Happy March 2018!

It's been awhile since I updated. The kids are doing pretty fantastic most of the time. They are thriving in dance class with Miss Mistie. They love being outside.

The biggest update we have at the moment is this:
Galen and Flint's Autism Adventures book is officially published!

Huge Update

So it's been awhile since I updated.
We haven't managed to get the swing built yet, but I did finally make a sensory bottle for the kids.
Momzi, PawPaw, and Grandma moved to Las Vegas. We helped them pack and got some free stuff from them. We've visited their storage units a couple times in the past couple months. Galen and Flint really enjoy being able to run around it freely while we work.

It's amazing how much can change in a month. Galen's really enjoying being outside all the time and is exploring more things, like daddy's ladder. We've had a huge problem with him being scared of the fenced-in backyard, so we had to go in the front yard all the time. Well, I left the back door open, after locking the cats up, and Galen finally came out on his own accord, and so now, he'll go into the backyard more often and have lots of fun.

Now for probably the biggest news since my last post. HISD finally got back to us about getting Galen into the preschool for children with disabilities program last week. He officially started Mon. I haven't posted about it. I was terrified that he'd be miserable all day. I've always wanted to do homeschooling, but all these specialists said it would be wonderful for Galen, so I felt like I had to at least try. Well, day 3 has come and gone now. None of these days have actually been the full time because of previously scheduled appointments and his normal therapy days. He's tried matching, and exploring the room, and only cried when it was nap time (which he doesn't do) on Mon (he hasn't been there long enough the other days), because the lights were turned off.
Yesterday he had a make-up therapy day and played with water in a bucket and actually enjoyed it. This is a win, a small one, but a win. He's petrified of baths still here. I bought a water toy for him, which we set up tonight, but he was scared of it. I have faith he'll love it in a few days.

Now, for the astonishingly good news...

Galen ate a blueberry waffle and considered a cutie orange at school today. He even tried to help clean up. And he isn't throwing his food on the floor before eating it either! Then, at therapy, we did food stuff again, and after avoiding the jalapeno Cheetos for the past 4 tries, he finally tried it and just kept eating them.

So, it would seem, Galen is doing awesome at school, and while I wanted to homeschool him, this may be the best place for him. Of course, I think we'll re-evaluate when he would start kindergarten. But by then, he'll hopefully be talking, and will be able to give us input on what he'd like to do.
It's been extremely weird without him here with us. But, we've made astonishing progress on cleaning up the sunroom and hanging out with Flint by herself and she even played outside by herself, because she never minded the backyard and we can see her.
The sunroom is slowly being converted into a kid's playroom. It will need some sort of air (window a/c) to make it more comfortable, especially with the horrid summer ahead. But, it'll be nice to be able to have a room they can really play in year round, that's not just a bedroom.

Sensory Board Completed!

Since my last post, we took the kids to the Homeschooling Park day and didn't manage very long. Maybe an hour, but the kids absolutely had a blast, once they got accustomed to where we were.
Galen's been interested in going out more. We've gone to Goodwill twice in the last month for Galen to explore (and gotten a few toys to help his development), Harbor Freight once, and the Kroger grocery store twice in the last week with both kids. He's been very insistent on going out. Last week, he ran outside and got in the car in just his pull-up because Flint was going to the store with daddy, so we put him in clothes, and all went out.

So, as the title says, we finished the homemade sensory board. Completed for approximately $100. Incredible deal for the happiness it gives the kids. The swing will be starting in a few weeks. We're still researching it to make it as safe as possible.

Cole Therapy has combined Galen's Occupational and Speech therapies into one hour on Wednesday's and Thursday's. He's being tag-teamed by 2 therapists and is doing well. It started this way on Thursday and both therapists were excited and very hopeful after how well he did that day. More specifically, he was engaged with both therapists; watched the speech therapist read the entire book to him while she held it (usually he looks away or screams); and they plan to work on his feeding skills together. They know he needs to work on other skills, but his feeding skills are really bad, so they think they should tag-team that first, along with other skills being worked on in the background. We need to get white place mats because they'll apparently help make the food the most interesting thing he sees and will help get him off of "on the go" eating (crackers, pretzels, etc).
He has been playing with more foods and seemingly interested in them lately again too. He even played with gummy bears for a good 5 or so minutes today! And played with a see n' say for 5 minutes a few days ago.
Anyway, I'm going to stop here.

Start of 2016 Update

Galen turned 3 December 8th. We had a great party at the park for him. He didn't care for the gifts and just wanted to run around. It was a great time.

Christmas was...fun. Neither kid understands what Christmas is, but we did it anyway. The reasoning for calling it fun is that Galen came down with a bad cold the night before Christmas Eve and Flint came down with it Christmas Day. Mazzu's family dropped off bbq for Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, we went to a restaurant with my mom and step-dad and Galen was miserable. He screamed and cried and it was a horrible time. But after he had a nap, which is highly unusual, especially a 2 hour one, he woke up feeling better and had a decent time at their house. We came home with a ton of new toys (the ones that are kept there, so not technically new per say). Mazzu caught bronchitis. And so, for a good week and a half or so, everyone in the house was miserably sick. Not the best of times, to say the least.

For bedtime, we now have a pretty decent schedule. A melatonin around 8pm, an hour or so later, the medicine and brushing teeth. We've brushed teeth once a night, every night, for 2 months now. Bedtime is immediately after medicine and brushing teeth. They've been sleeping from 9pm to 8:30am (or thereabouts) pretty much constantly since we started this schedule. It seems to be going really well.

He's recently begun chewing his fingers constantly again. I've sat in on his therapy a couple of times and have discovered a few things that we realistically need to help him, but can in no way afford.

As an example, there's a wood platform swing that Galen really loves in therapy and there's a gymnastic-like mat that goes under it (in case he falls off). While we can get on without one, it would apparently be incredibly important to have access to such a swing because it would help his "core muscles" in his stomach that are apparently way too weak by making him straighten himself out (sitting up or laying on it).

Another example is that we would really benefit from some sort of AAC machine (probably an actual Ipad with an expensive program designed to help non-verbal people communicate).

In general, there's not much new news right now. Just same ol' same ol'.

But, I did create a GoFundMe in an effort to help. I hate asking for donations, but this is for my son.

GoFundMe for Galen's needs