When It Rains, It Pours

While taking a shower today, the place I seem to do my best thinking, I realized that Elise hasn't been grinding her teeth in over a week. It was declining prior to our appointment, but seems to have stopped since the appointment. The two things that coincide with that were 1) cleaning up her diet and significantly reducing gluten & casein and 2) starting melatonin and improving the amount of sleep she gets.

While she's dropped the self-destructive teeth grinding for now, I am seeing a bit more self-stimulatory behavior such as spinning, jumping, vocalizations, laughing to herself and opening her mouth wide. I'm now focusing on the loss of the teeth grinding and hope that it stays away for good.

Today, we attempted to select a provider to start the process for Elise's ABA therapy funded through early intervention. We e-mailed our selection to our service coordinator. She then found it necessary to lecture me in her return e-mail that "faster is not always better". I guess we should drag our feet and wait a few months before starting Elise's therapy, despite the fact that there is mounds of scientific evidence to show that the earlier ABA is started for autistic children, the better the results? Yet another roadblock on this journey where few seem to really want to help my child.

Elise missed all her therapy today because she was sick. She has a cough and runny nose. Seems to be just a cold, but enough to warrant keeping her from contaminating her therapists and the other kids that use the facility. This wouldn't be such a big deal except that 2 of her therapists have been on vacation recently. She has received exactly 2 hours of therapy in the last 2 weeks even though she's supposed to receive 10 hours a week.

The evening here was a mess. I was home alone with the 3 kids and the boys were absolute terrors. "A" took about 90 minutes to do his 4 minute timeout because of all the testing he feels compelled to do. This left Elise virtually ignored, a state with which she never seems to be bothered. I hate leaving her alone when it's so obvious she needs my help to be drawn into our world, but how do I do that when the boys are being so incredibly demanding?

As if the day wasn't enough of a challenge, I checked my e-mail tonight, hoping to relax and wind down a bit. The only mail was from our property manager informing us that it's our responsibility to pay for the plumber that we needed to clear the bathroom drain. She felt compelled to inform us how our benevolent landlord was going to pay it this time even though we should. Then, she suggested we purchase a screen cover from the grocery store. Does anyone really think we're that dumb? Her e-mail has been the straw that broke my back and I'm now really losing it. It was just the one more thing that I can't handle.

Ok, this is supposed to be about Elise...Considering she's sick, she seems to be doing well. She's becoming curious about how to manipulate things like turning on the hose outside, opening the washing machine door, closing the sliding closet door and turning on lights. These are all things she ignored previously, so I find her new found curiousity to be a good thing. I've also noticed that she seems to feel more pain. She cries when she falls now and seeks comfort. In the past, unless it was a big scrape or something, she would just ignore the falls and go on her way. This is another improvement.

When the sun sets here, a prism is formed on the wall by our front door because the front door has a little cut glass window. B was playing with the rainbow and Elise noticed it also. I brought her to the wall to show her and she immediately looked up at the window and back to wall. It was obvious that she knew how the prism was being made. This makes me proud because it hasn't occurred to either of my neurotypical children to determine how the rainbow appears.