You Sit Here Mommy, You Sit Here Ruby :)

As I was getting ready to prep for dinner tonight I saw Hayden whizzing by with his chairs.  I then heard Hayden say,"Mommy."  I walked into the living room and he said," Mommy sit here....Ruby sit here."  Hayden said this while pointing to the chairs he had placed in front and behind the play kitchen.  This was Hayden's way of saying he wanted Ruby and I to play kitchen with him :)

Ruby and I quickly took our seats.  Hayden wanted Ruby to sit beside him, which I found odd.  Hayden made food for Ruby and I to eat.  He enjoyed making Ruby and I coffee the most.  He took turns pouring with the tea pot and passing food around.  He told me what he wanted to eat and I told him what I wanted to eat.  It was 20 minutes of pure heaven!!  During this 20 minutes of pretend kitchen play there was NO sign of autism anywhere.  Hayden was giving me and Ruby great eye contact and responding to all of our questions and requests.  I loved how he would pretend eat and drink.  He even made the sounds :)

Fun was had by all three of us!!  It was super hard for me to hold back my tears of joy :)

Hi Mom!

Do you want pizza??

Hayden giving Ruby a cupcake and Ruby giving Hayden milk

A kiss for Ruby :)

Thanks BaBa for the cupcake

Before we played kitchen we played with Ruby's dollhouse:

When did my baby become such a big girl?

Future organic gardner

Hayden is going to be an organic gardner too :)

Hayden's Son Rise Therapy Room

I have had a few questions about the type of therapy program we are doing and what the room looks like. So here is the answers :)

We are running a full time Son-Rise Therapy Program in our home for Hayden.  He is currently getting about 30 hours a week of therapy and my goal is to get it up to about 60 hours a week of therapy.

So what is the Son-Rise Program?  Well in my own words it is a loving and respectful play therapy that Hayden loves :)  I must say that we LOVE it too!!  I truly enjoy getting down on the ground with Hayden and just spending time with him with no distractions.  It is honestly a nice break from a very over stimulating world.  There are no electronics, no other people.  It is just Hayden and I doing what he enjoys.

The main focus in Hayden's Son-Rise program is improving and building on communication and eye contact.  We do this through joining him, motivation, excitement, energy, and enthusiasm.  Tonight in therapy room Hayden and I had a great session.  He usually has me draw the Thomas the Tank Engine characters on his dry erase board.  When we started doing this 5 weeks ago he would just say, "Harold" when he wanted me to draw him.  Tonight he said, "Draw Harold Helicopter Mommy."  I then said, "You want me to draw Harold the Helicopter."  Hayden replied, "YES."  Hayden never said the word "yes" until about a month ago.  It seemed that "yes" had no value to him.  He now uses it frequently and correctly.   Normally I just go ahead and draw the face, number, details, and get the correct colored marker myself.  Well not tonight, a light bulb went off!   I decided to ask Hayden to hand me the color marker that Harold is.  Much to my surprise he did and told me the color.  I then congratulated him and made a big, huge deal of it:)  I then went on to draw Harold the Helicopter. I decided to ask Hayden to draw his face.  He grabbed my hand and we drew it together.  We then went on to draw a few other characters.  He drew the face himself on several of them, gave me the right color of markers, and told me what numbers they were.  It was beautiful!!!  I think we spent 20 minutes on this activity.  Hayden stayed right with me and was fully engaged and chatted back and forth with me.  Through out the whole activity I praised him and told him how smart he was, thanked him for his eye contact, and told him how much I enjoyed spending time with him and drawing Thomas the Tank Engine Characters with him.  I need to work on my drawing skills, but you can see the faces that Hayden drew and he even drew a couple wheels on James.

Hayden transitioned from drawing on the dry erase board to drawing on himself.  I thought this was a good opportunity to join him.

At first Hayden was in his own world coloring himself.  He then noticed that I was coloring my hands.  He had the biggest grin on his face.  During this time I am telling Hayden how much I enjoy coloring myself with him (which I do....it is truly relaxing) and making funny noises while doing so.  Hayden then looks at me in eyes.  This is a green light!!!  I then expand on the idea of coloring myself.  A little background.....Hayden loves my flabby, nasty, jiggly belly (which it's his fault it is like this).  He likes to blow raspberries on it and jiggle it.  With out hesitation I lifted my shirt and started to draw a big circle on my belly and asked Hayden to draw the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.  He was so EXCITED to do this that he could hardly contain himself.  We then made my belly jiggle and I would make the smily face talk.  He then lifted his shirt and said, "face my belly."  I drew a smily face on his belly.  Great fun I must say.  He was losing interest so I chased him around the room with my jiggly, smily face belly.  Oh, how we both laughed and laughed and laughed.

Here is what Hayden's Therapy Room looks like.  It use to be an old crapy, leaky sunroom.  Not anymore!!


This is a picture of the french doors that we had a one way view mirror put in.  On the inside it is a mirror. Hayden LOVES his mirrors!!

All of toys and games are put up high on a shelf on purpose.  This way he has to ask to get what he wants.....very motivating!!

The windows have a frosted glass film on them.  They let light in, but you can't see out.  This aids in providing a distraction free environment.

Here is the slide that we do creative things with.  Hayden likes to jump off the top or jump to me from the top.  I like it when we roll several marbles down it and they hit the metal door stop and make a pinging noise!!

This is what the french doors look like on the inside of the house.  I can see in, but he can't see me :)  Observation is great because we can provide feedback on therapy.

Is it time to move on??

I can't believe that it is the end of October already!!  Time is seriously flying by.  Hayden's therapy room is finished and he is getting about 30 weeks of therapy a week.  We still need more volunteers!!!  We need volunteers to work with Hayden or watch Ruby so we can work with Hayden.  If you know anyone send them our way.

Hayden had a check up at his specialist in Carmel this week.  Hayden weighs 32 lbs and is 39 inches tall. Overall he had a good check up.  We are fading out some of his supplements(thank goodness).  Hayden will start seeing the doctor every 3 months instead of every 5 weeks.  He got his lab results back and his gut remains a yeasty mess.  GRRR!!!!  We have been working so hard for the past two years to get rid of the yeast and it just won't let go of my little man.

The whole yeast thing has me.  I am thinking about and researching different options to do and try.  I am leaning towards a diet change.  We are already gluten, almond and dairy free, limit soy, limit sugar, no artificial colors, and an all organic diet.  The two different diets that I am looking at is the SCD (specific carbohydrate diet and the GAPS diet.  These diets eliminate food that feed yeast.  The problem is that they are a challenge to do.  I once thought that it was going to be impossible to get Hayden off dairy, but we did and he helped him so much.  I am leaning towards the SCD diet because it does not involve going to the butcher and getting bones from animal cut in half to make stock with and eating fermented vegetables is not a requirement of the SCD.  However the GAPS diet is amazing for gut healing.  I wish someone could just tell me what to do!!!

I am also considering taking Hayden to a different specialist for a second opinion.  I kind of feel like our Dr in Carmel has gotten Hayden as far as she can.  She is wonderful and I have a ton of respect for her, after all she gave me my son back :)  There is just something telling me that it is time to move on.  This is not going to be an easy decision.  The one doctor that I am considering seeing has an office in Texas and one in New York $$$$$$!!!

I do know this though.....when I switch Hayden's diet I am going on that diet with him.  NO more cheating for me!!!  If it is good for him it is good for me and I need to be 100% supportive and not cheat behind his back.

I think I have also figured out Hayden's strange bouts of SUPER-DE-DUPER hyperactivity no-sleeping cycles.  Back in May after Brandon and I went the Autism One we switched how we were doing Hayden's hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments.  We started using a protocol that you do 1.5 hours a day for 30 days and then take 30 days off from hbot.  We also started Hayden's heavy metal detox (chelation) at this time.  I thought his nightmare of a behavior was from detox and left it at that.  Well he have been off chelation for almost 2 months now.  Hayden had a round of his freakish hyperactivity no-sleeping period earlier this month.  Well this month is a non-hbot month.  I started thinking about why, what are we doing differently, did he eat something he was not suppose to??

Ta-Dah.....light bulb went off in my mind....it's the hbot!!  Sure enough two sessions in the hbot, Hayden was sleeping better and the freakish hyperactivity was going away.  Huge sigh of relief.  So we are now going to do one hour of hbot every other day.

I wish I would have video taped his freakish hyperactivity.   I mean constant movement with several movements in one and a hot stimming mess.  It was HORRIBLE!!!  He would be up at 3am and ready to play and not take no for an answer.  It is amazing that Brandon and I survived this behavior.  Just thinking about it makes me want to hide in a corner and rock back and forth.

We have a teacher from the Son-Rise program coming the first week of December to working with Hayden, answer our questions, and give us some feedback.  I am very excited about this.  Brandon and I have also decided that I am going back to the Son-Rise program in April for another weeks worth of training.  I can't wait to go back.  It is such an amazing place.  I wish we could just pack up and move there so I could become a certified Son-Rise teacher and help more families.  Maybe one day!!

Hayden has been making some great strides with the Son-Rise program.  He is communicating so much more.  He is actually telling me  his emotions.  I ask him what is wrong and he tells me that he is sad or angry.  He has even told me he is happy :)  In the past week we were snuggling and he sang the whole entire song that I made up for him as a baby.  WoW...that sure brought out the water works!!  Even Brandon had a tear in his eye.  His eye contact is also greatly improving.

I am beyond proud of my little man and all of his hard work.  It is pretty amazing that we our on our way to recovery.  I read a snip it of his evaluation to public school system did when he turned three.  It said that Hayden severely autistic.  It is always good to remind myself of where we were and to think of where we are now.  Hayden is no where near the severe side of autism.

Meeting at Hayden's School

Last year this time I was on a quest to find the best school possible for my son and our family.  On my crazed quest I visited nine different preschools. I spent countless hours searching the Internet, talking to parents, making phone calls to schools, and then visiting nine different preschools.

Out of the nine I visited there was only one that I felt comfortable sending my little Hayden to.  There was one preschool that I left shaking and in tears at the horror that I had just witnessed!!!  Is it ever okay to strap a three year old to a chair because they are not doing what they are told?? I feel sick that people are okay with their autistic children being treated that way.  My heart still races thinking of this.  One of the preschool asked me if I thought of putting Hayden on behavior medication at the tender age of two and a half.  I squealed my tires getting out of that parking lot.  Okay not really, but I wanted to.

I saved the school that I felt was a top contender for my last visit.  That school was Oak Farm Montessori School in Avilla.  I honestly can not put in words what an amazing school it is and what a perfect fit it has been for our family.  Hayden is thriving and I feel as a family we are thriving.  Oak Farm has given my tools and opportunities to better myself not only as a parent, but as a person.  I work closely with his teachers and feel that we are a cohesive team striving to give Hayden the best future possible.

Hayden is doing well at school and continues to make great strides.  The problem is that they are unsure that he will be ready to move up to the next grade level next year and that he needs more than what the level he is in next year.  Which means Hayden's journey at Oak Farm may be coming to an end.  I have full faith that Hayden will be ready come fall.   I look at all that he has over come and I can't help to be completely optimistic that he can and will thrive in the Primary class.

I have monthly meetings at his school to make sure that we are on the same page.  His teachers are so proud of him.  Today I got chills as they were talking of the huge growth Hayden has made in the last several weeks.  They are as excited and proud of Hayden as I am!!!  A teacher that has been working with him even questioned his diagnosis of autism.  I must say that was music to my ears!!!   I know his diagnosis is correct, but also know that Hayden will not be autistic all his life. 

Then came the bad news..................The dean of the school does not approve of Hayden having a private aid in primary.  This is something that has never happened at Oak Farm and at this time they are not ready to implement private aids in the classroom.  I started to tear up.  I am heartbroken.   Deep down to my core I know that Oak Farm is the school for our family.  So what is next???  I am going to write a letter to the dean begging her to allow a private aid for Hayden and schedule a meeting with her.  I need to do some research and find some concrete evidence supporting Hayden having a private aid and it's effect on the whole classroom.  I also have to continue looking at schools in hopes of finding a back up plan.

Brandon, Ruby, and I visited a school in Fort Wayne this week and it was a NO!!  I have another Montessori school in Fort Wayne I need to visit.  I don't know what to think or do!!!  I wish I could just home school him, but know that Hayden needs more than what I can offer.

I can't stand not having control and not having a plan.  I have to put my faith in God and pray that he guides me down the right path.