WyattsMom's blog

My son is almost 6 and a half and we still have yet to visit a dentist.  We did take him for a dental screening at which time they said his teeth were fine.  But, for first grade next year we either have to sign a waiver that basically says, NO we can't be bothered to take our child to the dentist or YES, we visited a dentist.  

When I was a child I think my parents took me to the dentist approximately once.  But then, I had perfect, beautiful teeth and to this day I've never even had a cavity.  My dentist both loves and hates me.  My son, of course, is not me. But he does not really like sugar and sweets, nor does he drink a lot of juice.  Still, what kind of modern-day parent would I be if I didn't take him to the dentist?  

Tonight the weather was drizzly, so the snails were out in force.  Wyatt enjoys stepping on snails with his bare feet and squishing them between his toes.  I know, this is entirely disgusting.  It was even more disconcerting to realize that he might have a taste for escargot.  Ewwwww.  How does that children's rhyme go?  What are little boys made of?  Snips and snails and puppy dog tails.  He does also enjoy cutting pictures out with scissors and pulling the dog's tail (poor doggie).  Isn't it odd that this classic folk song so perfectly suits my autistic child?

The Apple apps store has all the ABA flashcards from kindergarten.com   and they are free for the month of April in honor of autism awareness month. They regularly are .99 each but are now free!  These work for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

It's been almost two years now since I joined Autism Blogger.  I wanted to blog, purely therapeutically, to purge all of my grief, anger, and what have you, even if no one ever read what I wrote.  Having never blogged before, I wasn't sure where to start.  I typed in "Autism Blog" into the search engine and this is the first site that popped up.  Truly, I had no idea that I had stepped into the lives of some lovely people who would become such good friends.  

The first year or so, I lived here on Autism Blogger.  There are so many issues that parents of children with autism face.  There is grief, in all its thorny forms.  There is that feeling of ostracism from parents of typically developing children.  There is self-blame:  What did I do wrong, eat, breathe, wear, that so harmed my child?  Those questions, unfortunately, still haunt me.  But those questions should be asked incessantly, and loudly, because if we do not demand answers then there will be no autism prevention in the future.  We will meet each other here, all of the newly bewildered autism parents who have had their lives and dreams diverted.

This morning Wyatt woke up diaperless and ran to the potty to pee!  Woo-hoo!  He had a bit of a regression for a couple of months.  He had been sometimes peeing in the toilet but then he stopped.  I think it was because he had an ear infection and, who knows, maybe he felt punished for peeing in the toilet.  It took a lot of "presents" from the dollar store these past weeks to bribe him to even go into the bathroom to try to use the potty.  Whenever he takes my hand and leads me to the "present" cabinet (which is locked), I say "first pee in the potty, then present for Wyatt."  If he doesn't need to go, then I make him at least pull down his pants and then flush the toilet.  After the third visit to the bathroom yesterday, I made him brush his teeth.  Anything bathroom related.  It's good practice for him.

I'm sure we've talked about loud vocal stimming before, but lately Wyatt has been a little out of control, literally shouting out random sounds to the point where our eardrums are ringing.  We try to tell him "quiet voice" "shhhh!" and "quiet!!!"  We try whispering and lowering our voices.  We try putting our finger over his lips for a second.  (He just imitates us and then resumes shouting).  We try distracting him.  That actually works sometimes.  An edible distraction with a "chill pill" in it works the best, but I hate to resort to that--but of course the later it gets the louder Wyatt gets and I really don't want to have ringing ears and pissed off neighbors.  Still, it is good for Wyatt to get to sleep at a reasonable hour so I don't have to send him to school not-quite-awake with his breakfast in a bag.

My son is getting an assistive technology (AT) device.  I'm trying to figure out how to use the thing, signing up for training and all that, and I noticed that various groups around the country offer summer camps for AT device users. Some of the camps are for kids and some are for adults.  Here's a link to a list of camps that I found:

 http://www.prentrom.com/camps/

 It may be too late to sign up for this year, but in years to come it is something to think about.  My husband and I are hoping that my sons potty training and a couple of other behaviors will be under control enough to be able to send our boy to camp, preferably in an area of the country that we would also like to see--so we can have a concurrent vacation with a built in "camp" babysitter!

AutismFreeZone is looking for ways to be more effective on local levels.  One of the things they are doing on their website is a sort of FreeCycle style place where you can given and receive free items within the autism community.  It had some trouble getting launched because people were having to mail things to one another.  That's why they decided to try breaking things down into smaller regions.  If you would like to be part of this effort, check out AutismFreeZone.   I am going to be the moderator for the San Diego area.

Twice now, teachers and ABA supervisors have asked to be able to speak with our son's psychiatrist.  I don't know what these people think they are going to glean from these conversations.  When we see the psychiatrist, she always asks US questions about my son's behavior and she always recommends the same two medications.  She has prescribed a whole host of different meds for other children with autism, but always recommends the same two for my son.

The psychiatrist really wouldn't have anything additional to say to these other professionals, plus she would not be getting paid for this communication.  Maybe these teachers and supervisors think my son goes to the shrink three times a week for hours on end.  It is really more like 15 to 30 minutes every few weeks, if that often.  I feel really uncomfortable signing any waivers for these people to speak directly with the psychiatrist.  Sometimes I tell the psychiatrist personal information that I do not want to share with anyone else.  So I have NEVER given permission for anyone to speak with the family psychiatrist and I probably never will.