RecoveringNicholas.com

Another round gone…

another one bites the dust….

We’re past the 70 rounds of chelation mark and an update is long overdue. During the past 20 rounds, Nicholas has made so many huge improvements that life for us is very, very different than it once was.

His language continues to grow in leaps and bounds. He still has some trouble with certain sounds, but from what I understand, the cluster of sounds he is having trouble with is not un-common and pretty much typical for all kids as their language is developing. As described by his teachers and speech therapist, his vocabulary is “tremendous”. They have found that there is nothing that he cannot correctly label - and they’ve tried to trip him up apparently. The things he says continue to amaze us all.

Nicholas has continued going to karate twice a week and is loving it. He quickly and easily integrated to be a part of the class, gets along with everyone, has friends there - and really looks forward to going. We don’t have any issue getting him to wear the uniform. When he comes out of the classroom, he’s excited and energized and just has the biggest smile on his face. He loves showing us what he’s learned when we get home.

He is doing so well in school!!! He’s reading lots of words, is writing letters and numbers and has actually started drawing pictures. Real pictures - from his imagination! About a month or so ago, he came home with two pictures - similar, but not the same. They are pictures of buildings. Each one has several floors with windows on each floor. In one picture, there is a student and a teacher in each window. In the other, just students. It is raining in both pictures. I recently had a parent teacher conference where I was able to ask if this came from a story they did in class and they had no idea where those pictures came from. They were blown away by them. Last week, he brought home a picture that he had drawn of several people. He actually drew body shapes - not just lines for the body and legs.

His coloring skills have improved greatly. For the most part, he is coloring in the lines and is using appropriate colors. No random scribbling. He also told a fellow student that she needed to color between the lines.

I was able to see part of an assembly they did for Presidents day where each child had a line to recite. I had no idea about this until I saw it on the teacher’s computer during our conference. Nicholas said his line - standing in line with the other kids - it was amazing to see!!

He’s doing really well socializing and chatting with the other kids in class and during snack and lunch. He comes home and tells me what he did in school and if any of his friends got punished and what they did that got them in trouble.

He goes to assemblies in school and doesn’t have to be held onto like he used to be. Now, he goes and watches the presentations and actually enjoys himself.

Nicholas is doing so well on the computer that we had to buy him his own laptop - a real one, not a kiddie one. He’s learned so much from different learning sites like starfall.com and a whole bunch of others, that it seemed like a logical Christmas gift - after all, how many more toys does he need? It ended up being a great idea - his skills have blossomed and many seemed shocked at how much he can do by himself on it.

He loves going to the library at school and getting a new book to read. He loves show and tell too.

We can now take Nicholas pretty much anywhere and he behaves better than the NT kids. A couple of weekends ago, we went out for dinner - the first time in a long time (we’ve been cooking alot since having our kitchen redone). When we first walked in, the restaurant was SO loud that it hurt my ears - Nicholas covered his ears for a second, said it was loud - we agreed. Here’s where I thought we were goners… but nope, he sat at the table and was a perfectly behaved kid the entire meal. We brought along his nintendo ds and he played a couple of games, but was also interacting with us as well. He didn’t just sit there with his head down the whole time. When our meals came out, he ate with us like the perfect little gentleman. (There was a table right next to us with kids on one end, adults on the other. The kids were loud and roudy as can be (with not one word from their parents) - all while Nicholas behaved. On the way home, Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma stopped at Dairy Queen to pick up some ice cream. Usually, Daddy and Grandpa will go get the ice cream and Nicholas hangs out in the car - not this time. He wanted to go with them and order ice cream. He gets up to the window and the girl asks him what he wants and he says, “I want a white one please” then added that he wanted vanilla. She asked him if he wanted sprinkles to which he said yes and then chose rainbow sprinkles. (He does not like eating sprinkles, but loves looking at them) I was so sorry I missed this, but just hearing about it blew me away. (Yes, he can now have casein without any reaction. No enzymes either.)

He understood who Santa Claus is and was so excited about him coming from early November. He made a list for Santa and marked days off the calendar mid-November until Christmas. He understood what valentines day was and was excited to give his classmates valentines. He’s now looking forwad to Easter so he can find and color easter eggs.

He recently realized just how many DVDs are in his collection. They’ve always been in his armoire, but he suddenly noticed all of them. He had to take them all out, check each one out and is watching one at a time. He’ll either tell me, “I really like this, are there any more like this?” or “I don’t like this, can I watch this instead?”

He seems to want to do really physical boy things lately. Last weekend, he tried to flip his grandfather over the back of the couch. He quickly realized that he wasn’t gonna budge grandpa. He leaned up against the back of the couch and went and got a chair. None of us knew what he was doing, but didn’t stop him. He positioned the chair in front of grandpa - then he lifted one of his legs up and put it on the chair (throwing off his center of balance) and then lifted the other leg to help hoist him up and over the couch. NO one showed him how to do this.

He loves to race from one end of the house to the other. He will not leave his competitor behind and always takes turns when it comes to who wins. He wants to hang finish lines up across the doorway between rooms.

He asks to go places and to do things. He thanks us for taking him places and for buying him things.

More of his sense of humor comes through every day. If one of us says one thing, he jumps into the conversation to deliberately disagree with us and then runs away laughing.

He wants friends to come over and play - all the time.

He asks to see people he has not seen in a while - even if they’re never mentioned in front of him. So, he’s remembering people on his own and wants to see them!

He wants to help do everything - especially cooking. I cannot believe how well he can crack an egg!

He asks for specific things he wants.

I can count the number of tantrums he has in the past 12 months on one hand - and those were provoked to see how he would handle himself. Just this difference in him is astounding.

He’s very into arts and crafts, drawing and painting, making stuff out of play-dough (not just squeezing it and rolling it) - and is very into reading books and trying to read by himself.

He is very eager for spring to arrive - he wants to plant flowers and food. And yet, he loves to go outside and help shovel the snow. He made his first snowman recently - and was just thrilled he helped put him together. He ran to the window to check on him several times and thought we should bring him inside for the night.

He went sledding yesterday for the first time - and he had the time of his life - we never heard him laugh like that - ever! We could never take him before, he just never “got it” and he would never sit in the tube. He has been begging to go sledding again all day.

On things that we’ve done for him or are trying to do for him - we now get told, “I want to do it by myself”

One thing I thought we would never be able to do with him that truly broke my heart was to be able to see him enjoy Disney World. After getting off the phone with Disney reservations the other day, I cried. Not many people would understand why. Not many would truly understand the accomplishment that this is - none of us ever thought we’d be here. Nicholas is bubbling over with excitement and wants to get on the plane to see Mickey every day. (and he also wants to bring all of his friends.)

I almost forgot a few of the biggies…. we’re getting WHY questions and HOW questions. And now he’s very interested in science things like how does water become ice? And he wants to know if things are real and how we know if they’re real?

I don’t remember if I ever made reference to this on here, but a couple of months ago - Nicholas showed Grandma a picture of daddy, grandpa and great grandpa. Nicholas was 9 months old when great grandpa died. He said, there’s daddy and grandpa and great-grandpa, he’s in heaven and has to come back to earth. (We never TOLD him great grandpa died, he was too young, we didn’t have to.)

Round 71: Complete

Nicholas is a very different child than he was 6 months ago, a year ago. I would even have to say that he’s a different child from the one he was 3 months ago. We could not be happier with his progress…

We just got back from Toys R Us. He’s downstairs happily playing a new game. He asked me earlier today if he could go buy a particular game for our Nintendo Wii. This was our conversation verbatim….
Nicholas: “Mommy, I really like the Dora Saves the Snow Princess game, can I go buy the Dora & The Crystal Kingdom Game?”
Mommy: “I think so, we need to get dressed first though”
Nicholas: “Ok, you go take a shower and I’ll get my clothes.”
Mommy: “Ok. Do you want to watch a DVD while I get ready?”
Nicholas: “Yes, can put Little Einsteins on for me?”
Mommy: “Yes”
Nicholas: “Thank you, Mommy”

Woah - I’m so used to conversations like this anymore that it doesn’t blow me away until I write it down.

So, I get dressed and I’m downstairs waiting for him…

Mommy: “Nicholas, Mommy’s ready to go - do you want to go or watch your DVD?”
Nicholas: “I’m coming…” as he runs down the hall
Nicholas: “Is there still snow? Should I wear my boots? Mommy, where are my boots?”
Mommy: “Yes, the snow is still there. Do you want to wear your boots or sneakers?”
Nicholas: “Boots” he grabs them, ‘Mommy, can you help me put these on, I have trouble with them?”
Mommy: “Sure, Nicholas”
Nicholas: “thank you Mommy. Can you get my jacket off the hook? I can’t reach it.”
Mommy: “Here it is.”
Nicholas: “can you help me get it on?”
Mommy: “Sure.” I helped him get his coat on. “Wait for me, I need to put mine on.”
Nicholas: “Do you need me to help you with your coat?”
Mommy: “No, thank you, I’ve got it - ready to go?”
Nicholas: “Hooray!”

So, we’re on our way to Toys R Us. Nicholas comments about the snow, the huge puddles we’re driving through. He says, “Mommy, the snow is melting, that’s why there are so many big puddles, right?”

We walk through the parking lot and go into Toys R Us with Nicholas standing BESIDE me. No shopping cart. No death hand-holding grip. He’s commenting on the people shopping and going into the other stores to buy different stuff, but not toys.

We go into the store and he asks if he can look at the trains. So, I said sure - we headed over to the Thomas stuff and he hands me something and says, “Can I buy this?” I told him we were there for a Wii game (or two) and we’d see. In less than 5 minutes he was done looking at the train stuff and we walked over to the games. We found Dora (locked up behind glass) and I said we have to go find someone to get it for us. So we went looking for an associate - and I asked them to open the case for us. We follow him back there and he asks which game. Nicholas says (and points) to Dora and the Crystal Cave - and says, “wow, look Mommy - can I get Toy Story too?”

We go to the register, he hands the games (yes games, I am a pushover) to the associate and says, “I’d like to pay for these please” and then hands him his TRU gift card he got for Christmas. After mommy paid the rest of the balance, we left with no incident.

This is what shopping is like with Nicholas now. There is no more screaming, tantruming, demanding child that there once was. There is no child that has to have EVERYTHING that he sees. I gave him a choice - the Thomas thing he picked out or the games. He picked the games - and said, “maybe I’ll get that another day” referring to the Thomas thing.

Time flies - before I know it, we’ll be at 100!! With every round we finish, we see more Nicholas. More of who he actually is hiding behind the autism that is disappearing right in front of our very eyes….. Detoxing him is not changing who he is, it’s allowing him to actually be who he is… to be able to communicate with us… to be able to participate in life… to be able to express himself. Every day, I am in awe of this little boy. Every. single. day. He’s a fighter, just like his Mommy and I am so very proud of him.

Due to snow days and the holiday, we did an extended round from Thursday night to Tuesday morning.

Another one bites the dust!

Another round complete!

Done with Round 66!!