Joey hates needles more than I do

How to explain sex and anatomy to an inquisitve boy with ASD

Being the mother of a boy has its rewards. It also has it's challenges, as I am my son's primary caregiver. As he becomes more inquisitive about his body and its parts, I often wonder...would it be easier if I had a daughter? I mean...I have all the same parts!

"What is the bubble under my pee pee?" Ummm...huh? Joey asked me that question yesterday, referring to his testicles. Thrown off guard, I responded, "that's your balls." "Well it's not balls I play with, like a soccer ball." I wanted to say "give it time" but instead said "that's your testicles, honey." He is a child that likes the word "trachea" instead of "throat" so I thought it was better to get right down to business.

It got me thinking a lot about what it will be like when he hits puberty. I know the changes can be even more difficult for a child with sensory issues and no safety net on what he deems appropriate to say in public. Maybe it's too far off to think about.

Maybe I'll just stick to listening to my son talk about "sometimes it's wiggly and sometimes it doesn't move" and not get ahead of myself.

Speech therapy yesterday

Yesterday, at speech therapy, Rosie confirmed what I already assumed: Joey has mastered all of his speech goals! He's even moved on to goals of older kids! They are just going to work on the social aspect of therapy: answering questions, understanding invites to play and interacting and taking turns.

A child at the clinic asked him to play and he said "no thank you." He's always polite, but now we just need to get him to understand communication. I really want to work on him understanding figurative speech since he seems to always understand literal speech.

Videos of our family

Our wedding dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRzlQ8Vuc7E


Our eHarmony commercial:

http://www.vimeo.com/9001861


Our end of wedding clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ew9Cnw4mgY

Random quotes on a busy Tuesday

PT last Friday

PT on 1/15 was great! I wasn't sure how it was going to be since Joey had been up during the night at his Dad's house and was still sleeping at 10:45am when I needed to get him ready to go to the clinic.

Danna said he did great! He skipped for the 1st time!! He also balanced on his right foot for 10 seconds and his left foot for 5. He seems to be doing so much better all around. He even brought his new skateboard to get some practice in.

I'm so proud of all the goals he's meeting and the success he is achieving. He is growing so fast before my eyes!

Explaining death and other things to a 5 year old

I have no words

Yes, that's right! For the first time, I am literally speechless!

Tonight, I had a phone conversation with a person who shall remain nameless. When I spoke about something my son did that was embarrassing (who's kid hasn't embarrassed them, typical or autistic, by saying something inappropriate?), and I mentioned that when I apologized to the boy's Mom, I mentioned that my son was Autistic, the person I was talking to said "he's not Autistic. You don't have to tell people he's Autistic." Ummm...what???

This is from the same person that 5 months ago, when I mentioned that maybe I should get an ID tag for Joey that states he has Epilepsy, she said "it's not like he has grand mal seizures. Let's not get carried away." Ummm...huh?

There are varying degrees of Autism, but they all fall under the same title. Yes, my son is verbal and no, he doesn't bang his head on the wall. Does this mean that he doesn't have Autism? When was he cured because I guess I missed that?

I know I can't let this bother me. I guess I'm just amazed. I truly have no words for this kind of ignorance.