Regression

The biggest thing that we were worried about this summer, in terms of having ten weeks off from school without full-time support there from a special-educator and his specialists, was the possibility of regression.

This school year saw a good deal of progress from the Monster in terms of at least not falling further behind than he’s already been.  He started to write and read, and he was most of the way to the point of being toilet trained during the day, at least in terms of minimizing accidents.  Because of the school’s concern that he might regress, he was given ESY services. Continue reading

The Other Things

I don’t know about other parents with children with Autism, but we tend to let a lot of things slide because we’re tending to the Monster’s care.

Now… messy houses with multiple kids aren’t anything that weird.  (Though I do seem to know quite a few folks with multiple kids who have folks to help them clean…)  I know that.  And our house usually isn’t that much of a disaster.  The problem is… the garage. Continue reading

Do You Know the Muffin Man?

The struggle with food continues.

The Monster’s summer one-on-one has been very good about writing us decent notes every day, outlining what the Monster’s enjoying or not enjoying, where there are pain points and where he’s figured out things with the behavior… and one of the recurring pain points in the first week of camp has been food. Continue reading

Sensory Friendly?

Yesterday, we decided to take in a movie.

Now… I don’t get to see first run movies very often.  The largest problem really is that we don’t have a regular babysitter, but we also don’t go to see many movies as a family due to the obvious issues – movies are generally very bright in a very dark space, they’re loud, and there’s not much tolerance for a child who can’t sit still. Continue reading

Trial and Error

Obviously, part of the Monster’s camp experience is lunch.

Now, I don’t know entirely how Camp Milldale’s lunch works, really.  I do remember when I went to camp at the JCC Day Camp at Flanders, and it was fairly straight forward: we got off the bus, we gave our counselors our dairy lunches, the lunches were put in garbage bags that were schleped up to our unit shelters in the woods and stuck in the fridge, and after instructional swim, we ate said lunches.  Oh, and once a week, we had a cookout. Continue reading

New Tricks

Chalk this up as one of those things that you only really notice as a signpost of how far someone’s come.

The Monster’s been a picky eater for a while now – when he was a baby, he’d eat just about anything that was put in front of him.  Today, his diet’s far more limited, and it’s usually a guessing game as to what he’ll eat (though, at least, we know he’ll almost universally accept chicken fingers when we go out to eat…) Continue reading