Bryce Makes Me Laugh

Henry, our middle son is 3 years old, and must say 12 adorable things a day.  He just makes me laugh all the time.  Or makes my heart melt with his sweetness.  We are enjoying this stage so much! With Bryce, it's really just beginning.  We skipped over the cute/adorable stage altogether, because he wasn't talking at all when he was 3 and 4 years old.  Now that he has a good handle on language, he's beginning to actually communicate more than just basic needs and wants.  I have caught myself saying "I need to write that down" more and more often.  So here's an example:

A couple days ago, we were driving along and the song "Alouette" came on.  

     Bryce said, "This song is Spanish!" (You can tell he's grown up  in Southern California.)  

     I said, "No, it's French.  It's another language, like Spanish, but it  sounds different."  

Later that night, we were about to watch a movie and the language options came up.  

          Jared jokingly asked, "Should we watch it in French?"  

     Bryce quickly replied, "No, Daddy! French is silly words! We need English!"  

Jared was so proud. :)

Last night for dinner, we had "Mexican Hot Dogs", or hot dogs wrapped in a corn tortilla and baked to make them crispy.  

    Bryce sat down to eat and said, "Hot dogs in tortillas?! How    unexpected!"

Jared and I just cracked up!  If you could only hear his voice inflection as he said it-so funny! 

Um... where did First Grade go?

It's Memorial Day weekend, and there are only four days of school left this year.  WHAT?!? I did an awful job of blogging Bryce's first year in a mainstream class!  I blame Facebook.  Most of my "important" updates come in the form of a status.  And I blame Charlie.  I DID give birth to our third boy just days before the school year began, and he's a handful! (I'm not sure what I'll be able to blame next year)  Hopefully I'll get some posting done this summer and get in the habit of recording events in Bryce's life.

There has been so much improvement in Bryce's social and emotional abilities this year.  I really believe he has "found his voice."  There are fewer awkward silences as he tries to think of what to say or how to answer a question.  He's finally realized that language is for communication.  As I look back over the last few years, I realize that he has stopped most of his obsessive behaviors.  There are still a few (see: socks) but his behavior in general is more typical.

One side effect of having more control of his speech is that he is now less "compliant" about things he doesn't really want to do.  Normally, I would see this as a discipline issue, but with Bryce, it's just about him realizing he has a say in his life.  He just needs to learn the proper way to express his displeasure with something.  Autistic kids are often bullied because they don't know how to stand up for themselves and say what they want or don't want to do.  I would actually use the word manipulated, more than bullied.  But now, Bryce has figured out he can disagree with others and express his own opinions and desires.

Case in point: At the time, I'm sure this was very troubling for him, and I did feel sorry that he had to go through this, but now, it just cracks me up!!! Every day, the kids in his class write in their journals.  They usually have options of what to write about, but on this day they were learning about writing letters, so the teacher wanted them to write a letter to someone in their journal.  Then came the perfect storm.  1. Mrs. Linda, Bryce's therapist and full-time aide, told Bryce to work in his phonics workbook first, and then work on the journal. (this was out of the normal order of things)  2.  He was told to write a letter, not to choose a subject to write about. (another deviation from routine)  3.  The date, which is normally written in the top right corner of the journal, had to be written down near the body of the letter, in proper form (three changes=too much!)

Bryce spoke in an angry manner to Mrs. Linda and tried to grab his journal from her.  She then proceeded to tell him that you may NOT act that way or speak that way in class.  Of course, he then began to fall apart.   Since he was having a hard time, she took him out of class so he wouldn't be embarrassed or become a distraction.  When they got to a private room, he was able to tell her what was bothering him, and she worked with him about speaking his displeasure properly.  When he explained that he needed to do the journal first, she let him do that, but still insisted that he write the date where his teacher told him to.  He settled down and completed his assignment.  Here is what he wrote, without any prompting whatsoever:

                                                                                                                                       March 22, 2012

Dear Henry,
   
     I am upset about writing a letter.  Mrs. Linda is making me write the date in the wrong spot and it make me cry.

                   Your brother,
                     Bryce

I just got the journal yesterday in his school stuff, and when I came across the entry, I laughed out loud! I could just hear the irritation in his voice and the under the breath grumbling!  I know, I know, that isn't something to normally be proud of, but Bryce isn't normal! We'll work on attitude next :)

Christmas with the Cousins

I'm shaking my head as I looked at my blog and saw the last post was in July.  Shame on me! Bryce starts his first year in a mainstream class and I haven't recorded a moment of it! Suffice it to say, it's been a rousing success and he's doing great being surrounded by typical peers and lovingly guided by Mrs. Linda.

This year it was our turn for a Burkholder Christmas, versus the Rench one.  However, since Christmas fell on a Sunday (essentially a work day for us) we were in town Christmas day.  We spent Christmas Eve here at our house with the family and Christmas Day over at Grandma and Grandpa's (after a wonderful Christmas service at church).  The next day, we headed up north to Gramps and Mem's house.

At this point, Bryce had already been out of school for a week, and I could see the subtle changes in him already.  He NEEDS structure and familiarity to perform well.  When he's out of school and away from Mrs. Linda, he's like a different boy.  Not bad, but there are more "issues", more frustrations, etc.  I was a little concerned about how things were going to be when we got around all the family and chaos that goes along with a Christmas vacation.

Bryce was excited as we left town, new pillow pet in tow, because he knew we were staying in a hotel (which he pronounces HO-tel). When we got to Gramps and Mem's house the next day, I was pleasantly surprised to see Bryce greet them by name and give them big hugs.  We also got to spend the holidays with Uncle Lance, Aunt Josie and their three boys, Liam, Kyle and Regan.  Bryce kept calling Lance Uncle Justin, because his family was usually there when we came up for Christmas.  But by the end of the week, he had everyone's names figured out. :) I also noticed that when we greeted the family, Bryce did an excellent job of answering questions posed to him.  Sometimes you get nothing but silence from him as he either thinks a long time about how to respond or totally zones you out and ignores you.  But he did very well answering questions about his age, what he got for Christmas, etc.  No one else may have noticed it, but I smiled to myself as I watched his initial interactions with the family.

This is not to say there were no issues or meltdowns all week.  One of our biggest mistakes was forgetting to bring our Wii controllers and his favorite game, Wii Sports Resort.  There was a Wii to play, but not his favorite game, and about 5 minutes after realizing that, he started asking if we could go home.  I hate to see him unhappy like that because it just consumes his mind-he was on the verge of tears the whole first night there.  Our saving grace was the fact that they did have Mario Cart and three controllers, so the cousins were able to play together.  It took some referee work to keep everyone happy, but we managed :) Our other major issue was the sock incident.  Bryce NEVER takes his socks off.  Bath time and swimming will be the only time you see his feet.  But one day, he went to the restroom and stepped in a puddle (you know, the kind of puddle you get with 6 little boys using the same restroom).  I didn't have any extras with us because we were staying at Amie's house overnights and our luggage was over there.  Her house was only minutes away, but we had to take him over there immediately to get more socks.  The whole trip he kept saying, "I need my socks!!!" We would tell him we were going to get them, and then ten seconds later- "I need my socks!!!"  *Sigh* I'm not sure we'll ever get him over that particular obsession.  Once they were on again, he returned to  his usual happy self!

The most noteworthy event of the week, at least in my mind, was unnoticed by everyone else.  I told Bryce to turn off the Wii and go play with some toys with his cousins.  He disappeared down the hall to the boys' room  and I figured he was going to stay back there alone with the toys.  I was shocked to see him return will a toy for each one of the boys and one for himself.  He walked around the room handing out a toy to each cousin saying, "Here, you play with______." I was so proud of him.  He thought of others individually, and carried out my instructions even better than I hoped he would.  If Henry had done the same thing, I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but when you are dealing with an autistic child, those events make your heart sing!

We really did have a very Merry Christmas- now BACK TO SCHOOL!!! :)

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

During Summer School hours (which Bryce did not qualify for since he is so advanced in academics :), Bryce has been still going to the school to work with Mrs. Linda, the world's greatest ABA therapist.  He gets 5 hours a week according to his IEP, so we spread it out over a few days and it gives him something to do over the summer break.  It also is helping prepare him for the new school year, where he will be attending a regular ed 1st grade class this year.  Mrs. Linda will be with him all day to help keep him on task.  For the summer, Mrs. Linda has been concentrating on social skills and communication instead of more academics.  Yesterday, when I picked him up from school, she told me he had just been chattering away all day and was doing fantastic work on his sentences.  She sees such an improvement in him since the beginning of Kindergarten.  He's finally starting to grasp some of those abstract concepts that are required to build proper sentences.  On Thursday, when we were at her house swimming (yes, she invited us over to swim and to work with Bryce in the pool-is she not just the biggest blessing ever?!?!?) she told me that he should be caught up to his typical peers in language by 3rd grade.  That is just about the greatest news I've ever had.  There's hope.  Light at the end of the tunnel.  He'll always struggle socially and communication will be hard for him, but if he can make himself understood without someone always there to help...that's a huge burden off my shoulders! Anyway, last night, Linda called me because she forgot to tell me something when I picked up Bryce and she knew I would really want to hear this.  She said that she was picking up random flashcards and asking Bryce to give her a sentence using the word shown.  She held up one that said, "made."  Without hesitation, he said, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  She couldn't believe it! She asked Mrs. Caskey, Bryce's kinder teacher, if she had heard what Bryce said.  Mrs. Caskey said no, so she asked Bryce to tell her the sentence again.  And again he said, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  Mrs. Caskey didn't see the significance of that, so Linda said, "He's quoting Scripture!!!" We are so blessed to have a wonderful Christian lady working with Bryce in the public school system!  She's even offered to use her phone to show him visuals of verses he's working on (sneaky way of getting the Bible into school without breaking any rules).      I always said I would never put my children in public school, and sometimes I feel guilty for putting my son in an environment that may be difficult for him, but little things like this confirm that we made the right decision and are doing what's necessary to get Bryce the help and education he needs.  And God is keeping him protected and provided for while he's there.  What's next?  I don't know.  We will just take things one day, one month, one year at a time, and trust God to show us where we need to be! Because, we too, are "fearfully and wonderfully made" by an amazing God!

"My Tooth Fell Out" by Bryce Burkholder

These are the events of last Sunday/Monday according to Bryce: (his therapist had him write a story)

"I was at church and ran and bump Henry.  Then it wigold.  Next my tooth came out.  I put it my envelop undr my peloaw.  I got muney frum 99cents for a new game."  He then drew a picture of a huge mouth with a missing tooth and an arrow pointing to the hole that says, "My tooth is gon."

It may have been the fact that he knew he could get a new game for the iPod when he lost his next tooth, but this time around was MUCH less dramatic than the last time :) Yay for progress!

A Heart-warming "Motherhood" Moment

Anyone with an autistic child will tell you that there's rarely such a thing as spontaneous gestures of affection.  Bryce has never brought me a flower from the yard, or come up to me and said, "Mommy, I love you."  I don't get kisses "just because." I may never get a Mother's Day card that was not purchased by Daddy or created at school.  This is not to say he isn't affectionate at all.  But his affections are usually in response to ours.  It's a learned response.  Just like, "Hi, how are you?"  "I'm fine, thank you." Or "What do you say?"  "Excuse me."  So the other night, I was saying goodnight to him like I always do.  He was in bed already and the lights were off.  I kissed him on the forehead and said, "Goodnight, I love you."  He responded, "Goodnight, I love you."  But then he did something totally unexpected.  As I turned to leave the room, he grabbed my wrist and said, "One hundred kisses."  I was surprised and it took me a minute to respond.  I realized he was asking for 100 kisses instead of a kiss goodnight.  I countered with, "How about five kisses?"  He then negotiated, "How about TEN kisses?"  How could I say no to that? So I kissed him all over his face while counting to ten and then he just giggled  then turned over to go to sleep! I came out to the living room and told Jared I'd just had one of those heart-warming mommy moments that so many others take for granted.  My sweet boy- how I love him!

Mainstream my baby?!?

Ok, so I know he's not a baby anymore- he's a VERY large 6 year old, but this was my thought the other day when Bryce's teacher mentioned how well he was doing in class and she thinks he should go mainstream with a full-time aide.  It's a two-edged sword, really.  Every parent of a special needs child wants their child to be as "normal" as possible, but on the other hand wants to protect their child from those same "normal" kids!  Bryce has been improving by leaps and bounds since going back to school after the Christmas break.  He's always been bright academically and this baby Kindergarten stuff really isn't all that challenging for him.  He, of course, has gaps in his abilities, so he still has to maintain the course he's on, but his teacher has started him in First grade math and reading/writing comprehension.  He also does all First grade spelling! So, to give him more of an appropriate and challenging school atmosphere, she believes he should go mainstream next year for First grade.  (Which by then will be baby-easy for him, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.)

Now, it's not that I don't trust Bryce's teacher, but I value the opinion of this ABA therapist much more.  She is the one who spends 2 hours every day with him one-on-one and she really knows him by now.  She has figured out his personality and learning style, and whether he needs time to answer a question or has just wandered "off task."  So I asked her after school whether she thought mainstreaming him was a good idea. She just jumped at the idea and STRONGLY recommended it for him.  I was surprised by how adamant she was about the idea.  She would be his full-time classroom aide, to keep him involved, on task, and help him when he doesn't understand.  Autistic kids don't naturally follow the example of their peers, and need to be taught how to take cues from others.  In his special ed class, he doesn't get the peer examples, since all the kids in there are learning disabled in one way or another. Bryce's therapist thinks that only good will come from mainstreaming him, so it looks like we'll be having another IEP meeting at the end of the school year to get that all set up.  Now I just have to fight to keep him at his current school.  His therapist would go with him to any school he attends in the district, but I like his school and I want to keep things as familiar as possible for him. 

As to what this means for the future, especially as he ages in middle school and high school, I'm not sure.  We just have to take things one day at a time and make the best decision we can for him at each crossroad.