Aggression Rears its Ugly Head

Zack had kind of a rough day Wednesday.  Several things happened during the afternoon to take us out of our routine, some of which were my fault for not planning ahead well enough, and some just happened - but in the end, Zack couldn't deal with the wood chips that kept getting caught in his Crocs at the park, so he chased after a kid who had done nothing outside of standing too close by and tried to pinch him.  Then later, he had a tough time transitioning to and from his therapist, and then he got out of his seatbelt on the way home, came up to the front of the van to personally supervise the next video selection.

I got him to go back and sit down easily enough, but then I made a serious error in judgment when I asked Aliza to go back there and see if she could get his seatbelt rebuckled.  I foolishly hoped - in the back of my mind I knew it wasn't likely, but I hoped - that if I paused his video, he'd be able to let her do it.  We were crawling along in heavy traffic on the freeway in Minneapolis, there was nowhere to pull off the road.   So I took a chance and asked her to do it.

And after a short struggle that included me watching in the rear view mirror and uselessly ordering Zack to cooperate, he bit her in the thigh.  And she screamed.

I can't believe I made her do that.  What was I thinking?  He hasn't let her do anything like that to help him in weeks.  He's very aggressive/defensive toward her lately.  Toward everyone, really.  I don't know why I thought that might work. 

He screamed and cried.  She screamed and cried.  I told her to come back up to the front, which she did, and Zack stayed put.  He knew - oh, how he knew he'd done something bad.   In between sobbing and screaming, he would sing a few words of the tune from "Pluto's Bubble Bath," his current favorite Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode, trying to comfort himself.

After getting everyone settled back down and traffic loosening up, I got over into the carpool lane and burned rubber.  We all wanted to get home.

The new anxiety medication isn't doing much of anything, so far.  I emailed the doctor Thursday.  Within a couple of hours we had it all worked out to increase the dosage.  I am so lucky to have associations with doctors and nurses who know me, and who respond immediately when I call or email.

It wasn't just today.  Every therapy session Zack has had this week ended with a tired looking therapist walking him out, shaking his/her head and saying "that didn't go very well today."

Just like during the Arbaclofen trial I constantly wondered, how much of the boys' progress was due to the medication, I now wonder, how much of Zack's troubles lately are due to the Arbaclofen trial ending?  If he were still on it, would he be having all these anxiety and lashing out problems?  His usual summer sensory issues have been greatly lessened this year, I think due to two things - the swimming pool in our backyard, and the fact that it's been a cooler, less humid summer.

I have to be so careful what I try and do with Zack.  Where I try and take him.  I don't dare go anywhere where there will be very many people.  The other two get bored, staying home all the time.

There have been a few stories lately in the Fragile X group of families who have had to resort to putting their children in a controlled group home setting, when their aggression/sensory defensiveness became more than their parents and caregivers could control.  These stories scare the crap out of me.

They all say that it's one of the toughest decisions to make, which I can certainly imagine.  I know we aren't at that point, but I am afraid it could arrive.  I read these stories and I see parallels in the descriptions of these kids' behavior, and Zack's.  I think about it whenever Zack attacks his sister, or bites me.  Luckily he's not that big, yet.  He's not that difficult, yet.

While it's nice to know I'm not alone, sometimes the way we can share in each others' stories and relate to each other is frightening.

Not only would it kill me to break up the family this way, but separating Zack and AJ would be beyond tragic.  They adore each other and lean on each other.  They worry about each other.  They are like two halves of a whole.

We won't do it.  We won't ever do it.  I have to promise myself that.

We've got to find a medication that helps Zack.  Desperation is setting in.

Aside from trying to pinch the therapists and volunteers, Zack did pretty well at horseback riding last night.

A Special Spoon

The boys have been keeping busy with speech and occupational therapy this summer.

In OT, I requested that they work on feeding issues, specifically feeding themselves with spoons and using straws to drink.  Zack can use a spoon, sort of - he can dip it into applesauce or yogurt and eat whatever sticks to the spoon.

I wanted him to hold the spoon properly, upright so that everything loose doesn't just spill off of it.  And I wanted AJ to use a spoon.  He won't do it at all.

Notice I didn't say he can't do it.

Anyway, I got a note from the occupational therapist yesterday that Zack is doing well with using a spoon, but he needs it to be a special, plastic spoon from the baby aisle at Target, and a deeper bowl.  She suggested I go get some of those spoons.

Now a couple of years ago, I'd have been thrilled and I've have run right out to get them.  Today, however, my expectations are higher.  I want him to use regular spoons.  Any old spoon I might find.  He's eight.  I don't want to go buy more plastic spoons from the baby aisle at Target.  I already spend too much time in the baby section of Target, for a mother of two eight year olds.

And I want him to be able to eat applesauce out of any old bowl I find.  One day all the bowls and spoons he usually uses were in the dishwasher, so I gave Zack some applesauce in a measuring cup, with a regular spoon.  He looked at me like I'd grown a third eye.

Is it too much to ask that I not have to get special adaptive silverware?  I appreciate her trying to help, but this isn't want I want.  I need to find a nice way to say "No lady, I don't want to buy any more baby spoons.  Get him to eat with a regular, ordinary spoon.  Put away the baby spoons."

And while you're at it, see if you can get him to stop acting like I'm trying to poison him by putting a straw near his mouth.

The Scream

No, not that one. 

This scream is audio, and it's by Zack (as displayed in this 55 second video).

It's obvious how miserable he is here.  Notice how after his scream peters out, he whimpers.  He's been really touchy and needing a lot more squeezes, squishes, hugs, pats, rubdowns, and sensory input lately.  AJ helps with some of that, but it's hard when his urge is to bite.

Zack and I have been spending some quality time rocking in the recliner, which is a good sensory place for us now that he's grown so big, because the two of us are really squished in there.

It's been going on for awhile, and his nightly head-banging is increased, too.  He's done it off and on for awhile, and for the last month or so... it's been on.  He does it in his sleep.  We can go into his room in the middle of the night, move him and put a pillow between his head and the wall, and he doesn't even wake up.

We made a trip to Chicago last week, and one of the two nights we stayed in a hotel with padded headboards.  There were no hard surfaces for him to whack his head on.  In the morning he was turned sideways, laying his head on the bedside table - the only hard surface within reach.

I decided it is better to scream.  Silence is the real crime against humanity.

~Nadezhda Mandelstam

Ups and Downs

Zack is having some downs.  It seems like it started around Christmas.  The screaming that virtually ended when we got the Arbaclofen (STX209 drug trial medication) dosage adjusted for him?  It's back.  He's making me crazy, and it's not even summer - he's gone most of the day.  I get quiet a lot of the time.  But that scream he does - it shreds my last nerve.

So obviously, something is bothering him.  The question is, what?  How do we find out, when he can't express himself any better than to tell me he wants "zoomi" (Team Umizoomi) or "juice" or "Comb" (Honeycomb) or "bed" (when he's ready to go to bed).  (We do encourage him to speak in full sentences and he can, when prompted.  But on his own, prompted by only his own desires, he speaks as few words as possible.)

So we look at what has changed in his life recently.  He has gained quite a bit of weight in the last year.  He outweighs AJ by 17 pounds.  Zack is a strong, thick kid, and AJ is scrawny.  Sometime I'll try to get a photo of them together without their shirts on, so you can see the difference in their chests and arms.

I'm not sure what else has changed.  Zack has a lifelong history of needing a little more than AJ does.  He's always needed a higher dose of the same meds.  So it wouldn't be entirely out of range for him to need a change, when AJ does not.

For right now, we are going to try giving Zack his second Arbaclofen dose immediately after school.  We are hoping that changing the time of day he receives it will be enough to help him level out his behaviors, and feel better.  I don't have high hopes of that working, but I also don't want to increase any medication if we can at all help it.

Aliza has been having some extreme anxiety.  Last night, after an hour and a half of dance and an hour of basketball, she realized she'd forgotten her poetry homework at school, and she had a meltdown.  She shocked me, really.  She suddenly bent over like she'd been punched in the stomach, ands began to cry and cry.

Some nights are busy.  It's not that we keep her too busy running from activity to activity.  Wednesday night she had nothing at all to do.  Tonight her schedule is free.  I think it's the way it is for all of us - adults and kids.  It's normal to be busy some days and less so on others.

But last night - wow.

Somehow we talked her off the ledge and she cried herself to sleep.  I emailed her teacher just to let him know what was happening.  I don't expect special treatment for her.  If her homework isn't done, she needs to suffer the same consequences as the other kids would.  But I did want him to know what a basket case she was, over it.  How bad she felt.

She is that proverbial child I can brag about - she plays basketball and dances several times a week, all while maintaining almost straight "A"s - and would, were it not for the fact that I have special needs children who don't accomplish anywhere near as much, and I know how it is on both sides of this fence.  Special needs moms don't like to hear bragging about brilliant children.  At least, this one doesn't.  It makes me think wow, how sheltered and wonderful your existence is.  Good for you.

Where did this perfectionist child come from?  Not me.  Not Mark (no offense meant.  He's just more laid back than she is).

Banishing the Bottle - Progress!

He's clearly just humoring me here, and not really drinking, but at least he's not screaming and pushing it away.

I wish I had video of him when he lifts his shoulders to take a big, huge, dramatic, fake gulp, and then he smiles at me and rubs his tummy and says "yum."

Anxiety on the Rocks

Shaken, not stirred.  That's how I like my anxiety.

The boys have developed a new way to express their anxiety.  They've always been calmed by counting, but lately when stressed, the two of them will shout "nine, TEN!"  Over and over.  "nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!  nine, TEN!"

Out and about, people tend to notice the kids who shout out two numbers much moreso than they noticed two kids who randomly counted things.  Not that I care what people think. 

Otherwise, they still let it out in their usual ways; AJ cries and chews on his clothes, and Zack pinches people and screams.

Today after school we had speech and occupational therapy at Courage Center.  It's kind of a long day for them, but they are usually up for it.

When they were all done with therapy, they come to me in the busy waiting room, ready to go.  Zack needs to go right then -- he's got no patience for my chatting with the therapists, getting the lowdown on how they performed.  He is not interested in stopping in the waiting room for even a second.  He barrels right on out, unless I hold him back.  Then he starts in on the therapist.  The poor woman, who only moments ago he was having a great time with, is now the target of his aggression.  He reaches to pinch, we both tell him no, to be gentle....

Anyway, this was the scene today, too.  Both boys started for the door in front of me while I said goodbye to the therapists, and another boy in the waiting room, who was there for therapy (and who I'm guessing has autism), suddenly screamed when Zack walked past him "HEY!  THAT KID PINCHED ME!  REALLY HARD ON PURPOSE!"

Time stopped, while everyone stopped what they were doing to look over.  Zack started to scream and cry.  AJ backed against the door.

And it's not like this has never happened before.  Actually, this happens way too often.  How come every time, though, I totally can't remember how to handle it?  I have rehearsed this in my mind and in real life.  It happens.  Zack pinches and sometimes bites kids.  But I still I stopped for a minute, not sure what to do.  The kid's mom told him she was sure Zack didn't mean to hurt him.  The kid continued to holler.  "YES HE DID!  HE PINCHED ME ON PURPOSE!"

I told the kid I was sorry too, and that Zack gets really really nervous around people.  I told Zack "Zack, say 'I'm sorry.'"  And then I said a superquick silent prayer, because you never know if Zack is going to say what you tell him to say.  PleasesaysorryZackpleasepleasepleasesaysorry.

And he did.  "Sowy."  And then he cried.  On the way out to the car, Zack got over it and stopped crying and screaming, and AJ started to cry.  AJ cried for about 45 minutes.  He was really upset about the whole thing.

Anyway, you see what I mean (in the post before this one), when I said I wished for a little more from this medication that is supposed to help with social anxiety? I can't take Zack anywhere without it ramping up anxiety for all of us, because you just never know how he's going to do.

And I can't help but think about the fact that we just increased the dosage for both boys, and the last time we increased their dosages, AJ cried all the time, and Zack became a lot more aggressive.

It's too soon to draw those conclusions, but it is on my mind.  Sigh.

And now I will wrap up this stressful and unhappy post with a couple of cute swimming pictures, so it's not all doom and gloom.

Zack's tough afternoon

We have speech and occupational therapy at Courage Center 3 days a week.  The transition from the car to the building is fine -- no problems.  They walk right in, generally the therapists are waiting for us in the waiting room, and the boys take their hands and walk right back to the work rooms.

Transitioning back to the car after they are done has been a bigger problem.

The waiting room is fairly cramped and busy at every half hour, with people coming and going.  The therapists want to talk for just a couple of minutes to tell me what the boys did.  The boys don't like that.  They aren't much for chitchat.  They think we should leave, immediately.

So when we don't, random people in the waiting room end up getting pinched and sometimes there's some screaming.

I thought I brilliantly solved this problem when I decided that, instead of the therapists bringing the boys out to me in the waiting room, when their shift was over I'd go back to the work rooms and find them.  We can talk in the privacy of the therapy room where the boys can play and be a bit more secluded.  We put our coats on back there, and when we walk through the busy waiting room, we don't stop -- we just keep on walking until we're out of the building and on our way to the car.  It's usually pretty smooth. 

They still don't like the chitchatting, but at least there's only a few of us in the room.

Today when they were finished, Zack got to watch some of his favorite videos on You Tube while his therapist and I talked.  I could tell right away when I walked in that he was overstimulated.  His cheeks were like little red apples, and he jumped and jumped and jumped.

With Zack, Aliza, AJ, and 3 therapists in the room, 2 of whom are talking to me, there wasn't much I could do with Zack at the moment.

When the speech therapist told Zack his time was done on the computer and it was time to go, he blew up.  She got pinched, hard, and he screamed like we had set him on fire.  I pulled him toward me and he struggled, reaching out to pinch everyone.  AJ looked at Zack nervously and backed into a corner.

I handed the coats to Aliza to carry - neither one was going to wear one.  It was above freezing outside, sunny, we were parked really close, and Zack obviously needed to cool down anyway.  I took each boy by the hand and we got out of there as quick as we could.  Zack screamed the whole time.  AJ watched him, worried.

I think we all learned a lesson.  Zack needs to be warned before time is up.  Although by the time I got there, he was so overstimulated, I'm not sure there was any good way to end the situation.

Notice the "I tried it!" sticker -- I don't know what he tried.  I'll find out tomorrow.

Luckily, Courage Center is no stranger to kids with behavior issues.

Zack Funnies

Just a quick note to mention a couple of funny things Zack said this week.  Most of the time my funny-little-boy stories are about AJ.  He is the comedian.

Zack gave him a run for his money this week, though.

One night I was getting the tub ready for Zack to take a bath.  He came in and immediately got naked, because baths are very fun.  He bounced and hopped excitedly around the bathroom while I rinsed out the tub and then he came over and lifted the toilet seat.

(They aren't potty trained even a little bit, but we make stabs at it occasionally.)

I asked him "do you want to sit on the potty?"

He said yes, so I helped him hoist himself up there.  He got right back down less than a second later.  He turned around, reached up to flush with one hand (even though he hadn't done anything worth flushing), and with the other hand he waved into the toilet and said "Bye, pee.  Gracias."

Thank you, Dora the Explorer, for making my boys not only biligual, but very polite!

The second big talking event Zack had was earlier this week.  I was downstairs cleaning up the spots where the cat pooped (because apparently, I don't get to clean up enough poop from these boys every day, the cat thinks I need to be more involved in her bodily functions as well.)

Zack came halfway down the stairs and said "Mom!"

I turned around and said "hi Zack, whatcha doing?"

Zack took in the scene -- me, crouched in front of several icky spots on the carpet with some carpet cleaner and paper towels, and announced ,"Oh, mess.  Bye!"

It was just so unusual to hear a clear, meaningful message from him.

I just had to record these two instances for posterity.

Of course we are wondering whether the extra talking Zack is doing might be a result of the STX209 medication.  Hard to say, but it's definitely a possibility.

Wordless Wednesday - I look good!

It's not pink - it's "salmon."  And I just happen to like butterflies....

A Side Effect of STX209?

Could a penchant for women's clothing be a side effect to the trial medication?  Zack has developed quite an attachment to his sister's pink butterfly shirt.

(I'm kidding of course.  Zack has always had a weird attachment to this shirt.  Remember this day at the park, when he was loving all over Aliza because she was wearing it?)

You know what?  I'm perfectly fine with him wearing it.  Because with the pink butterfly shirt, he's calming sitting under the table.  Not screaming.  Not biting his brother.

Yesterday the pink butterfly shirt was in the wash, and the two of them were like squirrels on crack.  I have no idea what the deal was.  I swear they were running up the walls and across the ceiling.  So today, if one of them requires a girly shirt to sit down and stay calm, I'm going to be a-okay with that.

Otherwise, the three of them are spending quite a bit of their time off this week (parent-teacher conferences and MEA) doing this.

I don't think we are noticing any positive changes from the trial drug yet.  Maybe AJ talks a little bit more.  Maybe Zack has been a little bit better in public.  If I were looking hard, that's what I'd see so far.  But I'd also see that both of them, in particular AJ, have been chewing more.  AJ goes through two or three shirts a day because he chews on the sleeves until they are soaked up to the elbows.  Chewing is a manifestation of anxiety.

We leave for our third trip to Chicago this weekend.

I don't care what any of you say.  I think I look GOOD.

The Art of Brushing

I've taken off Zack's shirt.  I wince as I note a couple of small bruises on his back.  Looks like they must have hurt.  Would have hurt anybody else.  But Zack's sensory system doesn't work like other people's.  These are new from yesterday, probably from wrestling with his brother.  Yet, at no point did he let me know he was hurt.  I have no idea if he felt it at all.

I grip the soft, white, plastic, sensory brush in my hand and begin gently brushing down his left arm, while he stands in front of me, watching the Little Einsteins.  I start at the shoulder, pressing just hard enough for the bristles to bend, and draw the brush down toward his little hand.  He holds his arm out straight for me, but loosely.

He wiggles around a little.  He spreads his fingers out though, when I do the palm of his hand.  I imagine the brush in my hand is actually a paintbrush, and I need to spread the paint down his arm, evenly in a straight line.

I switch to the right arm.  Zack is cooperative.  He likes the brushing.  I focus on keeping the pressure steady, taking deep breaths myself.  The act of brushing is soothing for both of us.


I imagine that all the stress, anxiety, and tension in his body is just under the skin.  And by brushing, gently, slowly, deliberately, always in a down motion, I can extract the stress and anxiety.  I can release the tension for him.  In my mind I see the tension come flowing right out his fingertips, like five long, shiny ribbons.

I brush both Zack's legs while he stands in front of me, tenderly, but also firmly.  I begin at the hip and leisurely draw the brush down over the thigh, knee, calf, ankle, and end it over his foot, bringing it just down to ends of his toes.

Zack fidgets a little.  He can't help it.  He is almost never still.  But he's more still for this brushing activity than he is most of the day.

I cover the left leg with my imaginary paintbrush, and then begin with the right leg.

In my mind's eye I see ribbons of stress, laying all over the carpet, in a rainbow of hues.  Zack is free of them.

Buzzed

Check out our new buzzcuts!

It's not perfect, but it's better than trying to get them to sit in a salon chair and let a professional try and get near them with an electric razor.  No more floppy-haired, constant-bed-head, trying-to-look-like-Justin-Bieber hair for them.

Here's another one.

Yep, that's Zack, still drinking from a bottle.  I'm so disappointed in myself to discover that it's been over a year now since I first tackled that problem.  If you search this blog for the term "bottles" there are 18 posts about this.  I've done a lot of talking about it, apparently.

We are going to have to get back on that wagon soon.  Brace yourselves for the screaming that I imagine will be heard for miles around.

This is how I take care of myself lately.

I like to have a balance.  Not deprived, yet not indulging.  I'll let you know how that's working out.

The "Bad Zack"

Zack has caught up to his brother, and can run the laptop.  He's so tickled with himself and we're thrilled, of course, that he's found a new and very valuable skill.

The trouble is, there are only so many computers in this house.  I try to keep the Doritos crumbs and milk spillage to a minimum around my laptop, so I'd prefer they stick to using the secondary one.  They fight over it, like regular 6-year-olds.

His favorite clip on You Tube is from Dora the Explorer (I'm sure that comes as a big shock), The Chocolate Tree.  He could watch it over and over and he stims (v. to self-stimulate; (specifically) among autistic people, to fixate on a comforting or compelling thing or action (such as rocking or humming); to perseverate.) wildly as he watches, screaming and wringing his hands until he rubbed a sore on his index finger (if you look at the pictures on the post right before this one, you can see it in the picture of him screaming right next to the trampoline). 

He gets himself so worked up watching it that I'm trying to ban him from it.

I poked around in Internet Explorer looking for a way to block just The Chocolate Tree videos from You Tube, but it seemed to want to block You Tube altogether.  So be it.  I blocked it.  But it doesn't work!  They can both still bring You Tube videos up on that computer.

When I try to remove him from the computer and redirect, he's pretty aggressive and out of control.  It brings out the "bad Zack."  He'll scream and cry and it's more than the screaming he usually does, when he doesn't get his way.  There's a breathlessness to this screaming, and his face gets all blotchy.  He'll pinch anything or anyone within reach.  It's much more tantrumy.

So apparently, going to "Content" in "Internet Options" and blocking http://www.youtube.com/, does not actually make it so you can't get to http://www.youtube.com/.  I'm not sure what function it achieves.  I'll keep exploring it and maybe I'll figure it out.  I guess it's just another example of technology getting the best of me.

Where TVs Go to Die

Zack has to watch his movies on this little Kid Tough DVD player because he's so rough with things, it's the only kind that can withstand the abuse.  He's already broken several portable DVD players (note to grandma & grandpa -- he did not break the one you got him for Christmas, but he was going to -- which is why we got him this one).  We have a broken TV graveyard in our basement:

So, when the electronics failed him, after an appropriate mourning period.....

He put aside the DVD and played with a regular toy!  Granted, it's more of a toddler toy, but he played with it all on his own.

I have adjusted to a lot of new concepts and ideas since the birth of these boys, but one thing I will never stop being amazed at is how hard it is to teach them to play.  The very fact that they have to be taught to play astounds me.  It took a lot of encouragement over many weeks to get Zack to play with this.  So I'm pretty thrilled that he sat down and played with it absolutely with no prompting whatsoever.

Maybe we should unplug all the rest of the TVs and computers in the house and force us all to play with our toys!

Before and After Photo - Doing the Blog Hop

I'm playing in a blog hop today at Pixel Perfect, where you show before after versions of a photo you edited.  I wasn't just trying to pretty-up this shot of Zack.  It NEEDED Photoshopping.  In photo #1, note the bruising by the eye, and the bat in the cave.

And in photo #2, no bat in the cave, no bruising, and the skin tone warmed up.  I cleared up the chapped lips just a little, too.  Nice, huh?

Shot with a Nikon D3000, and edited in Photoshop.  Just touched up and fixed blemishes and warmed the color temp.

Sippy Cups Revisited

It's been quite awhile since I mentioned our sippy cup battle.  I know, and I'm sorry. We started it in late October of last year, and the saga continued into November as Zack stubbornly held out.  By Thanksgiving, we'd given in.  He had his bottles back.

I didn't want to have to write something all negative, like "well we've gotten nowhere fast, Zack wins every battle hands down because I can't take his screaming."

I didn't want to bring it up, until I had some real progress to report.

So, here's what happened.

One day last week, the boys' teacher called me and said that she thought Zack was thirsty at school, because he sticks his butterfly chewy under the faucet and then licks the water off of it.  So she wondered if I could send a sippy cup into school for him.

I thought quickly - well he doesn't actually drink from sippy cups yet, but there's no way I'm sending a bottle in to kindergarten with him - and reinforcing his bottle obsession.  So I told her, sure, I'll send in a sippy cup, you see if you can get him to drink from it.  Good luck with that.

And the very next day she emails and says casually "Zack drank about half the water out of the sippy cup today."

"Are you kidding?  He drank out of a sippy cup?  He drank WATER out of a SIPPY CUP?!"  I wrote back.

So we've kept a sippy cup at school now for the past few days.  Apparently since he has never, ever seen a bottle at school, he didn't even fight it.  He seems to accept that it's the sippy, or nothing at school.  She did say the second day he was less enthusiastic about it.  She had to reinforce (that is ABA therapist speak for "bribe") him with Cookie Crisp to get him to take a drink.  But, he's doing it.

So, we have created a plan to bring the sippy success into the house.  I'm going to have him drink from sippy cups every day at school, until it's just so normal for him, he doesn't even think twice about whether to accept it or not, when it's offered to him.  We'll start putting juice in it at school, the same juice we drink at home, so it's real tasty and familiar. 

Then one day, he'll get to bring his sippy cup home on the bus.  Maybe more than one day.  He can drink from it the whole way home.  And then he can bring it in the house.  And on that day....perhaps.....there just aren't any bottles in the house anymore.  So it will, in theory, be the smoothest transition possible.  If I have my way, he won't even realize a change took place.  We'll pave the sippy cup road from school to home as smoothly as possible so that it just slides in, seamlessly.

Now, if only they would both just start casually going potty at school......

How's that for Feel Good Friday material!

Nope. Nothing.

It's been 10 days now, and Zack has been a formidable opponent.  He has held his ground and so have we.  He has not once put his mouth on a sippy cup without a strong reinforcer (note the ABA-speak here, people.  I'm converted.).

Can't blame the kid.  He's been drinking from bottles since the day he was born.  Literally.  Actually he had a bottle shoved into his mouth within the first couple hours of life, due to a bit of low blood sugar.  I have a great picture of a nurse holding his bony little 5 lb. 8 oz. self, giving him his first bottle ever.  Unfortunately I can't find it, but I did find this cute one of Aliza giving a bottle to one of the boys, who for the sake of this story, we are going to assume is Zack.

On the other hand, Zack has become quite adept at handling a spoon -- a previously unperfected skill.  Well, I might be pushing it to say he's "quite adept."  He can spoon feed himself applesauce because he's decided it's watery and a good substitute when he's thirsty and sippy cups and regular cups are all he is ever offered.

Oh, this is about to get really really painful, though, because I know what the next step is.

We've been giving him one bottle in the morning, with his chocolate milk and his liquid multivitamin in it.  There are two reasons for this; one, I'm really anxious for him to take that multivitamin, since he has never in his life willingly and knowingly consumed a vegetable, and two, I wanted him to have that milk in his belly before he goes to school so he's not hungry/cranky for his teachers.  As we all know, hungry and cranky are hand-in-hand best friends so I like to keep them out of Zack's life, if possible.  He has enough troubles.

So what I'm going to have to do is eliminate that morning bottle.  That one last bottle he's been clinging to for dear life.  It's going to be loud.  The screaming, I mean.  His, I mean.  Mine will be all in my head.  Maybe I'll get the video recorder out so I can post it here and you can all share in the torture.

I don't know if we're going to make it.

Zack screamed and cried for a bottle for a little over an hour and a half last night.  He wailed, he was hysterical.  Mark and I took turns dealing with him and he did drink from a regular cup for a little bit, but he was out of his mind with anxiety.  Around 8:30, a full hour and a half after nighttime-medicine time, it dawns on me that I forgot to give him his Clonidine.  I just .... forgot somehow, at 7 when I gave the boys their other medications.  Zack had wanted lots of applesauce and I figured he was thirsty and applesauce is kind of watery.  And I was beginning to worry about the fact that he hadn't peed since the middle of the afternoon.  Only about 3 hours, but I was starting to think about that. 

Earlier in the day we'd been to the Harvest Party at Aliza's school and the boys didn't do well there.  Like an idiot, I marched them right into the classroom full of 2nd graders, and I tried to get them to sit in a corner with me, but within a few seconds Zack pinched someone, and I told him "no,", and he screamed, and it was one of those screams where everyone stopped what they were doing and looked over at us.....and later Aliza told me that embarrassed her, when Zack screamed like that in her classroom and I felt bad about that......and we were all so exhausted when we got home.  There was a lot going on all day, it was chaotic, and apparently I lost my mind.

I felt so bad when I realized I'd forgotten the Clonidine, the one thing that really calms him.  No wonder he was such a mess.  Within 20 minutes of having it, he relaxed and stopped wailing, finally, and went to bed.  Just about an hour later than usual for him.

But this morning he was up before 5:30, asking for a bottle, and I woke up with a jackhammer pounding in my head.  Way too little sleep for him last night.  I anticipate a rough day.  There's no school today, no therapy, he's with us all day with no breaks.  I'm not sure we're going to make it without bottles today.

All the Screaming

Zack's a tough guy.  He's not giving in easily.  AJ is worried about all the screaming.  He had his bottle of chocolate milk this morning and hasn't really drank anything the rest of the day.  He keeps picking up the sippy cups and saying "no?" and handing it over to one of us.  With his wide, tear-filled brown eyes.

{Pictured slightly smaller than usual and cropped to minimize view of cluttered kitchen.}

He tried to climb the dishwasher to reach the cabinet where he knows the bottles are kept.  When he had trouble keeping his footing on the edge of the dishwasher he put a hand on either side of it and tried his mightiest to yank it out from under the counter.  I worried for a few seconds he'd succeed; he is after all, the strongest 5-year-old alive (I proclaimed him that when I put a 40-pound sandbag in the toybox, along with 2 8-pound weights, to keep him from moving it, and he still maneuvered it across the room somehow.  That was back when he was 3, but I'm pretty sure the award would still stand.).  I started to take a picture of him trying to scale the countertop and he came over and screamed at me.

A little later Lily had the nerve to sit on the couch next to him.  He pulled her tail.  She swatted him right back.  He screamed as if he'd been mauled by a lion, rather than merely patted by a 5-pound declawed housecat.  He's a little sensitive right now.

Lily, by the way, has had her own problems this week.

She's better now.  She's mostly back to herself after her brawl with the neighbor cat.  I'll spare you the really gross picture of her oozing, gunky, leeching wound.  I won't spare you the adjectives, but I'll spare you the picture.  *smile*

Talking Zack

AJ is the superstar of speech advancement, lately.  My Zachary is a man of few words.

But the words he does say are meaningful, from the heart, and even show the little comedian blossoming in him.

Yesterday he came upstairs from the basement where he was having ABA therapy, and he outran his therapist by about a mile, shooting past the kitchen where he was supposed to be headed, darting up another flight of stairs and pounding down the hall to AJ's bedroom where he was having ABA therapy.  He slammed AJ's door shut.  Just call him Captain Subtle.

His therapist went upstairs after him, opened AJ's door, and Zack looked over at her, smiled, and said "heh-woh."

It strikes me that this might be one of those "you had to be there" instances.  Maybe you did have to be there to see the cute "you got me" smile and to hear his game show host tone of voice.  I actually wasn't there.  But I've seen the smile, and I've heard the tone of voice, so I can readily imagine how cute it was.

Yesterday Lily got into a cat fight in the backyard -- a neighbor's cat was back there and the two of them yowled and wrestled it out for a few minutes before we spotted them and I broke it up.  Lily seemed fine but she ran downstairs to hide, mostly, I think, just to nurse her wounded pride.  I let her be most of the afternoon but then decided I needed to make certain she was okay, so I ducked around the furnace and laundry area with a flashlight, calling her.  She's a cat that thinks she's a dog -- she usually comes when I call her.  So when she didn't come out and I couldn't even spot her...

anyway I digress.

Zack was back in his little orange chair learning how to "wait" 20 seconds (you can't imagine how hard it is for him to sit there and do absolutely nothing for 20 seconds), when I walked through the room.  I waved at him and he said "buh-bye, mom."  Crystal clearly.

I get so used to hearing babbley-chittery-mumblety-nonsense from these boys, and it's just a thrill to hear real, meaningful, appropriate, clear words come out of their mouths.  Words and phrases you'd hear from a typical boy.  Words that show that they are understanding what they hear, and know the right thing to say in the right situation.  Phrases that show they are getting more social and interactive with people.  All things I took for granted that kids learned, before I knew these boys.

And my AJ -- well he doesn't just watch Wiggles videos on You Tube anymore.  Today he played a Moose and Zee game on http://www.nickjr.com/ where he had to match up the lower case letter with the upper case letter.  And he could do it.  And he liked it.

Well he liked it, because after he played one round of the game, I let him go back to You Tube.  But only a few times did I have to point out to him which upper case letter went with which lower case one.  And he came back to play the game again, on his own accord.  I figure, if he's going to use the computer, might as well get him to play an interactive game with it so it's at least a little bit educational.

And now I have to go back downstairs and continue the search for Lily.  Haven't seen her in about 22 hours now.  Starting to worry about what I'll find when I do find her.