Computer...urgh!

Hello,

Well, Ben and I spent most of the day fighting with the computer. I finally got it to stop rebooting every time I inserted a disk and I was FINALLY able to successfully burn a floortime DVD for Patty and Michelle. I feel better having spent the day fighting with it knowing I won!!

Ben was quite the little helper through it all! He came up at a particularly frustrating moment, picked up a DVD and put it in the drive. I looked at him and said, "if that works and the computer doesn't reboot, you are taking this whole thing over and are in charge of it from now on!" He laughed as if he knew what I said and watched the screen to see if a movie was going to pop up. Then, the computer started to shut down and he got this worried look on his face and ran out of the room! HA!! I think he knew! Such a cutie.

We got bored today and needed to get away from the computer, so we went down to the dusty basement and looked through some old toys. Ben spotted his pop-a-ball (don't know the real name) and brought it up. He thought the screwdriver was cool when I was changing the batteries so he took it from me and tried to loosen the rest of the screws. :o) He also copied me putting deodorant on this morning! Good to see some imitating starting to emerge!

We don't usually have the TV on during the day in our house, but it was on today. Ben decided to take advantage and pulled up his little chair in front of the TV for a better view. When I came up from checking the laundry I found him intently watching Ellen and clapping along with the audience. HA! See pictures below. :o) That kid was all sorts of cute today. :o)

We changed Ben's music therapy CD yesterday at Patty's (OT) suggestion. I had mentioned to her that he was stimming a lot more so she thought it may be time to rotate. Not sure if it is helping, but I noticed less stimming today and it was much easier to get him to interact. The music on this CD (Rhythm & Rhymes Mod.) is familiar children's music, and Ben seems to like it...just took him a couple times to get use to the change.

Ben's sinus infection seems to finally be going away. I was getting a little worried that we would have to put him on antibiotics. For those of you who don't know, Ben does not tolerate antibiotics well...diarrhea, vomiting...it isn't pretty and almost always worse than the illness. But, sometimes they are necessary.

Ben did really well taking his new cod liver oil today! I mixed it with just a little OJ, and gave it to him in a cup with a straw. It actually doesn't taste that bad, it's more the smell that is yucky. So putting it in a covered cup with a straw really helped. (I made sure that he saw what was in it though...we don't try to sneak supplements in on him.) He drank every sip (up to the full RDA now of 1 tsp) and got lots of praise for it. I'm sure it'll take a while to get him to take it consistently, but we'll get there. He gets really no omegas and no vitamin A or D from his diet...so this is an important supplement for him. (He was on Coromega before which tastes a little better, but has none of the vitamins in it.)

I was so pleased to learn on Thursday that Ben will be able to take his enzymes at CHIP now! The hospital has a strict policy on not administering medicines to the kids (can't say I blame them!), but Michelle checked with the powers that be and said this will be ok. Since we switched to the chewables, they won't have to measure doses or mix anything, and it isn't really a medicine, but an OTC supplement recommended by his doctor that really should be taken at every meal. I'm really excited to see how he does on them full time. We waited until he was taking them very well for us before even asking the staff if we could send them for lunch. So, I hope he takes them as well for them! Pray for us! I don't want this to be a distraction or inconvenience for anyone...they are nice enough to work with us on it!

[For those of you who don't know, the enzymes are supposed to help with food allergies and intolerances by breaking down the protein in the food (which is usually what causes a reaction). While we obviously don't give Ben foods he is very allergic to, he tests to be "a little allergic" to many foods. And, he constantly has weird poos and stomach upset (you can hear it.) So we are hoping this helps him get over some of these food issues. Since taking the enzymes more consistently the last month or so, we have already noticed less undigested food in his stools and he is not having 4-6 BMs a day anymore! (More info than you wanted??) Hehe.]

I talk about my son's poop too much. :o)

We are excited to go to Elyria tomorrow! I think the last time we were there was to celebrate Christmas! Jeremy's brother will be in town from Kentucky for a short visit this weekend. Unfortunately, Pam and Micah will be unable to come as originally thought. It'll still be nice to see Joel though. Also unfortunate, we will miss the second CHIP family get together...but we are going to try to do them monthly, so we'll make sure to be around for March's soiree!

Well, I'm going to go get some sleep. Ben has been getting up at 5:45 every morning again! This time I'm going to start tracking it to see if there is a pattern. It seems cyclical to me.

Love to you all!
Julie

PS - Not sure if anyone pays attention to the music I put on here. Sometimes it reflects my mood, sometimes it reflects what I'm posting about, sometimes it is just songs I like to listen to while blogging. The one I have on now I consider our "family theme song." ("Whatever it Takes" by Lifehouse.) Our social worker asked us during group (about a year ago!) to come up with a theme song and I couldn't find one to fit. I've had the thought in the back of my mind ever since. Well, I found it...and by my favorite band no less!