Fall-time Pics

My mom and Tony came for a visit last weekend. Kyan really enjoyed snuggling (and waking up) with his Grandpa. We had a great time, and Kyan ate ribeye for the first time ever. Grandpa Tony was especially proud to teach Kyan what monsters say..."Hi I'm grandma."














He is showing Tony his nose.

Yesterday was possibly the last nice day so we decided to go to Deana Rose one last time. We planned to go the their pumkin patch until we realized we had to pay. Oops. So Kyan picked out his own little pumkin at Walmart instead. He was very proud of it. Anyway here is Kyan at the windmill area of Deana Rose Farmstead checking out the waterfall.














He really loved the numbered stepping stones this time. He went through all the numbers while counting out loud. He has been learning the alphabet too. Last night at 8:00 Kyan pointed to our digital alarm clock and said "B-O-O." Then when it turned 8:01 he said "B-O-1."














He is pointing to the pink flowers. He is getting so good at pointing.

He is checking his head for his hat.

He really checked out the animals. I love taking him here because I can easily compare his awareness with his previous trips. He did much better than the times before. He pointed out some animals without me telling him what they were. And everytime we moved onto something new he'd say "bye bye goats" or whatever we were leaving.

This trip was much better also in the fact that Kyan didn't try to climb into the water from the deck. Last time was pretty scary. I never knew if he'd just plunge off the edge. This time he did really well and watched the ducks and the fish a lot.

The trees are so beautiful this time of year. The farm was especially pretty yesterday. I love fall.

This is Kyan with his little pumkin. Our fall decoration this year.

Kisses

Just a quick update and a few pictures. Kyan is doing awesome with his social communications research study and just advanced into the second stage of the project, which is turn taking. Our therapist took her first 'turn-taking' video last week and was really excited by Kyan's progress. She came this morning and brought me the results from the video (they score the weekly videos by how many eye contacts he made in the 10 minute video (last stage) and now how many turn takes). They usually don't share the scores, but she was so excited and said that Kyan's score was extremely high (with 24 turn takes in 10 minutes). He did another awesome video this morning too. I can't wait to get the videos and share them. I will get them all once the project is over. This therapist was one of the first to work with Kyan, and she's been with him since before he even started the diet. She was pregnant and went on leave for about three months to have her baby. She's been back with us for a month now and every week she says how amazing Kyan is doing. It's always so encouraging to hear that from an outside, professional perspective. He is really doing so good. We are so proud of him.

In these two pictures he was playing with his current favorite toy...the truck. You push the driver's head and it drives forward on its own. He was making the truck come after him on the couch. He actually wanted to sleep in his bed with the truck yesterday. Every nap and bedtime now Kyan picks out the toy he wants to sleep with. That is so exciting to us because he had never developed an attachment to anything before. He is seeing and feeling things for the first time.

Kyan got a talking kissy card in the mail from Mimi and Papa. He loves it. Now when he sees it he makes kissy sounds too. The video was taken with my cell phone so it's a little fuzzy.

Matt's Music Videos

Matt loves to play his guitar for Kyan, and he always makes up silly songs on the spot. He cracks me up every time. I don't know how he thinks of it all while playing the guitar. Now you know how our dinner and evening went last night. I wish I could figure out how to add the words to go along, but I'm not that talented yet. The tapping sound correlating with the camera shaking is Kyan hitting the camera with a spoon.

It is true that Kyan didn't eat his chicken last night and was awake at 4am. I was worried about his blood sugar so he sat in bed and ate a snack in the middle of the night. Hopefully that will not turn into a nightly ordeal.

Thought I'd update with a few recent pics. Kyan received a sound card from Mimi and Papa that kisses. He really likes it and imitates the kissy sounds. He is sitting at his table having a snack of his new favorite cereal, Amazon Flakes. He asks for cereal all the time now, but unfortunately can only have it once every four (actually five now...woohoo) days with his rotation diet.

His tactile sensory issues are improving so much that he is actually wearing these Wiggles slippers around the house every day. We went through all of his hand-me-down shoes at the beginning of the summer and found these, but he refused to even touch them back then. Now he asks for "slippers."

Kyan loves playing with his beans. When we started going to playgroup last spring it took awhile just for him to touch the beans. Now he is asking for beans and scattering them all over the house. Even the messiness is exciting for us b/c he used to want everything put in order. No way would he have scattered beans all over the place even just a few months ago. I can't believe his improvement with his sensory problems in such a short time.

There it is! Look at that beautiful, red Sold sign! That pile of dirt is sitting where our future home will be next spring! So I have about six months to snap out of disbelief and denial and into reality. Is that for real?