Zach turned 4!!!

I cannot believe my beautiful boy turned 4 already! For Zach's birthday - we didn't eat cake, he opened only one present (with a lot of coaxing) and we went on a 5 and a half hour drive to stay with people we never met.

I am still not ready to post anything about Yale yet. Hey - their report won't be arriving for another 7 weeks anyhow so anything I would report would come from my fairly faulty memory.

But enough referencing that visit already. I want to write a post to celebrate my dear, beautiful son's life. I had the chance to report on some of Zach's latest developments in the last post. I thought it might be a good time to summarize where he is at right now and what we are up to regarding his treatment.

We are in a home program now, where he receives occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), and special education services. We currently have a five person team. We do not have an official SLP - but one of our home providers has an undergrad degree in speech and can handle a lot of that. This boy gets a workout I tell you! He likes his team, and I have seen a difference in his attending to things already.

Of the latest things that I have noticed about him, there are some things that are hard to describe in terms of a specific skill, yet I think are as significant: he has begun to interact with his sister in a more typical fashion, teasing her, getting mad at her when she teases him, and running around the house with her giggling at their interaction. I love it. The sound of their feet scurrying around the house, only to be proceeded by a fit of giggles is astonishingly the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. I only wish it happened more often. Then the other behavior of Zach's that caught me off guard because it was so, well, so typical of a child, was the other day when he didn't get his way, he did a fake cry to try to get his mush-of-a-mother to cave in. The way he squinted his eyes and made this crying sound made me laugh. I was shocked that he knew how to play me and could act. Who says my kid can't pretend?

Things Zach likes: potato chips, broccoli, cucumbers, hot dogs, chocolate, bananas, raspberries, Thomas the Train anything, his iPad, magnets, water, swimming, balls, obstacle courses, jumping, letters, cuddling, going on adventures, his family being together, drawers to be closed, a hand me down T-shirt with none other than Thomas characters on it. He is wearing the T-shirt in the picture to the right although you can't see it well in this picture. He would wear this t-shirt 24x7 if he could. He searches his closet daily for it, and we purposely hide it from him. We have given him other Thomas the Train apparel before, so why this is so compelling to him, like Zach himself, is a mystery to us.

Zach is still his smiley self that he has been since he was a few months old. His independence is emerging which is both exciting and scary. First bit of independence came when he began getting out of his bed. He used to wait for us to come in his room and get him in the morning. A lot of people think this is a good thing, but it is not typical. I was constantly concerned that if he were to get sick or some other issue were to arise, he wouldn't come and tell me. Part of the reason we have Sophia and him share a bedroom is for her to alert us to such events. About 2 months ago, he actually woke up and came downstairs into the kitchen where Steve was making breakfast. We were shocked! Now the problem has been a little night visitor coming into our room to hop into bed with us. z-z-z-z sorry I fell asleep.

The other thing he has started to do is open up the fridge and pantry and attempt to "self serve". I have to laugh that he is not clumsy - and we have had few spills associated with these events. He will climb, a definite skill of his, up cupboards and shelves to get at what he wants. Yup. So far he hasn't managed to grab any of the foods we would like him to avoid, so this is good. So far at least.

WARNING *** TOILET TRAINING TALK ********************************************
Potty training is going well. He is schedule trained - which means he is holding it until we put him on the potty. He has not begun to initiate which is our next hurdle. The original program we were operating under said to elongate the periods between putting him on the potty in which accident frequency would increase and requesting to go on the potty now that he is used to being dry should at some point commence. Well, first off, this kid has a bladder of iron - he held his pee for 10 hours!! So I am not quite sure what is going to be the next steps here. Right now, we are keeping the trips to the potty frequent so that he has many instances if practicing self help skills such as pulling his pants and underwear on and off and washing his hands.
**********************************************************************************
Zach and Sophia had a recent field trip with his aunt and uncle to an apple farm. As much as this was supposed to be a break for me and Steve to enjoy a Sunday morning/afternoon to ourselves, I instead spent it sweating. I was too scared to leave the house to run errands. He has not had a lot of opportunities to go out with people except for me and Steve. Would he tantrum? Would he wet himself? Would some new behavior come out? Anxiety and lots of it. Yup, that would be me.

In the end - he did great. In fact, I noticed later on that day that he had bonded with his Uncle Mark. Zach has always had an affinity to men over women.

I feel so blessed to have him in my life. Sophia changed my life forever, and Zach continued the change. I can say that I am a much better person because of my children. I like what I have learned about myself that I never knew, my patience, ability to communicate effectively, and perseverance. I also like how I have changed, increased my work ethic and ability to stay on task, tolerating others different than me, and going on to appreciate them and even love them regardless of these differences. Pretty profound stuff.

People often look away from those who are different than them, avoiding eye contact with someone so different than themselves, whether it be because of race, status, or disability. I find it funny to see the number of people who look at Zach - and smile. He has a smile that lights up a room. Who knows, maybe he will help to change people's attitudes about special needs, and what autism is. I know he did that for me.

Happy Birthday my beautiful boy!