I've been busy here at the pond dividing my time between home schooling, starting a business, and working with the IEP team to get Frog a new school placement by January. We were also feeling a bit under the weather last week so everything took longer than it should have.

Here are a few of our home school highlights:

I'm outing Frog on this one, but I thought using the letters he's been writing to write his name was a reasonable and important goal. I have a magnetic alphabet fishing game and we used it to "fish out" the letters in his name an put them in the right place. I sang about the letters in his name as we fished.



He was supposed to follow up by connecting the dots to write his name - but that was more than he was willing to do this first time out. I'm hoping as we continue with this game he will become patient enough with it to actually teach him how the game is supposed to be played.

We continued reading Coyote's Rain Song from our ENKI fairy tales. Frog seems to enjoy this story. Our composition book was not handy, so we used a sheet of tag board. He was able to identify the word CLOUD from the two words on the sheet. He copied the letters C and R with support and resistance.



We made a rain stick to shake while we sing the rain song from the story. I had Frog put the letter C in the Cloud (with support from me after we practiced making the letter C together). I had him put Coyote under the rain cloud. Finally I had him put dots (for rain drops) falling from the cloud (I helped him hand over hand with this). I had already partly assembled the stick, and had him pour the beans into the tube. I finished tapeing the ends and putting his picture on the outside.




Later in the week we read a new Baba Yaga story -



a Russian version of Cinderella. It is a rather long story, but Frog has listened to it twice already. I'm hoping to interest him in a little doll making before we move on from the story.

There has also been a lot of play time, running in the wind, and making music together. Today we went to Frog's new school and met his new teacher and the rest of his team. It went very well. We will see how things go in January when there are more rules and expectations to stay on task.

Day 35 - Back to Frog School

We started the morning with a decision. We had 4 more days left on our medication trial. I had reduced Frog's dosage back to 5mgs last week to see if having more time to adjust to the way his perceptions changed would make a difference. He continued to cycle between clam/lethargic to sensory overload melt down with prickly feet, large red itchy splotches, lots of tears and the need to go to his room and sleep it off. He also has gone quite manic every day around 4 or 5 pm, running and yelling non-stop. His therapists were very happy with his session yesterday, but still reported red itchy splotches and discomfort. Frog and I have really not had any quality home school time since we started the medication trial. This morning I decided we have had enough. So today was school without meds.

We started the day with Frog choosing pancakes for breakfast. He ate a little bit before we had to leave to take Diva to school. He ate a granola bar in the car. With a little prompting, Frog gave Diva something between a high five and a wave goodbye. At home we finished breakfast then headed downstairs for some Floortime. Frog wanted to climb up the mats against the wall. We turned it into a climbing and sliding game with an anticipatory 1, 2, 3, go! Later he moved to his swing. He let me move my body into the swing and add additional pressure for proprioception. We used the setting for requesting and working on the ee sound - with the choices "eat sweet feet?, squeeze knees?, or kiss please?" There was lots of Frog laughter, twinkling eyes, requests (offering me the body part he wanted pressure on) and ee sounds. We moved on to music and took turns strumming the guitar and singing/vocalizing into the karaoke machine.

Frog decided he would like to take a bath. This fit well into our school day, as stories work best for Frog when he has water to play with. Since today is a very rainy day and there are at least 4 more days of rain forecast, I thought rain would be a good subject. We re-read It's Fall and talked about the changes we've seen outside this week. Then I read Coyote's Rain Song, a Native American story from our ENKI folk and fairy tales. I had the pleasure of taking Diva to see According to Coyote at the Seattle Children's theater.



Gene Tagaban , the gifted story teller, brought Coyote to life for me. At the time, I really wished that Frog had been able to see the show with us - but I knew it was still too much for him. I must admit, I heard Gene's voice and saw Gene's mannerisms in my head while I told the story today. Frog and I both enjoyed it. (side note: If you ever get the opportunity to see According to Coyote performed or to see Gene Tagaban perform or speak - do not miss it!)

After I finally talked Frog out of the tub, we opened up the windows and doors so we could hear the rain. We also listened to the rain pounding on the skylights while I got our art supplies ready. Then went outside in the rain (and got almost as wet as Coyote) to do our art project - rain painting. I put a few drops of food coloring onto white paper plates and we took them outside into the rain. The rain bounced off the food coloring and splashed colors around the plates. Frog did not want to stick around for the "art" but rather ran around and experienced the rain bouncing off of him. He did come back and checkout the finished product.



After the plates dried in a warm oven, we used them for our lunch. Frog actually ate half his lunch today - including some yogurt WITH A SPOON (but only a little - he didn't want more if he couldn't use his fingers).



Frog also has a new box from Grandpa C.



Today, instead of using our composition book, we got out the markers and made lines and scribbles on the box.



We also discovered that when you push the box against the window, the box has a smaller window to look through - another perspective on the yard.



We finished off our school day with some more Floortime, including throwing and catching a ball - to musical rather than verbal cues. It is now 2:30 and Diva will be home soon. Frog is not having a melt-down and does not appear to be heading for a nap any time soon. Since we have had a week of sleep problems, I'm hoping this is another sign that stopping the medication is the right thing to do.

Day 34 - HALLOWEEN FUN

I knew I wanted to work with pumpkins and Halloween this week but I wasn't quite sure what we would do. We are still struggling with the dosage on Frog's Vyvance and he has had some pretty off days. When I logged onto 4-frogs this morning, I came across a link to the 5 Little Pumpkins poem at If I Only Had Superpowers


Diva loved this poem when she was in pre-school and I had just heard one of Frog's friends reciting it after he learned it at school. So I gathered up our 5 little pumpkins and Frog and I went downstairs to read the poem and roll the pumpkins away at the end. I went through it three times, but Frog was not impressed. Not even when he had a pumpkin muffin to eat while I acted out the story.

What he is impressed with is a Russian fairy tale I found in our ENKI material about Baba Yaga - an eight foot tall witch who lives deep in the forest in a hut on three chicken legs. Her black geese snatch up children and bring them to her to cook for dinner! The children in the story get away and make it home safely. Frog wants me to read it again and again. He even went to his composition book today while I was reading the story. He flipped through the pages until he came to the page with a witches hat and broom and the name Baba Yaga. He patted the page as I described the witch in the story.

For our art project, I cut contact paper into a pumpkin shape then had Frog put the face on it. Afterwards he got to sprinkle, pour and dump a mixture of rice, paper punch outs, and glitter over the pumpkin face. The glitter stuck best of all so we ended up with a sparkly pumpkin face.



After lunch, Frog got to spend some time in the autumn sunshine, jumping on the trampoline, playing in the sandbox, and running around the yard.




I had a meeting in the afternoon, so Grandpa came to our house to hang out with Frog. They had a good time :0)

We still have to decorate our big pumpkin. But given Frog's preference for witches, I got him a few dress-up options to make a witch, warlock or wizard costume for Halloween. We'll see what he thinks of it tomorrow.

Day 33 -

As some of you may have read at 4-Frogs, financial circumstances are requiring that I go back to full time work. To accomplish this Frog's School will become a night and weekend school starting in January. Frog's Grandma has been watching Frog in the mornings this week to give me some time to reorganize and make plans. This has been very nice for me, but very hard on home school as Frog is at his best in the mornings and early afternoon and our routine requires 4 to 6 hours so I am not trying to cram everything in at once and overwhelming him. Between the change in our routine, the splitting of my focus and the medication trial - Frog's School has really suffered the last two weeks.

Tomorrow Frog is staying home in the morning and we will see what we can do. I'm tempted to keep him at the present medication level for another week to see what happens for a week when he is better adjusted to the dosage.

We did manage to get one project done today - a face project that I had done with Diva when she was three or four years old. I set the pieces out and had Frog, with help, place the face parts where he wanted them to go. Then I glued them down for him. I made one first for a model.

This is the pumpkin face Frog made:




The similar pumpkin face is the one I made. The smaller pumpkin face is the one Diva and I made years ago. The extra pumpkins are for Diva to put faces on later - she always feels left out when she sees what Frog got to do at school!

Day 30 and 31 - Trial and Tribulation

On Monday we bumped the meds up from 5ml to 10mg. Frog cycled back and forth between regulation and disregulation. He seems more tactile sensitive while on this medication and wearing clothing is getting more difficult for him. We read one book - Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf, while Frog played in the bathtub. He was quite distressed through most of the reading. The distress continued throughout the bath and even after he got out. He seemed to be experiencing sever pain in the groin area - something he has dealt with off and on for years. He was finally able to urinate, which relieved the pain and left him calmer and happier.

We've talked to so many professionals about this and they all conclude it is a sensory issue and leave it at that. It is so frustrating! It may very well be a sensory issue, but it is also very painful. It might also be something else, but nobody has any ideas about how to determine what might be going on. I suspect this has more to do with Frog's lack of ability to speak for himself, answer the doctor's questions, and because he is autistic and has sensory processing disorder - so they choose to stop there. The only suggestion I get is to bring him in when he is having an attack. He can't be touched when he is having an attack - so I haven't figured out how to get him to the doctor's in time for them to see him.

We had planned a leaf walk and leaf rubbing activity for today, but Frog's sensory state put that plan on hold. He played in the yard on his own for a little while, and watched Diva play on the wii (even tried out the balance board on his own), but mostly he just rested. I did a few leaf rubbings and he checked them out. He also explored the leaves themselves - tearing them and letting them fall to the ground.

On Tuesday, I spent most of the day getting the van serviced. Frog spent some time with Grandma and Grandpa. He seemed to be tolerating the 10mg of medication much better today. He was not holding his head and fussing as much as yesterday. He was tired, not surprising since he was awake between 2 and 4 am last night. When he came home with me, he began to have pain in his feet. Like the groin pain, this is not a new experience. It happens often when Frog is stressed or under some sensory pressure. He goes from not wanting anything to touch his feet to stomping them on the floor really hard or, like today, jumping really hard and high while screaming. It looks like he is having a very extreme pins and needles sensation in his feet which he is holding very taut. They sometimes get hot. And his ears turn bright, bright red. I have video, but again it is not loading onto blogger. If any and of Frog's therapists would like to see it, let me know and we'll make arraignments.

Edit: I was able to load one of the videos on Youtube -


On the positive side, he was very communicative today when he wasn't in a sensory melt down. He really wanted to play and sought us out with vocalizations, a couple of echoed words, and lots of referencing and giggles. Tomorrow he has Speech/OT at school - maybe we can get our leaf walk in after that.

Update - Wednesday Frog woke in a good mood. He did much better at Grandma's and seemed to be tolerating the medication better than he has the last two days. But when we got to our Speech/OT appointment at school, Frog went into meltdown and had the same foot reaction he was having yesterday. It was actually good timing since it gave his therapist a chance to see what this looks like and try all the things that logically should help, but don't. By afternoon, Frog and I were both wiped out. Frog had not slept the night before and neither had Frog's Mom or Dad. Fortunately, Frog took a very short nap and stayed up a little later, going to bed around 10pm. We were all able to sleep through the rest of the night.

Day 29 and 30 -

Day 29 was a day off for Frog - Frog's mom was on the computer all day working on a real estate transaction. When Frog's mom wasn't looking, Frog did some drafting too - which meant Mom had even more drafting to do.

Frog continues to show the pattern of regulation - disregulation and gets worn out around 4pm. He did seem to sleep through more of the night last night.

Day 30 we've tried to get back on track and focused our attention on Geese. We read The Mournful Goodbye from our ENKI nature stories. It is the story of Little Goose and her first migration. Then we did a little art project. I did one by myself while I hummed the tune I'd been using to sing the verse from the story:

High honks and low,
Fast wings and slow,
The skies all one song,
That echos below.





Frog moved in and out while I worked and hummed. He played with the feathers, and licked the stamps. Eventually he let me help him drop some feathers on his goose page and press the stamp on the page instead of on his body. He took the crayon from me and added a few marks of his own.



Later we worked on the letters G for goose and V for V-formation. Both were part of our goose story. Frog was able to find the word V formation in the book, and put the paper goose with the word goose. He reluctantly wrote the letter G, and enjoyed removing the bean geese from the V formation. (I re-glued them several times before I took the picture :0).



Frog was getting tired and started having mini meltdowns. He finally went to his room for some quiet time. When he came back down, he said he was ready to go to his NAET appointment. He was being treated for grass. When the treatment began he got really silly - very engaged - and pretty loud. I always feel sorry for the person trying to enjoy an acupuncture treatment in the next room when Frog is with me. He did quite well for the rest of the night.

Day 27 and 28 - THE TRIAL CONTINUES

Ok, I've tried for days to upload video of Day 27, and it isn't happening. So you will just get a lot of words :0)

Day 27 -

Day two of the medication trial. We are supposed to stay at 5mg for the first 7 days, then bump up to 10mg to see if there is any difference. It took Frog a little longer to take the medication today. I saved the extra in case the first dose got dumped or spit out onto the floor.

I spent the morning working on legal documents and let Frog have some free time in the playroom. He seemed calmer and less prone to get into things. When I finished my drafting, I suggested it was time to get dressed warm and go outside to work in the garden. Today's lesson plan centered on Dirt and Worms.

I went upstairs and got dressed. When I came back, Frog was on the kitchen counter near the refrigerator helping himself to cookies from the cupboard. I got him down and tried to entice him to go outside. We did some dancing and jumping around, but he showed no interest in getting dressed. I decided to fix lunch first to see if some protein, along with all those cookies, would make him feel more receptive. He ate very little and threw the rest around.

He still did not want to get dressed - no pants, socks or shoes, thank you very much! I told him we were not going outside without more clothes on. He was angry, but still did not want to get dressed. I cleaned up the mess from lunch and Frog wrapped up in a blanket and settled into his favorite wing back chair. He was none to happy when I got out the composition book. He was able to identify the word Worm when given the choice between Dirt and Worm on the page. We worked on using a good pointing finger to identify the shovel and the bucket from a page of stickers. And he did a good job, under protest, with his letters.



This was followed by a scream, at me, and a bite to his wrist before he took off upstairs with his blanket. He went to my room and fell asleep in front of a blowing fan.

When he woke he was very out of sorts. He needed to be alone and would move from room to room to get away from everyone. He did a lot of rocking and singing. He could not tolerate listening to us talk. He did manage to tell us that his head hurt. Then he went back to bed. Frog's Dad feared he was getting sick - he's been very sniffly and stuffed up the last few days. I thought it was strange that he was fine earlier in the day. I had a hunch and went downstairs to locate the cup with the extra medicine. I'd put it away on the top of the refrigerator - pushed way back and behind everything else that is up there. Sure enough, Frog had finished off the other 15mg of the medicine with his cookie before lunch!

We dropped the rest of our plans for the day and monitored Frog. His breathing and heart rate seemed normal. He was agitated, but not more so than we've seen at times in the past. After an hour or so, he got up and sat on the landing to the stairs, rocking and singing. Then he came downstairs and sat in his chair. This is what Frog looks like on 20mg of the medication (video should have gone here - Frog sat Still in the chair for 10 minutes or so. He did very little vocalizing and moved his head and eye gaze very slowly. He looked out the window, he tracked his Dad's movements, and he spotted the fire burning in the wood stove and stared at that. After leaving the chair and eating a little dinner, he seemed a little less spacey. He watched TV by himself and seemed quite calm and happy. As the night wore on, he got more energy and began to run and vocalize more like himself. He went to bed around 10:30 and got some sleep before waking again around 2am. He had a hard time getting up the next day.

Day 28 -

Day three of the medication trial. We learned from yesterday and locked the extra medication in the refrigerator until we were certain he had taken his dose. Then I dumped the extra down the drain. Although he had a hard time getting up and going, he was happy.

After taking his medication and eating some breakfast, he was happily playing downstairs, but came quickly when I started singing the Let's go get in Mommy's car song. He was receptive to Floortime type play especially swinging, wrestling and tickling. He was not as happy about putting on clothes, but agreed to them in order to get a ride in the car before going to his Speech/OT appointment at school.

He became more agitated at school cycling between happy jumping, requesting, and referencing to wails and the need to lay flat and press his body against a resistant surface. He responded well to deep pressure until it pushed him over the edge the other way. When he wasn't in this agitated state, he was happy to be with the therapists, made lots of eye contact, threw the ball, took the monkey, asked for the trampoline, complained when the swing was moved - but we felt that trying to direct him to the board to write or the vantage to talk would push him back over the edge.

This is the pattern I am seeing at home with the medication. He cycles between regulation and disregulation more often than usual; when he is in the regulated part of the cycle, he is calmer and more focused than usual, but the focus can only be used for things he initiates or comes to on his own - it does not extend to other-directed activities. His OT suggested that the medication may be changing his perception of sensory input so much, that he is in a period of readjustment and it may take some time before he can attend to some of the activities he was doing before.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Floortime play, and then Frog took a nap. I was kind of hoping the medication would put an end to the afternoon naps, but he still seems to need them. Maybe this is part of the readjustment too.