Halloween Fun!

In October we had some Halloween fun. We went to legoland for a day. We had a good time. But Mary got sick I think because she swallowed to much water. But then after an hour she felt fine. We got to go trick or treating there. We usually go ever year.

Then we went trick or treating on our block. This was the first year that we could go. We haven't had a good neighborhood til now. This year our block was great! Half the houses were decorated for Halloween and there were tons of kids out.Mary and Ronin had a great time. Roro even lasted longer than Mary. Then he discovered chocolate. He ate everything chocolate from nuts to almond joy. And in the end they didn't obsess too much about the candy. Luckily I have kids who forget about the candy the next day. So no crazy candy binges.

There'll be a new post soon about Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then maybe we'll be caught up.

School Begins (in September)

I'm a little behind in catching up on my blogs. Just pretend this is September.

So in May and June we moved and Grandma moved in with us. We moved from Oceanside to Fallbrook. And we ended up in the Bonsall Union School District. Bonsall is this little town of 1,000 tucked between Oceanside and Fallbrook. Great town and a great school district. In Oceanside we had trouble getting Mary in a special ed preschool. But Bonsall has been wonderful and has a special ed teacher that is very knowledgeable about high functioning autism. So Mary is in a great mixed typical and special ed classroom. She may be able to be in a regular kindergarten next year. We'll see.

Here she is on her first day of school. She loves school and is doing very well. She's writing her name and mommy, daddy and Ronin and she's learned her alphabet.

It really has been that long!

So it's been since July! Well I'll do a few post to keep some chronological order.


In August we had the kids' birthday party. Since Mary is the 3rd and Ronin is the 25th, we had a party on the 13th. I think we might just do a party every other year.

It was an Angry Birds Party. Mary got an Angry Birds shirt and I had a cake made for her. It was pretty fun. And if you're not sure who the Angry Birds are click here.

Ronin turned 2 and Mary turned 4. You can see Roro's cake with the Bot from UmiZoomi on it and Mary's cake is the Angry Birds.

 We had pin the egg on the poster and lots of balloons.

  Here you see the toy room is a mess. But the kids had fun!

And here's Mary with some Angry Birds.

 

Here's everyone getting ready for the 4 pinata.

 So I think that the party was a success and Mary had been so excited about it. Next year I think we'll just go to Chuck E Cheese or maybe a quiet night at home with cake and ice cream. Or maybe just take the kids out to dinner and have someone else clean up the mess.

Here's a New Post! About Roro

Here's pictures from a friend's birthday party that we recently attended. We had a good time and we left Mary at home so it could just be mom and Roro. As you can see he loves chocolate cake and balloons. But who doesn't. He's almost 2 years old!

But this post is also about the more recent developmental evaluation we had for Ronin the second week in June. Both of the kids are in the UCSD Autism Study that will help doctors determine which tests are useful in diagnosing autism. Ronin had an evaluation at 13 months and then this past evaluation was at 21 months. At 13 months Ronin seemed to be right on track, developmentally. However, now Ronin has started to show not as much progress as he should. He was put on the spectrum with "severe risk" for autism.

"Severe risk" is used because they don't diagnose autism at this age. Usually they wait until 3 years old to make sure their diagnosis is correct. And even though Mary and Ronin are very different, and their disability shows itself very differently, they do share autism. Rich and I suspected something in April or so. Ronin likes to spin in circles, a lot. He counts everything and like to line up toys. But he only intermittently responds to his name. He labels a lot but does not ask for things he wants. He isn't putting two words together, when other kids his age are starting to say full sentences.

Roro is still very lovable and always an exciting boy to be around. He loves his family and likes to interact with people. Even though the interaction may be a little delayed and sometimes inappropriate he's still our little man.

We always try to keep it fun and exciting. Tune in, in another 6 months to see what other fun stuff is happening!

Preschool Part 2

Community Friends

Well they determined that Mary is still not eligible for Special Ed. So they found her a spot in a special ed class as a "community friend." What is a community friend you ask? It's a "typical developing" child in a special ed class to help the special ed students mainstream and learn social behavior. She starts at this new school in this new class in a couple of weeks after spring break. And she'll continue until the end of the school year on June 8.


But since she's a "typically developing" child in the classroom, she will not have an IEP nor will they be documenting her behavior or progress. Luckily as her mother, I think that all she needs right now is exposure to other children in a classroom setting. We will have to wait until she gets older to see if she will do well in a general curriculum class.


Since there is no general curriculum class for preschool in the state of California, we will have to wait for Kindergarten. Then we will have to wait and see how she does in a regular Kindergarten class and if any problems arise then, I guess we'll deal with it then. Thank goodness we still get therapy through the Regional Center because the school district is falling a little short. At least they got her in as a "friend" for now and that means she won't miss out on preschool this year.

As a post script, I should note that I could send Mary to a private preschool. Except, she is not potty trained yet and private schools like to see that. And private schools usually aren't personnel equipped to deal with autism and it's many facets. And not to mention she'd probably go to school only 2 days a week instead of 4 (Yes, public preschool is 4 days a week.) because that's what we can afford.

Preschool

Oh man, I just saw this post I was working on from 2/5. I was writing a draft and then forgot I guess. Here it is.

Mary began preschool just a little over a week ago. Now there's kind of a whole story behind her going to preschool. Because she's autistic and has some trouble potty training, we had a hard time finding a private preschool for her. Also not to mention the totally obsenly crazy price of about $1000 a month for full time preschool.


Oceanside Unified School District in Southern California, has done their assessment of Mary and determined that she doesn't need any special education. But since I was able to get and actual diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder from UCSD, then OUSD has offered to place Mary temporarily in a special ed class as a school in our neighborhood. Then in a month or so of school they will reassess Mary to see if she is getting any benefit from school.


Mary loves school, by the way. She even wanted to go to school on Saturday. She goes four days a week for three hours each day and it seems like a wonderful class. She has a great teacher who has 25 years experience with special education. I am worried becuase Mary is so high functioning that people who assess her usually believe that she doesn't need any help. I want her to reach her potential, not just perform adaquately because everyone felt she could do "fine" without any assisstance. I hope the new teacher will see that Mary is very smart and agrees that Mary would benefit grately from preschool this year and next.


See next post for an update...

Good Insurance!

So we found out that we have great insurance. We switched because we wanted to get Mary more therapy, but ironically we're having trouble getting our new insurance to pay for it. For now though the state is paying for it so that works for me. But I thought you said you have good insurance you say...

We did switch from Kaiser to Aenta because of Mary's autism and it turns out that that's not where we need our insurance. Ronin got pneumonia last week and was hospitalized all week until his O2 saturation was adaquate enough to go home. Ronin also had pneumonia last year when he was 9 months old and Kaiser sent us home with some antibiotics and no other instructions. If you ask me he was in even worse shape last year and it makes me kringe to think of how bad it could have been.

This year the new doctor sent us straight to Palomar where their children's floor is run by Rady's Children's Hospital. (The best children's hospital if you ask me.) When we got there they had a bed and a stuffed animal for him and they seemed to care about how he was doing, as opposed to reading numbers and getting us out as soon as possible. Our new pediatritian even called the hospital to see how Ronin was fairing. I'm stoked! I feel my baby got excellent care and he's doing much better than he did last year when Kaiser sent us home. By the way we were even at the Kaiser hospital in San Diego when he was diagnosed with pneumonia, not at a clinic.

Anyway, since Ronin has had 2 episodes of pneumonia in less than a year, which isn't normally supposed to happen so begins the process of maybe identifying an underlying illness that may be responsible for recurrent pneumonia. We are scheuled to a sweat cholride test next week to check for cystic fibrosis. Which I have now figured out that even though the doctor believes it will be negative, we still need to check, just the process of knowing you need to take your child for a test brings about its own stresses and upsets. Let alone how you feel when and if your child actually gets diagnosed with anything, as I found out with Mary.

Like the months long process of getting Mary tested and evaluted because my mommy gut said that something was up, I again have that same feeling with Ronin. I am actually more afraid of the process of diagnosis than I am of dealing with an actual diagnosis. Dealing with Mary now is so much easier than when you're in the dark and there's no help and no guidence for what you're not even sure you're dealing with. This doctor so far seems to care and seems thourough so maybe the process this time won't be so scary. I'm grateful we have the insurance to pay for it.