What's with YouTube?

I have been trying to upload a video of Alex onto YouTube to share with you but it just wouldn't want to know. I tried a few times last night and then again this morning - just have to try later.

Alex learned to hum the intro of "Eye of the Tiger" and it's just so funny.

Anyway, we had our third Early Bird course today and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I would definately recommend anyone whose child been diagnosed with ASD to attend the Early Bird. This will be more beneficial to parents in the early days of diagnosis. The course really give parents the confident to work with their child/children and to understand how, what and sometimes why things happen the way they do.

Alex was diagnosed in May 2007 just after one of the Early Bird courses started. We had to wait until September for a new course to begin but there weren't enough families to start a new class. So, from September was delayed to November and then finally a confirmed date in January 2008.

While waiting for the course to start, Christina Watson one of the Early Bird trainers gave me many tips to work with Alex. That helped quite a bit and I know she wanted to tell me more but she knew I would not benefit from the course if she said too much.

Back to Early Birds, I have been practicing most of the things discussed in the first three weeks for sometime and I knew it worked. All these were either read from various books, research from the internet or tips from Christina. It seemed like a long time ago since the diagnosis and because of the knowledge we acquired from various sources, our life with Alex improved tremendously. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the last three weeks of the course and look forward to the rest.

Note to parents with children recently diagnosed with ASD:

It's not an easy thing to accept that your child is autistic but through our experience and the joy Alex gave us, I wouldn't want it any other way. You may feel sad and you are allowed to be down BUT pick yourself up as soon as you can because your child needs you.

There are three things that we have to remember:

START Accepting (Accept that there are no cure for ASD, accept all the help you can get because we cannot do it all alone);

STOP Expecting (Don't expect too much from your child. The lower your expectation, the more you get out of your child. When he's able to do the things you want him to, it gives you extreme joy)

START Believing (Have faith and believe that the days ahead will be better)

At Early Birds, we are able to share our experiences, what works for one might work for you. If it doesn't, there are always other ways to explore. The possibilities are unlimited.

I read an article in New York Times today and found that children have an average of 6 to 10 colds a year.

Well, that put my mind to rest as I always thought it's a bit odd that Alex gets the cold so often. I thought I had a "sickly child" - ha ha ha.

I organised a play date for Alex with a friend next week and hope he'll be well by then. It's hard to organise play dates for him. Some mothers do not have such problems and seem to organise play dates for their children all the time. Alex gets invited a few times but I had to decline as he wasn't well.

To be courteous, I wouldn't like to give anyone Alex's cold.

It's hard to decide what is the right thing to do? Be sociable and then be despised because you give their children the cold or being courteous and no one knows you're alive?

Life is full of decisions and doing the right thing doesn't always do you any favour but then again, I cannot live with the consequences of making the wrong decision.

What would other mum's do? Am I thinking too much?

Here's the article I read in NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/health/29fda.html

Alex is coughing again.

My poor little boy is poorly again. I am sure I'll be next.

Neither of us (Alex and me) had much sleep since Wednesday night.

At the moment, he is watching TV and sitting comfortably on the armchair all wrapped up nice and toasty. This boy knows how to take advantage of his condition ..... ha ha ha .....

He's been coughing quite badly this morning. This picture was taken 10 minutes ago and he doesn't look like he is in distress.

I just hope he'll recover real soon.

There's a hole in my cake.

Alex is getting funnier every day. You can't help but admire his intelligence (ha ha ha).

I baked a cake today.

Alex loves my cakes and he waited patiently for the cake to cool. He kept pointing at the cake and say "err?" and I will say "you have to wait until the cake cool down". He will walk out of the kitchen and two minutes later, asking the same question again. This continued for at least 5 times.

Dinner's almost ready and I told him to wait until after dinner. He spotted the dinner candle on the window and asked me to give it to him. I thought he wanted to play with it and I gave it to him. He then look at me and pointed at the cake, then he looked at the candle and said "err?" I laughed and told him it's not a birthday cake and I will bake one for him next month for his birthday. He walked out of the kitchen with the candle.

While waiting for dinner to get ready, I went out to sit in the lounge watching a little TV. Then, I heard "Oh my god! There's a hole in the cake". I ran to the kitchen and there it was, a hole in the cake. Alex, still holding the candle gave me a smile.

It's just so funny. I had to give him a hug and just so proud of him.

Boing Boing Boing ....

We took Alex to our local Sports Centre for trampolining today. He loved it and seemed to enjoy every minute of it. It was organised by East Berkshire Autistic Support Group and today was just a trial for Alex. The best part of it all was - he could do whatever he wanted - jumping or running or even screaming his lungs off. He liked hearing his own echoes when he screamed.

Did you know that ...... trampolining is a sports and is an event in the Olympics? I did not know this until today when the coach told me. There goes, learned something new today ;-)

It's still early days but if Alex really like this, we will encourage him to be trained properly. Who knows .... he may have talent in this like his cousin Joshua in Gymnastics.

I want Alex to have what I don't as a child but I don't want to be a "pushy mummy" either. It is quite difficult to draw a line as we may sometimes want to live our dreams in our children. I am never passionate about anything and can't say that I have a favourite subject. I really believe that if you start young and get support from you parents, you are more likely to stick to one thing you are good at for life.

We didn't really have the opportunity and support to pursue our dreams because there were too many of us. My mum told me once that she wished she had the means to give us lessons in Ballet, piano or violin. It's hard when you have five children to feed, roof over their head and all the other adult problems as well.

Despite not having ballet lessons or able to play a music instrument, we all turned out all right (I think). I can say for sure that my siblings turned out to be great parents and want the best for their children.

As for me ..... I think I am doing my best and hope that Alex knows that mummy loves him very much.

"I wished I could live in Alex's world for 24 hours" said Jeremy as we came out of the children centre.

It's D-Day, our first Early Bird Programme - a two and a half hour session of introductions. At the beginning of the session, we were told to keep everything we discussed in the programme to ourselves. There are six families including ourselves in the programme and we will be discussing and sharing information about our children. Some parents would prefer to have their children's condition kept private and you are right, I am not one of them (ha ha ha).

I guess writing a blog about Alex and my personal relationships will not qualify me as a private person. But I respect other's wish for privacy and I will not discuss their problem directly in my blog.

We started introducing ourselves and our children. We were each given one minute to talk about our children, followed by a two minute video of our children playing with us (Sam, the organiser came by our house last week to film us playing with Alex). There were four girls and two boys in our group which was quite unusual as Autism affect more boys than girls. The ages are quite equal with 3 three year-old and 3 four year-old. Five of them are already talking quite fluently and one not talking .... hmmmm Alex.

After all the introduction by parents, I thought to myself ..... my god, we are the luckiest among us. Most of their children have terrible tantrums and outbursts (some go on for hours), Alex hardly ever and even if he does, it's for very good reason and for 30 seconds tops. Some of them only eat certain food and had to be cooked or prepared in a certain way - Alex would eat anything. Some cannot tolerate labels on their clothing and only wears cotton - Alex can't be bothered. One has "leaky gut" but since she changed her diet to gluten and casein free, problem solved. Two could talk for hours non-stop and driving their mums crazy. One is violent towards her sibling and another has an obsession with helicopters.

There are of course some good things too. One 4 year old can read anything from newspapers to supermarket posters and food label. She can't always understand what she is reading and use words in the wrong context which is quite embarrassing for the mum. Another one could complete a 70 piece jigsaw puzzle in minutes. Alex ..... could recognise all the logos that he has seen only once. He will know something is missing even if he only seen them once. He has impeccable memory.

Then, we talked about what autism is, the myth and facts, the triad of impairment etc. Things that I already know from reading and research. These things are new to Jeremy because he doesn't read much and he find this course beneficial - Good.

Towards the end, we were shown a video "A is for Autism", showing us what it's like in the mind of an autistic person. Their world is so full of information which they find it hard to digest - I could understand why they have sensory overload and zone out.

They see and perceive things differently, fascinated by opening and closing elevator doors, trains and tracks, counting, numbers and the list goes on and on. After watching the 11 minute long video, I just don't know what to think of it.

Sitting down hours later, writing this blog, I can still see the video in my mind and it's quite disturbing. There are so much going on in their mind - all at the same time? If this is what's happening in Alex's mind every minute of the day ................... sob

I don't know if this is Alex and I know every autistic individual is different, that's why it's called a spectrum.

If God ask me what is the one thing I could change about Alex? I would say, no thank you. I love him just the way he is. I am sure he is what he is for a reason and I know I will find out soon.

It's weird to be told that it's good that your child rebels.

I've always thought how lucky we were to have a "model child", one who doesn't whine and does whatever been told to.

Not lately though. Since his adjustments, he has been active (actively seeking us to play with him), talkative (repeat sounds that he heard us say), noisy (at precisely the moment you wanted to listen to the news), cheeky (playing tricks on us), nosy (wants to know everything and ask what, why and how), imaginative (his imaginative play is improving very quickly) and cunning (using tears to get what he wants).

Neel from TASS came today (the last time we saw her was a week before Christmas). She was really pleased to see the changes in Alex and especially impressed with his potty training success. We told her about Alex's recent changes in behavior and she said it's really good that he is making his own mind and knows what he wants. This is definitely a good change.

We also discussed a few things mainly about obtaining a Special Education Need Statement for Alex. She said we should push hard for Rainbow Resources if we feel strongly that Rainbow is the right place for Alex. If the panel agrees with our view, the Council will have to provide enough funding for Rainbow to start a new class in September 2008. That's good right?

Anyway, we were also told that the Area SENCO has temporarily stop Inclusion service on Wednesdays because Alex is having his SALT (Speech and Language Therapy) at nursery. The reason because it's costly to do both at the same time. I could see their point and it's also quite stressful for Alex when he has to do both on the first day back at nursery after a long weekend.

It costs the Council GBP 35.00 per child/session on SALT and on average, a child like Alex requires at least 5 sessions per term. Inclusion costs roughly the same and again around the same amount of sessions per term.

Neel will arrange a meeting with everyone involved with Alex including myself to discuss a new IEP (Individual Education Plan) for 2008.

Alex achieved almost all the targets created for year 2007 - able to feed himself, drinking from open cup and potty training. I must say that credit must be given to those working in Teddies as well. Alex gained a lot from going to nursery and they are really good when it comes to working with parents.

Looking back, it was an uphill struggle when I first started blogging. Potty training was the main dilemma, then came the diagnosis, after that - the acceptance and finally changing our thinking made a huge difference in Alex.

I felt so much lighter now ...... not because I lost weight due to running around after him asking if he needs to pee every so often but because my son is able to do things for himself. To me, potty training is the final milestone to achieve ...... I know, it's a long way to go .... still. But each achievement is like a piece of the puzzle - completing the big picture.

Well, this is the last time I will write about poo and pee ;-)

Alex is officially potty trained. Dry during the day and will tell us when he wants to go.

No more Pampers yeah!

Potty trained in one week - not bad at all.

While filling in Alex's school admission application form two weeks ago, I was so worried that he would still be in nappy by the time he starts Reception class in 2009. Maybe this is one of the reasons that I am determined to get him trained.

I can hear the cash register sound in my head again ..... Ker Ching ...... the amount we save on nappies. I think I will use the money we save on music lesson for Alex.

I know he loves music but I am not sure which instrument would be easier for him to start with. I personally like piano or violin, but piano requires strong fingers. Alex may find it difficult because his fine motor movements are quite weak.

It's just a thought.

My sleeping Prince.

Alex had three adjustments so far and I can definitely see improvement in his sleeping pattern. He has been sleeping through the night since early this week. Going to bed at 7:00pm and waking around 6:00am to 7:00am.

He is also more social and emotional. He will say hello or bye without being prompted where previously, we had to ask him to. Only recently, he will cry when we say "No" to him and try to play the emotional card whereas, he would just accept a "no" in the past.

His imaginative play also improved (I bought him a set of toy toaster with teapot, cups, saucers and spoons) - he will put the cup to his mouth and pretend to drink. He will also stir with spoon as if he is mixing the drink. When I ask him for toast, he will take it out of the toaster and put it on a plate for me. He will also play more with his other toys instead of displaying them in rows.

Yesterday, when Alex had his third adjustment, Caroline told me that his neck now feels normal compared to when she first saw him. She will need to work on other areas now and we booked another two appointments for next week.

I am so grateful to her and I know she really wanted to help.

I would NEVER have thought I'll do this.

I bought a child toilet seat (one of those that you fit on a standard toilet) yesterday from Mothercare. The reason behind ..... hygiene. I would never sit on public toilets unless I am really desperate for a number two. Even then, I would take time to lay at least two layers of toilet paper to cover the entire seat. I can't put my son on a dirty seat every time he needs to go?

Alex has been really good when we go out - he would tell me when he needed to go and even if he doesn't, I will ask him and take him to the toilet to avoid an accident. Buying the seat make so much sense and at the least, I know for sure that he is not sitting on a dirty toilet.

We started using the seat today and I can definitely say it's money well spent.

This was sent to me by Alex's Chiropractor, Caroline.

http://www.icpa4kids.org/research/chiropractic/autism.htm

Case studies on children diagnosed with various conditions including Autism, ADHD, Asthma, learning disabilities and even Tourette Syndrome benefiting from Chiropractic.

Alex has two adjustments to date and according to Caroline during his last visit on Monday, there were improvements to his neck and back.

He went to bed at 7:00pm last night and slept through the night until 6:00am this morning. This is definitely an improvement because in the past, he would wake at about 11:00pm and then play for 3 hours before he goes back to sleep.

Alex did well with his potty training. Do you think there's a relation to the adjustments? I would say there are possibilities but time will tell.

Check this out

http://users.telenet.be/leukelinks/flash/queen.htm

Cute!

Day 5 of Potty Training

Dry all day ....... yippee!

It's a busy day for Alex today. Woke up at 7:00am and then breakfast, get dressed and straight to nursery by 8:30am.

Today is the first day of Speech and Language Therapy at nursery. Angie worked with him for 20 minutes and then had a long chat with me after that. She was really impressed with his development.

We discussed if we should continue with PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) and I told her that we don't really need that because Alex is communicating fine with us. His problem is with speech and sound. She decided that we will try Jolly Phonics with him next week and Catherine, his key carer will also work with him once a week on the same. Catherine was really surprised by the level of understanding that Alex has. Of course I was not surprised because he has been doing it will us at home for some time.

Wednesday is definitely a busy day for this little boy. SALT (Speech and Language Therapy) and then Inclusion with Amanda followed by exercise class.

After nursery, I toke him to town centre for lunch at Burger King while waiting for our next appointment to see Rebecca for SALT Assessment. She spent roughly about 20 minutes with us and asking Alex standard questions from a book to assess his level of understanding. Alex was not paying attention most of the time but when prompted to pay concentrate he did better.

Base on his score, he is at the level of 30 to 42 months (2.5 to 3.5 years) but because we knew it was a long day for him and that he wasn't concentrating like he should, he would be at the level of 4 years to 4.5 years - that is very very good. He knows the meaning of heavy, heavier and heaviest which impresses Rebecca. Alex is turning four next month and this meant that his level of understanding surpassed his age.

While still at the SALT centre, Alex wanted to poo and I took him to the toilet but because the toilet was way bigger than him, he can't do it comfortably. Then I told him to hold until we get home.

As soon as we got home (15 minutes later), he ran upstairs to the toilet and I helped him with his pants.

He did it!

He was so happy that he did it and loved every minute of the praise I gave him.

Well done Alex! Mummy love you so much.

Someone commented that my recent blog is full of crap and pee.

Well, he is right and here's another lot of poo until Alex is potty trained.

It's Day 4 of Potty Training - he has been dry all day today and even asked to go to the toilet. I am so proud of him and there isn't a word in the dictionary to describe my feeling at the moment.

There is however, a little surprise in the shower for Jeremy this evening. I put Alex on the loo and asked him to poo but he pointed at the shower cubicle and asked for a "Baah" meaning shower. I said "you have to poo or pee before you can have your baah". He immediately did a pee and then climbed off the toilet and went straight into the shower. I had to go downstairs for a drink as I haven't had one for the last three hours and asked Jeremy to shampoo him. The minute he opened the shower door, he screamed "Oh My God! Oh Alexxxx ......" I ran upstairs and see what the commotion is about and there it was, a blob of poo in the shower cubicle.

I was quite calm about the whole thing and told Alex that he cannot do it in the shower and only to do it on the toilet next time. I think he understood what I said but I wasn't sure. We'll just have to find out later.

Potty training is definitely about timing and also to consider the mental age of the child. A year ago, when Alex was turning three - that's when I started blogging, he wasn't ready for it. We gave up in the end and never really got back on track.

Because of his developmental delay, he is currently at the mental age of 18 to 22 months. For a neuro-typical child, this is the right age to potty train. Although it's hard work for the first two days of the training, I am not as stressed as the last time. Carrying him up and down put quite a bit of pressure on my back but I persevered. I think I am reaping the benefit now as he has been dried all day.

For those readers who have a special need child, don't give up because you will be so happy when you finally succeed.

Kaboom and Plop!

What an explosive day! ha ha ha

I saw him standing real still and asked if he wanted to pee, the usual "No" was the answer but I knew well that he needed to do something, scooped him up real fast and ran him up the loo.

As soon as he sat on the toilet, he had a grimace on his face ..... and then the loud explosion, a smell and then a plop.

Ker Ching ..... felt like I just won the Jackpot. Expecting a number one but I got a number one and two at the same time .... ha ha ha

You should see the sight of relief on his face .... he was not expecting this himself but he felt good doing it out of the nappy.

He had a few accidents throughout the day though when I was busy doing other things, just didn't catch him on time. I felt like a paranoid mum most of the time but I supposed most mum's gone through the same.

You won't appreciate your mum until you are one yourself. Think of those times when she had to clean after every accidents, every puke, everything that you cannot imagine yourself doing. My mum ? Multiply that by Five.

Well, mum .... thanks for everything.

It's exhausting!

It's Day One of Alex's proper potty training today. The first half day, I had to monitor him every 15 minutes, checked his (you know what) to see if he needed to pee. I asked him but he will always say "No" in defiance but as soon as I put him on the toilet, he peed. He's getting quite good at it except the "Mummy, I need to pee" part. He wouldn't tell me that he wanted to go .....

The second half of the day is every 30 minutes. He has been so used to doing it a little at a time in his nappy, it takes time to adjust to the idea that he can do it all at once and not so frequent.

I hope tomorrow will be easier. I could feel my body aching going up and down, in and out of the toilet all day. Lets hope he gets the idea real soon and potty trained by the end of the month.

He had his first Chiropractic treatment yesterday. He went to bed early at about 7:00pm and then woke at 11:00pm - played a bit and then back to sleep at 1:30am. Woke up at 7:30am this morning and was ultra talkative, making a lot of noises and singing all morning. I am not sure if these are due to the treatment or he has been doing it all along and I only noticed this today, because I am making a record of his progress.

One thing I noticed was that he's less tensed. In the past, when I carry him upstairs (when he fell asleep on my lap), he would go all tensed and his body will stretch so long that it's hard to carry him. But, last night was different ..... he was so relaxed and it's much easier to carry him.

His next treatment is on Tuesday next week and I will also be getting a free assessment from Caroline. I have been having backache and neck ache for sometime but like most mums, I don't complain and get on with things ignoring the pain. I should get it checked out and be sure it's nothing serious.

I don't want to wake up one day and find out that it's incurable because I didn't do anything about it earlier. When the body aches or you feel pain, it's a sign that something is not right with your body.

Next week onwards, we will all be very busy because of the long awaited "NAS Early Bird Programme". Jeremy and I will be attending this every week until April.

Alex's Speech and Language Therapy at nursery (I arranged this earlier with Angie, so that his carers at the nursery could attend and practice with him) and Assessments from different departments for Special Education Need statementing will all be happening in the same week.

On top of that, he has Chiropractic treatment twice a week, potty training ..... my oh my ....... my diary is so full, I just don't know what else I can fit in.

One word sums up the first quarter of 2008 ...... EXHAUSTION!

Alex received his first party invitation today.

I am quite excited for Alex but worry at the same time. He hasn't been to a party before and I do not know what to expect. I can't leave him there and then pick him up later like most mums do - I think. I guess, we'll just have to find out ourselves - there's always a first time.

I called Joseph's mum to RSVP and said we will see her then.

The weather's turned really cold. It's snowing heavily in Scotland and some part of England too. No sign of snow in Bracknell but the wind factor brings the brrrrrrrrrrr out of me. I found myself hugging my duvet all day even with the heating on.

To make things worse, heating our home will be even more expensive in 2008 because of the oil prices - it was announced in the news today that raw oil prices has reached the USD 100 per barrel mark. One major energy provider NPOWER announced their intention to raise energy prices but have not reached an agreement as to how much they intended to raise. Some experts estimated a 15% increase. Not good!

There are of course some good news too - for consumer that is ...... Consumer Electrical Group DSG Retail Ltd who owns Dixon, Currys and PC World announced a poor sales performance during the Christmas season - this means, there's gonna be a BIG sale soon. Well, it makes no difference to me as we have everything we need at the moment.

It's nice to know that I am still in touch with the world - I don't want to be one of those stay at home mums that are too busy to stay in touch with the outside world. I want to be able to have a clever conversation with people when we get invited somewhere.

Alex is starting his Chiropractic treatment tomorrow afternoon and I will need to make notes of the changes and improvements.

Watch this space.

You know it would be a good year with a start like this.

Alex peed in the toilet today - make that twice. Yeah .......

I was thinking of starting potty training again sometime next week but today's achievement is by chance. I was changing his nappy when I saw that he may need to pee, I asked him "Alex, do you want to pee?" he said "hmmm hmmm" meaning yes, so I put him on the toilet and he did his business. Wow, I was so excited that I called Jeremy at work to tell him. The ever practical Jeremy started to count the amount of money we will save without nappy.

Later, after he woke from his nap, I asked him again if he wanted to pee and again he said yes. I put him on the loo and he did it again. Twice! Yessssssssssss..........

What a happy new year!