#visible

Walk in My Shoes... Autism

A day with my Son

Continued on from @Davrielle's article in the previous chapter.

I wake up and let Joey stay in his crib for a little bit. He likes the security of his crib and likes to stare at the fan because of the spinning. He has a mirror in his room on the other side, so he chases his reflection and laughs at himself while slapping his hands together.

I wake my kiddos up by saying, "Hey kiddos! Hey kiddos!" They like to hear me say that, and I'm greeted with smiles as I open their bedroom doors.

I have to feed my kids one at a time because Joey gets upset when he sees his sister eating before him. So I usually just rotate their breakfasts every day.

I feed Joey, try to get him to touch his food, but he screams at first, them realizes what I'm trying to do and he is fine. He takes the piece of food and puts it up to his mouth, with my guidance.

When we are all done I sing, "All done! All done!" In the tune of Miss Patty Shukla, a lady who sings and signs on an iOS App.

He usually cries but likes the song so I give him his milk and set him down, and put him in his playard and let him watch Disney JR while I feed his baby sister, who also has sensory issues and won't pick up her food either. She's still too young to get diagnosed so we are watching her carefully.

The morning goes by, and Joey and sissy's therapists come and go. He is in three different forms of therapy, along with his baby sister.

Joey gets physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy with an way intervention service. His speech therapist comes twice a week. Usually spending an hour with him and 30 minutes with his baby sister.

So during speech therapy, the therapist will play with him. She does not force words down her throat. Her philosophy is play first, learn second. You know as kids, we all learned through playtime with other kids. We learned how to communicate on the playground and in the classroom. It's the same thing with Joseph. And play therapy is REALLY helpful for autism. It has done wonders for my boy.

His OT (occupational therapist) usually comes once a week and works on sensory and feeding. He has a good rapport with her but the problem and what makes it so difficult is that the supervisor comes every once a month with his other OT and Joey gets overwhelmed by having more than one person at the house. So it presents a lot of problems, because he has sensory issues due to his autism. But he has made tons of improvements since the first day. He wouldn't touch anything! Now he is feeding other people and not himself. It's funny. He'd rather feed me, but when it comes to himself, he says, "Feemee. Feemee!!!" (Feed me).

He usually wears a weighted pressure vest which squeezes everything and makes him feel safe and secure.

His physical therapist comes once a week in the morning. He loves her. I mean loves her. She brings all the toys for him to work on his belly, legs, and weight bearing.

When therapies are over, I put the kids down for a nap, and I'm ready to lay down if I'm not doing chores.

The afternoon comes, and it's snack time for the babies! I usually puree something for the baby girl, and then give Joey his favorite PB&J sandwich, which he guzzles down with his favorite almondmilk. Almondmilk because he's lactose intolerant and the casein in milk really causes a lot of issues due to his autism.

We play roar (I pretend I am a lion) afterwards and give each other endless hugs and kisses. He sometimes slaps me and says, OW!

I can't tell if he is saying I love you or ow!

But Joey is trying to talk more. No more ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhh!

When the late afternoon rolls around, and Joey's daddy comes home, Joey is sometimes ready for a second nap, or to go back in his playard, or play piano. Yes, Joey plays the piano! He's trying to play twinkle twinkle little star now. He's getting pretty good at figuring out the keys. He loves the piano and plays it almost all day long if I let him.

By dinner time, I usually puree Emma's food and we give Joey what we eat. He's sensitive to meat so we have to watch how big his pieces are. However he usually eats without a problem, much to our relief.

When dinner is over, we put the kids to bed, and they go to bed quickly and easily. Joey does cry, but his therapist thinks it has something to do with emotion regulation. He might be happy, but cries as if he's upset. Joey does this a lot, and since he can't communicate clearly yet, it's hard to tell what is bothering him.

But we think he's fine usually because he goes to bed within 15-20 minutes, then wakes up around 6:30-7:00 AM.

Days are usually the same here. There's not a big change in routine, but Joey is making many improvements since his 22 month diagnosis. His therapies have brought him to new heights and I can only hope that social interaction with other babies will help him out more in the years to come.

I hope you enjoyed reading my articles. Sharing this information was the exactly the easiest, as there is more to it than what I explained. I just thought I would give you the basics. I hope this was enlightening!

Davrielle