Ariana's Posts

The Schedule’s Packed, But It Creates More Than Stress

Because he’s not there the full day yet, but he is getting more used to school being added to his schedule of expectations, we are starting to take home items for him to complete after his other therapies. Colored independently, I cut out, he helped with the glue stick. Photos by Ariana.
Ariana's Posts

Maybe This Ain’t Your Mama’s Stress

Maybe this looks like any moment you might see for anybody this time of year, but this is the first walk Tony has ever kept a hat on his head for most of it, and he’s nearly 12. A kiddo with extreme sensory differences and tactile defensiveness may have struggles most people can’t imagine. Photos by Ariana.

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Ariana's Posts

The Gift Of The Christmas Germs

photos by Ariana
Tony during one of his daytime naps yesterday. Ne never naps unless he’s feeling very sick. He likes to curl up into the wall sometimes when he’s sleeping.
Ariana's Posts

Maybe She’s Going Through It…

photos by Ariana
Ariana's Posts

Scheduling Like Tony Schedules And Then Some…

Tony, during a speech therapy session with Jenny 3pm yesterday doing an activity geared at improving joint attention after school and a few hours of hab, photos by Ariana unless otherwise indicated. Right now we fill in during her cancelled sessions so he can still see her and work with her because she doesn’t have scheduled openings when he’s available.
Screenshot of photo sent to me by Tony’s school OT, Ms. C, showing me the tasks she’d be starting him with yesterday.
He’s slowing wanting to try more things in PE, but mostly he still prefers to walk laps or play with the rings or stepping stones in PE.
Ariana's Posts

What I Think Every Neurotypical Therapist, Teacher, Or Paraprofessional Should Know

photo by Ariana

Ariana's Posts

Seeing The Potential Versus The Problems

A fully clothed Tony sitting on his Aunt Randi’s lap while she watched him a couple weeks ago for my surgery, selfie by Randi, she’s cropped from the picture out of respect to her wishes.
Impulse control is an area that’s been more impacted for our son with his combination of conditions, and he has to be given practice controlling the urge to do things he wants to do, like turn lights off when he shouldn’t, as part of his therapy programming so that his brain can develop that control. Photo by Ariana.
Ariana's Posts

More Than A Backdrop Or A Therapy Prop

Getting ready for a school day, photos by Ariana
A recent therapy session during another family member’s doctor’s visit, where the goal was to not rip the paper off the exam table. Mission accomplished (left it on for over an hour), and it’s the first time he’s been able to control his impulse to do that. Almost every moment with him can turn into a therapy moment.
And sometimes, not even the makeup application can hide that…
Ariana's Posts

Can We See All The Sides?

Screenshot, group e-mail sent 12/28/2016, photos by Ariana
Tony, 2018, in underwear at our house. Been in them for 2 years at that point even, and I assure you I don’t want to clean my home up from frequent potty accidents anymore than I would a public location.
Tony getting a drink before using a public bathroom in 2019, he always tells us in public when he needs to use the bathroom on his speech device.
Tony, October 2023.
Ariana's Posts

Some Halloween Gratitude

On our way home from trick-or-treating this past Tuesday, photos by Ariana

My friends, family, and loved ones: I have so many things I need to do still tonight and for the remainder of the week. My eloquence is toast, my desire to create artistically pleasing phrases to describe our circumstances is worn to silence by hand-wringing over the to-do list.

So briefly: I am grateful for our second truly fabulous Halloween trick-or-treating experience. We went to houses we didn’t practice getting used to the displays for, he happily stayed out 10 minutes longer than last year (which is a huge success given that he spent 2 hours and 5 minutes at school earlier in the day with a different from his usual set of school activities and routine). For Tony, the school transition is a massive change by itself in his life and to tackle both in one day is a lot for his nervous system, but he handled it well. He independently said “trick or treat” and “thank you” to a higher percentage of people we interacted with. He even has a chewelry item he recently began to tolerate wearing and he uses that when we are at school or in other public locations, and he took it with us on Halloween also.

People have asked me what I went as and I told them as myself: a tired mom. We started out with an empty bucket, and returned home with one full enough I had to carry the box of popcorn we got at one of the houses we stopped at for him. This past Tuesday was a beautiful evening and that is all I have time to share for this week.