Obsessed

As the summer went by some of Armanno's behaviors started improving. I wasn't sure if it was due to the work I was putting in or the fact that he was maturing with age. Regardless I was hopeful,  maybe the others were right maybe he was just an active boy. Maybe I wasn't using the right discipline techniques before or maybe I wasn't consistent enough, maybe it was just me! I kept going back and forth, it was eating me up. I just didn't know anymore.

Although some of Armanno's behaviors were improving the major issues were still there! His behaviors at the park were improving. Before every visit to the park, we would go over the rules. We went over them so many times he knew them off by heart, no hugging, no kissing, no hitting and no throwing rocks! For the most part he was doing much better, sometimes he just couldn't resist but he was trying. At least he stopped trying to run. Instead of playing on the jungle gym he would just try to escape to the parking lot or the basketball court, so I would be constantly chasing him. Now he was playing within his set out boundaries. Even though he still wasn't playing on the jungle gym, he would at least go down the slide here and there but mostly just played in the dirt and rocks. It was a start that I was very pleased with. Also our transitions became a lot easier. I would give him a 10 min count down 10, 8, 5, you only have a few more minutes! And then finally it would be Armanno it's time to go. Would you like to walk across the parking lot with me or would you like to get in the stroller? Giving him a choice was key to preventing a meltdown. 6 times out of 10 he would choose to walk the parking lot.  2 times out of 10 it was the stroller. The other 2 he would throw a tantrum and I would have to pick him off the ground kicking, screaming, and biting, strap him in the stroller and go! This was a huge improvement to the his previous transitions from park to home, which 8 times out of 10 would end in a tantrum.

His listening had improved greatly thanks to 123 magic. But all of his other behaviors were still there and not diminishing at all. It was a constant battle to keep his hands off of his brother. Not only his hands, he would rub his mouth and face on him, his feet in his face and would roll on him any chance he got.

His obsessing wasn't slowing down. He would obsess about food, he would have a full breakfast and ask, plead and cry for a snack for 2 hours until snack time. He would get snack and want more, he would eat a full lunch and want a snack immediately afterwards. He would whine and cry over snack throughout the whole day. It wasn't like I was starving him he had more than enough to eat for meals and snacks. I didn't know how to deal with this behavior other than to ignore his constant requests for snack. The odd time I would give in just for a few minutes of peace while he chewed his food. One time when he was 2 we treated him to fruit juice freezie's! Never again! he cried for those freezie's minimum of 30 x a day for a month after they were gone. We would even show him the freezer and say, see there are no freezie's left. It didn't make  a difference it took a month before he finally gave up and the word freezie was banned in our house. He obsessed over certain pieces of clothing that he wanted to wear all the time. For 6 months straight it was his green pajama pants. If they were dirty he would cry and whine about them until they were clean. He didn't want to wear clothes just his green pants and he couldn't wear a shirt with these pants. One day I fought with him and forced him to wear a shirt because it was freezing in the house. He was crying and I said why is it that you can't wear this shirt with your green pants? His answer in a shaky crying voice was, because it doesn't match my green pants! The funny thing is he was right. Needless to say he was bare chested within minutes of me forcing the shirt on him, I gave up. Was he really going to freeze to death? No! Who was it hurting? No one! Did it make him happy? Beyond, lots of jumping and flapping of his hands when he got to wear his green pants with no shirt.

He obsessed over inanimate objects, things with no purpose or function. Things like small pieces of paper, pieces of plastic that were broken off of things, little plastic balls out of a broken toy that he kept finding in the yard, rocks, etc. He wouldn't be able to sleep if he didn't have them in his bed with him.

His unorganized hyperness & loudness. Armanno would just run around screaming and repeating things over and over and grabbing and touching things along the way. Often times knocking things over, making a mess and having no regard for stuff in his way. It was near impossible to calm him down. His worse accessory was blankets. He would roll around in blankets, knocking stuff over most times it was his brother on the receiving end. He would try to put the blanket over Emilio and roll around on him or push the blanket into Emilio's face! Obviously this was dangerous behavior and warranted time outs. often times I had to remove the blanket all together,  but this was one of the items he obsessed about. I would give him time-outs from the blanket for periods of time and he would get it back. But knew he would lose it if he was being inappropriate with it.

Inappropriate became part of Armanno's vocabulary quite young. I would never say he was being bad or what you did was bad. It was always, that's inappropriate or your behavior is inappropriate. It's sounds funny coming out of a little boys mouth but I never want him to feel like the things he is doing are bad or be labeled as a bad kid. He didn't have the ability to control this stuff he was only 2!

It now became a waiting game to set my my mind at ease to wether or not Armanno had Aspergers. We were on the wait list at the IWK for an assessment but it wasn't guaranteed that we would even get in. How it works is you fill out a ton of papers and from those papers they determine wether they believe he fits the criteria for Autism. If they do he would get in for an assessment free of charge. I didn't totally agree with it, what if Armanno's behaviors get overlooked? There were a lot of criteria he didn't fit into! I considered Armanno's behaviors to be mild when considering a diagnosis of Autism. Were his behaviors enough to get a diagnosis? If we did get in for an assessment  Would he exhibit these behaviors during the meeting? Oh no I was starting to obsess, I became consumed by thoughts and research of aspergers on the Internet. Nothing was cut and dry and it was becoming harder to deal with the situation at hand. Would I obsess for the next year waiting to get into the IWK?

Intervention

We started with valley child development sometime around February of 2012 and they were great! Armanno looked forward to these visits, which were in the beginning every 2 weeks. Our behavioral interventionist would come with a huge duffel bag filled with educational games and toys to use with Armanno. She would get him to sit on a special mat while they worked on puzzles, colours, shapes, emotions and all kinds of other cool teaching tools.

After each appointment she would write notes down and we would talk a bit about ways to work on Armanno's behavior, she would always say he did really well but didn't really talk about what could be going on with him. In the beginning I was a bit disappointed because I still wasn't getting the answers I was looking for but that's not what child development does. But as time went on things were being said that I wasn't fully understanding. Our behavioral interventionist was telling me that there were some red flags and some behaviors on the spectrum.

Although I had a degree in psychology and worked with youth, spectrum was a new word as far as behaviors went and I didn't think to connect it with autism. I did not learn about Autism in school and now I'm wondering why? Autism statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identify around 1 in 88 children are diagnosed with autism! Why did I spend 4 yrs studying psychology and not once come across Autism?

Getting sidetracked but I started researching Armanno's behaviors and came across Aspergers! It was a bit sobering as I went down the "checklist" yup, yup, yup, no, no, oh yeah! Even though he did have quite a few of the behaviors there were lots he didn't have. What I later discovered was that no two kids with aspergers were the same, they may share some common behaviors but not all. That's why it's considered a spectrum disorder, there are a wide array of behaviors that a child with aspergers may or may not exhibit and these behaviors are unique to that child.

For Armanno it was his lack of appropriate social interaction, acting as if he doesn't hear you, obsessing, constant sensory seeking, his zoning, his toe walking and hand flapping and other self stimulating behaviors, his lack of emotion at pivotal times, his unconventional ways of playing with toys. I'm sure I'm leaving some out but for me these were the sobering behaviors that matched the checklist.

The more I researched the more I was convinced, I remember getting to the point of calling my husband crying to him that I was convinced Armanno had Aspergers. I remember our behavioral interventionist asking me what I thought was going on with Armanno and if I had been looking into anything? I felt kind of silly saying it because people had me second guessing myself, but I told her that I have been looking into aspergers and Armanno really seems to fit the criteria. Now I knew she was not allowed to give her opinion on it so I wasn't expecting a whole lot back but I remember her saying "oh yeah, my niece has aspergers" and she told me a few of her symptoms, almost comparing Armanno, wether or not she was actually doing this, I ran with it, I was now determined to get answers!

Professional Help

I continued with the playgroups hoping that Armanno would improve as he got used to his dad being away, but his behaviors only worsened. Armanno kept getting in trouble at playgroups and became more aggressive towards Emilio hitting, pinching, pulling his hair and biting seemed to become the norm. Even his time outs became aggressive, every time he hurt the baby he would go in a time out. I reserved the bottom step on our stairs for Armanno and the paint wore quickly, you can imagine how many time-outs he was getting during this period. It was obvious he didn't like the consequence, he would kick he would scream, he even started biting himself, pinching himself, throwing stuff, but yet the behavior wasn't changing! What else could I do? I was being consistent with the time-outs, I was doing them properly after all I watched supernanny do them in over 15 different episodes, it worked for the other parents!

I needed the supernanny but the closest I could get was the public health nurse! I was willing to accept any help at this point, I was over my head with no techniques.

I called my local public health and said I need help with my 2yr old, his behaviors are out of control and I don't know how to deal. The public health nurse was great she came to our house and brought me lots of information on typical terrible 2 behaviors which was great a lot did apply to him, like not listening! I could talk to Armanno until I was blue in the face, he only responded on his terms. I could ask him to pick something up 20 times in different tones and volumes and got nothing! As you can imagine frustration was at an all time high and physically intervening was the only thing that worked. For this she told me about the "1, 2, 3 magic", 1 Armanno I'm asking you to come here, 2 if you don't come here I'm coming over taking you by the hand and bringing you here, 3 I'm off my but and coming for you! "Magic"you can say that again, he responded to it! I only had to get to 2 I was amazed, it became my new best friend! The only drawback was I was using it constantly and that is a lot to say in one breathe to get him responding to the simplest of requests!

To deal with keeping hands off little bro she suggested putting Emilio in a backpack for 3 days or so and keep him on me at all times until Armanno gets used to not being able to put his hands on him! My first question was, seriously? My second was, how is that going to teach Armanno to interact with his brother properly? And my third question was, is she crazy? It didn't happen, I didn't see how it could work for Armanno or for me.

 As for the problem with his aggressive time-outs this could be met with switching to time-ins, where you sat with them and talked about the behaviors, made sense until I tried it. I was on the receiving end of his aggressive behaviors during time-ins because they were still happening he was now kicking, punching, pinching, and biting me. Her last suggestion which proved to be the best, was to call Valley Child Development and do a self referral to get help and look into getting a developmental assessment.

 There was one thing she kept saying to me which deeply affected my heart and it was "Armanno is dealing with some serious issues right now and you need to get help for him." This saddened me, he was 2yrs old he should be filled with joy, fun, and silliness, don't get me wrong Armanno did engage in these things but 80% of his day was discipline! The public health nurse put a much more serious tone on his behaviors opposed to the "terrible 2's" and "he's just a boy" label I was getting from everyone else. I now knew it was time to stop blaming his age and seek professional help!

Big Changes- Armanno welcomes Emilio!

The morning of Sept.8th we started the induction process, Emilio was coming 2 weeks early just like his big brother because of me being a diabetic. Delivery went much more smoothly the second time around, more painful since I experienced back labour with Emilio but at least it wasn't as serious as the preeclampsia I had with Armanno.
We had Emilio late that night while Armanno was fast asleep at his grandmother's. The next day Armanno was due in for his very first visit, I had mixed emotions. I was so excited for Armanno to meet his new brother but it saddened me to think about Armanno seeing his mommy holding this new baby after already being away from me for almost 2 days. I think Armanno may have handled it better than I did, he was quiet but interested in the baby. All of our family made sure to give him lots of attention when the baby was around which really helped him adjust. Armanno got to hold his little brother and gave  him a big kiss. He seemed to be really into this whole brother thing, this may not be as difficult as I had imagined.

We were back home within a few days and the next couple of weeks were great, I was pleasantly surprised that Armanno showed some interest in the baby but not too much.  Armanno just did his own thing, but then he became comfortable and how I originally imagined it, became reality but to a much more difficult extent. He started smothering the baby with his hugs and kisses like he did with the kids at the park, the only difference was Emilio was totally defenseless.
His attention to the baby became more and more frequent and my ability to get anything done became impossible! I couldn't put Emilio down because Armanno would be on him right away. These behaviors were equivalent to spending the whole day at the park pulling Armanno off of kids except more extreme since Emilio was brand new. The intensity of emotions I was feeling because of this were overwhelming, I didn't know how to deal with all of it. So I tried my best with constant reminders for Armanno and found myself crying almost everyday! Maybe I wasn't cut out for this! I knew raising two kids compared to one was a lot harder but no one said it was this difficult.

 I tried to stay strong but it wasn't easy, I was exhausted with no family around  just me by myself in a small town with a handful of friends dealing with their own lives. Of course my husband Julianno was a huge help when he wasn't working but he worked full-time and extended hours somedays.
I had to motivate myself, I couldn't let a difficult task bring me down after all these were my children and I needed to be the best mom I could be for them, I tried to be positive and deal with these behaviors the best I knew how. I tried to live a more structured life with some sort of routine that would help pass the day by and keep Armanno occupied.

 I started taking an extra long route to the park! I wrapped the baby on my front and pushed Armanno in the stroller and walked everyday I could. Armanno loved the stroller and the park so it really broke up our day and helped me to stay positive. Then everything changed, time went by and Emilio was now 5 months and Julianno applied for a job in the city, which was great because it meant being closer to family and a better job within the military for our family. The only drawback was I would stay behind with the kids until we sold the house, at the time we thought it wouldn't take long, a few months at the most. I can do this I thought, I just have to mentally prepare myself and stay busy. Military wives do this all the time, I certainly wouldn't be the first and besides I had to count myself lucky, at least my husband wasn't off to war! he was going to be home every other weekend if not every weekend he wasn't working.

 I started back to playgroups and I was able to do programs at my local resource centre where I could send Armanno upstairs to child care which I called playgroup he looked forward to playgroup and it was a much needed break for me and the baby. Time went on and so did his behaviors, just when I thought it couldn't get much more difficult than this, it did. The child care, "playgroup for Armanno", which was supposed to be a break for me became a source of stress. Armanno's behaviors began extending into the child care and each time I went upstairs to get him I would be faced with the offside "talks" from the teachers, while all the other moms went on their ways without any issues! I attributed it to the fact that his dad was away and he wasn't dealing so well. I'm not sure they were convinced or maybe they could pick up on the fact that I myself wasn't convinced this was the problem, sure it added to it but there had to be more to this!

Potty Training of champs:)

It's was Mid July and Armanno was approaching his second Birthday, I couldn't believe how those 2 yrs flew by, my baby was becoming a boy! We decided since he was soon going to be 2 and we were going to have a new baby in diapers, we would give potty training a second go. I tried potty training when he was 18 months only because he seemed very interested in it, needless to say it didn't work out.

As we started our potty training, I prepared for the worse, I knew this was not going to be an easy accomplishment. A lot of people said "I wouldn't waste your time, wait until he's 3", "boys are harder to train, it's gonna be a lot of work". I envisioned myself on my knees like a very pregnant Cinderella scrubbing pee off the floor. Thankfully Armanno set out to prove me and everyone else wrong! This boy was a champion, he put on those big boy underwear and never looked back. I stood by in amazement and thought finally we got something right and it went smoothly. Still to this day I recommend the book "The Potty Book for Boys", we read this for a couple of months prior to potty training and Armanno loved it.
I say "potty training", but we decided to skip the potty and go straight to the toilet. Armanno was successfully potty trained at 23.5 months and I count myself lucky!
With toilet training came some other changes like no longer taking naps, this was a sad day in our house. No naps, how would I ever get anything done? When would I ever get to nap myself? The baby was going to be here in less then 2 months, really not a good time to decide against naps!

Well I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea, quiet time! We did it in the youth homes so I could do that, have Armanno play in his room with some toys and if he wanted to nap then he could. If you remember from my previous blogs, Armanno never played with toys. So I tried it the first few times he rolled around on his bed with his blanket and eventually fell asleep. Great this is working I thought, as long as I don't call it a nap we're good to go! Well the new found freedom of playing in his own room was novel for him. After a few days he got bored and would pull all the clothing out of his drawers and rip up books and chew on the pages like they were gum! I went into check on him and there he was not rolling on his bed but rather on a pile of clean now unfolded clothes with little balls if saliva soaked pages from our favorite books. I decided to give up on the quiet time, just wasn't worth it. I might as well get used to not sleeping anyways because before too long I would be a zombie with the new baby(Emilio), and that definately became the case!

Full Force

June hit, summer was coming in full force and so was my protruding belly! Playgroups were over until the fall, which meant more days at the park! It became more and more difficult for me to chase Armanno. He was now 22 months and just like summer and my belly he was in full force! 

Not only was Armanno showing aggressive love, he was hitting, throwing rocks, running into parking lots and throwing tantrums! Great all our hard work of appropriate socialization was out the window because he was entering the dreaded "terrible 2's". At least now I could attribute all of his behaviors on this and so could everyone else.

I was quickly losing steam with our continuous discipline techniques and was slowly giving up, I was due in Sept and miserable. I just didn't want to be pregnant anymore. It would be so much easier to deal with Armanno's behaviors without this big belly in my way, and I wouldn't be so impatient. My hormones were all over the place and I was just adding to Armanno's behaviors by getting frustrated so easily! 

Once the new baby (Emilio) was here and we could get back to playgroups and start a solid routine I was sure things would improve, boy was I wrong!

Aggressive Love

Armanno's social skills quickly became an issue. Which wasn't a huge problem he was a 16 month old boy he just needed to be taught how to appropriately approach other's without scaring them off. He had a funny habit of running for other kids and clamping on, not great for making friends! 

I started by just stopping him before he made contact with the other kids and showed him that he could just wave and say hi, easy solution! Apparently not, waving and saying hi wasn't half as exciting! As time went on we practiced and practiced with no headway. Was I not socializing him enough? Was he not spending enough time around kids his age? Why was it that other kids could refrain from tackling each other? They must have more interactions than Armanno, that's all we'll just keep working on it!

We worked on it and worked on it with no advances! Eventually I was that mom following her child around the playground non-stop! I'm sure I was labeled the "over protective mom". What the other parents probably didn't realize was the fact that I was actually protecting their child from "aggressive love". It was constant reminders, "Armanno hands to yourself". 

He became quicker and would sneak in a hug or a hand in the face whenever I turned my back! Anytime I heard another child scream or cry I would quickly get into prying mode, 9 times out of 10 I would be prying Armanno off of that screaming child!

Not too long after, we found out out we were pregnant with our second, Armanno was 18months by this time and we were so excited that he was going to be a big brother but we had a lot of work a head to prepare him. We had lots of time, the baby wasn't  due to arrive until 2 months after Armanno's 2nd birthday! By then he would be well past this "aggressive love", so we thought. 

Ladies Man

15 months and Armanno is on the move like never before! I started back to work and was getting full-time hours but was able to work around my husbands schedule that way we didn't have to find child care. This was such a relief, thinking about putting my baby in the care of a stranger was nerve racking!

I was still taking Armanno to playgroups and the park during the days and working evenings. As horrible as it may sound these outings were never my favorite. I would have sooner stayed home with just him and I. For me as a mom this wasn't a choice I knew even though it was somewhat exhausting for me, it was great for Armanno. He loved playgroups and the playground, although he wasn't interested in the equipment at the playground or the toys at playgroups, he was interested in the kids, normal right?

These were my outlets for socialization, since he wasn't in daycare and didn't have cousins or siblings in his age range this was it for him! 

Instead of playing on the slides and swings I found Armanno wanting to hug and grab the other kids, he had lots of love to give but it was what I like to refer to as "aggressive love." He was still in his rough stage, aren't all boys at this age?

Similar to home I was pulling him not out of places but off of other children. He was hugging to the point of pulling kids to the ground, rolling on them and making them cry! He seemed to be drawn more to girls but he certainly didn't discriminate.

I thought it was pretty cute in the beginning and so did other mom's, he was a little ladies man! This was no biggie it was just an opportunity to start teaching him social skills and appropriate greetings. Well this would prove to be one of his most challenging behaviors!

On the go! Oh no! :p

Armanno hit 9 months and he was now mobile, he was crawling like a madman at this point and I was ready to lose my mind! I could put 7000 toys on the floor for that boy and he could care less, he went for everything he wasn't allowed to touch. He loved anything electronic, remotes, phones, computers, wires, stereos, we we're constantly pulling him away from and out of places he shouldn't be in. 

This seemed like normal behavior for his age but it didn't get old for him, no matter how many times I would pull him away he was right back at it within seconds. 

Needless to say my days of enjoying good conversations and laughs while the baby's cooed and drooled at playgroup were over. Armanno would run a muck at all the playgroups. I felt like a crazy mom, red, drenched in sweat and out of breath from trying to get in on conversations while running after Armanno. 

Why was I the only mom running ragged, I didn't understand why all the other babies would sit and play with toys while Armanno just wanted to get into everything! An explorer, that's it he just like to explore his surroundings, it was his personality!

I soon gave up on thinking he would get used to where he could and couldn't go in our house and put up safety gates! This made things a bit easier at least now he was limited in what he could get into. For the time being that was the case a little break on my part! Well before I knew it he was on to a whole new mobile, WALKING AND CLIMBING!! Like all parents I was so proud of his accomplishments, he was growing up so fast, so fast I couldn't keep up!

Why so serious son? The signs!

Looking back on the first year of Armanno's life I quickly realized there were major signs that I missed. It's funny that the word Autism came out of my mouth when Armanno was only 5 months old. I started noticing this quirky thing that Armanno would do, when he was laying on his back he would twirl his fists in circles over and over again! I said to my husband omg do you think Armanno has autism. Being the hypochondriac I am I automatically looked into it, from the websites that I looked at I determined that he didn't. He would smile and he would make eye contact so he couldn't be autistic!
 As time went on and he reached the age of 7 or 8 months I noticed he didn't respond to his name when he was called. I remember thinking to myself do I not use his name enough? Do I call him bud too often, yeah that must be it! No big deal. I remember when people would call his name and he wouldn't respond, I would always say "oh he knows his name haha let me try, Armanno! Armanno! Armanno! Hey Armanno!, see there he goes he looked. At the time I didn't realize this was a sign. These sign started coming up more and more but none of them really stood out until I started researching a year later. 

For anyone who knows my extended family they know we like to carry on, make jokes and have a good laugh! Well anytime my family came around they got a great kick at how serious Armanno was! They use to say jeeze hard guy to get a laugh out of or he's so serious. You would always wonder what was going on in that little head of his because most times when you tried getting him to laugh he would look at you like you were crazy, granted that may have been the case with some of my family but it was thought provoking. I would have to take at least 100 pics in order to get one of Armanno smiling, you can imagine how many pics are on my computer! I felt guilty deleting the ones without smiles so I bought an external hard drive, no word of lie!

Yet another sign that I noticed but didn't think too much about. As Armanno got older these signs increased which increased my need to seek help.