2 steps forward and one big step backwards

Lauren attended two birthday parties in July and August and was...ok! In fact, she even played games and won a prize at her friend's party at McDonald's. Two weeks ago, we celebrated a friend's birthday at a restaurant. Loud singing and clapping and she was ok too. A little nervous but no negative reactions after. We thought she had finally overcome her sensitivity to loud, sudden noises @ birthday parties.

The last Friday, 2 October, we celebrated her brother Luke's birthday. 10 adults, 2 kids in a tiny house. She was excited. She played with party blowers and helped to open presents. Then her party blower accidentally blew off the "U" on her brother's cake making it read "Happy Birthday L ke!". She asked for it to be fixed. Well, how could we. No instant icing. She was still not happy. Actually she was very unhappy about it. Then, the happy birthday singing started. Then clapping and cheers. Followed by Lauren's scream and shout. Kevin and I pulled her aside to speak with her in a room. She tried to calm down and after about 10min, told us she was ready to go out and rejoin the party.

We opened the door and next thing we knew, she had gone straight for her nearest aunty, and squeezed and messed up her aunty's piece of cake!!! She was a mixture of anger, frustration and being upset.

I brought her into the bathroom this time. We spoke. She apologised and this time, really calmed down. Enough to accept (but not happily) that she had to apologise to her aunty and would face punishment at home. All was well after that.

She had no tv and computer game the next day until 12noon (it was Saturday). Went through the "punishment" without much complaint.

Sigh, that's my girl.

Good Monday, 17/8/2009

Today was a good Monday after what was also a first of sorts on Saturday, 15/8/2009.
Lauren and Luke attended their daycare friend, Ethan Khor's 7th birthday at McD's. We hadn't wanted to insist if Lauren didn't feel like going. Her last birthday outing was a disaster. But she said she wanted to.
There was just a small group of friends at the party around 10-12 kids, mostly from Ethan's school and Lauren didn't know them.
They played games: Musical chairs, pass the ping pong ball - Lauren won! Danced the chicken dance and sang Happy Birthday. Lauren fully participated...and enjoyed herself. =) It was wonderful to watch her.
Today, Monday, Lauren was happy going to school and also made an effort to ask her brother Luke a question when she was not clear with his request for a song on her CD.
I am proud of Lauren =)

Good girl

Today, Lauren was ok - she needed a bit of reminding to not play at the dinner table, and focus on her dinner.
However, when I told her to drink her Milo, clean up her Cinderella toys and then brush her teeth...she did all of it in sequence. She even kept her Cinderella doll set back in the designated cupboard. That is pretty rare.

Let's close the door together

Today was pleasant. Lauren and I were early in the morning and arrived 10 min before the bell. First time! She was so happy going to school.

Then she played with her brother when we got home at the car park. They kind of tussled and playfully punched each other.

And when they got home, Lauren told Luke she wanted to close the shoe closet. He said "No!". Then....she suggested, "Let's close the door together...!". Ahh...a compromise. First time she's doing this.

A lovely end to Monday. Who says Monday's are always black?
God is good.

Are children naturally mean?

The weekend was a mix of fun and a bit of sadness for Kevin and I. Saturday morning was Drama class as usual. The week before, Lauren played an AlleyCat. This week, she was a toast, spinning wheel and a toy soldier. The play was "Rumpelstiltskin". She told us it was fun. And her teacher, Alice, says she's progressing well.

Then today, it's tennis. We had spent the afternoon after church to show her past week's recording of her tennis lesson, to show her how to collect her tennis balls, where to line up, that it was dangerous to go into the cross fire to collect tennis balls, etc. etc. Lauren learns much better by sight then by sound.

She started well. In fact she collected her first set of balls pretty quickly. No dreaming! But then some of the kids in her tennis class starting gang-ing up on her by purposely going for the same balls she was going to collect and refusing to let her into her "space" in the line up and kept making her go to the back of the line. But when another kid comes later, they let him into the middle of the line. She was so frustrated. Kevin and I felt so heartbroken seeing this. A few times she looked at me (I'm sure the face said "what should I do mom?") and I just told her "move to the back, it's ok. Look at coach". And she played on. I am proud of her for that.

So, my question, why do kids pick up on "weaker" ones so quickly? Even those who are actually kinder or don't seem naturally mean, were clustered together with the gang leaders today. It is indeed painful to watch this. And you know what, it won't get any better as Lauren grows up.

Kevin and I have agreed, we need to start helping Lauren with tactics to manage the less-kind children of this city.

Where's my dinner?

Lauren was generally good today. She showered & helped me get some toys for her brother when asked.
But when it came time for dinner, she was called 3x. And she didn't come. Oswald the octopus was on TV.
After I finished my dinner, I cleared my plate, together with hers. When I mentioned that I have finished my dinner, she exclaimed "I'm coming for dinner!"
She threw a fit when I told her her dinner was already cleared away.
We managed to talk and discuss that next time she would come upon being called once as it made me sad & angry too when she did not respond.
Then I gave her back her dinner. When she had her dinner, she told me, "Mum, dinner is delicious!" What a sweetheart.

Talking to Aunty Meiji: Lauren had a pretty good conversation with a friend of mine. She listened and answered at least 4 - 5 questions clearly. Meiji was impressed.

Of Flowers and Sotongs

Morning: Arrived late to school due to rain and heavy traffic. Prepped Lauren that she would arrived in school after the school bell. I walked her into the school as students were still lining up.

As we said goodbye, Lauren said “Bye Daisy”. Oh dear…What was she then? Hesitantly , I said “Bye Minnie”. I got it wrong & normally she would be crying & screaming by now.

But she said, “No you’re a flower”…ahh, a clue. I’m a character from one of her favourite cartoons, Oswald. So I replied, “Oh bye Henry”. This time more confident. But, alamak! Wrong again.

Still calmly, she said, “I’m the octopus, Mummy”. Finally, I said, “Bye Oswald”. Satisfied that I finally had the right answer, she grinned…and off she went to her class.

Night:Lauren was ok. Followed my calls to shower and eat well. Needed a couple more reminders to switch off TV before bedtime but ok other than that.

Monkey Girl

Today is Saturday and report card day.
We met with Lauren's teachers. She did well in her languages (surprise, surprise). Her other core subjects are Science and Math. Science was ok @ 80 marks. Math 54. She left the last page totally blank. Kevin and I were surprised. We're not sure if she was bored or really didn't know how to do them. When Lauren saw her own test papers, she flipped through her mistakes and lingered on the questions where she got correct. Obviously, she is not happy with her mistakes. Well, she is a perfectionist.
Kevin and I decide that we will not be too hard on her for her poor Math results. But we will need to work on it more - to check on both her ability to do and focus on task.

Evening. We went swimming and then to the playground for a while after that. The good, good news...Lauren finally started doing the monkey bars all on her own (5 bars). She has been asking for help and struggling with the bilateral moves ie. left, right, left, right to move on the bars. Today, voila! she was a natural. She was so, so pleased with herself.

Good Friday!

Today started off a little strangely.
Lauren took a long while to get ready for school - very distracted with TV, her books and just took forever to bathe, and eat her breakfast.
Thank God Friday morning traffic was kind. We got to school with time to spare for reading.
She seemed a bit teary when saying goodbye to me. First it was "goodbye Rabbit" (By the way, we are given character names by Lauren, from shows she like. And the characters change, depending on her mood. Today, it's characters from Pooh Bear. So, I'm Rabbit, Daddy is Pooh, Lauren is Piglet and her little brother is Roo). Anyway, she said Goodbye Rabbit and I replied "Goodbye Piglet". Usually, that's it. Off she goes.
But today, she lingered a bit, looked a little teary and then....Goodbye Mom. Hmm...unusual. I half expected her to burst out crying...but she didn't. Before I could fully say, "Bye Lauren"...she dashed off, found her usual spot in her class line-up. Quickly sat down, unzipped her bag, took out her book (The Wild) and started reading. She was ok. Not sure if she stayed ok the rest of the day, but I'll know tomorrow. It's Report Card day!

In the afternoon, we went for Speech therapy. Her speech therapist, Cindy, did a few activities with her like show her a card with a pix and word/s, and Lauren has to think of a sentence which requires the word on the card as the answer (eg. the pix shows a shoe, the question would be: what do you wear on your feet?"). The first time Lauren did this was 2 1/2 weeks ago and she struggled. Today, was a total turnaround. She was fantastic!. She got her what and where mixed up but got the concepts right. Cindy was pretty amazed. Next activity, Cindy read 4 - 6 sentence long paragraphs and asked simple questions. Lauren could answer all of them (except for one where she got 2 out of 4 right). Again, this shows she's listening and understanding. Good for a typical child. Very good for an ASD.

It's days like these that give me lots of hope that Lauren can make it. She can have a shot at normal life. We just need to continue to work really hard now.

By the way, after reading The Wild, we now have new characters. Tonight, I became Benny the Squirrel, Dad is Nigel the Koala Bear, Lauren is Bridge the Giraffe (Lauren's fav animal) and Luke is Sammy the Lion.

Nite all.

Because it's Thursday

This morning, Lauren asked her dad: Who’s coming to fetch me from school?” It’s Thursday and normally her day with her Colleen koh-koh.
Dad said “Auntie Joyce" (her everyday school transport lady). Lauren said…Noooo, Colleen koh-koh.
And why..? Because it’s Thursday. This is the first time Lauren is showing that she is aware of the day of the week.
So, we reminded her that her auntie was in London visiting her son and would come back only much later in the month.
She was ok after that. (Phew).

Then at school, the morning bell rang just as we walked in. It had rained a little in the morning and so we were a little late. Lauren didn’t get her usual 5 min book reading time before the morning bell.
She was in tears when the bell went, looking for me.
Thank God, He prompted me to linger at school a little.
I reminded her why we were late: rain therefore traffic jam, therefore no time for reading. She was ok after that. But teary eye la.

Apparently she has had one crying episode each day since Monday.
Monday: cried in Moral class.
Tuesday: excursion to National Sc Centre: cried in the cave.
Wednesday: no news of crying.
And Thursday morning when the school bell rrrang.
Let’s see how Friday goes…

1st day after 1st term hols

Today is the first day of school for Lauren after 2 weeks of school holidays. She had just returned from SG on Saturday, after spending 2 weeks doing Samonas music therapy. Kevin and I are seeing some really nice improvements in her eg. more talking, more curious.
Yesterday (Sun), Lauren attended her first tennis lesson. She was a bit frustrated when she could not contact her racquet with the ball. But overall, had fun and was thrilled (little jumps and yelps of joy) when she managed to hit some across the net. Her coach scolded me for not giving her enough bouncing ball time. Looks like we need to work on that.

This morning, we expected the worst. Whining, maybe some tearing or worse, crying cos Lauren had to wake up super early, 6.15am to get ready for school. But she was splendid. She was happy throughout the morning. We got to school on time. She reminded me she would read her new book, "Pooh Bear's colour case" before school. And she did, with some classmates sitting around her. It was a good sight. I went to work happy myself.

First thing Lauren told me when I reached her day care after work, "Look mom. I have a chocolate from Andrea!", gleefully. Andrea is the 9 year old prefect who looks after Lauren's class. She's absolutely sweet. And Lauren had missed her the last week of school when Andrea left for San Francisco for early holidays. When her father got home at night, first thing she told him....Daddy! Andrea gave me a bar of chocolate!". And ya, of course she's eaten the chocolate. Right after dinner.

1st entry

I have never written a diary before. But I decided to “blog?” or rather pen my experiences as a mother to Lauren, my child with ASD in the hope of encouraging other parents in similar conditions.

Lauren is 7 years old and has a diagnosis of ASD, specifically high functioning autism when she was 4 years old. What does that mean to me, my husband Kevin and the family?

A lot of patience, trips to therapy and money flowing out.
But also a lot of joy in slowly discovering language and exploring Lauren’s curiosity.

We’re in Singapore now for her 2^nd round of intensive session of music therapy called Samonas. It has been very helpful in consolidating her other therapies ie. Speech/language, occupational and drama classes.