Maddox's Road To Recovery

Hi Everyone! I would like to start each future post with the successes during "Mr. Maddox's" day. Maddox is amazing and his successes should take center stage!

Successes: 

~Maddox woke up again with a bright smile on his face. He greeted me good morning with cuddling and a kiss. My favorite! He loves to be tickled and immediately raised his arm to express wanting to be tickled. "Oh really...you want to be tickled all of the day?" I say in a funny voice and he starts giggling! What a great guy! 

~Maddox did very good at transitioning back and forth from home to speech therapy in Madison, and from home to swim lessons in Fitchburg. (Many days can be rough due to construction or a different route that I may need to take. These unforeseen changes in driving routine can leave him feeling a little insecure as he knows each route by heart...Maddox is non-verbal but is intelligent beyond belief...he has an amazing photographic memory).

~Maddox's stimming (short for self-stimulatory behavior...such as hand-flapping, humming, jumping) were minimal today.

~Maddox drank all of his supplements today.

~Maddox went poop today! (Many, many children on the Autism Spectrum suffer from a variety of gastrointestinal issues. Dr. Fritz from the Brain Balance Center in Mequon showed me a variety of exercises to help ease the process for Maddox. FYI-"the more you know" is so true...nearly everyday since Matt & I returned from the AutismOne Conference in Chicago area, Maddox has pooped! And prior to that he would go 5-7 days on average sadly without. It was terrible and we had tried everything.)

~Maddox's first speech therapy session with his new WEAP speech therapist went very well. He actually tried to head back upstairs after they were done to her office again. That's a good sign!

~Said "more" after multiple tries and 2-3 minutes in between me requesting him to mimic my words

~Signed "jump" unprompted to me 3 times while on the trampoline when he wanted me to bounce him in the air

~He attempted to say "orange" after multiple prompts from me and directing his focus continuously between my mouth saying "orange" and the orange block he desired

Regressions:

~Maddox threw a massive tantrum when Gavin (his 19 month old brother) tried to jump on his new 14ft. outdoor trampoline with us. It's as if he has saved up all of this backlash for Gavin. Maddox is very kind and extremely patient with Gavin (he mainly just avoids him like the plague) but today he threw a tantrum. I had to verbal explain to be kind to our little brother and cheer him on for doing a great job jumping with us. I made him kiss and hug him to express that we love him and to calm down. 

~Maddox had a hard time being patient when me and Gavin took awhile to get inside from the backyard, and he was fiddling around with the screen porch door "screen" and pushed his foot right threw it. I showed him what he had done and explained that we need to play inside now since we could not be patient and wait. "We need to pick a better choice, let's go inside Maddox."

Therapies:

~No one from the WEAP (Wisconsin Early Autism Project) was scheduled for today.

~Speech Therapy at WEAP in Madison went well today...mainly a day to get to know our new therapist friend.

Food Journal: (All foods are organic & free of gluten, egg, casein, soybean, strawberry)

Breakfast~ GF (Gluten Free) buck-berry waffle, dried mangos (we have a food dehydrator...get one, they're great for making healthy, on-the-go snacks!), 5 strips of nitrate free turkey bacon (his favorite!)

Snacks~ 1 cup GF cereal with dried raspberries, GF pretzels (great to give a little if he won't drink his supplement juice because the pretzels really make him thirsty), 2 organic suckers during & after speech therapy for oral motor stimulation

Lunch~ 5 GF chicken dinosaur nuggets, green crispy grapes (also a favorite!)

Dinner~ 4 more GF chicken dinosaur nuggets after a failed attempt at organic chicken toquitos, applesauce

~3 bottles of water throughout the day

Supplements: (Mixed with 1/4 cup Aroniaberry juice diluted & pressed-organic apple juice)

~AM~ 

DHA 2.5 mL(1/2 teaspoon)

Pure Vitamin D(4 tiny drops...each little drop=1,000 IU

Digestive Enzymes w/Isogest(1 capsule)

1/4 teaspoon Probiotics

~Lunch~

Digestive Enzymes w/Isogest(1 capsule)

~Dinner~

Digestive Enzymes w/Isogest(1 capsule)

~PM~

1/4 teaspoon of Probiotics (hidden this time in small scoop of applesauce)

Melatonin w/ Magnesium Oxide (2 capsules)

Zinc (1 capsule)

***I always want to end by adding a little something about little brother, Gavin. Gavin had a good day. He played with cousin, Amelia and Grandma Paula for a portion of the day during our therapy/swims trip. He is working on saying "please"...super cute! He has handfuls of little words and when he is not "whining" is a delight! I think that's part of being the little brother. He loves copying everything Maddox does, good or bad. Funny! XOXO Gavin

Video: Maddox Doing Amazing Back-floats at swimming Lesson. Thanks to our friend JON at SwimWest!