July Update on Brycen

First of all, Brycen will be turning 5 in ONE WEEK!  That just seems impossible...though so much has happened in 5 years.  While his physical age is moving forward, his developmental age is still lagging far behind.  He's a 1.5-2 yr old in a 5 yr old's body for the most part.

Therapy:  Brycen attends speech and OT three times per week for one hour and 20 minutes.  He LOVES going to therapy!  When I say it's time to go, he rarely fusses and will frequently say "peee" in imitation of "therapy."  He is always so happy when he comes out of his appt too and he's making fabulous progress.  He's already met some of the goals they set for him at the new clinic just in this first month!  He's a very determined little boy when he wants to be and surprises us frequently with new things he can do that we weren't quite expecting yet.  One of his speech goals is to work on 15 core words.  Two of those words are "mom" and "dad."  He has not said either of these in about 3 years.  He will do some imitation noises when we ask him sometimes, but it's not consistent sounds and never spontaneous.  The SLP seems very determined to help him with this as she feels these are important words in any child's vocab.  Since Brycen has begun imitating more sounds in the last few months since receiving his device, we decided to program our pictures into the device so that he is hearing "mom" and "dad" from that instead of us always prompting him.  Crossing our fingers that we will reach a breakthrough soon with this!
School:  Brycen has been meeting with a teacher every Tues and Thursday for an hour for his extended school year hours for the next couple weeks.  He has adjusted well to the new school surroundings and LOVES his teacher.  When I say it's time to go see "Carrie", he is imitating "Cay" and runs to the door.  We are actually looking into Carrie working with him during SCL home services as she is also employed with a local agency.  She will not be his spec ed teacher in the fall, but was able to do his summer hours!
Learning:  We continue to be amazed at how fast Brycen is learning some things!  As I posted before, he just started tracing the letters of his name (and other letters as well), and even did it without tracing with just verbal prompts from me!  He is now able to recognize not just capital letters, but lower case as well.  He can also recognize most of the basic colors and is attempting to verbalize them as well.  He LOVES his device and can navigate it better than all of us!  We recently programmed "yes" and "no" into the device and it's funny how he likes to go to that page and push "no" and just look at us with a silly grin.  Just another thing to show his developmental age of about 1.5 when a child is first learning to say "no" and it's about all they will say!  Brycen can imitate a lot of sounds and has word approximations for a lot...but we continue to battle the fact he needs to be prompted for most of them.  While I have just learned to know what he wants or understand his sounds, it's very hard for anyone outside of our house or his therapists to understand him.  Even Aubree can understand some of his sounds better than another adult can!  We just keep hoping he will make progress in this area as we know how vital communication is in this world and for him to be able to thrive and be more independent.
Sleep: Well, this is going as well as the other things.  Since we moved, he has only slept through the night (8 hours or more) three times...and two of those times was 8 hrs exactly.  He typically goes to bed around 8pm with a "cocktail" of juice, benadryl, and melatonin which helps him fall asleep fast.  He will then wake up anywhere between 1 and 4am for around 2 or so hours.  It's not that he's being naughty during this time, he just is wide awake and is wanting to stim a lot.  Due to safety concerns, we can't leave him alone so one of us is forced to be awake with him.  The part that is also frustrating is that when he wakes up, he runs full speed into my bed, opens the door loudly, therefore waking his sister often.  If she wakes up, then I am forced to wake up Daddy also to help out with her which is not exactly fair to him with working 50 hours a week lately. 
Eating:  We prided ourselves in having a child that would try and eat many things...but we've recently hit a brick wall in this area.  In the last few weeks, Brycen has become quite picky compared to before, though not as picky as some other children of moms that I communicate with on FB.  Luckily, he still likes grapes, bananas, and baby carrots so we can still get some healthy food in him.  He won't even eat his prized PB sandwiches anymore, or cheddar cheese chunks...but if you put chips or cheetos on his plate, they are gone instantly.  We continue to put things on his plate and include at least one thing we know he will like, and when he comes to the table, if he doesn't like how his plate looks, he will push it away or even throw it.  He has gone quite a few times with choosing to not eat anything for supper.  Just this week, we were excited to watch him eat a hot dog and some grilled chicken breast!  As well as a slice of pizza and breadstick at Pizza Hut yesterday!
Behavioral:  Brycen continues to be very aggressive daily.  He is also continuing to stim a lot, including flapping, pacing, jumping up and down, and lining things up.  I try to remember that most of his aggression is probably from not being able to communicate effectively, but it's hard not to react when you see him tackle his little sister and put his hands around her neck or pull her hair.  We do allow them to be in a room together briefly as long as we can hear them and check on them a lot.  Aubree is pretty good at screaming loudly when he has tackled her so we can respond fast!  But Aubree is not so innocent either, as she will sometimes instigate the aggression by touching one of Brycen's trains or something else.  Brycen has also been attempting more running from me lately....such as when we are leaving therapy or at the grocery store.  It is getting to be far too difficult to take him to these types of things and much easier to use the stroller for walks where I can buckle him in and know he can't slip out to run from me. 
Personal Hygiene:  Brycen continues to be infatuated with his male anatomy.  Though he is not "flashing" himself as often in public but that is probably more because I rarely take him places and do most of my errands when he is in therapy.  He is working hard at washing his own body in the bathtub and he seems to have adapted well to taking a bath separately from his sister.  He is even putting his head partially under the water spout when the tub is filling up!  He continues to wear a pull-up during the day and an overnight diaper at night.  Though he does seem to understand that he needs his diaper changed after a BM as he will either lay down on the floor or grab his bottom, he doesn't seem to give any signs before hand.  We continue to encourage him to sit on the potty just to sit and get comfortable, but he is not even close to understanding the process of potty training. 

Hopefully this gives you a little insight into where he is today!  The summer is more than half over and I hope it doesn't sound horrible that I am so looking forward to him being back in school full days again!  He needs that structure and routine, and I just need time to get things done and not have to be following behind him everywhere in the house to ensure he is safe.