As one journey ends, another starts

A diagnosis for K - which was once a dream has finally come to life. Yesterday 1/15/13 marked a week since her testing and we got the answer to our question that I started asking so many years ago. If you're not familiar, here is the beginning of our story My Journey with K.

K does not have the plague or a contagious disease. She is not deaf or dumb. She is a loving 10 yr old girl, that just wants to fit in. She has some challenges like anxiety, obsessing and audio processing. Her speech skills and understanding of communication are not up to par, which makes everyday things hard. K has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 2 (ASD2) and I've known it for sometime.  As one journey ends, another starts - Getting her the help she needs to become the adult she will be in the future. To keep following visit Welcome to Holland.

If life gives you snow, make Ice cream!

 Snow Ice Cream Recipe 

1 gallon or big bowl full of snow

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup cream or milk

Again, just mix the ingredients together. You get the idea.

My journey with Tink

  When I found out I was having a girl, I was so happy.  We could do all the mother/daughter things together, like do our hair, go shopping or have pretend tea parties.. All those dreams were crushed.. .

Tink's milestones were delayed... She sat up at 9 months old, took her first steps at 15 months and said her first words at 2 all because of low muscle tone. 

Tink at her first birthday party.

   With the help of early intervention and speech therapy, She learned her name at 3. Tink was daytime potty trained by 3 1/2 (still remains in diapers at night). Although she had all these delays, she did have very interesting strengths..  Tink learned to pump on swing all by herself, coloring in the lines (mostly) & cut with safety scissors all at 2 1/2 years old, She would do these things for hours.. 

4 yrs old lining-up toys

 Sensory sensitivities: TOUCH- although she likes being hugged, it has to be on her terms. She never likes her hair brushed, she cries and says I'm being too rough. Certain clothes bother her, such as Jeans (she says they're too hard), anything with a tag is itchy to her. SMELL - She is always the first and sometime the only one to smell something. HEARING - She is sensitive to loud or sudden sounds (she'll cover her ears). TASTE - She has certain food she will refuses to eat such as cooked carrots, yet will overeat to the point it make herself sick if she is not watched. SIGHT- She doesn't like people looking at her. She says"What?"as a way of saying stop looking at me.. Yet she'll stare, almost gets fixated with others and what they're doing.

Has a hard time with being "put on the spot".

Socializing with others: Tink had no close friends, she has classmates she may talk to during school hours, but when she came home she is mainly on her own. She tries to play with her siblings, but it soon turns into an argument. She does play dolls (she called it the baby game), but it's more like role play (reliving something she has seen). She prefers to be with adults than her peers. Her favorite people to be with are "Horsey"(her grandmother) and certain teacher's aides. When we ask her what she did in school that day it's hard for her to tell us. We enrolled her in dancing school to help her with socializing, but it was very very stressful for her.  She also has a hard time understanding body language. (personal space)

At 8 years old, Tink was diagnosed with ADHD and was put on medication.  That's when I noticed a new obsession, patterning and charting just about everything she could find. For example: She would place a chart on a door, she would then tell us make a checkmark when we would enter or leave that room..   To me this was a red flag.. I started documenting her "play".

 

Age 7 using hair ties as a tool to make a pattern with her dolls.

Age 9 Lining-up cars at "Horsey's" house.

With all this said.. I think it's some a form of Autism.  I have been on this journey with Tink for almost 10 long years and still no diagnosis. Why? Because girls with autism often present with a unique set of characteristics that can make diagnosing their autism difficult. Furthermore, their set of strengths can mask their deficits. 
I just want her to be happy and to be able to live her life to the fullest! 

UPDATE: Tink has a series of appt with a developmental pediatrician starting on the Nov 27, 2012. A bittersweet moment!

UPDATE: 1/8/2013 Tink's developmental pediatrician/autism spectrum evaluation appointment went very well today - preliminary diagnosis was encouraging, but we'll need to wait until next week for a definitive diagnosis. Maybe then we'll be able to get refined support services, and help her transform and achieve!

UPDATE: 1/15/13 Tink was officially diagnosed with ASD2.  

UPDATE: 6/1/2014 - I just wanted to post one last update. Tink has been doing great! She works with a Behavioral Health 3 days a week and has OT every Monday. She still has her bad day's but is working really hard to succeed. To continue to follow her journey, go to Welcome to Holland. 

Adventures In Stripping Diapers

Even if you are careful to use less detergent and vinegar rinses, diapers still can get stressed and need periodic stripping.


Symptoms of diaper stress:


- Strong ammonia smell after they have been soiled.


- Diaper rash that won't go away despite diligent intervention.


Cause: Detergent residue which traps bacteria.


Solution: Boil (Strip) them.
**We use pocket diapers and I ONLY strip the inserts, Snaps & velcro can melt  and or the diaper's color can run.**
Start off with washing the inserts, they don't need to be dried. I spend a full day boiling all the cleaned inserts in a giant stock pot. It actually goes by pretty quickly.
 I can get about six - seven inserts in at a time. Add a little vinegar as well. This will help rid the inserts of detergent residue. I have also found a little bit of Dawn dish soap helps too.               Picture to the right: My little helper in her Ergo.... 

Bring the water to a boil, place the inserts in the pot.  I kept them boiling for about 8 minutes, then use a pair of tongs and transfer the "stripped" inserts to the sink (I used a metal bowl, Be careful it will be HOT)  
Then I add 6-7 more inserts the boiling water and start the process over again.   After 12-14 inserts are done, then you will want to change your water. 

Picture to the left: the suds are from the dawn soap

The inserts that are in the sink get rinsed down with cold water, rung out and set aside. Once all the inserts are done being stripped, I place them all in the washer for a washing cycle in just hot water and baking soda (baking soda neutralizes odors). Whenever you can line dry do it, The sun has a lot of benefits for diapers as well... 


Result: Extra clean sanitized diapers with no detergent residue, and no more rashes or bad smells. Good luck & Happy stripping!!

Baby/toddler leg warmers

How to make baby/todder legwarmer out of women's socks

This is a quick inexpensive project that anyone can do, $5 for 3 pairs of socks at Walmart. They are a GREAT alternative to tights, making diaper changes much easier. They are warmer & much more durable & can also double as arm warmers to give a warm layered look to your favorite t-shirts for girls & boys of all ages.

Supplies…

• Women's tube/knee socks (6m-6yr) or Womens crew socks (0-18m) Girls knee socks also work GREAT.
• Sewing machine 
• Scissors
• Pins

STEP 1: You will toss the heel & toe scraps, but keep the bottom of the foot. 

STEP 2: Take the section remaining from the foot & you want to fold it inside of itself as pictured below. You should have the nice side of the sock on the outside & inside with a fold on one end & both raw edges on the other.

STEP 3: Stick the long section of the sock inside your newly created tube. This would give you 3 raw edges on the side we are going to sew, the other side will have the folded edge & the finished edge that was originally the top of the sock. If you have a pattern such as stripes or argyle  you may try to get them to line up. Once you are happy with the positioning pin together. Make sure to pin just 3 layers, not all 6 or you won’t have a hole to stick your little ones leg through when you are finished.

STEP 4: Now set the stitch length on your sewing machine to 4 (longest stitch), this will allow the most stretch. If the long straight stitch just doesn’t stretch enough for you can also us a narrow zig zag stitch… width at 2 & length at 3. You want to stretch the pinned side over the arm of your sewing machine & sew a straight stitch all the way around. If you can’t get it to stretch over then you can use what ever method you use to sew circles normally, or you can simply stitch it together with a needle & thread the old fashion way. Then simply fold the trim down (putting the seam inside).

 Here they are in action!!

Fruit Leather

Due to K having A.D.H.D, We have been reading more and more labels.  Basically almost all snacks for kids out there have HFCS, Dyes or Artificial flavoring. So I have been trying to find Healthier alternatives.

Here is a recipe I found :

Fruit Leather

Ingredients

• Fresh fruit (apricots,bananas,peaches, plums, berries, apples, pears, grapes)
• Water
• Lemon juice,
• Sugar (if needed)

Method

 1 Rinse the fruit. If you working with stone fruit, take out the pits, chop the fruit. If working with apples or pears, peel and core them, then chop. If working with grapes, de-stem them.

2 Place fruit in a large saucepan. Add a half cup of water for every 4 cups of chopped fruit. Bring to a simmer, cover and let cook on a low heat for 10-15 minutes, or until the fruit is cooked through. Uncover and stir. Use a potato masher to mash up the fruit in the pan. Taste the fruit and determine what and how much sugar, lemon juice, or spices to add. Add sugar in small amounts (1 Tbsp at a time if working with 4 cups of fruit), to desired level of sweetness. Add lemon juice one teaspoon at a time to help brighten the flavor of the fruit. 

Continue to simmer and stir until any added sugar is completely dissolved and the fruit purée has thickened, another 5 or 10 minutes (or more).

3 Put the purée through food processor. Taste again and adjust sugar/lemon/spices if necessary. The purée should be very smooth.

4 Line a rimmed baking sheet with sturdy plastic wrap (the kind that is microwave safe). Pour out the purée into the lined baking sheet to about an 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness.

5 Place the baking sheet in the oven, try to keep any plastic wrap from touch the sides of the oven or the oven racks. Also try to make sure that the plastic wrap hasn’t folded back over on top of the purée. If this happens, the purée won’t dry out. Heat the oven to a low 140°F. If you have a convection setting, use it, it will speed up the process and help dry out the purée. Let dry in the oven like this for as long as it takes for the purée to dry out and form fruit leather. We usually keep it in the oven overnight, so about 8-12 hours. The fruit leather is ready when it is no longer sticky, but has a smooth surface.

6 When the fruit leather is ready, you can easily peel it up from the plastic wrap. To store it, roll it in its plastic wrap, put it in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator or freezer.

4 cups of fruit yield about one baking sheet of fruit leather.

Got my info from simplyrecipes.com

Cloth Diapering

I have used disposable diapers since 2001, without giving it any thought.  50 million diapers get tossed each day and each one takes up to 500 years to breakdown. I wanted to try cloth diapers with my youngest daughter to save us some money, since we’re a one income large family. When she was born we used disposable, but switched to cloth due to very sensitive skin.

 We got the “gDiaper Everyday g’s 6-pack” to try them out. It took some time to get use to them, but now it’s like second nature. We have many colors “Grateful red,  Guppy green, Good vibe stripes, Great orange, Genuine vanilla bean, Good night blue, Goddess pink and Gooseberry purple.”  The gDiaper = #1 a soft cotton outer diaper cover made of breathable material ,#2 a snap-in liner made of highly breathable, waterproof material and #3 an insert whether you use gCloth or the 100% biodegradable gRefill. The gCloth is two layers of soft 100% polyester micro-fleece and two layers of hemp/cotton to absorb wetness and hold moisture in. The gRefills are made of sustainably farmed wood fluff pulp, with sodium polyacrylate (SAP) for absorbency, and cellulose rayon. No plastic. You can flush them, compost them or even toss them. They will break down unlike the disposable.

My gDiaper stash on our drying rack (an old crib rail placed vertical).
info from gDiaper.com

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We have tried another type of cloth diapers called  “Pocket diapers”, we use Simply Cloth by JustSimplyBaby.com

They are made out of regular material (polyester) and coated with  PUL- so no covers needed! The minky diapers are made out of very soft and plus micro-fiber fabric. Also water proof! The microfiber inserts are made from environmentally friendly material. They are 100% unbleached materials. A fabric with tiny strands and with 40 times more surface area for absorption. It is light, less bulky and durable.. These diapers have snaps instead of Velcro.. the velcro tabs will stick terribly to the inserts while in the wash…causing the inserts to fray.  Another big reason is, velcro has a tendency to tilt upwards towards the baby’s tummy- causing a rubbing rash. Pocket diapers are exactly what they sound like, a pocket in the back of the diaper is where you insert as many pads as you need for absorbency. They come in lots of colors and patterns..I double up on inserts all the time, I find that one is not enough our little wetter.  Even my husband like these ones, because there is no extra steps. You will need to change the whole diaper, unlike the gDiaper. Just unsnap the diaper, change it for a clean one. It helps if you stuff them a head of time.

This is some of my stash on our new clothesline. 

info from Justsimplybaby.com