April is Autism Awareness Month and today, April 2nd, is Light it up Blue for Autism!
I’m wearing blue for Brendan and every other person affected by Autism.
Tristan has been diagnosed with SPD, the difference between Brendan and Tristan however is that Brendan is a seeker and Tristan is an avoider. I always thought he was just a quiet little soul, however it turns out he is actually avoiding much of what goes on around him! It’s really quite interesting actually.He’s now doing regular OT sessions to try and overcome the sensitivities 
Anyway, it’s late, I just wanted to update on that while I remember to (sorry!)
Couldn’t leave Tristan out 
There’s not much I can really say, developmentally he is advanced 
which is a really strange feeling! He’s not 3 until June and yet he is already advanced (at a 3 year old level) in fine and gross motor skills as well as his communication and problem solving!!! The only area slightly behind (based on 3 year old development – so plenty of time to work on it before it is an issue as such) is his personal-social skills.
He does have some sensory issues, but they are only a few particular things, I’m certain his sensory profile will come back all within normal limits.
He’s a cheeky little thing, sometimes I wonder about giftedness…. he just seems to be too bright for his age… but then I am not sure exactly what is considered to be “normal” or average so it could just be that he seems gifted to me because Brendan is so far behind. Tristan is doing so many more things than Brendan is. If he was toilet trained I reckon I could have sent him to kindy this year no problems at all.
So proud of both my boys 
Thought I’d give a little update on how Brendan is going. He’s doing so well, he’s blown everyone out of the water with how well he is coping with all the changes etc. Not repeating kindy and sending him through to Pre-Primary has been the best decision we’ve made, the 5 days a week routine and classroom structure has seen a massive improvement in Brendan. His severe separation anxiety is now only a mild one, this morning he ran to the school bus (once it had stopped of course)…. I’m so proud of him, he has left me without words with how well he is doing.
He has a full time classroom aide with him and also one that travels on the bus to the second school twice a week. The school is looking for someone to fill his school-plus aide time so that he can have some one-on-one away from the other children (the current aide also helps the k-yr3 children + a yr7 ASD) to work on building his skills further. He also has 4 hours a week of one-on-one therapy with a therapy assistant in the bigger school (2 hours twice a week). Over-all he is getting a lot of help!
Yesterday we had is IFSP meeting (DSC Pysch, OT, Speech, Teachers, Education Assistant’s, Therapy Assistant, School Pysch, etc…) and it was a very productive meeting! We now have some goals in place for Brendan’s development to help him catch up to his peers and hopefully be able to enter grade one as per usual (if he is still quite behind then we will assess whether or not to repeat PP). I’m confident that he will catch up more this year, especially with all the help he is getting now. I”m also confident that by the end of the year his aide time will be down to just the school-plus allocation (which I think equates to two days a week, I’m not too sure at this stage) which will be used when he is at the local school.
I’ve just completed his 5yr ASQ developmental questionnaire this morning (he’s 5 next week EEK!) and now have a better insight in to which areas to focus on a little more. He is very delayed in fine and gross motor skills and borderline delay in communication, personal-social and problem solving. This is fantastic news for us, we’ve been working SO hard on his communication and personal-social skills it’s great to see he has made some progress and is now almost within the normal limits for his age!!!!!! I’m looking forward to his paediatrician visit to complete the griffiths test in May (5 corrected).
Brendan had his first day at Pre-Primary(WA) today. He was not at all happy about being left behind, I felt sorry for the teacher (who’s new) because the EA wasn’t in yet and Brendan was having some huge separation anxiety fits. However I believe he did calm down and had a good day at school as they didn’t call me to collect him and there was nothing written in his communication booklet either. He also rode home on the bus! So proud of him =)
A tad excited about playing with the toys lol
Tristan and I had a fairly quiet day at home, he’s such a peaceful and calm soul. He loved being able to play with some toys by himself =)
I hope everyone had a great day, even if you aren’t in Australia! We didn’t do much at all today just an ordinary day doing some cleaning etc.
This morning I woke at just after 5am to hubby in a rush to get dressed as his lift had arrived to pick him up and his alarm had not gone off. I tried laying in bed and could have quite easily have gone back to sleep, however I was presented with an issue. Do I go back to sleep knowing that the boys would probably be awake within 30 mins to an hour anyway or do I get up and have some ‘me time’?
I got up and I didn’t get to do much at all because Brendan woke around 30 mins after I got up. At least it was nice to sit by myself in the quiet for a little while =)
What would you have done?
Brendan had his post-op ENT appointment yesterday at PMH. We decided to park the car and catch a train in to the city rather than deal with peak hour traffic. Brendan loved going on the train but he hated how loud and noisy it was. I’m thinking about getting him some cute little ear muffs or something. Once we got off the train we then caught a bus to the hospital where we met up with some lovely ladies from the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation. I have some exciting news about that, but that’s for another post 
First up at our outpatients appointment was a hearing test, his left ear is within normal ranges but he is still partially deaf in the right ear. We then saw the ENT doctor, from a surgical point-of-view he is very happy how things are going he’s also not too concerned about the deafness at this stage and will continue to monitor it.
While I was in there I asked about getting Tristan checked out too, which he thought would be a good idea. I’m pretty sure Tristan has a current referral for the State Child Development Centre Audiology so I’ll give them a call first if not then it’s back on the waiting list.
All up it was a good day
My gorgeous best friend got the boys an awesome wet slide for the boys for Christmas and they LOVE it!
Ingredients needed: 2 1/4 cups self raising flour 1 Tbsp caster sugar 20g olive oil margarine 200g low-fat feta cheese, chopped 1 cup chopped baby spinach (I used the finely chopped frozen stuff) 1 egg 1 cup milk (I used hi-lo) 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Steps: 1. Combine flour and sugar in a mixing bowl. Rub in margarine. 2. Add chopped feta cheese and spinach. 3. Beat egg and milk together, then add to feta mixture. 4. Place even amounts into 12-hole muffin tin. (optional – I added all mine to the mixture at step 2.) Sprinkle tops lightly with parmesan cheese. 5. Bake at 190*C for 20 minutes, or until muffins spring back on touching.
1441kj (343cal) 11g fat (5g sat) 42g carbs and 19g protein
recipe from Slimming and Health Low-Fat Summer Cookbook
