My heart is just pretend...

I never knew how hard it could be to explain internal organs to a 4 year old. Dom and I were putting this ABC puzzle together today and the letter H piece had a heart for Valentine's Day. I told Dom that he has a heart in his chest. He lifted up his shirt and said, "there is nothing there". I then told Dom that it was inside your chest and that you could not see it, but can feel the heart beat. He looked at his chest again and then said" hmm..."my heart is just pretend".

Dom is pretty much a realist, he has to see to believe....what a riot!

Why do I put myself in these situations.....

As a mother of a child with special needs you will try your very best to give your child every opportunity that other typical children have, but at what cost to a mothers own sanity?

My adorable, wonderful, energetic Dom is your average 4 1/2 year old boy with Aspergers Syndrome. He likes to run around, discover new things, look for ABC's and numbers and take his Mom along for the ride. Throughout his little life we have tried mommy and me classes, gymboree classes, playgroups, music classes, piano lessons, soccer and now the wonderful world of gymnastics!

Let me step back for a second, i dont know if it is the world of today but i currently have friends who do swimming lessons, backetball classes, gym classes, etc., so as a mom with a child with special needs I feel that it is my duty to not let my son's disability stop me from getting Dom involved in the same sorts of things as long as Dom likes it. So here came gymnastics....

Dom loves going to this class, he calls the class gym-magic class. He has a great first 15 minutes of the thirty minute class and the whole second part of the class I am there to get him organized, remind him of what he is supposed to be doing and chasing him around as he hides and ignores the instructors. As the other toddlers and 3 or 4 year old are doing the routines and following directions, there i am getting Dom who is hiding in the corner and trying to bribe him with french fries to just make it through the last five long minutes of the class.

Now class is over, so my stress is gone, right, WRONG!! Now it is time to get Dom out of the class and into the car, this is where the whole challenge really begins. As soon as he gets out of class, he goes into the play area, runs around like a crazy person, throws toys and screams, SHUT UP and WHAT THE HECK while all the other moms give me and him dirty looks. I could typically take these looks, but not after working all day (4 hrs), picking up dom from school, giving him a speedy dinner and making it to our 530 class for thirty minutes of fun aka stresscity!! So, we finally make it into the car after twenty minutes or so, i finally take a relaxing breathe and thank GOD that i made it through another gym magic class and think.....why do i put myself into these situations!

Brown Boy, Where are You?

As many of you know Dom is as white as can be and the cutest too. As a 4 year old having Aspergers he definately sees the world in a different way. This past week we headed over to the McDonalds on Holland Avenue which has an indoor playground. For those of you who are not from Albany, Holland Ave is by Albany Medical Center which is in a pretty busy downtown area and has mixed ethnicities (this will be helpful later). As we entered the McDonalds Dom was his usual shy self but after only one minute of asking him to go on the slide he went. He was having a blast and even met a "friend" The two of them were playing in the slides and i couldnt even seen them, but from what I heard they were having a blast. Then all of a sudden i hear Dom saying pretty loudly..."brown boy, brown boy, where are you? i can find you brown boy". As being a pretty white girl in an eating establishment with 80% minorities i was a little embarassed. But Dom kept on calling him brown boy, brown boy.......eventually when Dom came down from the slide, i told him that maybe he should just call him "boy" since he didnt know his name, so that worked out a bit better. It is pretty funny to understand how Dom sees things. Oh to be 4 again....

Aspergers in and outs, and Parenthood

It is the end of the year so i must be glad that we survived another one! It has been a very crazy year and as January approaches i always remember that it also symbolizes the month that we found out that Dom had Aspergers Syndrome. January 2009, 2 years ago. It is crazy to think that it has been two years of therapy, doctors appointments and school already, where does the time go. Although Dom has made enormous progress and accomplishments from first being diagnosed, the every day to day challenges are still draining. As you may know AS kids or people do like to obsess about certain things. Dom has always been fascinated about letters and numbers. At age 4 1/2 he knows his abc's, the sounds the make, what letter starts almost every word, can count to one hundred and backwards from 20. Along with these strengths he is also obsessed with every abc/number game or puzzle in our house and likes to do them over and over and over again. While this week does fall on Christmas break from school, if i do one more abc puzzle i think i will lose my mind. The days seem to go by very slowly and I myself can not wait to get back to work!

This past month I also took Dom to the eye doctors, i was noticing that he has been crossing his right eye. I thought that it was due to him stymming on toys but i was completely dumbfounded when the doc told me that Dom was actually far sighted. So it wasnt due to his disability at all! OOPS Now we have the challenge of wearing glasses. He doesn't like to keep them on for more than an hour at a time, but we are working on it. One step at a time! It is just one more thing to add to the list!

During this break I have also been catching up on television online of course and have caught up on the show Parenthood. For those of you who do not know this show, it is about a complex extended family and how they deal with life's challenges. One of the families in the show's challenges are living with a 9 yr old son who has Aspergers. At first i was hesitant to watch this show, but as the episodes went by i got hooked. The acting on this show is excellent and their emotions in dealing with AS is so real that it makes my heart break and is a real true testament to how a parent feels having a child with AS. It is really nice to have this story be told and see how the parents react to certain situations. One would think that watching this show would be depressing, which it is, but it also helps to see some of the feelings that i may have being displayed on the television screen and knowing that I am not alone.

Updates, Improvements and Stress as usual...

It has been a while since I last entered a post. A lot has changed in the past few months, so i will break it down by family member!

Jonathan - is doing amazingly well in school, 90's in everything, i would love to say that he got his smarts from me, but for anyone who knows me, knows that i would be lying! ha ha

Nathanial - is a senior, college planning and has a girlfriend. So what does this mean for me? stress, white hair and more white hair! It might sound extremely crazy that I (31 year old) have a senior in high school, but I do and he is amazing. I am going to be so sad when he leaves me for college. Note that I said "leave me". Having a 17 yr old and having a 4 yr old, you tend to lean on the 17 yr old for "normal conversation" in between dealing with tantrums, thomas the train and yo gabba gabba!

Dominic - Dom has been doing amazing in school. He is in a new class with other goofy 4 yr olds, some who are special needs like him and some typical ones too. It is amazing and astonishing to see the MANY gains that Dom has made in the past year. When he started pre school he would cry every time I would drop him off, be scared and not socialize or say more than two words at a time. But NOW - he doesn't even say goodbye to me, i have to chase him down, he is making friendships with kids his own age as well as talking non-stop in complete, understandable conversations.  As for the Aspergers, his socialization has grown tremendously although in groups he does still struggle. He is actually pretending to talk on the phone, which may seem trivial to a 4 year old, but for my little guy, abstract play and imagination is something he had to learn and was not innate like many typical kids his age.

Dom has definitely grown as a person and a child with Aspergers which bring me to my stress of the year - KINDERGARTEN!!! While being in preschool, the teachers are always there when i have a question and if they aren't, they are on facebook so i can stalk on that. Now in grade school there isnt that constant teacher-parent support that a neurotic parent as myself needs on a daily basis. My wish is that Dominic does well and isnt neglected in his class next year. What if he is "lost" in class and no one notices? what if he gets bullied and he is afraid to tell someone? what if he is bullied and him being his aspergers type self doesnt know that he is actually being bullied? These are the thoughts that go through my mind constantly. I normal mom would probably try not to worry until next year, but as again, if anyone knows me, they know that i am FAR from normal!

Back to school - yippee!!

Well Dom went back to school and started a new class last week. He is now in the 4 year old class with the pre-k's - scary!

I was pretty nervous to see how he would of adjusted to the new class, kids and teachers. But he did amazingly well. He didnt cling to me when i left, participated in class and seemed happy. What a uyhge relief.

After the long 11 days at home with not enough routine, it was great to see him so happy!

Realizations and Anxiety

As a mom of a "special needs child" there is this process of thinking that everyone does as they enter into CPSE.

You child is labeled as a special needs child to receive services, free therapy in pre school to help them socialize, increase language, speech, ot or pt. I do not mind the label at all, it is free services, who doesnt like free stuff.

Sometimes you even get an actual "diagnosis" from a developmental pediatrician. When we got Dom's diagnoses as Aspergers Syndrome about a year and a half ago, it did hit hard but i think a little part of myself was in denial, thought the doctor was full of it and didnt believe her. When getting services through the county you really dont care of the "diagnosis", as long as they get services, right?

Well this week, during our week off, i saw all the classic Aspergers signs and it really did hit home for the very first time. There was the obsession and stubborness with being all alone and only with me, the refusal to socialize or go outside the house, the terribe tantrums when transitioning to go into the car, etc....

This vacation week actually killed me. It made my anxiety sky rocket, stress overcome everything and make me think way too much. I only pray that when school comes back into session on Tuesday that thinks do get better...