Saturday, May 3, 2014

Awesome 3000

We did Judah's massage at Dr. Silva's office this afternoon (where we had our training last weekend). It was our regular massage woman & another masseuse, who seemed to be observing/supervising/witnessing.. I'm not sure. The side-kick masseuse was comical, which is a great personality trait to have, but unfortunately comedy really doesn't work to any one's benefit when you are trying to create a soothing, quiet environment. Since we are part of a research project (that will last for years by the way - we continue to check in with them for a long time!), I'm thinking today was something to document in their books - a way to see where Judah is at right now in the beginning, given from the perspective of 2 different professionals. We do this again in a few weeks I think. But typically our lady will be training us here at our house one or 2 times a week.

Given the new environment & small audience, Judah was not able to relax much. I'm pretty sure the massage table reminded him of a doctor's table (no idea what those are called). There was no way in heck he was getting on that thing!! After finally getting his shoes off, we just went to Judah & began the massage on the floor (like we did at home with her last time). Unfortunately for Judah, every inch of flooring in Silva's office is hardwood. Who wants to have a full body massage on a big piece of wood?? He stayed in my lap a lot, Scott massaged a lot along with our lady. Then we were able to get him somewhat on the mat (that apparently we had left there a week ago!). Judah would tell us to stop, then he would relax the next minute, push us away 2 minutes later, and smile after that when he thought no one was looking. Who knows what the heck he was thinking!! I let them know that his speech had flown in on the red eye yesterday. His huge jump in communication just appeared out of nowhere yesterday! I can say with total confidence that he will be talking in the future. Who knows when.. but I'm confident that it will happen. The past 2 days has led me to this feeling of certainty. It's so exciting to hear his new words! Many seem to be clearer pronunciations of what he has been trying to say for some time. I'm betting our reaction to this is also encouragement for him. I'm thinking of throwing a party... ;)

At lunch Judah looked up at Dave and said, "Hi Papa!" It was so cute. Everyone took note of this - which made Judah smile. He came home tonight and told me, "High five!" with his hand up, waiting for me to give him a high five. Holy crap!!! It wasn't a clear "high five" but you could tell what he was saying. He's never said that before! And of course he is connecting that with the action and asking you to engage with him, showing emotion by smiling and also using eye contact to communicate - all of this happening at the same time. When you break it down into all of the different & difficult challenges he has just accomplished in 3 seconds, it's HUGE. With autism, connections are hard.. speaking is hard.. you know what you want to say but you can't connect the sounds.. your brain isn't making connections fast enough or accurately.. you have huge road blocks to get through just to tell a loved one goodnight. It's completely unfair. Autistic people often make associations with objects, people, events, etc. They can use associations to decide how to react or to decide what to say... but of course these associations take time to remember & to figure out, and conversation moves much too fast for that. The world moves much too fast for that. When, for the typical person, it takes about 2 seconds to answer a simple question. It's not fair. But Judah is not letting what must be unbelievable frustration hold him back an inch. We need to be confident that he can do & say new things - this helps him propel forward even more. This means that I have to remember to stop doing things for him!! Sorry Judah, hahha.

Sebastian was upset when we found out at check-in that he would need to run the Awesome 3000 without a family member beside him. A staff walked him onto the field, where he was quickly swallowed up into a sea of blue t-shirts. He ran the race, even found a friend from school to run with and then ran into 4 or 5 other kids from his class while they were racing. He came to the finish line exhausted! They ran 1500 meters! That's 5 times what he did last year. He beat out a lot of kids too!!

I ran the 300 with Judah. He ran the whole way - smiling. I told him that he was McQueen and that he was going to win the Piston Cup. It was fun. I told him to get on the inside lane (from the Cars movie). He enjoyed that. Every time I said "Piston Cup" he would look around to see if it was visible, haha.

Willow ran with Gramma.. well, she walked. She had on her public "I will show absolutely no emotion" face & walked the track with Gramma at her side. The whole event was pretty much un-plannable as the racers were checking-in much before the race time. Gramma ended up racing with Willow solely because she happened to be watching Willow on her own when I realized they needed to be on the field! She didn't even have time to find someone to hold her stuff! I didn't get to see them race since I had just finished with Judah & we were trying to get through the crowds, but I'm betting Willow was happy Gramma was forced to bring the snack bag. :) Willow was very pleased to receive a Clifford book at the end of the race - a dog book!! Judah received the same & they all got medals!

Sebastian finishing

Willow finishing


All done!


Gramma & Papa gave us the unimaginably wonderful gift of 2 man labor! We know have a yard that is EDGED, trees & bushes that are trimmed, a garden that looks like a garden, a swing set with no weeds growing around it.. it's basically a new front & back yard & garden. It's a new land!

Sebastian woke Scott & I this morning, telling us gently that we needed to get up & get ready for the race & that we had to be there early to find parking and check in. I'm completely serious. And he was completely right! 2 minutes later Sebastian came into our room again. His gentle, loving voice had left him. He yelled, "Mom! Scott! There are 2 men mowing the yard & rocks are flying and they are cutting down the neighbor's bushes!!! Guys you have to get up!!!" Hahaaa. (but it wasn't funny at the time)

It rained during the race, quite a bit. Scott went to free comic book day this afternoon & purchased a huge poster of Spider-man. It's a replica of the first published Spider-man comic book cover. It's like 2 feet by 3 feet.. which means that it will only fit on the ceiling or the floor.. ;) Actually it really means that we now have a reason to clean up Sebastian's homework decorated walls! A reason that he will have to succumb to - although I'm certain this was not Scott's plan. :)

Judah didn't poop today. He was gassy after the race. It smelled like he had pooped - I told Scott I thought he had pooped during the race, thankfully I was wrong. He'll poop tomorrow I'm sure, we skipped the enema.

Gramma & Papa said Willow was dancing up a storm at their house this evening. They had the kids after lunch & Judah's massage. Willow is a stitch! She's got freestyle comedy in her for sure.

Judah had no Oxymag today. He had 1 tablespoon (one dose) of his prescribed L-carnitine. He had 2 doses of Docusate Sodium. He had 2000 i.u. vitamin d, he had none of the folinic acid with b-12 (we are waiting on it to come in), no fish oil & only half a Bethanecol pill (sometimes these get forgotten on Sat nite when they get home at bedtime), one probiotic & no nose drops. He had one Miralax. He had 1 of his sleep pills- Sleep Factors. We did no evening massage as he had it this afternoon.

No comments:

Post a Comment