excuse me, WHAT did you say?

I have mentioned before that sometimes I have the luxury of briefly forgetting that Alden has autism. This is because he's somewhere in the moderately to high functioning demographic of the spectrum. What I have failed to mention is that sometimes I forget that he's about to be seven years old. His speech is still developing and while he's building a really good vocabulary, he still has a long way to go. Recently he has been surfing the net and getting on YouTube where he's learned some new words & phrases. Sometimes that's a great thing, sometimes it's a not-so-great thing. He's started using words like "stupid", "shut up", "I hate you", "PEWPEWPEW (gun noise) DIE!", and the most strange one "butt-cheese". I have of course been discouraging this language and even giving him some alternatives that get his point across in a nicer way. If you have a child whose autistic qualities are like his you will know that scripting is hardwired into them and once he learns something he WILL NOT forget it. I've been explaining that I'm glad he's learned new words but some words make people sad or angry when they hear them. The other day while sitting around thinking about ways to curb this behavior but not discourage him from picking up new language I started thinking about his age. I sometimes forget that neurotypical children around his age also use those words and usually get into trouble for them as well. It did make me feel slightly better to realize that I'm not the only parent of a child this age dealing with this. As usual I'm also pleased that he is learning language, using it appropriately, and to be frank I'm glad he's using words that kids his age use even if they are rude. Sometimes 7 year olds are rude. We recently acquired an Elf on the Shelf and that has been helping somewhat with the language.

On a much more lovely note we have acquired the ingredients to make gluten free casein free Cut Out Christmas Cookies. This is something I've missed terribly for the past 4 years. Christmas Cookies have always been a huge part of my family's Christmas and not being able to make them with Alden has been sad. I remember the last Christmas we did them he was 2 and he kept shoving his face in the flour, I took a picture & captured it "Tony Montana". If the cookies turn out well I'll link to the recipe in my next blog. Speaking of Christmas I'm almost done shopping. I have just a few more little things to pick up and two more big things to order and I'll be done & ready to start shopping for Alden's birthday.

flower remedies

I recently learned about something called "Bach Flower Remedies" and I'm considering trying it out with Alden. I've already read that there's no definitive evidence, it's all placebo effect, etc. so don't bother commenting to tell me that. I KNOW the GFCF diet has worked for us and there is no definitive evidence there either. I am going to run the Flower Remedies idea by my husband but I'm pretty sure he'll go along with it, he knows I research things thoroughly before deciding whether or not to try them. (e.g. not chelating)

I've researched the Bach Flower Remedies and I'm thinking the ones for impulsiveness and daydreaming could be beneficial. The plan would be to buy one kind first, wait to see if we see improvements and then experiment with other things if we like what we see. It could be a total waste of money, or it could help chill him out and maybe take the edge off his aggression. Either way I figure it's worth a shot, especially since his teacher keeps asking us if we have ever thought about medicating him. *eyeroll*

update

Things have been all over the place lately. Halloween is always a challenge what with the diet & all. Having to ask people repeatedly if they have any "fruity candy" "oh not that kind" gets tiring. Worse is the fact that we don't really give Alden food with artificial coloring and fruity candy is pretty much artificial coloring, flavoring, and sugar. Last week he got into trouble a lot. I suspect it was probably a reaction to the dye and since he ate loads of candy when normally he will have an (all natural sneaky vitamin) sucker a day.

Funnily enough he was absolutely great with trick or treating. We went to the zoo and a local gathering and he had a blast running around looking at the other kid's costumes. Speaking of costumes he was Lucky the Leprechaun from the Lucky Charms cereal. He chose it all by himself. I was really proud of him for choosing something unique. He was the only leprechaun we saw. I thought it was really cool he wasn't something generic like all the other 500 Spidermen we saw while we were out and about. He's definitely my kid about costumes.

Then this week was the time change which is always hard for everyone but autistic children are particularly rigid in their routine. Since it was technically 7 he knew it wasn't bedtime because of the clock and he wasn't having any going to bed early. We've come to a compromise of 7:30 and he gets to watch Pink Panther on Netflix before I turn it off around 8:15 and tell him to go to bed because he has to be on the bus EARLY. He gets ON the bus @ 6 but that's a rant for another time.

Wednesday mornings have become hellacious at the bus stop. He screams, tries to run away from me, and keeps telling me "I WANNA GO HOME!!! BEDTIME! I SLEEPY!" I tell him he can sleep on the bus (hell he's on there for an hour and a half) but he still gets mad. Today he swatted his bus aide. She apologized like she had done something wrong and it made me sad.

I really think the Wednesday Morning Syndrome is because he knows I have school that day and he wants me to be home instead of going to school. He doesn't miss me because right now my school hours are during his & I'm home in time to shower and start my homework before he gets off the bus.

So today started off with a screaming swatting kid and it's ended with us spinning in circles and having a dance party to Florence and the Machine. Some days are funny like that.

nom nom nom

Alden has been acting different lately, he is more hyper & eating everything. I think it's a combination of weather and a growth spurt. He's been a bit bonkers though so I hope whatever it is it's temporary.

We have our appointment with a nutritionist this Tuesday. We've been waiting 3 months so I'm pretty excited about it. I can't wait to get tests run and his diet & general health straightened out.

I didn't update this week because it's been really stressful. Everything is okay now but the beginning of the week was pretty much horrid.

gluten for punishment

As I mentioned earlier we are on the gluten free casein free diet. I first heard about the diet watching Jenny McCarthy on Oprah. I was skeptical but I was also exhausted. We were 2 months away from having our official diagnosis after a year of waiting lists for hearing, psychological, and speech assessment.

When I heard about the diet I thought "well if it does work then great, if it doesn't then we'll be exactly where we are right now so we might as well try it". I began researching about the gluten & casein free diet and found that absolutely everything Alden ate had at least one of them in it. I went to TACA (you can find a link in the sidebar) and hand-wrote three college ruled pages of safe foods, I also gave a copy to my in-laws since they are our sitters when we go out on the weekends. Luckily, our families were willing to go through the steps of eliminating gluten & casein from Alden's diet with us.

Armed with that info we went to Wal-Mart (we didn't have a health food store anywhere close by at the time) and stocked up on safe foods. We jumped in with both feet and pulled all the gluten & casein containing foods cold turkey. Within a week we were noticing small differences, within a few weeks other people were noticing. The changes in our case were rather drastic and immediate which was just proof that we were doing something right.

I know some people who have tried the diet with absolutely no success, I know others who have had minimal success, and luckily we were in the group that had major success with dietary intervention. The fact is that absolutely every child is different, and what works for one child isn't necessarily going to work for another.

A lot of people do have success with the diet, according to a report a few weeks ago 1 in 5 children on the spectrum are using some form of dietary intervention. The same report said there was no proof that the diet works. I say that numbers don't lie and it's obviously working for a lot of people. It's not like we don't have other things we need to spend our money on like speech, physical, and occupational therapy.