The New Year

I know I said I would update this a little more regularly, and I apologize (yet again) for slacking on that front.  Life just sometimes gets ahead of you and you feel like you are drowning trying to catch up.
School is back in full swing now, which is great.  The boys are doing great.
Scott's therapists are starting to hang back and let him be more independent, which is fabulous.  I love that my little guy is able to participate in the social groups with little guidance now (he still has to have help staying focused from time to time).  He has started to officially rock climb at OT, which is great and he loves it.  I want to get him to go to some climbing classes this spring, I think it will be a great outlet for him.  Also, Scott has been talking a lot more lately.  He's always surprising me with new phrases, or incredibly long sentences.  It's amazing to see just how much he picks up on (he knows more about anatomy than I do, as he has been helping me with my homework this past week).

Scott climbing away during OT.

Aiden's doing great as well.  He started speech therapy again.  We just got done with all the evaluations this past week, so Tuesday I will sit down and talk with the therapist to find a plan of attack to help my big man out with social situations.  So far the therapist has said that Aiden has all the higher level thinking and intelligence, but he just seems to have issues organizing his thoughts.  This makes perfect sense because most of his conversations are jumbled around.  He has all the working mechanisms and what not, he just needs help with organizing them so he can have a fluid conversation.  This is why when he gets really excited about something, he starts flicking his fingers and he'll either get stuck on one part of it, or he'll start talking about five different parts of it.  But when he has the particular item or picture, or whatever he is talking about, in front of him, man can he tell you every detail about it.  So we are moving to have visuals for every thing.  We have started to have a visual schedule for him again, it has helped him with a little bit of his anger and frustration.  We also put up a visual "House Rules" poster, which will hopefully help with keeping Aiden from beating up on Scott.  But I am excited to see what other thoughts the speech therapist has to help him out.  I want everyone to see how amazing my big guy is.

Aiden being the stud he is and taking a selfie.

Last weekend we were able to take part in the pilot program for Wings For Autism here at SEATAC through the ARC of King County.  It was an amazing experience.  I truly loved every part of it.  The boys had fun and really did not have too many upsets (at least not as many as I was prepared for).  Scott still had an anxiety attack when walking up to the plane's door, but the first officer coaxed him on by letting him talk on the intercom.  Then the pilot was allowing the kids to go up to the flight deck and push buttons, Aiden made a couple of alarms go off.  Then we were "flew" around the runways for about 30 minutes to allow all the kiddos to hear what the engines sound like and everything.  It was one of the best experiences I have had.  I truly hope they are able to do this more often as I know several families will benefit from it.  I wish we were able to stay for the reception after we "landed" back at the gate, but Scott accidentally had some cookies that had egg in them, so we had to go get him to some benedryl before he had a full on reaction.

 Oh no! Aiden's flying!

 This was them eating the dreadful cookies with eggs (mommy didn't check the packaging :/)

 Learning about all the pretty buttons.

 Scott was playing with the visor with daddy.

 This is the man who coaxed Scott on the plane, I am very grateful for that.

 The boys were hushing each other.

This was them waiting patiently for time to board the plane.

This was soon after we realized those cookies had egg in them, can you see the bright red cheeks?

Fast forward to this past week, which has been a busy one.  The boys and I made some baked cotton balls that we had some fun smashing up all over the kitchen.  Then our beloved Mister Pinkerton got sick.  We found out that because our schedule has become increasingly busy and we are not home as much as we used to be, Pinkerton has become depressed.  Sphynx's are a very sociable breed, they love people and playing, they do not like being alone.  I thought Mister Boots would be enough, but it seems that old age is catching up to the poor pup and he has become rather cranky toward Pinkerton.  So we have started researching and contacting breeders, we are going to adopt another Sphynx!  Why another hairless cat? Because with Scott's allergies and lung issues, we do not want the cat fur to cause any issues, so another hairless kitty to the rescue for our very loved and pampered Mister Pinkerton.

Now you might be asking what does getting another cat have to do with sensory or autism.  Well it doesn't really, other than Pinkerton being Scott's best friend and the reason Scott does pretty much as well as he does.  Pinkerton is who helps Scott calm down when he has an anxiety attack or when he is scared because he's sick or coughing a lot.  Granted, Pinkerton does not always do this by choice, sometimes it Scott who grabs Pinkerton off the counter or the PS4 (Pinkerton's favorite heating pad), but he deals with it, no fuss no muss.  He is the best thing that has happened to Scott, and I will do whatever it takes to keep him a happy meowing little fella.

Pounding out some baked cotton balls.

See, best friends :)

DIY Climbing Wall

I thought I would add in how we made the climbing wall as a separate post.
The climbing wall is a success.  The boys love it!
We did not have any plans for it, we just kind of winged it.  Well I say we, we had a little bit of help in the form of the boys' Gigi and Popo supplying the grips and gift cards that supplied the rest (those were meant for us to us for us, but of course we used them on the boys) and a friend of ours helping Eric hand saw and put together the frame.

This is the finished project. What is shown is a 4'X8' sheet of plywood, we thought our ceilings were 8' tall but they are more like 7-1/2'.  I'm okay with that because now it can be slanted really easily for the boys and Aiden cannot knocked it down on himself of others.  The frame behind this front piece of plywood is four 2"X4"s and a 2"X6".  Eric cut the 2"X4"s to have a box behind the plywood.  He has three running the length of the plywood, two on the edges and one down the middle.  Then he cut the remaining 2"X4"to fit on the shorter edges.  The 2"X6" is on the back of this at the top and bottom along the shorter 2"X4"s.  We had planned to use these to attach the climbing wall to the wall, but ended up not needing them.  The grips are bolted on the plywood in a random array, we did not look up any route plans for them or anything.  Then we decided the other half of the climbing wall could use a rope, so that's what it got.  We had some smaller rope that we braided and knotted so the boys can climb.  The boys needed something to help them grip when they climbed up the rope, so we thought we would add some wooden slats for their feet.  We ended up having some in the shed that worked great, so we added those.  Now behind all of the grips and the slats we have some rubber anti-slip mats that are for carpets, but it helps with little toes on smooth plywood, too.  Oh and we have some bells at the top in the middle, one of Scott's ABA therapists made that suggestion, and its great, they love ringing them.

 Scott climbs all the way up to the top to ring the bells, and then he slides down and does it again.

Aiden, or as he is calling himself today, Ballerina loves climbing, but he is a little more unsure of the heights.  I'm sure he'll be tackling this wall in no time and then maybe we'll look into some climbing gym memberships for these guys.

And yes the boys are not the only ones enjoying the climbing wall.  Mister Pinkerton sure loves the height of it (and the fact he can escape the dog).

Chicken Chicken Duck

I really need to set alarms for updating this.  Life kind of happens and I forget to write about it.

The ball pit has been going really great for the boys.  And on the plus side, its been holding up, I have not needed to redo any part of it, yay!!!

So what has been going on since the fun of making the ball pit?  Quite a bit; we found out that Scott is allergic to blueberries, eggs, and chicken; Aiden has had a little bit of cardiac drama; and we have been looking into private schools for the boys.

Allergies are no fun for anyone, let alone a 4 year old who breaks out in hives when he eats his favorite breakfast food, scrambled eggs.  Did you know that allergies and allergic reactions can be acquired.  I mean you can become allergic to something that you have been eating every day.  I did not know that, but one day while Scott was eating his breakfast of scrambled eggs, he broke out into hives.  Luckily, Eric was there and immediately gave him some benedryl so the reaction was kept to a minimum.  We tried him tentatively on some chicken, because we were unsure how he would react to that, I mean the eggs do turn into chicken, right?  Well he broke out in a rash with that as well.  So Scott cannot have chicken or eggs, which are two of his favorite foods. We also found out that Scott cannot have blueberries, by him eating a few thinking they were grapes and again breaking out into hives.
After talking to Scott's doctor we made an appointment at an allergy clinic to get him officially tested, as well as to talk to the allergist about anything else we should maybe keep an eye out for. They tested him for the basics: nuts, wheat, soy, dairy, eggs, etc.  He had a 3 out of 4 reaction to eggs, so definitely highly allergic to these little things.  He cannot eat anything that has any eggs in them and we have to carry eli pens with us just in case he has a reaction.  Problem is, eggs are in everything, and even if I make our own food at home I have to find substitutes for them.  I have tried flax seeds and tofu, but the flax seeds make anything I bake flat and the tofu, well good luck trying to get Scott to eat anything with that in there.  I felt horrible for Scott, he could not have his two favorite foods anymore (eggs and chicken nuggets)  and we were having to change a lot of what he did eat.  I mean I had to change his cereal, his granola bars, his crackers, his raviolis; like I said eggs are in everything. So Eric and I began researching other eggs and if they are conducive to people with egg allergies.  We found a place here in Tacoma that we can get duck eggs from, although they are a bit on the pricey side, but I am willing to try anything and everything I can to help make this adjustment better for the little guy.  I talked to the allergist and since Scott is not allergic to duck and they are from two different animals, he said we could try Scott on duck eggs.
Let me tell you, I was skeptical at first.  I thought duck eggs would taste differently, I mean chicken and duck taste completely different.  But to my surprise, they taste just about the same when scrambled, duck eggs are just a bit creamier.  Now when baking with them, duck eggs are a bit firmer, which is fine, most of the time my recipes need that.  The problem is that duck eggs come in different sizes.  In one dozen we can have some that are almost triple the size of a regular egg or some that are right at the same size, so I have to measure them out, I use 1/4 cup equalling one egg in a recipe.  Once we figured all this out, we were golden, Scott can have his scrambled eggs or waffles in the morning again, and I can bake muffins, cookies, pasta, etc for his lunch and suppers.  We have been doing this for about a month now and things are great.  Scott almost does not miss his chicken nuggets, I still need to find a substitute for these when he asks.

Now on to Aiden.  About a month ago we were called from his teacher saying that Aiden had a seizure at school.  This was odd as he had just been discharged from his neurologist in August for having no seizure activity.  We made an appointment with her anyways to get it checked out as what the teacher and nurse described was unlike any of the seizures Aiden has had in the past.  They said that he all of a sudden started saying he was tired and cold during lunch and then he started of flopping around for about 30 seconds and then took a bite of his lunch and was fine.  They took his temperature and it was normal so it was not a febrile type episode, we just did not know what it was.  He ended up sleeping for 4 hours afterwards and had the hiccups for about 48 hours afterwards as well.
When we met with the neurologist the very next day, she looked at him and then took our account of everything.  She was certain it was not a seizure, thankfully, but that she thought it was a cardiac episode.  Okay, so we went from what's going on with Aiden's brain to his brain is fine, but there's something wrong with his heart in about 24 hours.  It made this Mama very anxious and worried.  We made an appointment with a cardiologist as soon as we could.  They did an EKG and it turned out his heart was fine, but that the cardiologist said it did sound like it was a cardiac episode.  She mentioned that we could do more tests, a longer EKG (Aiden had barely tolerated the five minute one they had already done) or an echo.  She also mentioned that the episode could very well be an anomaly and might never happen again.  We decided that we already subjected him to enough and that if the cardiologist did not think it was worth stressing Aiden out over more tests, then we were not going to do them.  I still wish we knew what happened that day, but at the same time am thankful that Aiden is healthy on all other accounts and I hope it will never happen again.

Shortly after all of this, we had the boys' birthdays.  We decided to have some friends over this year to celebrate.  I was incredibly nervous, I have never held a party before so I was afraid that it was going to end up being boring for everyone or something like that.  I mean its not like we have a ball pit or anything that kids would love playing in, right?  I think it ended going pretty well.  The boys had a blast, as did all our friends.  When we asked the boys what they wanted Scott said no, he's in that stage at the moment, but Aiden said he wanted a blue tutu.

He gets to pick a dress up outfit to wear when he goes potty at school, he teacher sent a picture of his favorite one home, it happens to be a pink tutu.

Aiden also says that he is a ballerina and will twirl around the house, it is really cute.  I did make him his very own blue tutu, and he wears it everyday when he has been good.  Next month we are also looking at signing him up for ballet classes at the Tacoma City Ballet School.  I think we did good for his birthday.  Scott got a Captain America shield blanket I made, I made one for Aiden as well (a big stop sign).

Scott also got a brand new lycra swing/hammock that he plays trapeze artist on all day everyday.  We are also looking into sending our little monkey (AKA Scott) to climbing school at one of the rock gyms in the area.

Now for the private schools.  We all hear of the kids on the spectrum getting lost in the public school system, or of the kids that are placed in a special education program who just get left there and no one actually teaches them, we are afraid of this happening to both boys.  I think every parent is.  Aiden is so advanced academically for his age, I mean he reads encyclopedias for fun, and Scott is reading already and so smart, it takes him two weeks to learn any think that we throw at him.  They are both incredibly intelligent, and Aiden's teacher knows that and is wonderful with him, but even she has mentioned her fear of him getting placed in the special ed kindergarten next year after his first behavior issue in the gen ed kinder.  Then Scott, who's teacher had a little bit of an issue with him wearing his under armor to school and I do not feel is challenging Scott.  I feel next year Scott will be bored and either act out, which is definitely not him, or will regress because he is not getting challenged.  So we have been searching out private schools in the area, and I think we have found the two that the boys will go to next year.  Yes, I said two.  Aiden and Scott have completely different learning styles and needs, they need two different learning environments, therefore, two different schools for them.  Now in terms of affording them, tuition assistance is the only way.  Some of the schools we had looked at charge $20-40 thousand a year for tuition, for their kindergarten classes, let alone for the remaining 12 years of school.  Wow, we do not even make that in a year, so we are definitely looking into financial aid and anything that can help us afford these schools next year.

So the past few months have been quite the whirlwind of emotions and stress.  I promise to try and keep up with this so my next posts will not be quite as long.

Oh the boys made some thankful placemats at school for Thanksgiving.  To brighten everyone's day up, here is Scott's:

It's of course not Mommy or Daddy, its his favorite naked cat:

I have to admit, these two are attached to one another.

Ball Pit Fun!!!!

This weekend has been a blast, we made a ball pit for the boys and it helped Aiden calm down quite a bit.  Aiden for the past few weeks has been overly emotional about anything and everything.  We are pretty sure it was due to the stress of not having much of a routine over the summer, seeing family and then having to say goodbye to them, and then school starting back up.  It's been a crazy last month for him, so I do not really blame him for being emotional.  But he had been asking for a ball pit, we used to have one, but took it down a while ago.  I thought, maybe he's trying to tell us what he needs, so a ball pit might be just what the doctor ordered.
So we thought we would go ahead and make a decent size one for them. Our previous ball pit was made with their old pack-n-play, but we decided now that they needed a proper ball pit, after all they are big boys now and it only seemed right they had a ball pit to fit their needs (sensory that is).
All this past week we worked on drawing up plans, we had decided to use PVC pipe as an exoskeleton and netting for the containment of the balls.  We had several sizes that we went through before deciding upon 4ft X 4ft X 2ft for the frame.

Here are the plans we used.

We decided it would just be easier to have the pipe cut all to the same length, it made for much easier figuring on our part anyways.  We then tried to figure out how many balls we needed and decided that 2300 seemed like a good enough number.  

This past Saturday we decided was the day to go ahead and make it.  

Eric worked on cutting the PVC while I worked on sewing the netting to fit.  My first attempt worked out well in terms of going together and containing the balls, however we didn't use a high enough quality netting and Scott ripped it.  So I ended up having to go back to Joann's and get some high pressure cargo netting, which so far has not ripped (fingers crossed).  What I did for this was I cut a piece that was a 4ft square and then four pieces that were 2ft by 4 ft for the sides.  I then attached the sides to the bottom and then to each other to form the fabric box.  I then made eight tabs for each side out of some scrap denim I had, I made those 4in wide by 5.25in (so the PVC will fit through them).  Then once I had those all attached to the sides I slide it on the PVC and we dumped all the balls back into to.  We also decided to make a ladder for the boys to get in and out of the ball pit all by them selves.  

And viola, ball pit fun!

Sensory stuff

We just finished our house makeover into a therapy house for the boys and I wanted to share it with everyone.

We changed the living room into a therapy room and made the underside of the boys loft beds into sensory calming tents for them.

Here is one view of our livingroom. Here is their trampoline, Aiden uses this to help calm down when he is overly stimulated and Scott uses it to help energize himself. We also have the exercise ball which is used for a variety of activities from balancing on it, to using it to complete tasks, to pushing it through the resistance tunnel. We have Scott's rocker, which he uses for calming, and man can he rock that thing. Next to that we have the resistance tunnel, we connected it to the wall that way it can be handled a bit easier with only one parent home (which is most of the time). Then we have the crash pad, which is made out of a kingsize duvet cover with pillow stuffing, foam, and bean bag pellets to give the boys a sensory experience just from laying on it. Then we have the rock wall, which has helped keep Scott from climbing on everything that he shouldn't as well as helping Aiden learn to climb (we are planning on making a bigger one in the near future once Aiden gets the hang of it).

Next to the rock wall we have hanging basket full of all sort of toys and items for the boys to play with, the ones above the light table have manipulatives for them in it as well as art supplies. Then we have the light table, which we contemplated making with LED light ropes and a Sterlite container, but we decided to splurge and buy a professional one instead. The two jars on the table are full of cut up pipecleaners that the boys use the magnetic wands to manuever around. Then there is also one of Aiden's favorite toys, Bert the farting hippo.

Here is a close up of the light table with Scott's favorite translucent legos on it.

On the other side of the living room we have the egg chair we got from Ikea, it is wonderful for Aiden's stimming, and is such a sensory experience when the cocoon is closed and someone spins you, I can see why the boys love it. We made our own ball pit from one of the boys' old pack-n-plays that we weren't using and two huge bags of balls from Toys R Us (we are also going to get at least another bag before too long). Then more hanging baskets and a toy box full of soft play items such as weighted firemen, EMT, and Police vests; pretend play items like vegetable and fruit baskets (also from Ikea), ect.

On the wall dividing the kitchen from the living room we have a dry erase board and a favorite, a magnetic board. We cut an easel from Ikea in half and mounted the dry erase board, then we got an oil drip pan from Lowes which makes for a great magnetic workstation.

Next to that we have the other half of the easel to make the chalkboard. Then we hung a cuddle swing, also from Ikea, in the doorway to the bathroom (it was the only place we could get it to be supported).

In the doorway to the boys' room we have Scott's favorite, the trapeze bar (both the swing and the trapeze bar can be interchanged with each other and we have another cuddle swing if they both are needing one and a regular toddler swing).

Inside the boys' room we have their sensory calming tents under neath their beds. This is Aiden's complete with a monkey beanbag, a soft sheepskin rug from Ikea, tons of fidgets, light up toys, an LED rope light, and a fiber optic "tree" as Aiden calls it. They also have resonance pillows (not pictured) that I made by making pockets for speakers in the back of a pillow case and hooking their Ipod shuffles to it.

Also in Aiden's sensory tent is his lycra "stoplight" swing. I say stoplight swing because it is made out of three layers of lycra from JoAnn fabrics, red, yellow, and green. Aiden is obsessed with stoplights, so we made it to be a stoplight itself.

Here is Scott's tent, much the same as Aiden's with the exception of a puppy beanbag chair and different fidgets that are his favorites.

Scott also has a lycra swing in his tent, made with three different shades of blue, the color blue has a very calming affect on him. Both boys also have what is called a Jiggy Piggy, this is Scott loves to cuddle with in his swing. A Jiggy Piggy is a vibrating pig, it helps with over stimulation.

Here is a close up of how we attatched the lycra fabric to the boys' bed slats underneath their beds. We took some chain and cut it down to fit snuggly around a slat and then knotted the lycra fabric to the links on the chain. I will note that we made more than just one knot per piece of fabric, and we had to make sure we got the knots as tight as humanly possible or else the fabric would just slide right on through.

This is my little Mister Fister, AKA Scott, enjoying the his sensory tent.