Lately

Rowan has been distant this last week, especially this weekend. Since i started my new job about 2 months ago, I have had less time to spend with the family, and have gotten home much later than before. I can really see the difference it has made with him. He is more effected by this and everything else just adds on to it. Like having my 2 nephews over. I know that he enjoys them for short periods of time, occasionally. But he gets a little jealous of the baby for taking up the adults time & for Joel for taking Aidan’s attention (I cant totally blame Aidan for this …. to him its great to get an active participant who understands you to play with you … the play he has with Rowan just isn’t the same or as stimulating) Lately they have been here between 3-5 days a week, all day long. Then add being out of school (his ss ppcd class has a 2 week break before the regular school year starts back up), and out of therapy for the last 2 weeks. Life is rough for him right now,

Yesterday we had these random weird crying jags (melt downs?) he would be standing there and out of no where he was inconsolable. Nothing set it off, just boom tears & howls. In addition to that he was stimming and non-responsive to direction and his name. Stuff that we have mostly out behind us, but flares back up when he has a rough patch. I am soo ready for school to start back!!

Today was much better. I had my  1st legible phone conversation with him. He said Hi, bye, Mommy, and answered my question of what he wanted for dinner (what else … Pizza) yummy yummy.

School update

I haven’t been very diligent on writing here lately. I always kick myself and feel let down when I don’t do what I intend to do, despite it being as choice I made. I’ve been doing more private journaling, nothing really will ever top a good pen and a leather bound journal.

I last wrote about the start of school, and now we are at winter break. So much has happened, I guess I need to go back to Sept and start from there. Rowan was going to school outside our zoned school because last year when he turned 3 they were over full. The school he when to was alright, but it was far away and I felt a difficulty with the department there in regards to communication. At any rate I called the Special Services department for the school district over the summer to see if I could get him back to his zoned school for this year. The answer was that they were still over booked but would let me know if they got any openings.

Around 1 month into the school year the head of special programs called me. Seems that they had an opening, but I was worried what effect it would have since we were just getting our routine down. There were a lot of pros & cons, transition after school ad started, all new teachers school, kids. My older son was in preK there and we weren’t sure if it would be a bad or good thing for either of them, since ppcd does some inclusion w/ preK. I also knew that the teacher was leaving after this year, which means a new teacher next year. The other fear was if we turned down the spot in order to take it at the beginning of next year , that there might not be an opening then. After much deliberating and soul searching (it was a bigger decision than you would think) we decided in the long term it was the best decision even if the first few weeks were rocky.

Low and behold he walked in there on a Monday just like he had walked out of there Friday . The transition that brought me to tear just thinking about it was scary perfect. Mean while ever since Rowan started school at 3 we had had to keep him home or pick him up a lot because of illness. He has allergies, just seasonal I think but they effect his eyes and the school are always afraid of pinkeye so they send him home. Incidentally he has never actually had pinkeye, but we always see the doctor to be sure. Usually it an antibiotic for the ear infection, and antihistamines till he is better. Since he hate medication if is very difficult to give to him. However we this time we talked to the doctor about an allergy medication and ended up putting him on claritan. I didn’t tell teachers when exactly he started it, but we began to see from there notes increased difficulty following routine, and meltdowns were more frequent. At home I saw a drop in spontaneous communication and an increase in echoing. I have also seen more difficult in making choices (although its always been difficult), and increase in stimming, and less responsive to his name. I didn’t put it all together- immediately.

I first called for a parent teacher meeting will both regular & the speech teacher present in preparation for upcoming annual ARD and our evaluation for diagnosis (we are currently working with at a medical diagnosis.) In talking with the teachers we noticed a correlation between the time he began the allergy medication and his seemingly regressive behavior.

Well I talk to his pediatrician and we have changed the medication, but currently I have stopped all of it just to see if he really needs to be on a daily. So far allergy wise he hasn’t actually gotten sick. A little minor sneezing, tiny bit of runny nose but nothing like before during their height of fall. Unfortunately though I haven’t seen any decrease in the regressive behaviors either.

Back to the evaluation, we have made it past 2 rounds of hearing test (1st of which was a real trial and a story all its own) and the round one with a interview with the pediatric physiologist (which wasn’t what we wanted, I want him seen by a developmental pediatrician). We are scheduled to go back for a eval Jan 3rd. More to write but I am done for now.