Lately when Mr N eats animal crackers he makes them roar and walk around. Sometimes the animal crackers do more roaring and talking than getting eaten.
Sunday while the kids were playing outside Mr N was throwing rocks and said rock completely unprompted, completely on his own. Saying a new word without any prompting is so wonderful to see. He is remembering what we've said and saying it on his own in his own time. What an amazing little guy, he really is so smart. He makes me so proud.
The kids do a lot of playing in the pool lately. Mr N has figured out that he can use the handle on the bubble want to blow into the pool and it makes bubbles. Genius. I love when he figures out something on his own with no prompting, no imitating, just my little man exploring and growing and learning.
Mr N didn't do great in therapy yesterday, he seems to go through phases when he has several good days, then several not so good days. I don't want to say bad days because he still does great at the things he does, he just doesn't always stay focused. He fell asleep during therapy yesterday which ate up a lot of time.
His therapist brought this puzzle on Monday and he struggled with it a bit, which is understandable. The numbers are one color, the number of items that corresponds with the number are a different color. It really is a more advanced puzzle than what he has done before. By yesterday he was putting the puzzle together with no problem, he seemed to tackle the tricky ones first (1 & 7) then move onto the rest of the puzzle. It's amazing watching him make such progress in such short time, while it seems such a small thing he is doing problem solving skills, he's self correcting, and he's matching shapes not colors.
Yesterday his therapist brought a new magnet puzzle that E just loved, but Mr N wasn't a big fan. Under each puzzle piece there is nothing, just a blank spot. The puzzle pieces are just random shapes, they aren't the shapes of the bugs on the puzzle pieces. Hopefully today he'll give it another chance and master it.
One of Mr N's favorite things to do during therapy is balloon play, his therapist blows up a balloon and says "1, 2, 3" then waits for Mr N to say "go". She lets go of the balloon and we watch it fly around the room, then Mr N runs to retrieve it and return it to his therapist.
As Mr N nears three years old we begin the transition process to the educational system. Early Start only provides services until he's three, then the school district provides the services he needs. Honestly, the entire thing is so confusing and overwhelming; at the same time we're trying to get speech and occupational therapy lined up to have his needs evaluated. Nothing is ever easy. In order to get the additional therapy services we need a prescription by his pediatrician. She is the one who gave the referral for the initial autism diagnosis, then the psychologist did the evaluation and did the diagnosing. In the psychologist report she recommended speech and occupational therapy, since she did the evaluation, I'm not sure why that isn't sufficient to get evaluations done. So frustrating. I don't know why these evaluations weren't done in February, seems like wasted time.
Sometimes I wonder how parents of children with autism get through it all, the process to even get services is so complicated. I can't even begin to imagine how families with two working parents manage, they must spend all of the sick leave and vacation time doing evaluations, meeting with whomever to get their child the services they need. Autism is not new, it's not uncommon, how do they not have a better system in place to ensure these children receive the services they need?
I read Mr N's diagnosis report again in my search for the psychologist recommendations on speech and OT. When we first got the report I could only read a couple of pages at a time, tears flowing the entire time. It's still heartbreaking to read the report, it's so clinical, it's so factual. But this time while reading it I could compare what he was doing in February with what he is doing now only four months later. He really has made tremendous progress, it's reassuring to see him taking these strides forward.
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