So A LOT has changed in the past 7 days. First lets start with the good news. We have been on the Gluten free/ Casein Free diet for almost a week and I am amazed at the progress we are seeing with Jacob. Today I experienced him SITTING DOWN for 10 min...all by himself and listened to story time. that has never happened before! He is starting to have more eye contact and his speech is getting better. I wanted to stop this diet but the rewards are far to great to stop now. Sure, its a lot of work, but its definitely worth it. I cant wait for everyone to see the new Jacob once he really starts to get better. Yesterday morning before he went to school he was very lethargic and calm. I thought he was probably sick because, well, if hes calm...something is wrong. So I took him anyways and I stayed in the front waiting room. 5 min later they brought him back and said that he was just standing there and didn't want to do much. So we went out to breakfast because he didn't eat breakfast. Of course, he had gluten in his pancakes and almost immediately after he finished eating...he went WILD. It was like he was possessed. It was pretty scary but I found out that's from the gluten. So back on the diet we went and I wont ever go back off. We figured out he was just calm because he was CALM for once! So today, they were all so happy to see how good he was. Even the OT told me that he focused in every activity they did and he was such a good boy.

Another thing is we changed the schedule around. The sensory stuff is good...and we still do it, but we now have a picture schedule like he has at school. He is attached to this thing when he is home and we cant do anything that's not on the schedule. Kids with Autism really have to have a schedule and one that they can see...and its eliminated ALL of the frustration he had at home about what we were doing next...where we are going...and so forth. Here is a picture of the schedule. Don't mind the dirt prints on it...you can tell it gets used a lot ha ha.

OK now a little note on Tyler. Since he was 15 months old we have been trying to figure out what is "wrong" with him. All of the genetic testing we got done all came back fine...and no doc can really figure it out. One day I was going to pick up Jake from therapy and I looked at Tyler in the mirror. And all of a sudden I just got this horrible feeling. And I kept getting thoughts back to when we were going through the genetic testing. So I thought...this has to be a sign that I need to get him into the doc. So I called the doc who isn't his real doctor but she is the one who saw the genetic stuff in him in the first place. And we got in the next day. When we got there, I had told her about everything we have seen with him and she told me that she thinks he also has Autism. So we are going next month to see if he does or not. We put him in the same school/therapy thing that Jacob goes to. We have to pay out of pocket for it, but its worth it. It gets him to interact with other kids and they help with potty training and they will see if they think he has autism or not. Today was his first day and so far he did pretty good. We were pretty surprised and happy that he did so well. Here are a few funny pictures of my boys being goofy like always.

I had a little meeting with some of Jakes therapists. And we decided that it would be the best to try him on a little sensory "diet" We are just going to try it out for a few weeks and see what happends. For those of you who are not familiar with what sensory issues are...here is a little bit about it. This is taken from a website I go to quite a bit. http://www.kid-power.org/sid.html

Sensory Integration Dysfunction is the inability of the brain to correctly process information brought in by the senses. Sensory Integration Dysfunction (SID/DSI) or sensory processing deficits can come in many different forms. No two children will be affected in the same ways. SID/DSI was first noticed in children with autism or who had autistic traits but is also seen in children with other disabilities such as cerebral palsy or ADD/ADHD

Here are also a few "signs" that told us that Jacob had this and it was something to look into.

-- Loves to spin, swing and jump--this will seem to calm them down after several minutes

-- Oversensitivity to sounds--will frequently cover ears. Or undersensivity.

-- May have an exceptionally high pain tolerance

-- Unusually high or low activity level

-- Resists new situations

-- Problems with muscle tone, coordination, motor planning

-- Can be very impulsive or distractible.

-- Persistently walks on toes to avoid sensory input from the bottom of the feet.

Now a lot of this stuff is similar to autism and ADHD. I found out that sometimes kids have sensory disorders and they get misdiagnosed as ADHD. So we are hoping that is Jacobs case. So in this diet you are supposed to do some sensory activity every half hour all day. So I figured I had to redo our schedule so that we could fit it in. Now they are going to work with him at therapy and thats where he is at the majority of the day. So when he is home, all we are goign to do is sensory activities. Here is our schedule

5:20am-8am

Wake up

Rub feet, hands, and back to wake up

Listen to calming CD in car when taking daddy to work

play on sit-n-spin

play with playdoh

eat crunchy breakfast with fruit

brush teeth with vibrating toothbrush

let him pick out what to wear for the day

8:30-3 Therapy

3-6pm

Playground for 30 min

Push Tyler in stroller for 30 min

mini tramp. excersizes

massage feet

wheelbarrow walk

oral work

6-8 pm

Help with cooking dinner

help set table

crunch/chewy food to snack on

family time-coloring or playdoh

Warm bath with bubbles and aroma therapy

massage for bedtime

Ok, so this is a lot I will post again tomorrow or in the near future why we have to do the things we are doing. A lot of this just looks like playing and having fun. But its basically therapy for him and I can not believe how much it helps. We started it tonight after he got home from respite and we did everything right on this schedule and he was out by 7. This NEVER happends. He had his bath and I was rubbing his back and he fell asleep while I was massaging him. I really hope this is going to be a start of something great!! Everyone pray for us and pray that this works for him. I have been so overwhelmed at all this info and what to do but I really feel like im doing something good for him.

A few people had asked me to update them on how Jacobs school has been going so here is an update. It has been going GREAT!!! We have been so happy and so pleased at how things are. He is not being aggressive at all and has calmed down a whole lot being there. We also figured that Jacob has a sensory disorder and that may be why he is so hyper instead of him having ADHD so we are trying to work with our OT and get him into some sensory stuff and hopefully that will help. Jacob loves his new school and loves the kids that are there in with him. When he is being hyper they will do a brushing technique on him or put deep pressure on him and it usually calms him down. So ive started doing that at home too and it works wonders!! Another thing im going to start doing is the gluten free/casen free diet. I saw Jenny M. talking about it on all the shows she did and I really think I could try it. I mean the least it could do it not work...so starting on Monday we are going to start to take a little out of our diet at a time. I have pretty much a list of all the foods we can and cant eat so hopefully it should be pretty easy. We are still going to cut out all the artifitial coloring and sugars out of his diet because that does help his hyperness. So really, everything is going great and we couldnt ask for better. I am so glad we made the disison to take Jacob out of Kindergarden and put him in this hab class.

Speaking of which, here are the ladies that are THE BEST!!!! I am making a new schedule for Jacob with pictures of everything he has to do so I got pictures of his hab ladies....here are the 4 gals that make his schooling a whole lot easier.