First of all, please accept my apologies for the lack of posts recently. Life has been quite busy lately and I have not taken the time to write like I had hoped to. Thank you to everyone for your loyalty in reading these posts. It is incredibly uplifting to hear people talk about the blog and I am thrilled that it promotes conversations. Please continue to encourage me to write on a frequent basis.
Life with Samuel continues to be an absolute joy. On Tuesday of this week, I was able to take some Child Involvement Leave and participate in Samuel's Pre-K block building project. A special invitation was given for daddy's to attend and to help their child build objects out of blocks. It also gave me a chance to see Samuel inside the classroom. There were three fathers that attended and the other children joined the daddy's in building objects. Samuel seemed a bit confused about what I was doing there. However, he did not act out. We went to the "block center" and began playing with the blocks. He would take a few and play with them a little, but never really grasped the concept that we were trying to build something. The other children joined in and immediately contributed to building a "parking garage." Samuel started placing objects inside the "garage", but spent very little time trying to build. The other children were absolutely wonderful. They were friendly toward him and participated in the activity. When it was time to clean up, the room became noisier as blocks were placed back unto the shelf. I tried to get Samuel to help clean with the other children, but he ran to another part of the classroom and eventually sat down in a chair on the other side. His teacher has shared previously that when things become too much for him, he has learned to go sit down in the "reading corner" for a few minutes. I was able to witness this and honestly I did not know how to feel. My initial reaction was that he was trying to get out of doing his part in cleaning up. Then I remembered the teacher's comments on how he has learned to cope with over stimulation this way. I'm not 100% sure if he does this as a coping mechanism or if he is just getting out of cleaning-up, but either way you have to be impressed with his intelligence on this matter!
In addition to seeing his teacher, I was also able to speak with each of his therapists that day. He is getting Occupational, Physical, and Speech Therapy on a regular basis. Each of the therapists had positive things to say about Samuel. He gets to spend time with them either on a one-on-one basis or with just a couple of kids together. They all discussed about the progress that he is making and each really seemed to enjoy working with him. We are noticing how he is getting much stronger physically by the way he can comfortably climb on playground equipment. He is also saying more words in sentences. We are still a long ways before he can carry on a conversation, but the speech is making progress.
Many of you have seen on social media that we are participating this spring in the 6th Annual Coastal NC Run/Walk For Autism on April 23 in Wilmington. If you would like to run/walk or contribute on behalf of Samuel below are the links to how you can participate. It should be a wonderful occasion and I am excited about being a part of the event (although I am now forced to start training for a 5K!).
http://support.autismsociety-nc.org/site/TR?fr_id=1121&pg=entry#.Vt1vLjFDwPU.gmail
http://support.autismsociety-nc.org/site/TR/RunWalk/General?px=1030011&pg=personal&fr_id=1121
Thank you again for taking time to read. I will try to not take so long between posts from now on (hold me to it!)
Till next time,
Brian
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