Ups and Downs Today

Our children are so moody, it is sometimes depressing. One minute (which could extend to days) they are engaged, happy, social, etc., the next minute they withdraw. That happened to Jonathan today. I have not added any new supplements. I did run out of Yasko's enzymes. Perhaps that made a difference.

Last night, we went to a friend's house and since we knew we were coming back very late, we asked Grandma to stay in our room and sleep over. When we got home, we slept in the guest bedroom. In the morning, when Jonathan woke up and went to our bed and saw Grandma, immediately asked where "Mommy" was. And even insisted in talking to me. He called me (he knows my cell phone number by heart) and asked me where I was. I told him I was in the guest room in the basement and he came down to see me. He was so excited to see us. This is huge. Lots of motor planning happened here.

However, his OCD kicked in and he listened to his Tecnomerengue music CD most of the morning. Despite the fact that Grandma tried to get him to play with her and Vanessa. After I gave him his morning supplements, he stopped playing with his CD and started playing with Vanessa and with some toy horses we have, they wore our shoes, etc. They had a fun hour of play.

In the afternoon, we called our friends Brooke and Luis to arrange a "play date" with the 4 kids. We met them at Rio Grande and had lunch with them. Jonathan was not interested in Nico and Christian. We brought him pizza. He eat his 2 slides and then got interested in the machine that makes the tortillas. The 4 kids were watching the tortillas being made. That was fun to watch.

We later went to a plaza area outside the restaurant to play with a ball. Jonathan did not want to play. At first, he sat on the stairs and watched carefully the other kids playing. At parks he usually plays soccer, but not today. After a little while, he simply withdrew and started rocking. I broke that quickly asking him if he wanted ice cream and he immediately got excited about it. We ate ice cream and came back home. It was obvious that he was not enjoying himself and it was sad for us to watch him that way.

At home, we spent 1 hour doing homework (GMS sends writing and cutting exercises weekly). He did well the first 20 minutes. He then started to lose focus. By the time we were done, it was like pulling teeth. He did not have any focus. He loves numbers and letters, reading and writing, but I think that his body would not really sit still any longer.

I made several observations today.

Inappropriate Behavior:

• Continued OCD behavior with music CD
• Humming
• Seeking sensory input (craves being hugged, rocks, pinches ear)
• Lack of patience (if he asks for something, it has to be right now. He has no tolerance for waiting)
• Defiant - lots of "no". His attitude is "his way or no way"
• No interest in toys
• More frequent thumb sucking
• He cannot answer "why" or "how" questions appropriately. He either gives an answer that has nothing to do with the question or sucks his thumb and withdraws.
• Some ADD trails - cannot sit still for more than 10 minutes and do homework or watch TV or do anything. He cannot focus. Moves around. Forgets the task. Even with his CD, he will put it on one device for not more than 5 minutes and switch to another CD player, DVD or PC. He will never listen to one song in its entirely. Nowadays the only thing he will do for 30 minutes straight is play with PlayStation. And he is getting quite good at it!

Positive Observations:

• Better abstract thinking - he knows what day of the week it is and what yesterday and tomorrow are (e.g., today is Sunday, he knows there is no school on Sundays. Tomorrow is Monday and there is school. And Yesterday was Saturday. Can't say what he did yesterday yet)
• His expressive language is still "rote" but he can put more words together to express his needs and his pronunciation is very clear. Also, he clearly understands (FINALLY) the "I" and "you" pronouns. "He" and "she" are still a problem. And he has no true understanding of "we" and never uses it spontaneously.
• Expresses concern for Vanessa constantly and must know where she is all the time.
• He is using toys to express his feelings - today he used a stuffed cookie monster to tell me that cookie monster wanted to go to the park. He has also used the CD to tell me how he feels.

I am going to focus this week on improving his supplements. I collected stool for the DDI Comprehensive Stool Analysis. That test is going to tell me how his gut is doing. I may need to implement the GF/CF diet again. I am also waiting to hear from our insurance whether or not they are going to cover the urine tests so I can do another one. I wish I could do them weekly. I just cannot afford them weekly without insurance.