Teaching Jeremiah, A Journey into the Mind of an Autistic Child

I won’t even attept to explain this therapy Jerry has participated in for the last six weeks, but his OT says it has been quite successful and he has done great with it.  Here are links to give more details about the therapy itself.

http://www.interactivemetronome.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1407F_Tw-Y (YouTube Demo)

Ok, I had to save this for a separate post because, let’s face it, it would have ruined the awesome birthday party post!  After Jerry’s party, he was out riding his scooter and waiting for me to finish putting things away and take him to K Mart to get some DC Lego figures with his birthday money.  A new neighborhood boy named Joey lured Jerry into the construction area where they’re building the new townhouses and started throwing pieces of 2″ x 4″‘s at him.  Well, one went very high in the air and came straight down on the back left of Jerry’s head, opening it wide open.  By the time he got to me, blood was soaking his hair and running down his neck and all over his shirt.  We rushed him to After Hours Pediatrics (love that place) and he got 6 staples in his head.  Ouch!

Needless to say, the headache from the bruise and knot, the itching from the staples pulling his skin, and the fact that he can’t ride his scooter because he can’t put his helmet on has made him quite unbearable to deal with.  It’s a shame too because he’d been doing so well!  UGH!  This was not the first altercation with Joey either.  Twice in the last two weeks, he was pulled off of Jerry.

Now we know that Jerry is never innocent and can tease the snot out of anyone, but the fact that this boy gets physical with him in response is just unacceptable.  So we paid a little visit to his house Sunday morning.  Sure enough, Joey had not told his uncle (who he stays with) what had happened.  He was definitely spooked though and likely spent the entire night before wondering whether or not Jerry had survived.  He cried as we showed his uncle the end result of their “meeting” on Saturday and his uncle made it very clear that he would deal with him.

Joey’s new to our neighborhood and temporary.  His dad and he moved here from California and are staying with an aunt and uncle until dad can get a job and a place of their own.  Joey’s only 10, but a very big boy with a foul mouth and a bad temper.  We are the third family in three weeks to ban our kids from him.  Pray for Joey please.  Despite what happened to Jerry, I feel bad for him.  His uncle suggested he “whack Joey with a 2″ x 4″ to get even with him and Joey looked scared and remorseful.  Pray he learned his lesson after Jerry’s head exploded in front of him and that his bully days are behind him.

So, no it was not a good ending to Jerry’s 10th birthday and not the memory I wanted him to take away from that special day, but it could have been worse.  It can always be worse.  He could have lost an eye, been hit in the temple and killed (dramatic, but possible), had a seizure from the hit, lost consciousness, been admitted to the hospital…you get the picture.  And thankfully, this event happened AFTER Jerry’s party and not before or during.  That would have been a real party crasher.

I can’t believe it’s been a year already since the “bug” party we had at the park for Jerry!  Wow, time flies!  Ten already!  Anyway, with my last post being about our trip to Legoland, I’m sure you don’t find it shocking to hear that he had a Lego birthday party….which, by the way, was easier said than done!  I had to do a ton of researching online.  Thankfully, many brave and creative moms embarked on this challenge long before I tried and so, in the end, I think it turned out to be quite the success.

I started with Lego coloring sheets and a basket of crayons on a table for the kids as they arrived.  There were also Plaster of Paris Lego bricks and primary colored paints and brushes for them to paint their bricks with.  I used a silicone mold I got at Downtown Disney to make the plaster bricks.  Very easy.

Once everyone arrived, we started the games.  At parties where Jerry is a guest, or even the guest of honor, it is very important that the kids be kept busy, having fun, and all under the watchful eye of attentive adults!  Yes, never a dull or unsupervised moment!

We started with giving the kids a paper bag and setting them loose in the field on a Lego hunt.  They brought their bricks back then and completed a score card to see what they had and how much their Legos were worth.  The Legos were worth different point amounts depending on their colors and in multiples I knew the kids could count by….1′s, 2′s, 5′s, and 10′s.  The kids got to keep whatever Legos they found as their prize!

We also had a jar full of Legos for the kids to guess how many were in it.  The winner won….the Legos in the jar of course!

We then gave each of the kids an IKEA bowl and some Legos and chopsticks.  They had one minute to pick up as many Legos as they could and put them in their bowl, using only the chopsticks.

The next game was a Lego relay race where kids had to take Legos from a bowl at one end of the field to their partner at the other end of the field holding the other bowl and cheering them on.  Of course the Legos had to be carried on a plastic spoon.  Once done, the person holding the bowl became the runner while being cheered on by their partner who already completed his leg of the relay.  By the way, to pick teams for the relay race, the kids picked a Lego brick from a paper bag.  The two kids with the same colored Legos were partners.  Sure way to keep from hurt feelings and make sure everyone had a fair chance.

The Lego minifig scavenger hunt was so much fun.  Again, the kids were broken up into teams by Lego brick colors (red, green, and blue).  Each team was given a different clue and off they went.  They had seven clues leading to seven different Lego minifigs.  As each minifig was found, so was an envelope containing the next clue.  The last envelope had a colored brick in it to represent the team that found it.  The team to bring their colored brick back to us first, having found all seven minifig clues, was the winner.

For some of the games, each team/winner got “Lego Bucks” I made that had a picture of Legos on them and simply said, “Great job!”  First place got five tickets, fourth got four, and so on.

The Lego tube race was next.  I found ten feet spools of plastic tubing in the plumbing section at Lowe’s.  I cut each piece into five feet so there could be four teams.  I made sure the tubing was wide enough to pass Legos through it.  Each kid held an end of the tubing and a helper was in the middle of the five feet.  The tubes had been rolled and so were perfectly twisty and complicated! <evil mom grin> One kid would pick up a Lego from their bowl and place it in their end of the tubing.  Then, working together, the three team members had to lift, drop, maneuver, shake, and do whatever else necessary to move the Lego from one end of the tub to the other where it would be dropped into the empty bowl waiting.  The team to move all of their Legos from one end of the tubing to the other was the winner.

And what party is complete without pinning something on something else?  Ben and I made a giant Lego minifig picture and the kids were blindfolded, spun around, and let loose to pin the “10″ on the Lego guy’s shirt.

We worked up quite an appetite and so food was next, naturally.  We had some Lego themed snacks of course.  I used Club Crackers and cheese circles attached to them with cream cheese to make Lego bricks.  Their unhealthy counterpart was iced graham crackers with mini M&M’s on them.  We bought a silicone Lego minifig cake pan for the main event as well.  That was a hit!  We also had marshmallow Lego minifig heads dipped in yellow candy melts, stuck on lollipop sticks, and a face drawn on them with edible cake pens.  These were my favorite.  I just thought they were the cutest.  For drinks, we had juice boxes because they are square…just like Lego bricks!  I crocheted juice box covers to look like Lego bricks in different colors for each of the kids to use and then take home with them.  We also printed and laminated minifig head straw friends.

Our invitations and thank you cards and even some of the party favors for the goody bags came from a Lego birthday kit I purchased when we were at Legoland.  Hey, we had to cheat somewhere!  This party was a huge undertaking!

One of the favors in the box for the goody bags was minifigs with birthday cakes on their shirts!  We bought colored gift bags from the party store and used self-adhesive foam sheets to cut circles out of and glue to the fronts of the bags to make them look like Lego bricks.  The kids turned their Lego Bucks they earned from the games at the end of the party to get their goody bags.  I found Lego minifig crayons on Etsy and included those in the bags.  They came in different colors and packs of five, along with a coloring sheet and the fastener at the top of their packaging said, “Happy 10th Birthday Jeremiah!”  I was very pleased with these.  There were 125 crayons in all.  I also melted red and green and yellow candy melts and used my Lego brick mold to make candy for the kids.  There were sweet tart Lego bricks we bought off Amazon as well.  They came in a two-pound bag.  The colors represented different flavors and the bricks were different sizes and could actually be built upon each other!  Candy you could play with before you ate it!  Way cool!  Also in the goody bags were Lego gact sheets I printed off about the manufacturing, packing, and shipping of Legos…for the real Lego geeks at the party!

Of course we used primary colored tablecloths, napkins, and plastic eating utensils.  I also printed some Lego signs I found online to decorate with.  I had a picture of Jerry sitting on the lap of a giant minifig at Legoland that I framed and put on the table as well.  My favorite were the plates.  They were square yellow plates we glues a small square of cardstock to the top of to make them look like minifig heads.  We even drew faces with a Sharpie on each of them!

We ended the party with a piñata.  I bought a generic piñata from the party store simply shaped like a square present.  Then I found pictures of minifigs online, printed them out, and glued them to all four sides of the box to make it a Lego piñata.  We filled it with non-melting candy and the kids topped off their goody bags with all the loot.

Overall, a great time was had by all.  It sounds pretty packed I know, but that was the point really…no down time for rough housing that always ends in brawls when Jerry’s involved.  Everything flowed really well and the fast-pace kept the kids eager and excited, anticipating what was next.

Oh yeah, and here is the Lego blanket I made for Jerry for his birthday!

Best of all, my daddy and Jerry’s pappy was here for this party, the first time he’s ever been here for one of the kids’ birthdays.  It was quite special.  And one of my best buds played photographer so I didn’t have to hide behind a camera all day.  Thanks Suzanne.

And thanks to the many moms out there who made my job a little easier with their detailed descriptions of their kids’ Lego parties.  Here are the sites I came across to pull this all off.

http://parents.lego.com/en-gb/FamilyTogether/Seasonal%20Activities.aspx

http://www.livinglocurto.com/2010/06/lego-birthday-party/

http://deliacreates.blogspot.com/2011/01/lego-birthday-party.html

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2011/03/diy_lego_birthday_party.html

http://www.tipjunkie.com/lego-birthday-cakes/

http://rootsandwingsco.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-awesome-lego-party.html

http://www.livinglocurto.com/2010/06/lego-cake-pops/

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B205_0B8Osn4OGU2NGFlMDItYmU0ZS00YWM4LWJkMmEtNjI4YzUxMDgwZWVk&hl=en_US

http://allthingsbrightandbeautifulcrafts.blogspot.com/2012/01/crochet-lego-blanket-tutorial.html

Before the fun stuff…an update from the last post.  Jerry is completely off the Abilify now and on Risperdal at .25 mgs. three times a day.  Between the medicine change and the new behavior routine, he seems improved, but we still have a long way to go.  He’s a little calmer and less angry and impulsive, but he’s still got the language and is hitting and overreacting to situations.  We are waiting for an appointment with a new behavioral therapist closer to our home.

Now for the fun stuff!  We went to Legoland with our homeschool group yesterday and Jerry was in his version of heaven.  He absolutely loved it.  He got to build, ride, watch shows, shop, and more.  He had a blast!  Here are some pics from his day.  Best part was going with our friends and Dustin is a fifteen-year-old Asperger’s boy who just loves Jerry and has an incredible amount of patience for him.  What a gem.  He sat with Jerry for most of the rides.

There were whole mini cities made of Legos!

A “Licensed” Driver

Testing out the cars they built.

New Minifigs

A Long Day