Fall is upon us and our family is about to enter another season of change.
This whole year has been full of change, actually. As I stop to think about it, I realize how overdue this blog post is!
One big change was that we moved into a new house, one that is five minutes tops from our old house. The reasons are hard to pinpoint. We had a growing feeling that our old house just wasn't the right house for us anymore. We noticed that Lochlan stimmed a lot more at home than he did anywhere else. We kind of reached the point where we thought, if we want to move, we need to do it now or we will never get around to doing it!
So our new home is the exact same square footage but it feels SO much larger because of the layout. We converted the formal living room up front into a playroom for Lochlan, complete with a baby gate fence so that we have somewhere safe for him to be when we can't watch him. (In case you didn't realize, Lochlan requires near-constant supervision!)
Lochlan seems to like the new house well enough. One of the common characteristics of autism is rigidity and resistance to change. We've been pretty lucky in that respect because Lochlan goes with the flow quite a bit and usually transitions well. However, for a few months, he had a major phobia of the fireplace in the living room. We have no idea why. Every time we managed to get him to the living room (no small feat in itself!), he ran past the fireplace and out of the room, whimpering worriedly, and he peered at it anxiously from any vantage point he could. We could not get him to be in the living room with us at all. I worked hard to desensitize him to the fireplace- I started by having him walk by it casually and having it within line of sight during mealtimes. We moved on to playing on the iPad or watching his favorite Elmo DVD in the same room as it. He would cooperate more or less, but always oriented himself so that he wouldn't have to face the fireplace. It's taken awhile but I think it's safe to say his fireplace phobia is now over. He is able to hang out with us on the living room couch and he hardly gives the fireplace a glance. Success!
Another big change in our family is that we are expecting a baby. As I write this, we are scheduled to meet our daughter in about two weeks. Daughter- that is going to take some getting used to! There is a lot to say about expanding our family but I'll save that for another post. I have a feeling this one will be long enough as it is!
I also left my job as an elementary school teacher to stay at home with the kiddos. To say that was a tough decision is the understatement of the year. I agonized endlessly over what to do, but there were a lot of factors that made it the right decision. My parents help us tremendously with Lochlan but adding another child into the mix will require so much more and I need to be there for that. I also missed a lot of time with Lochlan when I was at work and I can see how precious these early years are. I want to be there to watch this little one and help her to grow and to enjoy a spectacularly awesome childhood. I also just felt like I was drowning between working full-time and trying to manage our household and muster up enough energy to care for Lochlan. It was a constant struggle to keep my head above water, more about survival than anything else. Although staying at home will still be a lot of work, I am hoping that by letting it be my primary focus, I can slow down the pace of life a bit and enjoy everyday moments more.
Enough about me- let's talk about Lochlan. The summer was a busy time. We took one vacation to Longboat Key, FL where Lochlan spent pretty much the entire vacation sick with an ear infection. We had chosen this vacation because of his love of the beach, so it was disappointing that he was too ill to enjoy it. We spent a lot of time in the hotel suite, where I got to know Nick Jr.'s program lineup VERY well. We did manage to get him out to the beach and pool a bit, where he was content to sit in the shade of the beach umbrella and shift sand through his fingers. I know some ASD kids have issues with sand, but Lochlan loves it. It provides a positive sensory experience for him. I'm so glad he loves the beach because I do too and it's something we can share together.
Back at home, my mom was sick with pneumonia for most of the summer so the rest of us stepped it up. It's sometimes like between us and my parents, that Lochlan has four parents instead of two. And that's awesome, because it kind of does take four people to raise him because, frankly, monitoring Lochlan truly requires hypervigilance and it's exhausting trying to keep up with him. But when one of us is somehow unavailable, the rest of the team does feel the impact. The other three have certainly been feeling it the last couple of months of this pregnancy. I am having so much trouble moving around that I am not really able to chase after Lochlan and keep him out of trouble. That has fallen on the others, which makes me feel an odd combination of guilty, but grateful for their support.
Lochlan spent a lot of his summer in various therapeutic interventions. He spent 13 hours a week in ABA, 1 hour in speech, and 2 hours in occupational therapy. 16 hrs total a week in therapy and that doesn't include the travel time to ABA or speech, which are each about 30 mins away from our home. In ABA, they continue to work on motor imitation in play skills (put the farmer in the tractor, make the plane fly, etc), matching pictures and objects, following basic directions, and vocal imitation. He's made some gains in speech over the last few months. At 3 1/2, Lochlan is still considered nonverbal, but he is starting to echo word approximations. For those not familiar with the lingo, it goes something like this:
Me: Lochlan, a pig says "oink." What does a pig say?
Lochlan: (after a few incorrect attempts) "OH-k"
Me: Lochlan, this is a purple dinosaur. Say "purple."
Lochlan: (after a few incorrect attempts and me taking away the dinosaur until he cooperates) "pup-pup"
You get the idea. It started with echoing vowel and consonant sounds, which we continue to do because if Lochlan doesn't repeat sounds often enough, he forgets how to make them. We are trying a lot harder with stringing sounds together to echo words. There are a few he can do pretty clearly ("moo," "up," "baa") but most are approximations ("mo" for more, "ga" for green, etc) Lochlan REALLY struggles with focus and attention so consistency is a big challenge. Some days he can sit and do a whole string of animal sound echoes for you, other days he won't make eye contact and is completely unable to focus. We clap and cheer and make a big fuss so that positive reinforcement will spur him on. It's really difficult to keep Lochlan present and in the moment with you. Sometimes he's there, and then suddenly he will get distracted with the wind blowing through the trees outside and he will start smiling and babbling, thinking about something else that makes him happy. He has gone somewhere else and that is so quintessentially autistic. But we try very hard to keep him present so he can continue learning. It's a constant struggle.
Of course, these are just echo imitations that I am talking about. We would love for him to start using speech in a functional way for communication purposes, like saying the "k" sound for "cup" when he is thirsty. So far, he does not generate any speech on his own, only in imitation, but we are hopeful that he might do so down the road. I dream of a day when he can communicate his wants/needs to us. Right now, we have to hover around him and basically have become very adept at mind-reading skills.
A few weeks ago, Lochlan started a new schedule- ABA in the mornings and PPCD (preschool for children with disabilities) in an area public school in the afternoons. Long days for a 3 year old! He qualified for PPCD as a student with autism and significant speech impairment. It was emotionally draining to fill out endless paperwork about all the things he can't do, to keep filling in "No" or "N/A" on almost every question. It's a very defeating feeling. It's also pretty tough to read the evaluation report and see the scores he was given on the different rating scales. We get so used to his skill levels that is a little shocking to get an objective reminder of where his abilities are compared to typical same-age peers. It is very sobering, to say the least.
So far, he is doing ok with PPCD. His teacher says he doesn't like to wear his backpack or carry his lunchbag, but that he is slowly improving on these things. He's not so great at eating his lunch and I worry that my skinny boy will lose weight, but hopefully he will improve his self-feeding skills out of sheer necessity. Lochlan cannot use utensils independently so I am sending him with finger foods (cut up grilled cheese bites, cut up grapes, Baked Lays, etc) I worry a lot about him everyday but I know that it is good for him to get out of the house and have new experiences and practice skills in a different setting. I know a lot of moms cry when their child goes off to kindergarten. Imagine how hard it is to send your nonverbal three-year-old out to school. There's no real way of knowing how he is doing. I am trying to trust that this is the right move and will help him progress.
A few more random tidbits about Lochlan's world:
-He loves looking at pictures of elephants. He has one book where he'd be content to sit and tap the elephant picture all day if I let him. Sweet Lochlan. Some of his quirks make me smile.
Actually, Lochlan has a favorite page in every book we read. That intense focus is another hallmark of ASD kids. In "Brown Bear," it is the page with the purple cat. Boy, he loves that purple cat.
-He is obsessed with strollers and carts. He loves riding in his stroller and has a fit if we try to take him out of his stroller at the mall, etc.
If you try to take him to a store that has carts, you better be prepared to put him in one, or you will have just bought yourself a front row ticket to a meltdown! Although Lochlan is a pretty mellow kid, he gets very upset if he sees shopping carts and doesn't get to ride one. It's been tough during this pregnancy because he's getting to be a big kid and for awhile now, I haven't been able to safely lift him into the shopping cart seat-- which means I haven't been able to take him out to any stores with me by myself.
-If you leave an iPhone anywhere in his sight, he will swipe it and make off with it, giving you a mischievous smile as he searches for a place to enjoy his stolen treasure.
- My mom says he loves watching The Price is Right, at least the part where they spin that wheel. She says he goes running to the TV to watch the wheel up close, mesmerized by the spinning and the sounds.
-Lochlan has developed a love of crayons. It makes going out to dinner easier with him because he is pretty happy to scribble with crayons on the kids menu for a long time. However, separating him from the crayons at the end of the meal is a noisy affair. Our strategy is a quick exit.
In general, I've been trying to do more art projects with him. Here's one we did from September. He did a pretty good job of staying in the right area when coloring and he is very intrigued by foam stickers.
-Lochlan's happiest place is a playground swing.
-He's become VERY stimmy over the last few months. He opens and shuts cabinet doors, jumps up and down, bounces on furniture, claps his hands, plays with all the buttons on the refrigerator, etc. We're always working on ways to give him sensory experiences to address those needs. He's what they call a sensory seeker.
Lochlan has been playing with light switches for a long time now. It drives us crazy. But recently, I saw something kind of exciting. He had walked up to his baby sister's nursery to take the "Brown Bear" book from her shelf. The room was getting dark since the sun was setting. I saw Lochlan go over to the light switch to flip on the light, and then he went back to the book. ! No stimming, just turning it on once. ! I sat up straight and took notice- he had just noticed a problem (dark room) and used initiative to solve it (turning on the light). Now, this is not a big deal at all for a neurotypical 3 yr old, but one thing autism has taught me is that we need to celebrate every milestone and achievement Lochlan makes, even if it comes way later than expected.
And it wasn't a fluke, he's been turning on light switches in dark rooms since then. A breakthrough! Those switches aren't just a fun toy to stim with- they actually serve a purpose!
Ok, this is the longest blog post ever so I should probably end it here. If you actually read this far, thanks so much for your interest in our life with Lochlan! Stay tuned for another post about Baby #2 coming soon.
This whole year has been full of change, actually. As I stop to think about it, I realize how overdue this blog post is!
One big change was that we moved into a new house, one that is five minutes tops from our old house. The reasons are hard to pinpoint. We had a growing feeling that our old house just wasn't the right house for us anymore. We noticed that Lochlan stimmed a lot more at home than he did anywhere else. We kind of reached the point where we thought, if we want to move, we need to do it now or we will never get around to doing it!
 |
| the new house |
So our new home is the exact same square footage but it feels SO much larger because of the layout. We converted the formal living room up front into a playroom for Lochlan, complete with a baby gate fence so that we have somewhere safe for him to be when we can't watch him. (In case you didn't realize, Lochlan requires near-constant supervision!)
Lochlan seems to like the new house well enough. One of the common characteristics of autism is rigidity and resistance to change. We've been pretty lucky in that respect because Lochlan goes with the flow quite a bit and usually transitions well. However, for a few months, he had a major phobia of the fireplace in the living room. We have no idea why. Every time we managed to get him to the living room (no small feat in itself!), he ran past the fireplace and out of the room, whimpering worriedly, and he peered at it anxiously from any vantage point he could. We could not get him to be in the living room with us at all. I worked hard to desensitize him to the fireplace- I started by having him walk by it casually and having it within line of sight during mealtimes. We moved on to playing on the iPad or watching his favorite Elmo DVD in the same room as it. He would cooperate more or less, but always oriented himself so that he wouldn't have to face the fireplace. It's taken awhile but I think it's safe to say his fireplace phobia is now over. He is able to hang out with us on the living room couch and he hardly gives the fireplace a glance. Success!
Another big change in our family is that we are expecting a baby. As I write this, we are scheduled to meet our daughter in about two weeks. Daughter- that is going to take some getting used to! There is a lot to say about expanding our family but I'll save that for another post. I have a feeling this one will be long enough as it is!
I also left my job as an elementary school teacher to stay at home with the kiddos. To say that was a tough decision is the understatement of the year. I agonized endlessly over what to do, but there were a lot of factors that made it the right decision. My parents help us tremendously with Lochlan but adding another child into the mix will require so much more and I need to be there for that. I also missed a lot of time with Lochlan when I was at work and I can see how precious these early years are. I want to be there to watch this little one and help her to grow and to enjoy a spectacularly awesome childhood. I also just felt like I was drowning between working full-time and trying to manage our household and muster up enough energy to care for Lochlan. It was a constant struggle to keep my head above water, more about survival than anything else. Although staying at home will still be a lot of work, I am hoping that by letting it be my primary focus, I can slow down the pace of life a bit and enjoy everyday moments more.
Enough about me- let's talk about Lochlan. The summer was a busy time. We took one vacation to Longboat Key, FL where Lochlan spent pretty much the entire vacation sick with an ear infection. We had chosen this vacation because of his love of the beach, so it was disappointing that he was too ill to enjoy it. We spent a lot of time in the hotel suite, where I got to know Nick Jr.'s program lineup VERY well. We did manage to get him out to the beach and pool a bit, where he was content to sit in the shade of the beach umbrella and shift sand through his fingers. I know some ASD kids have issues with sand, but Lochlan loves it. It provides a positive sensory experience for him. I'm so glad he loves the beach because I do too and it's something we can share together.
Back at home, my mom was sick with pneumonia for most of the summer so the rest of us stepped it up. It's sometimes like between us and my parents, that Lochlan has four parents instead of two. And that's awesome, because it kind of does take four people to raise him because, frankly, monitoring Lochlan truly requires hypervigilance and it's exhausting trying to keep up with him. But when one of us is somehow unavailable, the rest of the team does feel the impact. The other three have certainly been feeling it the last couple of months of this pregnancy. I am having so much trouble moving around that I am not really able to chase after Lochlan and keep him out of trouble. That has fallen on the others, which makes me feel an odd combination of guilty, but grateful for their support.
Lochlan spent a lot of his summer in various therapeutic interventions. He spent 13 hours a week in ABA, 1 hour in speech, and 2 hours in occupational therapy. 16 hrs total a week in therapy and that doesn't include the travel time to ABA or speech, which are each about 30 mins away from our home. In ABA, they continue to work on motor imitation in play skills (put the farmer in the tractor, make the plane fly, etc), matching pictures and objects, following basic directions, and vocal imitation. He's made some gains in speech over the last few months. At 3 1/2, Lochlan is still considered nonverbal, but he is starting to echo word approximations. For those not familiar with the lingo, it goes something like this:
Me: Lochlan, a pig says "oink." What does a pig say?
Lochlan: (after a few incorrect attempts) "OH-k"
Me: Lochlan, this is a purple dinosaur. Say "purple."
Lochlan: (after a few incorrect attempts and me taking away the dinosaur until he cooperates) "pup-pup"
You get the idea. It started with echoing vowel and consonant sounds, which we continue to do because if Lochlan doesn't repeat sounds often enough, he forgets how to make them. We are trying a lot harder with stringing sounds together to echo words. There are a few he can do pretty clearly ("moo," "up," "baa") but most are approximations ("mo" for more, "ga" for green, etc) Lochlan REALLY struggles with focus and attention so consistency is a big challenge. Some days he can sit and do a whole string of animal sound echoes for you, other days he won't make eye contact and is completely unable to focus. We clap and cheer and make a big fuss so that positive reinforcement will spur him on. It's really difficult to keep Lochlan present and in the moment with you. Sometimes he's there, and then suddenly he will get distracted with the wind blowing through the trees outside and he will start smiling and babbling, thinking about something else that makes him happy. He has gone somewhere else and that is so quintessentially autistic. But we try very hard to keep him present so he can continue learning. It's a constant struggle.
Of course, these are just echo imitations that I am talking about. We would love for him to start using speech in a functional way for communication purposes, like saying the "k" sound for "cup" when he is thirsty. So far, he does not generate any speech on his own, only in imitation, but we are hopeful that he might do so down the road. I dream of a day when he can communicate his wants/needs to us. Right now, we have to hover around him and basically have become very adept at mind-reading skills.
A few weeks ago, Lochlan started a new schedule- ABA in the mornings and PPCD (preschool for children with disabilities) in an area public school in the afternoons. Long days for a 3 year old! He qualified for PPCD as a student with autism and significant speech impairment. It was emotionally draining to fill out endless paperwork about all the things he can't do, to keep filling in "No" or "N/A" on almost every question. It's a very defeating feeling. It's also pretty tough to read the evaluation report and see the scores he was given on the different rating scales. We get so used to his skill levels that is a little shocking to get an objective reminder of where his abilities are compared to typical same-age peers. It is very sobering, to say the least.
So far, he is doing ok with PPCD. His teacher says he doesn't like to wear his backpack or carry his lunchbag, but that he is slowly improving on these things. He's not so great at eating his lunch and I worry that my skinny boy will lose weight, but hopefully he will improve his self-feeding skills out of sheer necessity. Lochlan cannot use utensils independently so I am sending him with finger foods (cut up grilled cheese bites, cut up grapes, Baked Lays, etc) I worry a lot about him everyday but I know that it is good for him to get out of the house and have new experiences and practice skills in a different setting. I know a lot of moms cry when their child goes off to kindergarten. Imagine how hard it is to send your nonverbal three-year-old out to school. There's no real way of knowing how he is doing. I am trying to trust that this is the right move and will help him progress.
A few more random tidbits about Lochlan's world:
-He loves looking at pictures of elephants. He has one book where he'd be content to sit and tap the elephant picture all day if I let him. Sweet Lochlan. Some of his quirks make me smile.
Actually, Lochlan has a favorite page in every book we read. That intense focus is another hallmark of ASD kids. In "Brown Bear," it is the page with the purple cat. Boy, he loves that purple cat.
-He is obsessed with strollers and carts. He loves riding in his stroller and has a fit if we try to take him out of his stroller at the mall, etc.
If you try to take him to a store that has carts, you better be prepared to put him in one, or you will have just bought yourself a front row ticket to a meltdown! Although Lochlan is a pretty mellow kid, he gets very upset if he sees shopping carts and doesn't get to ride one. It's been tough during this pregnancy because he's getting to be a big kid and for awhile now, I haven't been able to safely lift him into the shopping cart seat-- which means I haven't been able to take him out to any stores with me by myself.
-If you leave an iPhone anywhere in his sight, he will swipe it and make off with it, giving you a mischievous smile as he searches for a place to enjoy his stolen treasure.
- My mom says he loves watching The Price is Right, at least the part where they spin that wheel. She says he goes running to the TV to watch the wheel up close, mesmerized by the spinning and the sounds.
-Lochlan has developed a love of crayons. It makes going out to dinner easier with him because he is pretty happy to scribble with crayons on the kids menu for a long time. However, separating him from the crayons at the end of the meal is a noisy affair. Our strategy is a quick exit.
In general, I've been trying to do more art projects with him. Here's one we did from September. He did a pretty good job of staying in the right area when coloring and he is very intrigued by foam stickers.
-Lochlan's happiest place is a playground swing.
-He's become VERY stimmy over the last few months. He opens and shuts cabinet doors, jumps up and down, bounces on furniture, claps his hands, plays with all the buttons on the refrigerator, etc. We're always working on ways to give him sensory experiences to address those needs. He's what they call a sensory seeker.
Lochlan has been playing with light switches for a long time now. It drives us crazy. But recently, I saw something kind of exciting. He had walked up to his baby sister's nursery to take the "Brown Bear" book from her shelf. The room was getting dark since the sun was setting. I saw Lochlan go over to the light switch to flip on the light, and then he went back to the book. ! No stimming, just turning it on once. ! I sat up straight and took notice- he had just noticed a problem (dark room) and used initiative to solve it (turning on the light). Now, this is not a big deal at all for a neurotypical 3 yr old, but one thing autism has taught me is that we need to celebrate every milestone and achievement Lochlan makes, even if it comes way later than expected.
And it wasn't a fluke, he's been turning on light switches in dark rooms since then. A breakthrough! Those switches aren't just a fun toy to stim with- they actually serve a purpose!
Ok, this is the longest blog post ever so I should probably end it here. If you actually read this far, thanks so much for your interest in our life with Lochlan! Stay tuned for another post about Baby #2 coming soon.
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