Oh Happy Day!

Let me set the back ground up here first.... Zachary sees a Developmental Pediatrician. He is the doctor that gives children their official diagnosis of ADHD, Autism, etc. Zachary was diagnosed in June of 2005, and since then we've been returning to the doc for follow-ups and progress checks every few months. These are one hour appointments which entail a half hour of testing for Zachary, on his own in the room with the doc with us watching through a two way mirror, and then the second half hour is reviewing his progress (well, hopefully PROGRESS) and his therapy/school plan, etc as well as answering our questions. As you can imagine, this is a very stressful hour for Matt and I as we want nothing more than to hear those miracle words "I don't think that Zachary falls on the Autism Spectrum anymore" that we may never hear. But we always hope, right :-) Seriously though, hearing and seeing someone evaluating your little child in this serious of a manner is incredibly overwhelming, and it's never an appointment that I go to lightly. I'm always extremely nervous and very anxiety stricken. Even though all of our appointments thus far have shown improvement, it's improvement from a DELAY that still exists. Stressful. Not fun to be a part of when it's your child.

So today's appointment started out very different for me. I guess that because we've really, truly seen a major improvement in Zachary's speech and his social abilities over the last few months, I had just mentally relaxed a bit without even realizing it. Usually I have a list of questions (typed) ready to go for these appointments. Usually I'm all stressed over him feeling well and not being sick for this appointment. Today, I woke up and realized that I hadn't considered how his health was, nor had I even retrieved the folder from the file cabinet which definitely had no list of questions prepared. WHAT??? ME??? No way! It felt good to make this realization that I am calmer about all of this now. I KNOW that he's doing better and I'm not stressing over a doc telling me that.

So the appointment and testing were a smashing success!!! He sat completely attentive in his chair opposite the doc and participated without distraction, as he always has tuned out in the past, for the full evaluation. The doc's summary was that he had "increased reciprocity and attention as well as decreased distraction" vs. past evals. AWESOME! That alone would have been enough to celebrate for me! This is a kid who if he's not interested, he wouldn't focus in the past. So for him to sit there for half an hour, in his chair, and participate without getting down and running around or tuning out the doc - amazing! Oh but it gets better... His overall scores for both expressive (what he can identify/say) and receptive (what he understands) were in the normal range. His expressive was higher actually, which is a first for him - and a great thing! He scored at a 4 year 6 month age equivalence, and he's 4 years 1 months old!!! Please know that this doesn't mean that he's "normal" in his expressive language, as he's very much not - but just that cognitively he's doing great! His eye contact with the doc was the best it's ever been and he remained happy and enthralled through it all. This was a breakthrough and the doc couldn't quit saying how excited he was about Zachary's progress, which he's never said before.

So for the first time I cried while watching him behind the two way mirror with every correct answer that he gave and every smile and every high five from the doc. I was proud. Proud of how damn hard my little boy has been working (thankfully, without even realizing it) and proud of how dedicated Matt and I have been and how it's paying off. But mostly just proud for our family that we can finally start charting real progress and real accomplishments and not having to make more out of the very little things, as we've had to do in the past to hold on to hope. Hope is very real these days. And doctor's appointments won't be as horrifying anymore.

And that awful, worse day of my life back on June 17th, 2005 when we were told that our son is Autistic, and I thought I'd never make it through this - well, that's a very distant memory now and I'm happy to never cry those tears of pity and sorrow for Zachary again. He's doing so well. Not much else to say.

Nursery Pictures

No real update on Zachary, as this IS his blog :-) We're just still battling the poopy woes over here of him starting and stopping in his undies instead of leaving what he's doing and going to the potty. So very frustrating... but at least otherwise he's rockin' and rollin' in the progress department - his speech is gaining at high speed and I'll take that along with poop battles rather than no speech gains any day!!!

Now on to the nursery pictures... please note that the valance IS NOT DONE. I don't know how to tie it up with the fancy little ties that are just hanging there into pretty bows, so I'll have to wait for my talented mother to come over for that one! And my camera makes the walls look dark greenish/pukish/pee-green - they are not!!! The bottom is a pale lime green to match the bedding. The whole room is from Pottery Barn Kids. I think it's just darker from the lack of light in the room because it's early morning and the valance is so low over the window. Who knows - but I assure you it's very cute and not pea colored! I'm still deciding on what to do (if anything) where the line meets at the two paint colors, but there's time. So here are the "so-far" pictures in all their glory:

We are leaving the basket of stuffed animals in there, so that Zach doesn't have major issues with nothing in his old room being his anymore - or that the "new kid" gets everything and he has nothing. You never know! But at least this way he has something that is "his" and he can go and play with, not being told no the whole time. Hopefully it will work.

And finally I just wanted to comment on the hanging butterflies over the crib and chair. I am so excited about these, and they are what sold me on the whole room when I was in PBK looking for bedding. How cool will it be for little Katie to look up at all the fluttering butterflies while she either falls off to sleep or is being fed in the chair? LOVE IT! The ones over the chair are at a vent, so they will blow around a lot, and then of course there's a fan in the room that will keep them all moving when it's on too. How fun! I didn't want to choke the room with butterflies, so I think I've got just enough right now as it is :- )

So there you have it! Lots still to do by way of washing and ironing all the bedding, and back-up bedding. And the closet needs a massive overhaul as the rod is so jam packed with clothes that it's hard to add anything else. I've been killing the consignment sales and finding REALLY cute stuff! So fun!

Soccer, The Dreaded P Word, and Baby Sister

So the first soccer game was a success! And I have to say that it was flat our the cutest darn thing in the world! Our little boy looked so cute in his cleats, shin guards, shorts and jersey. He loves his number 5 for some reason too. The day started with their practice first - and I now think that this is the part Zachary will continually love the most. Each kid practices with their own soccer ball, so everyone's doing something at all times. There's no standing around, and that's a good thing for Zachary who gets bored easily while waiting - but then doesn't every 4 year old! Anyway, the coach tried his best to run a few drills and such with kids fading in and out of attention to him. Zach just enjoyed kicking his ball into the goal a bunch of times! They put little goals on the field between the bigger ones, to shorten the field a bit for this age group. But Zach took a liking to the big daddy goal and kept trying to kick his ball over there and "score" in the big one. He doesn't need the baby stuff! HA!

Anyway, the game started thereafter, and that was so cute. There are some really, really good kids out there for this age. One is a girl, and she rocks! Zach enjoyed running with the pack and such, but he's by no means ready for the Olympic team! He has no desire right now to try and steal the ball from the other team, or get up to the front of the pack to get a kick in for that matter. If the ball is in front of him, he'll kick it though :-) So that's progress! It was a really fun, and fast, hour and I am so thrilled that there are 7 more games! Zach seems excited about playing soccer too!

Now for the Dreaded P Word.... POTTY! UGGGGHHHH!!! I swear that I'm going to have little girl Katie potty trained before Zach is ever 100% there. He does SO VERY WELL for months and then regresses. It's so sad, annoying, frustrating, and very confusing. His new thing is just not wanting to go - ever. He's never initiated on his own at all, but will hold it until we take him after a few hours. That's been the definition of "potty trained" for him. And it's worked well for now. But lately he's still holding it in (mostly) but he's just not wanting to go, and putting up a major fight when we take him. It's the most teeth grinding frustration that we have with him. He's also been waiting for his bedtime diaper to go too, like he was doing way back at the beginning of this long potty journey. So what can we change? More rewards? Take away toys when he does wrong? Threaten him? We've truly tried all these things in rotation for about the last 10 months, and they've all worked well at times, but revisiting them isn't quite as successful. So we'll take deep breaths and hope that this phase passes, again, quickly.

Little girl Katie's room was painted on Monday. And I had previously purchased all her crib bedding, etc. So now it's just a matter of getting the room in order, hanging things, and washing all the bedding. So much fun. Zach is really "getting" that this is "Katie's Room" and so forth. I'm not sure that he understands that Katie's in my belly, but he does seem to get that she's coming and has a room and toys. I've been working the book that I have that tells of a boy becoming a big brother, and trying to over explain it all. So time will tell...

Okay, enough for today. I've got more to talk about - like the WALK NOW, Atlanta walk for Autism. Next time...

This and That

We had Zach's Meet & Greet today for his soccer team. It is the cutest darn thing to watch all these 4 year olds running around kicking the ball, trying to understand what to do, running "drills", etc. I love it! His first game is next Saturday, and they practice each week right before their games. I can't wait to put Zach in the full gear; shin guards, cleats, his team shirt and of course his own little size 3 soccer ball! Whether he plays well or not, he's sure going to look cute!!! HA! But seriously, he had fun running around today with the other kids and kicking the balls around. I think that he's going to do well with this sport because it will keep him running and chasing, not just standing around waiting for his next turn or whatnot. Now we've just got to somehow practice getting him in the mind set of TAKING the ball from others. The kids are taught not to take things, but to share.... hmmmmm... that's going to be a challenging balance to achieve. Share everywhere else, but not on the soccer field :-)

Our power struggles continue on the home front. He's very into saying "no" right now and just flat out not doing what we ask him to do if it's not in his immediate interest. Like last night for example, he'd been looking forward to going to eat pizza with Daddy (Daddy's been away for a few days). But moments before Daddy was to get home and we were to leave for the pizza joint, he started playing with a toy. So then when I told him it was time to go, he said that he didn't want to go eat pizza anymore, he wanted to stay at home (not in that many owrds of course, but very clearly that was what he was getting at). So this is a minor example, but everyday it's like this. Things he likes/would want to do at any other time are fought because of somethingelse going on that very second. Grrrr.... it's like he's just wanting to fight with us. And for the first time EVER, he threw a toy at school Thursday. Thank God it was in the Special Ed class where it doesn't really phase them, but it REALLY phases me as he's never been physically aggressive before when he's not wanting to do something. Dead weight when you try to pick him up.... sure. Screaming in hopes that you'll give in so that he'll quiet down.... sure. But throwing things??? WOA! So we've got some work to do to get him to respect authority and do what he's told. Sounds easy enough right? :-)