Sigh

I'm trying not to get discouraged about the boy child's behavior at the park this evening. We've been trying to go at least a few evenings per week, and it's been going great up until now. But tonight there were several bugs around (I think because of the weather we've been having -- thunderstorms/rain at night followed by hot/humid days) and he was quite flinchy and anxious.

In fact, he had a bit of an episode but I'm not sure if it was just the bugs that caused it. There is another family that plays in the park in the evenings, and they have a boy who seems to be close to the boy child's age. Like the boy child, this boy wears glasses and seems to be a bit, well, nerdy (not that all kids with glasses are nerdy or anything! it's more of a behavior thing). They talk about Legos and math and science and things like that. Frankly I've been thrilled to see the boy child playing with this other boy, because as those of you familiar with Asperger's know, it's highly unusual for an Aspie kid to just walk up to another kid in the park and start talking/playing.

However, this other boy is a bit more aggressive and outspoken than the boy child, and there has been some name-calling and some instances of this other boy making up rules to various games that the boy child just doesn't understand. At one point this evening the boy child got very angry and said he didn't want to play with the other boy anymore. Also, a third boy who was playing with them managed to accidentally hurt the boy child's wrist by swinging a baby swing hard when the boy child was walking by. And so, the boy child went into one of his angry/manic phases with lots of yelling and running around like a maniac and not being responsive to comfort or questions of any kind. When he gets like that, the best thing to do is just let him work it out on his own, and so that's what I did. It took him about 20 minutes to calm down, but then he was able to play with his sister for a bit and generally have fun again. Except for the bugs.

On the way home from the park, as we were walking along the sidewalk near our house, the boy suddenly broke from the girl child and me and just took of running and crying. I asked him what was wrong and he just kept yelling, "I don't know!" I couldn't get any other info out of him -- whether he'd seen a bug, or he was angry about something, or what.

We don't see Dr. H again until the 15th, but if things continue to slide downhill like this, I may call to see if we can get the boy in sooner than that. The 15th was supposed to be "graduation day" where therapy was concerned, but, um, maybe not.

Sigh.

The livin' is easy

We are a few days into summer vacation around here and things are going well for the boy child. The last day of school was Wednesday the 25th, and the boy child's class had an end-of-year party at a nearby park to which I went along just in case (I went to the girl child's party at the same park earlier in the day as well). The boy did quite well, with only a few flinches when he saw bugs out of the corner of his eye. Some kids were blowing bubbles and it was quite windy, so there were a few fake-outs there, too, but the boy was able to laugh at himself for having flinched over bubbles. And he was even able to jump right in and blow a few himself!

He played all over the entire park with no signs of anxiety. Thank goodness he's doing well enough that he doesn't need me right there with him when he's outdoors anymore, because I was worn out enough just trying to keep sight of him in a sea of other third-graders all wearing the same shirts! The boy likes to keep me in his line of sight, so I was moving around a lot and it was sooooo hot with not much shade. Whew!

We haven't spent a lot of time outdoors since school ended, mostly because it's just so darn hot here already. However, we try to make it to the park behind our house after dinner at least a few times per week, and starting this week we'll be spending at least one or two afternoons per week at the pool. The pool will be the real test, I think, because while the boy loves to go there, it tends to overwhelm him from a sensory standpoint. All that yelling, splashing (he HATES getting his face wet at all), whistle blowing and of course the bugs. He only had a few freakouts at the pool last year, but they were MAJOR freakouts, so I'll be interested to see how he does this year since he's made so much progress.

Speaking of the pool, this summer we're looking into lessons for both kids. It's past time they learned, and it's really my fault they haven't up to now because I've just dreaded trying to find the right instructor for the boy. With all of his sensory issues, there is no way we can just enroll him in any old swim class. He needs an instructor who can work with him one-on-one or in a VERY small group, and one that understands sensory/developmental issues and can present things in a positive way without turning him off to the experience.

Luckily, though, we received a recommendation from the boy child's occupational therapist. There's a woman in this area who teaches swimming at her home, and though we've never met her, we've actually known about her for years. She and her husband used to attend the largest local church in our denomination (we attend one of the smaller ones, sporadically) and we've seen their names come up on the church mailing list from time to time. Also, they live right down the street from my parents. So it looks like we'll be giving her a call soon to see how much she charges and whether she can take both kids (with the understanding that the boy has special issues she'll have to work with).

We're continuing with taekwondo throughout the summer as well, and that's about to get really complicated because after June 10 the boy and girl will be in separate classes again. They group the classes according to level of ability (belt), and after the 10th the boy will move up to the last grouping before black belt level. Fortunately the girl will move up as well about 8 weeks after the boy does, and then our schedule will be fairly solid and calm until one of them makes black belt, which probably won't be for another couple of years. But in the meantime, argh!

So between taekwondo and the hopefully impending swimming lessons, along with the continuing occupational therapy and hopefully-ending-soon cognitive behavioral therapy, I haven't signed the kids up for any other camps or classes this summer. If the girl child had her way, she'd be in a different class every week for the entire summer. But the boy child needs downtime, and so do I! The kids and I are working on learning Spanish here at home this summer, and other than that and all the above we plan to just sleep, swim, play and relax!

Grief and loss

I don't know if it's an Asperger's thing or just a quirk of the boy child's personality, but he doesn't seem to form emotional attachments in quite the same way that other kids do, nor does he express strong emotions (other than frustration) very often. As far as I know, he didn't cry when his grandfather died last summer, nor when our old dog, which had become my parents' dog several years ago, died last spring.

Yesterday, the boy child's pet betta fish died. This was the only pet he's ever had that was really 100% his. And while he didn't cry, I could tell that he was sad. At first he put on his objective/scientific "everything dies" face, but the more he talked about it, the more his voice began to waver and crack.

I asked him whether he wanted to bury the fish (as opposed to giving it a "burial at sea", if you know what I mean) and he said he did, so we put it in a ziploc bag and stuffed that into a Blue's Clues bandaid box, and we went out to the backyard to dig a hole. We chose a spot near the back fence, under some trees, and went to work. After we had covered the box with dirt and tamped it down so the neighborhood critters wouldn't disturb it, the boy found a rock to put on the grave for a marker. He didn't want to forget where his fish was buried. I walked back to the garage to put away the hand shovels, but the boy lingered behind, talking to his fish and trying to memorize where the grave was located. I told the boy he could come out there and talk to his old fish whenever he wanted.

Then we came back inside, and I asked the boy child if he wanted to save the little plastic plant from his fish's bowl, to remember him by. He said he did. So I washed it off and we wrote the fish's name and "2004-2005" on the base in black marker.

The boy child was decidedly sad now, though still not weepy. We started talking about buying another fish. I told the boy we could get one "this summer". The boy deduced that, since Wednesday is the last day of school, that meant we would be getting a fish this week, and he was sad about having to wait even that long. So then I told him that Monday is a free day (meaning we don't have any after-school activities) so we could go then. And then he said, with his little voice cracking, "How about tomorrow?" And so I said, "How about today?" And so off we went.

The old fish had been red, and at first the boy said he wanted another red fish, but when we got to the store he changed his mind and decided he wanted something bright and blue with no traces of red whatsoever. After maybe 10 minutes of examining the dozens of fish on the betta shelf at the store, he chose one that's sort of a vibrant turquoise. On the way home, I told the boy it was okay to still be sad about the old fish even though he has a new one now. And he agreed that the old fish would "always be part of our family".

So we brought the new fish home, got him settled in his bowl (we threw out the old one and bought a new one, just in case), gave him a little food, and then the boy child pulled up a chair and sat talking to his new fish for quite some time. At one point I heard him telling the new fish all about the old fish and how he had died and we had buried him in the backyard. Before he went to bed last night, the boy child said goodnight to his new fish several times.

This morning the boy went out back to the old fish's grave and sang him a song he had made up, entitled "Our Fishy Family". Then he came in and fed his new fish.

Almost done?

We had another appointment with Dr. H yesterday. This was to be the boy child's third session of cognitive behavioral therapy for the outdoors/bugs issue. The plan was going to be to step up the boy's recess plan -- encouraging him to stay out for longer than 10 minutes and teaching him some relaxation techniques to get through it.

However.

When Dr. H heard how well the boy was doing, that plan was pretty much scrapped. The boy has been going out to recess every single day for the entire recess period and hasn't really shown any undue anxiety while out there (according to his teachers). Plus he's been going out on his own at home and having a great time. So obviously the recess plan doesn't need any modification, and the doctor doesn't want to get into the relaxation techniques because (a) the boy doesn't seem to need them right now, and (b) we're a little afraid the boy would perseverate on the relaxation thing and that would become an issue (you know, thinking he had to do his relaxation exercises every time he went outside, instead of just playing like he's doing now -- and I can totally see that happening, knowing the boy as well as I do).

And so, we don't have to go back to Dr. H until two weeks after school lets out (which is Wednesday of next week). Dr. H and the boy have dubbed his next appointment "Graduation Day". Because if, outside of the structure of his school day, the boy is continuing to go outside and enjoy the outdoors, then our work here is done, more or less.

There are some other issues we might need to work on at some point, and if we do, it's good to know Dr. H is around because we've been really happy with him. We are now very glad we followed our instincts and went to a psychologist rather than approaching a psychiatrist with a possible anxiety diagnosis. It amazes me that this absolutely paralyzing fear has more or less disappeared in just over a month with CBT, and it horrifies me to think that if we had approached this differently, we might right now be giving the boy psychoactive drugs for an anxiety disorder he doesn't even have.

The dentist

The dentist has traditionally been an ordeal for the boy child, even though our dentist and her hygienists are all pain-free, non-scary and really excellent with kids. It's all the sensory stuff, I think -- the chair that goes up, down, forward and back (this is a problem at the haircut place, too), the squirters and suckers that make noise, the holding open of the mouth, the bright light, and worst of all, the bitewing x-rays.

The boy child has never, ever let them take bitewing x-rays of his mouth. Until today.

The girl child took her turn first, as she always does, because she is a model patient who actually enjoys going to the dentist. The boy and I had to leave the room during the x-ray portion of her exam, but we were able to watch through the door. Our dentist does digital x-rays, so I showed the boy how there was a big hunk of plastic and wires covered with a plastic sleeve, and how there was a little tab that he would bite on, and the hygienist would move the x-ray camera thingie right next to his cheek and then it would beep and he'd be done. And he was all psyched up for it, he said.

When it was his turn he did GREAT with the cleaning and whatnot. The hygienist already knows that she has to warn him before she moves the chair or squirts the water in his mouth or whatever, because we do this twice a year and it's always with the same lady (who is absolutely wonderful). We saved the x-rays for last, and she used the smallest, er, x-ray thingie that they use on the little kids, and the boy did okay until she started positioning it in his mouth. Then he got upset and started to gag and cry.

Right about that time, while I was standing in the hall trying to decide whether to go back in and try to calm him, the dentist walked by. She told the boy child that sometimes it helps if kids raise one leg while they get their x-ray. So she suggested that he try that, reminding him to concentrate on keeping that one leg up. And it worked! The hygienist worked quickly and they got two sets of x-rays on the boy, for the first time EVER.

Wow!

In other news, the boy brought home his scores for the math portion of the TAKS test, and he only missed ONE problem on the whole entire test (he got a 100% on the reading portion a couple of months ago). And the girl child won a raffle at the school carnival enabling her to have a princess tea party with her teacher and some other girls after school tomorrow. They're also going to make a fairy doll and a sachet and a pillow. There will be sewing! And snacking! The girl child is over the moon.

Tonight, we celebrate with take-out pizza!

A good week

Well, the boy child had a pretty good week last week. After his appointment with Dr. H on Monday, during which they came up with the "recess plan", he went outside for recess every day, for the entire time. WITHOUT his jacket! And in the evenings he played outside with his sister and/or went to the park or for walks with DH. It was like his fear of the outdoors had never happened!

Sunday was a bit more hairy, though. We went to the school carnival, which was mostly outdoors, and there were quite a few butterflies and various other flying insects around. The boy child didn't have any major meltdowns, but there was a lot of flinching and a small amount of screaming/running. Nothing even close to the magnitude of what he was doing a month ago, though, and he wasn't so anxious that he couldn't enjoy himself. So that was good.

Monday morning I said, "So you're going outside for recess today, right?" and the boy said, "Actually, I'm thinking about staying in because of my allergies." So I reminded him of the 10-minute rule and he said he'd try to stick to it. And he ended up staying outside for the whole recess again. And he did it today, too! So I think we're on the right track.

Go, Boy Child, go!

Okay, so not only did the boy child spend the entire recess period outside yesterday, he also played outside yesterday afternoon with his sister. The two of them played basketball in the driveway for maybe 30 minutes before dinner. And after dinner, he went for a walk around the neighborhood with DH. All without his jacket on, I might add.

And then this morning, instead of putting his jacket on as usual, he stuck it in his backpack "just in case". When we got to school, he talked very excitedly about going outside at recess and racing his friend again. And then he asked if he could run around the (outdoor) track before school, which is something he used to love to do nearly every day before this fear of the outdoors took hold of him. And so he did!

And he went out for the entire recess today without his jacket. I am amazed!

The recess experiment

So the boy child had another visit with Dr. H (the psychologist) yesterday and they came up with a plan for recess. On good-weather days when the class has outdoor recess, the boy is supposed to go out with his class and try to spend at least 10 minutes outside. After that, he can go back inside to the library as usual if he wants to. On wet-weather days when the class stays indoors, Dr. H would like the boy child's teacher or a counselor or some other adult to take him outside at the usual recess time, just for a couple of minutes, under a covered walkway or something. This is supposed to get the boy child used to going outside every day at recess time, to kind of rewire his brain in a new pattern.

We spent last night and this morning psyching the boy child up for today's recess experiment, and he was a bit reluctant but willing. And then we got to school and, wouldn't you know it, there was a substitute teacher. Argh! I had emailed the boy child's teacher yesterday evening, explaining the whole system to her, and there was just no way to communicate the entire thing to the sub in a way that she would know what the heck I was talking about during the two minutes between when we found out she was there and when she would have to start class. Plus it wasn't really something I wanted to explain with the other kids around, which is why I had emailed it in the first place. Argh, again!

Fortunately, I ran into the boy child's regular teacher on my way back down the hall. It turns out she was going to be in training sessions or something all day, which is why they had the sub. And that's when I made a mental note to add something to the boy's IEP next year stating that when the teacher knows ahead of time that she's going to be gone and there will be a sub, I want to be notified so I can prepare the boy. Had we known there would be a sub today, we would have put the experiment off until tomorrow. I briefly ran down the plan for the boy's teacher (she hadn't read the email yet) and indeed, she suggested waiting until tomorrow. I told her that either she or I would have to go back to the classroom to inform the boy, because he was psyched and ready to do it today. So then she said maybe it would be best to leave it up to the boy child as to whether he wanted to go for it, and she said she'd speak with both him and the substitute. I left the school feeling a little irritated and wondering if I would be getting a phone call right about recess time.

There was no phone call, however, and when I picked up the boy child this afternoon he had great news! Not only did he go out for recess, but he stayed out the entire time! And he took off his jacket for most of it! He said he had so much fun playing with his friends -- they raced and played freeze tag, from the sound of things. Yay! Awesome!

And then, on the way home from school, the girl child felt the need to tell the boy child some story about how she and her friend, who lives right next door to us, saw a bumblebee in the friend's back yard the other day. So then I had to kind of yell at her a little bit for that. I mean, geez! I think her father's going to have to have a little talk with her about how we never ever ever mention bugs around the boy child, ever. I would do it myself, but evidence suggests that when I talk the girl child just hears those Charlie Brown cartoon adult "wah-wah" voices.

Wellness Day

I'm happy to report that Wellness Day was a big success! I spent the entire day with the boy child (sneaking out of a couple of indoor presentations to touch base with the girl child) and he did really well. He even had his jacket off for much of the day! Which is good because the temperatures got into the 80s.

There was only one outdoor activity that he wanted to sit out -- one where the kids had to sit on the ground with giant elastic bands stretched between their feet, slingshot-style, to shoot little balls across a field. The boy child doesn't like to sit in grass, and I can't blame him because that particular grass was full of stickers and burrs. I think that was the activity that Mr. C was telling me about, the one where the boy sat on a milk crate during practice. But there weren't any milk crates at the actual thing yesterday, unfortunately. Next year I'll have to remember to bring a big towel or a tarp or something for stuff like this.

The boy child even participated in the water games, which was HUGE for him. In one game, the kids lined up between two big tubs -- one empty, one full of water -- holding coffee cans that they had to use to transfer the water from one tub to the other. The boy really enjoyed that one and got fairly wet from the chest down. The next game was a race where the kids had to carry plastic cups full of water on their heads, and the boy did that one without complaint (and was pretty good at it, too!). Another game was again a race, but the kids had to carry soaking wet sponges and they couldn't use their hands. The boy even put his wet sponge on top of his head for that one! Wow! For a kid who hates getting his face wet in the bathtub or pool, that was pretty amazing.

All in all he really did remarkably well. He had a few flinches and a few nervous vocalizations of the "uuuuuuhhhh" variety when he thought he saw bugs, and there were a few times when I heard him spontaneously yell out "oh, that's just a butterfly!" or some such, but no major freakouts, no tears, no screaming or running. Awesome!

We had our parent-teacher conferences Thursday afternoon and those went really well, too. The girl child has really taken off with her reading this year and is doing very well. The boy has also done very well academically this year (only two Bs on his report cards this year, both in Spelling, otherwise all As). The boy child's teacher mentioned that academically and intellectually, he very likely qualifies for our district's Talented And Gifted (TAG) program, particularly in the areas of math and science. We spoke about the fact that, at least in the first half of this academic year, he probably wasn't behaviorally ready for the program, though. But she really thinks that he would be ready the next time enrollment opens up (next fall, I think). So that's something we'll have to think about.

I find it kind of funny that if he does qualify for the program, the boy child would be in both Special Ed and the TAG program, because when I was growing up the two were kind of mutually exclusive. But so much more is known these days about learning disabilities and neurological quirks, it has really opened up the field of Special Education. I'm frankly thrilled that we'll have access to so many services beginning next year. I only wish we could have gotten the diagnosis, and thus had access to those services, sooner.

Cured! Or ... not.

Yesterday when I picked him up from school, the boy child declared that he was completely cured of his "phobia" of the outdoors. Cured! All better! This news was greeted with much enthusiasm, as you can imagine. I asked him what had cured him, and he said that he had read something about phobias in a book and that was all it took to get rid of it. So I asked him if he'd gone outside at recess, and he said no, but only because yesterday was an early-release day and they don't have recess on those days. And we didn't really have a chance to put it to the test after school either, because homework was immediately followed by taekwondo which was immediately followed by occupational therapy which was immediately followed by dinner which was followed, shortly thereafter, by bedtime. But hey, tomorrow is another day!

So when I picked up the boy child this afternoon, before I could ask whether he'd gone outside at recess, he told me he hadn't. "It was cold, Mom. I want to test it out on a hot day." Um. Okay. "I don't really understand your rules for how this works, but I think it's great that you're willing to try going outside someday," I told him. "Yeah," he said, "someday when I'm ready." And then we went home, and a fly somehow got into the house, and when he saw it he ran screaming up to his room and slammed the door and wouldn't come out until I had produced a smushed fly corpse. Sigh.

I've only talked about the boy child so far, but there is also a girl child at our house, age 7. She is what is known in the parlance as "neuro-typical" or NT, meaning she does not have Asperger Syndrome. Although if you know the girl child, you know that "typical" is not quite the right word to describe her. We don't know if she's abnormally sensitive and social and ... sort of attention-demanding, or if she just seems that way in comparison to the boy. But at any rate, she's fairly well-adjusted and doesn't seem in need of a diagnosis for anything.

A couple of weeks ago, the girl child planted wildflower seeds in the newly created beds around the trees out front. Every day after dinner she'd water them and examine them to see how they were growing. They were just at the point where you could sort of tell one plant from another when suddenly they up and died overnight. It looked like someone had sprayed them with weed-killer. We suspect it was the new lawn service (hired specifically because they were willing to weed the flower beds, while the old service wasn't - oh, the irony). The girl child was crushed and I, as her mother, was crushed on her behalf. Well actually, I was ready to rip someone's arm off over it, but that seemed excessive.

And so today I went out in search of one of those mini-flowerbox kits that has the container, dirt and seeds to grow flowers quickly and easily, so the girl child could have her flowers with no chance of anyone messing with them. After searching three different stores to no avail, I finally found them at Linens & Things, of all places. I got the girl child a little bucket-kit for growing sweet peas, and the boy child a bucket o' sunflowers (the manliest of flowers, to make things fair and because he loves sunflower seeds). So that was their little surprise after school today, and they were delighted.

Except when it came time to actually assemble the kits and plant the seeds, which I suggested should be done outdoors. The boy child wanted no part of that. So instead we did it in the garage, with the door closed and the light on, and me filling up the watering can at the kitchen sink. Then the girl child put her bucket out back so it could get lots of sun, and she offered to take the boy's bucket out for him but he said he didn't want his bucket going outside AT ALL. So his bucket is perched on the kitchen windowsill, which is fine.

Friday is Wellness Day at school, which is a bit like the Field Day I remember from the end of the school year in my youth. Meaning the kids will be outside all day long. I debated whether to just keep the boy child home, but have instead opted, with input from the psychologist, to send him and just plan to shadow him all day long like I did at his field trip last week. I hope it goes well. Wish us luck!

Progress

Quoth the boy child today:

"Mom, I think the psychologist is working because there's one kind of bug I'm not afraid of anymore - ladybugs!"

I spoke with Mr. C, the boy child's PE teacher, today to see how the boy is handling outdoor PE (which they do more often than not on nice-weather days). He said he's only had to send the boy inside once so far. Most of the time, he's able to distract him with whatever activity they're doing. Yesterday they were doing something called "rubber-band legs" (yeah, I have no idea, and I didn't ask) and Mr. C said that as long as the boy child was allowed to sit on a milk crate rather than on the grass, he did fine.

This news is both positive and critical to the boy child's therapy, because it indicates that his fear of the outdoors/bugs is part of the perseverative thoughts and behaviors that go along with Asperger Syndrome and not an actual phobia. As the psychologist explained it, the boy child's fear has become a habit more than anything. The boy has come up with a set of thoughts/behaviors that in his mind go along with "being outside", and so when he goes outside, he switches on that set of thoughts/behaviors. But if he's thinking about or actively engaged in something that distracts him from "being outside", he's able to shut down those thoughts/behaviors, at least in part. This wouldn't happen if he had a true phobia.

This is very, very good because it means that we're likely dealing with just Asperger's and not a co-morbid anxiety disorder. I am excited about this to what is probably an inappropriate degree, because I do not multitask well and wasn't looking forward to having to attack this thing on a hundred different fronts.

You've heard of the KISS principle? This is the KISSMDHAC principle - Keep It Simple So Mom Doesn't Have A Coronary.