The Thomas Family

I had an unusually unmotivated week last week. In fact, the first time I left the house was Friday for an hour and a half to go grocery shopping. I made homemade chicken soup yesterday and was able to deliver it to my friend who is a full time working mom at home yesterday. The soup turned out really good. Ian & I enjoyed a couple bowls , and we still had some stored away.

Sean continues to impress me with how quickly he picks things up. He's now advocating for himself at school. He tells his pre-k teacher he wants to learn about XYZ planet, the human body, or whatever his learning itch is for the day. Friday he was telling me about smooth muscles in the stomach. I think Sean may need a gifted program soon to help him discover new things. I try to supplement him as much at home as possible. His current school district does not acknowledge giftedness until Kindergarten.

On the exciting side of things, pending paperwork from Sean's pediatrician, we have been approved to start fund raising for Sean's Autism Service Dog. We will eventually have his own website and you will all know about when we are up and fund raising for it. To learn a little more about Autism Service Dogs, please watch this youtube clip by another family. You can also visit 4 Paws for Ability. We are actually hoping the dog will sleep with Sean. He is 5 and still does not sleep in his own bed or through the night. He will help Sean socially. They will also train the dog to search and rescue for both Sean and Aidan. As many of you know, Sean is an escape artist. This is very common of children with Autism. More details coming in a few months on this.



Aidan, is doing remarkably well. He had all 5 Early Childhood Teachers out last week, and outside of an expressive language issue and a few sensory issues, he's doing great! He's making eye contact, interacting, and climbing on top of EVERYTHING, like a typical two year old does. He can even name all the planets in the solar system (thanks to Sean of course!). I honestly think he may be done with ECI soon. His ECI coordinator asks me what I attribute all of the recent progress to and the only thing I can think of, is the fact that we stopped giving Aidan immunizations after he failed his 12 month Autism Assessment at the Pediatrician's office. The manufacturers of many of the immunizations do not recommend children with immune system deficiencies to receive certain immunizations. Sean suffered a reaction to a series of immunizations he has when he was a newborn. In fact he ran a high temperature for a week after receiving the shots and my mother instinct is saying he got too many shots in one appointment and he suffered a significant reaction. I do want to be clear, I'm not against Vaccines. In fact, I think the majority of the population should get them. I think if you have a family history of immune deficiency issues or autism in the family, I would caution to do your research first. Here is a link that talks about a delayed vaccine schedule. I actually get emails about this all of the time. You have to do you own research and come to your own personal decision. I thought is was interesting to read that when I was a child, I received 11 immunizations by the time I was 6 and I believe today children are scheduled to get 36 immunizations by the time they are 6. If you ever are told there is no link between vaccines and autism, please read the following article. Anyways, I promise to not speak on this subject again, it falls within those controversial subjects I never want to write about (religion, politics, etc), and this is just my personal situation.