As R is closing in on his second birthday – yes, it’s still a few months off – he’s starting to develop more and more of his own personality. Setting aside the spots where I haven’t the foggiest what to do with an NT child, since he’s hitting milestones that I’ve forgotten to watch out for, it’s definitely an interesting process.
Of course, involved in this is the issue of being a second child, which means that he’s also playing a lot of monkey-see, monkey-do. Continue reading
So, while most of what I write about here has to do with the Monster, there’s times that R is going to make his own appearance due to things being what they are.
For those who don’t frequently notice him pop up – R is our younger son and the Monster’s little brother, 19 months old at this point. Because the Monster is on the Spectrum – and we had reasonable certainty that would be the diagnosis well before we started trying for R – we’ve always been a little more cautious about keeping an eye on how R is developing. Continue reading
I know that normal parents deal with this all the time, but we’re dealing with a whole different wrinkle to the problem.
R has started to imitate the Monster. Continue reading
The post I was going to write tonight’s just going to have to wait for some time tomorrow, I fear.
1-2-3 Magic is great sometimes for discipline, but I think there’s points where applying it with the Monster hits a brick wall – mostly where it comes to immediate infractions and sending him straight to time-out. Continue reading
When you have a child with Autism, and then have additional children, paranoia becomes part of the game.
I don’t know if there’s really any other way to describe it to parents who have only neuro-typical children: the constant surveillance of all of your other children’s behaviors, looking for that one indicator that you have another child on the spectrum and that you should be getting intervention pronto. Continue reading
Obviously, we’re already on top of everything having to do with the Monster and how his Autism affects him. We’re keeping on top of his therapy and trying to get him still more (thanks to my insurance), and he’s being tested on a regular basis as part of the various studies he and the baby are in.
But then there’s the times where results from the baby’s tests start making us nervous. Continue reading
As the parent of a child with Autism, the most important thing I say to any parent I run across, who has concerns about their child, is err on the side of caution. If you think your child shows signs of anything, it’s better to go for early screening and intervention than to assume it’s just you. Continue reading
There are breakthroughs and there are breakthroughs.
Yesterday, I spent a few hours alone with both kids – this is, as you can imagine, a bit of a challenge, when I’m coping with a very non-verbal child (an 11 month old infant) and a semi-non-verbal child (being the Monster at a very rambunctious 4 1/2 years). Most of the time, it works out fairly well, since the baby is still exploring his environment and the Monster’s quite content to play around/with him. Continue reading
Every so often, I’m left alone with both boys. My wife needs her time away as much as I do, and it gives me time to see how the boys interact.
Yesterday afternoon, I agreed to watch the kids so she could go out with a few other mommies and play at the pottery place around the corner. Continue reading
I think most of us in “the same boat” can agree that, as a whole, we don’t know more than we do know about autism. We don’t know what causes it, we don’t know how to “cure” it, and we are still in the phase where we’re trying to figure out how best to treat it.
We’ve known that something was not quite right with the Monster since before his second birthday – as I’ve mentioned previously, that factored into our timing for child #2. One of the factors that went into that timing and decision was weighing the risk of having a second child with developmental delays… and the fact is, there’s not a lot of research into the probabilities of it happening twice. Continue reading