Must Love Dogs

I’ve never been much of a dog lover. I have nothing against dogs per se. But for some reason, I’ve never been the type of guy who wants to own a dog, pet a dog, pick up a dog’s poop, etc. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve actually been somewhat afraid of dogs and usually try to keep my distance from them. If I’m out walking and see a dog, I’ll usually cross to the other side of the street and try not to make eye contact with them. Perhaps they won’t smell my fear and won’t come to attack me.

It’s not like I had some kind of run-in with a dog that has left me scarred. I’ve never been bitten or chased by a dog. My earliest memory of being scared of a dog was when I was just a little fella and I went fishing with family. I saw a dog pee on some tires and I freaked out and made my Dad hold me. Side note…isn’t it weird the stuff you remember? I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday but I will always remember that dog peeing on those tires. Luckily the tires didn’t belong to us, so no harm, no foul I guess.

There are so many similarities between my son and I. We have the same feet, same nose, same chiseled good looks, same love of a good poop, the ability to take forever to put socks on, etc. But one thing my son is doing now I know he’s not getting from me….he seems to absolutely love dogs.

We’ve been going for walks just about every evening the past few weeks after dinner. Along the way we usually see at least 3 or 4 dogs. There’s one in particular that gets pretty close to us because the dog’s yard has one of those invisible fences. When that dog sees us he keeps running back and forth and barking like crazy. The first time this happened I thought my son would get upset or not even notice, but instead he started laughing and laughing. Every time we pass a dog now, he laughs as hard as he can. When we get past the dog, he’ll crane his neck around to get one last good look at the mutt.

Yesterday we had a nice walk and when we got home, my son was running around the driveway and the yard. A little dog from across the street came running over (the dog’s name is Jackson which is kind of a neat name for a dog I think). Jackson practically tackled my son and he just laughed and laughed (my son, not the dog). Jackson was licking him and climbing all over him. My son was so gentle with him and was just having the time of his life. Watching him with Jackson gave me a glimpse into what a ‘normal’ life must be like. For those few minutes, I wasn’t thinking about autism, or life lessons, or anything. It was just a little boy having lots of fun with a little dog.

Where did he get this love of dogs from? As you now know, not from me of course. I’ve certainly never wished dogs ill will and I’ve never taken part in an illegal dog fighting operation, but my son has never seen me give a dog too much attention. My wife had some dogs growing up, but she’s never shown any desire for us to have one now.

But our little guy just loves these four-legged little creatures. I wouldn’t bet on us owning one anytime soon (we can barely keep the carpet clean the way it is). But maybe we’ll have to pay Jackson a visit from time to time.

Down the Drain

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve begun to go ‘green’ in our home to keep as many toxins away from our little son as we can. So far this has mainly entailed buying organic food and switching to more natural cleaners.

The other day I got one of my first tests when I discovered the bathroom sink was clogged. In the past I would have just poured some Drano or Liquid Plumber down there and we would be good to go. But I know that stuff must be pretty nasty as there’s all sorts of warnings on the bottle and it’s been known to stink up the house pretty bad.

So off to the internet I went in search of a ‘natural’ way to unclog that drain. Now I know you’re probably thinking, “Wouldn’t the most natural method be just to pull out the junk yourself that’s in the drain?” Well, yes and no. First off, I pulled out what I could but it was pretty gross and that didn’t get everything. Also, I’m not too confident in my handyman abilities so the less poking around I do in the drain the better.

I had a sneaking suspicion that a little baking soda and/or vinegar might do the trick. It seems like one or both of those items can pretty much do anything. Seriously, you can use baking soda as a dentifrice (that’s what it says on the package…I love that word too…would be a good name for a metal band), to put out fires, to wash garbage cans, deodorize the fridge, make clay, etc.

And vinegar’s nobody’s fool either. A barber once told me I could put some vinegar on my sideburns to moisturize them. I never tried it but I’d bet it would work and I would smell great too. Also another great name for a band (the vinegar sideburns).

I ended up following some of the advice I found here and by using about a cup of baking soda and a cup of white vinegar followed 15 minutes later with some hot water, I had a clear drain in no time! Eat your heart out Drano!

It was a cheap, safe way to get the job done. Plus, when you pour the vinegar in after the baking soda, you get a cool, lava-like science experiment to enjoy for a few seconds. My luck though and the vinegar/baking soda combo will eat my pipes away or something. But for now it was a success.

Excuse me now while I go lather up those sideburns…..

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ve been having a hard time finding the words to say how amazing a mother my wife is. She’s been great since the day we brought my son home, but I’ve seen her really shine ever since we’ve been dealing with autism in our lives. All mothers deserve a nice day today, but man these mothers of autistic children should get a little extra recognition today.

My wife does everything for our family. I love you hon and I hope you have a great day!

I think Al Gore would like us

I’ve had to come face-to-face with a rather ‘inconvenient truth’ lately. I shop at natural food stores now. I’ve become ‘one of those guys.’

You know the guys I mean. Shopping for granola, buying natural products, wearing their hair in a ponytail regardless of their age, wearing Birkenstocks with wooly socks.

Ok, well I don’t have a ponytail yet (that could take years to grow…maybe I could get a clip-on one?), and I don’t like to wear sandals (although in the spirit of telling the truth, I did use to wear socks with sandals a few years back until I was teased by our office secretary.)

I am a shopper now though at natural and organic grocery stores. Now that our son is on an organic, gluten/casein free diet, this is a necessity. We can get some stuff at our regular grocery store, but these special stores have so much more.

The first time my wife and I went to one to look for stuff for our son, I almost had the feeling I imagine one has going into an adult bookstore for the first time (not that I would know). What would I find in there? Should I make eye contact with anyone else? What if someone I know sees me going in there?

Ok, so it’s not like it’s embarrassing to go to a natural food store. But I know I used to think it was odd when a former co-worker of mine was eating organic stuff. He would always have some kind of drink with a weird name, lot of sprouts and tofu, and he even used something called “Tom’s of Maine toothpaste.” Well, as of a few days ago our house proudly contains some of “Tom’s” toothpaste (just for our son though, I’m being defiant and still using Crest.)

The first few times we shopped there I got a kick out of all the ‘earthy’ people I encountered. There’s really a few categories these shoppers fall into. There’s the middle-aged ponytail guys I already mentioned, there’s the really old couples who are rail-thin and are always looking at things like flax and/or natural toilet paper (which is one thing I think I’d definitely have a hard time buying. I’m all for the environment, but my butt needs a little more than sandpaper to get the job done). There’s also the goth-type looking chicks too who are kind of pale and look like they could use a hamburger.

The last few times we’ve gone though, I feel a bit more comfortable there. The more I’m learning about all the crap that’s in our regular foods, the more I appreciate a store like this. I thought we would be doing this organic thing just for our son, but I would probably do well to limit my intake of arsenic and other hormones that are in our foods. I’m hairy enough the way it is, the last thing I need is to accidentally get some more testosterone or something from a cow.

I appreciate that these people who own these stores and shop there are trying to do something to make us healthier and to save the environment a bit. I have quite a ways to go before I can be considered totally ‘green’ but just in the last couple of weeks our family has switched to natural cleaners and our food is definitely a lot better too.

So if you’re scared to go into a natural food store, don’t be. As far as I can tell, no one will bite you, and in fact I think I get a lot more smiles from people than I do at the regular stores. And now I know where to go if I ever decide to replace my deodorant with a pumice stone.

Let’s Play the Recorder!

Sorry for my lack of updates recently. I just returned from a business trip to Las Vegas and am finally getting around to writing a new post. My trip to Vegas went well….I didn’t get sick on any buffets and I only lost $7 in the slots, so I didn’t have to have anyone back home wire me some money.

I wasn’t sure what my son’s reaction would be upon my return home. At first he just kind of looked at me like “oh that guys’s back.” But a little while later he came over to where I was sitting and rested his head on my arm. Before long he was taking me by the hand to go off on little adventures with him throughout the house. I saw the musical “Jersey Boys” while in Vegas and loved it so much so that I picked up some Four Seasons cd’s from the library. Josiah absolutely loves the cd and every time a song would end, he’d look over at the cd player as if he was trying to will the next song on a little quicker.

He’s such a big fan of music, that right now we spend a lot of time with songs in the house whether it’s on cd, dvd, or our singing. We recently bought a recorder as we thought he’d get a kick out of that. He’ll now hand it to me and say ‘corder.’ I learned how to play it when I was like 7 or 8 years old and I can still remember a few tunes. I need to learn some more but for right now the sweet sounds of “Mary had a Little Lamb” and “Hot Cross Buns” can be heard in our house. I’ll soon be a regular Kenny G on the recorder (but without the frizzy hair). I’m hoping to learn some more of his favorites soon.

I guess Josiah is lucky that I’m something of a ‘triple threat.’ I can ’sing,’ I can ‘dance’ (I looked like one of Gladys Knight’s Pips while dancing to the 4 Seasons) and now I can play that recorder like it’s nobody’s business. I may not be performing in concert venues across the globe but as long as I have an audience of one amazing little guy who needs some songs, I’ll keep performing.

Chicken All Gone!

So a funny, fairly monumental thing happened yesterday. My son spoke a three-word sentence! For the most part now he’s still using one word ’sentences’ which we obviously still celebrate because we’re ecstatic that he knows as many words as he does. He’s added some two-word combinations recently like “Get Out,” “Shoes Off,” “Coat Off,” etc.

But yesterday at school Josiah uttered “Chicken All Gone!” They were getting ready to have lunch and I guess one second he saw his chicken nuggets on the table and the next second they were gone. He didn’t realize they had only taken them to heat them up so he became sad and kept saying “Chicken all gone!” I feel bad that he was sad about the nuggets being taken away but they were promptly returned when they were heated and it sounds like he devoured them.

When one of his therapists first told me he said this I just thought it was funny, but the more I keep hearing those words “Chicken All Gone!” running through my head, the more I realize what a big deal this was. Not only was it a three-word sentence but this came without any prompting from anyone else. He obviously was a bit perturbed about the missing nuggets and he intended to say something about it!

Who knew that three simple words would be such sweet music to my ears?!

We all need something good to read

At the risk of my blog becoming nothing but stories of peeing and pooping, here’s another bathroom entry.

Last night my son was playing in the living room and all of a sudden darted off to his room. We could hear him banging around in there and I knew he was looking for something. Perhaps a favorite toy or a blanket or something?

Nope, he came out with a book, stood in the middle of the room and proceeded to read the book while showing off his ‘pooping face’. I know anyone else who has a kid knows what that face looks like.

I guess that no matter what age you are, you need some good reading material while doing your business. It’s times like these that I’m reminded that our lives don’t have to revolve around autism 24/7 and there are simple things like enjoying a good book and a poop that can bring us all together.

Like father, like son I guess!

Urine Debt

So you may recall me writing a while back about having to collect some of my son’s urine to ship off to France.

Saturday was the big day to attempt to get a urine sample and then mail it off to another country. Our first battle last week was trying to get an extra urine collection bag. We had one but we wanted a back-up one just in case. The doctor we get these from is a good drive from our house and we won’t have an appointment for a while so I thought I could just get a spare bag at a medical supply store or a lab or something. I got quite the runaround and never did end up getting another bag. Apparently they only make so many of these and they’ve become a highly sought after collector’s item!

So on Saturday we got the sample, but as usual there was drama involved. Our son pooped as he was wearing the bag. But all was not lost as there was a good deal of urine in the bag. I was able to get the urine into a cup without any of the poop making it in too. Instead, the poop that was on the bag got on my hands. A few years ago I would have thought that was the most disgusting thing ever, but now it’s all in a day’s work.

I was relieved when we knew we had enough pee to fill the special vial. Then it was time to ship it off. I was probably more nervous for that than getting the pee in the first place. The directions made it sound like it can be a little tricky to send pee to another country.

Long story short….I decided to go with FedEx as I’ve shipped pee with them before (although it was only to Kansas that time) and the guy there was helpful and I had the added bonus of being the only customer there so I didn’t have to tie up any lines. We filled out all the forms and all that was left to do was pay. I started to wonder how much it would be. $10? $20? Well…the final bill came to $70! I guess since it was a Saturday I couldn’t get the economy option (which I’m told wouldn’t have saved me too much).

At that point I was just glad to get this pee out of my life so I paid and left the building. I asked my wife (who was in the car this whole time) to guess how much it cost. “12?” was her reply. When I told her it was $70 she didn’t believe me and I had to convince her that I didn’t have the FedEx guy print out a joke receipt.

Perhaps I should have seen if any of our local high school students are going to be exchange students in France soon. I bet they wouldn’t have minded taking along a small vial of urine with them and dropping it off for me. It’s the least they could do.

So I’m definitely becoming something of an expert with this urine collecting stuff. Perhaps I could freelance and help other families too. And despite the high price, if the urine does indeed get to France safely, I’ll likely be sticking with FedEx as my pee shipper of choice.

Later that night we also got a hair sample from my son. That wasn’t quite as eventful as the pee, although he got wise to what we were doing and kept moving to other parts of the room as we tried to cut a few strands of hair from the back of his head. At least that sample only has to go to Chicago in a pre-paid envelope.

Tomorrow begins Autism Awareness Month. You’ll likely be hearing a lot about autism in the news this entire month. On Wednesday (which is World Autism Day) they will be having lots of coverage throughout the whole day on CNN. Jenny McCarthy will be among the guests on Larry King Live that evening. I believe Anderson Cooper is also doing an autism-related show.

Urine Luck

So, it looks like round 2 with the urine collector bag was a success. We didn’t get a ton out of it, but it was a little more than last time and I was able to drive it out to our Dr. to get in analyzed.

I now have a snazzy new banner on this website courtesy of my lovely wife. Thanks hon!

I’m always trying to think of new topics to post here and am drawing a blank at the moment. Like most things I think of doing, life has a way of getting in the way. I’m always thinking of running a 5k, writing a novel, etc. but to find the energy to do anything after a full day at work and chasing a two-year-old around can be a challenge.

My son’s favorite new activity as of late is sliding down our stairs on his butt. He has become quite good at it and he laughs his head off every time he does it. Yesterday he was wearing some track-style pants and it seemed like that was increasing his velocity as he slid down.

I love hearing him laugh. If I could bottle up that sound and take it with me everywhere I go, I would be a perpetually happy man. I’m so fortunate that even in the midst of dealing with autism, our little son is such a bright, joyful little guy. I was helping my wife while she was changing his diaper yesterday, so to keep him occupied while she wiped, I did a little game I love doing with him. I pretend to chew on his little armpits and he just laughs and laughs. It’s moments like those that life feels somewhat normal.

Urine Trouble

A couple of posts ago I talked about all the fun we get to have these days with poop. Well, our lives aren’t just limited to poop. We also get to have fun with pee at least once a month.

Every month we make a visit to our DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) doctor to have some kind of levels checked. To tell the truth, I usually have no idea what these levels mean, but apparently they mean something important. So the fun part is we get to collect a urine sample from our son.

If it were just a urine sample from you or me, that would be no problem. Just pee in the cup and you’re good to go. But alas a two-year-old can’t just pee on command into a cup, so we get to put these funky urine collector bags over his privates. What usually happens is the bag leaks overnight into his diaper so we have little to no urine to work with the next morning. In the past I’ve been able to wring out the spongy part into the cup and get enough urine to do the tests. But this morning there was barely any on the sponge.

So we put on another bag since we still had a couple of hours before leaving the house. Well my son who hadn’t pooped in about 3 days, decided now would be a great time to poop, so we had a collector bag smeared with his feces and of course there was some actual urine in the bag that was unusable.

But I guess we can be happy that we’re giving equal time to poop and pee battles these days. A couple of months ago I got to Fed Ex some of his urine to a lab in Kansas and I kept telling people that “I bet I did something today you’ve never done before…mailed pee to Kansas!”

Well now our dr. informed us we should run a test that will involve shipping his pee to France! How’s that for cool? I really wish I was making this up. I may never get to France myself, but I can be proud that a little part of our family (even if it’s in urine form) will get to visit. Hopefully I’ll get a postcard.