Three Little Words....

It is that time of year for the three little words that either bring a sigh of relief or a tear to the eye of parents all over the USA.  "Back To School" Whether you sigh, cry or cheer depends on your childs age, grade and temperament and maybe on the school your child is going to.  Many of us crawled to this moment on narcotics for chronic pain, while others said "NO!" I don't want them to go I cherish this time...and a few others fell somewhere in the middle.  

This year, my kids are both at a new school...and for the first time ever, they are in the same school.  "Sophie" is in Kindergarten and "Buddy" is in 3rd grade.  I was most concerned about "Buddy" because this would be his third elementary school in three school years.  He started in the school system at the tender age of just 3 because of his disabilities.  He had early childhood for 3 years before he went to Kindergarten and stayed at that same school through 1st grade.  By the end of that year, he wasn't doing well at that school and seemed to need a more restrictive environment.  He was moved to a school that was well known for it's disability services in the district, but also was a traditional K-5 school for over 600 children too.  We had some good and bad experiences there, which included the washing out of his service dog, a tragic situation that is still yet to be resolved.  However we are letting lawyers handle that while we get busy with moving on.  We feel like his not doing well at that school was partly to do with that situation and partly to do with some personality clashes in his educational team.  It is sad that such clashes turned out best solved by moving the child to a different school, but it was clear to me that no disciplinary action was going to taken for the things that went on, and if we kept "buddy" there for the future it was going to be bleak and full of more clashes.  On top of that, district restructuring for specialo education was underway with an initiative to move displaced special education children back to home schools, with a history making attempt to offer the same services at the almost 30 elementary schools in our district.  At first I had rejected this suggestion, because "Buddy" had been through so much already this year.  However when I found out the exact layout of his next three years of school, my husband and I talked it over and I agreed to tour the home school that "Buddy" would attend, as well as "Sophie".  I was surprised to find that I liked it, alot more than I intended to!

"Sophie" had been tested to determine if she would go to Kindergarten or 1st grade, if you missed that story you can read it here  testing.  The result of this testing was not entirely conclusive, some subjects proved that 1st grade would be better, and others suggested Kindergarten was the way to go.  All told, we had some tough decisions to make.  The answer came in the form of an unexpected opening in the Dual Language Kindergarten program offered at this school.  The concept is designed to teach spanish dominant children in their own language, gradually increasing English skills, while immersing English dominant children in the Spanish language.  Roughly 1/3 of the class are children from English only homes.  Another third are likely from Bilingual homes and the remaining third from Spanish only homes.  At the K level, the day is taught 90% in spanish and 10% in English.  At this age, the English dominant children catch on vary quickly and acquire the language from their environment the same way they learned their own language.  It was pretty amazing to see the first day of school Sophie's teacher point to her seat and say entirely in spanish to "sit down at her seat please" and she did it, without hesitation.  You don't realize how much of our communication is non verbal.  We are at the end of the first week and everyone's nerves are settling and "Sophie" is excited to be learning all the new things she is learning in Spanish.  Since she already meets all K objectives in her native language going into K, we really do not feel we have anything to worry about.  The program does all the regular assessments any K class does throughout the year, and if you think about it, shapes are still shapes, colors are still colors, the alphabet is still the alphabet, with a few added characters and 1+1 =2 no matter the language it is taught in.  The goal of the program is that each year the day will be taught more in English an less in Spanish, and that by the end of grade 5, all children will be functionally bilingual at an age appropriate level.  This will be so valuable to all the children involved.

"Buddy" is doing well and I honestly haven't seen him this happy at school in quite a few years.  He even has adjusted well to seeing me at school dropping off and picking up "Sophie" even though he is bussed in.  Everyone comes in through the same doors and he has surprised everyone.  He is not clinging to me and making demands of being torn between bussing or riding with me.  He indicated a clear choice of wanting to ride the bus.  He comes out of the building before "Sophie" each day, makes a beeline for me, hugs me, asks when Daddy will be home and then says "Bye Mom see you later" and gets on his bus.  The bus has to go to another school to pick up more kids before it begins drop offs, so he gets a nice long 45 minute bus ride even though we live only 0.6 miles from the school.  This gives me 1:1 time to walk "Sophie" home and connect with her.  Not too many parents are walking their kids from my side of the attendance zone, so the group of kids "hanging" with the Mom walking her child seems to be growing everyday.  I have a feeling I'll have a whole bunch of "kids" by the end of the year!  Today we took a little different route to stay with a shy and scared 5th grader who was feeling upset because she was the only child walking to where she lived and scared to walk alone.  She stayed with us and took a shortcut through our neighborhood.  I felt bad for her because she was expecting her Mom to show up and walk with her and the Mom hasn't been showing up.  You realize God puts you right where you are needed if you let him!

Day 28

I'll bet some of you thought my lack of communication means I didn't last.  Well, you would be WRONG I am happy to say.  Today is day 28 of the fast food free journey.  (In fact I can count on one hand the number of meals eaten out at all).  The only set back since my last journal was wrought out of pure necessity and I made the best decision I could at the time.  About 10 days ago, Sophie smashed her head on a part of the computer desk (I'm still not exactly sure HOW) and needed a trip to the ER.  After the drama of that subsided, we were hungry!  The event had occured just as we were beginning to think about lunch on a Sunday late morning.  Sophie and I were starved, a long way from home, and I had only a few dollars cash on me and eating a sit down meal somewhere was not an option financially.  So, we went to Arby's.  Like most little girls, Sophie loves a good helping of macaroni and cheese...and Arby's offers a cup of Kraft in their kids meal.  It's not perfect, but to me it beats the saturated fat content of a happy meal!  At least it is something in my house she would eat at home.  I opted for a simple roast beef sandwich.  None of this tasted bad, but after so much time without, I could see a marked difference in my body for a couple days after as I "digested" this imitation food.  Imitation food is correct...you can read about an experiment where someone took a McD's cheeseburger and let is sit on a shelf in the open for 1 year  and the thing did not mold!  Cheeseburger after 1 year

So I just made it through a 6 day trip back home, which involved spending 6-8 hours on Amtrak trains with an 8 year old with severe autism and a 5 year old daughter, just me, no other help.  I am proud to say I made it through the whole thing, round trip without any fast food consumption for myself.  The kids did get to do a Mc D's trip with their grandparents, which is a treasured time I wouldn't take away from them.  I am just getting to the point that I feel that is ALL I want for our family is the occasional splurge.  I'm even noticing my children are not asking for the golden arches much anymore.  When they do get it, they rarely finish it, this includes Buddy, who could have been the spokes child for McNuggets at one time.  When I did snatch a bite of his, I spit it out it tasted so horrible.  So, in 2 days, I'll be able to say I survived a 30 day Downsize with limited exposure of only 2 fast food incidents for myself.  DH hasn't been quite as lucky, he's had some moments when he's had to give in, but they have been few, far between, and "just enough" food to get him home.  He's lost 10 lbs in the process!  I've lost about half that, it figures, men always do shed weight much easier than women!

A venture to the farm

So, a few weeks ago I was posting about my desire to get away from commercially produced food and animal product and "get back to the farm".  This should be relatively easy to do living in Southern, WI where many farms are only a 15 minute drive west of the Interstate.   It took me a couple weeks of researching and getting back to people.  Farmers are not nearly as internet dependent as we city folk and some have taken a full week to respond to my emails during this busy season of harvest.  I wanted to make it to the farmers markets these past 2 weekends, but my illness with vertigo and migraines prevented that.  Today, we woke up a little late for the farm markets and went out to breakfast.  Then we make a family break away to a small family hobby farm in Franksville.  They have apple orchards for fall, raspberries in season right now and a variety of other things, and a fall country store that will soon open with pumpkins, gourds and decorations.  Anyhow, the adult daughter at the property took us around and showed us all of her birds, some are hobby only and some are raised for meat.  They have pet ducks and chinese swans as well as I think French swans that were once only raised for Royalty!  They have a whole gaggle of white Christmas Geese being raised for the holidays....the turkeys for Thanksgiving are babies right now, just able to start getting out of their hen house to look around.  The egg laying hens were a blast, all different colors and personalities.  Sophie loved throwing them some seed and treat.  There were pet goats too, which Buddy just loved.

These are our eggs, noticed that out of two dozen there are very few white ones, most are some shade of green or brown.  This is related to the breed of the chicken and what is in their diet.  It makes a huge difference in thickness of their shell and in taste!


Sophie accidently cracked one on the way into the house, so we captured a pic to show how golden the yolks are and how even the egg white takes on a color from the diet, which is lots of grasses and grub, as well as left over vegetables at dinner and etc.
The chickens we purchased are going to be the true test of this.  I have long begun to despise cooking chicken at home due to the dried out flavorless pieces you end up with.  Even buying "Amish" chicken that you'd think was raised better hasn't necessarily been better.   So, this is the least my chicken has ever traveled to make it to my table...20 miles!  I bought 2 chickens, they are sold for $3 a lb.  These are not your average teeny little store bought chickens...these babys have muscle and are very lean and heavy duty, one weight in at 6lb and the other at 7lb.  The first thing the farmer mentioned and the next I noticed is they are not a skin and bone with some slimy breast meat in there like you are accustomed to from the store....these babys look more like small turkeys!  There is no way we would eat a whole roast chicken just us of that size without having to eat it for a week...so I plan to try my hand at cutting down and deboning tomorrow and freezing it into multi meal portions.  I can't wait to see how it tastes!

(2) Organic, Free Range chickens, farm direct, $3 lb...these babies are 5-7 lbs each!

Then after we left that farmer, we found a roadside stand with lots of fresh from the earth finds....so fresh that the potatoes are in a bucket of dirt and you pick them out yourself and clean them at home!  They look fantastic....all my produce cost me a grand total of $10.50.  Between the eggs, the 2 hearty multi meal chickens and the produce, I spent all told about $50 today....and it felt so good to give it to the people who worked hard to make it instead of to a grocery store.

Farm Stand finds

Then home it was to put all my other shopping from pick n save and aldi away, and I made burgers on the grill complete with smokey BBQ sauce, bleu cheese, avacado, tomatoe and lettuce.

Complete with a big salad of mixed baby greens, farmstand grape tomatoes, orange and red bell pepper strips and bleu cheese and  vidalia onion dressing. 

The kids loved the farm and playing with the birds and goats.  Sophie is getting the idea of where food really is supposed to come from and is already denouncing fast food on her own without alot of prompting from me.  Buddy is a harder sell, but we do have him down to one happy meal a weekend and that is it.  That is a huge improvement from where we were, he would drive a hard bargain and "expect" one for every task he completed.  We are happy to break that cycle.  He is better for it, now we just hope and pray he opens his palate a bit more!

DH and I have each lost about 6 lbs during this venture, most of it appears to have come off in waist measurement sheerly as water loss and loss of "swelling" in overall tissues as the toxic salts of fast food make their way our of our bodies.  After 17 days Fast Food Free, I am no longer craving taco bell as I drive by and the idea of a burger from any fast food chain now that I know about the feed lots and the fact that I'd be eating burgers from 1,000 cows at a time (This is per the CDC)...I can "just say no" and eat a snack or get home for lunch! 

Day 15 of "downsize me"

It's been awhile...and I bet some are wondering if my lack of blogging means I've actually fallen off the wagon....HA!  Not totally, only one time did I cave in, and not for the reasons I usually would.  Today is day 15 if the flub up doesn't reset my count.  What was my flub up?  On Monday, I actually suspected that part of the illness of sudden onset migraines I was experiencing might have been some sort of wierd sadistic "detox" of fast food and it's excessive sodium and preservatives, fat, calories and cholesterol from my system.  Since recently prescribed migraine medicine was doing little to help me, and I was desperate for relief from my throbbing head...and a recent rewatch of "Supersize Me" had indicated serious withdrawal headaches being an issue with fast food addiction...I caved.  I got a chili dog and fries at Dairy Queen. The hot dog was all beef and I just tried to block visions of CAFO cows (combined animal feeding operation) in my head.  I shared the fries with my kids so as to spread out the misery.  I waited patiently (at the train station with the kids who were entertaining themselves watching trains) to see if my misery would come to some abrubt ending.  However, to my dismay it did not.  It didn't get any worse though either.  By the next day I had full blown vertigo and headed back to my Doctor for the 2nd time in 4 days.  With prescriptions for steroids, antibiotics and anti vertigo medication, I loaded up and slept it off for a day, taking yesterday very easy, thanks to my husband putting family first and taking the time off work to care for the kids.  Today I am much better and on my way back to sanity.  When your world is spinning around you while you are standing still, the idea things could ever get better again seems far away.

I've spent some time during  my sojourn from fast food locating farms and farm markets to begin purchasing all my meat, eggs and seasonal poultry from.  I have tried my first ever purchase of organic grass fed beef and used it in spaghetti sauce.  It was the best spaghetti I've ever made...a taste of the meat alone you could really taste the variety in the diet of the beef right in the meat.  It was more filling, everyone ate a smaller portion, it cooked quicker and had only 1/4 the amount of fat to drain off as a traditional pound of CAFO beef would.  It just LOOKED healthier.  Even "Sophie" ate every bite, and she is normally difficult to get a bite of meat into.

We resumed our long missed home dairy delivery of Oberweis Dairy milk.  I love this milk for a few reason, 1) the beautifully crafted glass bottles it comes in, shown left 2) the fact that these bottles are collected each week, sterilized and reused just like days of old and giving this planet a much needed break and 3) the milk itself is "cow to front door" in about 36 hours on average...the milk you buy in a store is at least a week old by the time you get it, even longer if it's organic and you don't live in an area where that is a hot selling item.  4) the milk is from cows on small family dairy farms right here in our county and other surrounding counties...so I am shopping local and that is a no brainer.  Oberweis strives to be "better than organic" with standards that go beyond that of organic dairies.  The cost is about that of Organic, roughly twice what your standard large commercial dairy milk goes for, but the taste is better 10 times over.  The milk is pasteurized at minimum necessary temperatures, preserving most of the original nutrients and rich flavors.  In fact, it's so rich that a glass of skim milk has the rich taste of the watered down 2% most grocery stores carry.  The amazing fact for us is that the consumption of milk by our family has gone down by 1-2 gallons per week, since it's so much more satiating,  and the kids gladly prefer it.  "Sophie" asks for the "fresh from the farm" milk and "not" the plastic tasting stuff in a jug.  As expensive as it sounds, it's easily off set by the lack of spending on eating out and fast food...and still ending up spending  less overall. To see if you can find milk in glass bottles take a look at this site: Dairies using glass bottles

6 days fast food free

Wish me luck as I carry on...thankfully Pizza never made my forbidden list, but I recognize it's not ideal either,,,,we did get one veggie pizza though! 

6 days without fast food.  It sounds so innocent.  However, for the typical American family with 2 adults and 2 children, McDonalds...or some other burger joint is hit at least once a week, many cases everyday.  Some have their coffee habit that comes with an occasional breakfast sandwich...and a cup of motor oil with cream and sugar, hey but it only cost $1 for the biggest size they had, right?  Maybe it's fries only on the way home from a long day one night....telling yourself it's only fries so it doesn't really count...and then add in those tacos with coworkers after the really long meeting at work....you see where this is going.  I have done amazing.  Hubby had one cave in where he consumed a McDouble, but he consumed it alone, no fries, with only water when he found himself having to give the kids something to eat when his "feed them before we leave the house "plan wasn't on the kids agenda.  You can make their food, but you can't make them eat.  When one has autism and explosive anger that can come on out of nowhere and leave you paralyzed with gawkers questioning your parenting ability, tisk tisking and never offering to help you...you are going to cave and get the McDonalds if it means nobody is going home with a split lip or bruises.  (Yes, it's really true, we really do get bruised and beaten by an 8 year old with no impulse control over such stupid things).  We were supposed to have a service dog to help us right now, but that is out of our hands.  I truly believe that God is watching out and we will get restitution financially that allows us some way to help our son.  SO, needless to say, I made it 6 days and tonight necessity forced meeting in the middle....we have my Dad here helping with the kids right now...and after a trip to the beach, and DH getting home really late from work tonight, we got $10 take out pizzas from pizza hut.  However, it was so much easier to control my portion, satisfy my basic need and move on.   New habits really do come when you put some time in to it.  I did not attack the food with emotion, but rather strictly as tonights food.  

Wish me luck on day 7!

Down Size Me

Have you seen the now practically a classic "Super Size Me?"  Were you ever a fan of Morgan Spurlocks show 30 days?  I sure loved it.  In fact, since I had to watch and discuss Food Inc yesterday in my nutrition class...I'm on the "edge of glory" to quote Stephani Germanotta aka "Lady GaGa" when it comes to food.  I am ready to embark on a new food adventure.  I'm fed up of our fast food nation.  I'm sick and tired of being "sick and tired."  So is my husband.

So, assuming you've seen supersize me, which people criticized as overkill, Morgan Spurlock embarks with medical supervision on an adventure to live on strictly the golden arches food for 30 days.  He was required to eat 3 meals a day, and eat from the entire menu, and only supersize if asked to do so.  Of course, the response to the movie by McDonalds has been strong.  In the years that have passed since, they have reduced sodium in their chicken nuggets, included apples in all happy meals and kicked off a campaign of ads encouraging children to be active.  They recently introduced an under 400 cal menu.  However, the sad reality is I don't think Morgans documentary was at all over the top.  I have spent the last 4 years of my life getting my Bachelors Degree, no small feat for a 37 year old Mom of two, one of whom has serious special needs.  I've seen the size of todays youth.  I'm no small potatoes myself at slightly over 230, but I pale in comparison to the size of some of the young people I'm in school with.  If they continue on this path to self destruction, they won't ever see mid life.  I do NOT want my children to become this in 10-15 years.  However, if we do not change, they will.  Buddy is already well addicted to Mc D's chicken nuggets and fries, and begs for them every day.  For the record he does not get them every day, but we've had our fair share of weekends managing behaviors where we've given in, or DH was trying to get him out of my hair so I could study and he got given in to more than once in a weekend.  I loath to admit he probably manages to get it out of us twice a week on average.  That is too much and we are well aware.  It's even harder in this month where there is no summer school to keep him on routine, and sometimes we are just dying to break the monotony, and that is the easiest solution.  We all know though that easiest doesn't mean best.  Between a full time school load, severe behavioral problems with our child, my hubby managing demands of work and the constant running to medical appointments, child care pick up, babysitter swaps, and sometimes back to campus again in the same day for me, we've become a family that "can't" cook, "can't" take charge of our eating and "can't" do anything about it.  The rising cost of groceries has easily victimized us with many others and made us begin to fall into the deceptive trap that it was actually cheaper to eat crappy junky fast food.  What a crock of lies and deception.  In my heart of hearts it's never been right or satisfying.  It's been survival.  That is all it's been.

Well, the best thing happened when my arrangement of my classes caused me to push off this one "easy" nutrition class to the bitter end.  It's a required class for the Applied Health Science major and for the Exercise Science certificate.  It's called "Sport and Fitness Nutrition", but my awesome teacher has made it applicable to life as a whole.  Taking it over a 4 week summer course is time consuming and tough, but I have a solid A.  The point though is that this is a fantastic way to end what has progressively been a more and more unhealthy experience getting my degree.  I've put on 20-30 lbs during my 4 years, I can't remember exactly what I was at when I started my degree, so it's either 20 or 30, but that is alot...and I am constantly on my feet and never idle for a minute.  I have exercised on and off during this time, battled with foot problems, taken lots of stairs, walked miles and miles...yet still put this weight on.  That means I really only have one thing to blame.  Yep, you guessed it...."The American Diet".  Which has come to consist of fast food from whatever joint you get it at, not enough water consumption, too little fiber and too much sodium and sugar and the wrong kind of fat.  The media pressure is huge, the lifestyle pressure is huge, the time factor is huge, but alot of it is just plain choice.  Well, today, I am choosing to embark on my own "30 days".  Mine is going to be "Downsize me" except, it has little do with how much weight I lose during the 30 days.  Today is day two of that 30 and I am on fire.  During my 30 days...I will not eat any *fast food*.  Now, that doesn't mean I won't eat out....although I will try like mad to cut it down to as little as possible.  So, I must define what type of food qualifies as "fast food".  By fast food, I mean highly processed, mainly beef and "something that resembles chicken" serving establishments where food is mass prepared from massive feed lot raised beef and chicken and french fries and onion rings and endless supplies of soda abound.  If it has a drive through, it's best regarded as fast food.  Since the salads at these establishments don't pass muster with most nutritionists those are out too.  In fact, my goal is to not even set foot in one for 30 days.  Downsize me in this sense refers to portion sizes, bad fat content, sugar content and other excesses in my diet.  I am willing to bet though that I do "downsize" a bit in the process.   

My exceptions:

For the purpose of this 30 day experiment, these establishments will be legal:

Jimmy Johns, Subway and Cousins subs for fresh prepared items only.
Panera Bread (no bakery), Noodles and Company and Q Doba/Chipotle.  Most sit down restaurants won't count against me, but honestly I don't have time or babysitters to go to those anyway.

Coffee:  Real brewed coffee and Americano drinks (espresso and hot water) are acceptable.  Espresso drinks that amount to candy bars in a cup are NOT.  

Banned:
Culvers, Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, White Castles and all manner of similar restaurants.
Dessert in a cup drinks from coffee stands, sugar containing sodas and convenience bakery.  (Home baked is OK!)

I told my husband my plan, and he who has recently given up soda and is trying to give up alot of others things too and is beginning to finally get mad about where his health has gone with years of fast food habits...he said "What's my prize if I beat you double or nothing?"  I promptly said "Your prize is the weight you will lose and the increase in your energy and quality of life".

So, if you want to join me, I encourage you! 

Stay tuned for my next blog which will be:  "Back to the farm....exploring the path back to where my food comes from and controlling it"

A little front porch....

OK, so many a country song mentions "A little front porch sittin'" as a part of summer life....today Buddy and Sophie took it a step further....A little front porch camping!  Buddy just got an idea and went upstairs, grabbed all the bed pillows he could wrestle downstairs...put them out on the porch along with a couch blanket and nestled in.  Then he coaxed Sophie to join him.  Nothing like a little "free" summer recreation!   In fact, now that some VERY noisy and disruptive neighbors have moved out of the two family across the street, combined with their pals who got forclosed on last year 2 houses over, for the first time in years, it's silent on this front porch save a few birds singing!  Amazing the difference removal of one of two neighbors can have on the security and enjoyability of a front porch!  This has been a God send when we most needed one.  These were people that gawked at Buddy, laughed at his antics and totally were clueless as to what we go through.  They may have shooed him out of the street a time or two and for that I am thankful.  However, they brought a constant barage of inner city company over to their place at a constant and steady flow.  We suspect illegal activity was frequently going down right in front of our house, but without cold hard proof, police had advised other neighbors there was little that could be done.  I don't know what finally made them leave, frankly I don't care, I am enjoying  my quiet porch!  This whole "front porch camping" has me thinking about buying the kids an indoor outdoor play tent of some type...could be just what the doctor ordered to get rid of the summertime blues!

The Two Week Wait

No, I am not talking about THAT two week wait....Got your attention didn't I though?  Now I'm sure a few of you are confused, but thats OK.   Those that jumped to conclusions got the joke.  If you don't get it, then you didn't jump to conclusions!  Hee Hee.  Today "Sophie" underwent much testing with a school psychologist to determine her grade placement for school next month.  Wow, summer went faster than I thought..."next month", I can really say it that way now.   My baby will be 6 years old "next month".  So, all the testing went well today.  The evaluator seemed maybe a tad surprised and just how efficiently it went down and how few breaks were needed.  I was not surprised though.  "Sophie" loves to learn and show what she has learned through activities.  She came out of the testing saying she knew "most" of the material.  I believe her, she has no reason to lie.  I have to wait until the data is officially scored to truly know, but when I was asked to fill in some questions, I did happen to peak back and see some things the evaluator had written down already.  I did see notations circled that indicated child is functioning "at least 2 grade levels above current age based grade level".   This doesn't surprise me at all simply due to her reading ability.  Even if that is how the results come back when broken down, 1st grade is the highest I would allow her to do, I want her to be challenged, not overwhelmed and stressed out!   I suspect even in first grade she will still need to go to advance reading.  Another "slip" by the evaluator came when she asked me what grade Buddy was going in to.  I told her third, and she said "Ok, she he's going to be 2 grades above her".  I'm sure that wasn't intended to be interpreted, but of course, adoring Mom that I am, this is what I am thinking.  I am sure they want to consider whether or not they are upsetting the balance of the birth order by advancing a student, but since there are plenty of years between Buddy and Sophie, there is no need to worry about that.

I'll reveal what I know at the end of the "two week wait"...  :)

"If you want your child to get better just do this..."

This is a phrase heard by ALL parents of children on the autism spectrum at one time or another.  It is aggravating, annoying and often downright infuriating.  I heard it all, tried it all, in the early years in my desperate search to help my son and myself.  I got told to put some special clay in the bath tub that would "detox all the metals out of his system and make his autism go away", my Mommy gut screamed NO and QUACKERY...that same website it now banned from selling to consumers in the US by the FDA and can only handle international orders.  Not surprising considering that when we did fork over thousands for a DAN doctor (Defeat Autism Now) he said this practice could actually be harmful because it would detox too quickly and heavily and possibly even cause damage.   In the early years I read the books, including the witty words of a "porn star turned autism advocate" who seemed to be able to draw people in with her promises of "windows in which you can cure", special diets and reigniting the vaccine debate all over again.  I've done the supplements, pro biotics, prescription anti fungals in high doses from the DAN doctor to "heal" the gut, 16 months of the wallet breaking GFCF diet, which has earned it's own honorary title as "THEE autism diet".  The antifungals proved very intolerable for him and made him crazy and bonkers, the yeast die off was too powerful.  Instead we went slowly with probiotics.  He hasn't had to be on an antibiotics (thanks in part to 3 sets of ear tubes) since the initial onslaught that caused the gut trauma in his early toddler years.  Once we detoxed his gut, things were pretty good.  Initially we saw results with the GFCF diet, it was like a detox almost, but slowly the results dwindled, and I've resigned myself to the fact that anything we saw was most heavily influenced by the placebo effect.  In fact, the diet became a hindrance pretty quickly once "Buddy" got into 4 year old kindergarten and began to realize that other kids were eating cheerios and goldfish while he was eating bland starchy crackers equivalent to wallboard and drinking rice or almond milk.  (He won't go near any milk alternatives or GF stuff now).  He got too smart and began swiping the snacks he wanted any chance he got, he stole boxes of the coveted cheerios off the supply shelf at school and downed them before anyone could stop him.  He learned how to climb on the stove and would eat ANY ordinary cereal he could get ahold of.  I found him in a pile of wheaties devouring them by the handful like an addict with his poison on a couple of occasions.  It was over for me when at 5 1/2 years old he threw himself down on the floor of a mega grocery store wailing and creating a scene because he couldn't have cheerios.  We weren't talking about sugar bomb cereal or even anything horrible for him, just cheerios.  I felt his pain at the diet we were forcing on him.  We had normalized his bowels a few months in to the diet, and so it even got to the point where he became constipated because the diet is so low in fiber.  He became an extremely picky eater, which unfortunately has carried over into his grade school years.  After 16 months of the misery, with the nod from his DAN doctor, we took him off the diet. There was nothing more it was going to do for him.  We also ended our relationship with the DAN Doctor at this time because we lacked ability to even get most of the supplements in him, even by hiding them in food. 

We've tried enzymes, mega dose vitamins with stress on specific vitamins, liquid lithium and blah, blah, blah.  All this was because everyone around me was just certain that modern medicine would do nothing positive for my child and would just "drug him up".  Eventually I gave up on the "alternative" approaches and we frankly went through a mourning period all over again.  During this time he got an often awful diet and given in to an awful lot, because DH and I were just plain tired.  (DH for those not "net savvy" stand for "Dear Husband" in a post where names are not allowed).  One thing we never have let up on is therapy, tons of it.  Buddy got 3 years intensive in home ABA therapy and has continued with strong respite workers in the 2 1/2 years since that therapy ended that constantly challenge him to continue.  He's changed schools twice now as of this fall in order to constantly try to meet his needs and challenge him further.  During the 7 months that he had the service dog that was placed with him, enormous demands and adaptions were asked of him, and he did his best to meet them in spite of the challenges of a dog that was ill tempered for such work, they made their own team and did the best they could until the bond was broken.  Buddy is still grieving the loss of his dog, it's talked about daily, but if you ask him if he wants him back, or even if he wants another dog, his answer is solidly and consistenly "No".  (Doggy did get a wonderful home through a rescue without children or men, the two things that proved too stressful for him.  The last time I received pictures I couldn't have been more happy).   

However, in spite of all of this, what has helped my son the most?  Second only to ABA therapy I have to say medication.  Good old western medicine of the psychiatric variety.  We had to wait on a 6 month wait to get in with a pediatric psychiatrist, but she was a bigger help than I could have imagined.  Unfortunately she moved out of state so our relationship was short lived, less than a year in duration.  It couldn't have been a bigger God send though, because the Dr. he sees now really gets him and gets what is going on inside of him.  I've often heard of response of children on the spectrum to SSRI's (antidepressant/anxiety class of meds) being mixed, but many favorable.  However, google it and there are always those negative spins that tell you it's worthless or even harmful.  Whats a parent to do?  We tried the first year plus of medication going the antipsychotic and ADHD med route, with small successes.  Three weeks ago, his child psychiatrist made the suggestion that we try an SSRI class drug in order to combat the obsessive compulsive type behaviors because it seemed his aggression was directly related to the things he was obsessing over not being made to happen.  This has been my gut feeling, but it has taken this long to get a provider to get it and see it too.  In the three weeks on this medication, we have seen more changes than anything we've ever done for him, second only to ABA therapy.  This was the best decision we ever made.  We did just have a terrible evening, but the all day before that was just awesome.  My son actually laid on the couch and watched TV like a normal kid.  Every so often he'd get up and go find Daddy who was doing yard work, or come find me, but he did not obsess nearly as much.  He even went with "Sophie" and I to the library and was well behaved.  We also finally have something prescribed for sleep.  (Yes, I've tried melatonin and all other manner of natural or homeopathic remedies for sleep, none work any longer).  It's finally proving that with Rx  help we can get him to sleep before midnight and get him a full 8 hours. 

So, that is my soap box for the night...I often kick myself for spending many thousands combined between myself and generous family members before giving in and just going the traditional medicine route, the one that actually helped him and gave him back some dignity and quality of life. 

Today we are busy working on behaviors having consequences.  That is not an easy subject for any parent and child to broach, it's just even more of a challenge when the person you are teaching has auditory processing delays, a strong will and had previously been allowed to get away with alot because his parents had no control over him.  Now we feel we have been given the keys to the boat and can steer it in the path it needs to go.  If you are of the praying sort, we ask for prayers as we begin to navigate this journey toward helping "Buddy" become the well mannered boy I know is in there as we quickly usher him from little boy to young man". 

Where have you been?

On Blogger that is...A great many people have wondered if I gave up blogging for good.  However, it's really just a case of life gone wild and I simply had to hang it up for the last 5 months or so.  My last post on "Autism Insanity and Donuts" was in February 2012.  My how time flies!  Unfortunately, some circumstances in our home and life required me to retire that blog and restrict it to only my own personal viewing.  However, I am back and have a new gig now...I think the title is fitting, and lover of musicals that I am, "It's a hard knock life for us" was always one of my favorites from "Annie"...not that I have ever seen the theater production....I haven't, but someday when it comes around again and my daughter is old enough, I sure will.  I always loved little red headed and misunderstood Annie, and so, since I have a misunderstood red head of my own, whom much of my blogging is devoted too...and most would agree we've gotten a PhD from the "School of Hard Knocks"...a hard knock life it is!

I will not go into any detail as I have been cautioned by legal counsel not to blog about the subject, or to blog with care if I do, I will simply state if you were unaware that we no longer have our beloved service dog that had been placed in our home with our son.  I have chosen not to use my kids real names on this blog for a few reasons.  My son has chosen to be called "Buddy" for his online name.  Our daughter has come up with a variety of net nicknames...today it's "Sophie"...who knows what it will be tomorrow.  Because public blogs are so searchable, I will not be using my children's real names in this blog.  I won't even type the dogs name because I know that would cause it to show up on search engines and there are people out there that I don't even want reading my new blog.  We are doing our best to let lawyers do what they do best and move on with our lives.  If you have not heard the story and wish to, please contact me privately and I'll tell you what I can when I have a moment.  If you were a donor to our cause, we thank you immensely for your support and when our attorney gives us the green light, you will be contacted about our status and intentions.  We do feel a service dog would benefit our son well, but it's going to be down the road a bit, when he's a bit older and has had time to recover from the behaviors that were impressed upon him by a very stressed out dog that shouldn't have been placed into service to begin with.  "Buddy" talks about it in his own way, and we know he is very traumatized by what happened and still trying to move on.

Now on to happier things!  "Sophie" as she's choosing to be called this week, LOL, is being tested by the school district next week to determine if she should skip Kindergarten and go straight to first grade.  Being a September baby in a state that cuts off birthdays for 5K at 9/1, she just missed the 5K cut off by 2 weeks this past school year.  I could have challenged it then, but had reservations about her maturity for an all day program at the time the decision would need to be made.  By the time September rolled around, I knew that she could have handled 5K just fine, but what was done was done.  I had so much going on in our family and my own school journey that I just enrolled her in 4K at one of the district paid day care sights.  That way I could pay for her to go to daycare for the hours outside of the half day 4 day a week structure of 4K.  In the course of one school year "Sophie" grew leaps and bounds and came out of it reading at a second grade level, surprising all of her teachers because it was not something she even needed to work at.  Reading just comes natural to her.  She is right on target for writing skills, ahead in math, science and social studies work, coming in at 1st to 2nd grade level in all of those from my observations and that of the elementary teachers and principals that have observed her so far.  The formal testing will be with a school psychologist who will test IQ, social skills, maturity and reading and math abilities so we can get the best idea of where she should go.  I just want her placed in the best possible situation right from the start.  She is bright, a leader and strong willed.  I do not want her light to be hidden under a basket of boredom if she is not challenged appropriately.  She also doesn't understand why her same aged (and sometimes older) classmates are not performing at the level she is, and I do not want to keep her the highest performing kid in the class and not challenged.

 I've had all kinds of opinions, both solicited and unsolicited given to me about our choice to test for this.  I've outright been told by others that I should just let it be and not do anything.  My attitude on that is that I've had to do that for practically "Sophie's" whole childhood because of the issues that "Buddy" brings to the family and the emphasis that has always been on his needs.  "Sophie" will be 6 in September and has had many of her needs shoved to the back burner for her whole early childhood experience.  Yet, through that, she is still prevailing at such a high level, this is telling me it is her time to have a little attention on her to determine where the best place for her to be is!  So, as it happens, my son has an IEP meeting on Weds at his school, with a different psychologist, just for an update, and I was able to arrange for the one that is going to be screening "Sophie" to do it at the same time, keeping things simple for me, meet at one building and handle both kids at once!  What a state to be in though, two children on two completely different ends of the spectrum!    I will do whatever it takes to help them both shine as brightly as they can.  I'm at peace that whatever decision we make for our daughter as a result of this testing, it will be the right one.  I'd rather take this extra step and know that we made the best decision for her now, and have her start out with her intended peer group, than to presume that she should just go to Kindergarten and then find she should really skip a grade later on in her elementary years and therefore split up friendships and peer groups and introduce all kinds of trauma!  Stay tuned for the decision in a future post!

Coming soon to a blog reader near you!

I know many of you have missed "autism insanity and donuts" but changes in our lives necessitated the locking down of that blog, and so I am in the process of crafting a new one.  Posts to come soon!  Please visit the new site and "follow" it to see posts in your blog reader!  Updates soon!