Ben's 4th Birthday Bash

When Liam was 2, I didn't have a party for him, but a dear friend convinced me to celebrate his birthday at her daughter's party and it turned into a big Luau bash.  This year I asked her if she wanted to celebrate the 4th birthday of our youngest children together (our oldests are 6 weeks apart in age, as are our youngests).  Shortly after that, two other friends asked to join our party planning to celebrate their two children turning 3.

The result was a HUGE birthday party.  Each child had their own theme: A chose Toy Store, Ben chose Hello Kitty, C chose Spiderman, and D chose Cars.  Each mom had separate contributions to make.  The party was at Trudy's so I think she had the hardest job.  We all contributed some food and our own birthday cakes.  Penny planned games and crafts (the crafts were individually put in bags in each of the 4 themes and designed so the kids could do them without help).  Lori made goody bags honoring each theme.  All I did was bring the bouncy castle.  How did I luck out?

Getting the yard ready:

Liam on the bouncy slide:

Ben pouting and refusing to smile for the camera:

Trudy's awesome sister-in-law face painting.  We have been using her as our babysitter and the boys LOVE her.  We will miss her when we move:

Sweet Liam:

The bounce house!

My birthday boy, full of contradictions:

Cake time!

Trudy's husband, Jay, and Dave enjoying a quiet moment:

Left side neglect

I am beginning to suspect that Ben has visual processing issues. When asked to write his name, the result is that in addition to issues with holding the crayon and pressing hard enough, he only uses the right side of the paper. Thanks to my copy of "The Mislabeled Child" I suspect left side neglect. I hope North Carolina has vision therapy and that Tricare covers it.

Surgery time again

Ben got his 2nd set of tubes, had an intrascapular tonsillectomy (meaning the tonsils were shaved down instead of cut off), and had RAST testing done.  This was his 3rd surgery, the 4th ENT surgery between both boys, and the 5th surgery overall between both boys.  Some things get easier, like I no longer get nervous before the surgery.  Some things stay the same, like the sickness I feel when they take my baby away to put him under general anesthesia.

Before surgery Ben was all smiles:

Post-surgery, he became combative.  I wish I had pushed harder for them to give whatever they gave Liam before waking up to keep him calm.  The nurse finally suggested we just leave.  He screamed and cried the entire 30 minute drive home, and for quite awhile after getting home.  Eventually, he settled down enough to just glare in pain:

I was not allowed to get up as it resulted in him crying again:

Finally, he fell asleep, on top of me of course:

While he was asleep, Liam's 4th tooth fell out:

He woke up and was in a better mood:

Today, he is back to normal, less tonsils and with brand new ear tubes:

Benny Boo Boo turns four years old

Benjamin Andrew turned 4 on April 6, 2013.  I started this blog right after I found out I was pregnant with him.  It is amazing the journey he has brought me on.

It took 4 years, but Ben's height finally caught up to Liam's height at the same age.  Ben is 41 inches tall and 36 pounds (by contrast, Liam was the same height but 39 pounds).

Interview with my big 4 year old Ben:

Favorite color: pink and orange and blue
Favorite food: broccoli, cauliflower, pizza, and Poptarts
Favorite thing to play: star war guys and my baby and Hello Kitty play set
Favorite thing to watch on TV: Star Wars movies
Favorite book: "Mouse About the House" and "That's Not my Princess"
Favorite friend: Mackenzie (who moved in November), Collin, Luke, and Gibson
Favorite animal: big cats and crocodiles and bears
Favorite stuffed animal: giraffe and little penguin

We had a busy weekend so Ben's birthday celebration was small.  His party is a joint party with friends on the 21st.  Here are photos from his big day.

Continuining to battle strep

For timeline purposes, the date strep first entered our house (this year) when Ben tested positive on February 26th.  Liam tested positive the next day on February 27th.  Based on their behavior I became concerned about P.A.N.D.A.S.  Life began to go on as normal, though Ben seemed to develop a cold virus of sorts while on antibiotics.  Both boys finished their antibiotics on March 8th.

That very night I woke with shooting pains in my throat.  By morning I felt worse, and since it was a Saturday (March 9th), I went to Urgent Care and tested positive for strep.  My tonsils were so swollen that I got a short of steroids in the butt.  It was the sickest I felt in a long time and even on Monday, I wasn't feeling myself.

Tuesday, March 12th Liam was awake in the middle of the night and Ben woke with goopy eyes.  As soon as Liam woke, he said he had a headache and he didn't want to get out of the bed.  So I packed them up to go their new off base pediatrician (who we saw last month for the strep).  Both boys were swabbed for strep using the rapid strep test.  Liam tested positive on the rapid and Ben tested negative on the rapid.  His pediatrician claimed it could be a false positive based on his recent bout of strep.  However, this article from a medical journal published in 2002 does not support that and in fact shows that the rapid test is more accurate for recently affectied patients: http://www.jabfm.com/content/15/4/261.full.pdf

The next day, March 13th Liam was up at 4am saying his throat hurt, he had a headache, and his tummy hurt.  We went back to the pediatrician who had cultured Liam's positive rapid test (not not Ben's negative test) and said the culture was negative and Liam must have something viral.  The only positive of that day was I got my first double nap since November 2009.  I made an appointment for the boys to go to my doctor as he opens at 7:30am.

Overnight Liam began to run a fever.  By the time we got to the doctor on March 14th, Liam's temperature was 102.6, he was lethargic, not interested in drinking due to throat pain, and miserable.  My doctor did rapid strep on both boys.  This time Ben was positive and Liam was negative.  He agreed with me tha both needed antibiotics.

I am ready for our war with strep throat to be over.  I am worn out after this week.

Ben's speech evaluation, take 5

It seems we cannot get speech therapists to agree on Ben's speech.  His speeh evaluation done as part of his developmental evaluation in October 2011 showed a severe language delay, and recommended private speech therapist.  The private speech therapist who saw him briefly dismissed him in December 2011 or January 2012 saying he'd catch up.  Early Intervention considered him to be speech delayed and so he had a speech evaluation in April 2012 as part of the process of transferring out of early intervention into preschool services.  They found him to be speech delayed and recommended twice a week speech at the local elementary school.  When we moved here, he was evaluated in the fall and the speech therapist felt his articulation was 4-6 months delayed and did not require therapy.

Same kid, different SLPs, different results.....It is a bit perplexing.

So, he was evaluated by Easter Seals by the same therapist that provided speech therapy for Liam in 2010.  She recognized him as Liam's little brother and commented how sweet and compliant he was.  He even told her he had to pee and came out to use the potty once during the evaluation.

She needs to score the results but she saw several areas of concern.
- Her biggest concern was how much Ben relies on echolalia to communicate.  She said she was surprised to hear so much echolalia, even though she knew I was concerned about it.
-He has issues with word retrieval where he knows the word but cannot seem to access it.  I need to look more into this as this is part of dyspraxia, I believe and if I am not mistaken can be connected with other issues.
-He drools and has bubbles while trying to talk, and clearly has low oral motor tone.
-He has perseveration, which means he repeats things and gets stuck.  During the testing, he'd give an answer to the previous question, not the one that was asked.
-He drops negatives and often says the reverse of what he means.
-He has pronoun confusion.

Am I the only one who notices how many of these speech issues occur in children with autism, especially the echolalia, perseveration, and pronoun confusion?

Continued Aggression

In the continuing saga of last week's strep, there are some updates. 

The weekend was calm and I was hopeful that the antibiotics had killed off crazy behavior.  Sunday was the first time in over a week that the boys seemed like themselves.

Ben saw the ENT for an appointment scheduled after his last ear infection....since July he has had 4 ear infections and 2 bouts of strep throat.  The ENT recommended another set of ear tubes and a tonsillectomy.....This will be Ben's 3rd surgery, the 4th ENT surgery between the two boys, and the 5th surgery I have managed as a mother in a little over 3 years.

Then all hell broke loose yesterday afternoon at gymnastics when Liam was asked to sit up while waiting his turn (he was laying down).  He said no and was asked to sit out a moment and then he HIT his gymnastics coach.  His coach brought him to me, and I was trying to calm him down......Not realizing that class was almost over.  Suddenly, we were surrounded by people and Liam from being angry to a full blown sensory meltdown.

He began to hit me and was grabbing my necklace.  I was trying to wait until everyone left so I'd have more space to move him out.  He realized Ben left his socks on the floor and became upset about that.  He overheard friends were going for doughnuts and became furious with me for saying we could not go.  Ben actually cooperated and found his socks.  I held Liam while pinning his arms to stopp him from hitting or choking me while I put on Ben's socks and shoes.  I left Liam's shoes off as I saw no way to put them on.  Then I carried 50 pounds of flailing, kicking, hitting my face Liam and my diaper bag while holding onto to Ben's hand.....how?  I don't know but I managed. 

Once in his 5 point harness, Liam began to throw anything in the car he could reach and kept grabbing Ben's hand.  I was terrified he'd break Ben's fingers. 

The meltdown lasted about 20 minutes though it felt significantly longer.  It ended as suddenly as it started.

That is the worst meltdown he has had in about a year, since this: http://routhierfam.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html  But the aggression is so unlike Liam.

So is it autism or is it PANDAS?