Our Life With An Autistic Child: Week 33

Choo,Choo... Trains, Trains, Trains!

This week was filled with lots of events and also ups and downs with Ryan. One of the events we went to was the Train Show at the Botanical Gardens. This was Ryan's third annual trip there. Here's a video of Ryan, who was in awe the entire time and followed the trains around their tracks.

During our visit to the train show Ryan was very friendly with family members that he doesn't get to see very often. We were proud of Ryan overcoming his shyness.

Ryan showing Aunt Rita the trains and buildings!

Ryan hanging out with cool cousin Guy

Ryan enjoying a stroll back to the car with Frank.

En route to the show we discovered how tasty Rice Chips are made from a brand called Lundberg. Phil purchased them from Stop-n-Shop. Ryan did really well regarding his diet this week. Over the weekend we went to a family reunion and the dessert table was lined with everything you can imagine, and nothing that Ryan could have. We brought him a special treat, but he was so busy doing other things, that he didn't bother asking for anything to eat for dessert. So many cool things happened at that reunion, but since we just got home a little while ago and I want to post this blog tonight, I will wait to include this event into this upcoming week's report. I took over 150 pictures and I want to be able to include some of them for all of you to see, so something to look forward to in next week's blog! Also, we have an appointment with Dr. Bock on Tuesday, and we'll also post about that as well.

Okay, so I mentioned that Ryan also had some 'downs' this week. He fought a lot with Julia the past few days. Although Julia did her share of instigating, Ryan did have several meltdowns and lost his temper. At one point he screamed at the top of his lungs. I never heard him scream so loud! It was a stressful week in terms of getting all of the things done that we expected to do because it was difficult to leave the two of them alone to play. I wish I had a nickel for each time Phil or I had to get them to calm down, break up a fight, or settle a dispute amongst the two of them.

Ironically, about five minutes after Ryan's deafening scream, I witnessed him putting together an alphabet train puzzle. He was adding a part of the train, then repeating the letters he had done. He was speaking slowly and I thought it was odd, until I looked at him and noticed what he was doing while he was speaking. Remember the picture of him in last week's blog studying the sign language alphabet chart? Check out this video of Ryan signing the first part of the alphabet!

He did this about a dozen times while I was watching. He got stuck on three different letters: K, S, and X. For the first letter, he looked up at me and asked me, "What's K?" After I gave him a perplexed look and told him I had no idea, he ran over to his chart to check. He did the same whenever he got stuck, after briefly looking at me to see if I miraculously knew! I guess I will need to start learning the letters myself! We asked Ryan's teacher and she said that they learn how to sign a letter when they focus on that letter in school. I believe they do 3 letters a month. Ryan has been studying the chart and the picture we took of him last week was him practicing them.

For those of you that know me, I am not big on having things "out of place" in my home. I prefer things neat and in order. But with some of the kids' things I've been changing my ways. I love when they make me pictures and hang up their artwork, even if it isn't perfectly straight. We rotate their pictures each week with the new things they bring home in their backpacks. When I saw the crumpled up paper of alphabet letters I considered putting it in the folder we have on the desk with important papers from Ryan's school. But instead I taped it up on a wall in the kitchen to show Ryan that what he does in school is important at home as well. I never expected to see him stand in front of it to practice his letters, and you can imagine my surprise watching him sign the entire alphabet. He comes home each week learning new things; things that I wouldn't have expected him to learn and ideas I wouldn't have expected him to grasp until a few years down the road.

Continuing with the "train" theme, we took the kids to NJ to ride the Polar Express. The Polar Express is one of Ryan's favorite movies. He goes to sleep each night listening to the soundtrack. We've played the movie so many times that it is scratched and doesn't work properly. Just this past weekend I purchased a brand new one. Here are some pictures of Ryan and Julia in their pajamas enjoying the train ride.