School Holidays!

Our first school holidays! Finn has 2 weeks off and I am loving it!
On the day before the holidays started he and I sat down and made a list of the things he wanted to do before he went back to school.
So far, as you can see, we have ticked off the skate park, the airport, farm holiday and the Albany Mall.
We went to the skate park on the first day. I didn't get any photos but don't worry we will be back plenty I think. Finn loves it zooming around on his scooter with the big boys. He has had 2 nights holidays up at 'the farm' which is my parent's place up north. He loves it and laps up the attention he gets being up there.
My Mum took Finn to the mall in Albany before dropping him home on Tuesday. He mostly loves going to check out the thomas trains at the toy store - I think the owner knows us now!

And today we did the big drive out to Auckland International airport .
I just love watching the big planes taking off and landing, it's always fascinated me. The boys weren't as interested but did love the spacies arcade there.

Kasper has been unwell and so we are all rather sleep deprived at the moment. Thankfully he seems better tonight.

in the bath - the perfect place to get a photo of all 3 boys as they are trapped!



Daddy's birthday today!





new gummies



fussy eating

A lot of kids are fussy eaters but often with kids who have autism it is in the extreme. I know of one little boy who will only eat rice crackers!

We are fortunate that, while Mikko is fussy, it's more a typical 3 year old fussiness and I tend to be able to get him to eat a reasonably balanced diet.
Fruit and Veges are still tricky but he does happily eat apple, banana, broccoli, peas and potato. I also make him smoothies to try and get a bit more variety into his diet.

I am reading a lot about nature's super foods and trying to get more of them into Mikko whenever I can. He eats a lot of nuts and I am trying to get him to eat foods high in anti-oxidants.

Here are my littlest broccoli eaters :)

Finn is having a couple of nights with Grandma and Grandpa at the walnut farm. He was so excited to be going up and has been talking about it for weeks and weeks. I miss him though :( The house is quiet without him as he is out chatterbox ( no competition there yet!).



where we are at

This is a post all about Mikko. A lot of people who read my blog have a child with autism so I know some of you will be interested but also I find it sort of therapeutic writing it down. I like to have physical, tangible things that I am doing with/for Mikko as part of his development. They may not do much (hell they may do nothing!) but I *feel* like right now they ARE working so that's great :)

Mikko is back on gluten (though not as much as he ever used to). Gluten is a tricky one for me. I read so many stories about kids with ASD going gluten free and making HUGE improvements and some ever being "cured". We haven't had that with Mikko. We have been gluten free twice now for just over 3months each time.

The first time we went GF and F (dairy free) was before Mikko was diagnosed. Since I was pretty sure we were dealing with autism anyway I decided to try GF and DF and see what the deal was. Firstly, going GF is not a big deal really. I was sure it was going to be hell and it really wasn't. These days there are whole GF sections at your supermarket and everything is labelled so it's really great!
BUT we really didn't see any improvements, in fact it was probably a time where he was not doing so great. Not that I think GF was bad for him directly, it just didn't seem to be good either.

Then we went back on gluten as Mikko needed to get some bloods done (checking for genetic disorders) and I got his gluten antibodies checked at the same time so he needed to be on gluten to have them checked. He came back all clear but I decided to give GF another go regardless as I would have loved for Mikko to be one of those kids who 'came right' off gluten.
This time while GF we also started taking Omega 3 fish oil, a kids multi vitamin and mineral supplement and probiotics. And this time we have seen improvements. A happier Mikko, a more relaxed Mikko and a Mikko who holds eye contact much better :) But of course I wasn't sure if this was thanks to no gluten or thanks to the supplements we had started. So around 3 weeks ago I re-introduced gluten and we are still seeing improvements - yay!

I feel like without gluten, Mikko's constipation was really dire and that was contributing sooooooo much to his bad moods. We recently also started a complex vitamin B supplement (B helps with stress and anxiety) and also Chlorella for detox. Now I have a boy who has gone from pooping once every 7-12 days to a boy who poops every second day or occasionally EVERYDAY :) :) :) Mikko is so much happier and less anxious too. He is still having grand old meltdowns when we are out and about but they are basically about typical things like leaving the park when he wants to stay or walking when he is too tired. He is also gaining new words and really trying to use them more.

We have stayed *mainly* dairyfree and Mikko now drinks rice milk and oat milk instead or cows or soy milk. The poor boy loves cheese and if you have ever tried soy cheese you'll know it really isn't flash so he misses that. Thankfully soy icecream is quite nice!

happy to back on toast with his brothers