The story behind our gorgeous Autism assistance dog ...

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When you read this... http://mycaninecompanion.blogspot.ie/

The men in my life

Looking good lads :)

Just keep swimming

So, I have written before about Diddles interest in swimming from an early age. He is a water baby yet he has not moved on from the arm bands stage. Mostly because his attention span was so short and it was just something he enjoyed doing alone (like most things really). Now that he is a little more verbal and his receptive speech has improved we have decided to take the plunge and get him one to one swimming lessons. It is so difficult to find one particular activity that he truly enjoys without anxiety creeping into his head and ruining his good time! So for the moment it's swimming and we are going to attempt to keep his interest in it and harness this natural ability he has. I watched him tonight at his first lesson. He got into the pool without anyone giving him any direction. He paddled in his floatie suit from the deep end to the shallow end paying absolutely no attention to the instructor for the first ten minutes or so. Then every so often there was a little glance in her direction. He was warming to her. She brought out some toys the first of which was a ball she threw into the water. Diddles insisted "NO BALL!" She then suggested these funky little water weights and he refused them too. She began to play along side Diddles, parallel play if you like and sure enough when he realised what the purpose of this thing was he was straight over interacting with her, lots of eye contact and giggles and answering her questions with one or two word answers. Then after 20 minutes he was actually commenting without any prompting "oh that's a big splash in the water". Em ... eight words in a sentence is just so much of an achievement for him. He has oodles of ability but unless he warms to you, you are just never going to see it! Diddles is six and a half now and his speech is finally coming, social interaction is his most challenging obstacle and it's finally really clear to us that he does want to over come it he just needs people to give him a little time! So until people can realise that he'll just keep swimming!

Diddles & Tobias

I really I have to stop leaving it so long between blog posts!!

Life is going pretty well lately for Diddles. He is coming along great with school. He is starting to read which is just the most amazing sound to hear. His sleeping habits have improved a HUGE amount since being put on melatonin. There are still some nights this does not help in the slightest but thank god they are few and far between. He is sleeping! For the first time in his life he is getting a good night sleep, which means he is less anxious and has a longer attention span. Also we have finally got our gorgeous assistance dog Toby home from his training in Cork, he has been gone for almost five months which in kid/dog years is like ... well.. forever. They had their first attachment walk just yesterday and it went absolutely brilliantly! It is such a relief because we just did not know what to expect. Diddles reactions to situations are very unpredictable, but in this case he was so comfortable with his dog. We've had Toby since he was eight fluffy weeks old and watched him grow from a clumsy puppy into a hunk of an adult Golden retriever, he is so gentle with the kids! We puppy walked him ourselves and to see him come through his official training with My Canine Companion  is just so rewarding. He's not just an assistance dog to us he's our Toby.

Autism never sleeps!

Well not in this house anyway! Let me set the scene for you.....
You are walking around downstairs packing lunches for the morning, sterilizing baby bottles, making sure there are no valuable toys or essential remote controls left within the dogs reach for a midnight snack, switching off lights when this is all done you can start locking up and set the house alarm. You drag your exhausted little be-hind up the stairs, check on all your little darlings sleeping soundly in their warm cosy beds. Reluctantly brush your teeth and collapse into your lovely soft comfy bed. You let out a giant sigh of relief, You lie there for a few stolen moments thinking this is heaven. Listen to that ........ aaaaaaaaaaah silence. You begin to drift off to a land with no nappies, whining or even the sound of your own voice. .....Until you hear it. That dreaded sound. The sound that can only mean one thing. You're sooo not sleeping any time soon!
Autism is awake!  It is the tiniest little giggle to start off with. Then it turns into full blown self talk conversations, scripting their entire day start to finish, including any TV programmes he may have watched or apps he may have used on his ipad that day. (My son is "non-verbal" .... not at night time!!) Then when he is fully awake still chatting to himself he wanders into your bedroom . You try to take him by the hand and bring him back to his bed and he stays there ..... for about 30 seconds! And before you know it his 3 year old brother is awake and they are both hi-jacking your bed. This is not a new thing for us, I mean Diddles is 6 now and I honestly can not remember if he has ever slept well. Infancy maybe but then I had nothing to compare his sleep patterns to, he was our first so everything seemed exhausting. I remember a few years ago complaining one day in work about being exhausted and some one suggested the super nanny bed time routine, we tried that and needless to say but it was an "Epic Fail". This was before I had heard the word Autism and my sons name spoken in the same sentence. So many Children with autism find pleasure in repetitive behavior so therefore me taking him by the hand and bringing him back to his bed 50 times a night had him laughing his little head off. He found this hilarious. This was not good for his poor parents working a full day after maybe 2 hours broken sleep. Things had to change! I knew deep down that I was doing everything I possibly could to relax him and it simply was not working, I felt like I was going insane with the lack of sleep. Then it became all I could think about. I was getting throat infection after throat infection from being so run down, I was an emotional wreck what the hell was I doing so wrong?!
When "D" day came along and we got the diagnosis of Autism it was a really sad day but it also confirmed that this was not my fault this was a neurological disorder and when I heard insomnia was a common trait I was so relieved we had an explanation... well sort of seen as there is no known cause or cure for Autism but anyway. We began to tackle his sleep issues.
First of all we introduced a visual schedule of his bedtime routine.
Secondly, Then we began to look at under lying issues, we learned that his diet had a major impact on his sleeping schedule. He had an intolerance to Dairy and gluten, we found this out after we had him tested by a local Microbiologist as he suffered from a sudden on set of terrible diarrhea. Known as a leaky gut, his immune system could not absorb the nutrients and vitamins he was consuming. He was constantly sick, ear infections, colds, vomiting bugs he caught everything going and it did not matter that I had been giving him a balanced diet and vitamin C etc, because nothing was going in. We did a detox of dairy first and then a week or two later gluten. It is quite difficult to get you're head around the diet at first but it does become second nature after a while.
We found that his health improved a huge amount, rarely now would he get sick maybe once or twice a year, I think this has been down to the change in diet and the introduction of supplements also. We use Calcium, magnesium and zinc, a pro-biotic and an iron supplement. The Gp just prescribes antibiotics left right and center and you are never told if this will affect your childrens health in the long run so if you have to give one give a pro-biotic also! After we followed through on these things his language started coming and he lost that far away look in his eyes and started making eye contact. You could see how much happier in himself he had become and his personality began to shine threw. Autism will always be in our home but there are things you can do to help some of the symptoms.

Thirdly, His insomnia is still an issue he just can not switch off and he is afraid of being alone so recently we went down the road of getting a prescription of melatonin for him. This works well with the initial send off to sleep but again it does not keep him asleep. Maybe two nights of the week he will wake during the night now but at least we are all getting some sleep!!!
We are bringing him again to have food intolerence testing done to see if there is something else like a food allergy/ intollerence that is keeping him awake, we are also getting him assessed for ADHD so will find out soon. I really believe food and routine are the answers but I am still working on them! Wish me luck !! :)




(*Images courtesy of google)

The Massacre of Curious George!!

This is Diddles 6th Birthday cake which was made from scratch by his Nanna. It was a gluten and dairy free Curious George cake. Her blood sweat and tears went into making this for him before it met its untimely demise. You see young Diddles hates hearing people singing "Happy Birthday", especially to him! 
 Not only is he hearing peoples awful off key singing but he is forced into a social interaction that he simply can not process. When he first walked into the room and set eyes on the cake and everyone standing around it he immediately bolted out and went to hide under the stairs, hands over ears and verbal stimming.
After a lot of coaxing with the promise of chocolate cake he returned to the scene in the kitchen. He made a beeline for it and pulled Curious Georges head clean off!! He then proceeded to demolish the remains of the body until all that was left was mulchy crumbled icing. Everyone of us stood in the room unable to move, rooted to the spot in disbelief, I personally wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. My poor Mam all her hard work. He felt that strongly about his hatred of hearing happy birthday being sung to him. Not that we would have sang it anyway knowing how he feels we thought he would have been delighted to see a Curious George chocolate cake all for him. How wrong were we ! .....

"If evolution really works how come mothers only have two hands?" milton Berle

So it has been one hectic year and it is about time I updated this blog before I lose track of all our progress we've made this year! We have two new additions to our family since my last post in May. First to arrive was our gorgeous Golden Retriever puppy Toby, and second to enter our lives is my beautiful baby girl who we are absolutely besotted with beyond all expectation, I mean I knew I would be in love with her from the moment I felt her first kicks in my belly but my god baby love on a whole other level. I guess because she was such an amazing surprise for us this year. First of all total surprise of being pregnant again and secondly I was so convinced I was having another boy. The anomaly scan at 22 weeks didn't convince me in the slightest despite the doctor telling me she was a girl, I was terrified that I'd get my hopes up for the splash of pink through out my house. I adore my boys and a baby girl just completes the brood, it really feels like we have achieved the perfect balance now. Feel very blessed right now by our little family!

This past summer had been relentless to put it mildly! Not to be dramatic or anything but I feel like I was physically and mentally pushed just within my limits. Looking back I don't think I would have taken on so much at the one time. I did not have a bad pregnancy however I did have a very emotional one. I think I may have cried myself a small river, at the time there was a new unwelcome killjoy tenant in my house "Captain Hormone" (as my Husband likes to call me on such occasions). It took a friend to actually point out all that I had going on was so stressful. After all, we had an attention seeking two year old, a very active 5 year old with autism who seemed to be awake 22 hours of the day and a new mischievous puppy with boundless energy and a very hormonal, sleep deprived pregnant mother stuck at home in groundhog day mode.
We decided one day before Diddles finished school that we would get a puppy. Diddles absolutely LOVES animals and we knew we would eventually get a dog. In fact we have had our names down on waiting lists for an assistance dog for over two years at this point. It was probably too impulsive and a decision based on cute pictures and hormones but I don't regret it because now we have our beautiful Toby. Who we are now training to be Diddles assistance dog thanks to a new Irish charity called My Canine Companion. I found it through an Autism Mommy friend on Facebook and it was the perfect timing considering we had such an instinctive decision to buy Toby. This picture was the first day he got his vest he was about 13 weeks old and we were able to start "Puppy walking" him. Which basically means we brought him everywhere, shops, cafes, restaurants, relatives homes etc. and let him become accustomed to all noises and smells. He has the ideal temperament, very friendly, loves the kids and quite easy to teach so for all these pro's I forgive him for being so hairy, making me hoover several times a day. We would be lost without him now, himself and the boys are great friends.
I have Diddles in the habit of giving him his first feed of the day before he goes to school. He is quite tuned into Toby in a weird way, he looks out for him, he wont let Toby chew on anything he shouldn't be, he initiates a game of chasing with him, Diddles worries about him if he runs too far during a free run. I really love that Diddles is involved in his training, it teaches him so much, Compassion, responsibility, he is more aware of his own safety and others around him as he is more focused! I am not trying to sell it, I am merely noting the differences Toby has made in Diddles life.

Our little Princess or as Madman called her baby five is now 4 months old and thriving, sleeps all night smiles most of the day by far the angel of the house at the moment however I am under no illusions that at some stage she will make up for it. Right now we are enjoying every "goo" and "gaa" out of her. She is certainly letting us know she has a voice! That's my girl make your voice heard among the madness. She gets that from her Mammy ('',)
How lucky is she to have two big bro's looking out for her! Madman did not bat an eyelid at the fact that he was not the baby of the house anymore. We were expecting curly headed green eyed monster to emerge, however pleasantly surprised that he really enjoys the big brother role. He loves to boss people about and therefore fits the role perfectly. Not a day goes by that I don't think Madman was meant for the stage, never fails to make you laugh especially in the most serious situations you just can not give out to him without fighting a smile! Butter wouldn't melt as they say. This kid is going places mark my words!


 As stressful as I found it last summer the outcome was so worth it because my son (aside from his siblings) made his first friend and also my baby girl made it here safe and sound. I am a firm believer in the saying "you have to work hard for anything worth having in this life".