Free Time

 Mitchell is the only one in the family practicing his school work this summer.  Not only will he go back to school potty trained and talking a bit he will show them how he can spell.  In addition to these he also labeled turtle, horse and cat.  Have I mentioned how awesome he is.

Great America

Joe & Caroline waiting for The Eagle

Me & Caroline waiting for The Eagle

Joe, Caroline, Steve & Steven eating dinner.

Unacceptable attire for a 6 yr old but OK for overweight twenty-something.



We went to Great America a couple weeks ago.  The kids had Read To Succeed free passes from school and we had extras from our sister in law, Jeanna.  We brought along Joe & our friends Jack & Kelley too and had a great time.  We anticipated the crowd and purchased a 3 person Gold Flash Pass which allowed us to jump to the front of pretty much every ride.  The Eagle was not included on the Flash Pass so we waited in line for about 40 minutes.  Joe said he is never waiting in a line ever again since he had experienced the world of Flash Pass.  During 6 hrs of park time (I subtracted eating & waterpark) Joe was able to ride 14 rides.  That is awesome.  The Flash Pass is the way to go, worth every penny.

After we ate lunch we decided to hit the waterpark.  Caroline had her suit on under her clothes so just stripped down at the car.  Now park rules are no bathing suits.  We saw plenty of kids with their suits on going on rides so we thought it wouldn't be a problem to let Caroline walk through the park to the Waterpark entrance wearing hers.  So we all go through the line and enter the park and I turn around.  "Where's Caroline?" of course.  She's standing on the outside of the gate looking sad.  They won;t let her in without shorts.  We look around and can see from where we are standing 5 or 6 kids with just their suits on.  UGH.  Luckily the rest of us hadn't changed yet so  grabbed Joe's trunks from the bag and gave them to a worker to give to her.  That's where the picture of Snookie above comes in.  We walked behind this girl - IN HER BATHING SUIT - all the way from the front gate to the waterpark.  But Caroline has to put shorts on.  I sent an email ab out inconsistent park policies and training their people better.  Joe also was a little creeped out I was taking the girl's picture with my phone.

The day was a blast.  Joe made me go on Superman and I held back the tears.  We went on Viper last and it is my new favorite ride.  So much fun.  Joe won prizes for Caroline & Kelley, Steven won his own since he lad all day as he doesn't go on rides.  We did manage to get Kelley & Steven to go on Roarin Rapids and they had fun.  Mostly because I got drenched - always very funny.  We can't wait to go back again.  Next year is Season Pass time I think.

Potty Training 2

WOW!  About sums up potty training this week.  We went to Trinity Services Autism Family & Resource Center for potty training camp on Tuesday.  Armed with 20 pairs of underwear I had to sew 1"x2" pockets into, cookies, starbursts & fruit snacks for rewards, books, puzzles, ipad, gallon of juice and coffee for me, we arrived at 9am.  First try on the potty Mitchell went with little effort.  For the next 7 hours he continued to amaze us all with his expertise, as if he had been doing this for weeks already.  With more successes than accidents they sent us home with a 1hr off 5 min on schedule.  Yay!

We got home with 10 minutes to spare.  Mitchell wanted to go outside so with hesitation but understanding (we were in a 15x10 room all day) I let him out. buzzz buzzzz buzzzz.  Dam.  His urine alarm was going off as he sat in the rocks flipping me off in his head I am sure.  Ok reset the clock for 1 hour, we should be fine.  Fifty minutes later Mitchell runs upstairs as I follow, rips the alarm off his shirt & pees in our bedroom.  Has he lost his mind?  I am going to loose mine real soon.  Reset clock once again.  He must have just needed to get it out of his system because he had nothing but success the rest of the night.  Hooray for Mitchell.

The next days have been going great.  I left him with my Grandpa on Wednesday so I could attend a bowling luncheon I planned and he surprised all of us with his success.  He didn't want to get Grandpa in trouble I think.  He has been initiating with the Dynavox or by running to bathroom & banging on door.  It's amazing how he no longer plays in the bathroom so we can leave the door open in case he needs to go and no one is around.  Yesterday Abby & Andrew were over and ran came upstairs to tell me Mitchell was going potty.  He said he was at the back door so Andrew directed him to the Dynavox to see what he needed but then he turned it off so after a few seconds he lead Andrew to the bathroom and hopped on the toilet.  He even maneuvered his undies out of the way while sitting.  He is so smart.
This is going far better than I ever could have imagined.

I am in daily contact with the therapist from Trinity.  I email them our data sheet each night and she calls morning and evening to adjust our schedule.  This morning he didn't go when I put him on but 1 hr later he requested via the Dynavox.  Now we are on a 3hr wait.  Mitchell is a potty training Rock Star.

Oh one minor detail I forgot to mention, he hasn't pooped since Monday.  Hmmm.  Gonna look into that to see when I should start to worry.

Great Progress

Mitchell has really made a leap in communication in the last couple of weeks. It is great to see how his skills transfer from therapy/school to home and can be used in different context. I have been told by therapists he knows sight words and animals and we know he can identify & write letters and numbers but I couldn't figure out if he knew the meaning or just had them memorized. He has proven recently he's got it all! A couple weeks ago he showed me on his Dynavox Maestro that he can identify animals if given their sound or name and scroll through pages to find them too. This also transferred over to flash cards a couple days later. A few days ago he was using a story App on the iPad and was able to pick out letters when I asked him even tho they were out of order & mixed upper & lower case. He said puppy when he touched a dog's face on Tuesday, "I'm two" when Caroline was trying get Grace to repeat it and mimicked Aunt Maureen yesterday when she called him a stinkbutt. This morning we were looking through a flap book when he verbally labeled girl, pig & chicken without being prompted to do so. These are major accomplishments for Mitchell and really proves our therapy program is working. I am so proud of all his hard work over the past 3 1/2 yrs. I always assume Mitchell will be living with us forever but Steve thinks maybe not, alot can happen in the next 15-20 yrs. Look at how far he has come in under 4. He sure is an amazing little boy!

Potty Training 1

So excited, Trinity Services called back to set up intake meeting for Toilet Training and to tell me if we agree to let them use data collected for research purposes it will be free. I love free, of course I am on board with that. The regular cost is $750 which is partly covered by insurance as ABA therapy but free is definitely better. Mitchell & I go in Thursday for intake and from there, if they feel he is ready we set up the 1 day (6-8 HR) intensive training at the family center. Backtrack to March, I started training while on spring break. It was going fairly well, good day then bad day then good day then on the upswing until Saturday when Mitchell came down with a bug & diarrhea. Once that cleared up Spring Break was over & so was potty training. He discovered flushing the toilet soon after that and was too distracted in bathroom to sit & do his business. He will go on potty if I constantly put him on there and watch him like a hawk but that is next to I possible with everyone else bedding my attention too. This training will work on bad behaviors (toilet flushing, hands in toilet, etc) so he will learn to do his business and be on his way. Sensory wise he is totally there, he just chooses not to stop what he is doing to go potty on toilet. Very typical behavior, right?

Expense of Autism

Not sure if I posted this link correctly but it's an interesting take on the expense of Autism to families & society. The link is to the right.

6 going on 16

Caroline wanted to watch Grease the other day with Abby so I dragged out my VHS tapes and she watched it twice in her room. Last night she picked it again as her movie to watch before going to bed but said she missed the bowling scene. Aahhh, she wanted Grease 2, which of course we have as well so in it goes. Steve decided to lay down with her and then asked me if the movie was appropriate with all the talk about virgins and stuff. I said I think so, she really just likes music & dancing and I don't think she pays attention to the talk. The songs have alot of innuendos. I remember when Grease 2 came out on cable and going to softball practice singing all the songs. We didn't care what it meant we just liked singing.

Well I think the movie is the least of our worries until we decide to live under a rock. This morning in the car we passed over Bruno Mars/Eminem - even the edited version- and land on Katy Perry and Caroline's singing "pictures of last night ended up online got screwed, oh well" and Grace chimes in at the "TGIF". But they sound so cute singing it.