Hello!
I am back! Yes, after a whole year away from blogging.
I missed blogging so much as it is one of my only tools to help me remember things that goes on in my life.
Like most of you all would have known, we had a new addition to the family and that little boy, had my hands tied up, leaving me little time to myself, therefore with a few minutes spare of me time, I had used it to nap or shoving food down my throat to keep my sanity.
Mason is 15months old and here are some of his milestones. Let me jot them down before I forget again..
Started sitting up by himself at about 6-7 months old.
8-9 months, he has been pulling himself up and cruising around.
9-10 months, he started playing with his alligator push walker.
10.5months, he let go and started walking his first steps.. and walked ever since.
11 months old, he is now toddling around everywhere.
He naps about twice a day now, sometimes 3 if he is really tired.
Once in the morning around 9/10am - 11.30/12pm and then maybe around 3/4pm or 6-7pm.
He still needs to direct latch to sleep at night or for naps.
Sometimes he still gets up 2 to 3 times in a night for his feed.
Mason can point at things he wants, or things he want to show us.. he will also pull us towards it and then point at it.
Daddy (sometimes it is used for calling me as his mother)
Sometimes he will imitate us word by word such as:-
Dog (sounds like duck though)
Mason can imitate quite a bit too now. He will make the vroom vroom sound when he is playing with toy vehicles, wave bye bye when asked.. and when he hears "see you later or good night", he will give a flying kiss, he will give kisses on the lips, pat his brother if asked to sayang his brother.
Mason understands quite a lot of things. For example, if he was to sit down in the W position and I ask him to sit nicely, he will correct his own sitting position. He will clean up if I say to clean up or pick up his toys. He will try to be cheeky and run away when I ask him to come here but eventually he will come towards me. Lie down, sit down, hands nice, quiet, pom-pom, take off pants, wear pants, drink water..
Mason is still very much a velcro baby but now, he is starting to accept others to carry him or play with him. He can now stay with his father much longer compared to him when he was just a newborn. He could not last more than 2 minutes then in his father's arms. As long as I am not in sight, his father is the one he will go to. Then there is either Kelly or my mother, whom he will velcro to if I am not there.
Mason loves Kelly so much that he will even not want me to carry him when he is in Kelly's arms, which is something that has never happen before. He will always run to Kelly when Jaden comes down from his room for a break from ABA.
Mason do look for Jaden to play catch or run into their 'clubhouse' to hide, he will pull Jaden to go with him, and if Jaden does not give two hoots, he will scream at his brother and try to catch my eye contact, and have me ask Jaden to follow him into their clubhouse.
Jaden loves Mason a lot. He is always ever-ready to pull Mason to him and hug him and shower him with kisses. He lets his brother do whatever to him, except for sharing some books that he really likes. Then there will be some scuffles and shrieking and of course, the smaller one will end up crying.
We visited Dr Rajini just last week to check up on the development of both boys and it seems, Mason is developing his milestones like a neurotypical child (*fingers crossed!!!!*)
His weight though was just 9.26kg which is on the low side. At his age, he is supposed to be weighing in at about 10kg so Dr suggested that i give him a little more fatty food to his diet.
He is about 76cm tall for now.. still my little shorty but that is ok.
He has 7 teeth now as we speak. :)
Health wise, he has been down with fever twice last year. Once was when his teeth was cutting out from the top, and that fever went away in a day's time. The second time he had fever was on a Saturday night, and when it was Monday, he was still hovering around 38.4. So I took him to his hospital paed and the paed said it was most probably viral fever and the only thing I can give him to control his fever from spiking was the panadol and to give him another day or so, which means a total of 3 days for the fever to go away on its own as that is what the duration of a viral fever would be like. True enough, the fever started going off by the third day and he was back being a strong little boy.
I will always be the paranoid mother when it comes to everything concerning Mason's milestones until he can talk like any other neurotypical children. As long as there is no proper speech from Mason, I will always be paranoid. I have yet to vaccinate him, if that is what you all are wondering, that is why I am always trying to avoid crowded places or bringing him out so much. If those outings can be avoided, I would.
*touch wood* Mason loves his food. He is not picky and he goes aaaahhhh everytime he spots us with food. He wants a taste of everything, which is good.
Enough of Mason for now, Jaden's turn now.
Jaden now attends school on the other side of town, which is about half hour away from home if we do not get caught up in morning or rain traffic. If not, it will turn into a 45 min / one hour journey one way. He now goes to school for 6 hours, and everyday, he has an activity lined up after school hours as well. It is either ABA therapy for 3 hours after school, swimming or gymnastic classes. Now, before you go all whaaaat? gymnastic for boys? The class is more for him to be more disciplin, learn to take instructions and also building his motor strength which he is still very weak.
Swimming? because he loves swimming and that is one sport I can forsee him excelling in IF he does not keep wanting to drink the pool dry. *sigh* Jaden has got a very nice swimming instructor who is very patient with him and it seems that Jaden and her has now clicked! I used to think that she was not really the right one to guide Jaden, in terms of experience but after giving her a chance to prove herself, she proved me wrong. She seems great with him and now that she has caught Jaden's drift of learning, things are starting to look good at swimming classes.
School and home ABA has been training him more with oral mouth exercises, as they think he has shown some readiness to want to learn how to communicate effectively. It would really be a miracle, a dream come true for both Jaden and me if he can really communicate effectively. It is so frustrating as a human being, not being able to communicate. You can try, by not talking and then try to get the other person to understand your wants and needs, yet you are not able to draw, or write out what you want or even sign appropriately to get your message across. Therefore, this is really a very important thing for Jaden to learn. I am just grateful that he has quite a team of caring therapists to help him out.
School has helped me teach Jaden to go sit on the toiletbowl to poo. Dr Rajini has always said that this is the most difficult hurdle for autistic children, especially pooing. Once they pass this stage successfully, other things will come easy. This is because these children do not understand where their poo is going, how their body is reacting and they are confused and scared if it is a part of their body that they are losing and etc. Therefore, now that Jaden has learn to overcome this fear and finally poos in the toiletbowl, I have to buck up and step over my next fear. The fear of him going out without diapers and using public toilets whenever he needs to tinkle.
Since last year, from Jaden's 7th birthday, I have relax his GFCFEF diet and now, it seems he is eating almost everything except really sugary and msg-laden food but I am still keeping a tight watch on how he behaves and react to the food he eats daily.
It seems that he suddenly discovered a whole new world, being allowed to eat almost the same thing as we are and he has his favourite, just like any other normal children; ice-cream, burgers, roti canai, noodles, cheesy pizzas, bread and cakes. *sigh* What have we been hiding from him all these while, he must have thought.
He does show reaction from time to time with some food he eats. Sometimes, it could be rashes propping up, most probably from eggs as these rashes appear within the first 48 hours of his food intake
His favourite healthy food is still green vegetables and fish. He can finish off a whole fillet of salmon and more if he is allowed to. There is once when he finished off a whole fish, except for its head and tail, during a dinner. Luckily it was a family dinner with my parents, who understood Jaden and his behaviour very well. If it was others, they would have thought him to be a selfish greedy little boy.
He can now shake his head for no and nod his head for yes, quite appropriately unless he is being kancheong about something. Then every signing would appear just to want what he wants. Usually, he does not get it because he is just simply signing and we do not want to entertain that sort of nonsense. We will make him calm down, and let him think long and proper before conveying the right message across to us.
There is quite a lot of things that Jaden can do, taught in school such as cleaning up his own food bowl after lunch, bathing himself, wiping himself dry after shower, washing his own butt after doing number 2, peeling his own fruit to eat, pouring out water to drink from cup yet he hardly does them at home. I need to change. I need to challenge him to self help himself more at home, now that he is growing bigger everyday, I stress out everyday and worry about his future, on how he can self help himself successfully especially when it comes to dealing with good hygiene. I am starting, slow but at least I am starting. Now, it is off diapers at home though at times, it is a crazy sight to see me dart between the two boys when both of them needs to use the toilet.
I get very angry at myself for exposing him to tv since young and this is one mistake I do not want to make with Mason. Therefore when Jaden is not home, tv is mostly off and Mason plays around with his toys and pretend play with me using kitchen utensils or things he finds around the house. I am slowly trying to cut down Jaden's tv time too as he is really obsessed with TV. He will start whining, and then crying and lying around the house like a heroin addict that does not get his fix. Sometimes I tend to lose my patience and will punish him to stand at the naughty corner, until he calms down and stop crying. It is really really frustrating to hear him whine and whine and whine. *sigh* I kind of stop caning him now that he is a big boy and I do want to change my parenting ways towards both the boys. Mason is really observing what I do now and I do not want him to imitate me caning his brother. Just sometimes, Jaden can really drive me up the wall as he now knows what he wants, what he does not want, what he can do by himself, and well, sometimes just want to challenge me to see if I give in to him. Usually I win the fight. :)
School has given Jaden some homework to do at home during their first term break and so far, it seems to go on fine. I am going to add on more from my side but FIRST, I need to manage my time much more effectively, in terms of taking care of both their basic needs; 3 daily meals, shower, naptime for Mason, then housework such as laundry and dishes, then quality playtime with both of them. It is just so hard, so hard to do all these by myself sometimes but there is just no other way, so I will just have to bite my lip and persevere. I can do it!
Jaden is still weighing in at 23kg and only 126cm tall. Dr Rajini said he is at the right percentile for his age, so I need not worry. I just have to try to increase Mason's weight for now.
Guess these are what I can remember about my boys' development.. for now.
Till I update again, hopefully now on a daily mode instead of just monthly or once a year. *wink*
