Happy Valentine's Day & Hello Again...

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day. The Griggs house has been keeping busy between school, therapy, sickness, and visitors; I looked back and noticed my last post happened almost a month ago so I decided I should take a some time & let everyone know what been happening in our world. I'll start off with the not so good and try & end on a happier note :)

Last week Jack woke up Tuesday morning and spend his first few hours of awake time glued to the toilet. I took him to the Dr and he was diagnosed with Strep, again. This is the third time since Thanksgiving my poor little guy has come down with Strep. I don't think that was the only reason for his sickness. I think he was also fight some kind of stomach virus along with it, but thankfully the Dr was able to treat him and after an entire day and night of sleep he woke up the next day as if nothing had happened. Unfortunately for Peyton and I Wednesday we came down with the same thing. Thankfully, Justin was able to come home early from work, jumped into super dad mode and take Peyton (along with Jack) to the doctors office before they closed; while I went to the urgent care clinic. Jack was better and able to return to school on Thursday which gave Peyton and I the opportunity to relax and recover.

On Friday I had signed up to take a workshop class which thankfully I was still able to attend. The workshop was put on my Region 10 education services center. Region 10 ESC is one of 20 regional service centers established by the Texas State Legislature in 1967 for the purpose of providing services to the school districts within a defined geographic region. There missions is to create a dynamic learning community, passionately committed to educational excellence, is to anticipate the rapidly changing needs of students and other stakeholders by building partnerships and providing a wide array of high quality, innovative products and services, efficiently and economically.

The workshop was for a new program they are trying to launch to educate parents on the ARD/ IEP process in order to help other parents. It was very informative & I learned some new things. There is going to be additional training in the future & I look forward to seeing how this new program grows & evolves.

My parents & sister came into town this weekend. My sister & I had signed up to run in the Dallas Hot Chocolate 5k. My little stomach bug might have slowed me down a little, but we still had a fun time (despise the enormous traffic jam that we got stuck in prior to the race which we though was going to keep up from getting to the starting point on time) Nothing like having to run to the starting line before your run a race, lol.

The kids had a fun weekend playing with there NeeNaw, PaPa & auntie Stacey. I know they will be very happy when they can come back for another visit.

Justin & I spend valentines day at home with the kids. Justin brought home Olive Garden takeout for dinner, he rented the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower & I made us some chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. It was a very nice relaxing evening.

I am very glad it Friday & I hope my kids can finally get out of this bad pattern of being well one week then sick the next, but until we are officially out of winter I probably shouldn't hold my breath. I hope everyone had a great week. I will do my best to update the blog again sooner rather then later ;-)

Have a great weekend and a Big Birthday shout out to a fellow friend & blogger Gwyn!

My son ate (a piece of) an orange!

I know it's been a while since I last posted but today I was told a lunch time story I just had to share. Some of you may know that Jack & many ASD kiddos can be very picky eaters. ASD children can have hypersensitivity to certain smells & texture which can make eating foods with strong odors, flavors & different textures challenging. So when his teacher Lynn told me that at lunch Jack took a piece of her orange & ate it and then asked for more, I was floored!

Last year and even at the beginning of this school year the most Jack would do when Lynn got her fruit out for lunch would be to pick it up and move it as far away from him as possible. We aren't really sure of the reason behind this behavior, and since his verbal skills are still developing the only thing we can do for now is assume it has something to do with the smell &/or look of certain fruit. Before winter break he started to show more interest in the fruit she brought for lunch, especially the oranges. He made some progress by wanted to explore the oranges and even went so far as to lick them (which was huge) but it never went any further. I started to send the occasional orange to school so he had more opportunities to explore, but in true Jack fashion disinterest can happen as quickly as the interest developed. Getting him to eat fruit & vegetables is a struggle & on good day he will eat a Dole fruit cup of either peaches or pears. Which might not be the ideal choice of fruit, but is better then nothing.

Jack has made some good progress the past few months & we are very excited to say he is potty trained! Getting him to expand his foods choices will be something we continue to work on and encourage, but for today I am a very proud mom and exited to share the news that:
My son ate a piece of an orange!

Back to school

Yesterday was Jack's first day back to school after his long winter break.  I feel a little guilty about how excited I was for him to go back to school but long breaks come with there own set of challenges.  I am very grateful for the 5 days he was able to attend his social group, but that still left us a lot of free days.  Jack tends to get very stir crazy when we spend a lot of time at home, and since this break required more stay at home time then usual with starting to potty train and illness it was a little more exhausting.  We did enjoyed seeing our family for Christmas but even that feels like it happened a life time ago.  I posted on Monday when we found out Jack had Strep but when I started writing I realized I was just to tired so I kept the post short and sweet.  Jack has been having a hard time sleeping this past week due to his persistent cough and his change in routine.  Luckily, the medicine he received for the strep seems to be working and I think he is started to feel better.   I am very happy to report that last night he finally got a good night's sleep and it didn't include a 3 hour middle of the night play session (which had started to become a very bad habit the past 4 or 5 nights), yeah!!! The potty training is going well but still requires a lot of energy and dedication on our part.  He still doesn't always make it to the potty when he has to go poop, but we have finally had some successful poop's on the potty.  Last night I heard in in the bathroom and went in to find him on the potty going poop all by himself.  I think he is finally starting to make the connection about when he has to go and getting to the potty.  His accidents have become much less frequent so we are moving in the right direction.  He had one accident yesterday at school, but did manage to successfully pee in the potty twice.  He still has a little to much fun playing in the bathroom, this weeks obsession is turning on the water in the sink and plugging the drain to watch the water fill up in the sink.  I'm getting some extra exercise because every time I hear the bathroom door open I have to run down the hall so that I can make sure he doesn't flood the bathroom and redirect this behavior so he can learn the bathroom is for potty time only not play. There hasn't been a single dull moment since we started our potty training adventure, but all this hard work is worth it.  No more diapers!!!  The question now is, when will it be time to potty train Peyton? :-)

Little Lady update:

We are really hoping Peyton doesn't catch Jack's Strep but we will be keeping a close eye on her the rest of this week.  She is such a funny little girl and has a very big personality.  She doing great when it come to her development.  Her verbal skills are amazing she repeating everything we say.  It's so exciting and amazing watching her little mind work,  learn new things, and tell you what she is thinking.  Her favorite word right now is
"no" and if she doesn't want to do something she will let you know.  She is beginning to enter the terrible two's and I am not sure if Justin and I are ready for this to happen yet, but I guess we don't really have a choice.   She still loves to play with the cats and now insists that they come with her while she nap.  She loves to copy our actions and its so much fun to watching her pretend play.  She will play with her baby dolls and put them down for naps, give them kisses and say "nite, nite."  She love to play with her little people barn and has a great time playing cars with Jack.  One of the cutest things that has happened over winter break is that Peyton and Jack have started to play with each other.  Peyton has always been more interested in Jack then he was with her, but we have finally started to see him try and engage her in play.  He started off his break very excited about chasing the cat's around the house (which is also a new development).  This then transitioned into him wanting to chase Peyton around the house.  One evening I noticed him standing next to her give her a little push (which is what he would do to the cat's to get them to run off)  Once I noticed what his intentions were I told her that Jack wanted to play chase and she ok and took off running and he took off after her.  It is so sweet watching them interact with each other and Peyton had a blast!  She would have like for the game to last forever and was very sad when he decided chase time was over.  I am happy to report this wasn't an isolated event and is starting to play chase more often.  It's so exciting watching them laugh and run around the house playing chase, and hopefully this will lead to a lot more brother-sister fun in the future. 

I hope that everyone is has a great week and I will post again next week!

Happy New Year!

Is everyone enjoying the start of 2013? Sorry I haven't posted in a while potty training has kept me very busy not to mention has been very tiring. Jack has also been fighting a cold which unfortunately we found out today was really strep :-(. He was treated with a shot & the dr said he is good when school starts back up tomorrow. Winter break feels like it has lasted for ever. I know I'm ready to get back into our regular routine.

I will try & post again soon when I am less tired. I hope everyone has a great night!

Potty Training Days 3 & 4

This weekend was day 3 and 4 in our potty training adventure with Jack. He has really gotten the hang of going pee on the potty. Today he even self initiated going to the bathroom which was so exciting! His only accidents this weekend came when he had to go #2. This will probably take a little longer for him to get the hang of, but we are so very proud of how well he is doing. We still have to keep an eye on him because he has become a little obsessed with flushing the toilet which we hope will decrease one the novelty of using the bathroom wears off (hopefully). We are continuing to log his usage so we can continue to provide reminders. He has started to verbalize more of the words he has been hearing and seems to really understand what I'm asking when I say "do you need to use the potty?" I am looking forward to sharing all his progress with his ABA therapist this week.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's Eve! I will post again soon in the New Year

Potty training: Day 2

I don't have a lot to report, but today was very similar to yesterday. We had a few accidents a few at home, but only one at social. My afternoon was slightly better especially since Justin was able to leave work early. The one thing I did notice today is that he was able to tolerate sitting on the toilet for longer stretches but that didn't necessarily bring more success. I think the plan for the weekend will be to keep tracking his usage, especially the time between accidents and successful potty usage, and focus on more frequent visits to the potty for shorter periods of time. He must have drank a lot more water during his bath then usual because we had two accidents tonight before bed that were only 15 minutes apart. Hoping tomorrow we can have a good day and work on learning his pattern. Hope everyone has a nice night!

Potty training day 1

We just got Jack down for bed and I thought I'd take a minute to reflect (it's the teacher in me) on our first day of potty training. I am very relieved that we decided to start potty training on the same day he started his holiday social group. This way his ABA therapist could help me get the ball rolling. This was a very good thing since the day started out a little rough.

He woke up in a pretty pleasant mood and he even had a successful first pee before getting dressed for SG. I had been doing my best to prepare for what I thought the most challenging aspects of potty training, but of course what I wasn't prepared for was when he had a major meltdown because he didn't want to put on his underwear. I tried a couple time to put them on him but after several failed attempts I decided not to fight him anymore and took him to SG in a diaper. I discussed what happened with Jessie and she texted me a few hours later to let me know they had gotten him to wear his underwear and he even had used the bathroom. She said they had to completely remove the diaper from view so he would know it wasn't an option which is when he gave in. Apparently there was one moment during the day he saw another child with a diaper and requested "I want a diaper" (which is an awesome verbal request from him). So with that knowledge, I hid every single diaper in our house before picking him up.

My afternoon was kind of rough. We are tracking when he goes and when he has accident because he will more and likely get trained to go on a schedule. I would set the timer for bathroom breaks and had about 3 consecutive times when he would sit and nothing would happen and them he would get off and in less then 5 minute have an accident. I know this is all part of the process but it still got me a little down. I decide to lengthen the time between bathroom visits and am very please to report his last two pee's of the day were on the potty!

He is sleeping in a pull up just in case he has an accident in the middle of the night and with ASD kids night time potty training can require a whole different training process. I am very excited to relax and am trying to pump myself up for day 2. I will try and post again with an update soon.

Have a great night!