I have to say that today was one of the best days of my life. The beginning of this week I faced Hayden having a significant allergic reaction and making a difficult decision about one of our students that would greatly affect the amount of therapy hours Hayden would get over the next 3 weeks.
I handled the situations the best way I could have. Hayden was pretty much back to normal in 24 hours after his allergic reaction and I feel I made the best decision about the student.
So what made today so super amazing?? It started off as my typical day. I got up helped Hayden take a bath. I prepared his goat milk yogurt smoothie and made both us fresh juice. I then made a special breakfast cherry muffins (I was going to make raspberry but the raspberries were molded), eggs, and grilled chicken strips for lunch. Brandon gave Hayden his morning supplements and got the kids ready for a trip to the zoo.
As a family we usually don't have time to go places with all four of us. With the reduced amount of time in Hayden's therapy schedule for the next three weeks we have the time and we are going to take advantage of it. The zoo has always been something I have loved taking the kids to. We have a zoo membership and we use to go at least once a week.
We packed up and headed to the zoo. The kids were super excited. Ruby was telling us how she was going to ride the ponies and Hayden was telling us he wanted to see the sharks, lions, and giraffes. He even seemed interested in riding the ponies himself.
We let Hayden decide what animals we were going to see first. He choose to see the lions first. He specifically said, "I want to see Bill the lion." Hayden was calm, happy, and looking at people and the animals. In the past Hayden is usually focused on objects not people or animals.
While we visited "Africa" Hayden fed the giraffes in a very crowded area with the greatest of ease, he played the drums with the other children, and he even waved and said, "Hi friend" to a little boy while giving him great eye contact. He stopped and studied a interesting bird for quite some time.
We left "Africa" and let Ruby decide where we were going next. She wanted to ride the ponies. Hayden said he wanted to see the sea lions. I told Hayden that it was Ruby's turn to pick and we could go see the sea lions after Ruby rode the ponies. Hayden was okay with this and off to see the ponies we went.
We got to the ponies and Hayden walked right up to the ponies. He has never wanted to be near the ponies in the past. I even thought he might ride one. Hayden decided not to ride the ponies. Ruby got on Cookie the pony and off she went. I stayed with Hayden and we pet the ponies.
It was then time to see the sea lions. We arrived just in time to watch the sea lion feeding show. There was an announcer talking about the sea lions and came around with a list of activities that the sea lions could do. He asked the kids to pick an activity from the list. I read about 5 of the options off. Hayden said, "Sea Lion do handstand" before Ruby even had a chance to speak up. Not only did Hayden say, "Sea Lion do handstand" he looked the announcer right in the eye!! I was speechless for a few seconds and right away celebrated and held back tears.
Hayden really watched and responded to the sea lions today. I was super proud of him. In the past he liked watching the motion of the water not the sea lions themselves.
We went on to a few other exhibits. Hayden asked to do several things at the zoo. He acknowledged people. He smiled and he asked for french fries when he seen someone eating them. I just told him that french fries make him sick. There was not tantrum or shouting. Hayden gave me a look like "yep, Mom I know and understand" and we moved on.
He played on the train with other kids. He got on a tortoise statue that another child was playing on. He wanted to pet the animals in the petting zoo. He even brushed to goats. We went past the gift shop and there was no screaming fit because we were not going in.
When it was time to go Hayden got in the truck and we left. He asked to watch a movie on the way home and I told him that we didn't need to watch a movie and there was not even a scream for that.
We got home and Hayden played with his sister until it was time to go to Grammie and Papa's house for the evening.
We swam and when I told him it was time to get out for dinner he was okay with that. Hayden sat at the table and had dinner with us talking and giving great eye contact the entire time. He told Grammie, "Good job on chicken" and gave her a standing applause. This was totally out of the blue completely un-prompted.
We then went outside to "feed the cows" aka as pick and eat raspberries in Hayden terminology. Hayden talked and interacted the entire time we were outside. He said so many things to Grammie, PaPa, Ruby, and myself that I can't recall all the went down.
We fed Rocket Rabbit. Hayden got down, fed him treats, petted him, and talked to him very gently. We then went inside and took a bath and headed for home.
Driving home I had time to reflect on this amazing day. WOW.......I mean HOLY, FREAKING WOW!! Hayden recovering fully from autism is happening. He is SOCIAL, he is emotionally in tune, and the most important thing of all he is HAPPY. I couldn't help to think if he would even be diagnosed with autism anymore.
We still have more to our journey but WOW we are on our way!!! Way to GO HAYDEN!!
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