Our son went into a fog called Autism. Every day, we are finding him.
Three days ago, Jackson entered the bathroom on his own initiative, grabbed his potty seat, and placed it on the potty while singing in a soft, whispery voice, “Jackson put your poopies in the potty.” He proceeded to take the advice of Mommy’s soft-rock ballad created in a moment of desperation during our weekend “Potty Party” over a month ago. Continue reading “Victory in the bathroom”
We’ve worked long and hard at getting Jackson to connect with us and figured out several things that are rewarding and motivating. We feel like we’ve laid a great groundwork for getting Jackson to follow directions. This has turned out to be a bigger challenge than I ever imagined.
Reality began sinking in one day about a year ago when I looked up and saw that Jackson had left a trail of at least ten strawberry tops winding across the living room carpet. Not wanting to miss a teachable moment, I decided to have him pick each one up and feed it to the guinea pigs. Cleaning up and connecting with pets at the same time! Whoo hoo! Continue reading “Following directions through the haze of autism”
Jackson stanchly refuses to ingest vegetables and anything green. The “Green Tree” incident (his sisters’ code name) will go down in history as perhaps our most dismal food failure: Trying to convince Jackson that we could outwit and outwait his opposition to broccoli. Continue reading “Expanding his diet: Food tolerance”
This morning Jackson was set on ingesting dairy and gluten. I caught him taking a bite out one of yesterday’s gluten/dairy-filled waffle he had fished out of the trash can. I gave his mouth a quick finger sweep to try to be rid him of the forbidden food and avoid any more behavioral backlash than already probable seeing as he already chowed down some of his blue playdough (gluten) earlier this morning.
Some days this GFCF (Gluten Free Casein Free) diet seems impossible. The carefully prepared alternative dishes are either left on the table untouched or completely undone by Jackson’s sneaky methods of obtaining the forbidden foods. Continue reading “Gluten Free Casein Free: Is it worth it?”
So, we ate dinner with some new friends last night and the big question came up. Any food allergies? I quickly explained the special diet Jackson is on: Gluten Free Casein Free as basically “No wheat, No dairy, and other things…but we’ll bring something he can eat.” It’s sometimes easier that way, come prepared with something I know is safe. She pressed me for what he does eat, and I gave her the typical “Rice, meat, and tortilla chips” as pretty safe fare. She so graciously bent her dinner plans to accommodate, and upon arrival assured me that nothing in her lovely home was sacred. For the first time in a while, I didn’t have to cook two dinners, AND I actually enjoyed a rare, minimally interrupted conversation. Thanks, Mickey and Jose! Continue reading “What is the Gluten Free Casein Free (GFCF) Diet?”