So I decided to start a little journal about living life with autism. As many of you know I have a 5 yr old son named Parker who is on the autism spectrum. His actually diagnose is PDD-NOS with sensory integration. He was diagnosed at 2 yrs old but mommy and daddy knew something was up earlier than that. Even mommy's friends who were afraid to say anything to her noticed Parker was "different". How we first noticed he was "different" as a child he would spin things for hours, line up objects, flapping of the hands, lost in space, no eye contact, no speech ,no sense of fear, sudden outbursts of cries and meltdowns, sudden giggling for no reason. The list could go on forever! Each autistic child perceives their world differently. So what did we do? We took Parker to his pediatrician and asked him(Dr.T) what he thought. He said to us within in 5 minutes of meeting Parker"I don't doubt that he is on the spectrum but lets get him tested at Cincinnati Children's to be sure." So off to Children's we go.......So our first appointment with children's we actually got in there( is always a long waiting list for kids to be tested for anything) ,but David had a family member that helped us by passing the wait. So they put us in this room and made us wait, which anyone with an autistic child knows they don't have alot of patience, then at least 5 doctors or therapist come in the room to test Parker. They do a series of tests to see what his skills are at this age level. Of course he scored low. So their recommendation was occupational therapy and speech therapy. So we signed on board for some help knowing we couldn't do this alone. So the first thing was signed up for with Children's was occupational therapy. In occupational therapy the child learns to trust therapists and get used to them. He also learns how to use his senses(touch,hear,speak,taste,seeing). Well the one thing I love about Parker is he is a very affectionate kid. Alot of autistic kids don't like to be touched or don't show emotion. NOT my son....he loves hugs! As for speech there was none at this time and he didn't even want to try and work on it at this time. Seeing got better, we now have full eye contact from him even though he plays games like "you can't see me ,I can't see you"...lol As for taste that's a whole another chapter of his life. Parker doesn't eat table food. Everything he eats which isn't much has to blended in a blender and put into a baby bottle and he will drink it that way. Now he does get more nutrients then most 5 yr olds for he loves his veggies and meats but it all has to be blended to liquid so it may pass with no problems down his throat. Now we though this was a little strange a kid didn't want to put food in his mouth. Actually he didn't put anything in his mouth which was great. We never had to worry about him putting things from the floor in his mouth. He never had the sensation to. So we asked Children's have they ever seen this. The told us yes and that we should get tested to see if it was a physical issue with his mouth. So back in the car and off to Children's again. This time to do a video swallow to see what he is doing on an xray with his food in his mouth. So we had to force feed him with a spoon which he hates and watch the food on a monitor to see what happens. He eventually swallowed it but the doctors did note that he does keep food in his mouth longer than it should. Maybe the fear of swallowing scares him? He also gets hiccups alot and really bad. Maybe keeping air to long in there too? So that's where speech therapy comes in next.  So back in the car off the speech therapy at Children's. Speech therapy at Children's in my opinion was a waste of time for us. Now I'm not saying that for all kids just mine. During speech ,OT therapist and speech therapist decided that they would work together with Parker considering my insurance at work only covers 20 days a year for OT. My insurance company doesn't even cover speech so this was a way for us to bypass and get some relief on the bills. At $200/hr I can see why the divorce rate and debt is so high in couples that have kids on the spectrum. It is alot of stress on us as a couple but somehow we managed to make it work for the little guy. Someone once said to me that god only gives us what we can handle. And I truly belief that god gave me this special little boy for a reason whether it be to slow me down in life,teach me a lesson or fill a void, he's here and I wouldn't  trade him for the world! Ok enough rambling on, back to therapy class at Children's....we would get Parker used to swings which he loved. He also loved jumping  on the trampoline. Other things that we worked on in therapy was dealing with his sensory integration. For instance, he didn't like touching certain textures. We would work on that by putting different things in front of him like toys,  food, snacks, pudding, playdoh, sand, beans,water. Eventually he did touch somethings but by then my 20 days of coverage was over. As for speech during therapy they tried to get him to use the PECS system. What that is, is pictures of objects on cards and he would have to hand me the card of the thing that he wanted.....HAHHAHA He didn't want to do that either. He would throw the cards all over the floor. So they suggested maybe sign language but both daddy and I agreed that we didn't want to go that route for I didn't want Parker to use that as a crutch. If he was ever going to talk I didn't want him to use sign language as the crutch. So we as parents decided to let him learn some speech through educational cartoons like Word World. One thing Parker really likes is his tv so we figured we can teach him things through television. Most parents and doctors probably would have a stroke on how much tv he watches but he has learned alot from the tv. Plus we don't allow him to watch just anything. Funny thing about his sensory integration, certain tv shows or cartoons set him off to a meltdown. For instance, Mickey Mouse. He can watch mickey with the volume off but if he hears the hot dog song or hears a song that he knows the cartoon is ending then he has a meltdown. We thought it had to do something with the volume being to high but then he loves to turn the volume all the way up on some cartoons especially if the cartoon has a song or jingle playing. We used to laugh at the George Lopez show for he would turn Low Rider up as high as he can get  it. I always wondered if the neighbors could hear our household and what they thought. Other things we worked on was puzzles for hand/eye coordination. He mastered them completely! We also worked on touching things more and more. We worked on pretend play like driving the cars into the garage. He LOVES Thomas the train. For Christmas this year he got mostly Thomas the train items plus thanks to ANDY he got Thomas the train trains and tracks which he as we speak has setup all over the living room. As he plays with his toys he also wants to watch the cartoon so we pop in the cd Thomas and you want to see the biggest smile on a childs face! Other things we worked on is the trampoline.We now have one in our house and he loves to jump really high on it. He even likes to do tricks on it too. Funny story about jumping.....When he was a baby we went through 2 crib mattresses for he jumped so much he went through the mattresses. He also jumped one time right out of the crib on us. Sometimes he will jump for hours and at odd times of the day/night. I remember waking up about 2am one night and there he is jumping away.