Countdown To Moving

So, after divorce, home sharing, downsizing, home selling, displacement by a devastating firestorm that wiped out 5% (over 5,600 homes) of the housing market and drove an price increase frenzy in home sales and rentals that is still playing out 2 years later ... we have found a place to call our own and are in (dare I say it) the home stretch. Literally.

James has been asking to move over the past year. I try to communicate the home buying and moving process to him, but what he understands is "move = now move". Wouldn't it be great if we had a kind of moving advent calendar, where every day you can open a door and see today's task that gets you closer to moving? I think that would help both James and myself.

Seems like every time I turn around, there are requests for more paper, some of which can only be released if I can find the magic someone to release other papers that will allow the process of getting the definitive papers prepped for release. I swear on the heads of angels, that if I did not already have years of experience with IEPs and hounding out resources to support my kids and hunting the people responsible for sanctioning them over the phone and emails, I'd be over in a corner curled up, eyes closed, and extremely depressed.

James has picked up on this, and there are behaviours at school. Some of them similar to bad days last year. The outcomes are different, because of the new school and the people who work there. "It's going to be okay. We'll work together on this" are the messages I am getting. From both the school and my loan manager.

Is it November yet?

Here, I found this interesting video online while searching for a "moving advent calendar"

Testing, Testing ... Marin County Calling

Saturday morning. An hour car ride, for a morning's worth of testing. Hitting a wall, but persevering.

It was sunny, clear, and cold at home as we got into the car at 7 and headed south on 101. Over the Petaluma Hill, a cold greyish mauve fog bank lurked over the hilltops. Ghostly, white-translucent  scarves of ground fog shrouded dells, grapevines, and leafless trees. We wondered if we would see fog over the ocean, and hear, as James calls it, the "Foggy Horn."

By Novato, however, we were back into sunshine. James decided he wanted to listed to the Disneyland CD. We had fun listening to soundtracks for rides the rest of the way in. Star Tours won, with 4 repeats. He has watched the YouTube videos of the original ride so many times that we can recite the script in time to the sound track. He does a pretty decent R2 verbalization.

The testing office has a beautiful view of Mt Tam. The trees along Fourth St. are flaming autumnal colours. All this is some nice quiet time. There is plenty of work waiting for me at home.

Enjoying being in the moment.

Still looking for answers. James is worth it.

Paging Mrs. Peacock ...

I have a 4th grader and a 6th grader. James is in 4th grade. Not. Possible!

Oh wait, I think it's coming back to me now ....

As per our district's cluster system, James has moved across town this year to a new campus, new team, new staff (new director of special ed, new superintendent ... ) ... and some friends. Not play date or sleepover friends, but friends who call his name and make sure to say "Hi!" when they see him. He got a hug from a sweet former classmate this morning. It helps a lot.

We've had a ton of pushback at home and testing behaviours at school already. Noisy, messy, and completely nerve-wracking for us all. We've had CONSQUENCES. I think the horror of a bath and shampoo in response to the bathroom drama had the desired result and things have quieted down.

When there has been no upchucking for 2 weeks, I will celebrate, probably by going out in the  back yard and dancing under the stars to the waning symphony of summer crickets. I think I still have some Sangria in the fridge from last year ...

I should not be surprised that services and communications in the district are in such disarray, but I am. What is different is the feeling I get when trying to work with this new crew. And that, strangely enough, is "welcome!"

So yeah, good and bad, but we're all in this together. And it's looking possible to make things better, if only for those who come after. Meanwhile, I'll be lounging in the Library with Prof. Plum, my Book, and a Candle Stick (for filling out all that blessed paperwork) ...

My Autism Team Needs You!

In my previous post, I talked about my experiences with MyAutismTeam.com.

In this one, I am going to post the message that I received a few weeks ago, which is now mirrored on their FaceBook page:

"MyAutismTeam is in search of parents in San Francisco with kids who've been diagnosed with ASD to come to their offices to give in-person feedback about the website. The parents do not need to have any experience with our site at all.

"We are offering free parking, a $50 Amazon gift card and small special gift of thanks.

"Please share with other parents. If anyone is interested, have them write mary@myautismteam.com for details.

"We are scheduling several 1-hour feedback sessions all day Wednesday Nov. 9th and Thursday Nov. 10th between 10AM and 4PM at our offices in San Francisco (at 3rd & Howard nearby SFMOMA)."

Last Thursday I made the trip in to SF and participated in their user test/feedback session. It was fun. You do not have to be a techie to do this. What you do need is to be a user or potential user of their website. They are trying to make this the best tool possible for those of us who care for children on the autism spectrum.

It was great to meet the team again, and I have to say, the gift card did get me excited. Online shopping, just in time for the holidays!

Well, okay. Helping to build a needed online community -- that rocks too!

Laura Shumaker has written about this as well on her blog. Please spread the word and help the team build our community!

Changeable As ...

James has been having a tough week. Focusing, staying on task, and transitioning are not going as well as they usually do. He gets upset more easily. I hear him at night, more restless than usual. His nose is running and he has a cough, but no fever -- allergies? Could be -- there are vineyards on back of us, and they are busy trying to get in the crop (VERY early in the morning) after another weird summer. He is definitely more fretful than usual.

Then I looked through my camera pics over the past week and saw something else - extreme weather swings. Last week we experienced 100∘in dry heat. This is very uncomfortable for James, who runs hot in general. He literally melts down in hot temps. We made a couple of runs to the frozen yogurt place we love so much, just to feel a bit better after school. The extremes from going between a playground that melts him into the cool, air-conditioned classroom and home can't be healthy.

We had a low-pressure rain system mosey on through over last weekend, dropping temps and some precipitation. Come Monday, we were back up into the 90s with a little humidity. The grape harvest behind us swing into high gear, kicking up dust and who knows what else. Then they fertilized with something natural, or it got so hot we could smell the stables from down the lane in back of us -- either way,  it didn't smell too purdy. James had fun trying out all the shorts his cousin just handed him down. He started complaining his throat hurt as his nose ran more.

This morning, he picked out a really loud (but cheerful) pair of blue-and-green plaid shorts. This is what we saw when we looked outside:

From talking with other Moms and reading their online posts, it seems as though the weather can affect childrens' behaviour -- especially if they have sensitivity issues. Research studies do not back this up, but that doesn't stop me from thinking that there really might be a connection. I've come to view scientific discoveries as a work-in-progress ... but I digress.

We have a birthday party to attend this weekend, but then I think we're taking it easy. Happy fin de semana, regardless of the weather!

Hearing Test

I recently took James to his HMO, to get his hearing and ears checked out. He's already had several hearing tests and passed them, but he's also not sat through them completely and kept the earphones on his head. Plus, the audiologist and I had some doubts that he was understanding the directions.

Here he is in the waiting room, pretending to read a book from a nearby table:

I wanted to recheck his hearing because I have concerns about how his speech is evolving -- it does not sound normal to me. Rather, it reminds me of listening to people I know who learned to speak without being able to hear very much. I tried talking with his speech therapist from school, but she said she did not notice anything different. I know deafness runs in part of my family, so while James can hear, I really, really wanted any abnormalities in his hearing architecture ruled out.

(image taken from a chart in the Audiology Department)

James did so much better with the test this time! He left the headphones on all the time. He finished all the tests. He could sometimes say when he heard a noise. Mostly, they used pointing to a picture of the word spoken, or dropping a shape into a sorting can.

He loved the shape sorter. He's hold the piece up to the ear receiving the signals, then dropped it in after he heard the signal. Early on, he saw that the test person would look out into the control room to confirm the noise had sounded. So James started checking with the person on the other side of the glass too, between taking the shape off his ear and dropping it in the corresponding shape hole.

He actually spoke about a quarter of the words for the pictures he pointed to. I am guessing this is the same audiologist he had before, because by the test's end she was exclaiming over how big he'd grown and how many more things he could do and respond to.

His ears got a clean bill of health, including the ear drums and cochlear hairs. I am so glad I got this test done. While I was looking up the counterparts to the office chart on the internet, I kept finding correlation between the hearing organ and sensory & speech development, as well as vestibular activities. This reminded me that James for a long time hated swings and walked like he was drunk; therapists told be that his vestibular system was extremely sensitive.

Now I am mad at myself that I did not connect the dots between language difficulty and vestibular sensitivity better and sooner. I am wondering what I can do now to help James with speech issues. I am wondering why the O/T and speech therapist didn't talk together more at the school. Frustration! However, at least I can be pretty secure in the knowledge that James' hearing is fine.

In Your Face

James has been testing us a lot lately. His schedule started to fall apart even before Spring vacation, and without the familiar people and routines he has started to test us all to see how far he can go.

You say "come on, James, let's go here" and he runs the other way, laughing. Even better, he'll sidle while looking at you with an expectant, gleeful look of anticipation. Stinker! I say that with love.

He will grab onto things and laugh, throwing them if you try to get him to put it back down. This afternoon I caught him petting another preschooler's hair, ignoring the boy's polite request to stop it.

He will ask to do something and, if met with a "no", he will smile big and reply "Mommy said ... YES!!!" Or I will ask him to do something and he will say "NO! I don't wanna!" and try a couple of tricks ...

The ultimate reminder of consequences of ignoring us *used* to be "Do you want to have a time-out in a corner?" Not so much any more. It works at school still, but not at home. The ultimate recapitulator is now the threat of making him take a shower, followed by hair washing and Darth HairDryer. But that kind of sets up a negative reinforcement for personal hygiene, so I can't really use that one. Unfortunately.

I keep telling myself this is a step forward. His teachers tell me most kids go through phases like this. And I would rather he be in my face, an adorable little boy pest, than quietly sitting in a corner, looking off in the distance into nothing that I can see, which is what he was doing at age 2.