Carrots

Yes, Bright Eyes actually ate some microscopic pieces of carrot tonight. Probably the first vegetable he has eaten in 3 years. It's a cause for mild rejoicing.

Of course, there was a down-side - it was on a regular piece of pizza. But tomorrow night there will be GF/CF pizza on the table for him ... with carrots!!!

But on a good day...

... this is more what you get. Here he is with his new skates on. Notice he's holding on pretty tight! I've just got myself a pair so we should be able to put them on together.

On a bad day...

When Bright Eyes has a bad day, he often looks like this. His face is slightly swollen, his eyes seem bleary. He's certainly not 'bright'. I wonder what makes this happen - I wish I had more answers and solutions without having to go on extreme diets. GF/CF is bad enough.

Today...

...having an autistic son is incredibly, incredibly depressing. It's far easier to put him in front of the DVD than to interact with him.

Prayer updates

I sent this out yesterday to our group of prayer supporters.

Dear gorgeous amazing friends and family who pray for Bright Eyes,

It’s been a while between prayer updates. One reason is that I managed to give myself RSI from... no, not sport or anything sensible... but knitting! I’m now able to type a little more, but this will be short!

I asked you to pray for his relationship with his sister. The day after I sent the email out, he stopped yelling at her and hasn’t done it since. It’s definitely improved their rapport! Thanks to God. Unfortunately things with his brother are still not fabulous, but I do notice less physical bullying and more pleasant playing in general.

This month I’m asking you to pray for the following (neatly packaged into three R’s. Even if you don’t get the RDI lingo, God knows, so just say the words and he’ll get it! (: )

- Both husband and I keep having to refocus on our RDI objectives. It’s an ongoing challenge for us. Pray that we’ll be creative and persevere every day in guiding Bright Eyes.

- Bright Eyes needs to develop more resilience in things that we want him to do.

- We are working on developing more relationship through our facial expressions. Pray that he’ll ‘be with us’ and connect using his face.


Thanks guys. Your prayers really do have effect. We certainly appreciate it.

Back to non-verbals

It's a bit of a cycle. We start out being non-verbal with Bright Eyes to combat his scripting and static behaviours. He improves dramatically in just a few days, and then it seems easier to go back to language with him. Over time, he reverts back to the scripts and we find ourselves going crazy again. We ring our consultant. She says, "Go non-verbal", so we do, and he improves... etc etc.

The best advice I can give anyone with an autistic child is to stop talking! Focus on facial expressions, gestures and tone. It really works!

Having fun

Back briefly... my arms are improving.

Bright Eyes has been loving his new roller skates. I bought them with some for his sister as well, so the two of them are connecting over stumbles, trips and fall-overs. It's great fun.

He's improving in his recognition of facial expressions - that's what we're working on in RDI. We have nice little exchanges of glance and meaning. It's still a bit 'over the top' but the subtleties will come.