WHHH-aa-TTT, as in What?

So for a little while now I have been going over "words" with the big guy. It’s fun, I love it, and when we do this I feel as if we are the only two people in the world.

We will go over his "words" when he goes to bed, and tonight is the first night I've had the chance to do it in a week. I usually get the little guy in bed first, give him hugs and kisses, then off to the big guy. I get him all ready for bed, turn off his "TT" (his name for the TV) and lay him in bed, cover him up, give him his bumpy (his bumpy is his actual bumper from his crib, he's had the thing since he was born) and then I ask him if he wants to  do his words. No matter how much of a fuss he is putting up about going to bed, he always says yes. 

The first word we do every time is the word "what". The first time he says this word it comes out as "waa". I have to put a lot of emphasis on the "wh" the "a" and the "t", and then he will say it back to my the same way. We do all the "W" words first; what, where, when, why, but I don't put in who or how, they have different beginning sounds, and I don't want to confuse him.

These are not the only words we practice, we also do "ear" "fun" "phone" and a number of other words that have the same beginning sounds. His speech lady gave us a number of different pages that have words on them, so we also do words like "firefighter" and this word he says in the cutest way. It's like he whispers it, like it's so awesome he can only whisper the word. 

This is not the only word he says in a strange way, he says fire the same way by whispering it. He says the word fish really quick, but also with a swishing type of sound. He says the word ear almost like hear. This makes me wonder about how he thinks about words. I have read a little off Temple Grandin's book "Thinking in Pictures", (That link is really cool because it’s all the first chapter plus added material, go and check it out). I think the way he is thinking about the words is almost like the word will carry the action within the pronunciation, or the word will carry the feeling along with the pronunciation, which is really cool.

So the word "fire" carries with it the awe it inspires, the fear it conveys, and dancing magic it inspires. The word "firefighter" carries much of the same feelings, but also carries with it heroism, duty, honor, and strength. If this is true, it’s totally awesome. When we talk to each other, I mean us "normal" people; our words don't carry so much with them.

I will explain to you that a house caught on fire, the house was burning down, and firemen came and put the fire out. You will most likely think of this is a detached way, "just the facts ma'am". If I tell the big guy the same thing it is totally different. When the big guy hears the same story, it's more like this "Awesome, damaging, fearful fire was destroying a home. Then bravery, honor, strength and duty appeared upon the scene to do battle with the flames. After a heated battle, with very heroic moments, honor prevailed and beat back the fearful destructive flames". 

That sounds so much more fun than the "just the facts ma'am" explanation.

Dr. Big Guy and MR. Hyde

So you all know the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, basically two personalities in one person. One personality is of the respectable upstanding Dr. Jekyll, and the other personality is of Mr. Hyde, who does despicable things.

I named this post similarly because of the totally different personalities the big guy has for different situations. His teacher and teachers' aid have read my blog and have laughed about how I have described him differently when he is at home; you see.... he is Dr. Jekyll when he is at school, but Mr. Hyde at home. I bet many of you are laughing or at least smiling right now, but it's true. He is totally different in almost every situation.

When we had him diagnosed in June of 2010 my wife and I had been separated for seven months. I would get the boys every other weekend, and things were different when I had them, so different in fact that when we went to the big guys’ assessment the doctors gave me a separate assessment sheet to fill out. One of the things my wife said he did when he was with her was bang his head on things when he didn't get what he wanted, he tried it once with me, and I told him no, sent him to his room, and then went and talked to him after about 5 minutes, which is lifetime to a child, and he never tried doing that again with me.

Another way he was different at my house is he would sit at the table and try to eat his dinner, lunch, or breakfast with utensils, even though he had a hard time. He would always have the same bedtime while at my house, 8 o'clock, and he would be asleep in ten minutes.

This is totally opposite from being at moms. At mom's house, he would hit his head on the floor or wall when he didn't get what he wanted, dinner time was usually a finger food affair, if he ate, and bet time was a long drawn out ordeal that would last from 8 pm to sometimes 10 pm or later most nights.

This is not the only times he acts differently. He acts differently at a restaurant than at home, and differently at different restaurants. He acts differently at Nana's house than at home with mom, different at school and home, different with each of the therapy people he sees during a given week (though he really loves his speech lady).

So this brings me to the meat of my post, how he is at home. 

I feel so badly for the little guy because he takes the brunt of the Mr. Hyde attacks, and I think I know why. For the longest time, everything was his, his TV, his toys, his mommy, his daddy, his everything. Then mom went away for a week (the little guy was premature and spent a week in the N.I.C.U.) and came back and had something else that would scream for her attention. 

Mr. Hyde is so viscous with the little guy. Just last night he slammed him into the bed room door, smacked him in the face, scratched him on his back, and hit him on his back. All because he wanted to watch what he wanted on mom's computer. The only real way we have to control this is to keep them separate. Most of the time the big guy is in his room watching TV and eating his dinner. The little guy is usually in the living room watching TV there. We do other things, like go out in the back yard and play, or swim, go to the park, what have you, and in all these places the big guy acts differently. 

What we were told during his assessment in Dallas is that it is not at all uncommon for a child with autism to act completely differently in any setting, to the point that parents wonder if the child has split personality or something. We know he doesn't have split personality, we know he's the same big guy no matter who is around, where we are or what we are doing. 

This makes me think he's more real about things than us "normal" people are. When we go to work we act one way, we are different with different friends or family members, and when we are out in public we act self-consciously. Most of the time though, we don't show people that we don't like them, we act in a civil manner, and mumble as we walk away, so we really aren’t very truthful with others.

So we may be "normal" but he is truthful. We pretend most of our lives, while he will tell you exactly how it he feels about something. While this isn't particularly good in some cases, you'll never think he's lying to you, if he likes you, he will let you know, and if he doesn't..... Well, be ready for his Magneto claw. 

More on the iPad

I haven't posted in a few weeks, we have all been busy, the big guy especially, so I thought I'd post again about the iPad.

I talked before about game apps the big guy has played, and I'll talk more about them later because I think they help so much with fine motor control, but I really want to post about how he behaves with the iPad now.

The big guy has about 16 or 18 apps to help him learn. Apps matching sounds to letters and letters to letters, apps tracing letters, color matching apps and apps for communication. All of them are very helpful and easy for him to use because the objects on them are nice and big. Here's the thing though, he plays what he wants, and we cannot force him to do anything he doesn't want to do because he knows exactly how to control this amazing device.

You should see when he first gets it, it’s totally cute. He knows the pass code to unlock the iPad, we don't have to open it for him, and if the little guy wants to play we have to unlock it. When he opens it, he says the code while he's typing it in, and it is awesome to hear him say the numbers because he says them so cute. When we sent him to school with the iPad his teacher sent mom a text asking her for the pass code to unlock the iPad. It was funny because mom didn't tell her the code; she sent a text back to the effect of "did you ask him? He knows what it is" and his teacher sent one back along the lines of "we didn't even think of that". Needless to say, he taught someone something that day.

Most days when he gets home he will get the iPad, and he decides what he wants to do. Some days he plays Where's my Water, other days he wants to play Plants vs. Zombies, but other days he will play an app about numbers. This app, I'm sorry but I don't remember the name of it, is all about putting an item in the right place. The app gives the option of using shapes, numbers letters and a few other items I can't remember. I have tried to have him use some of the other items, but he likes the numbers for some reason. The numbers are moved along on a little train on the screen, and one of the numbers is missing. At the bottom of the screen he is given an option of three different numbers to fit in the spot. He always gets it right, and that's awesome.