Difficulties & Kindergarten on the Horizon

We've had quite the difficult summer when it comes to Kaitlyn's Aspergers. There has been terrible regression in bathrooming and she has been back fully in Pull Ups since about mid July. She has just recently gotten better at going to the bathroom while at home and will go on the toilet a few times a day. She is telling me that she is having trouble, sometimes, feeling that she has to go but I really think that comes down to her sensory and control issues. We're still working to get her back in underwear because she has her first day of Kindergarten this week on Sept 8th. As of now, the school has told me to send her to school in underwear and send extra clothing with her in her bag and they will help change her. This is one big concern for me for a lot of reasons that I may not get into right now... we'll see how it goes and I'll update. I do know that it bothers me to think my child would be the one getting picked on for going to the bathroom in her pants (and, as she does, not telling anyone) and being the "smelly" kid.

It's also been a pretty meltdown filled summer as well... there has been a lot of routine changes and uprooting and changes in schedules and all kinds of instability for Kaitlyn and she has not handled any of it well. I do believe that has had a LOT to do with the regression and going into a regular public school kindergarten is only going to cause the regression to worsen. I'm looking forward to getting Kaitlyn back into a very rigid routine and hopefully control some of the outburts.

We did do a trial with her and took her off of her medication for a few weeks to see if it really was helping and we found that, though it doesnt seem like a lot, it is helping. Without the medication the outburts and meltdowns were horribly worse. She became very aggressive, angry, destructive and violent.

Now, as I mentioned, Kindergarten starts in a few days and acedemically Kaitlyn is more than ready. She has been doing workbooks at home and is doing 1st Grade work in them. She is starting to read a lot more too and LOVES LOVES LOVES learning and how things work and is constantly asking questions about things. She is my little "Johnny 5" and "needs input!"

Kaitlyn will be starting Kindergarten in a regular public school. For the first week of school the kids will all be clustered together and evaluated on their acedemic skills against their peers and then placed in a classroom with a teacher. We have no idea which teacher Kaitlyn will have but we do know that each class will have 1 teacher annd 25 students. We do NOT see this going over well as we all know how Kaitlyn does NOT do well with large groups and also is delayed when it comes to social, emotional and behavioral things. Basically we're going to send her into school for a few weeks and see how it goes before heading back to the CSE... we're going to tell the CSE exactly what we want for Kaitlyn (ultimately we want her to go to Crossroads) and if they do not agree to give it to us then we will be pulling Kaitlyn out of the public school and will be homeschooling her. We feel that she will be served better at her own acedemic pace and will then be able to spend time working more on her social, emotional and behavioral growth and then we can attempt 1st grade next year when she is a bit older and hopefully learned more skills.

It's all, again, a waiting game and we will see how things go!

Rotterdam Challenger Baseball

Kaitlyn had a wonderful time playing Baseball and did so awesome at it! She had a great coach and a great team. We cant wait to get to play again next year! She was a great player hitting the ball every time at bat on her own without help from anyone!

She even got a little trophy at the end of the season and a banquet... which was a WHOLE lot of people and she had a very hard time being at but the season was a success and she really had a great time and we are so happy we got the oppurtunity for her to play on the team!!

At a Crossroads (Center for Children w/Special Needs)

Over the summer we were lucky enough, thanks to Thrivant for Lutherans, to be able to privately send Kaitlyn to Crossroads Center for Children. Feel free to click the logo to check out their website. I'm so grateful to them and all the work they did with Kaitlyn for the VERY short time she was there. She did AMAZING there and loved it and told the teachers she wished she could come EVERYday.

It was crazy how every single day of school in Preschool we fought and she cried and kicked and hid just trying to get her into the classroom and how I had to carry her in kicking and flailing and hand her to a teacher and walk away... then we go to Crossroads (who uses ABA methods there - AWESOME!!) and she ever so willingly and happily walked into class everyday, rarely even remembered to say bye to me or anything. She would go hang up her bag & lunch on her hook and go into class without a word. It was amazing how comfortable she was there.

In the short time she was there she definitely learned some sort of social skills because one time we went to the mall to let the kids play and a little girl asked Kaitlyn if she wanted to play and st first Kaitlyn started out her sentence with her own agenda BUT stopped herself short and said, "what's your name?" - something we HAVE never seen her do before!!!!! It was SUCH a huge thing... not to most people but to the parents of a child with Aspergers it was the most wonderful scene and put huge smiles on our faces and made us so proud!

Thank you Crossroads for giving Kaitlyn the few tools you were able to give her in such a short time!

Tyler got to spend some time in the Daycare room at Crossroads as well which was an integrated room (as was Kaitlyn's) and at first he was ok to go and play with his new friends but as the weeks went on he was more and more unhappy about leaving mommy.

They both "Graduated" from Crossroads Center on Aug 19th.

PreK Grad, Gym Show, Birthday, Dance Recital

Yes, yes... I know, once again a LONG LONG time between posts! We've been a busy family this summer and getting through the end of PreK last year was tough! We did make it and Kaitlyn graduated from Care-A-Lot Nursery School in June 2010! We had a lot of regression through the year but in the end Kaitlyn really misses Miss Christy her Social Worker who made her a great Social story and a photo book about Kaitlyn's feelings (took actual pictures of K to make both things!)

We were not exactly happy with the CSE meeting in April as they "declassified" Kaitlyn telling us "we dont care about her behavior or if she can be with other kids, as long as she is able to learn." So we had everything taken away from us and we will be heading into Kindergarten with nothing. I'll get into that more in another post! :)

I'll start where I left off last. Kaitlyn did her Gym Show for dance in March and it was great, she was able to do many more of the gymnastic moves this year from the last! What an improvement! Her little Baton routine (we were unable to get pics because she was on the other side of the Gym! GRRR!!) was cute and she did SO well. It's amazing that a 4yr old can learn an do those things! She did wonderful and we're very proud of her for getting out there and doing it.

Again, Kaitlyn's dance Recital on the Big stage at Proctors was on the weekend of her Birthday so we ended up having a little party the weekend before for her at Chuck E Cheese (her choice!!!) with a few of the kids she knows and she had a great time. Overstimulated and overwhelmed and everything she still loved her party and had a wonderful time... she was able to tell the GIANT furry Chuck E Cheese character to stay away from her because she was uncomfortable and everything and I think being able to express her feelings about such things REALLY helped her enjoy herself.

On Kaitlyn's birthday/recital weekend we had Grandma Lois, Aunt Donna & the boys come and stay with us and Grandma Lois came to the Dance recital and afterwards we had a little BBQ Birthday party with just the family. Aunt Michelle, Uncle Jon and Cousin Ben came over too. It was a nice little party and we did cake and all that and just enjoyed the weekend together. Kaitlyn's actual birthday was on Sunday so Grandma took us all out to IHOP for breakfast in the morning to celebrate Kaitlyn's actual day. It was a great way to start her birthday day! :)

It's amazing that my little girl is 5yrs old! When we went for her well visit she was 41 3/4" tall and weighed 36lbs. As far as health she has some issues with her asthma when sick or when really humid out and we've had to use the Nebulizer a few times through the summer. Other than that she's a pretty healthy little thing for the most part! No major issues to report!

Kaitlyn did amazing at her Dance recital again this year. She is older now and able to express how she feels (and is also able to see now with her glasses) so she was VERY anxious and very scared to get up on the big stage but she did it anyway and made us all proud! She did a dance called Beautiful Baby and had an orange and black costume.

This season we're off to another year of Kinderdance (which MIGHT be her last year but we'll see at the end of the year). This year she needs both pairs of shoes, though I must say, we're pretty lucky to have gotten 2 yrs out of the same pairs of dance shoes!! That doesnt usually happen! She will still get plenty of use out of the baton we got last year so thats one less expense. She has already told me that she does not really want to do the show on the big stage but we're going to wait a little while and see how it's going when it comes time to pay for the costume. If she REALLY doesnt want to be on the big stage she doesnt have to. She IS, however, VERY excited about doing the gym show now that she has perfected doing a headstand!!!