Happy 2nd Birthday Kaiden

GFCF Diet Bomb

Well so much for going off of the GFCF diet. I only put him on it as an experiment because for one, the entire family was moving that way and two, I'd read alot about the diet and autistic children. I thought it couldn't hurt any to try. Turns out, Kaiden needs to remain on this diet. He woke up this morning with eczema all over his chest and stomach area. I had forgotten how bad his eczema was those first few months that he was home with us until this morning. At least now I have hard evidence to show to Peter that it's not just 'vo-doo' medicine but actually has an impact on him and probably the girls as well.

Rough Day

Today was the roughest day Kaiden has ever had at PT. His therapist is on to him and won't let him not do what he doesn't want to do. This is good in one way because if it was up to him, I think he'd roll his way to driver's education. It is bad in another way because ones he gets upset to the level he was at today, there's no progress being made whatsoever. I respect his PT but I think we need to find a better way.

On the flip side, OT was good. His therapist tried a nutri grain bar with him. As usual, he fussed and didn't like it at first but we both thought we saw him actually chew on it. By the end of our session he was willingly opening his mouth to eat it. I brought the rest of it home to try later tonight with him. We also started him on oral brush therapy. Guess what? He hated it. That's our normal. I do think he'll adjust fine just like he seems to be doing with his regular tooth brushing.

Although he has been gluten/casein free for the past few months, I thought it would be OK to try to bar because I'll try anything to get him to eat table foods.

School

Today was Kaiden's third day of 'school'. He has 2 other children in his class, both girls age 28 months old. School is supposed to prepare him socially for public pre-school next year. I still can not fathom the idea of putting him on a school bus and sending him off for the day, even for half of a day. I'm trying to keep my mind open to the possibility but that's difficult.

One girl missed today so it was just him and J. Given that I think 'socializing' my 23 month old who could care less about anything around him or even the people around him for that matter, it was a good day. He rode in a booster seat in a wagon all around the lobby. He didn't like it at first but he tolerated it and then seemed to actually enjoy it. He gave us about 30 minutes of his attention before he had enough and was done for the morning.

I'm still not sold on the idea of going that frequently though. It takes about 2 to 2.5 hours out of our morning. In order to give up that much of our time, something has to be very valuable. Nothing against the teachers or the school district for that matter. I blame it on the No Child Left Behind Act. He'd get more out of OT/PT than he does school.