This, that and the other

Saturday afternoon we took a stroll through our local downtown. At one little souvenir shop Mr N insisted "I want to get this" stuffed wolf, after repeatedly telling him no and walking away, he came to me again "I NEED to get this" to which I again responded no. He then more firmly said "I need to get this for Sissy". My eyes filled with tears because the extent of his sweetness knows no limits, I handed him my credit card and steered him towards the checkout. He proudly paid then handed Sissy the wolf he just bought her. This amazing child of mine didn't ask for anything for himself, he only wanted to get his sister a stuffed wolf, which she loves, he knows her so well.

Let me back up a few hours, we started our afternoon at the library trying to get new library cards so we could check out some books. However, they require seeing something with your current address on it, which we did not have with us. The kids were disappointed so the librarian directed us to the books for sale where we bought four books for them. Then we headed to a thrift store where the children scored five more books. E began reading when she was four which has resulted in her being a very strong reader at seven, Mr N is really beginning to love books, even likes to look through Sissy's chapter books. His favorite books, of course, are dinosaur books. By Sunday afternoon they had finished the nine books we bought the day before so Monday morning we again headed to the library for a library card. Mr N got one monster book, one chapter book and E got two chapter books that she wanted and one chapter book I insisted she needed to try. Thankfully, E loved all of the books she got so we'll be heading back to day for more.

As the school year fast approaches, my anxiety and nerves start to rise. We had completed the IEP process at the end of the last school year but we still should have at least one more meeting to discuss Mr N's needs for Kindergarten. I'm anxious to know what Mr N's school day will look like, what will he do at school, what will be expected of him, what is he capable of doing? In Kindergarten they count to 100, know their ABCs, recognize their numbers, begin basic addition and early reading. What does this mean for Mr N? Is he capable of all of that? How much help will he need to accomplish these things? His sheer knowledge amazes me as we read books he identifies the animals in the pictures, but will he able to keep progressing at a higher rate than his peers to ever catch up to them?

One of the things that impressed Mr N's teachers the most last year was his determination to be understood. If he said something he would repeat it until they understood what he said without getting upset. They said it's not often that a child has such a determination to push through instead of getting frustrated.  For me, I get irritated and frustrated when I have to repeat myself when my husband doesn't hear or understand something. Mr N will repeat himself many times over and over until he's understood. He's speaking so much better that it's rare now that he has to repeat himself. However, last week he said something that we couldn't figure out, we never did understand what he was saying and it ended with him in tears. It's heartbreaking to see him putting forth so much effort then not being understood.

My son is amazing.

Mr N starts his day every morning cuddling with Daddy, he stumbles into Daddy's office rubbing his eyes and climbs into his lap to cuddle. His sweetness is unprecedented.

I find myself at times being surprised when Mr N acts autistic, for lack of a better way to word it. He's progressed so much, is so friendly, easy going and happy most of the time that when he starts to have a sensory overload, starts with the echolalia or any kind of stimming it's a shock at first. Stress seems to bring on echolalia in a big way, he hasn't really done it much in the last couple of years so when he recently encountered a very stressful situation we had to adjust to keep him from getting too stressed. At meetings he still gets overwhelmed, sometimes holding him tight and cuddling will get him through, other times it's a trip out to the car to relax.

I don't think I've posted about Gabby, our golden retriever we got to have trained as a therapy dog. She's been through an obedience class but no therapy training yet. Mr N is still pretty rough with her, lays on her, shoves her foot in her mouth, pushes her ears back to make her smile, etc. She takes it all in stride and doesn't seem to mind.

Kindergarten

Kindergarten roundup is Thursday. I'm full of anxiety. I don't know how this all will work. I know Mr N will love kindergarten so that's not a big concern, but what should we expect academically? I feel like there are so many unknowns. He can count to 10, but doesn't recognize his numbers, doesn't know his colors, shapes, ABCs. These are all expected in K. What will Mr N be doing? Will he just always be behind? I want him to learn and grow academically but these seem like huge steps forward. He doesn't write, but can hold a pencil or crayon. He doesn't seem to be able to discern how much pressure to apply when trying to color/write. Will he be allowed to use his iPad for writing? Will he have alternate school work?

How will his academic performance affect his social interaction with his peers? His speech is still extremely delayed, he will have another speech evaluation before he starts K so we'll know how delayed. I still think he has low muscle tone, how will this effect him in PE and recess?

We meet with the development center along with the school in a couple of weeks to begin the transition process, I'm hoping that will answer a lot of my questions. However, the anxiety, fear, and stress are taking over. I want my little boy to succeed at school and be happy. He's so sensitive and sweet, I worry. Even at home he'll hide or bury his head into us if he's embarrassed or scared or hurt.

In other news, Mr N broke one of the training wheels on his bike a couple of weeks ago so we ordered him news ones, which arrived yesterday. So he spent part of the day riding his bike around in the house yesterday, he's doing so much better at pedaling. When I picked him up from school yesterday he was on the big trike and was actually pedaling rather than just using his feet to push himself along. I think that bike riding will help build his leg muscles and endurance, with the warmer weather coming we should be doing lots of riding.

Names

Mr N recently reached one of his social skills goals at school so we met to do an amendment to his IEP. His new goal involves using the names of people he knows, he says "mommy, daddy, sissy, grandma, Gabby" but he's never called our cat by name and he refers to everyone else as "him". I mentioned Mr N not calling our cat by name but calling him "kitty cat", he's always called him that. At some point I mentioned our cat's name is Elephant which is probably why he refuses to call a cat "Elephant".

Yesterday, Elephant came up the stairs to tease Gabby when I referred to him by name to which Mr N replied "kitty cat not elephant". Clearly this is not something he'll understand for quite some time, but does explain why he refuses to use Elephant's name.

Last night at dinner I gave the kids their food and Mr N said "I need a spoon", I asked "do you mean a fork", since they were eating noodles. He said "yes I need a fork". He then proceeded to use the fork, for the first time. Ever. Correctly. Like he'd been doing it his whole life.

Today it was beautiful out, I took Mr N to the park while hanging out with a couple of friends while their mom volunteered at the school for a bit. A classmate of his was also there and another child that I'd never seen before but as soon as Mr N saw him he said "oh hey you're back" so I asked Mr N if he knew the kid and he said yes, the kid referred to Mr N by name, so apparently they know each other. I'm guessing he just goes in for therapy at Mr N's school but doesn't attend the preschool with him.

After playing in the park we arrived home to see the guy still working on filling in the hole he had dug in the intersection by our house,  using a backhoe. Mr N was quite excited to see it, so we pulled up a piece of sidewalk near where he was working and watched for a while. He finished using the equipment then got out to get a shovel to get some dirt and rocks off of the curb which was simply amazing to Mr N. The man must have noticed his excitement and talked to Mr N for a few minutes, he was all smiles. The man said "what's your name? my name is Ryan". Mr N was tickled, he gave his name then turned to me and said "his name is Ryan". So the work he's been doing in class to use people's names must really be helping. We watched until it was time to pick sissy up from school.

Once we got home from school we got the bicycles out of the garage, E took off down the sidewalk showing she'd only gained confidence, speed and strength since her last adventure on a bike. Mr N was just as excited to try his out, until he remembered there were pedals. He began to cry as he only wanted to use his feet to walk the bike around but the pedals were in the way so he couldn't. I put his feet on the pedals, told him he was a big boy and could pedal now. It wasn't long before he was pedaling down the sidewalk all by himself. I was blown away. I could NOT believe he was able to do it so quickly after struggling so much last summer and being so frustrated when he started out.

I still am overwhelmed with emotions when he speaks in full sentences, when he says things like "I sure do" when he could just say "yes". Just watching him think and speak blows my mind. At one point I thought, if he can just communicate enough to have his basic needs then we wouldn't have to worry so much. Then the other day we had the most amazing conversation. He was sitting in my lap when he said "I don't want to go in a volcano, because then I'd be dead" then went on to talk about many volcano related things and how he didn't want any of his family in a volcano. So we scratched Mount Saint Helens off of our vacation list.  But seriously, just listening to him talk about random things is so incredible.

His teachers are very impressed with his progress in the last year, they can't believe how far he's come in just a few short months. They said he leads the class, when the teachers give a direction he's the first one to do it then all of the other kids follow his lead.

Here is a little conversation from the car ride to school last week. We saw two sand trucks with snow plows, I explained that they plow the snow and put sand on hills.

E: wow those guys are really nice to do that
N: those aren't guys, they are trucks
E: I'm talking about the guys inside that drive the trucks, they are super nice

A few minutes later we dropped sissy off at school, I gave her a hug and kiss then got back in the car.

N: did you kiss sissy?
Me: yes
N: that is so nice, I want you to kiss me at school

I could not be more proud of my son.