Autism thread

I don't know, I'm in the camp that thinks that eye contact is important in the context of social cues.

We've always stressed eye contact when asking for something.

Eye contact is pretty difficult for me. I find that when I'm focusing in making eye contact I am unable to devote fill attention to what someone is saying to me. It didn't really become an issue until I started interviewing for jobs, but by then I was able to fake it better.

We still make sure that my daughter makes eye contact when she's asking for something, and we reward her when she does it well, but we don't make a big deal out of it and we don't withhold anything if it's clear she's having a particularly hard time of it.

Every kid is different and needs different things.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

Eye contact is pretty difficult for me. I find that when I'm focusing in making eye contact I am unable to devote fill attention to what someone is saying to me. It didn't really become an issue until I started interviewing for jobs, but by then I was able to fake it better.

We still make sure that my daughter makes eye contact when she's asking for something, and we reward her when she does it well, but we don't make a big deal out of it and we don't withhold anything if it's clear she's having a particularly hard time of it.

Every kid is different and needs different things.

Absolutely, and don't get me wrong we don't withhold things from him when he doesn't do it,but we do ask that he look at us when he asks for something. Because we've been consistant, he actually does probably 80 percent of the time.

OMG! The thumb sucking! My son, at 11, still does it... a lot. We've gone so far as to take old gloves (or mittens), cut off the "fingers" leaving the thumb, and he's supposed to wear it while watching TV or movies, or playing Wii/XBox (I don't know how he can use the controller minus a thumb, and pressed to his face). We tried using it at bed time, but he gets it off, no matter what we try. His mouth has deformed quite a bit from his voracious thumbsucking, but I'm resigned to the fact that he won't stop (maybe "eventually") and we'll have to wait until he's much older, and correct with orthodontics later.

When he was little, I used to call it "balancing his chakras" as he'd have his left thumb in his mouth, and his right hand on his bellybutton; sometimes he'd pick at it so much that he'd form a scab. His thumb almost always looks awful - pink, chapped, and like when you've spent too long in the bath.

Tristan's first day of school was today. His therapists talked us into going with an IEP, and starting Pre-K early. My wife tried to get everything set up. She found a daycare provider close to the school where he can be picked up and dropped off by the bus. However, the school system hasn't figured out what bus he's supposed to be on. On top of that, they didn't set him up with a PIN for lunches.

So at this point, I'm having to drop him off at 0830, drive back home to get my work truck, drive 25 miles to the office I'm working out of, drive back to get my SUV and pick him up by 1230, drop him off at the daycare, get get back in my work truck and try to get some kind of meaningful work done. I gave his teacher $10 for his meal today, which I didn't feel comfortable about (not thinking she'd take it, just felt out of place), so I've got to figure out something to pack him until they get his PIN figured out and I can just dump money into an account.

Apparently he's doing better with this transition than we are, because all we heard from the teacher was that he seemed fine, except for being a bit antsy during circle time. My wife was nearly in tears this morning seeing one of our boys starting school for the first time.

Time to get back to it... just grabbed a bite to eat since I was home anyway, and figured I'd post while I was home. Now to go do some digging...

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

When he was little, I used to call it "balancing his chakras" as he'd have his left thumb in his mouth, and his right hand on his bellybutton; sometimes he'd pick at it so much that he'd form a scab. His thumb almost always looks awful - pink, chapped, and like when you've spent too long in the bath.

My son does this too, except it's his first two fingers and not his thumb that he sucks on. We've just about trained him out of trying to put his fingers in other people's bellybuttons. We're still working on him not going up to people and asking them about their bellies. You can guess his favorite word: belly. For him, it makes everything happier and more comforting.

We had friends over tonight for dinner. Around 11pm, Matt grabbed each of them by the hand and pulled them towards the door. I love my son so much right now.

Eleima wrote:

We had friends over tonight for dinner. Around 11pm, Matt grabbed each of them by the hand and pulled them towards the door. I love my son so much right now. :D

Yeah. That sounds about like how I would have been as a kid.

There are so many things my kids do that would embarass lesser parents but I revel in.

When my daughter was being evaluated for Autism, the psychologist tried to engage her by playing with a toy of some kind. My daughter, very gently, kindly and above all condescendingly took the toy out of the Psycologist's hand and gave her a ball to play with instead. My daughter said something like "here you go" during the transfer.

I can imagine what was going through her head. "Here lady. Have a nice round ball with no sharp edges to hurt yourself on."

Sometimes I wonder if the reason these kids are so hard to reach is that they're smarter than just about everybody they'll ever meet, and are smart enough to know it. Which may be why potty training is such a problem with them.

"Wait, you mean I have to go to a special room, take off my own pants and use this big, uncomfortable chair with a hole in it, pull a lever to make a loud noise, then out my pants back on and then wash my own hands?

No thanks. You do it."

Eleima wrote:

We had friends over tonight for dinner. Around 11pm, Matt grabbed each of them by the hand and pulled them towards the door. I love my son so much right now. :D

That's awesome! That would make me so optimistic.

Honestly I am wondering if my son will ever have the cognitive ability to do something like this. He used to drag us by hand, but he stopped a while ago. Just one of many promising things he no longer does. I remember a long time ago he could hum some of the classical music from one of his toys. Now I can barely imagine he could do something like that. In hindsight, it's clear he's regressed, even though he didn't get that far to begin with.

It really pains me to say this, but there's no way my son is "smarter than anyone he'll ever meet". He doesn't even know how to use a doorknob, much less a toilet or an iPad.

Sorry for the negativity about our situation. Been a very rough day with little guy acting so hyper, yelling, climbing furniture, running around, throwing stuff on the floor. He slapped my face and bit me too... Been a while since he bit me. I feel so drained. It's gonna rain tomorrow too, so we can't let him run around the park.

I'm seriously wondering how this family is gonna survive when he gets bigger and stronger.

Eleima wrote:

We had friends over tonight for dinner. Around 11pm, Matt grabbed each of them by the hand and pulled them towards the door. I love my son so much right now. :D

Awesome Eleima!

Owen did a similar thing recently that blew my mind. Someone from another agency came over to meet Owen, so he had never met her before. She rings the doorbell and Owen runs to the door and opens it. She says he to him, and hi immediately says "I'm Owen" points to me and says "This is my dad", and points to the dog "this is Austin", and then the kicker says "C'mon in!". All without any prompting of any sort.

He had never done this before, and to me it showed great understanding of some social behaviors. I just broke out laughing, and couldn't erase the smile from my face. Sometimes these little buggers can surprise us.

gewy wrote:

It really pains me to say this, but there's no way my son is "smarter than anyone he'll ever meet". He doesn't even know how to use a doorknob, much less a toilet or an iPad.

They probably said the same thing about Carly Fleischmann. I know I'm not your kid, but I'd hate to imagine how he'd feel if he could understand some day.

*slinks back to the autistic adults thread*

Eleima wrote:

We had friends over tonight for dinner. Around 11pm, Matt grabbed each of them by the hand and pulled them towards the door. I love my son so much right now. :D

Sweet boy! Give him a big hug!

sometimesdee wrote:
gewy wrote:

It really pains me to say this, but there's no way my son is "smarter than anyone he'll ever meet". He doesn't even know how to use a doorknob, much less a toilet or an iPad.

They probably said the same thing about Carly Fleischmann. I know I'm not your kid, but I'd hate to imagine how he'd feel if he could understand some day.

*slinks back to the autistic adults thread*

Thanks. Your point is taken. I have spoken to my wife about this in the past and we ensure we never talk about this kind of thing in front of him, but it's something we need to be constantly vigilant about.

On the other hand, if my son ever gains an understanding of language, learns to use a computer, finds out I post on this forum and reads these messages, I'm confident he'll be able to understand the level of frustration and fear his parents experienced when he was so young. And he'd understand when we told him these feelings were more from our shortcomings than his. I'm almost crying imagining this conversation, because I seriously doubt it could ever occur.

Honestly, I'd be thrilled beyond belief if my son winds up only mildly intellectually disabled, much less average intelligence. Even with more autism being recognized, there is still a significant portion who do have intellectual disability, sometimes profound or severe. Sometimes it seems to me like this fact is being lost these days with all the smart people with autism understandably advocating for themselves and the spectrum expanding to include people like Seinfeld, etc. I almost feel like my son is being marginalized somehow and I need to voice somewhere just how potentially disabling autism can be for some people (and their families). And how much help we need. I'm seriously terrified he'll never be able to function independently in even the most basic way. Unable to tell us if he's hungry or thirsty or being abused or hurting somewhere. And once his parents are dead, no one will even really care enough to try to figure out what he needs or look after him. He'll wallow away in some crummy group home. These fears eat at us on a daily basis and completely dwarf any fear that he'll one day be hurt that we didn't think he was smarter than other people.

Edit: Nope, not almost crying... I am. Damn this is depressing.

Gewy,

Have you looked into the Sonrise program? They claim to have helped kids that sound a lot like yours. Raun Kauffman was completely unresponsive as a child but today he runs the center and gives talks about how it works and how it helped him.

They sound really hippy-dippy, but we've been using some of the techniques we learned from their web resources and books and it's had a noticeable affect for us. I can't say it will work, but it could be worth a try.

Sending you all the hugs in the world, Gewy. I know what you mean about worrying your son will never be able to express if he's being abused, but my heart just breaks when I read your post. My thoughts are with you and I hope you manage to a breather soon.

I'm sorry, gewy. The thing is, your son has a dual thing going on, both autism and intellectual disability. Some argue that these are two different things, but when they combine... the hardship of the parents ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. I'm not sure what the solution is - perhaps there need to be communities that are clearly meant for the issues involving the dually diagnosed? The thing is, when everyone gets lumped into a single autism label, it can't possibly address everyone.

We can't assume that caregivers of the dually diagnosed can adequately speak to the experience of self-advocates, and vice versa.

Sources vary, and these numbers have been decreasing with time, but even the lowest reliable estimate I found after a quick search is that 31% of children with autism also have intellectual disability. An additional 23% have borderline intellectual functioning (IQ between 71-85). I think most of the intellectual disability is in the mild to moderate range, but I did read one source that broke it down, and about 10% is profound or severe.

sometimesdee wrote:

We can't assume that caregivers of the dually diagnosed can adequately speak to the experience of self-advocates, and vice versa.

Who can speak to my son's experience? I don't think anyone can. That's what terrifies me... Well, one of the many things.

I have a fear and suspicion that the experiences of the John Elder Robisons and Ari Ne'emans and even the Carly Fleischmanns of this world have a lot more in common with mine than they do with my son's. All those people can express themselves.

Put Tristan on the bus for the first time today. He seemed OK, though a little anxious about stepping up, and I nearly got choked up a bit. He started school last week, but they bungled the bus scheduling up so bad I had to take a lot of time off last week to take him to and from school.

Gewy, man I wish you were in my area. If anything, I'd help watch the little guy so you and your wife could have a break. It's tough reading your posts and then watching Tristan do more and more, and all I can do is hope that things get a bit more stable for you.

gewy wrote:

Who can speak to my son's experience? I don't think anyone can. That's what terrifies me... Well, one of the many things.

Too right. That's the flip side of the coin.

I have a fear and suspicion that the experiences of the John Elder Robisons and Ari Ne'emans and even the Carly Fleischmanns of this world have a lot more in common with mine than they do with my son's. All those people can express themselves.

Can't rule it out unless your son learns to express himself. That's why I'm starting to think the spectrum concept is flawed. We who can express ourselves find ourselves in no-man's land: discredited by parent advocates for not being enough like their kids, while being discredited by "experts" because we're autistic, what could we possibly know?

But none of that is really helping you right now, is it?

The only thing I can think to say to you right now is that every behavior has a reason. It's easy to forget that when you're in damage control mode, but the key is figuring out the object of the behavior.

Fair enough on the Sonrise thing. Everyone has to pick the plan that they believe will work for their kid. If you don't buy it, you won't support it, and it probably won't work.

For what it's worth, we haven't spent a dime on Sonrise. There are a ton of free resources on the website that we've been using.

We've tried ABA, but in our case it seemed to actively make things worse. Our daughter was fighting us on every single therapy session and her tantrums got worse. Once we started doing more child-focused stuff we started getting a lot more eye contact and interaction.

Anecdotes aren't data, this is just my experience. Everybody has to do what works for them and theirs.

So my wife noticed my son had a long unexplained bruise on his arm during bath time yesterday. It wasn't there yesterday. Where'd he get it? No idea.

I don't believe he is being mistreated at his school. More likely he just got his arm caught or hit it on some furniture, but this whole line of thinking was enough to get my wife quite depressed last night. I took it a little better but her depression affects me too.
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Anyway, the Son-Rise program... I've read a fair bit about it previously and have overall negative opinions on it but I'll try to be balanced.

From what I've read, the techniques used sound a lot like other child-led therapies like Floortime or RDI, which seem pretty well respected. There's not much scientific evidence supporting these therapies, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't work. There's not much evidence for ANY autism treatment really. It's very hard to develop rigorous research protocols for this kind of thing (eg randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled). I suspect any kind of intensive interactions with kids could promote social awareness.

The con side though... It's very expensive for what you get. I pay a huge amount for my son's therapy (ABA) each year, but he has a one to one therapist working with him 35 hours a week. This is supervised by a behavioral analyst who constantly monitors his progress and adjusts the plan as needed. I believe Son-Rise costs several thousand dollars for basically an intensive training course for parents.

The promotional spiel they give seems very misleading to me. They call the treatment a "miracle" and emphasize "hope". It sounds to me very much like what you hear from biomedical proponents for autism treatment. It feels like they are promoting very unrealistic expectations to essentially sell their product. kind of reminds me of those ads for Cancer Treatment Centers of America that are clearly targeted toward people who believe their situation is hopeless. The treatments there are probably a bit more evidence-based though.

Some of the language they use, I'd find a bit offensive if I had autism, talking about kids being "lost" before treatment... As if they're dead or gone or something. Yes, I know I said earlier I don't think my son is smarter than other kids, which potentially he could find offensive one day (I can only hope).

They also spend a lot of time trashing ABA, but this is still the gold standard and much more evidence-based than Son-Rise. Some of the more promising therapies like Early Start Denver Model combine ABA with child-led approaches and I think that's the current ideal.

Kauffman himself seems to be a pretty interesting story. He apparently was very severely affected by autism at the age of two, but progressed and now is only mildly affected by it if at all. Obviously he's quite successful.

But is this due to his parents' self-designed therapy? I kind of doubt it. Everything I've read about autism is that functioning level before the age of three is not a very good predictor of longterm outcome. It's only around the age of three that kids can start to be grouped in high-, low-, or moderate-functioning with even a slight degree of reliability. Even then there is a small but significant group of kids called "bloomers" who are low-functioning at three but make rapid progress and are doing much better by the time they are teens. This phenomenom hasn't been linked to any particular treatment and I wonder if it's more determined by genetics and biology. Anyway, I suspect a lot of the miracle cures we hear about in anecdotes and testimonials were about people who were going to do well without treatment.
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Part of what's got me down lately is I think we are quickly approaching the point where it's safe to say my son will probably remain in the low-functioning group. He may beat the odds, sure. And he will definitely make progress, but I anticipate very rough times ahead and I'm not thinking he'll be able to live independently right now.

Sorry for the novel. Obviously I think about this stuff a lot.

Some of the language they use, I'd find a bit offensive if I had autism, talking about kids being "lost" before treatment... As if they're dead or gone or something. Yes, I know I said earlier I don't think my son is smarter than other kids, which potentially he could find offensive one day (I can only hope).

They also spend a lot of time trashing ABA, but this is still the gold standard and much more evidence-based than Son-Rise. Some of the more promising therapies like Early Start Denver Model combine ABA with child-led approaches and I think that's the current ideal.

I think that's a really fair assessment, a conclusion I also drew. What I am trying to work out is how abusive ABA is inherently vs. how it is applied.

I talked to the therapists who are currently working with my daughter, one of whom treated my son, about ABA and eye contact. They both agreed that forcing certain goals is not productive, and that a lot depends on the child. My daughter is more comfortable with more eye contact, and we're not even sure whether she's on the spectrum. Her social skills and receptive language are well ahead of where my son was at the same age. Eye contact is much harder for my son. But both therapists acknowledged that, and so the one who worked with him modified how much eye contact she asked for from him. He will make eye contact spontaneously in certain situations, and I think the best thing I can do is reinforce it when it happens. In addition, I know through my experience with teaching is that it's always a tough balance between pushing and respecting a student's abilities, and that's something that may only come through time, combined with a basic respect for the student. And even then you might not get it right.

One of the therapists has a master's degree in special ed and 9 years experience in teaching special ed. She had to learn to adjust the situation so that her students learned in any way possible. So that may mean letting a child lie face down on the floor during the school day. When I took my children to the pediatric dentist today at the Center for Disability and Development, that's just what I saw a child doing, after he licked the glass on a display he clearly enjoyed looking at. Maybe he will need guidance so that he doesn't alienate others, but at the same time, let him be and accept him. I think it's a difficult balance between doing what will allow one to continue productive social relationships and doing what one needs to feel able to learn, work, etc. And honestly, a lot depends on how tolerant others in his environment are. That's hard to gauge.

What we're trying to figure out is the best placement for my son when he goes into kindergarten. His behavior is an issue when it comes to how much he can learn, because it's hard for him to follow verbal instructions as well as to stick with group activities. He's not disruptive. So he really can't function well without assistance in the regular kindergarten classroom, but he's not a good fit for the behavior classroom. And he's also got more skills than the children in the autism classroom. The issue is that the school district just doesn't have the funding to pay for a paraeducator to support him in a general classroom, even though he's ahead of his peers academically. And while we are fortunate enough to have private therapy, we can't afford to homeschool or to put him in a private school. I am really frustrated by this. Though our governor and legislature could be far worse when it comes to education, it's also not a high priority for them.

As for me, maybe it seems a little Pollyannaish, but I must be optimistic, not only for the sake of my son, but, more importantly, for myself. Even while I know that the world is a cruel place for people who need extra support to succeed.

And oh yes. Potty training. But I am so happy that my son has friends.

concentric wrote:
Some of the language they use, I'd find a bit offensive if I had autism, talking about kids being "lost" before treatment... As if they're dead or gone or something. Yes, I know I said earlier I don't think my son is smarter than other kids, which potentially he could find offensive one day (I can only hope).

They also spend a lot of time trashing ABA, but this is still the gold standard and much more evidence-based than Son-Rise. Some of the more promising therapies like Early Start Denver Model combine ABA with child-led approaches and I think that's the current ideal.

I think that's a really fair assessment, a conclusion I also drew. What I am trying to work out is how abusive ABA is inherently vs. how it is applied.

I talked to the therapists who are currently working with my daughter, one of whom treated my son, about ABA and eye contact. They both agreed that forcing certain goals is not productive, and that a lot depends on the child. My daughter is more comfortable with more eye contact, and we're not even sure whether she's on the spectrum. Her social skills and receptive language are well ahead of where my son was at the same age. Eye contact is much harder for my son. But both therapists acknowledged that, and so the one who worked with him modified how much eye contact she asked for from him. He will make eye contact spontaneously in certain situations, and I think the best thing I can do is reinforce it when it happens. In addition, I know through my experience with teaching is that it's always a tough balance between pushing and respecting a student's abilities, and that's something that may only come through time, combined with a basic respect for the student. And even then you might not get it right.

One of the therapists has a master's degree in special ed and 9 years experience in teaching special ed. She had to learn to adjust the situation so that her students learned in any way possible. So that may mean letting a child lie face down on the floor during the school day. When I took my children to the pediatric dentist today at the Center for Disability and Development, that's just what I saw a child doing, after he licked the glass on a display he clearly enjoyed looking at. Maybe he will need guidance so that he doesn't alienate others, but at the same time, let him be and accept him. I think it's a difficult balance between doing what will allow one to continue productive social relationships and doing what one needs to feel able to learn, work, etc. And honestly, a lot depends on how tolerant others in his environment are. That's hard to gauge.

What we're trying to figure out is the best placement for my son when he goes into kindergarten. His behavior is an issue when it comes to how much he can learn, because it's hard for him to follow verbal instructions as well as to stick with group activities. He's not disruptive. So he really can't function well without assistance in the regular kindergarten classroom, but he's not a good fit for the behavior classroom. And he's also got more skills than the children in the autism classroom. The issue is that the school district just doesn't have the funding to pay for a paraeducator to support him in a general classroom, even though he's ahead of his peers academically. And while we are fortunate enough to have private therapy, we can't afford to homeschool or to put him in a private school. I am really frustrated by this. Though our governor and legislature could be far worse when it comes to education, it's also not a high priority for them.

As for me, maybe it seems a little Pollyannaish, but I must be optimistic, not only for the sake of my son, but, more importantly, for myself. Even while I know that the world is a cruel place for people who need extra support to succeed.

And oh yes. Potty training. But I am so happy that my son has friends.

I'm interested to follow this. Owen is going to school in September and we are also trying to find out what the best fit is for him. We recently found out from a therapist that in the kindergarten class at the public school he would be going to for Junior Kindergarten there will be 4 kids on the spectrum, with Owen being the highest functioning. We are worried that Owen may get lost in the shuffle because he doesn't have as many needs as the other kids. He doesn't have any behaviour issues, he communicates well, has good social skills and if things continue on course he should be toilet trained by then. He struggles with transitions between activities, and sitting down to do an activity for a period of time especially one he may not want to do. I may be a bit selfish, but it does get frustrating when the kids who have the most to gain get less help. I can't imagine where he would be if he was not accepted into the IBI program as they originally thought because he was too high functioning. I'm so glad we were able to advocate for him.

We are now looking at the local Montessori school as an alternative option, which is quite small and might suit his learning style better. It doesn't hurt that his best friend will be going there as well, and it would only be for one year or two.

With regards to ABA, I am a big proponent of this style of therapy but only because Owen is a kid who responds so well to it, there is no way he would be doing as well as he is without it. I do believe that it depends on the kid though, and not every mode of therapy is for every kid. Early on we were very interested in floortime, but couldn't find a therapist close by. I'm so glad we decided to hire a private ABA therapist while Owen sat wasting away on a waitlist. He's a different kid because of it.

E-P, I definitely want to hear about what you do regarding Owen's placement. I'm running through a lot of potential strategies. I'm also trying to make it really clear to the IEP team that we all want the best for my son. What I have heard from other parents of kids on the spectrum is that it might be best to keep them in preschool or kindergarten for an additional year, since their social skills tend to be behind those of their peers.

I saw this earlier today How to Explain Autism to People and liked it. How many of you have told your children about their ASD? I'm not yet ready to, but doing it constructively requires some thought. Note: I like to plan WAY ahead - in this case, maybe years ahead.

concentric wrote:

I saw this earlier today How to Explain Autism to People and liked it. How many of you have told your children about their ASD? I'm not yet ready to, but doing it constructively requires some thought. Note: I like to plan WAY ahead - in this case, maybe years ahead.

I've been telling people. Mostly because because he's past the age of three, isn't potty trained, has less than ten words in his vocabulary and doesn't say hello to people. So it shows. Not that I'd hide it. He is what he is. And I can't imagine him any other way.
I can't home from Paros last night and sure he didn't run up to me immediately. But ten minutes later I kissed him (without him giving me eye contact, don't tell the therapist ) and he said something vaguely resembling "again" over and over. He's a special one, my little man.

So we just had our first wandering incident. I was away from the house for something work-related, and my husband was changing my daughter's dirty diaper, and Alex just left the house. My husband didn't realize for a few minutes that he was gone, and then it took him a few minutes to get my daughter in a stroller to go with him. The people at the end of the street had found him wandering in the street, got him with them, and then called the police. My husband found them when the police were already enroute. The officer had to check whether my husband was Alex's father, and then did a check of our house to determine whether this was a case of abuse or neglect, but of course it was not. Clearly very emotional, frightening, and an unexpected stress for my husband (and me too, after the fact).

Where was my son going? To the "crayon factory," something he's been stuck on for about a day. There's nothing like that around here. He keeps talking about it even after I showed him a couple of videos of how crayons are made.

We've got plenty of child safety gear around the house, but obviously we will be doing more - a deadbolt 2-way lock and spring hinges on the door he got through, in addition to having him wear an ID. We're also going to be taking a picture with his ID information to the local fire and police departments.

Oh my gosh, Concentric!!!!! That must've been so scary.
Kinda confirms my instinct to get every door and window locked with the keys out of reach. Especially since Matt is non verbal.
Glad it ended well though. Gosh, I can't imagine what it must've been like for your husband.

That's so scary, concentric! I'm glad he's okay!

Oh concentric, that's so scary you must have been terrified.

We lost Owen at a Pumpkin Farm one day when he was younger, he just wandered out the back of a bouncy castle. We were hysterical.

I'm glad everything worked out. That's a constant worry for us not just at home, but whenever we leave the house with the kids. Both of them are what we affectionately call "bolters," as in they bolt on you if you're not paying attention.

People who criticize "helicopter parents" have no freaking clue what it's like to parent a bolter.