At the End of My Rope...

Never in a million years did I think at nearly five years of age my child would still be pooping in his pants - and not just an occasional accident, but regularly and on purpose! I am so over cleaning poop out of Reiss's pants on a near daily (sometimes two, three, or four times) basis, I could tear my hair out.

And he was doing so well there for several weeks.....

But no, Reiss is now back to pooping in his pants almost daily and is proud of himself for doing it. He wants to wear a diaper because Milla wears Pull-Ups (visualize me saying this in a snotty voice). Seriously, I could cry. Actually, I might just do that later.

Today alone, I have cleaned poop out of Reiss's pant two times. Weeks ago, even just days ago, the threat of wearing a diaper would send him into a tantrum begging not to have to wear one. He goes back and forth though...one day he wants to wear a diaper to be just like Milla. The next, he is having a record-breakingly loud and extensive meltdown at the mere mention of having to wear a diaper. Make up your mind already, ya' know??

How in the world is a person supposed to know how to handle that? GRRRRR!!!!!!!

And by the way, I hope I never sound like I don't like or love my own child. I love Reiss to pieces but some days....some days I wish with all my being things could just be even a teensy bit easier.

On a more positive note, my husband and I are working with a woman who is the former director of a therapy facility for children on the northside of Indianapolis in helping her and her husband (also a former director of the same facility) get the word out about a similar facility of their own that they hope to open by summertime.

Their facility will provide ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy services all in one building - a wonderful benefit to those parents who either have several therapists coming to their homes and/or travel to several different facilities in order for their children to receive their different therapies. This is exactly the kind of thing this side of town (we live on the southside of Indianapolis) needs, as no other facility of its kind exists here.

I always say the southside is the worst place to have a child with autism because all the professionals specializing in autism treatments are on the northside. The one place that is not is downtown and is a university-based autism treatment facility that is so overwhelmed with patients they cannot provide the intensive treatment these children need. Just ask me and my husband. Unfortunately, we know first-hand. For example, their recommended form of therapy for Reiss was ABA for one hour, one time per month. Anyone who knows anything at all about ABA knows that one hour of ABA might as well be nothing. ABA is generally given to children ten to thirty hours per week, with some children needing a little less, others needing a bit more. However, one hour per month would never be considered effective treatment by the professionals who originally conceived the ABA theories.

In other news....(is that so cliche or what?)

A girl, well, she's actually a woman now, I went to school with and am facebook friends with sounds like she is in the process of beginning the journey into autism with her son. It breaks my heart to know others have to go through what we go through but it's nice to know I have been there, am still there, and can help others just now joining "the club" that no one wants to be a part of, but many of us (and a growing number of us) are forced into joining.

There were some other positives to my day today. I didn't ditch my friend, Carol, and our regular Wednesday mall-walking date like I have had to do for a few weeks now due to other things going on. So I did get some exercise today.

While at the mall, in addition to walking two miles, I also rocked the Bath & Body Works store! My brother-in-law gave me a giftcard for there. I was unsure of the amount of the giftcard and kept forgetting to call the 800 number on the back to find out. After walking this morning, I had some time to kill before going to get Reiss and decided to go spend my giftcard before I forgot about having it. Their semi-annual sale is going on right now and that is one sale I love so much that I actually tell people about it. I must sound like a real dork telling people about a sale but this sale is a good one. How can I pass up stocking up on gifts for people when they include getting body sprays for $0.35???

Anyway, so I picked out what I thought was probably around $25 worth of stuff. It ended up being a total with tax of $30.39. My giftcard was for thirty dollars so I got 21 items for $0.39 out of pocket! Not too shabby, especially considering I was just guessing at the amount of the giftcard.

After robbing the Bath & Body Works store, I took Milla to the play area for the remaining little bit we had before needing to pickup Reiss from preschool. She played and ran around and I hope she had fun. She looked like she was having fun. There was one mom whose little girl of about eighteen months, by my guesstimation, ran out of the play area. The mom was young (but then, anything younger than thirty seems young to me these days) and was sitting there talking with a friend and not watching her daughter. I was watching her daughter and Milla at the same time and wondering how long it would be before she got up to go get her daughter. Finally, after her daughter was about fifty or so feet from the play area and getting ready to enter JCPenney, the mom got up to go look for her daughter. And it wasn't even in an oh-my-goodness-where-is-my-daughter sort of way. It was more like la-dee-da-dee-da-I-guess-I-will-go-find-my-daughter-now kind of way. GRRRR!!!! (Just for fun, can you count how many times I used the word "daughter" in that paragraph? Sheesh, where are those writing skills people used to gush all over me about?)

Anyhooooo.....surely anyone reading this to here is bored to tears by now so........

I'm off...back to conquering the world I go. HA!

Where in the world is Walla Walla?

So it's my second post and I've decided to travel all the way to Walla Walla, Washington just to get inspired........I kid I kid.  I'm actually in Walla Walla for worka worka. I used to come to Walla Walla to play ball back in my college days when I played at PBA. All I ever saw of Walla Walla back then was the ball field and the Holiday Inn.  Coming here now I've seen alot more of the city and I've realized that it's actually a nice place.  It (Walla Walla), Im tired of writing the name of the city, so Im referring to Walla Walla as it. It has a great downtown area and some cool little pubs and places to eat.  I didn't realize that the area was known for it's wine.  Too bad I'm not a wine guy.  I know Kristin would of actually liked this place.  I was in Omaha about a month ago and now Walla Walla.  Im happy that my new job allows me to travel the world.

Tonight I was messing with my new blog settings and layout. Im still trying to get a little more comfortable with the blogging world. The bad wireless connection in my hotel room really held me back tonight. I had a bunch of good pics and a few other things I wanted to do tonight. But...Id rather do them right then do them half-assed.

My next blog will be my the beginning of it all.  I'm looking forward to getting this thing off the ground and I'm really gonna make an honest effort to post every other day.

Later.

Monday Messes

My day began by cleaning up spilled apple juice that I had poured into a "cup without a lid" and given to Reiss during breakfast. He reached for it to take a drink, somehow missed, and that was how we got Monday Mess #1.

Immediately following the cleanup of the overturned apple juice, Milla was asking (I'm so nice to call it "asking" - it was more like whining at a fever pitch) for some milk. So I got the foil-pack carton of Almond Breeze out of the refrigerator, started to shake it, and next thing I knew I was being showered with almond milk. As was the entire westside of my kitchen. Monday Mess #2 was born.

Reiss finished breakfast and went off to play in the master bathroom with a - unbeknownst to me at the time - toy aquarium. He filled it with water and came walking down the hall asking, "Mommy, why's this thang got water coming out?" That is not a typo. He really does say "thang."

Well, Reiss that would be because it's a toy aquarium, not something we actually fill with water. Monday Mess #3 made its appearance and in a grand way, all the way down the hall, through the bedroom all over the carpet in there, and on into the bathroom where a puddle approximately the size of Lake Michigan awaited my maiden skills and already sopping wet towel I was scooting down the hall with to clean up.

After removing the aquarium from the bathroom and establishing a new rule: No filling toy aquariums with water - I returned to the kitchen to find Milla and Monday Mess #4. Milla had turned her cup of apple juice over as well. All this action before 8:30 am. Do I know how to live it up or what?

I suppose it's a good thing I don't give them very much juice when they have cups without lids.

So why don't I just give them cups with lids? I could. And I could also listen to them tantrum themselves into a tizzy for a few minutes. I'll take cleaning up a mess now and then over a tantrum anyday. Honestly though, I can handle the tantrums. There is more to my excuse for giving them cups without lids and it includes having teachers in preschools who prefer to have them able to drink with a regular cup when they begin attendance. They also asked me at Milla's IFSP evaluation last week if she can drink from a cup without a lid so I guess that is something that is expected of a two-year-old??

I don't know. You tell me. I don't even know what "normal" behavior is anymore so I don't know what to expect.

Monday Mess # 5 came this afternoon within five minutes of Reiss and I throwing a big party for him having pooped and peed on the potty. It was naptime for Milla and Reiss had just finished eating his reward treat for pooping on the potty. He left the kitchen, then returned five minutes later, and told me he had poop in his pants.

Seriously???

So much for rewards. His reward this time was a diaper. Not a disposable pull-up. A regular old Huggies tearaway-tabs-on-the-side diaper. And he didn't even mind.

Reiss has been pooping in his pants several times the last few days and yesterday we told him if he did it again, he was going to wear a diaper. He wanted no part of the diaper scene again and threw a fit simply by the mention of him wearing a diaper. Today, he didn't care.

Really, I don't know how I am supposed to potty-train a child who doesn't even care. Why, oh why, does everything have to be so difficult? Just as I start to get comfortable in anything and thinking, hey, this ain't so bad, a monkey wrench gets thrown in. It almost never fails.

I really do try to stay positive with having a child with autism but it's so hard when nearly every aspect of every day is difficult in some way. And before I get the people coming out of the woodwork telling me:

"He's four. What do you expect?"
"These things happen sometimes."
"Oh, that's normal. He'll be potty-trained before you know it."

Or any other attempts to make me see that this has nothing to do with autism, let it be known that I'm not saying Reiss is not potty-trained because he is autistic. Although, I do think that plays a part at the very root of the problem - even our DAN! doctor has given us information pointing to that regard. But it has to do with gut and bowel issues and is not something average people who don't spend nearly every spare moment away from their children reading about the science behind autism would find interesting.

And I'm not saying Reiss does everything he does because he is autistic. What I am saying though, is that there are a lot of things Reiss does because he is four years old and is a boy and then there are also a lotta lot of things he does because he is autistic. When you add them together, the sum can be some extremely difficult days to handle. Frankly, it's exhausting. I want those carefree fun kind of days so many other people get to enjoy.

Speaking of carefree fun...We went outside in the freezing cold weather today so I could pull these monkeys around on the sleds. While Reiss waited on Milla to be pulled, he whined that he wanted her sled, which is for babies and too small even for her. While Reiss was being pulled in the baby sled, Milla was crying loud enough for the neighbors three streets over to hear her. Regardless...I pulled them around like a pack mule and tried to make it fun for them. I don't know if it was just their moods or just too cold but they didn't seem happy and then Reiss wanted to come back inside.

And that was about as carefree as we got today. Oh wait, I did let them empty out nearly a full bottle of glue on pieces of construction paper while I loaded the dishwasher. No, that is not my idea of a craft. They were supposed to be making snowmen from craft pom-poms and glue on paper. Instead, they just sat and watched as the glue streamed out of the bottle on their sheets of paper. But I got the dishwasher loaded and that was an accomplishment.

Here's to hoping Tuesday is more carefree and less messy.....

First day on the Blog...

Well, I finally took the leap into blogging. I've been meaning to do so for quit some time now but I've never had the time or the desire to blog.

What's the point in blogging anyways?
I don't know.

I guess I'll just be putting my thoughts and daily activities on here to share with everyone.

Who's everyone?
I don't know.

I think the main reason behind me blogging will be to share my experiences with my bike. My 2009 Harley Nightster. I'm fairly new to the game. The harley game that is. I've grown up on dirtbikes and quads but my Harley was a new venture in my life that quickly took a hold of me and all of my attention.

I'll get more into my bike and how I've come to make it my own in the near future. Right now I'm still learning how to navigate and operate my blogspot.

Later.

Not a huge Nickelback fan here, but I do love this song. It reminds me of the important things and to stay on track....Enjoy!

And The Mission Continues....

Or, perhaps I should say, its objectives are expanding and my motivation has been reignited.

It is a new year and while many people have resolved to lose weight and are charting out their latest weight loss plan - and yes, as with every year, I'm doing that too - I am researching different treatments to recover my child from autism. As I draw closer to the end of reading A Child's Journey Out Of Autism by Leeann Whiffen, I can feel the inspiration building inside of me to act on my child's behalf. I am totally certain Leeann hoped to have this exact effect on parents when they read her book.

Around this time last year, Reiss had only been diagnosed a few weeks beforehand and reality had set in like a meteor pounding me into the ground. At the time, my family's mission seemed so simple: Pull Reiss out of this fog of autism. I was motivated. I was reading everything I could get my hands on. We - my husband and I - were going to change the world. Okay, not the world. But we were going to beat this awful child-stealing disability that robbed Reiss of a typical childhood and has rocked our family's world in ways no one can possibly fathom unless they have walked in these shoes.

The mission's objective is simple. Actually accomplishing it is the hardest thing we have ever set out to do.

We are doing "the autism diet" that so many of us parents use in treating our autistic children (yet, I'm surprised by the number of parents I meet who never even give it a try). Reiss and Milla both take several supplements every day, some of them two times per day. Reiss is in developmental preschool and Milla is in speech therapy but there are always those nagging questions of whether or not we are doing what is right or if we are doing enough. With much consideration, I am without a doubt that we are doing the right thing but I don't think we are doing enough.

Reiss goes to developmental preschool provided by our local school system four days per week. I have mentioned on many occasions how much I adore his teacher and her aides. They are gentle and caring and have a knack for reaching out to Reiss in ways that result in productivity on his part and only a minimal number of tantrums. He receives group occupational therapy, structured playtime and social interaction - all necessary elements for a child of preschool age and in his situation. However, here is where I feel we are neglecting one of Reiss's crucial needs: social development.

Reiss is incredibly smart. He has excellent verbal and communications skills. There are some days when he totally surprises the heck out of me in how he can pick up on certain things I would have thought were beyond his thought capacity. When he's not trying his best to annoy Milla, he plays very well with her - so well, that if an unaware stranger was to pop in on us and observe the two of them playing together, he or she may have difficulty believing Reiss even has autism (but he or she isn't here to see all the other moments of our day either). Yet, he still lacks social skills. He wants to be a friend to people. He reaches out to others somewhat. For example, he will walk up to total strangers and ask them their names. What I want to give attention to though, is the social awkwardness.

Social interaction with other children is incredibly important for a child but for a child with autism, a child whose social skills are lacking at best, it is nothing if there is not some sort of individualized social development program in place. I love that Reiss is around other children while he is at school but many of them are taking a ride on the same boat as he is - meaning they, too, have autism - and his one teacher and two aides have so many children under their supervision - sixteen, when I last asked.

Some of the children in his class do not have autism but they all have at least some type of special learning.....disability. I hate that word. My point is this, his teachers must feel overwhelmed. Even if they do not feel that way, I do. I feel Reiss needs something more - not something to replace preschool but something in addition to it - where he can acquire social skills that allow him to have actual relationships with other children and, dare I say it, friends.

With all that said, my next step is to exhaust myself with researching and finding an RDI - Relationship Development Intervention - program to implement into our growing list of treatments and therapies.

There never seem to be the resources in our area that I seek so off I go to search for a needle in a haystack.

By the way, Viv, if you're reading...I didn't go back to bed after all after facebook-ing you. I hope you did though, and were able to get some blissful, delicious sleep!

Happy New Year to ALL! I hope each and every one of you and your loved ones made it safely and happily into 2010. May this year bring joy and prosperity and progress to all.

For the "Out With the Old, In With the New" contest giveaway, the winner is:

Missy

Missy will receive a gently used copy of the book Cowboy & Wills written by Monica Holloway. Congratulations, Missy!!!

(Missy, per the contest guidelines, please send an email message by January 4th containing your mailing address with "Blog Giveaway" in the subject line of the message to my email address listed on my profile at the bottom left of your screen when you scroll over "Email.")