Frontline Has Balls

Yay for one news outlet that doesn't fall into the trap of false balance. Frontline gave Jenny far more time than she deserved, but still treated her fairly and didn't take her message out of context. They also didn't give in to her demands that they give her equal time and frame her message with her pet DAN! doctors. She's not half the story, and her "experts" don't have equal credibility or knowledge in the area.

She's busy being a whiney baby about it on Huffpo. And apparently at some point they decided to let actual discussion take place instead of turning it into an AoA echo chamber. When did that happen?

On the potty training front, we had success for about a day and a half, and now we're spending time cleaning up a lot of messes. I hope he figures it out soon.

The inmate...

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but the pro technique is apparently to keep the boy in the bathroom all day, and I do mean all day. He's playing there. He's eating there. And he's pooping and peeing on the toilet there. There are jelly beans involved, too.

By the way, nobody sells plastic pants big enough to fit five year olds that I can find. I ordered some expensive but very nice training pants online. Thank you, Imse Vimse.  Everyone else seems to top out at 3T.

Rounded up

I don't have time for a long post, but things went well, even if the boy didn't cooperate. The school is very supportive. There's no sign that they're taking all our services away or pushing him into a special ed classroom all day. I think we'll be ok next year.

Next week: Potty party.

With a quack quack here, and a quack quack there...

Hi, Autism Nostrum.

Dr. Mercola (mercola) is now following your tweets on Twitter.

A little information about Dr. Mercola:

24023 followers 2714 tweets following 21394 people

I feel all special that he chose me as one of his 21,394 followers, and I'm sure he reads every one of those tweets. I suppose I should let him down gently about me voting for @DrRachie for the Shorty. Perhaps I just felt some kinship with Dr Dunlop, since I, too am an overweight non-physician, as he liked to put it.

Also? I have issues with an anti-vaccine nutbar winning a health award of any sort.

 

A week full of milestones

This week, we've got kindergarten roundup. I've been worried sick about it, and local cuts to the school budget have not helped any.

The boy, however, refuses to let such things get him down. He's busy using more words than he's ever used before and trying his best to work sentences into the mix. A lot more echolalia, but I take that as a good sign, too.

He's exceeded the kindergarten math goal of learning to count to 100. He's not reading Shakespeare or anything, but he is reading, and he can both sight read and sound out unique words.

We're taking one of his therapists with us, so he's got a familiar face. If we just shoved him in a room while everyone he knew went in the other room, things would not look good for our hero. It might still end up being me in that room. We'll have to see.  I still have to write a letter.

Dear school district,
this is my small human being who is capable of great things and also has great challenges. Remember all those things you learned about autism in school? Good. Now unlearn about three quarters of them. We want him to be in a regular classroom. We think he'll learn best that way. He needs a full-time para. Yes, we realize that is asking a lot, but once you get to know him, I think you'll understand what his preschool teacher meant when she said, "This kid is going to be underestimated."
Love, me.

Something like that.

And then the week after that? Potty party. Damn, I hope it works. He's ready. He's very ready. My research says there are only two hard and fast signs of potty readiness. Asking for diaper changes and waking up dry. Boy's ready. But if you ask him to use the toilet he resists. Hopefully we can find a reward that works for him, and then once he does it on his own, it will be its own reward.

Always look on the bright side of life, doo-doo, doo-doo

Some excellent posts to read today:

Parenting Is Parenting

And an article on Huffpo that is actually pretty good.