We love you Italy, but back to Holland we go

     In the fall of 2014 after Melanie had turned 6, we decided to have her re-evaluated. After being told that she no longer had autism but simply ADHD, I knew something wasn't right. I spend hours doing research on what exactly is ADHD and what the signs were. In my search, I never found the signs Melanie showed as a toddler. Those signs kept leading me back to autism.  For the next evaluation, I presented the evaluation from 2010, 2012 and a form filled out by the pre-k teacher and kindergarten teacher. I wanted to make sure the psychologist had all the information available.
     A few weeks later, we received the diagnosis that I knew we would received. She received a diagnosis of high functioning autism. I honestly felt relieved because I knew that the diagnosis was now correct. We were given the choice to do evaluations every 2 years but we decided that it was no longer necessary. I know that Melanie will always be a little different from her peers and will have some struggles.  The good part is that the older she gets the easier it is to re-direct her and teach her about what "life" is about.

Melanie 2016

I can't believe how much has changed in the past two years. Melanie has continued to make tremendous progress. She is now in 1st grade and excelling in school. She still struggles with paying attention and following directions but it's something that we are working on. First grade started out a little rocky but only because the teacher was not aware what Autism looks like. Thanks to Ms. Nichols, for always supporting Melanie. The new teacher has been able to make modifications to help support Melanie's needs.  As for therapies, she only receives them once a week. She receives 30 minutes each of speech and occupational. She is doing so well. At school, she no longer receives services but Mrs. Basteda still checks up on Melanie once a month.

I enjoy that I can have conversations with Melanie. That is something that I didn't think would happen but I'm so glad I was wrong. We have also transitioned from a 5 point harness carseat to a booster seat.  She is now able to sit still in the booster seat and not remove the seatbelt. Which was one of my biggest worries. She says she loves it because she's a big girl now and I know she feels more independent.  As for myself, that was something that was hard to let go.

She is also reading now. She struggled in kindergarten and in the start of this year but now she likes to read everything in sight. She is handling transitions better and hardly has any meltdowns. Maturity wise, she is still a little behind compared to her peers. I hope it doesn't become so obvious as she grows. As for foods, she has opened up to trying new foods. That doesn't mean she will eat it all but at least she tastes it. The other day they had a Chinese New Years party at school and she ate dumplings. I was shocked. She kept asking for more once she was at home. Our local Chinese restaurant sells dumplings so I ordered her some and to my surprise she ate 4 of them. I'm so glad that she is enjoying new foods.

Melanie also has a new baby nephew whom she adores. She is so great with him. She's like a mommy to him. I love to see them interact and play together. It's amazing to see how developmentally different they are. Grayson is doing things that Melanie didn't at his age and for that I am thankful. He is helping me realize how far Melanie has come and now I don't worry so much about her future like I did before. Yes I will still worry but that's what moms do.

Melanie gets invited to a lot of birthday parties and she loves it. The best part is that parents don't notice her disability and neither do her peers. Yesterday, Melanie was upset because the book fair closed and it was too late to purchase the toy she wanted. I asked her a few times to put her backpack up but she couldn't focus on the words because she was upset. One of her peers overheard me asking her to put her backpack up. He came over and hung her backpack for her. He didn't make fun of her for crying and he didn't question her. He simply took the backpack from my hand and hung it. I thought that was so sweet of him to do that. I hope Melanie continues to meet people that will be nice and understanding to her needs.

Townsend elementary

This school year Melanie was main streamed. She's had her ups and down but luckly more ups. When school first started Liz was with her. Melanie struggled with putting her backpack on by herself and swinging on the swings with no help.  That has now improved. She does struggle with ignoring her friends and paying attention to the teacher. Melanie likes to talk when she's not suppose to and she likes to tough/hug her friends when she's not suppose to. Yesturday she got a sad face because she wasn't listening and today she was hitting and pushing. Melanie thinks that if she does something to a kid and she gets caught that by saying sorry she should immediately be forgiven and then she can continue doing what she was doing as if nothing happened.  Unfortunately life doesn't work that way. I don't understand how she can have several days with no problems and then we will have several days with problems. I want to believe that she's just being a kid and that every kid in her class behaves that way at some point.  I have noticed that as she's getting older she's pushing everyone's buttons so I've deceided to take Melanie to PCIT and hopefully this will help her out in school and at home.  Overall I am pleased with how well shes doing and the teacher thinks so too.

Dance

Today I took Melanie to a beginners ballet/tap class. We went to the 5-7 year old class. Even though it was a beginners class the kids were very advanced. Melanie was able to keep up with them but she struggled with the steps. Everything was going great until she deceided to become friends with a girl. The girl looked older than Melanie and she already had a best friend in the class. The girls kept pushing Melanie away everytime she wanted to be close to them. Melanie doesn't understand their mentality so she kept saying to them that they were mean and not being nice. My heart broke for her because Melanie always seems to attach to one kid and only that one kid. She doesn't have a problem making friends but for some reason she attaches to one kid only. So towards the end of the class she was upset and started crying which lead to her not wanting to participate anymore. As we were leaving one of the girls was already sitting next to her mom, Melanie approached them and told the mother "she and her sister were mean to me." So I explained to her mom what happened and the mom told the little girl to be nice and the little girl said it wasn't her and so forth.
We checked out with the front person and she asked why Melanie was crying so I told her then she offered for Melanie to stay and try the prek class. So we did. Now this class I loved the teacher was very patient and showed Melanie how to do the steps. Melanie looked happy and you can tell she was enjoying herself. Towards the end she had a little breakdown because it was time to go. Melanie does not like things to be over especially if she's having a good time. The lady in the front again was so nice that she gave Melanie some cookies to Cheer her up.  Overall she did very well especially since she did two classes back to back. I asked her if she wanted to come back and she said no. That's her favorite word.  We will try it again next week. Hopefully she will continue to like it.

Flashback

Today I read a post about a mom who flew with her daughter who has autism. It brought back memories of when Melanie and I flew from Los Angeles to Oklahoma by ourselves. That day was a nightmare. I barely made it to the airport. I was pushing Melanie in the stroller with our luggage two carry ons and her carseat. We has about 30 plus minutes before we board and melanie was getting restless. I pushed her in the stroller, went up and down on the elevator several times and then there was the dreaded escalator. She wanted to go down the escalator but we couldn't because I had the stroller and our carry ons. The child cried and cried for 30 minutes. Everyone stared at us. I just wanted to dig a hole and hide. I knew by the look in their faces that they were hoping that we didn't sit next to them. We were in boarding section A but I deceided to board almost last. I knew that if we boarded early Melanie would have been even more restless. As we boarded the pane you could see the look on those people faces a look of terror. We made it to our seats. Melanie wanted to sit by the window so I  let her. There was an empty seat next to me and then a man approaches the seat and I say "I guess you're the lucky one" and he smiled. He made a comment about her crying and I said just give it a few minutes and she will fall asleep. Before the pane took of I moved Melanie to the middle seat. About 15 minutes in the air she feel asleep. Thank you Jesus. Then about 45 minutes before we landed she woke up, that's when it all started again and thus time she was energized. Several times Melanie would try to get out of her seat, she cried, kicked, pulled on the seats you name it he did it. The man whom I think his name was Kevin was so nice and understanding. He helped me keep her entertained. Before we landed it was time for her to put her seatbelt on and the stewardess passed by and asks me to buckle her in. I was struggling and she kept telling her to buckle up. Finally I told her that she is not going to listen to you but she will listen to a man. So I asked Kevin to tell Melanie to sit down so we can buckle her. She did exactly what he said. So every time Melanie would start to meltdown he would talk to her and she would behave. ( Melanie always listens better to her daddy than myself) We finally landed. I was finally in Oklahoma and Kevin was going to board another plane. I thanked him for helping me with Melanie and we said goodbye.  I was so nervous the entire time. I remember telling Adam that I would never fly by myself with Melanie again. That next time I would wait for all 3 of us to fly together.  That was a day that I would never forget. 

OT evaluation

2/28/13 today we went for an OT evaluation. It lasted close to two hours. Melanie was very curious of her surroundings so she was easily distracted. Not sure if she did everything Mikkie wanted her to do. She had her write, cut a around a circle and square. Stack blocks, put beads on a shoe lace, stand on one foot, stand on her tiptoes, open a container. She also observed her motor skills. I also had to answer a few questions. Some of the questions were about problems with eatting, sensitivity to lights, noise, textures of food and clothing. Activity level, attention span and that's all I can remember. Mikkie will look at everything and then let us know what the plan will be.

Yesturday I spoke with Bonnie about  Melanie's new dx. She thinks the dx should have not been removed. She mentioned something's that made me question the new dx. Here's an example: a typical child who sees someone holding a puppy would say he's so cute, what's his name, can I hold him etc. they ask a lot of questions. Melanie doesn't. She will just say aww he's so cute and then reach to touch the dog. Melanie also only talks about what she wants to talk. Het conversations are one way. If she talks to someone it's about what she wants to talk about. She never asks questions, she only makes statements. There are days when I see the ASD symptoms and then there's days I don't. I'm so confused right now.

Today we had our home visit with Liz. We once again talked about the dx. She's hoping that J.Morrris will accept an invitation to visit Melanie at the school so she can observe her, hope she deceides to visit. Tmw Adam will sign a release so Liz can contact J. Morris. Let's hope for the best.

Revealing the new diagnosis

On 2/18 we went to see Mr. Curtis and Stacy. I showed Curtis the diagnosis without saying a word. He had a huge smile on his face and quickly noticed that the Autism dx was gone. He was very happy for us. He could not believe it. Ofcourse I was very emotional and he listened patiently to me vent. We talked about how far Melanie has come and how much she had overcome. I asked him if he wanted a copy of the dx and he said yes. He also said that he was going to frame it. That made me feel good but I'm sure he was kidding. We will see.

On 2/19 I showed the dx to Liz. She quickly skimmed through the report. She was surprised to see the new dx. She had several questions that I could not answer. At that moment those feelings came back and I became emotional again. What if J. Morris misdiagnosed my child. What if she made a mistake. Liz said that she would give her a call and hopefully get our questions answered. Liz also said that she would figure out how we can still get Melanie all the services that she needs. I really hope that this new dx doesn't affect Melanie's treatment plan.