The Good...

I'm so excited!  This has been a great week.  Alec's teacher told me on Tuesday that for the first time ever, he came in in the morning, sat down for morning work and wrote 5 sentences without any prompting or reminders to get back on task!  Then, in the afternoon, he completed all of his challenging math worksheets with very minimal prompting.  The week has continued just like this!  This is a big deal because he'd gone from completing work (with a lot of redirection) in the beginning of the year, to not doing any work at all (prompting or no prompting) as of a few weeks ago (I think it was due to his body detoxing), to doing work with minimal or no prompts.  To me, this is a fist sign of success!  Happy day! 

In the beginning...there was gluten

Well, we are finally 100% GFCF (gluten free/ casein free)...it took us a looooonnng time.  I THOUGHT we were totally gluten free, but I didn't realize that all of our "little blips" were not so little.  It takes the body months to completely eliminate gluten, so each little blip would set us back a few months.  So I have never fully seen Alec without gluten running in his system.  Regardless, putting the blips aside, I have seen great progress regardless of our slip ups.  Pre-gluten free he was super hyper, very impulsive, it was difficult to talk to him because he was so "out of it and distracted".  His eye contact was poor and his language was significantly delayed.  Even though he had all of these behaviors he was still a  very sweet and affectionate boy, just not in control of his body.  Now, he wiggles instead of rolling around during circle time.  His eye contact is fleeting instead of none at all and his language has progressed so much.  Initially the switch to GFCF was difficult, but it was just a matter of finding the right products.  Once we did that it became very easy.  I found a substitute for all of his favorite foods.  I would say that my life savers on the GFCF diet have been Udi's white bread (fabulous), Bisquick's GF baking mix (use it to make pancakes, biscuits, chicken nuggets, sugar cookies and pizza crust), and ANYTHING from the brand kinnikinnick (their stuff is so awesome I sometimes doubt it's really GFCF).  Now that we've been on it so long it's become second nature.  The part that I struggled with the most was when we were out and about.   Trips to the mall, movies, birthday parties, etc.  Now what I do is that I always pack a meal and snacks just in case we're out longer than expected.  I pack a peanut butter sandwich when we go to birthday parties as well as a GFCF cupcake.   It helps that he's such a picky eater because he wouldn't have wanted the pizza served at most birthday parties anyways :)

GFCF Strawberry Muffins

Yummmmm!!  Organic strawberries were on sale yesterday... buy one get one free :) !  Bought my two pints, got home and realized WHY they were on sale.  We needed to eat them very quickly.  So, I decided to try out a new muffin recipe with them.  At first I thought they would be dense since my muffin pan felt like it weighed 100 lbs, but surprisingly they were fluffy, moist, and super delicious!!

Strawberry Breakfast Muffins

3 level cups All-Purpose Gluten-Free Baking Flour
(make sure your blend has baking powder, salt, and xanthan gum.  If not you will need to add 4tsp baking powder, 1tsp xanthan gum, 1tsp salt)
3/4 cup Organic Brown Sugar
1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
3/4 cup Coconut Oil Unrefined 
2 large eggs 
1 1/2 cups strawberry slices
3 tbs Organic Ground  Flaxseed

  -Preheat oven to 350
-Grease or line muffin pan
-Puree strawberries
-Blend flour mix and brown sugar
-Add all other ingredients and mix by hand just until blended
-Fill muffin pan to the very top
-Bake 35-40 minutes (oven times may vary)  

This is my homemade "magic bullet".  It's just a mason jar with the blade attachment from my blender.  Just don't overfill or put hot liquids.  Attach to your blender base and blend away!  It's small and easy to clean!

It has to work....it has to.

Does it get better before it gets worse?  I'm noticing Alec has been more spacey and it's harder to get and hold his attention.  That's one version of him.  Then he's super impulsive & his body is wiggling all over the place.  That's the second version of him.  Then there's the regular Alec, who is interactive and pays attention to what's going on around him.  I now see that version of him less than I used to.  I hope that this is the worse before the better and that I'll see some kind of break through soon.  We are now taking all the supplements he was prescribed (all 12), but we're not up to maximum dosages yet...

A glimpse at autism

Tonight I had one of those moments where you briefly see your child through someone else's eyes.  Most days I feel like Alec is only "a little bit autistic".  In most social situations, with my control and guidance, I think others can't tell he's autistic (maybe I'm delusional).  But today, when I saw him, he seemed "very autistic"

We went to church tonight and before I dropped him off in his kids class I reminded him not to "play in his head".  This is the term we've come up with for an activity he enjoys unlike any other.  He usually becomes very obsessed with a tv show and watches it over & over.  When he's not watching the show, he's acting it out in his head.  To an outsider it looks like he's doing some strange body movements & mumbling to himself. I know what he's doing...he's reliving his favorite scenes.  He loves it so much & will laugh at all the funny parts in his reenactment.  I keep talking to him about things that are appropriate to do at home and things that are inappropriate to do in public.  I explain to him that I want his mind to be focusing on the things going on around him, being in the moment, when he's out in public.  I know he understands me, but I think that at times he can't control it.

Tonight, as my husband and I peeked into his church classroom, we saw him spinning in circles, making strange jerking movements and laughing to himself, while the other kids were playing board games together.  Clearly, he was playing in his head!  That was my glimpse of him on his own without my reminders and guidance.  I know it's ok at this moment.  That's him right now.  I love him, every bit of him, but I don't love the obstacles autism puts in his way.  I want him to find passion in other things he likes to do and that give him the same pleasure he gets from "playing in his head".

Out with the plastic...in with the glass

     In trying to make our home clean of many toxins, I decided to get rid of all plastic food storage containers as well as all plastic cups, plates, bowls, forks, spoon, etc.  My amazon order finally arrived! Yay!  I ordered a tempered glass cup for Alec that has a silicone lid.  I like him to use a lid if he's not at the table.  Emily got a tempered glass sippy cup with a protective silicone sleeve and they both received tempered glass bowls and plates.  It was a difficult process throwing away all of my gazillion plastic children's cups, plates, snack traps, etc.   I kept thinking "what if I need it?  Maybe I should store it in a closet?" But I decided "OUT with the chemicals!"  I repurposed a few that could hold crayons and miscellaneous arts & crafts supplies.  I knew Alec would be fine handling his new dinnerware, but I was worried about giving glass (however tempered it might be) to my plate tossing, cup slinging toddler.  So, I decided to sit with her on the floor and have a picnic style dinner, hence minimizing the traveling distance from the high chair to the floor.  Besides repeatedly putting her foot in her bowl she did just fine.  I think I might get rid of the high chair and get a picnic table for the kids to eat at when we're not all sitting down together.

1st DAN! doctor appointment

Yesterday we saw a DAN! doctor for the first time.  After reading about them for so long, I couldn't believe that we were finally going to see one!  It was an amazing experience .  What made it so interesting was that I began to see all the autistic characteristics as  symptoms of other things that were not functioning properly in his body instead of autism being the cause of atypical behaviors.  Things that could be FIXED with proper treatment!  This is so different from the traditional way that autism is viewed and treated.  Instead of treating his symptoms  (i.e. language delay= speech therapy) we were going to begin treating the root causes that created the language delay.  That’s not to say we will stop speech therapy, it’s very important, but therapy has its limitations.  We are healing his body and in turn healing his mind.  This was refreshing and uplifting.  It gave hope to a situation whose hope was limited. 

So far, his treatment consists of vitamin and mineral supplements as well as medicine to treat yeast overgrowth in his gut.  Diet is also important to his treatment.  Aside from being completely 100% gluten and casein free(GFCF), we are also increasing his intake of healthy fats such as nuts and coconut oil and limiting his sugar intake.  I had already eliminated any food coloring from his diet.  We began treatment right away while we wait for the lab results.   I'm giving each new supplement 3-4 days apart so I can keep track of any changes.  The good, the bad, and the ugly!  Now we wait...