Over the past couple months Samuel has started waking up during the middle of the night and jumping into bed with us. Some nights I notice him jumping in bed and other times he sneaks-in while I am sound asleep. I get tickled at his routine, as he always runs into our room to the other side of the bed where April is sleeping, climbs over her legs, and then crawls in between us to sleep. Some nights he is so wiggly that I end up spending the remainder of the night in Samuel's bed. However, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'm thankful that he feels comfortable getting in bed with us and knowing that we are always there for him. (It also helps that he is small enough to fit in between us right now :)).
Another habit Samuel has developed recently is constantly biting his sleeves. It had gotten to a point where some days his right sleeve would be so soaked that we would need to change his shirt. We have read that this is very common of children with autism and it is a way to calm anxiety that he is experiencing. For Christmas, April purchased a "chewy noodle" that clips on his shirt for him to bite on. He took to it right away. We are hoping this is a coping mechanism that will help him deal with the various anxieties that he faces (while keeping his sleeves dry).
Also for Christmas, we gave Samuel a weighted blanket and a "scoop rocker". These are suppose to help autistic children feel more secure by being enclosed. It's only been a few days, but so far Samuel hasn't really taken to either one of them. I am curious if other parents have had good results from certain types of products? We have found websites that give various product suggestions, but are not sure what may or may not work best. Of course every child is different, which involves lots of trial and error.
It is nice to have this week off from work so I can spend some quality time with April and the boys. Samuel is a little confused about why I am home and how come he is not going to school. Cameron, on the other hand, is enjoying it just fine! We have still been mentioning school to Samuel in an attempt to keep him mindful of it, but I don't think he has a concept of time, especially when it involves something a week out. Hopefully, this vacation will not throw him off too much, so he can return to his normal week routine when school starts back.
Thank you for the many kind words that were expressed after I mentioned this blog on Facebook. It is extremely encouraging to know how much support is out there. Writing this blog is therapeutic for me, but I mostly hope that it will bring joy and awareness to those that take the time to read it. I'm hopeful that it will be something positive for other parents out there and be a forum to share experiences with one another. God has great things in store for Samuel and I feel incredibly blessed to be on the ride!
Monday, December 28, 2015
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Christmas Adventures
We have just completed the adventure of Christmas with family and friends. Heading into these days, we were concerned about how Samuel would do. While he is making progress with his speech, he is becoming more and more set in routine. This is one way how his autism is becoming more evident even to the casual observer. He had already been a little confused this week because he was not going to school. Over the past couple weeks, he has seemed to get more comfortable with the idea that M,W,F, were school days. Therefore, not having school has left him wondering if it was "Church Day" (aka: Sunday).
On Thursday night, we had Christmas Eve Service at our home church. We tried to tell him that we were going to church and that there would be no "Worship and Wonder" (the children church program he participates in). He became confused right from the start. We parked in a different location than on Sunday mornings and he instantly became anxious as we were walking inside. I had to walk him to the other side of the church for him to accept that he would be going in the front door a different way. Once we made it inside, he became more confused because April's parents had come to join us for the service (they are active in another church 30 minutes away). While Cameron was incredibly excited that Nana and Papa had come to the service, Samuel was confused. After a few minutes of processing what was going on he seemed to become more comfortable with the situation. Several songs were sang and things seemed to be going well. He even said "Amen" real loud following a prayer! However, after about 25 minutes and as scripture started to be read he became restless. He wanted to lay down on the carpet and then starting crawling underneath the pew into the row behind us. As I was picking him up he started screaming, leaving me with no choice but to take him outside. Eventually we did go back inside, but it took a while for him to calm down to a point where I felt we could.
April and myself had been discussing for several weeks about how busy Christmas day was going to be for our family. The morning was scheduled to start at our house to play with all the items that Santa brought. Then we were going over for lunch at my parents, where my brother's family, along with my uncle family would also be attending. Following lunch there would be more gift time. Mid-afternoon, we would leave my parents and go to April's parents for more Christmas activities, including supper with extended family down the road. We were very concerned about how Samuel would handle all of this. There were a few melt downs during the day, especially the later it got. However, overall he handled it as well as we could have possibly expected. By the end of the day, he was just ready to "go home". As he repeated this statement over and over.
I wonder how much stimulation in one day can Samuel handle? Parents of older autistic children have shared that they struggle with these types of family tradition events that involve a lot of people gathered together. I wonder if this will only get worse each passing year? Please feel free to share ideas of how to help him cope with these types of activities. He is a part of our family and while we want him to participate in these events, we also do not want to put him in positions that are incredibly uncomfortable for him. This is just one of many questions that April and myself have as we move forward into 2016.
Thank you for taking the time to read. I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Introduction
My name is Brian and God has blessed me with a beautiful wife (April) and two amazing sons ages 3 and 5. Our oldest son is named Cameron (can you guess I am a huge Duke fan) and our youngest is named Samuel (one of my wife's favorite Biblical figures). Samuel has recently been diagnosed with Autism.
Cameron was born one day shy of our first wedding anniversary. He has always been very healthy and developed at a "normal" rate. Before he was 10 months old he would say words like "hey da da", "hey ma ma", "bye bye". By the time Cameron was 15 months old he was speaking in sentences. Samuel was born when Cameron was 20 months old. Although Samuel has been overall a healthy child, we did have a few scares with him at first. Like most baby boys, he was circumcised shortly after his birth. Following the procedure he had some minor complications. It was nothing serious, but when he had to remain in the nursery for several hours while recovery from this "minor" procedure. When he was five weeks old, Samuel was found to have a condition called pyloric stenosis, which occurs in roughly 3 out of every 1,000 babies. In layman's terms, he had a blockage that prevented milk from entering his stomach, thus resulting in projectile vomiting. The only cure is surgery. After the surgery he had no complications and seemed to be doing fine. He began crawling at 9 months and in general everything seemed to be going well. However, April would make comments to me occasionally saying she felt something was not right with Samuel. I noticed that he seemed to be developing overall at a slower pace than Cameron had, but many had told me not to compare the two, so at first I really did not think too much into it. However, from 9 months until 15 months there appeared to be very little developmental progress. The only word Samuel would say was 'no' and he started having these uncontrollable fits of anger. As time passed, our biggest concern became his inability to walk. Our pediatrician referred us to the local CDSA who determined that he needed physical therapy due to low muscle tone. He began having weekly PT sessions at 17 months old. These sessions were extremely helpful. It took a couple more months but he did learn to walk at 19 months old.
A few weeks after learning to walk, his PT sessions were concluded and I was very hopeful that he would soon catch-up with peers. Our pediatrician did not seem too worried about Samuel's limited speech, saying that learning to walk was a big stage and some kids can only concentrate on one thing at a time. He also indicated that Cameron was probably doing a lot of the talking for Samuel. However, through his 2nd birthday and approaching 3 years old, his speech remained very limited. We also started noticing that he would not look us in the eye, he became extremely attached to a blanket, and he would get overly excited about credits being shown at the end of a TV show. Most concerning, fits of anger started becoming more frequent and it would sometime take upwards of 30 minutes of rocking him before he would calm down. After doing some Google searches, we were preparing ourselves for the news that our baby was autistic. At his 3 year old check-up, our pediatrician referred us to an autism specialist. Following an evaluation, the specialist concluded that he was on the autism spectrum. She referred us to our local school system to begin the process of early childhood intervention. Since October he has been attending school in a mainstream Pre-K class. His class has a total of 17 students with two teachers. These students range from ages 3-5 and most of them do not have developmental delays. The hope is for him to interact with these children so he can better understand how to behave in society.
We feel very fortunate that he was identified with this condition at an early age. Many children are not diagnosed until they are 8 or 9 years old. Our hope is that by identifying his condition early, we can provide Samuel with the assistance needed to allow him to fully function with his fellow peers. We can already see progress being made with his speech and other developmental areas.
I decided to write this blog because it often seems that daddy's do not express their hopes and fears of parenting like mothers do. My goal is to post updates a few times each week. Samuel is the sweetest little boy that you will ever meet, he just thinks differently than other children. Parenting in general is difficult at times, but I feel incredibly blessed that God has provided April and I the opportunity to raise two incredible young boys. I look forward to sharing our experiences and hope that other fathers (and mothers too) will feel free to join us by expressing your stories as well. Together we can learn from one another and provide our children with the best opportunities possible!
Merry Christmas!
Cameron was born one day shy of our first wedding anniversary. He has always been very healthy and developed at a "normal" rate. Before he was 10 months old he would say words like "hey da da", "hey ma ma", "bye bye". By the time Cameron was 15 months old he was speaking in sentences. Samuel was born when Cameron was 20 months old. Although Samuel has been overall a healthy child, we did have a few scares with him at first. Like most baby boys, he was circumcised shortly after his birth. Following the procedure he had some minor complications. It was nothing serious, but when he had to remain in the nursery for several hours while recovery from this "minor" procedure. When he was five weeks old, Samuel was found to have a condition called pyloric stenosis, which occurs in roughly 3 out of every 1,000 babies. In layman's terms, he had a blockage that prevented milk from entering his stomach, thus resulting in projectile vomiting. The only cure is surgery. After the surgery he had no complications and seemed to be doing fine. He began crawling at 9 months and in general everything seemed to be going well. However, April would make comments to me occasionally saying she felt something was not right with Samuel. I noticed that he seemed to be developing overall at a slower pace than Cameron had, but many had told me not to compare the two, so at first I really did not think too much into it. However, from 9 months until 15 months there appeared to be very little developmental progress. The only word Samuel would say was 'no' and he started having these uncontrollable fits of anger. As time passed, our biggest concern became his inability to walk. Our pediatrician referred us to the local CDSA who determined that he needed physical therapy due to low muscle tone. He began having weekly PT sessions at 17 months old. These sessions were extremely helpful. It took a couple more months but he did learn to walk at 19 months old.
A few weeks after learning to walk, his PT sessions were concluded and I was very hopeful that he would soon catch-up with peers. Our pediatrician did not seem too worried about Samuel's limited speech, saying that learning to walk was a big stage and some kids can only concentrate on one thing at a time. He also indicated that Cameron was probably doing a lot of the talking for Samuel. However, through his 2nd birthday and approaching 3 years old, his speech remained very limited. We also started noticing that he would not look us in the eye, he became extremely attached to a blanket, and he would get overly excited about credits being shown at the end of a TV show. Most concerning, fits of anger started becoming more frequent and it would sometime take upwards of 30 minutes of rocking him before he would calm down. After doing some Google searches, we were preparing ourselves for the news that our baby was autistic. At his 3 year old check-up, our pediatrician referred us to an autism specialist. Following an evaluation, the specialist concluded that he was on the autism spectrum. She referred us to our local school system to begin the process of early childhood intervention. Since October he has been attending school in a mainstream Pre-K class. His class has a total of 17 students with two teachers. These students range from ages 3-5 and most of them do not have developmental delays. The hope is for him to interact with these children so he can better understand how to behave in society.
We feel very fortunate that he was identified with this condition at an early age. Many children are not diagnosed until they are 8 or 9 years old. Our hope is that by identifying his condition early, we can provide Samuel with the assistance needed to allow him to fully function with his fellow peers. We can already see progress being made with his speech and other developmental areas.
I decided to write this blog because it often seems that daddy's do not express their hopes and fears of parenting like mothers do. My goal is to post updates a few times each week. Samuel is the sweetest little boy that you will ever meet, he just thinks differently than other children. Parenting in general is difficult at times, but I feel incredibly blessed that God has provided April and I the opportunity to raise two incredible young boys. I look forward to sharing our experiences and hope that other fathers (and mothers too) will feel free to join us by expressing your stories as well. Together we can learn from one another and provide our children with the best opportunities possible!
Merry Christmas!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)