Fun, fun, fun!

Melissa

We have a home visit tonight for the 3 year IEP evaluation. The school psychologist, who chairs Monkey’s IEP team, will be coming over to administer the Vineland.  90 minutes of pure fun, I tell you!  Gah.

The whole home visit thing cheeses me off, actually.  First, the school psychologists do not do home visits for all of the kids in the district, just kids on IEPs.  I wonder what people would say if they started doing home visits for all the kids in the district based on other criteria, like socioeconomic status, for instance.  I’m thinking that wouldn’t fly. 

Second, the idea may be to have a chance to observe Monkey in an environment where he is most comfortable but his comfort level drops to ZERO when there is a stranger invading his space (and she is a stranger to him.) 

Third, and finally, duuuuude, I don’t like strangers invading my space either.  I want to go home, put on my ‘jamas (to stop Monkey’s inevitable freak out) and chill.  Instead, I get a stomachache all afternoon because of the anxiety over the whole deal.  Some of the anxiety is the social anxiety I deal with all the time but add to that my deep-seated need to excel in all tests…

I get freaking test anxiety and I’m not even the one being tested.  Pitiful.

Fun with YouTube.

Melissa

I’ve mentioned it before, Monkey is a fan.  A big, BIG fan.  We started with a few favorite clips and then he taught himself how to navigate to other, completely unrelated, clips.  Most of them have been appropriate…trains, cartoon clips, kid’s movie clips, people riding in elevators, monster trucks, etc.  Lately he’s been asking us to search for specific clips and his latest search request is… “Mommy.”  How sweet is that?

What I love most about that search is that this is the clip he is looking for…

You can’t say he lacks a sense of humor!

So, we had this “thing” yesterday.

Melissa

We didn’t call it a party.  It was simply a gathering of family and friends sharing presents, snacks and cake (with 6 candles on top.)  I did ask him a couple times if we could have a party (while in the midst of one, shhh) and, as my nephew can attest, Monkey walked away without giving me the satisfaction of a response.  Dissed by my own 6 year old, nice.

The ride up was fun.  Monkey was in the back seat chattering away to himself.  Once in a while he’d direct a comment or question to one of us.  The general theme of the conversations centered on the fact that we were going to “Grammy’s home!”  That was a new phrase, we called Grammy from the parking lot of Dunkin’ Donuts so she could hear it herself 🙂

The not-a-party went great!  Monkey was amazingly social, chatting and interacting with lots of people.  Everyone was amazed with his improved vocabulary.  He was happy and mischievous…basically your average 6 year old boy.  Yay!

I got to visit with people I hadn’t seen in a while.  Monkey was so good that I was able to relax and just let him be.  In past years one of us has had to shadow him constantly to keep him from doing or grabbing something he shouldn’t.  There was none of that this year.

Monkey got a little overwhelmed on the 2 occasions when all of the attention was directed at him…the opening of presents and the blowing out of the candles.  He was able to pull it together pretty quickly to finish opening gifts.  We did let his 5 year old cousin, Munchkin, open the last two boxes of clothes we’d bought because he was NOT impressed by clothing, lol.  It took him a little longer to bounce back after blowing out the candles (and we didn’t even sing!) but once Duhdee slapped a piece of cake in front of him, he was happy.

The ride home was also fun!  It was nearly bedtime before we left for the 2 hour drive home but Monkey did not get fixated on whining “Home! Dogs! House!”  Noooo, instead he spent the ENTIRE ride yelling “Mac!  Wait!” at all of the 18-wheelers we saw on the highway.  There are a lot of 18-wheelers on the highway, btw. *Twitch*

We finally bought a new digital camera so I will have lots and lots and LOTS of photos to share.  I do need to go through the hundreds of photos and pull out a few dozen.  I let Munchkin use the camera for a bit and Grammy W. made me promise to delete some of the tons of photos she had taken of her, lol.  There’s also a really flattering one of my butt that needs to go…that was actually my cue to take the camera back.  I may have a totally inappropriate sense of humor but there will be no butt-shots shared here. 

If I had managed to get one of my niece’s butt when she MOONED me, at my 6 year old son’s birthday not-a-party, in front of her grandparents and her great-grandmother…I would have had to share that one…on Facebook at least 😉  I love my family.

Living with a geek.

Melissa

Duhdee is a big fan of home automation.  He uses Home Control Assistant and has set up lots of handy, dandy geeky programs.  For example, there is a control pad at our front door with various programmed buttons.  There is one for when we’re home and one for when we’re away.  There is one for when Duhdee walks the dogs solo and one for when we take a family walk.  There is one for when we’re on vacation.  Each button runs a different program and either turns lights on or turns them off.  Nice.  Except when the program doesn’t run properly and it keeps shutting off the light you’re using.  Ahem.

He has other things programmed as well.  Certain lights in our house turn on just before sunset, regardless of when sunset occurs throughout the year, the lights for our fish tank turn on and off on a schedule and when our Christmas lights are up, they too are turned on and off on a schedule.  Since the whole house is set up with wireless internet he was even able to create two buttons for Grampy, when Grampy pushes one of them a request for assistance is broadcast in our house via wireless speakers and e-mails are sent to Duhdee and I.  The e-mails even tell us which button he pushed so we can give that information to 911 if neither of us is home.  This is a very, very good use of the system.

There is also a program to tell us when the washing cycle on our washing machine is done.  The laundry is in the basement and we’re on the 2nd floor.  We’ve forgotten about laundry numerous times before so I do see why Duhdee set it up, but it is tremendously geeky, no?

Getting to the point of this really long explanation…and there is a Monkey related point…when the lovely lady’s voice announces that “The washing cycle should be done.  The washing cycle should be done.” Monkey will run out and start talking to her.  “Hewwo!  Hi!”

Too bad Duhdee can’t program her to talk back, lol.

Fragile X Conference

Melissa

The National Fragile X Foundation released the preliminary agenda for the 2010 conference.  I guess maybe I didn’t fully understand what this conference involves…there are 18 pages of topics and 99% of them are on my “must attend” list.  Holy moly.

How on earth are we going to be able to do this??  Divide and conquer I guess.  I’m going to have to figure out a way to help Duhdee stay focused.  Hmmm…I think my grandfather has remote training collars from his hunting days…

We’ve booked our flights and hotel, we’ll be in Detroit on Tuesday.  Yay!

We’re having doubts about the medication.

Melissa

When we first started Monkey on the R*italin we saw a really big improvement in his eye contact.  The teachers noticed the increased eye contact as well and also noticed that his speech was more on topic.  We were all very excited. 

We did notice that he was having a bit of a down period right before his 2nd dose and so, at our one month follow-up visit, we switched to the extended release formula.  We also increased the dosage.  We made the switch over April vacation and since then we, and the teachers, have noticed that the benefits we were seeing before have faded.  He’s making less eye contact and he’s more distractible.  On top of that, he’s been very emotional. 

Very emotional.  To the point that we have been staying home as much as humanly possible to avoid the whining and out-right meltdowns on outings.  He starts whining about going home the second we get in the truck and when we return he’s a mess.  When I get home in the evenings he loses his *mind* within 30 seconds of me walking through the door because I haven’t changed into my pajamas (yoga pants, fortunately.)  Even *if* I’m in the process of walking from the front door to the bedroom to change. 

I mentioned yesterday that he was a mess on Saturday while we were party shopping.  It wasn’t just the idea of a party that was upsetting him, it was the very fact that we were not home.  It has been rather unpleasant and getting worse, it seems. 

On Sunday, we skipped the medication.  We saw about the same eye contact as on Saturday, which was less than what we used to see.  We also saw a much happier little man.  We went to the nursery to get plants for the window boxes and the hanging planter, he did amazingly well.  He wasn’t whining.  In fact, I heard more than a few giggles.  When we got home Duhdee’s parents were there visiting with Great Grampy and Monkey did really, really well with them.  He played ball with them in the yard for quite a long time and he even gave hugs when they left.

We decided we were going to skip his medication today to see what the teacher’s report.  We didn’t tell them.  Duhdee will mention it after school to see if they noticed any differences.  I’m pretty sure they are going to tell us he had a good day.  He was having a much better morning than he has been.  He seemed less anxious.  If that holds true for the rest of the day we’re going to have to talk to the doctor about switching again.  *Sigh.*

Why does my mind go blank everytime I open up a post?

Melissa

I must have blogger’s block.  I keep waiting for the perfect topic to pop into my head but it doesn’t seem to be happening.  I guess I have to get through this the old fashioned way…ugh.

Monkey’s birthday is rapidly approaching and I’ve had no luck convincing him that he wants to have a party.  Seriously, what kid doesn’t want a party??  This past Saturday I finally stopped trying to convince him and just forced him to pick a theme…I am so mean.  Too bad kid, lol.

So we’re having a Toy Story party…errr…no, we’re having a visit at Grammy & Grampa J.’s house with cake…and a Toy Story theme.  There will be NO partying, you got that people?? 

He did manage to find 2 things at the party store that were cool.  Not anything Duhdee or I suggested, he had to find them on his own.  Geeze! 

So, what goodies did he find?  He found a “bag.”  He carries it over his shoulder the same way I carry my purse:

His is blue…and has his name on it…not Adam. 

And this…it was his very first experience with one and he liked it. A lot.

 

OK, that was fairly painless… 🙂

Toys, who needs toys?

Melissa

This morning Monkey realized that Eggy was missing!  Oh, no!  He looked in the basket where all the empty plastic eggs are and came running to me empty handed, “Eggy?”  I looked under the couch, always the most likely hiding spot when something has gone missing, and found 1/2 of Eggy.  Monkey grabbed it from my hand and ran off.  I was on my own to find the other 1/2, apparently.  Just as I was checking one of his toy bins Monkey strolled into the room with an intact Eggy.  Oh.

At some point, Monkey set Eggy down.  After we finished breakfast I heard, “Eggy, are you?  Are you?” clear as day.  I suggested that Eggy might be in his bedroom and Monkey took off running.  When I got there he was looking around saying “Eggy, oh no!”  I guessed that Eggy was on the bed somewhere, the second most likely hiding spot when something has gone missing, so I pulled back the covers to reveal…”Eggy!  Eggy!”  Monkey took a moment from the tender reunion to tell me “Welcome!”  Uh, almost.

Who would have ever thought that a cheap, blue plastic egg could make someone’s face light up like a Christmas tree?  I guess it sure is a good thing we’ve never bothered buying him actual toys *insert eye roll*