july - second half.

Fraser had an annual diagnostic evaluation this half of the month. Every single patient needs to be evaluated. That means long meetings and thick questionnaires for the parents. We filled out one that took over two hours! It had very specific questions that required a "never, sometimes, frequently, or always" answer. Gotta love those. (Never).

The diagnostics measure how much progress each patient is making, i.e., how successful Fraser has been with each child. The meetings are exhausting and emotional, but necessary. The process is similar to what we had to fill out when Emmett was being tested. Neverending paperwork, I tell ya. 

^^at the children's museum. 

The other thing we have been hitting hard is trying to get Emmett pooping on the potty. Some days I feel like it's never going to happen. Other days I have hope. Matt worked with him on it one weekend I was out of town. Emmett sat on the potty for almost two hours, but never let it out. He even began falling asleep. :( Poor guy. He is still so scared to do it. We have tried to get him to wear a pull-up while sitting on the potty, but he refuses. We can't figure out the "why" he won't go yet. 

We are diving into trying Emmett on a gluten-free/casein-free diet. There have been studies found that a GFCF diet can reduce certain symptoms of autism, like meltdowns or aggressive behavior. It can take as long as six months before you see a difference, but we are willing to try it, even if only for preventative reasons. I know a couple of families that have had success on it for their child, but every case is different. We feel very strongly about not using medication on Emmett at such a young age. 

We are easing into the GFCF diet; it's crazy how many things you need to omit. I've started by replacing one food that has gluten and one food that has dairy. The dairy side of things hasn't been too bad, except for yogurt. Emmett loves yogurt. The gluten-containing foods is much harder, especially when he is as picky as he is too begin with. We've started with gluten-free bread for him. So far he's eating it no problem. The downside - super expensive. 

june - second half, july - first half.

I'm combining these two because there is not much to report. The biggest thing that happened the last half of the month was Emmett turning 5! He had a very fun day and was happy. No meltdowns or issues. Just a perfect day focused on him. We decided not to have a party with other kids. Not sure he's ready for that yet. All he really wanted to do was have cake. He didn't even ask for gifts. I don't even think he knew he was getting gifts until we brought them out. He's such a simple boy in that way. :)

^^had a great time playing with his sister :)

The fourth of July went very well. We are always unsure about how Emmett will respond to loud noises. We were concerned about going to see fireworks. We brought his noise-canceling headphones, but he didn't want to wear them. When things got really loud we kept asking him if he wanted to put them on, but he refused. He was doing fine! He was concerned about the 'booms' but never got scared. He had a blast watching fireworks and holding sparklers.

Unfortunately, Emmett had a meltdown last week. He went to a classmate's birthday party (which is so great!) last weekend. I was prepping him a few days ahead of time and he seemed pretty excited. Trisha is the one girl from his class that he took interest to. I was so happy when he was invited to her party. When we got there, Trisha was very excited to see Emmett and grabbed his hand and started pulling him over to where the other kids were. I could tell he was already getting uncomfortable. Trisha's mom had just set up a sprinkler. Trisha brought Emmett over to the sprinkler. The sprinkler turned on, shooting water at Emmett's face. That's when he lost it. He tried so hard to keep it together.   

^^just before the sprinkler turned on :(

He came running over to me crying and very upset. I tried calming him down by drying him off and putting him in my lap, but he just pushed away from me. He was embarrassed, I know. After calming down a bit, he hid in the house and wanted nothing to do with the party. Trisha's mom found some cars for him and he perked up. I was able to coax him back outside with the cars, but he just played with them at the table by himself. He watched Trisha open her gifts from afar and ate his cake on my lap. 

For a moment after we arrived at the party, I thought about running a short errand and coming back. But my gut told me to stay. I'm so glad I didn't leave. I had high hopes for this party; visions of Emmett socializing and laughing with the other kids. It was another learning experience. We'll try again next time, bud.