Miles is 21 Months

There goes another month! Miles is 21 months old...I can't believe he's almost 2!

Well, let's see....Miles really likes eating ice. We'll go to a restaurant and pretty much all he wants is the ice from our drinks. He'll eat some food too, but he's all about the ice. I told Dave it must be because of all that ice I ate while I was in labor with him. All twelve hours.

Miles has learned some new words and refined some others. He now says "uh oh" and will pair it with a noun: "Dada, uh oh" or "Buzz, uh oh". Oh yeah, he can say Buzz now. As in Buzz Lightyear. He can say fish, upstairs, downstairs, and outside. He doesn't even try to say dog, he just pants like a dog instead. He tries to repeat words of things he points to, but he's still learning how to form certain sounds. But the fact that he's trying is fantastic! Maybe this will be the first kid I won't need Early Intervention for!

Miles is officially the annoying little brother. The other day I found Jett hiding behind the couch just so he could play a game on his tablet without Miles climbing all over him, and there was Miles leaning over the couch spitting on Jett's head. He follows his brothers everywhere, and now that he can open the front door, he tries to follow them to their friends houses on a regular basis. And can I say, Man! That kid is fast! I've had to start locking the front door and making the kids come through the garage just so Miles doesn't sneak out. I'm so happy we live in a cul-de-sac.

Miles has also upped his degree of destruction in the house. The day after Dave & I took the sectional apart to clean under it, Miles dumped an entire box of Cheerios all over, in and under it. He figured out how to take the caps off of markers, he draws on the walls with crayons and sidewalk chalk, he likes to put all the dry dog food in the dog water, he pulls all of his bedding off his bed when he wakes up and throws it all on the floor. So I have to re-make his bed for every nap and bedtime. Unless, of course, he passes out on the couch. But that doesn't happen very often.

His favorite things lately are Toy Story, Playdoh, his shape sorter, vacuuming with his toy vacuum, feeding the dog his leftovers, mimicking mom or dad, and playing with his brothers (especially if it's a Lightsaber fight).

He's been drinking Almond Coconut milk for the past few months and so we thought we'd try to ease him back onto cow's milk. Well, within a day or so he started to get a rash again. So, I'm pretty confident his cow's milk allergy is here for awhile. But other than that, Miles has been doing really well. He got an ear infection this past month, but luckily we got that cleared up pretty fast. So he's free to play and destroy!

Another Diagnosis

A few posts back, I wrote about Cruise's 3 year evaluation and his updated IEP and how it was a recurring theme that Cruise couldn't focus. He's always struggled with that and it's a big part of having autism. I've waited on it over the years because I didn't want to medicate a 4 year old and I wanted to see if it was something therapy could help him with. After the evaluations from his teachers and therapists and the school, I decided it was time to look into medication.

I made the appointment over a month ago. Luckily with ADD and ADHD, his pediatrician can diagnose and prescribe medication for that. So I took him in on Monday,  June 8th and we waited about 45 minutes to see Dr. McCune. Cruise made sure he let Dr. McCune know that that was an inexcusable amount of time to be waiting to see the doctor. Ha ha! I love it when he says it so I don't have to. 

Previously, I prepared Cruise for what we'd be doing at the doctor's office and why we were going. So when Dr. McCune finally came into the room and Cruise was done lecturing him for being late, Cruise started with, "Doctor, I need...I need. I need. I need...Um...I need...focus medicine!" It was awesome. Cruise's teacher and I both had to fill out a few questionnaires beforehand and Dr. McCune has known Cruise for over 3 years so he easily made the diagnosis of ADD for Cruise. 

We discussed medications and it's just not fun to listen to possible side effects, but luckily it's a drug we can easily go off of if we see any side effects that outweigh the benefits. Since Cruise can't take a pill (and they can't be ground up because they are slow-release), Dr. McCune prescribed a liquid form. I left the office and went to get the prescription filled where I found out the insurance wouldn't pay for it and it would cost me $214 for one month's meds. So I called the doctor the next day and he prescribed another liquid one that you have to take 2x daily. Well, same thing with that one. Insurance said no, and $214 it would be. So I head back to to the office to speak with the nurse. She got my info and I went home to call the insurance. I found out that wouldn't cover any of the liquid, but would cover a chewable. The nurse finally called me back that evening and said she'd have a prescription ready for the chewable that I could pick up in the morning. So Wednesday I picked up the prescription and took it to Walgreens. The tech looks at it as if I'm asking for weed or something: 

"We don't have that and probably no one else does." 

"Well, can you order it?"

"Umm...let me check."

Comes back after speaking with pharmacist.

"We can order it, but the company only has 6 left right now and we don't know if those are already spoken for."

"Okay, but you can order it."

"Yes. But it won't get here until Tuesday."

"Okay. So, I'd like to order it."

" *Sigh* Okay."

"Do you need my contact information?"

"No, we'll let you know via text."

"If you can't get it will you be calling me then?"

"If you don't hear back from us by late next week, then call."

Wow. Thanks. 

So we're waiting on that.

Summer So Far...

So far summer hasn't been as painful as I had anticipated. Dave takes Jett out fishing as often as possible and they always come home with a ton of big fish. This last catch we had to share with the neighbors because that is a lot of fish!

The boys swim in the backyard almost every day and load up on popsicles with the neighbor kids.

And Miles gets to join in the fun with his very own warm tap-water pool. Lucky kid.

Cruise organizes the occasional lemonade stand to save money for Pokemon cards (yes, he's into that now. I had to have Dave sit me down and explain the whole Pokemon thing to me. I still struggle.).

Dave got the small motor working so we got to take the boat out this past week on Deer Creek Reservoir. It started out a little chilly, but it quickly warmed up enough for the boys to feel ok about jumping in.

There is a small island in the middle that we landed on and the boys hunted for lizards and Miles had a blast throwing rocks into the water.

 We got back on the boat and Cruise wanted to "water ski". I don't think he knows what that entails, but he sure enjoyed hanging onto a rope and being pulled by the boat. Jett thought it looked fun and joined in. Just wait until we introduce them to tubing and wakeboarding!

 The water was pretty cold, but the boys warmed up pretty quick as it got hotter.

 Miles and I chilled, snacked, and watched everyone else get wet and cold. He did, however, enjoy dunking his feet and bottom into the water. But that was the extent of him "swimming".

 Dave did a little fishing as well. He caught a nice rainbow and let the boys play with it a little bit in the cooler before we set it free. Miles cried when we made him touch it and cried when we let it go. Sometimes there is no pleasing this kid.

 It was a pretty fun outing and only slightly stressful with a fussy toddler. We got to see an airplane land on the water and then take off again, the boys took turns driving the boat, and we left before it got uncomfortably hot.

The boys also got to attend the annual Superhero Party at the Legacy Center. Jett went as Superman this year and Cruise went as his own superhero: Electro not Spiderman's nemesis. Miles spent the time as Green Lantern, trying to steal all the balloons and playing with a bouncy ball.

We've had the usual unpredictable weather. One minute it will be hot and sunny and the next it's hailing golf balls. We have plenty down time as well as fun time. Jett started a pottery class that he goes to each Monday for the month of June. Cruise will start science camp the last week in June and he is really looking forward to that. Cruise & Jett have workbooks that I have them do most days. I also have Cruise practice his writing since that's an area he struggles with. I actually got him to draw a picture and write 3 sentences all by himself (about Pokemon) with no meltdowns! Woohoo! Progress! I have a schedule on the wall each day that is more for Cruise's peace of mind more than anything. We don't always follow it, but as long as it's there, he seems to be okay. 

For me, somedays (or weeks) are more stressful than others. This week I ended up getting super sick because of the lack of sleep and all the stress I had been under getting shirts for the baseball team and getting Cruise some ADD meds (I'll post about that later). So yeah, hopefully I don't have more of those weeks this summer.

I'll end this post with these adorable pictures of Jett and his little girlfriend Camry playing on the tablet together. 

P.S. I got that little basketball hoop from a neighbor for Miles to play with. He loves basketball but I don't enjoy lifting him up to reach the hoop in 85+ degree weather. So he has his own hoop indoors.

So far so good!