, refereeing the kids, catching up on sleep) keep getting in the way. I now have eight minutes before Brayden finishes his quiet time, so let’s see how fast I can type.

The family visit over New Year’s went really well. Chris and I finally got to meet our niece, who is just too adorable for words; our boys were curious about the newcomer but weren’t too sure how to approach her. I’d heard that Serenity doesn’t like crowds or too much noise, but she seemed to handle her two cousins’ rowdiness just fine. There was enough snow around that we could take the boys sledding almost every day, so that was a nice way to burn off some energy (check out the pictures in the photo gallery). So a good time was had by all, I think.

And now we’re back into our usual routine of work, school, etc. Justin seemed really relaxed over the holidays and didn’t have a single meltdown that I can recall, so that’s a big plus. He still wants to write all the time, but we noticed that he’s not just writing out names anymore — he writes notes on his iPod about what he’s been doing or thinking, so he’s basically keeping a journal (I’ve kept one for over 20 years, so I find this very cool). He’s way more confident than he used to be and his teachers tell me he’s participating in things that used to make him anxious — yay!

Brayden had fun over the holidays too, although we did discover (the hard way) that he’s allergic to cats. He’s at that stage of asking a million “why” questions, so between that and Justin’s constant queries, our house is never quiet. His play school teacher thinks he looks older now than he did a few weeks ago– our little man is growing up. He’s also done with quiet time, so I guess I better go…

The Christmas Crazies

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I had a few more “bah humbug” moments than usual this year, but it still turned out to be a decent Christmas. The lead-up to it was the best part: the boys have been so into all the different Christmas stories, and they were crazy excited on Christmas Eve (Brayden wanted to go to bed at 7 a.m. to make the big day come faster). They kept checking Santa’s progress via NORAD online, which they thought was pretty cool, and the whole day just seemed to be full of magic. Awesome.

Christmas Day itself was all right. There weren’t really any “wow” gifts, but Justin seems intrigued by his sentence building dominoes and Brayden of course loves his new trucks. I was going a little loopy from being housebound with not much to do besides referee the boys, but they went to Grandpa’s house for a few hours this morning, so harmony has been restored.

My family arrives in a couple days to do Christmas: The Sequel, so that should be fun. Ho ho ho…

Ho Ho Ho

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There were dire predictions that this winter would be a bad one, and a month ago I believed them, but these days we seem to be blessed. Right now the sun is shining, it’s about +7C and all the snow is melting. We’ve had a few chances this year to play in the snow with the boys, which is good (for them, anyway), but there’s a strong possibility that we’re going to have a green Christmas, and that suits me just fine.

Our household went through a couple weeks of illness, but we seem to be over the worst of it and we’re all now looking forward to the holidays. Justin has his school Christmas concert tonight, which should be interesting given that a) singing in front of a crowd of strangers is not exactly his favorite thing to do; and b) the concert starts at the time he normally goes to bed. He swears he’s looking forward to it and his aide seems optimistic, so we’ll see how it goes.

Brayden has his preschool Christmas party on Friday and I’m guessing it will go much better than Justin’s did (last year Justin had a complete meltdown when Santa arrived at his preschool…that was one of the incidents that convinced us something was up with him). Brayden might even be willing to sit on the jolly guy’s lap, so I guess I’ll have to have my camera ready.

Both boys are really into the whole Christmas thing these days. I’ve been trying to introduce them to the various songs and stories, so we’ve been busy watching Frosty, the Grinch and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and listening to everything from Jingle Bells to Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer. I put the presents under the tree last weekend with strict instructions to the boys not to touch them, and amazingly, they haven’t. Justin did of course go around reading all the tags, but all the gifts are still exactly where I left them. Nice.

Happy holidays everybody!

Big Boy Brayden

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It seems like the focus is always on Justin these days, so I feel the need to balance things out by giving an update on Brayden. Not only is he doing better at preschool (he’s not blindly copying the other kids anymore, he makes real contributions at circle time and he actually sits still when he’s supposed to — that teacher is a miracle worker), but he’s now using the computer independently and learning lots from the same program that taught Justin about phonics. He points out letters everywhere and constantly informs me that B is for Brayden, M is for Mommy, J is for Justin…you get the idea.

The biggest news is that Brayden’s now out of diapers and doing great. His potty training was kind of stalled, and various people have suggested I just put him in underwear and see what happens, but I was mighty reluctant to go that route after the year and a half of accidents we went through with Justin. But Brayden just seems to get it, so all’s well on that front.

We took the kids to a Peter Pan stage show at the community theatre on Sunday, and it went pretty well. I bought the tickets last week even though the kids knew nothing of the story, so then I was scrambling to find a book or a movie or anything that would introduce them to the characters before we went to the show. I lucked out and got the Disney movie from the library on Thursday, so after watching it a few times they knew enough to be able to follow the stage show. We only have the movie for a week, but we already burned it for their iPods, so at least we won’t lose it completely.

We also got our tree up this weekend — bring on Christmas!

Turning the Tide

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He’s made a lot of progress, but Justin has had some behavioral issues lately — particularly the way he’s been completely obsessed (I mean scary obsessed) with writing out the names of everyone in the afternoon kindergarten class, over and over and over and over. It’s especially concerning cause he’s in the morning class and therefore these are kids he doesn’t even know; he simply reads their names on the wall in his classroom. That’s all he was doing with his spare time, to the point that I had to hide the pens in the office (he was scribbling on blank cheques after running out of scrap paper). His behavior consultant tells us that writing out those names is Justin’s way of calming himself, which is fine, but he needs other coping techniques too. So we’ve been redirecting him to other activities (which is no small feat considering he types out names on the computer, makes names out of Play-Doh, even uses his own finger to write on the carpet), but then his anxiety goes up and he starts having toileting accidents and just generally bouncing off the walls. Argh.

So what did we do? We made a rule that there’s no writing allowed while the TV is on (Aspies really respect rules), we’re getting him engaged in really physical activities a few times a day (cause burning off that “autism energy,” as I call it, is very important), we’re making more effort to sit with him when he does his activity books to get him to follow the directions instead of just covering the pages with names (it works, but it’s time-consuming) and I put a new sign in his room with a list of rules for quiet time (he loves having a list that tells him exactly what he’s supposed to do). He’s had a much better weekend, but man, I’m exhausted. I would not have believed how much energy it takes to keep him on track. Wow.

Food For Thought

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I just had to share this joke I read in a book called House Rules, by Jodi Picoult, which focuses on a teenager with Asperger’s:

A guy is flying in a hot-air balloon and he’s lost. He lowers himself over a cornfield and calls out to a woman. “Can you tell me where I am and where I’m headed?”

“Sure,” this woman says. “You are at 41 degrees, 2 minutes, and 14 seconds north, 144 degrees, 4 minutes, 19 seconds east; you’re at an altitude of 762 meters above sea level, and right now you’re hovering, but you were on a vector of 234 degrees at 12 meters per second.”

“Amazing! Thanks! By the way, do you have Asperger’s syndrome?”

“I do!” the woman replies. “How did you know?”

“Because everything you said is true, it’s much more detail than I need, and you told me in a way that’s of no use to me at all.”

The woman frowns. “Huh. Are you a psychiatrist?”

“I am,” the man says. “But how the heck could you tell?”

“You don’t know where you are. You don’t know where you’re headed. You got where you are by blowing hot air. You put labels on people after asking a few questions, and you’re in exactly the same spot you were in five minutes ago, but now, somehow, it’s my fault!”

Quickie Getaway

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We probably should’ve focused more on the “lest we forget” aspect of Remembrance Day, but instead we seized the opportunity to go to Vancouver for a quick trip. We drove to Langley yesterday afternoon, spent the night there, and then drove into the city to see the aquarium this morning. I couldn’t get over the deal at the hotel: an amazing waterslide/splash park for the kids, free parking, free breakfast, free Internet, and a room with a two separate bedrooms and TVs…all for $100. Nice. The kids shared a bed for the first time ever (usually I sleep with Brayden and Chris bunks with Justin), which went well, and Justin actually ate pizza at the aquarium (he normally won’t eat in restaurants other than McDonald’s) so we were super impressed. I thought we were in for some trouble cause I forgot to bring the boys’ iPods (ack!) but they never even missed them. Awesome.

Moving Forward

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I’m really going to miss it when Justin gets too old for his autism program next spring. For one thing, it’s a nice sanity saver, as it gets him out of the house three afternoons a week. More importantly, it’s teaching him to be more confident in social situations. Plus it’s amazing to be able to tell his team about a behavior problem (like how he wants to hug every little girl he sees, and how he constantly lies to me when I ask him simple questions) and have them work out a solution. Every parent should be so lucky. Too bad we have to deal with Brayden’s behavior problems all on our own.

Where the program has made the most difference is in Justin’s anxiety level. Things that used to freak him out are things he now takes in stride. He’s been doing really well at swimming lessons, gymnastics is going great (although that class is specifically for kids on the spectrum, so they’re expecting a few quirks), and he actually wore a Halloween costume (first time ever!) to TWO different parties on the same day and didn’t have a meltdown. He even went trick-or-treating with his dad and his brother. These might sound like insignificant things, but for him they’re major accomplishments. It’s good to see him making progress.

Brayden’s preschool teacher tells me he’s made progress, too. The copying has tapered off and he’s figured out how to play better with the other kids, so that’s good news. He’s also working on speaking more clearly, but that’ll take time. He’s growing up!