Shoe collection to help with toe-walking

Amor still walks on her toes because of sensory issues. But we’ve noticed she walks on her heels whenever she wears new shoes. I actually enjoy buying her shoes. If I spend couple of bucks a month on pretty shoes for Amor, I’m sure I would save so much more needed for sensory, physical therapy maybe shoe-brace (recommended by some but not all therapists) to get her walking right…of course we also need to fix the core problem too, which is leaky gut.

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Lots of things to be thankful for

I don’t say “thank you” enough.

Thank you Tita Aldhel for playing with Amor last night when I couldn’t wake up Nathan for his son-rise session.

I asked Amor who Tita Aldhel son-rised last night, her face lit up, “ME!” Then she told me how she enjoyed playing with you and dressing up her doll with play doh 🙂

Knowing exactly what he wants and how to get it!

As I was giving Nathan his breakfast, he asked, “You want to go swimming?” He still gets pronouns mixed up.

I explained that after yesterday’s swimming, he was coughing this morning and it wasn’t a good idea to go swimming, else he might get sick.

Nathan then turned to look at Papa. I waited a little, watching him glancing at Papa making a decision. After a minute, he got off his chair. He walked towards Papa processing what I had told him and said, “…how about go to the park?”

When he reached Papa, he asked, “You want to go to the park?”

So neurotypical, if Mama does not approve, look for the next authority that will likely say “yes!” And if swimming is not possible ask for the next best thing!

Coming from classic autism, Nathan still has many stims and a short interactive attention span, but it’s neurotypical moments like this that tell us he will go a long long way!

In this photo, Nathan hops on Papa’s lap with a big smile knowing that with Papa, all his wishes get granted.

…it didn’t, it was raining so we explained that we couldn’t go out either and Nathan did not tantrum 🙂 What a complaint boy with autism!

We just love Son-Rise!

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Healing mind and body

One of the many blessings of this journey is discovering that there are so may routes to better health! I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface of it.

I used to watch Amor sleeping. For every breath I took, she would take two shallow breaths. Imagine how hard her lungs and heart had to work 24/7. That was a sign of how bad her health was.

Before her health deteriorated, Amor was such a strong toddler. She could fight off fevers overnight with no medications, she wouldn’t drink them. As she got older, it became harder and harder for her to fight off even a simple cold. Cold and cough would linger for a week or more. At age 4, she got myoclonic epilepsy and things got worse. Ironically, the deterioration of Amor’s health directly correlated to hospital visits. No doubt those doctor-recommended anti-epilepsy, antibiotics and vaccines, help in the short term, but all together, they just burdened her body and general health.

Today, I have taken charge of understanding and dealing with my kid’s health instead of blindly following doctors. With diet and biomedical interventions that we have been doing, Amor is starting to detox and her body is “healing”. When I watch Amor sleep nowadays, I notice her breathing at almost the same rate as I do. Just watching her breath now feels like a heavy burden has been lifted.

The same is true for Nathan’s health. He never used to sweat as a baby and interventions have been helping him detox through sweat.

My twins are healing!

Nathan’s OT chooses Son-Rise!

I just met up with Nathan’s Occupational Therapist (OT). I know in the past he was hesitant about Son-Rise. But things have changed and he now embraces Son-Rise! In fact, we told him that we were committed to bring The Son-Rise Program® Start-Up to Singapore in 2015 and he said to count him in.

The mother of his former student asked him to do home therapy. His former student is now 23 and has new challenges, so his mother felt more therapy was needed. But this time, our OT decided to do Son-Rise instead usual therapy. He says the results were amazing. The young man with autism now tells his OT, “I love you”.

Son-Rise really builds relationships!

Nathan chooses to connect

I was out in the morning/noon taking Ian to his classmate’s birthday party. When there’s not enough attention given to Nathan, he still will choose to do things alone or even stim all day. However, when I got home, Nathan had already requested Papa to play with him in his Son-Rise play room. After their session, Nathan requested Papa to get his guitar and play some specific songs for him. Then he followed Papa to the room, just to lay beside him as Papa was having a chat with me. Throughout the day he’s been asking Papa for probiotics, water, play his music, food, etc. Awesome day! It’s so amazing how he chose to connect to Papa all day!

When Nathan regressed and got the autism diagnosis at age 4, he became oblivious to Papa, especially after the year we spent as split-family just so the twins could get better access to all sorts of therapy in English (physical therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy, aqua therapy, special education, speech therapy). For someone with classic autism, like Nathan, those therapies just didn’t help as much and, yes, my twins had amazing therapists… Nathan was just too autistic to want to engage.

It was only after we found the son-rise program that Nathan began to connect Papa or anyone else. Son-Rise really rocks!

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