spectrumom

Through a happy conjunction of events (acquiring the task of dog walking, a news story and an assignment for Sam on Greek mythology) I now spend an hour nearly every evening alternating between staring in people's homes and developing a permanent crick in my neck staring at the stars and planets. Staring in people's homes is an old habit and really has nothing to do with this blog. Except that it amazes me how many people leave their windows unshaded while they lounge around the house in their skivvies being bums and watching tv. Unlike me who is out diligently exercising the dog. It also amazes me how neat their houses are. Which is perhaps why they leave their shades up and lights on. Show offs! But back to the planets. It all started when I was walking the dog and saw a star near the eastern horizon that was so red, I thought "It could be Mars. Nah." But on arriving home I was looking though "all the terrible things that happened today" on MSNBC a...

Recently I took Nathan to a psychologist to see if we can get more help for his problem behaviors. Unfortunately, hearing us talk (or even seeing what I write) about his behaviors really upsets him and creates more irritability and behaviors. So I wanted to let him know that I was going to talk about them, but that we were doing it to try to find a solution. I whipped it up on my iPhone while we were in the waiting room, so there are some typos. You know, it worked! He got a little upset, but nothing like in the past. And when he did, I reminded him why we were there and about the story. He was able to calm down. Talking About the Bad Times Sometimes I feel very mad or sad. These can be very hard times. I have trouble controlling myself. That is why I am at the doctor today. The doctor will help me and mom and dad learn to stop those bad feelings. So I don't have to feel so sad or mad. Mom and the doctor will talk about the very hard times I have had. Li...

Yeah, not one of those fly by night, grab your number and sell them kind of thing. This is a great site that tells you about great apps for your SN kid. And some are even free. Now they are giving away 4 refurbed iPad 1s. We use a refurbed 1, and it works great. So head over there and see about getting yourself a starter model. We have had ours for 9 months, and haven't begun to think about out growing it. http://www.smartappsforkids.com/2012/03/win-one-of-four-ipads.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmartAppsForKids+%28Smart+Apps+For+Kids%29

Each week the kindergartners take it in turn to be "Star Student" and are featured all week. This week is Isaac's turn. Monday he took in 3 favorite things. Tuesday he took in a favorite book to be read. Tomorrow we get to eat lunch with him. Today we wrote a letter about what makes Isaac special in our eyes. Here is what I wrote. Isaac Isaac is our third son. He is very different from his brothers. Isaac loves Legos. He is very good at following the directions and making what comes in the box. But what he loves most is making his own creations. Mostly he likes to make rockets, boats and other vehicles. There are Legos everywhere in our house! In the cupboards with the cans of food, on top of the refrigerator and in the bathroom. Isaac loves sea creatures. He loves to see them at the aquarium. He likes to read about them and he likes to watch videos to learn about them. He likes them so much that his favorite stuffed animals are his squid, manta ray and bab...

Paul, my husband, homeschools Nathan. That alone is a huge commitment. He has given up a humongous chunk of free time (all of it, really, because he is never free to pursue his own interests. Nathan requires SO much intervention and monitoring that there is hardly anything Paul can do of his own.) And he is trapped with Nathan all day, every day. When Nathan was so bad over the winter, Paul had it 24/7. Because being alone in the house with him was so fraught with peril, he sometimes felt that he could not even leave me alone, especially if the other 2 were home (which escalated Nathan further.) On top of that, we both have always valued academics. Even though Paul was never hung up on grades (a nice way of saying that as long as he passed, he really didn't care about grades) he has a dual BS in Math and EE. So he knows shit. A lot of it. Dinners at his house often involved him and his dad (who worked for NASA) and his brother (who has a physics BS and works with compute...

For years after Sam was diagnosed (over 11 years ago, he'll be 14 next week) I was looking for the miracle cure. We tried diets and supplements. Hell, I became a DAN! doctor. We did ABA, RDI, VB, Floortime (I think I still have the 20+ videos in the attic) and any other number of behavioral interventions. Those helped. Some. Then we tried mainstream medicine. We tried Strattera when he was 5. I don't remember why, but we never bothered to go beyond the sample. Sam always seemed anxious, so we tried Celexa. Whoa, the screaming at night. Ok, that's a no go. Concerta. Those bite marks on his brother's face were livid enough that my mom asked if we were worried someone would call Children and Youth. Thanks mom, that was supportive. Sam never seemed bad enough to be willing to push past the negative side effects. His problems just weren't bad enough to justify more side effects and we just quit trying medications. This year his attention problems interfer...