Thursday, December 12, 2013

A great Month for us

I say amazing in the meaning of how I feel.  When I reflect on the month of October im completely surrounded with thoughts of love and friendship.  It was a beautiful month.   We learned so much about Jojo and the reasoning behind most of his behaviors . We started the month off by getting fully into our regimen of Speech,  Occupational therapy,  and full habilitation Services with an ABA trained tbetapist.  We average a pretty busy schedule but it is fully able to be implemented by a family starting out.
At the present time we have:
Saturday,  Sunday,  and monday  as family time and No Therapist.
(We still do his activities through out the day and keep his schedule on)
Tuesday: morning is off.  Hab/aba comes  fr 230 to 5pm.
Weds: hab/aba fr 8am to noon
Thurs: OT fr 8-930 nap time then 2-5 hab
Fri: Speech 9-10 and hab/aba 830-12
We average 15 hrs a week. I use this time as a way to absorb all the info I am hearing. This way I can continually use the techniques the same way the therapist do.

During therapy it all seems so easy. But when you're in the heat of the day and just trying to get by it seems hard to stop and do 15 or 20 minutes of some sort of activity to get your child calm. But by keeping at it and seeing it as a routine I am able to do it. For Instance,  before I start cooking dinner I will go roll on the floor with jojo and then do a deep pressure massage touch on his legs arms and shoulders. This relaxes him and he can focus on a task. Allows me enough time to get my task completed too.  if that doesn't work I call in my enforcement helpers aka the older kiddos they like to do therapy fun with jojo.  Its a win win!

October also was the Autism Speaks walk.  My whole family and jojos therapist all came. Even their families came to be supportive.   It was amazing.   The whole process and feeling was just overwhelming but also freeing for me. I was so  nervous to see so many affected all at once.  But it was beautiful.  The love and support from family, friends and volunteer community members was awesome.   What a huge accomplishment!  Jojo loved the nice long walk and enjoyed an apple along the way . This day was my  birthday and it was perfect!