You cannot be born into this family and not be able to eat bread. Bread has been one of the hardest delights for Jackson to let go of. I enjoy making homemade cheesy breadsticks, tear off bread, monkey bread, muffins…yeah…now my mouth is watering. Since Jack has been on the GFCF (Gluten Free Casein Free) diet, though, I haven’t wanted to torture him with the rapturous smells of fresh baked goods he will not be allowed to taste–unless he happens to fish some leftover crumbs out of the trash, swipe them from his brother’s highchair tray, or lick them off the floor. Bread seems a little cruel. And the $5 GFCF breads I’ve bought so far have all ended up crumbled on the plate as Jackson licks the peanut butter off the undesired slices or moldy because I forgot to stick them in the freezer or freezer burned because I forgot to take them out. Continue reading “Bread: the last GFCF stronghold”
Victory in the bathroom
Three days ago, Jackson entered the bathroom on his own initiative, grabbed his potty seat, and placed it on the potty while singing in a soft, whispery voice, “Jackson put your poopies in the potty.” He proceeded to take the advice of Mommy’s soft-rock ballad created in a moment of desperation during our weekend “Potty Party” over a month ago. Continue reading “Victory in the bathroom”
A Careful Sort of Hope
Sorry we haven’t posted in a while. I have been down in Texas this week with the laptop. But I’m back home with the fam again, and I wanted to throw this in before I let Sara out of the kitchen (Oh come one, it’s a joke! But she really is in the kitchen…)
Jack’s waves of progress and regress have numbed me a little over the past year. He learns new words. We get excited. People tell us “Yah! He’s getting better! God is healing him!” And I smile politely. Maybe. I hope they’re right. But they don’t understand that the downs always follow the ups. If the pattern serves, he will lose those words in a week or two, and we’ll wonder where he has gone again. It’s happened so many times, my expectations now oscillate a safe distance between jadedness and denial. For better or for worse, that’s the way it is. Continue reading “A Careful Sort of Hope”
Following directions through the haze of autism
We’ve worked long and hard at getting Jackson to connect with us and figured out several things that are rewarding and motivating. We feel like we’ve laid a great groundwork for getting Jackson to follow directions. This has turned out to be a bigger challenge than I ever imagined.
Reality began sinking in one day about a year ago when I looked up and saw that Jackson had left a trail of at least ten strawberry tops winding across the living room carpet. Not wanting to miss a teachable moment, I decided to have him pick each one up and feed it to the guinea pigs. Cleaning up and connecting with pets at the same time! Whoo hoo! Continue reading “Following directions through the haze of autism”
Expanding his diet: Food tolerance
Jackson stanchly refuses to ingest vegetables and anything green. The “Green Tree” incident (his sisters’ code name) will go down in history as perhaps our most dismal food failure: Trying to convince Jackson that we could outwit and outwait his opposition to broccoli. Continue reading “Expanding his diet: Food tolerance”