Protecting That Sweet Smile

Here are a couple of pictures Jack's dental hygienist took at his first visit to the dentist. He did really well and let them look all around in his mouth. He didn't have a problem with any of the tools and he let them brush his teeth and give him flouride. He must know how cute his smile is and the importance of keeping it in top shape:) His only hang up was that he was FLOORED that they gave him SpongeBob toothpaste. We don't watch SpongeBob and he just kept saying, "They have SpongeBob toothpaste Mama! We don't like that guy!" I think he was waiting on me to discipline them for having it:)

Sitting in the chair - all smiles...


Visiting the toy chest after a successful visit...

The Good Stuff

I've written a couple of posts lately about some of the frustrations and trying behaviors that go along with Jack's diagnosis so I thought I'd post about one of the fun things that appears to be directly related to his diagnosis as well. It's important that I remind myself that this isn't a sickness that you cure, but a part of Jack's whole being - it is a huge part of what makes his personality the way it is, why he likes certain things, the way he walks and talks - everything about him. If that's true, then being the super cool, amazingly interesting, and totally fun guy he is, there have to be some good things this produces right?


Well, one of the major ones that is a lot of fun to me is the characters Jack identifies with and becomes even a little bit obsessed by. We like Buzz, Woody, Lightning McQueen, Thomas, Mickey Mouse and the usual suspects just like most three year old boys, but then we have some other characters that are a HUGE part of our life that other three year olds probably don't even know exsist.

When I say they are a part of our life, I mean:

We talk about them every day.

We talk TO them every day.

We find them the MINUTE we get home from anywhere.

We discuss what they do and what they make.

We laugh about them and talk about how they feel and what they think.

We use them as the standard that we measure all other people in our life by.



You get what I'm saying, right? We don't just like these guys and think they're cool. We L-O-V-E these guys and they are in our thoughts almost ALL the time. They are part of our every day life and they become Jack's reward for good behavior - forget candy and toys for this kid. These are the things we live for right now!


And now that I have you on the edge of your seat:) please meet some of our favorite friends:





Yep, it's Mr. Peanut... Ben eats lots of Peanuts for snacks so we USED to keep them in our pantry. We now keep them on the counter most of the time b/c it's usually the first thing Jack gets out when we walk in the door... He doesn't eat the peanuts, but he does talk to Mr. Peanut throughout the day:)




The Pillsbury Dough Boy - Jack finds it so fascinating that this guy can make cookies AND bread. When he first met him, Jack went on and on about how he makes cookies. Well, when he saw his picture on some frozen bread in the grocery store, absolute amazement ensued!! Jack said, "Mama, the pillsbury dough boy can make bread too!! Not just cookies, but bread too!!" If you've heard Jack's volume, you can imagine how much fun this discovery was for ALL the Winn Dixie shoppers! Jack also likes to imitate his giggle which he discovered on YouTube (YouTube has been a wonderful diagnositc tool for us:).


Mr. Clean is one of those obsessions that started out as more of a leeriness and later became a fascination. He also ranks much higher on the scale of coolness that Mr. Peanut or the Dough Boy. I am now the owner of 10 magic erasers and the orange, red, and green Mr. Clean products, but I'm not allowed to actually USE any of them. "Mr. Clean needs that stuff, Mama, so HE can clean up." Jack's holding out for the blue next! I bet I'm the only Mom who says we're going to Wal-mart and has the response of, "We going to go to the cleaning isle!!"


And top dog is easily this guy: The Michelin Man. It all started with a commercial and we are more and more impressed with this guy!! He makes tires if you were curious and stomps his feet. Jack will gladly imitate this for you - you only have to ask. My dad took Jack to a local tire store the other day. The owner is a friend of ours and they came home with a cardboard cutout of the Michelin Man and some brochures with his picture on them and you would have thought Disney Land had come TO OUR HOUSE!!

I know this is all so silly and seems so funny, but the fact that Jack doesn't just like these guys but LOVES them and has such a vested interest in them is just great fun for me!! This is something that makes him different, but this is a difference that I find so appealing and wonderfully weird and just super cool and I wanted to share that part of who he is too. I wanted to share some of the good stuff - some of the stuff that makes me smile:)

A Needle in Every Haystack

I thought having a name for Jack's problems would be really helpful, but I've found since we got our diagnosis that the name for it isn't really important, but instead finding ways to cope with the behaviors that come from it is what we're really looking for. And we've decided to try everything! People have been so helpful to give ideas and tell me things that have worked for their children, but we have to find out what works for Jack.

We're going to start with ABA therapy at a place called Brilliant Minds in Destin, Florida. We took Jack for an assessment there last week and he LOVED it - he keeps asking to go back. That's a good thing since we're going to be going back twice a week for a while. I like the idea of behavior based therapy. They don't care what the diagnosis is. Instead they ask, "What is the behavior we want to change?"

The answer to that is easy right now. A couple of Jack's problems have gotten much worse recently: He cannot eat around babies (diapers is more the issue). By that I mean, he can't eat in a resturant if a baby is within hearing distance, he can't eat if a baby is on tv, he can't eat if a baby doll is in the same house as him. When I say can't, I mean he physically vomits if he tries to eat in these conditions. You can imagine how much fun dining out is right now, especially since we can't really control if a baby comes in AFTER we've begun eating. Then it is a race to the door OUT of the resturant before we ruin everyone's meal:)

He also becomes fearful of the strangest things. He walked in his room a few days ago and just lost it - ran from the room, wouldn't go back in there, but also couldn't tell me why. This is HIS room - the room he has lived in for a year now with no problems, the room he loves and plays in by himself all the time. It took me two days to figure it out. Two days of holding him in his room while he shakes and hides his eyes and ears before I could pinpoint the exact thing that was causing the fear and it was this.

A small, blue, glass elephant figurine that was mine when I was a baby and has been in Jack's room since before he was born and has never bothered him before. That's it: it was nothing scary or odd or new or different, but that day, something about it terrified him. He was able to play with it after we talked about it. He talks about it a lot still, and he can look at it and play with it now that we've discussed what it is and that it's nice and not scary.

My biggest question isn't "Why did THIS scare him?" even though it's not scary and shouldn't scare him. My biggest questions are: "Why did that bother him TODAY when it has never bothered him before?" and "Why couldn't he point to it or tell me what scared him?" Those are the frustrating parts of this - things that seem so simple to fix apparantly are not evident to Jack in the way they would be to others. It would have taken no effort for any other child to just point to it when I asked 1000 times, "What scares you?" but he COULD NOT do it - he just couldn't show me what it was.

So, every room, resturant, house, and store we go to has become our haystack and we are all scanning the walls and shelves for that needle that's going to set him off. It's never what I think it will be. It's an elephant he's had forever, or a Miss Piggy doll wearing a diaper, or "The Jungle Book" on tv, or a picture of people walking down the street.... It's never the horror movie on tv when we're fliping the channels, or the pictures of aliens in the movie store, or the dark, or monsters on Ben's video games - the things that would make sense to me... And sometimes it's nothing - he does just fine. But every situation is a possible meltdown, or fear, or sickness and we are always on the alert, even in our house. Honestly, it can be exhausting, but we're working on it. We're doing something, we're trying something, we're being proactive. It may not work. It may not be what he needs. But it's something and for now, that feels good. It feels hopeful and today, that's enough.

Waking the Bear

Before you wake this guy up.....

.... you better make sure it's worth it b/c he does NOT find it amusing! :)