Well with Bobbie in the hospital and the computer with our pictures from Disneyland on her computer, I have some videos about JD that are hilarious.
This first one is JD at the wilderness area that was part of the movie Up.
Here is another where JD just ran in and started dancing with Phineas and Ferb:
Bed time has always been an issue with JD. He will want me to lay next to him in bed until he falls asleep (which I do sometimes even though I shouldn’t), he will periodically come downstairs hopping or shuffling his feet, hang out at the top of the stairs or just go into our bathroom in the bedroom and play with band-aids. The last one is recent. He will also come into our room in the middle of the night a few times a week, and last night I pulled him in but saw that it was about 1:30 a.m. and decided to put him back in his room. He usually complains but not tonight he fell back asleep pretty much instantly.
I get up for work around 5:30 a.m. each day and I saw that his room was closed so I figured he was still asleep, but then I heard a laugh downstairs and he was playing his new video game Little Big Planet 2. I asked him how long he was playing and he would not answer, so when I asked him how many levels he had played he said three. Likely he was up since 5 a.m.
JD got the game after he earned a certain amount of tokens to go toward stickers when he behaved well. He just got the game on Monday and actually two nights ago — after another struggle of JD not wanting to sleep — around 1030 p.m. or so I happened to be watching television upstairs and realized that I forgot the cable for my phone and caught him switching out a movie from the Playstation 3 and putting in Little Big Planet 2.
We have allowed him to play the Playstation without us because when he turns on the Playstation it turns on the television and goes right to the game without him having to change the tv to the right channel. However, he would usually wake up around 7 a.m. and we were fine with that. This morning I told him that he needed to ask to play in the morning and not just walk downstairs and play, but he likely did not get it since he was engrossed in the game.
Looks like from here on out we will keep the games in our room or out of reach so he has to ask to get them in the morning. I guess the positive of this is that Magpie was laying next to him on the floor.
Here are a few videos of JD and Mag Pie.
Now we are off to another day of training where we will be doing a lot more hands on stuff with Mag Pie and learning what how to handle the dog.
The other day Bobbie talked about JD being potty trained, which is still going well by the way. Now, the latest victory is with JD and his shirt. It is probably a combination of him being autistic and being a toddler that he a lot of the times will not pull up his shorts and yell “I can’t!” or “You do it!”
But the other day something great happened. I always tell JD to take off his own shirt and he says he can’t, so I tell him to pull it up to his chest so that we does do something and then I do the rest. Two days ago I told JD to take off his shirt and I assumed that he would say no, but to my surprise he took the shirt off himself without any hesitation. It was pretty cool that he did that and it makes easier getting ready for bed or a bath.
Victory!
For television JD usually wants to watch Backyardigans or Yo Gabba Gabba, and rarely wants to watch movies he always says he wants to watch a show. Recently he found this show Peppa Pig which is a British cartoon where the animals make their sound before talking. Both Gwen and JD like the show and make the noises as they watch. The other day Gwen was watching Tangled and JD wanted to watch Peppa Pig so I decided to pull out the iPod to YouTube and see if the shows are there, and they are. The show is a few five to seven minute episodes so YouTube is a great spot to watch full portions.
JD being the oddball he is found episodes in different languages and I believe he has only found French, and tonight when putting him to bed we watched an episode laying in bed and he would recite sections of the show even though in the different language. This is nothing really new since when JD first started playing the iPod he would play different games in French as well. Odd ball kid.
A few months ago Bobbie and I decided that it would be ok to show JD how to play the PlayStation. We figured he was coordinated enough to play Little Big Planet. It is a fairly basic game in concept but he is not able to do all the combination. It took him a little while to use the left joystick with his left hand and use the ‘x’ button to jump with his right hand. Before he would use one hand for both actions.
He can now do that but the few other combos he still can not do on his own. So, he usually asks to play the game, but that entails myself playing for him while he watches and directs me in sometimes a frantic manner by yelling, “GO BACK!” or “GET THE COINS!!” The best part of the game is when he complete a level to what JD calls the giant tv — which is a screen within the game that shows your score after each level — and he takes the control from me and say “dance little man dance.” Since the controller is motion sensitive he can tilt it and the character moves as JD use the joystick to make the character bounce around.
He can do a few of the really basic levels so those get set up if I have to step away for a moment. Oh also, Bobbie gets out of this activity by saying that only dad can play the game, but it works so that he does not play it all the time.
This morning we did play before school for about 20 minutes, but before that happened he woke up and started talking about getting the key and unlocking the doors and to get the cats out. It took me a few minutes to realize he was referring to one of the levels we have played only once and I believe it was on Sunday, what a memory.
The latest issue we had with JD was when he was with Bobbie at Costco and he got away for 20 minutes, so we are still counting down until we can get the dog for him. Since JD has such a great memory we got the idea to take him to the airport the week before to get used to waiting inline, meeting the front desk agents, seeing security and the bag claim area. We are hoping that will help him be calm when he goes to the airport and that he will ask to go back.
We also are so close to reaching our goal and we thank everyone for that, but if you are feeling generous you can still help us out by just donating on the site or do some shopping on Amazon through this link here and we get a small percentage of that.
What! Two posts in a row, but don’t get too used to this.
JD has been the kid who would not show emotion toward others or give hugs too often when he was younger and even now it can vary. He did do it more with me then Bobbie for some reason or another. However, recently when he goes down for the night he has been giving Bobbie hugs each time. That could be from the routine I set for him which is after we read and say prayers he sits up for some sort of embrace, but it is a really good thing even it is just his routine he has when he goes to sleep.
I noticed the other day at McDonald’s when he was playing and Gwen was trying to catch up with him but she tripped or something and started to cry. JD stopped what he was doing and actually went down to her and briefly asked if she was all right and gave her a quick little hug before running off. He rarely pays attention to Gwen when she is crying besides yelling for her to stop crying by saying ‘sush’ or ‘zip it Gwen!’ Then last night as he was watching some show as I was on the computer on the couch and JD usually will sit next to you, but getting close to him is rarely an option and if you get to close he will to you to ‘scootch over,’ but this time he kept slowly inching his way toward me on the couch and laid into me as he watched his show. I just asked him what he was doing and he said ‘I am cuddling with Dad’ and then reverted back to watching the show. That was pretty nice since he usually does not like people up close too often in that manner.
Later that night, when JD was staying over at his grandparents his cousins were watching a movie and JD was invited to hop on the recliner to share the seat with his cousin and then later on all three were on the floor together watching the show. Well, I should say that JD had the iPod clutched in his hand the whole time, but he did pull himself away from that at times to watch the show when there was singing and dancing going on. Both of those moments made me think about the HBO movie Temple Grandin which is about a girl with autism and is about her life, and there was a moment that unless you have been in contact with anyone who has autism the moment would not mean all that much and something that was probably missed. She would did not like contact and only really shook people’s hands because that was taught to her and she never gave hugs.
There was one point in the movie when her teacher passed away and they were at the funeral and Temple came by her mom and it looked like she was going to give a hug as she leaned in and got real close by tilting her head by the shoulder, but she stopped there and kept walking. That part was actually pretty moving because the mom realized what almost happened, and it reminds me when you asked JD for a hug and he would just lean his head in at an angle and that was it.
He sometimes still does that but usually he will either say no or give you a big hug.
Picture is small because it was taken from my computer.
The other day Bobbie asked me to write something for JD since, as everyone probably notices, she updates this site much more often then I do. Nothing really eventful happened on Thursday outside of JD and I kicking the soccer ball outside at his grandma’s house as we waited for Gwen to wake up from her nap. So, Bobbie wrote about her time with JD at the park flying a kite. I guess I should hop on and do a bit to give Bobbie a break from time to time and to interject a different voice her.
Being busy does not help as I write a bunch online (if you are a sports person then check out here, here, here and here) and I joke a bit and say I did the heavy lifting by using my writing connections to help spread the word and raise about $9,000 of the $13,000 for the service dog in under a month. However, I feel I should do a bit more and keep everyone updated about the adventures we have with JD, plus we are still working on travel costs.
On Thursday we took JD back to the burn unit to check on how his face is healing. It started off a big shaky after we arrived a little late for our 3 p.m. appointment, but as we were waiting to check-in we got a phone call that said the appointment was at 2:30 even though the card I had said 3 p.m. as did the reminder in the mail. As we walk in they were talking about how they were going to head home for the day. That would have sucked since we drove just under an hour to get there.
His hand is getting much better and in a few days he can most likely stop wearing his hand bandage. As for his face the doctors said it is looking very good and since his nose, check, chin and most of his fore head is now pink and not scarred we are applying lotion to that portion when we clean his face. Those areas are still very pink and do not have pigment yet which means we have to be very careful to not get his face sunburned. He is fair skinned as it is– as is me and Bobbie — so we need to start using sunscreen when he is outside and putting on hats once his forehead and scalp get better.
One amazing thing is that the nurse who cleaned his face was able to do so without JD moving, screaming or having to hold his head still. Well, I think for a moment I had to hold his head, but overall he just sat on my lap as the nurse cleaned his scalp and forehead. The doctors are not sure if he will scar on his forehead or not, but there could be discoloration if he gets sunburned before the pigment comes in.
Flash forward to tonight and we had to pin him down to try to clean his face. His face is getting way better and the change from yesterday to today is quite dramatic as the left part of his forehead is healing very well. The middle section is very tender and bleeds easily but it is getting smaller, so I guess that is good.
Here are pictures from yesterday:
Nurse Cleaning Wounds
After the 3rd Cleaning yesterday
Here is one from today:
The one from today is hard to tell how much better it is, but if you look at the center of his forehead it is getting smaller. We go back to the burn unit next week and hopefully we see much more improvement and if we are lucky his scalp and forehead will be much better and he can start wearing hats.
The girl holding him in the picture is his cousin Hannah who is in town for a tryout at the BYU Dance Academy (I think that is the right name) so they are staying with us. JD very much loves Hannah as he frequently asks to talk to her on the computer, so we pull open the Mac and we video chat a few times a month with Hannah, her mom and JD’s grandma. He really enjoys that, so it is good to have them here for a few days.
Of course they brought him a ton of new toys which he played with tonight ranging from new chalk to use on his easel, a memory game and Thomas the pasta which he wanted to cook and make some mac n’ cheese. Plus, he kept telling Hannah that Lightning McQueen pasta fell on his head and burned him, so sad.
The great news that he is doing much better and is acting more like his self, and I can not wait until we only need to apply sun screen or lotion on his face instead of holding him down and scrubbing his face and scalp clean.
This is my first post over here and am JD’s father, Jeremy. Everyone is aware of our feverish attempt to fundraise as quickly as possible to reach our goal. I write for the awesome website SB Nation specifically about the Mountain West plus college football in general. I put up a post on that site as well as blasted an email to the entire network of site managers to help in some way by either posting on Facebook, Twitter or to put a link on their site. They came out in full force with at least 175 retweets by my count and that could be much more plys a lot liked the post on Facebook and then some did put links on their sites. To say the least this was a smashing success, in only three plus hours we increased our donations from $585 as of yesterday to now a total of $1690.
So thanks to everyone who passed along the message and to those who donated.
<div align="center"><a href="http://www.dog4deeds.com" title="Dog4Deeds.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://dog4deeds.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/jclittle_adogfordeeds_badgecu150.jpg" alt="Dog4Deeds.com" style="border:none;" /></a></div>
|
<div align="center"><a href="http://www.dog4deeds.wordpress.com/" title="A Dog 4 Deeds"><img src="http://dog4deeds.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/deeds-logo.png" alt="A Dog 4 Deeds" style="border:none;" /></a></div>
