Week 8

Today marks the final week of adding something new into Tyler's diet. This week we are adding Pycnogenol into his daily vitamins. Specifically, Maritime Plus. The goal of this product is to increase focus and concentation. Tyler has been doing OK in this area, but then again I haven't been doing school with him lately to see if he's been any better lately. His problem is that, since he can't process everything you're saying, he tends to tune you out. It takes a great deal of concentration on his part just to focus and process what you're telling him. After the end of this week we just keep giving him everything that he has been taking for another month.

This past week was Bible School, and the report from his teacher is that he did great! I was with a younger class so I only observed him during the group singing time. He really love the songs and all of the motions that went with them.

Last night and today I have added some regular milk back into his diet. The only thing that I've seen so far that might be connected is that he was in a bad mood at church today. His bad moods are difficult to deal with, and overall he hasn't had as many lately. But that could be a coincidence and more directly tied to the fact that we changed the routine slightly. He has a notebook that he takes to church and he is allowed to draw pictures in it (usually of pirates). Last week we let him draw pictures for a while, then we gave him a piece of paper with the words "God" and "Jesus" written on it. Actually, I held the paper and it was his job to tell me if the pastor said either of those words. He did pretty well last week. We tried again this week, but we started with that instead of letting him draw first. He was OK at first, but unfortunately "God" and "Jesus" were not two key words for today's sermon so he lost interest after a while and wanted to draw. When I insisted that he pay attention he got frustrated with me and was in a bad mood for about the next hour. Next week I'll be sure to ask the pastor ahead of time for words that will keep him busy making tally marks.

Here's a picture of him during the VBS closing program (he's in the lime green shirt)