Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Getting Back Into Routine

Things have been going decent the last few days. First, I want to explain some issues we had arise while we were in FL. Ryder's behavior was extremely uncharacteristic of himself while in FL which concerned us all. He knew most of the people we saw while in FL and we stuck to his normal schedule so I was not expecting too much of a reaction from him. We were not prepared for how he did act while on our vacation. He was very clingy to Ben and I, cried all the time, hardly ever talked, had some violent tantrums, refused to self feed most of the time and had several staring spells. It was like every single one of his "abnormal" behaviors reared their ugly faces everyday and even more than once a day. When at home we see these behaviors once and a while so it was shocking to see him act like this. He did have his good moments though and had lots of fun so it was not a bad vacation by any means! He smiled and laughed and cuddled and even played with a few other kids during Piper's birthday party. Ben and I were hoping he would go back to himself once we got home and back into our normal routine.

Monday I took Zak to daycare and he shocked me when we walked in the door to the daycare. I was expecting a major production since he had not been there the previous week, but instead he ran into the room and started to play without looking back. I was talking to the daycare person about her being off next Monday and Zak walked over to me, pushed me toward the door and said "Bye Bye Mommy, My school". He made it clear he was ready for fun and it was time for me to leave! Then Ryder and I went to his therapy class which did not go so well. He had a few tantrums about transitioning between activities, he wouldn't participate in music time which is usually his favorite activity, and he had a few staring spells and didn't respond to the teachers which are all odd behaviors for him during the class. The teachers both showed concern about his behavior so I talked with them after class about the situation. They told me it was probably from the stress of travel and he should "snap out of it" within a week or so. Also, they said sometimes a child's behavior while on vacation can get worse as they get older if they get stressed which is was apparent Ryder did while away.

Yesterday we ran some errands and then played at home the rest of the day. Nothing really much to report at all. Ryder is still not self feeding very well so we broke the rules and fed him his dinner last night and he ate a ton of food!

This morning Ryder's special educator and speech therapist came to the house together for a session. They are working together to help Ryder start asking for his needs/wants and advocate for himself so once and a while they will come together. When they first got here they noticed Ryder seemed a bit "off" so I explained to them about how our vacation went. Their first response was that his behavior seemed very "spectrumy" (aka Autism spectrum) which was what kept jumping into my head while in FL. We then talked some more and after about 20 minutes Ryder seemed to warm up to them and interacting with them almost like her normally would. He LOVES his therapists and usually sits in their laps and hugs them, but I was glad to see he did start to warm up to them again and even said a few words for them. The last activity they did with him was a hit...stickers. This was working on fine motor skills as well as motor planning. It requires him to get the sticker off and use two hands to do this which is where he has trouble. He is good at doing things with 1 hand or the other, but has trouble when trying to complete an activity that requires using both hands working together. The therapists both told me that since he did start showing his normal behavior while they were here that they really feel he will probably slowly drop the bad behaviors over time. We are hoping this is true!

I got a text from Tracy today seeing if I could come over for a while this evening since Dave was going to pick up an extra bar shift at work tonight. I am DYING to see her and Kyle since I have not seen them since the day he was born! But I have had a hoarse voice for a few days so we decided I should stay away for a little while longer. I am 99% sure it is form allergies since I seem to always get them while in FL and then they stick around for the whole season at home, but I would feel horrible if Kyle were to get sick and it be assumed my fault. I am supposed to go over on Friday evening so we will play it by ear. Since I couldn't go over and see them tonight I asked Tracy to keep sending me pictures like she has been and here is the newest from today...

Kyle David Winters
15 days old
7lb 12oz
20.75inches long

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