It's been awhile!

It has been a long time since I last wrote on here. I'm not a celebrity so I doubt it is that disappointing. We have had a hard transition out of the military life the last couple years. Getting my husband the career he deserves after serving in the military was much harder than we thought. After unemployment and taking jobs that had nothing to do with his background, he finally is set up with a career outside the military that will build on his past experience and will take him into a decent retirement. I have been trying to hold the family together and support my husband so he could get settled with his future career. The recent Government shutdown that lasted 35 days and 2 pay periods that really affected us financially. So with all 3 kids in school I am able to focus on my dream to start my Jenn Dominguez, graphic design business. So as I was sprucing up my web page I came across this blog that I started years ago and thought, I better keep this up so I can document and remember everything for years to come. Since I haven't posted in ages I think I better catch you up on our family.

We now have 3 children, a dog, Buster, & 3 guinea pigs, Ninja, Skitty, & Princess! We sadly lost 2 betta fish, Dorby, & Bobby Wasabi, along our journey)

1. Liam is our oldest (as you know) and has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (they no longer separate Autism into categories, it is now grouped as one). He also suffers from anxiety disorder and OCD is brought on by anxiety. He thrives on visual schedules and knowing what is coming next in life. He loves to learn facts and loves to draw robots. He still has a love for legos and cars.
2. Gwyneth is our middle child, she has been diagnosed with Visual Processing Disorder. So everything Liam thrives on with visual schedules was not helpful for her, she thrives on movement and active learning like learning alphabet through body movement and poses. She has a very creative brain and can remember elaborate stories but has a hard time with just facts. She hated reading but through certain steps she has now learned to love reading and is confident and happy to read every night. She is in third grade but the school says she's working on a first grade level, but I have worked with her and believe she is now up to level. We were hitting a wall for a while with reading but then I found some answers in a book one day.   
3. Gavin is our youngest child, he is confident and  full of energy. He believes he is the same level as the other two and has no problem trying to prove that. He is in Kindergarten, and he has been working on reading BOB books at home every night and doing a fantastic job. He has just recently learned how to tell time by hours and minutes and wants to be quizzed on it everyday now. He loves to watch DIY tutorials on youtube, which I detest but find myself watching them with him. He also loves Grumpy Cat and Minecraft.

Now we are all caught up on the kids and what we have been doing in life while I wasn't posting, I can share experiences, past and present and hopefully help someone else in the process. Even if helping is by making you laugh, it still counts as helping! :)

Liam's First Halloween!

It's taken us this long for Liam to understand the excitement of any Holiday. For years we have down played our holiday celebrations to accommodate Liam due to his anxiety he gets when he's surprised or if the routine is different. In his own excited words "Momma, this is my first Halloween! I'm sooo excited!" This year was such a treat to be able to "actually" go trick or treating for REAL. Every Halloween we have had was trick or treating but at our OWN house, we would role play and knock on each others doors and give out candy because Liam didn't want to go to other houses. He was too overwhelmed with everything and it ended up being an evening about 'forcing' him to have fun like everyone 'should', but we realized he's not like everyone so why make a kid miserable when it's about having fun?! It's silly to try to be normal and do normal traditions for us, it's outcome is usually not a pleasant one and that's what the holidays are suppose to be about for the kids. This year, our "break through year", is going to be our first of many fun traditions to finally set in place for our family.

Days after his Halloween he has been cranky and is showing signs of anxiety (I've had to bandage his thumbs because he's bothering his cuticles again, he hasn't done that in a while). But he had a whole week of his school being out of routine with red ribbon week, he had a play date with a boy from his class, & he's had his first Halloween all in one week so I think he's in need of his routine again before his anxiety gets out of control. I think one of many secrets to our success has been to stay ahead of his behaviors and to limit the "triggers" as much as possible. Another secret is to be a great mind reader but that isn't always possible, lol, if it were I don't think we would ever have troubles. ;) So we will try to calm things down and let him get back to a normal day before we get in to "meltdown territory".

A "No Prompting" Playdate?!?!

Good news to report! We just had a boy from Liam's class come over to play and I was able to sit back and enjoy watching them play on their own. Liam took charge and showed ALL of his toys and came up with some games to play all on his own. I only had to step in to suggest that his friend doesn't have to play things if he doesn't want to and that's ok. I tell you it went off so well. I am amazed everyday by this little boy who is growing and overcoming so many obstacles.

"It is a misconception that kids with autism don't want to socialize, it's quite the opposite actually. They just don't know how to socialize "naturally" like everyone else. They need to be taught ,in repetition, every scenario possible so they reply with the socially accepted responses."

Waving goodbye to his friend with a little concern on his face. We walked into the house and he had a 10 minute meltdown and then pulled himself together, ate dinner and that was that. I truly can't get over how easy this day was and what a milestone we had today. It seems everyday is a milestone here, all this progress with no regression. I am unbelievably NOT exhausted by this day!

Daddy's home to visit for 2 days.

Adrian is in the field for a month with 2 days to come home to visit in the middle. It's been 2 weeks and he's home for the 2 day visit as of last night. It's already put a small bump in our schedule.

When Adrian pulled into the driveway the kids dropped everything they were playing to run out and greet daddy with big smiles. Gwyn was first in line for big hugs and kisses and telling him "daddy I missed you so much!" Liam hung back with an excited smile and then started to talk right away about how now that daddy's home we can carve a pumpkin and he ran in and set his pumpkin on the table, ready to carve. Oh great, now I have to explain myself and tell him "I know I said when daddy come home maybe he can carve our pumpkins with us, but I didn't mean the minute he came home Liam." We waited while his anxiety rose and his anger and disappointment set in and then I explained it 2 more times very calmly. He wasn't happy with this at all but I quickly got him distracted by telling him to go put his captain America costume on and we can go to his school festival in costume. Whew! That was dodged somewhat gracefully.
Adrian was a little saddened by his lack of excitement to see him home and I told him "this is how Liam shows you that he's missed you a lot too." Liam's lack of emotion for his homecoming isn't because he doesn't love or miss him, he just expresses himself differently which could be perceived as selfish and all about "me me me" but that's when you know from him that he has missed you because you haven't been there to fulfill his needs on a daily basis and he takes it out on you when you return.

This morning the kids got up and were playing in their room like usual at 6 am when daddy went in to see what they were doing and minutes later I had to go in to calm Liam down all because it wasn't part of our schedule for daddy to come in to his room. I asked Adrian nicely to ,"please don't assume responsibilities while you are here today and tomorrow, it will only cause disruption. I know you are trying to help but just sit back and relax, I will take care of the daily routines." I think Adrian was disappointed and felt not wanted but it is just how Liam can cope with Adrian's unpredictability right now.

I think moving here has been the best decision we have made because we have actually been able to experience an easier "normality" to our lives because of Adrian's predictable schedule and his extra time to be home and bond with the kids. The whole first year of Gwyn's life Adrian was deployed and so they have been trying to catch up on bonding and building trust and that has finally strengthened by being here with a normal work schedule. Adrian always has to build trust with Liam but I believe Liam's anxiety has gone down tremendously just having Adrian's work schedule be predictable and having more time at home to bond. Adrian has also been around more to see how I handle things and learn how to handle Liam with everyday situations. We are all still learning as Liam grows but at least we are caught up to having more good days and fewer bad days (and the "bad days" are not nearly as severe as they used to be).

I also have had to adjust by including Adrian in our schedule because he was gone so much at Fort Bragg that I treated the situation more like a single parent and if Adrian could attend or do something with us then he could but I could never count on him to do anything like picking Gwyn up from Childcare or go to Liam's school functions or even having Adrian home on the weekend is something we've had to adapt to and build our schedule with him in it. It's been an adjustment for all of us but definitely a positive adjustment!

Above & Beyond Expectations!

I can't put into words how exciting it is to see Liam act as if there's not a care in the world! I have waited his whole life for him to drop his anxieties and just play like children should and not be held back by his mind and emotions. It's crazy that I'm able to write a post like this at this time in our life when there's been huge changes all around us.

I am one happy mama to be able to report that Liam has settled into our new home, his new school, and my husband's new work schedule. We prepared and did social stories before but I never dreamed that it would be enough to set his overly thinking mind at ease. We've had very few (by few I mean only 2) episodes of an anxiety melt down but they lasted 5 minutes, ...what?!

We have gone to the zoo, water park, a weekend retreat into the mountains of New Mexico, the science museum, a small petting zoo with bounce houses. All these activities with very little resistance on Liam's part. Only the transitioning has been an issue but still, he BOUNCED in the bounce house with TONS of kids and smiled while doing it! He's made friends at school and wants to have play dates with them! I have tears in my eyes as I write this because never did I think my early intervention techniques would pay off as well as it is. Never crossed my mind that we too could do activities that others do without conflict and anxieties.

A BIG BIG THANK YOU to his special needs preschool teacher for 2 years, Mrs. Thompson! Liam grew so much from the first day we came into your class to now. I can't express how you've helped our family and how much we appreciate you.

Another BIG THANK YOU to Kerry & Carol for your ideas on schedules and charts. Kerry, whenever we talked you didn't make me feel like I'm a crazy mother who's overly concerned for my child. You listened, understood, and helped me out greatly when I needed it.

Of course my PARENTS I THANK every day for their support and understanding. I very lucky to have such caring and loving parents.

Well I'll wrap this up because its sounding more like an acceptance speech than an update about Liam. :) But I feel like I did win something, I won an anxiety free child and that's the best reward or gift that I could ever receive.

All in all, we are doing great!

Liam, who is turning 5 years old in August, has made so much progress! It's unbelievable to think that he would get out of the bathtub and grab his towel all by himself then proceed to pick out his own PJ's and dress himself, leaving his socks off while he ate dinner, and then went to bed forgetting to put them on...is this for real? The behavior binder is proving itself time and time again to help with his anxiety, OCD, and behaviors. I never thought that his disagreements would only last seconds and not hours. I'm so excited how far we keep climbing but I'm also nervous about all the changes we are about to face. Having to PCS (Permanent Change of Station- army lingo) to a whole new world in El Paso, TX makes me so anxious that I have been preparing with social stories and talking about our new house and his new bedroom with a new teacher in his new school. Everything will be a clean slate and it will be all new territory for us as a family. His little sister Gwyn is 2 years old and is a sassy carefree little girl who is very adaptable. Liam is not so adaptable and he requires explanation about everything all the time and needs to talk about every detail of a situation. We recently prepped him (for a month) to go see The Lorax in a movie theater, which was his very first time ever going to a theater to see a movie, and it went off without a hitch. I couldn't have been more happy with how he handled the whole thing, the previews (which were for an older crowd in my opinion) the seat, which kept closing up on him because he's so little and light and the movie was a new Lorax not the old Lorax which he has seen and knows about. All in all he was very adaptable and appreciated the movie, even though as we are leaving he is talking about how I didn't fix his broken car at home yet. I'm excited because I can see some normal family events in our future and I hope we don't regress with our big move across country. No matter what happens I know we will get through these times and I'm prepared so I know we will never be in the situation we were 2 years ago. This gives me hope!

Who, what, when, where, why and how?http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/

Autism is a physical condition linked to abnormal biology and chemistry in the brain. The exact causes of these abnormalities remain unknown, but this is a very active area of research. There are probably a combination of factors that lead to autism.

A number of possible causes have been suspected, but not proven. They involve:

Genetics
Diet
Digestive tract changes
Mercury poisoning
The body's inability to properly use vitamins and minerals
Vaccine sensitivity

SYMPTOMS

Most parents of autistic children suspect that something is wrong by the time the child is 18 months old and seek help by the time the child is age 2. Children with autism typically have difficulties in:

Pretend play
Social interactions
Verbal and nonverbal communication

Some children with autism appear normal before age 1 or 2 and then suddenly "regress" and lose language or social skills they had previously gained. This is called the regressive type of autism.

PEOPLE WITH AUTISM MAY:

Be overly sensitive in sight, hearing, touch, smell, or taste (for example, they may refuse to wear "itchy" clothes and become distressed if they are forced to wear the clothes)
Have unusual distress when routines are changed
Perform repeated body movements
Show unusual attachments to objects

The symptoms may vary from moderate to severe.

Communication problems may include:
Cannot start or maintain a social conversation
Communicates with gestures instead of words
Develops language slowly or not at all
Does not adjust gaze to look at objects that others are looking at
Does not refer to self correctly (for example, says "you want water" when the child means "I want water")
Does not point to direct others' attention to objects (occurs in the first 14 months of life)
Repeats words or memorized passages, such as commercials
Uses nonsense rhyming

SOCIAL INTERACTION:

Does not make friends
Does not play interactive games
Is withdrawn
May not respond to eye contact or smiles, or may avoid eye contact
May treat others as if they are objects
Prefers to spend time alone, rather than with others
Shows a lack of empathy

RESPONSE TO SENSORY INFORMATION:

Does not startle at loud noises
Has heightened or low senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, or taste
May find normal noises painful and hold hands over ears
May withdraw from physical contact because it is overstimulating or overwhelming
Rubs surfaces, mouths or licks objects
Seems to have a heightened or low response to pain

PLAY:

Doesn't imitate the actions of others
Prefers solitary or ritualistic play
Shows little pretend or imaginative play

BEHAVIORS:

"Acts up" with intense tantrums
Gets stuck on a single topic or task (perseveration)
Has a short attention span
Has very narrow interests
Is overactive or very passive
Shows aggression to others or self
Shows a strong need for sameness
Uses repetitive body movements


Autism includes a broad spectrum of symptoms. Therefore, a single, brief evaluation cannot predict a child's true abilities. Ideally, a team of different specialists will evaluate the child. They might evaluate:

Communication
Language
Motor skills
Speech
Success at school
Thinking abilities

Sometimes people are reluctant to have a child diagnosed because of concerns about labeling the child. However, without a diagnosis the child may not get the necessary treatment and services.

TREATMENT

An early, intensive, appropriate treatment program will greatly improve the outlook for most young children with autism. Most programs will build on the interests of the child in a highly structured schedule of constructive activities. Visual aids are often helpful.

Treatment is most successful when it is geared toward the child's particular needs. An experienced specialist or team should design the program for the individual child. A variety of therapies are available, including:

Applied behavior analysis (ABA)
Medications
Occupational therapy
Physical therapy
Speech-language therapy
Sensory integration and vision therapy are also common, but there is little research supporting their effectiveness. The best treatment plan may use a combination of techniques.

DIET

Some children with autism appear to respond to a gluten-free or casein-free diet. Gluten is found in foods containing wheat, rye, and barley. Casein is found in milk, cheese, and other dairy products. Not all experts agree that dietary changes will make a difference, and not all studies of this method have shown positive results.

If you are considering these or other dietary changes, talk to both a doctor who specializes in the digestive system (gastroenterologist) and a registered dietitian. You want to be sure that the child is still receiving enough calories, nutrients, and a balanced diet.

OTHER APPROACHES

Beware that there are widely publicized treatments for autism that do not have scientific support, and reports of "miracle cures" that do not live up to expectations. If your child has autism, it may be helpful to talk with other parents of children with autism and autism specialists. Follow the progress of research in this area, which is rapidly developing.

At one time, there was enormous excitement about using secretin infusions. Now, after many studies have been conducted in many laboratories, it's possible that secretin is not effective after all. However, research continues.

EXPECTATIONS (prognosis)

Autism remains a challenging condition for children and their families, but the outlook today is much better than it was a generation ago. At that time, most people with autism were placed in institutions.

Today, with the right therapy, many of the symptoms of autism can be improved, though most people will have some symptoms throughout their lives. Most people with autism are able to live with their families or in the community.

The stresses of dealing with autism can lead to social and emotional complications for family and caregivers, as well as the person with autism.