Friday, January 29, 2010

Just Hanging Out At Home

Snacking.....





Baby brother after Alex "painted" him (and the whole room) with a bottle of baby powder.....




My sweet, precious, little man (pay no mind to his dirty face), LOL!



Just the guys.....

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Pictures and Update

My sweet little sleepyhead!





Brotherly Love








The visual schedule I made for preschool...




Well things are still pretty challenging, Alex is getting into his brother's playpen alot less. I just seems like his behaviors at home and at school are getting more difficult to manage. Alex really need's public school services, as much as I hate to do it I have spoke with a attorney who has agreed to assist me in the next step, which is request a independent evaluation at the schools expense.

They can tell me that my son is not "autistic" enough for services, but I will tell you what I have to say to that "as long as there is one child in the school recieving services that has similar symptoms to my son, then they have no right denying him services". I know that alot of people are going to dislike me for pushing for services like this but I am beyond caring who I make mad, and I can care less if they don't like me, as long as they help my son. I want more for him then just getting by, I want him to do whatever it is he dreams about. Yes I am aware it will be more difficult for him, but I have faith in him and faith in God that he will excell, and that he will learn to deal with his condition and lead a full life. I know it is possible and I know it can be done! I want this for all of my children. I have two children with special needs and there is no doubt in my mind that God has very special plans for them, but I also believe that God gave these gifts to me with expectations, I believe I am supposed to be their advocates in a very difficult world, a world that is still not very accepting of someone different, a world more worried about expense then the life of a child.
So, there is no doubt about it, I WILL fight for them! So bring it on!


Saturday, January 16, 2010

Up's and Down's

Hello everyone, things are pretty much the same. We have are good days and bad days, or should I say are good minutes and bad minutes? One minute Alex is sitting on the floor playing with his toy's so nicely, so I slip out to go to the bathroom and return to find this.....

Alex pulling his brother's hair


or this.....




Alex was sitting there with the whole pack of cookies!



What's a mom to do.......





Just smile and count her blessings I guess!






And what sweet blessings they are!


Monday, January 11, 2010

Support Group and medication change...

Hello everyone. I wanted to mention that I attended a parent support group yesterday. It was great to be around people who actually know what my life is like! I hope to be able to attend this group every month! Due to some problems Alex is no longer taking the Ritalin, I breathed a sigh of relief but my relief didn't last to long as I found out Alex is to be started on yet another medication. This one for Compulsive behavior! The doctor assured me that this was not a long term fix and when he gets a little older he will be able to attend behavioral therapy. I may be able to get some at home behaviour therapy now, it would be really helpful to have a therapist tell me what I'm doing wrong, I'm sure it is alot! Well I guess I'll go.

I'm so exhausted right now, I have a exam tommorrow which I am in no way prepared for.  I will leave you with another old picture, but guess what! I bought a new disc for my camera so hopefully I'll have some recent pictures soon!


Saturday, January 9, 2010

Medication :(


Alex at the Library


We have had a interesting week. Alex's behavior has excalated to the point that I worry about him hurting his baby brother by accident, and poor Alex has pretty much stopped sleeping. So I finally made a call to his Developmental Specialist. She suggested Melatonin for his sleeping issues and Ritalin. I really DID NOT want to put my son on medication. I know it can help, I have seen it help many children, especially in school. But, I agreed to try it for a while. I can't even leave the room to go to the bathroom without Alex climbing in on the baby. He even gets up during the night and climbs in his crib. I thought it was some sort of obsession but the doctor seems to think it is impulsive behavior.  We started a real low dose of Ritalin this morning and it seemed to work for a few hours, but overall Alex's behavior was better today, and he wasn't a zombie, that was one of my BIG worries! I will try this for awhile, but I hope we don't have to do it long term or maybe we can switch to something else. Alex is so young and Ritalin has some long term side effects I don't like. I really hope things are better when we can get back on his schedule. The winter weather has all of us thrown off! 

As for the Meletonin it is a vitamin and I can't believe how well it works. Alex goes to sleep about a hour after taking it and last night he slept through the night. Medication makes me nervous though. I have always been sort of against it. When I started working with kids though and saw how life changing it could be I sort of warmed up to the idea, but that was not my child. As you can tell I feel so guilty, so please don't leave any nasty comments, if you can't say anything nice, kindly keep it to yourself! :)

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Funny, funny, funny...

I know I just posted but I forgot to tell you something funny Alex said to me tonight. I had just put him to bed and he was a little upset with me (he can't understand why he can't kill his baby brother play in his brothers playpen)! So when I was tucking him in here is how it went:

Me: Goodnight, I love you.
Alex: I'm going to build me a New Mommy, a robot mommy.
Me: Poor mommy what are you going to do with me?
Alex: The Robot Mommy is going to put you in the trash!

I didn't know what to say, how does a three year old think this stuff up???

Thats my little angel! LOL!


Alex and his big brother at a local Christmas Parade....

The Stop sign.....

DIDN'T WORK! Alex continues to crawl into his brothers playpen or crib any chance he gets! It is hard for me to leave the room for a second! It wouldn't be so bad but Alex just bounces all over his brother and will even walk on him! I'm so afraid the baby is going to be hurt. Does anyone have any ideas? He has a new tent that he got for Christmas and it worked for a while but it seems like he is almost obsessed with being right with (and rolling all over) his brother. Is this another sensory thing.  I don't know what to do. School has been out again because of snow. I have also noticed that any change in the weather makes Alex WILD!!