Eating/Reflux: This has been much improved. He is gaining weight and getting taller. He went from vomiting into his mouth almost every time he ate to now maybe once a week!!!!!! We have had 2 interventions and I am not sure if it was one OR the other or one AND the other. He refluxed the other day and I looked at him in surprise and he looked just as surprised. He said that he hadn't done that in awhile and I realized that I had not noticed it in a long time either. It is one of those things we have lived with for over 2 years now so when it was decreasing I didn't really notice it. Therefore, I am not sure which intervention has made the most impact. We have been taking him to get chiropractic adjustments more frequently than he was before. That helped to maybe once a day or every other day. We also took him in for a very weird desensitization procedure with a different chiropractor. We had done with his breathing issues way back before he turned 2 if you remember all of his many sinus infections, RSV, etc that we dealt with back then. This procedure helped him immensely. So, we thought we would try it for this as well even though it is a different provider and it is done differently. They chiropractor said that he "tested" sensitive to calcium so he did a desensitization on it. JJ won't drink water, juice, pop (well, he will drink pop infrequently) but prefers milk. LOTS of milk. So if that was the culprit it would make sense even though the scope testing showed no milk "allergy." Whatever is causing him to stop refluxing we are just grateful that he has essentially stopped!!!
Sleeping: He has been sleeping, overall, better. When he was sick a few weeks ago he was back to being up at night and in our bed for about 2 weeks. Otherwise he is going much longer stretches with only coming into our bed about once a week. This has only been for the last couple of months but it is by far more than he has slept in his own bed all night than ever before. Yay! Usually he has been going to sleep between 10:30 and 11 instead of midnight and if he comes it is closer to 5/6 a.m. Last night he came in at 1:30:( Then around 7 he suddenly grabbed me and yelled, "Mom! I had a bad dream!" and held on tight before falling asleep. He has been very off emotionally today so I think the bad night of sleep/nightmares has triggered that.
Emotional Dysregulation: For the most part he is doing so much better. Where he used to have tantrums daily I am now surprised when they happen. He did have a big one this morning when he deteriorated into perseveration (repeating the same phrase over and over...and over...and over) for about an hour. But he came out of it and then just wanted to be held awhile. He has shorter "I want my own way" that all kids have but those longer ones are improving. We were in the grocery store last week and we had to get him out after he went into one, but it only last about a block of the walk home. I don't think he has had one of those public ones since July (that I can remember). That makes us very happy lol!
Speech: Sometimes I think he speech is really improved and sometimes I am totally lost. However, in really thinking about the dynamics of it, it is far more a problem with retrieval than a speech problem. He simply cannot retrieve words that he needs to describe his wants and we have to really be in tune with him to figure it out. He does not speak like other people, so his sentences are all jumbled. Add into that his inability to remember words so he will say "I want the white thing." When I press him for details/description if he can't remember he will say "You know, the white thing in the thing!" So not helpful lol! Today he lost all privileges for his tantrum and at noon he asked a question that made no sense at all. My husband, Buddy, and I all sat and listened to him and finally figured out that he was asking about what privileges that he lost.
Last night I laughed hard when he was trying to tell me what bedtime story he wanted. I thought he was saying "zombie" which would never be a story that I would read to him, but he was actually asking for the Dr. Seuss book, "Would You Put Me In The Zoo" that somehow with how he "paraphrased" it sounded like his word for "zombie" to me lol!
Finally - Social Interaction. Are you ready for this?!?! He is GOING TO AWANA!!!! BY HIMSELF!!!!!!!!! Of course AWANA is at our church, where he is familiar, and his 3 siblings are also in Awana and his big sister is a leader. But they are not in his room and prior to the first night he had never met any of the kids/leaders in his room. And he goes every week! AND he is remembering verses!!! Paraphrased. And worked with with a very understanding Leader. But he is GOING! and PARTICIPATING! and LIKING IT! And LEARNING!
Best news was saved for last:)
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