C is for Carousel of Progress

C is for Carousel of Progress.  It has been just over a month since Apollo was put onto medication to manage his impulses.  The immediate family has noticed a marked improvement in some aspects of his behavior.  He still throws temper tantrums - in fact, he threw 3 today (one of which lasted over 15 minutes).  One was because he hurt himself bouncing in his chair, one was because he didn't want Orion to help him pick up the blocks (that he had been told 5 times to pick up) and one was because of the tiniest rumble of thunder that didn't even rattle the dog (who is scared by her own shadow due to her senility - thunder is catastrophic and sends her into tremors).  The latter resulted in the 15 minute tantrum because he refused to listen to anything I had to say and I felt I was doing more harm than good in trying to comfort him, so I walked away.  He is still anti-social and withdrawn from strange children, but he is more engaging with children he has seen more than two or three times.  He still hyper-focuses on things like a certain movie, a game or wanting to do something, but the struggle to redirect him is a little easier.  The biggest change has been his inattention to dangerous situations.  He is indeed less impulsive and does hesitate most of the time before doing something he knows better than to do - he hasn't tried to plug anything in on his own in a while!  So baby steps... we're better than we were, but we aren't where the doctor thinks we could be, so we have gone up on his dose and will check back in two months ahead of school starting to check his progress.  Hopefully we find ourselves another turn around the carousel...

C is for Confusion.  In the same vein, I was informed today that Apollo is NOT on the spectrum.  In some ways, it is a relief, but mostly it is a feeling of defeat.  I thought we had nailed down a cause of his abnormal behavior, but it appears that the culprit has not yet been identified.  I did not get a chance to speak with his therapist today as she was out of the office, but she is the one who confirmed him to be on the spectrum.  I am not ruling it out just yet.  It's not that I necessarily WANT him to be on the spectrum, but having a name for the foe you are fighting makes the battle seem more manageable.  Right now, we're hunting in the dark and blindly stabbing at symptoms rather than addressing his abnormalities as a whole, but as long as we are working to fix things so he can function close to normal, then it's a fight I will continue to fight.  ADD was mentioned, as was ADHD (although until he started this new medicine, hyper-activity wasn't a concern) along with a half dozen other possibilities including a touch of OCD and possibly PDD.  It like we're playing alphabet roulette and I'm just staring at the wheel willing it to stop SOMEWHERE because I know his behavior isn't normal.  Most of his quirks aren't alarming - they're more annoying than anything, but some of them do pose a risk to his safety and the safety of others.

C is for Collision Course.  Apollo is registered for Kindergarten, yet another concern in a growing list of concerns.  We have requested Orion's current teacher as he has met her, she thinks he's adorable and she has requested to teach him.  She is familiar with most of his quirks and isn't afraid to take him on.  She's stern, but fair and I feel like Orion has learned a lot and blossomed under her tutelage, so I would welcome her as a teacher for Apollo.  From what Orion tells me, any of the Kindergarten teachers would be fine, but Mrs. Smith is his favorite - and this from a child who is a social butterfly (so much so that he gets in trouble for it all the time) and communicates better with other children than adults.  I trust Orion's judgement on the matter and hopefully whoever Apollo ends up with will be prepared for my little comet - he's bright, easily set off and can become unstable when things don't go his way.  I imagine I will get at least one phone call from school regarding his uncontrollable temper-tantrum.  If he has Mrs. Smith, she has already been informed how to deal with him and to bring him back under control.  Hopefully I am wrong about the whole collision course analogy, but I've got a feeling that plunging my anti-social child into a room of 20 loud, overbearing, hyperactive little people is going to send his whatever-we're-calling-it-now into overdrive and end up in a cosmic meltdown - probably within the first week.

C is for Cousin.  While he may shy away from the majority of children, Apollo has always had a certain connection to his cousins.  He has lots of them and has seemingly almost always gotten on well with them, at least as far as I could tell.  He hasn't seen his paternal cousins since his 2nd birthday, which was 3 years ago now, but he got along well enough with them when he did see them.  Orion is the only one who actively spent time with his paternal cousins because we moved to Florida before Apollo was born.  However, the couple times we were able to visit Tennessee, he played well enough with them.  The last time we went, he was 18 months old and was very laid back and easy-going, a far cry from the high-strung child he is now.  Well, I shouldn't say he is high-strung - he is more of a hermit than any adult would ever believe, but children are simply not his cup of tea.  His best friend is MY grandmother, but he does allow himself to enjoy Caitlyn and Adrianne, two of his maternal female cousins that he sees on a fairly frequent basis.  He tolerates Caleb, but that is likely due to Caleb's personality quirks and the similarity of Caleb to Orion.  You want to talk high-maintenance?  That would be Orion and Caleb, not Apollo.  However, through our soccer season, we have come to find out that he is cousins with one of the four players on his team, Nichole.  She and he didn't have much real interaction aside from running together on the soccer field until the "C" word was mentioned.  Nichole's mother and I informed the pair they are cousins at their team party for soccer and I could visibly SEE the wall crumble between them.  For the rest of that day, they acted like they'd been besties for years.  And he has ALWAYS gotten on well with Nichole younger brother, perhaps because Bubba reminds him (at least he reminds me) of Phoenix.

C is for Clouds.  Something we have seen a LOT of over these last two weeks is clouds - and rain.  Lots of thunder and lightning, but nothing like what the Midwest and Texas have been seeing.  Not to jinx us or anything, but it seems that nasty weather typically makes a detour around our little slice of Alabama.  It goes North of us to Washington county, or South of us out in the Gulf of Mexico.  The rain was so constant that their soccer games last week were nearly canceled.  They ended up holding the games anyway, but we didn't have enough kids show up to play so his team forfeited and started our team party early, which meant our team had the giant inflatables all to themselves for about 20 minutes before the big kids infiltrated.  Who schedules 3/4 year olds to share an inflatable party with 9-13 year olds?  Apparently, our ball park does.  Needless to say, we snagged our kids off pretty quickly, but they had enough fun in their 20 minutes to create a memorable party, plus Apollo got both a trophy and a medal.  The highlight of his day was definitely finding out Nichole is his cousin though - he has not stopped talking about it since.

C is for Cupcakes.  Today is Apollo's 5th birthday.  At least, it's officially his birthday.  We celebrated a month ago with his party, presents and people.  Today was much more low-key since we had a slew of doctor's visits this afternoon.  Once we finished up, we swung by Wal-Mart and picked up mini cupcakes (the only ones without food dye, ugh, don't get me started!) and some ice cream.  Then we went by Chick-Fil-A and redeemed some freebies I had been harboring for a rainy day - no pun intended.   Apollo ate half a small fry and 7 chicken nuggets, plus 2 mini cupcakes and a serving of ice cream!  He is definitely doing some growing lately, although I don't think I trust the scales used today.  According to them, he gained 3 pounds and shrunk 2 inches in a week.  I am thinking they are off a bit - he was 45 pounds and 44 inches at the doctor last week.   Tonight ended up being an early night because we were all worn out from dealing with tantrums and bad moods, but we did manage to slip in enough good moments today for it to imprint in his mind positively.  (Forgive the wall in the background, the paint used to paint our house before we bought it was CHEAP and we have to repaint every room the kids have been in because everything sticks to it and won't come off without taking off the paint - seriously, I've tried washing the walls so many times... so yeah, that was juice from a year ago - it still won't come off.)

O is for Outrageous

O is for Outrageous.  Saturday morning, Apollo had his next to last soccer game with his 3/4 Galaxy team.  Yet again, I had to "coach" his team because the coach couldn't make it.  I don't know what I'm doing and Apollo doesn't listen to me, so it was interesting.  I felt like I did more "rearranging" kids than actual coaching, but Apollo did better than I expected.  We had our issues, of course, and that has to be expected when one is dealing with autism in any form.  You just have to learn to let the little things roll off your back and focus on correcting the big behaviors.  Apollo is not (and never will be) allowed to just run off the field like he wants to half the time, but if he wants to sit down on the grass and pick it, well, he's not the only one. I was pleasantly surprised this time to find he was kinda starting to get it - he kicked the ball the right direction and almost scored a goal.  His team won 2-0, so it was a pleasant beginning to a very long day.  As soon as his game was over, the whining began.  "I'm hot" and "I'm hungry" were constant complaints as we waited for Orion's game to begin.  Orion's game was a complete disaster - the short version?  His team is also a "ghost team" that gets neglected and his team has 5 players which is the minimum.  One got hurt Saturday and it escalated quickly into a near-fight, swearing and the cops being called - all of which Apollo was witness to, hence the outrageous beginning to our day.  Thankfully, he was so busy doing other things that the swearing never really reached his ears.  I guess O is for oblivious too - a rarely appreciated autism symptom.

O is for Ouch.  Following the eventful morning at the ballpark, Apollo and his brothers attended a birthday party to which they had been invited.  It was held at Jumps-A-Lot, one our local bounce around type places.  Apollo was WILD, but (to my surprise) somewhat controlled.  He blended right in with the other kids, none of whom he knew besides the birthday boy and his brother (who are our neighbors), and his own brothers.  The first place he went was to the giant slide and the bounce house, two things that are fairly familiar to him as he has done these type things before.  It took him a bit longer to warm up to the obstacle course that included a twenty foot high "rock wall" type climb, a speed slide and some other bits and pieces.  Once he conquered it the first time, it was hard to keep him off of it.   He was fearless, which is one of his extremes.  He's either completely terrified and you couldn't pay him a million dollars to do it, or he is gung ho like he just doesn't give a damn.  Some days he will even ping-pong between the two - those are the frustrating days.  Little man even managed to complete (and of course obsess over) the Big Baller obstacle course - think Wipe Out from TV.  I will post a picture of him doing it, but once he figured it out, he did it another 20 times in a row.  It was overall a pretty good experience for him (and me) until he realized that he had not one, but two friction burns from the giant slide.  It has proven to be a potentially life-threatening injury of course and requires intensive care around the clock (IE: he woke me up at 2 AM this morning because his band-aid came off and it was all over if I didn't replace it).

O is for Optometrist.  On Monday, Apollo went to the eye doctor for his yearly checkup.  When he was 2, I was told that he (like Orion) needed glasses due to an astigmatism and he was given glasses, which he promptly broke. Last year, he refused to sit still long enough to even attempt to measure his astigmatism and the vision test itself was practically a joke.  In the end, the doctor acknowledged he could use glasses but that at his age and cooperation level, it may not do much good.  So we opted to skip on glasses last year and see how his vision changed.  Well, this year he was able to sit still and poor baby got his momma's astigmatism just like his big brother.  His isn't as bad, but it's there.  He's also a bit farsighted, whereas Orion's issue is almost all astigmatism.  The vision test itself still proved to be a losing battle this year, due to a completely new problem.  Apollo has begun to make up answers to "tests" the way he thinks they should be, rather than what they really are.  At least, that's how it seems.  He laughed and giggled and said, "I can't see that... it needs to be bigger" but then he would look AROUND the "glasses" and still claim he couldn't see, even when he had already identified that same letter at the same size not five minutes before.  Even switching to the pictures yielded flawed results.  The doctor was able to get Apollo's vision corrected to 20/30 which we will take at this time.  His glasses are on order and he really does look super cute with them, so I am hoping this pair will work out better (and last longer!) than last time. 

O is for Otorhinolaryngology, aka an ENT (ear, nost, throat) doctor.  Apollo's well child visit ended up getting postponed due to insurance not being due to cover it yet, but they went ahead and checking his hearing because I have become increasingly worried that there may be an underlying issue magnifying his listening problems.  Sometimes, it is obvious that just straight up isn't listening to you and is ignoring you on purpose.  Other times, it is much harder to tell if maybe he's actually not hearing you.  The first indication that really pointed me in the direction to worry is the fact that if left unchecked, he will slowly bump the TV up to insanely loud level.  Loud enough for the neighbors to hear - probably loud enough for the little Moon men to hear.  And it has happened numerous times that he will turn to the TV up to unbearable levels, will request for me to turn up the radio when it is already thumping, or he will not react to something he normally would, such as telling him that he is going to see grandmama.  When that child doesn't squeal with delight at the mention of grandmama, you really do have to wonder if he didn't hear you.  So we have an appointment with Audiology at the University of South Alabama to have his hearing tested and narrow down the issue to whether his listening issue is medical and can be helped with a hearing aid or therapy, or if it related to his autism and he is tuning out the world on a whim.  Part of me is hoping for the former because it is correctable, and sometimes that makes me sad because who would ever wish medical intervention on their child? But if this issue proves to not be his ears and instead is a quirk, then there is little that I can do about it so it's a catch-22.   But I have to come find that a lot of things with autism are...

S is for Spring

S is for Spring.  To me, Spring means packing away jackets and pulling out shorts.  It also means lots of afternoon showers and overnight thunderstorms.  Apollo doesn't like thunderstorms.  The thunder itself makes him very anxious and he gets clingy on nights when the weather has deteriorated - sometimes to the point where he will work himself into a tizzy over everything, anything, or nothing at all. One little crack of thunder and he melts into a puddle of anxiety.  The lightning and heavy rains aren't his favorites, but he tolerates them much better. But of course, with all the April Showers come May Flowers.  Now that it is May and any chance of a cold snap has passed, the boys and I got out in the backyard this afternoon and planted a small garden.  It wasn't done professionally and we used last year's seeds and cheap potting soil, but the boys are already peeking out the back door "watching them grow."  I've tried telling Apollo it's going to be a couple of weeks until we see any flowers, if any grow at all.  Either he doesn't believe me or he has set his beliefs on the notion that those flowers are magical and will sprout up like they do in time-lapse videos.   But it has definitely piqued his interest, so we will see if he will help me water the little garden or not.  I am half expecting not, but between the three of my boys, maybe I can get one of them to help me.   They were sure jumping at the bit to help me put dirt in the pots - maybe a little too anxious.  There are now random patches of potting soil in the backyard where my three year old over-zealously "helped."  Apollo was actually quite helpful transferring the soil from the bag into the 16 pots, but several sets of seeds aren't planted as deep as they should be since he either didn't hear me or didn't understand me when I said to fill them up to a little under half full.  Oh well, if we get flowers, I am going to have some very happy little boys and if we don't, then we'll have a lesson that things don't always turn out as expected.

S is for Sprinklers.  After two weeks of on and off rain and lots of flooding in the area, we have finally seen some sweet sunshine and the ground has dried up - just enough for us to soak it again.   While I am not planning on pulling out any of the major water toys until after school is out, I relented and surprised the boys with one of the sprinklers I got last year during summer clearance.  I am saving the fun and fancy free one for summer, but I picked up several old-school style sprinklers and brought one out last weekend.  Since then, the boys have played in the sprinkler three different times and it still hasn't gotten old for them.  Each time, they went crazy for over 30 minutes, one time closer to an hour and the pure joy was phenomenal.  To see all three of my boys playing together, working together and not fighting was pure bliss.  Like I said, it isn't anything fancy - just one of those rectangular ones that has a silver bar with holes in it that rotates back and forth and sprays water, but they love it.   Think back to your own childhood.  The one at my grandmother's house was yellow.  I remember it fondly, so it must be a childhood thing.  All I know is Apollo truly enjoys the sprinklers and he only got in trouble twice for standing on it, so it was relatively issue-free.  The plus side is that it is something he truly enjoys doing WITH his brothers, whereas he would normally prefer to play without them or for very limited amounts of time.  There's also nothing to fight over, so that could be a big part of why it is so successful.

S is for Soccer.  The big one, the big gamble.  I'm still not completely sure the risk has been worth the outcome.  I have seen a side to Apollo that hasn't shown itself since he was very little - the desire to play with other children.  But it hasn't been a wholly enjoyable experience - actually far from it.  He doesn't pay attention at practice, he wanders away during games and sometimes he would rather play with the other team instead of against them.  But sometimes... sometimes he gets it and it is glorious.  Sometimes he'll kick the ball with stoic determination, he'll share the ball with his teammates and he'll smile and laugh and shine brighter than the sun.  Most of the time, however, it's a battle just to get him to stay IN the game, much less participate.  There have been more times than I can remember that I have had to chase Apollo down and drag him back to the field to play and/or practice.  I cringe every time he gets the ball because I know that if he kicks it out, he's going to follow it...and follow it... and follow it - wherever that may take him.  It's a relief that his little teammate is actually quite a good little player and Apollo is content enough to usually be the one to throw/kick it in to him and then run along with him while the other kid scores/tries to score.  It's a struggle to get his cleats on, he usually can't find his shin guards (which often makes us late - I can't remember the last time we made it to practice on time) and he whines that he's tired/thirsty/hungry/bored/etc more often than he attempts to play.  It has cost a small fortune for him to play this season (over $100 once registration, uniform accessories and gear are considered) and it will likely be his last, as time has shown that at this time, team sports are not the way to go for Apollo.  We have come to the conclusion that, at least at this time, an individual sport like Tae Kwon Do or perhaps an art class may be more suitable for Apollo.  Perhaps this will change once he starts school in the fall and he is around 20 children a day for 8 hours at a time, perhaps it won't change and he will always do better with he, himself and him.  For now, we are going to play out the season and take the good with the bad, because even though the bad can be frustrating and disheartening, there are moments that makes it all worth it - the money, the frustration, the fussing, the time - yeah, I would have to say it's all worth it for my baby to have moments where he REALIZES that he matters. Moments like these: