Another Week

We have had another busy week. Tucker has been doing a lot, so I need to post some new pictures. Last Friday Chris got a "new to us" four wheeler. He has been wanting/needing one for years, so now that I work full-time, he was able to buy a great used one from our friends. He has already taken Tucker for many rides on it, and Tucker already know how to put the key in, start it, and turn it off....we are in trouble! Last Sunday our cousins Morgan and Grace came into town, so we took the four wheeler to mom's so they could all ride. Each kid got turns with Chris, and Morgan and Grace got a turn to drive as well. Tucker had a real fit when it wasn't his turn! But he got over it, and then he was very happy when it was his turn again. Lately Tucker is scared to death of barking. He has really never been afraid of much, and he really always liked big dogs. He never cared for little dogs, like poodles or yorkies. Sarah has a poodle, Eli, who has been around longer than Tucker. He used to guard Tucker, and lay by him when he was little. Well now Tucker is deathly afraid of his high-pitched barks, he cries when he sees him:( Eli lives at mom's, so this is not good. The other night, Eli barked because a car was coming down the driveway, and Tucker ran into Sarah's closet and refused to come out! So the new rule is that when Tucker's inside, Eli goes outside, and vice versa. Now when we walk in the house, Tucker points at Eli and says "outside!" Poor dog, he gets kicked out of his own house. Tucker has always loved our big dog, Buck. Well now he is scared of him, too. At night, every once in a while Buck will bark (he is an outside dog). Chris and I hope that Tucker's asleep and can't hear him, but usually, we'll hear the bark, then a few seconds later, hear stomp-stomp-stomp, as Tucker runs from his room to ours! He is so scared, poor kid, even when the dog has stopped barking. Last Saturday was Jackie's bridal shower. She and Justin are getting married in May; the shower turned out really nice, and many guests showed up. Chris really helped me, he helped me to mix the punch, and he drove with me to the shower to put up the metal bridal arch. Then he left before too many women showed up, haha. On Tuesday mom, Chris, and Mrs. Terri (Tucker's feeding therapist) drove to New Orleans to see the feeding GI doctor. He really didn't have any new advice, and all the tricks he offered to Mrs. Terri were things she had been using for years. Tucker is just a very, very, very hard case.......even with the best therapists and doctors in our area, he just can't/won't eat. :( I think I've blogged enough about how I feel about that......not sure that I was really surprised that the doctor couldn't help too much. Tucker is still on the neurontin for the GI pain with eating, the doctor said it may take a very long time for Tucker to realize that eating no longer hurts. On Wednesday Tucker's class went to the strawberry patch. Chris and Andrew went with them, and they rode with Lauren. The kids had a blast. But as Chris said, "wow, what a day" lol! Any parent who has been on a field trip knows that they WEAR you out! I have been on 4 or 5 field trips with Tucker so far, and last year the strawberry patch was a little too much for me, so Chris went instead. Tucker really enjoyed the petting zoo, the playground, the new big red trampoline, and of course the long bus ride.....the berry picking?? Not so much! Chris had to have a "heart to heart" with him, telling him that he was going to pick berries and he better like it. Last night we got to baby-sit our niece Kinley for the first time. It was really great:) She has such a personality! She loves to talk and be sat exactly upright so that she doesn't miss anything. She is only two months old, so she really doesn't have the muscle control to do that, and she gets very angry if she's not upright. She didn't want to eat last night, because she'd rather talk. It was really adorable, luckily Alexis said it was normal and okay. Now, Tucker on the other hand......his Only Child Syndrome came out in full force. He wanted Kinley's seat, her bottle, and he wanted her OUT of his mommy's arms. I didn't think it would be a big deal, as Tucker pretty much ignores me when Chris is around....well, I learned the fix for that-hold Kinley! While I held her, he couldn't get close enough to me. He was really very good, he "helped" me to give her a bottle, he was very interested in changing her diaper, and he let me sing her the school bus song (which she likes as much as Tucker does, haha). But when she cried, he pointed at her and said "don't cry baby", and when she squealed (which she did because she wasn't sitting up high enough) he ran out of the room and hid in his closet! So we have a lot of progress to make, but all in all it was a very nice evening. Today we went to the March of Dimes Easter egg hunt, it's a new event they will have each year for the Family Teams to get a chance to meet, and a way to say thank you to the family teams. It was at a park in Baton Rouge, so of course Tucker loved swinging and the slides. When it was time to hunt eggs, it was a bit of a struggle to get him off of the swings. We told him "first hunt eggs, then swing." So he is the world's slowest egg hunter, just like last year! The other kids all took off running, and he acted like he was in no rush. He got about 6 plastic eggs, then he was done. Well 2 of those eggs ended up being prize eggs, so Tucker got two HUGE chocolate bunnies! Tucker was about ready to scream and go back to the swings when the MOD chairperson brought out 3 dozen dyed egss.....still in the cartons......eggs have been one of Tucker's big obsessions for about a year now.....and the real eggs are his favorite, not the plastic ones. They used the eggs for spoon races, where the kids had to cross the finish line with their egg still on the spoon. Well Tucker was very helpful at guarding the eggs, making sure everyone took ONLY one, because he wanted the rest for himself. He actually tried to do the race, but his egg kept falling off. After this, Tucker was very happy and well-behaved sitting with us and the other kids, as long as the eggs were in his viewpoint....honestly, Easter is Tucker's holiday! :) We headed over to the party store to get Molli a princess balloon, then we went over to Molli's birthday party. The men were putting together her gift, a new swingset, and the kids jumped on the trampoline while they waited. Tucker loves going to Molli's and he especially loves the trampoline. He is getting much better with talking, today he said "Mommy, get on the trampoline" I'm not sure that anyone else could understand him, but I could. He was also very good with taking turns and transitioning. When we told him it was time to get off of the swing, or time to get off of the trampoline, he listened very well. After that long morning, Chris and Tucker are asleep. Tucker is still in love with Black Bear. I don't even know where this toy came from, but it looks like a 50 cent Happy Meal Toy. Tucker loved it for awhile, then it disappeared. Well the other night my mom found it somewhere at her house, and it hasn't left Tucker's side since. It is small, and it has a little plastic hook on it, so Tucker keeps it hooked on his thumb and takes it EVERYWHERE! When it's out of his sight, he panics "black bear! black bear!" which sounds like "ba bayah". He took it all over the egg hunt, all over the playground, and all over Molli's house. Then today he let it stay on the slide because he needed both hands to swing. I was so impressed that he let it down for a minute. As for brown bear, Tucker's old comfort object, he has pretty much been kicked to the curb. I really feel kind of sorry for him:( But black bear is really more portable and less obvious....however, I have no way to replace black bear should something happen to him, while I know that Cabela's has a big stock of brown bears.....so that's a problem. We are in the process of setting up Tucker's summer plans, which is harder than you might think. We are always trying to balance between pushing him, letting him rest, and letting him just "be a kid" for the summer. Last year we overloaded him on the therapy, which wore him out, but he also made amazing progress last summer. He will likely go to the same preschool he attended last year, but next year he'll be too old, which is always in the back of my mind. We are also getting ready to start intense ABA therapy (probably 9 hours a week or so), but that will likely be pretty fun for him at home. We have always been told there's a "window" of time with kids with autism, like you have to shove as much therapy and make as much progress as you can before you lose that time. Well I think we've done that, but he's almost 5, so and we're not sure how that affects the proverbial window. The ABA therapist that I just interviewed was pretty amazed by Tucker's progress since he got the trach out, and she thinks with him being challenged at school all year, he will do great with the ABA this summer. Tucker thrives on routine and a strict schedule, and we are worried he will be very stressed and bored without the school routine this summer. So hopefully we will come up with a great plan for him that involves work and challenges, as well as some fun, relaxing, and of course naptime!