just going to leave this here.....

Dominic got a haircut today.  He looks incredibly grown up.

You would think I knew this by now...

So last night after Dominics horrible day, I went to check him while he was sleeping.  He was completely drenched in sweat.  For Dominic, this is a sign of his liver being a bit sluggish and his body taking the next elimination organ (the skin).   In Dominic, that liver sluggishness + the time of year = seasonal allergies.  Being as how I was already giving a natural antihistimine, i knew it was time to bring out the big guns.

I talked to an md, got the appropriate dosage and started him on zyzal this morning. (I take it, i know its fine with my body and it was the only one i had in the house).

Not only did he have a stellar speech session this afternoon, we then followed it with a footbath and look at the massive liver release...

We are going to do daily footbaths for a while, I suspect. 

Tales from homebased OT - pass the wine please

(just kidding, i'm on a diet.  wine has carbs)

So you all know I've pounded the "routine shall set you free" mantra for years and we live and die by routine.  Here are the things that were out of routine for Dominic today:

- Early wake up (4am) after which he may not have gotten back to sleep.
- Middle School transition meeting after school that he sat through
- very little time after getting home before Miss Ashley arrived.

Here's how OT went.

I had texted Ashley earlier to ask if she'd like for him to fold the laundry that i had ready to fold and she said yes.  So that was the plan.  She arrived and normally OT is done upstairs with dogs locked downstairs.  Strike one was trying to get him downstairs to the laundry room to fold the laundry.  He folded one shirt with verbal instructions,threw it all back in the basket, shoved the basket in the laundry room and refused to do anymore.

Then he kicked the dog (Kama) in the head for no reason, so I sent him to his room for 5 minutes of cool off time after which he refused to come out.  he got under the covers and told me night night.  I had him come out and apologize to the dog, and then he went into the laundry room and got on Daddy's spin bike (self regulating at least, but also and avoidance mechanism).

We got him off the bike and upstairs to do a puzzle which he refused to do.  He asked for the trampoline.  So we went outside and had him jump.  While he was jumping, Kumar (the 5 month old puppy) ate dog poop.  Which freaked Dominic out, and he insisted on coming inside and giving Kumar a bath.

After he gave the dog the bath we got him started finally on his puzzle.  He was not interested.  He did maybe 1/8th of it with lots of verbal cuing while loudly insisting the whole time through that it was time for Ashley to leave ("Ashley bye", "Ashley go home")

He is currently eating dinner.   And seriously, this is one of the days i just want to put him to bed early and take a bubble bath.  However, I still have laundry to fold and lunches to make.


PS.  The transitional meeting went fine, we were discussing how to most gently transition him to middle school and what his electives will be (PE and Choir to start with and depending on how choir goes, we might switch to art).   He will be in the SPED classroom about half the day, and will be with his peers for electives, science and social studies.  He'll get math, reading, and writing in SPED.   I shared with them this graphic as the long term, create a functional adult, set of goals that we are going to work towards for the next 9 years.   They loved it. 

Palmer park hike, 24 April

On Saturday, when I told Dominic that we were going on a walk, he got very excited and said "climb rocks". When he says climb rocks what he means is hike in Palmer Park which is a lovely open space hiking area a whole four blocks away from our house. So in order to appease him yesterday I took he and two of our three dogs hiking. I can't handle all three at once just yet. We left the baby at home he cried the whole time.  Here are pictures of our hike.

Posing on his farvorite rock

Stopping to smell the flowers....

Selfie with Pikes Peak in the background

I see houses!!

Grumpy Rock

Attempted to get them to all look the same direction... failed...

Its a Cave, Mommy.  Where are the bears?

Alpine autism walk 2016

Every year, as a family, we walk in the Alpine autism center 5k.  We went yesterday and had a wonderful time.   We had friends join us from Denver too :).

Family pre walk selfie

Never know who you will get o take a picture with....

The fabulous folks from AMD came down to support us. 

Usual pic of child up the wall

Post walk smiles with Daddy

Yes we made our traditional post walk lunch at red robin and Dominic asked for a strawberry lemonade.  We allowed it as a treat for being an absolute rock star for the walk.  He then ate 4 baskets of fries, a chicken breast and some broccoli.  

For those of you keeping track.... here're previous years of the Alpine walk...
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010

Changing boundaries

Because of where our house is located (4 houses away from a very busy major road), we simply do not allow Dominic to be in the front yard unless its a transitional thing (eg, transitioning to car, bus, etc).  We don't play in the front, we don't do anything in the front.   The backyard has a swingset, trampoline AND 6 foot fence.  Much safer.

With the addition of the GPS tracker and a willing accomplice (speech therapist), Dominic spent 45 minutes doing therapy outside at Daddy's suggestion yesterday.  

He did really well.  She told me as she was leaving that now he is scripting whole sentences in anticipation of hearing them (she uses Finding Nemo as a tool to get back and forth speech).  So its not echoic, now its scripted.  And its 4-5 words.  This is a huge step for him.

Tales from Home Based ST April 4

Dominic historically doesn't want to work if either Mom or Dad is in the room.  So this is not as good as he usually does, but look how good he's doing!!!!!  I'm beside myself pleased.   So is Miss Sarah, his speech therapist.


First they played bingo with letters, to work on back and forth interaction, asking sentences, and articulation.

Then they worked on verb tense.  That was interesting to watch.  Dominic is grasping the concept beautifully.

and finished the session with sight words.  Which works on not only reading but also articulation.  She uses the drum for a percussive beat and that helps him alot. 

What recovering looks like

8 years of fighting = $300K.

One afternoon note home from school = priceless

Coming hot off the presses!!!!

Reserve your copy of The Thinking Moms Revolution's Grandparents book, "Revolutionary Grandparents" today.  Autism affects all parts of the family and these grandparents tell the story of the kids regressions and further healing in a great anthology thats an important read for all of us.

Concerned boy

It took me a bit to figure out what was going on this morning when i walked on the Treadmill.  Dominic was, almost in tears, herding the dogs away from it and holding the puppy to ensure he stayed out of the way.

This requires a history lesson.

New Years day, Dominic decided to jump on my treadmill while i was on it.  In the split second it took me to pull the emergency stop, he had shredded the skin on the tops of his toes. (no shoes/socks, he was in pj's).  It took a month for them to heal.

I realized... Dominic is worried the dogs will have the same injury.  He was checking their paws compulsively and really really distressed when they were near the treadmill (this is problematic because my treadmill lives right next to the doggie door to the backyard).

so - add extreme concern and empathy to our list of GAINS.

IonCleanse by AMD, Month 15 Gains

This will likely be my last monthly gains post, because the IonCleanse by AMD is so integrated into our regime that we will never be stopping it, which means that we are adding / changing things on top of it.  So - while its a huge part of our gains, its not all of it because we are doing genetic specific sup's and a few other things too.

Here're the gains for March, month 15

Excellent Fine Motor work
Increased Self Awareness
Spontaneous use of sentences at school
consistently doing his 2 new chores - picking up all the puppy toys from the yard and picking up the dog poop.  he does them on alternate afternoons.  Its very cool. 
He allowed a haircut entirely with clippers for the first time in his life.
And a WHOLE bunch of little things that all add up for a GREAT month!


I'm so ridiculously pleased with how well the footbaths have made everything else work.  We are doing it - we are getting conversation now, and its a little more each day.  Our speech therapist is so happy she is beside herself.