Body Parts

As long as I can remember Mitchell has never been able to point to a body part when asked.  He probably was able to point to his head or belly button before Autism took over at 15 months but I didn't note this accomplishment, looking back I should have.  This goal has been on his IEP for 3 1/2 yrs and I was just saying after we received the summer school report that it's still there and he probably won't ever be able to identify them and I wasn't all that concerned.  Imitating is not Mitchell's strong suit and we have bigger fish to fry, right? 

Well yesterday at therapy we had a break-through and Mitchell pointed to his eye, nose, stomach, ear when asked to.  Julie, his therapist and the director at By Your Side, was so excited that he finally responded to the prompts.  This is such great a milestone for him!  At home last night he repeated the feat with Steve and even wiggled his fingers by his ears when Steve did it.  This is just amazing to see.  I am tearing up as I write this because my little boy is simply doing something any typical 2 yr can do but he has struggled so hard with.  I can't wait for school to start and we can remove this from his IEP.  It's a good day for the Iveys!

Melatonin

I have been going back and forth for about a year wondering if we should help Mitchell with his sleep or wait until it works itself out. As far as kids with Autism he is considered a good sleeper. Many kids on the spectrum only sleep 2-3 a night, every night. He goes in spurts where he wakes up in the middle of night for hours but it is inconsistent and the same is true for his bedtime which fluctuates between 9pm & 11pm. Several months ago he was in the routine of putting himself to bed at 8:30pm. So due to the changes in has sleep patterns I wasn't sure medicating him at night was the answer, he just seems to need a different schedule every so often.

Well in recent months we have all become tired of not sleeping like normal people. Mitchell will stay up sometimes until midnight and wide awake too. Fighting him doesn't do any good, he's either going to sleep or he's not. Steve does not have the patience to lay with him for hours and if I do then I fall asleep with him and have to get up early to get Grace when she wakes and wants to be moved to another room (whole other issue.) It's just easiest to let him tire and want to go to bed, plus he gets all the sleep his body needs, not lethargic during the day at all -hence nicknamed energizer bunny.

I had heard of melatonin about 9 months ago and thought it was crazy to drug your child to sleep but have since changed my view. After researching it myself and talking to parents who have used it I warmed up to the idea. Today I called the health food store and they were out so we went to CVS & Walgreens before we found the liquid form. I decided we should try it before school starts in case there were any adverse affects or we need to adjust the dosage.


So how did it go? At 8:26pm I added 1mg to Mitchell's juice and watched him slooooowly drink it. He tossed it to the side a few times so I tried it in case it tasted bad but it was fine. With half his cup left at 9:11pm he grabbed my hand to go to bed! Beginners luck? I'm not sure but I'll take it with a smile. I'll let you know how it goes.

Supposedly it only take 20-30 minutes to set in and it seems pretty accurate. My only concern is that Ethyl Alchohol is the preservative used in the liquid form. I looked it up and it appears to be a safe common preservative. I read most liquid forms of melantonin contain this but I'll check the health food store when they get their supply in. I also read melantonin supplements have been known to stop the beginning of Alzheimer's which I found interesting because Autism and Alzheimer's have many similarities. Could it be a lack of melantonin? Could be a start in the right direction. Of anyone has anything to add about melantonin let me know.

Recycle, disposer, garbage..which one?

So Grace is getting a little confused by all this new age crap.  She watches me go through the day throwing various items into the recycle bin, driving electronics to the electronic recycle facility, grind up food in the garbage disposer, toss trash into the garbage and yell at dad Steve because he can't seem to get it right. It's not rocket science!  Oh and old medicines get bagged up and taken the medicine incinerator drop off facility. 

They teach about recycling in school now, although it is rumored that the school does not practice what it teaches and sends everything to the dump.  The older kids can tell you plastics, aluminum, glass and paper go in the recycle but then we change the rules when we have parties and it all goes into the trash.  My rule of thumb is most foods can go into the disposer unless I think it will just gunk up the inside.  The rest is left for the trash.

Today Grace picked a block of cheese out of the fridge and I told it was old and needed to be thrown away. "you mean recycled" she says.  Nope it's food and yucky so we are going to throw it into the garbage.  A bit later she finished her apple and holding the core said "garbage?"  when I told her no she said "but it's food and yucky" so I told her it can go into the sink to be ground up in the disposer.  She gave me such a strange look, shrugged and tossed it into the sink.

I want to add a compost bin to the mix eventually but I can only imagine what might be placed in it by my family members.  I know many cities don't offer a recycling option so I am happy that our family is learning together how make our planet last a while longer even if it does make me look like a crazy woman in my own home.