Author: Mom Boss

30. Stay at home mom. funny, sarcastic, sympathetic, and a lover of memes.
Posted in family, Uncategorized

Summer Break

Posted on by Mom Boss

I took a little break from blogging the past few weeks. My mom was out visiting and we were very busy. I have a lot of blog ideas to go through but I thought since Eli starts preschool in the morning I would just post an update for now.

He starts a developmental preschool here tomorrow. 9am-12pm M-F. It is an integrated developmental class so there are children like Eli who are delayed or have different types of disabilities, but also developmentally average children too. I like this idea because Eli won’t be singled out as the only child in class who is far behind or “weird” and also because there are a mix of children they can all learn from each other.

Since we started the trifecta of therapies (ABA, speech, and OT) only 4 months ago, Eli has learned so much. Before we started he was completely nonverbal, only saying “daddy” occasionally and signing about 20 words. He didn’t know any colors, or sounds, or even have good function over his fingers. Today Eli signs over 20 words and phrases, he can point out 5 or so colors, he can say close to 20 different animals sounds, he can count objects (and does so using his fingers) up to three, and he says Mommy, daddy, nana, go, yes, no, and blue. He is also learning to say shorted versions of words to let us know what he is trying to do or say (cheetos= EO’s, play dough= Doe, Richie(therapist)= EE!)

We still have a long way to go to get him to where he should developmentally, but I couldn’t have asked for better results in these four months. Eli will still be getting all three therapies, plus in class speech and OT. The hours of his after school therapies will be lower than what he was getting, and we will lose a couple of his normal therapist, but I have no doubt that we will continue to keep seeing amazing progress!

Posted in Uncategorized

Imagination is a beautiful thing

Posted on by Mom Boss

If there is one thing Eli is really good at, it’s imaginative play. He sees fun and adventure in anything. You see stuffed animals, Eli sees a villainous bear who fights a helpless monkey, give him a play kitchen and he becomes a five star chef. He loves building forts, playing hot lava, and pretending he’s stuck or hurt just so he can be rescued. As I type this he’s in the occupational therapy waiting room playing with a road map rug. He puts his stuffed Ryder toy on a caution sign on the rug and makes him catapult into the sky yelling “AHHHHHHH!” Then he walks him to a parking lot and pretends it’s a restaurant and says “YUMMY! Nom nom nom”When Eli is in imagination mode I can see how much he knows and is learning; things that I haven’t even taught him. I heard once that kids are like sponges, they absorb everything they see and hear. Eli learns things from his family, daycare, teachers, therapists, movies, everything!

Yesterday we were playing this dumb game on his iPad called plants vs zombies (I mean really?) but he likes it. These zombies try to walk to your house and the plants stop them. After playing for a while, Eli started walking around the house hunched over with loose arms, pretending to be a zombie. Other things are more productive like watching old McDonald songs on YouTube and learning all of his animal sounds. Watching his therapist perform a task and he copies.

Kids are amazing learners, even those with delays or disabilities. Eli has come SO FAR in the few months he has been in ABA, speech, and occupational therapies. It is so amazing to see how quickly he is picking up on everything. It gives me very high hopes for him.

Posted in Uncategorized

Nobody wants to be my friend!

Posted on by Mom Boss

The other day during ABA we took a trip to the park. There was only us and another mother with two kids there. As soon as we stepped on the grass this boy (maybe around 5-6yrs) comes running up and talking to our therapist about random things: Spider-Man, rocks, school). He turns to Eli and says “hi, do you want to play with me?” Eli, being nonverbal, walked away without saying anything. The boy stood still for a second looking at him then took off running. He sat down on a nearby rock and started crying. As he cried he screamed (very loudly) “nobody ever wants to play with me! I don’t have any friends! Why doesn’t anyone like me?” It was so uncomfortable. I knew that Eli was just nonverbal and didn’t mean any harm, he just didn’t know what the boy was saying. I went over to the boy’s mother and explained to her that my son was nonverbal and autistic and he wasn’t intentionally ignoring her son. She went over and explained to him. This is when Eli, completely on his own, saw the boy being sad, walked up to him, waved, and motioned for him to play. All on his own! Sure, it would have been perfect if he had done it right away. 

Eli has a lot of difficulty in social situations with people aside from my husband, myself, and his therapists. He can’t tell when children are sad, Annoyed, or angry. A lot of times he doesn’t even hear what other children are saying or asking him. Hearing that boy cry like that broke my heart. The sad thing is, his mother seems completely unphased but the boys outburst, leading me to believe that it happens all the time. My first thought was, will this be Eli when he is older and starts to realize he is a little different? It’s a possibility. But after seeing how far Eli has come in the short few months we’ve been doing intensive therapy I see so much progress from him. There’s not a doubt in my mind that he won’t become a great little boy that all the kids wants to play with. 

Posted in Uncategorized

Adventures in Cat Sitting

Posted on by Mom Boss

I was looking into getting Eli a therapy dog for quite some time. One to keep him from wandering when we’re out in public and to help him calm down from tantrums. All of the nonprofit organizations for therapy dogs around here won’t help us until Eli turns 4, so until then I try and find opportunities for him to get used to animals. One of our ABA therapists took in a lost dog and I had her bring him to a couple visits. Most recently we offered to cat sit for my husband’s coworker.

The cat came over when Eli was napping and when he emerged from his room and saw a black cat outside his door he shut the door and hid in his room. When I came in to see if he’s ok he pointed past me and said “yeow. Yeow. Yeow.” The cat was scared the first few days and hid from all of us. But after a week has gone by the cat has really grown to like us, or at least just tolerate us; especially Eli. He calls the cat Yeowy. When he comes down from a nap and is looking for him he will walk around the house saying “Yeowy?? Yeowwy!!!” When the cat does something bad Eli will tell him “Yeowy no!”, when the cat is in his way he will say “Yeowy go!” when the cat is on the kitchen counter he will run up and say “Yeowy down!”. Of course because a cat is a cat, I try to be around to enforce Eli’s demands. I want him to know that he is heard but a young cat may not be the best audience.

The cat is going home soon and Eli will be sad; I on the other hand, am ready for it to go back to his home. However, I will say that I am glad we got to have this little experience because I got to see how Eli would react to an animal in the house. Now I want to get him a therapy dog even more! It gives him more opportunity to use direct language to another person besides mommy and daddy (he doesn’t address any of his therapists directly, he will do so more generally. Ex. Instead of saying “Richie go!” he will just tell him “go!”. When speaking to my husband and I he says “Mommy/Daddy go!”) With the cat he picked a name and addressed it directly, which I loved! I think he also got a real kick out of being in charge of something in the house! Overall I would say it was a very good experience for Eli!

Posted in Uncategorized

Signing your kid up for Special Ed

Posted on by Mom Boss

When you have your first child you never picture yourself contacting the special ed department to enroll him in school. Eli is only three so I am currently in the process of enrolling him in a developmental preschool at one of our local elementary schools. I really went back and forth with the idea of doing a developmental preschool versus a private preschool/headstart. I always think, does he really need it? Will this be too much for him? Will he learn enough in this class?

One of the pros of doing a developmental preschool, first and foremost, is its free. I’ve written before about us being a struggling one income family, so every penny saved helps a lot. Also, this developmental class has a school Speech therapist and an occupational that will come in and do rotations with all the kids. So, since he will be in school half the day, he will be missing out on some of his other therapies, this way he can still get some services while attending school and get other therapies after school. Also this class will have a mix of delayed children and average developed children so they call all play off and learned from each other. The averagely developed children will act as a model for the delayed children so they can see how something should be done.

There are no real cons of putting Eli in this class; he will be with other children like himself, he won’t be as behind as he would in an average class, he will be getting extra therapy, and they also help with potty training. I just never thought I would be enrolled my son with the special education department, and to be completely honest it’s sad. My dream is that in the next two years Eli will be brought up to speed and will be able to be in a regularly functioning kindergarten and will be able to move through school like the rest of his fellow students. I will be trying everything I can to get this kid up to speed so he won’t have to struggle through childhood.

Posted in Uncategorized

Living my life for you

Posted on by Mom Boss

One thing that has been a pretty hard pill to swallow for me is that my life is not my own anymore. When you have kids your life becomes your kids; but at the same time most people work and raise children at the same time. That is not the case for me.

In the begging after having Eli I was a stay at home mom, mostly because my husband is active duty military and we moved A LOT in the last 3 years. It was very hard for me to find a job, but I did. In the past three years I had several jobs. I really enjoy being a stay at home mom as much as I do being a working mother; but I think what I liked about my life before is I always had the option to be either. I do not have that option anymore, at this point I am unable to work. My life is being completely consumed with Eli’s therapies (I am not complaining, I want these things for Eli and they are necessary for his development and I would do this same thing for my next child and any amount of children we end up having.) What I am simply saying is that the life I am living is not my own, I am living my life for Eli. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so; this is what motherhood should be. Mother’s should be sacrificing their own lives for their children. Not having the option to go back to work does make me feel a little boxed in though. Before when I would find work I would put Eli in daycare, now I don’t have that option. Eli is in in-home therapy mon-fri 8am-12pm, speech therapy Tuesday night and Wednesday night and occupational therapy Wednesday afternoon. How would I be able to put my child in daycare with that type of schedule? How would I be able to take college courses (that were not online) with that type of schedule? How do families with two working parents (or a working single parent) get their children the help that they need???

Having the in-home therapy during the mornings does give me some leeway with appointments and errands and actually has been helpful to have during those things. The mornings are when I can schedule all my doctor’s appointments and get shopping done because I have an extra set of hands to help me. But at the same time I am not going to make the therapists go to kohl’s with me to try on shorts, those type of errands get pushed to the back burner whenever I find time after my husband is home.

As you can imagine living off one income is hard for a family of three, especially one living in southern California. I am continuously looking of ways to make money for our family from online transcription, to night shifts, weekend shifts, to even making this blog (although making money off a blog takes a lot of time, a lot a lot of time).

Despite all of the struggles I have to go through, Eli struggles more. That is why, even if I sometimes feel taken over, I will continue to make these sacrifices for him.

Posted in Uncategorized

Mama Go!

Posted on by Mom Boss

Raising a nonverbal child can be very frustrating; not just for the child struggling to communicate, but also for the parents trying to understand their needs. For the past year we have been working on mastering sign language, which helped us out so so so much. However, it did nothing for my need to hear my son call me mommy. Eli has been signing mommy and daddy and saying daddy (verbally) for a while now. In recent weeks I urged him, while he was signing “mommy go”, to say the words out loud. With Eli’s speech delay he is able to say sounds and syllables, but when it comes to saying complete words they come out jumbled. So, he was physically able to say mama, but using it in the appropriate way, was not happening. Until about a week ago! Now, when Eli is signing “mommy, go!” he will also say the words. Of course since he’s still working these things out it comes out more like “Ma-Ma OOH!” I’ll take it. I have been waiting three years to hear my son call me mama and it was the most beautiful experience with him yet!

I have tried to use this tactic for other signs he uses. For instance, he can sign “open”. We try and break it down to “oh” “puh” “en”. He can say all those syllables, and when we go to say it all together and faster, it comes out in baby babble. Same goes for the word “more” We have been working on “mmm” “oh” “rrrr”. Yet again though, when said all together, it comes out jumbled.

It is very frustrating at times because I know the potential he has to speak; he just can’t quite get it out. It is very entertaining to listen to him tell stories though. Yesterday he told me a gripping tale of how the sippy cup fell from the top of his loft bed and fell onto the floor spilling water everywhere. He is very animated. But I can tell just how thrilling the story is by his facial expressions and hand motions, even if all he is saying out loud is baby babble.

I don’t have a doubt in my mind that Eli will get there. Only a year ago he wasn’t using any forms of communication and saying no words verbally. Now, he signs over 20 words/phrases and verbally says about 7 or so words. It takes a long of dedication and persistence to get a delayed child up to speed. At times it may be a lot and very overwhelming but I am the bridge to get my son to where he needs to be. I will keep going full speed ahead! Mama Go!!!

Posted in Uncategorized

Getting Mommy Alone Time

Posted on by Mom Boss

Stay at home moms definitely don’t get enough credit. Whether your child has a disability or not, a toddler is a toddler; and toddlers are crazy. Staying home all day with a crazy, hyper, emotional, screaming, crying, yelling child is enough to make anyone hit the wine bottle at the end of the night. Whether you are a single parent or doing it with someone else, parenting is still a full time job. Being a stay at home parent is a non-stop unpaid job with no paid time off.

I often get jealous of other parents, and even my husband, who work. They go out everyday, get to see new people, make work friends, have a life. My life is a 3-year-old, therapists, playgrounds, and tantrums. (Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade being a stay at home mom, it was the right choice for our family and I will never regret that. Its just, the grass is always greener on the other side kind of thing). When my husband comes home from work I run for the hills for alone time. The days that he comes home from work too exhausted to do anything are the worst because that means no alone time for mommy (until bedtime). Even when my husband is home I, apparently, am the only one who can get more water or change the show on Netflix. Yes, Eli, your dad can do things too, not just your mommy.

What is my solution? Wine. Wine is always the solution. I usually end my night with a glass or two and all the day’s cries, meltdowns, cooking, cleaning, and annoyance of other people’s children melt away with my Pinot Grigio. If you’re not into wine, or alcohol at all for that matter, I have made a list of other sneaky ways to get alone time.

  1. Putting away clean laundry. Did you slave all day washing, drying, and folding clean clothes? Don’t put them away until your significant other comes home. That way you can spend 15 minutes putting away clothes and an extra 45 minutes in the closet on the floor (so no one will find you) watching Netflix.
  2. Find any excuse to go to the store. It’s 7pm but you’re certain you need chicken broth for that crockpot dinner for tomorrow; better run to the store. Take the long way, put in one of your old mixed cds and have an impromptu dance party with the music turned up, because after all, there’s no kids in your car.
  3. When you don’t have a family dinner one night due to everyone’s busy schedule, whip something together for everyone else (very important so no one is waiting on you) and tell you’re significant other you’re going to run and pick yourself up a sub. Drive to Subway, get your sub to go, and eat it in your car while watching Netflix on your phone. I got through a whole episode of Grey’s Anatomy while eating a quiet meal alone. IT. WAS. AWESOME. I showed back up like 40 minutes later and told him there was a long line.

I’m sure someone out there will say, but I don’t have a significant other, it’s just me. Don’t worry, I got you. My husband has a deployment coming up and I have thought of ways to get me through it.

  1. Set the kids up with all their favorite distractions. Sure, kids shouldn’t watch too much tv but is that going to stop me from putting on Zootopia, opening the ipad to his favorite game, and turning on the wii U? No. Once he picks his poison I slowly reverse out of the living room and sprint to my bedroom. I can almost guarantee myself a good 20, sometimes even 30, minutes of non-interrupted alone time.
  2. Make one part of the house look desirable to play in and hide somewhere else. Maybe take out all of your playdoh and put it up on the dining room table, throw in some cookie cutters, maybe even play Disney music in the background. When your child walks in and starts playing, hide as far away from that room as possible.
  3. Take advantage of nap times. Do I mean get all your housework done? Hell no. I mean be a bum, lounge around, watch that episode of Real Housewives you’ve been trying to watch in peace for a week. This is a perfect alone time. To be really proactive, take a morning trip to the park so they wear their tiny ass out and take and even longer nap, because after all, that’s a longer alone time for you.

I love my kid, I swear.

Posted in Uncategorized

Having fun While Saving Money

Posted on by Mom Boss

Since having Eli, I have only worked on an off, mainly because of my husband’s career and our nomadic lifestyle. Being married to an active duty Marine it can be very difficult finding a new job in whatever new city we move to. However, since moving to San Diego I am unable to work because Eli’s therapies have become a full-time unpaid job. Because of this, as you can imagine, money is tight. We don’t have the luxury of going to Disney, taking trips, eating out, or constantly going to do fun things everyday. All of my money goes to groceries and gas, so to get Eli out to enjoy his toddlerhood I sometimes have to get creative on how to have fun on a budget.

  1. FREE. FREE. Always be on the lookout for free events in your area. Last weekend we went to a puppy adoption event. We’re we in the market for a dog? No, but they had a bouncy house, dogs to look at, and free food. Checking the newspaper, facebook groups, and google are great ways to find what is going on in your area. Balboa park here in San Diego offers free admission to different museums each Tuesday of the month. Especially look out for street fairs, swap meets, community events, etc too.
  2. Discount Hunter- Being a military family, we have a lot of discounts available to us. I am always looking for discount events and activities. Here in San Diego, I have found discount prices for the Zoo, county fair, and water parks. Even if you are not military, looking online is a great way to find special or discounted admissions to many activities.
  3. Memberships vs daily admissions- We like to frequent indoor play places out here. I find that it is a lot cheaper to buy memberships rather than paying each day you are going (assuming you will be going more than twice in a month). After buying a membership you can visit these play places daily without having to worry about spending too much money. We are also looking into getting memberships to the San Diego Zoo. Going to the zoo (or any amusement park) can be really expensive, so buying a yearly membership the cost goes waaaay down.
  4. Having fun at home- I have blogged earlier about some crafts that we do at home. If you get creative enough, activities at home can be much more than watching tv or playing games. Buying new toys adds up quickly. I like to buy toys off of facebook yard sale pages, that way you can rotate your kid’s toys so they don’t get bored with the same ol’ things. Don’t have a pool or water table? I bought Squirt gun barrels at Walmart for $1 each and we fill up a bucket of water and have water fights. Don’t worry about making a mess and the fun gets better and better.

Kids are only kids once; It is so important that get to go out and enjoy life and get everything that we are able to give them. I want to give Eli the world, but unless he’s footing the bill, we need to budget.

Posted in Uncategorized

Timing Our Life

Posted on by Mom Boss

One of Eli’s biggest problems is transitions. All of his therapies (ABA, Speech, and OT) agree that transitions are one of the main areas of focus for his development. How is one expected to be ready for school when they cannot transition from one activity to the next? How will he learn when he cannot join the class for coloring or story time because he is on the floor crying because he had to put away the farm animals? Since preschool starts in August, we only have a couple months to get a good handle on this behavior.

Eli gets speech therapy twice a week for 30 minute sessions, as you can imagine 30 minutes is not very long for a 3-year-old with transitioning issues. Within those 30 minutes they cover at least four different activities. Eli tantrums after each activity is over and needs to be picked up, and also gets very upset when it’s time to leave. One thing they implemented is a picture schedule. They used a PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) schedule. They lay out Eli’s favorite activities to do during speech and let him pick the four they are going to do for the session. This is very new and Eli doesn’t quite understand it yet. He sees the one he wants to do first, and doesn’t understand what the rest are doing there or what their purpose is. I do believe that it won’t take long for him to understand 1st ,2nd, 3rd, and 4th. (photo below for visual, not the actual schedule they use)

IMG_8772

At home during ABA we started using a stoplight timer. I got it from our resources on the military base. It can be set to any amount of time and as the time progresses the lights change as they would on a regular stoplight. It can even be programmed to make noises (when turned on we have it say “BEGIN!” when it turns to yellow it makes a tick tock noise, and when the red light goes off it says “TIMES UP!” while the stop light is running Eli is in free play, whichever activity he would like to do, as long as he has asked us for it. When the timer goes off Eli has to go to the dining room, sit down, and complete and activity with his ABA therapist. For the most part, Eli caught onto this extremely fast. There are even days that he will have me set the timer at night when all the therapists are gone just because he thinks its fun. Of course there are days when he absolutely hates it and fights the whole way through the activity if we can even get it to happen at all.

IMG_4706

I think, for Eli, these are the two things that are really going to help him with his difficulties transitioning. This is one area that causes most of his tantrums and I feel resolving this issue will make his school life soooo much easier.