Brooke, Still Doing Great

I haven't seen Brooke in over a week. When I walked into her house tonight, here she comes full speed. I picked her up and we hugged and hugged. Then we headed to her room for some serious wrestling and tickling. She wrestles, I tickle. Her eye contact is still great, but not much vocabulary. She understands what your saying, but still leads me by the hand when she wants something. At this time, she is taking a probiotic for her belly, a calcium supplement, and a very potent multi-vitamin. Her Mom also has her on a dairy free diet. At the beginning of June, her Mom is going to remove Gluten (wheat products) from her diet. The number 1 recommendation for Austic Children is a GFCF diet (wheat and dairy free).
After about 45 minutes, I told Brooke I had to go bye-bye. She ran over to me and pinned me on her bed. I stayed there a few minutes, and told her again, time to go bye-bye. No luck, pinned again. This went on for about 10 to 15 minutes. I tried telling her again, she looked me in the eye, puckered up, gave me a big kiss, and walked away. I told Grandma Linda it was ok to leave now. Sure enough, we walked out of the house with no problem at all. It's only ok to leave when Brooke says it's ok (:

Brooke The Contractor

I got home from work yesterday, and noticed Linda and Cora standing alongside Linda's store. I walked over, and there was Brooke crawling across my scaffolding. It is 4 foot off the ground, being used to paint the store's trim board's. Brooke and I have spent time together on the scaffolding, closely supervised of course. When she saw me, she lit up like a Christmas tree. I walked over to her, and she wrapped around my neck with a massive hug. I put her down and she started running toward our house. I yelled at her "Brooke, do you want to ride over in the Jeep?" She always ignores me and keeps running. Except this time. She stopped, turned around, and ran to the jeep passenger side door. I could not believe it.
After spending a short time in the house, we went back outside. She went back over to the scaffold and climbed up to the deck board. Once up, she let out a loud "Ta Dah" and starting clapping. I got her down and she ran over to the dump truck. Grandpa has trained her to be a future contractor. It was warm outside, so I rolled down the driver side window. We rode around the yard and then we parked. The window was rolled back up and I got out, leaving the door open. Brooke slid across the seat and closed the door. Next thing I know, she is rolling the window down by herself. This is an old dump truck with a crank style window. As I told her Mom, Brooke may have a disability, but she sure isn't disabled. She is one smart little turd. Her Mom got her out of the truck and told her it was time to go home. Brooke usually isn't happy about this. She wanted me to carry her, hoping I would by-pass the car. When I went to the open car door, she reached out and tried to close it. That didn't work, so I put her in her car seat. No major fit, but she wasn't happy. After I got her strapped in, I bent over to give her a good-bye kiss. She proceeded to smack me in the face. She was, as they say, a woman scorned.

Brooke Doing Great

Linda and I went over too see Brooke Friday night. She is doing great. Her Mom has her on a dairy free diet now. We played for over an hour. She pulled me and Grandma to her bed and made us lay down. If we try to get up, she pushes us down again. She was using my stomach and chest for a trampoline. Brooke is so full of life now. She'd pull my hat off my head and go walking around the room with it on. A few months ago, if you put a hat on Brooke, she would get extremely angry and rip it off. When it came time to leave, I talked to Brooke about 10 minutes that I had to go. She resisted at first. Giving me big hugs and trying to hide my hat. After a little while, she said "bye" and we walked out of the house with no problems.
I received an email from Brookes daycare worker, which I love receiving because she sees Brooke alot more than I do. Here is an insert from the email:
I have seen great improvements with eye contact, socialization and trying to verbalize. Just today after lunch amanda & brooke were running around me (I was in the middle) and I would say to brooke " I get you" and she would repeat it back to me. Amazing!! I have not heard her put three words together.

A Slight Slide Downhill

Linda and I went to check on Brookes progress last night. It did not go as well as expected. Brooke was in some ways like the old Brooke. More interested in TV than in playing. She was rougher than normal, head butting me in the mouth, trying to bite and hit. When it came to time leave, even with lots of advance notice, it didn't go well. Brooke didn't even use any words last night, except to say "bye" when she wanted to leave with us.
This did cause some concern for me. What caused the change for the worse? We had increased her DMG on Monday, which can cause hyperactivity in some kids. But the pieces of the puzzle had me stumped, until today. Brookes Mom, Cora, informed us that Brooke had found Mom's secret stash of Cheetos yesterday, and enjoyed them immensely. Unfortunately, they are loaded with dairy, which Brooke has shown to have bad reactions with. That explains the negative change in Brooke. To be safe, we are also stopping the DMG for now. Cora has noticed Brooke being more hyper since the increase in DMG. Brooke now also has official doctors orders for day care, and school... no more dairy products. Her calcium supplement arrived today to take the place of no dairy products. Hopefully things will even out for her now.

Brooke, An Easter Story of Inspiration

A couple of nights ago, Linda and I ran into Brookes day care worker at the Mart. She told us just how impressed she is with Brookes progress. She told us that in the past, Brooke often played off by herself. Now Brooke loves playing with the other kids in day care. She has to watch that Brooke doesn't hurt anyone, because she is bigger than most of the kids and hasn't total learned how to play gentle.
In the past when she wanted Brooke to go somewhere, she would have to grab Brookes wrist and lead her. Brooke now responds to voice commands. If Brooke is bad and has to go to Time Out (which doesn't happen often), she tells Brooke "Time Out", and Brooke walks to the time out area. Brooke remains there until she tells her it's ok to come out. She said that Brooke is also completely potty trained at day care.
The day care worker said that her Mother has seen Brooke off and on since she was in day care. She said that her Mother had literally cried the last time she saw Brooke, because she was so amazed at how much Brooke had changed.
The final story she told us was about her husband. He is a big man and has seen Brooke on occasion, but he is usually at work. She said the other morning, there was an empty chair next to Brooke at the table. Brooke would look at her husband, then pat on the chair next to her. After a couple of times, the day care worker told her husband that Brooke wants you to sit next to her. When he did sit next to her, Brooke kept patting him on the hand. He told his wife he had to get up and leave before he started to cry.
The little girl that has lived in her own private world for so long, is slowly by surely coming back to us.

Brooke, The Little Bundle of Joy

Brooke made an unexpected visit today, along with her little sister Lila, in the 2 seat baby carriage. There is only one way to describe Brookes progess.... Amazing. She is so happy and has so much energy. When she wanted to go outside, she grabbed my hand and said "come on". She was running around outside, then she came over for a big hugger. While I was holding her, my roofing partner Roger was going to leave. I told Brooke to tell Roger good-bye. She started waving to him and kept saying "Bye...Bye....Bye". Her Mom wanted to go home, so I put Brooke back in the stroller. Bad idea without advanced notice. She was crying and fighting. Grandma said it looks like you can push Brooke home. Pushing a double stroller 8 blocks really sucks. I got a good workout and Brooke was a content little girl. When we got back to her house, she pulled me into her fenced in yard. She picked up a ball and threw it to me. I put the ball on the ground and told Brooke to kick it. She kicked it and said "kick". Her Mommy had bought her a bottle of bubbles. I would blow some bubbles, and then hold the wand in front of Brooke and told her to blow. She would blow, just not hard enough to make bubbles. So I would blow bubbles, and Brooke would chase them. Back she'd come and try to blow again. This went on for 15 minutes. Brooke then went over and got a Gatorade bottle. She peeled a receipt off the bottle that was taped on, then put out her arms and said " ta daaa" and clapped. She then walked into her house. In her room she put her hand over her mouth, and then pretended to sneeze by saying "ah ah ah ah choooo". Then I would do it, then she would do it again. She was very content tonight, so I was able to leave with no problem at all.

I am so happy at the progress Brooke is making. I must say though, that I am also very proud of her Mom, Cora. Without her efforts, the supplements wouldn't have a chance to work. As we have added more supplements, Brookes juice isn't very tasty. Every morning Cora takes on the daily battle of getting the supplements down Brooke. Some way, some how, she gets in done. We will make some changes next week to switch to better tasting supplements for Brooke.

I will be on a roof all day tomorrow in Courtland. But on Easter Sunday, I am going to share a story told to Linda and I last night by Brookes day care worker.