Puppy love

The We picked up our new standard poodle today. It is his eight week birthday. Dominic is already in love. This puppy seems to have the superpower of making Dominic be very very still.

The next 2 1/2 weeks before school starts back up will be puppy Boot Camp. The plan is for this dog, Kama, to be primarily Dominic's. He will sleep and Dominic some room eventually in his bed. After he's night trained obviously.  Right now we are just all sucking up the puppy love

Puppy Countdown and general updates

I promise I'm not neglecting the blog like I did this summer...

We go pick up Kama (our new puppy) on Sunday morning. Dominic is ridiculously excited.  He knows Kama's name already, knows that Kama will be sleeping with him (our plan is to put Kama in Dominic's bed when Dominic goes down for the night, then pull him out with us when we go to bed and we'll get up to let him out during the night until he's mature enough to hold it all night).   One of my favorite programs that his elementary school does is a holiday shop - we send in money and he buys us presents which come home wrapped.   This year he brought home wrapped gifts for Mommy, Daddy, and Puppy.   Nothing for Shanti...

Today is his last day of school before the break.  Over break we are going to be ramping up on a new supplement that I'm really excited about.  A Number of my fellow warrior moms are seeing incredible results from broccoli sprouts, of all things.  We're talking entirely non verbal kids spitting out a full sentence out of the blue kind of incredible results.  So, as always every kid is different but if  I don't try this I'll wonder later if I should have. 

We had our regular IEP earlier this week.  Nothing signficant has shifted - he still has basically 100% of his day with an adult supporter.  They are still struggling to teach him handwriting and want to move him to a keyboard (i'm not enamored with this idea, so our private OT will be working hard to help).  Next year we will have 2 IEP's - one early in the fall and one near the end of the year that will transition him to middle school (I know, right).

We have gotten Dominic a Wii for his big gift this year.  (The puppy was a spontaneous thing, but the Wii we planned).  We are excited to see how he does with it - he plays with the one at the gym daycare so we know he's familiar.  Neither of us is a gamer at all, tho, so won't be much help for him.   Having to do it himself hasn't slowed him down with Angry Birds so we think it'll be fine.

Sunday Stories :)

These funny little moments keep happening and I keep meaning to write them all down... here you go...


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Frozen is his new absolute favorite movie.

Dominic is in LOVE with Elsa, Anna, and Sven from Frozen.  He could care less about Olaf.   I caught it on the DVR a few weeks ago and he's been watching it every morning before school while I work out.   He hasn't figured out how to sing yet at all, but when "Let it go" comes on, he sure tries.  He sort of squeals and makes the same physical body gestures Elsa does.  Its ridiculously cute.
Yesterday we were at Costco and he insisted on getting the DVD.  He has been watching it since. (minus sleep).  Very happily.

Last weekend at Lowes, Dominic found a Frozen night light. that projects Anna and Elsa onto the ceiling. We came home, I showed him how to use it and the next thing I knew he was naked and in the tub hurrying up bedtime.  Every night since, i've had to go turn it off after he fell asleep because he really likes Anna and Elsa watching him while he falls asleep (which i find kind of creepy just for the record...)

Yes he is getting some Frozen themed presents this year...
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Words are coming easier.
We have his IEP tomorrow afternoon and as such i've been in contact with his SPED teacher and his speech therapist in the last week.  The ST is  new this year, she came out of retirement after the ST who had been there since kindegarten left.   She told me "I was told the beginning of this year that he simply doesn't use language.  Thats not true at all"  and that in just the few months she's been working with him she has seen a huge shift from language only as completely functional to starting to be conversational.  He is still working hard to get the right words for the right situation...  for example...

The other night I had fed him dinner (bacon wrapped chicken breasts and peas) and was in another room finishing up my work for the day.  I heard the plate hit the sink (he is so good about putting it in the sink after eatingt) and he came flying into the office - and with great gusto he said "EW! YUCK!!!" and i looked at him... and then he kind of shook his head and said "Good, Yummy!!".  it was very cute and really funny

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Yesterday we went to lunch and took 2 different cars as Daddy was going to work after and Dominic and I were going grocery shopping.  As such, Daddy blazed past us and managed to turn on a left turn green arrow that I got stuck at.   Dominic was VERY upset about this and until the light changed and I could go again I heard, "DADDY!!!!  Mommy, GO GO GO!!! "  over and over from the backseat. 

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We are excited that Kama will come home next weekend and have decided to plan a whole celebration day on the Solstice as a result. :)  Sunny side up eggs, anyone?   Dominic very much remembers still that the puppy's name is Kama which is adorable.

We are so pleased to announce....

That we will be bringing home a new family member somewhere around the solstice. He is a six week old standard poodle who we absolutely fell in love with this weekend.

Of the three puppies, he is the one with the red collar. They were all absolutely adorable and a ton of fun we spent a solid hour playing with them. Dominic did ridiculously well being gentle.

My first TMR Blog...

I wrote for The Thinking Moms Revolution ...

Go check it out

Why is it working now?

So all of the things we have been doing "new" lately are things we've tried before unsuccessfully.  Why are the working now?

and what exactly are we doing?

We have spent 2 1/2 years clearing pathogens using the CD protocol.  It is based on the theory that pathogens are responsible for our childrens lack of xyz and therefore instead of supplementing xyz (the DAN protocol), we oxidize the pathogens.  CD is the one protocol that has made the most sustainable difference for Dominic and we will keep it in our backpocket forever.  Both Rod and I have done it on ourselves as well.  Gotta heal the family!

We started using an iMRS mat for an hour a day, every day.  We've been doing this since June.  Among other things, iMRS reduces inflammation. 


We've gotten out some viruses.  In January, we got viral die off in PV doing HBOT.  Dominic did Chicken Pox the old fashioned way in June, which activated his immune system.  Then 2 weeks ago we got more viral die off as a result of the Young Living Essential Oils Raindrop session we did at Pathways in Denver.

So now we are BACK to trying some things we've done before without much progress

Speech and Occupational therapies 2x a week at The Shandy Clinic.  Dominic loves his therapists and i believe is getting something out of it this time.

A targeted, specific fats, dyspraxia protocol (we used SPEAK before, and hated it, so mixing our own this time)

And, daily Young Living essential oils.   Frankincense and myrtle on his toes before bed, and we are about to start MindWise.

I am not crazy

Well not about this. 

Here is the note that came home from school today.

It's not our imagination, the verbals are increasing. 😊

Christmas tree shenanigans

As most of you probably know if you follow me on facebook, Dominic has been asking for the "chrisamus tree" for weeks.  Most years it doesn't go up until a few days before Christmas proper because we are concerned about breakage. Also most years he does not seem to be even a little bit aware of it. So it's tremendously exciting but he asked for it. We put it up yesterday afternoon.  Now he is asking for presents.  

After dinner, Dominic came in to the house sat down in the big brown chair, wrapped himself up in his Blankey, and happily gazed upon the flickering lights of the tree.

Sensory free Santa!

The Shandy  clinic, where we get our ST and OT, hosted a sensory free Santa event today -

While we were waiting our turn, the therapists for the clinic hosted crafts and such.   This is Dominic with his speech therapist, putting beads on a pipe cleaner.

And here he is showing said pipe cleaner to his OT

We only waited maybe 20 minutes or so before it was our turn to get a picture with Santa.  They had it set up in a nice quiet room with no chaos.  

Next up, decorating the tree, which Dominic has been asking to do for weeks.  I will hopefully have a post with pictures from that tomorrow. 

Progress! Lots of Progress!

Today's Chiropractic visit...

(setting the stage:  our appointment was directly after friends of ours, so we went a few minutes early and I knew we were going to visit about essential oils in the waiting room. Their son is a year or so older than Dominic)

We walked in.  Dominic walked over to their son, playing with the box of books/toys, sat down adn said "Where is it.  BOOK".  Their son, J, said "is this it" and held out the book he was looking at.  Dominic dug through the toy box until he found the Finding Nemo book.  He pulled it out, laid down on his stomach and proceeded to trace the letters and label them verbally, "N, E, M, O".  I said "What does that spell" and he said "Nemo"

He and J interacted together for a solid 45 minutes, some verbally,  while I visited with his parents and Rod got adjusted.

Then, when it was his turn to get adjusted, he - for the first time EVER - allowed Dr Susan to adjust him laying face down.

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This morning he stood up and attempted to sing along with Elsa in Frozen, singing "Let it go". 
I need to figure out how to post videos from my phone here because it was ADORABLE

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He has repeatedly asked us to set the Christmas tree up. Its on our todo list for today (or tomorrow if we get buried today)

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It may be wishful thinking, but i feel like we're seeing a noticeable uptake in  conversational attempts since our trip to Pathways on Monday.  

Happy thanksgiving !!!!

We hope you had a fabulous day!!

Thanksgiving prep pics!!

The 

Our friends Tim and Trent both were over helping prep for

Tomorrow

Mind blown

Today I took Dominic up to Pathways natural healing center in Westminster Colorado. It is run by my fellow team TMR mom, Tyler. Tyler is also my young living essential oils guru and she's awesome.   

When we arrived, Dominic went straight into the sauna with his coat still on.

Then he and I together get a foot detox bath. It came out so gross that we're going to have to find a way to do them more regularly.

Then Dominic took off his clothes and lay down for a raindrop session. Raindrop massage is a method by which essential oils are applied along the spine any particular order with a particular method. The first oil that she applied was oregano. Oregano is a potent antiviral and we have been using it internally for a while although not young living. That's going to change.

Within 30 seconds of the application of oregano oil, Dominic had a viral die off reaction the likes of which I've only seen one other time. If you recall almost a year ago last January when I took him to Puerto Vallarta for hyperbaric oxygen on the last morning he woke up with blisters on his chin. The oregano oil sparked the same kind of blister on his spine.  Both Tyler and I were mind blown. I believe that the viral die off coming out of him is the last of the measles that we've been struggling to eradicate for so many years. Regardless whatever it is it's a good thing he's detoxing. After he got his raindrop oils all applied, we put him back into the sauna to let the heat push the oils the rest of the way in to his spine.

I am so grateful for this journey having brought me to meet these other amazing warrior moms who are making a tremendous difference for our kids. Thank you so much Tyler for a fantastic day.

If you are interested in learning more about Young living essential oils, please take a look at my essential oils tab at the top of this blog. I cannot believe we're finally getting this virus out of my boy and I'm so excited about it