First of all, Claire's stimming behavior has reduced DRAMATICALLY! She can easily play with a toy now like a normal kid would and not just line the toys up or flap her hands at it.
She has also started laughing when something funny happens on a cartoon. She has her bad days during a yeast die-off but always comes out of the bad days with an even better day.
Okay, before November 29th, Claire's vocabulary was NOTHING. She couldn't play catch, slide on a slide, make eye contact, say hello or goodbye, sleep in her toddler bed, handle ethan so much as whimpering without erupting in a horrible never ending tantrum, or do hardly anything for herself. I'm going to try and list all of her improvements but there are so many that I may not list them all.
First, a list of words she has learned to say:
apple
please
thank you
yes
no
hi
bye
momma (hoorayyy!!!!)
baby
yay
yummy
box
doll
dog
snake
snack
move back
jacket
jump
bounce
shoes
boots
outside
papa
look
book
cherry
rainbow
whisper
kisses
good
okay
go
Now, this may not seem like much, but to us (and Claire), this is HUGE!
She has also learned to slide down the big slides at the park all by herself, get onto and jump on the trampoline, see-saw, ride around in her truck, play basketball and actually shoot the ball towards and sometimes into the goal, play catch, point at things in her book and try to repeat what we tell her they are, and as of yesterday she can COUNT TO 10!!! Yes! MY darling Claire can count to 10. I never thought she would learn this much so quickly, but after only two days of watching a cartoon by Leap Frog, she has learned to count to 10. Of course, I can hardly get her to do it on command, but nevertheless she's able to count to 10 on her own.
She can say "Hi" to her daddy when he gets home from work, "Bye" when leaving anyone's house or when anyone leaves our house, she sometimes says thank you without having to be asked to say thank you, and she plays with her cell phone up to her ear talking (before, she would never know that's what it was for, but she has learned that's what it is--she's had this toy for 2 years).
Also! After her bout with the flu, she had spent an entire week sick in our bed. We decided to try letting her sleep in her toddler bed. She has done GREAT sleeping in it!! We even got her her first big girl comforter and sheet set for her big girl bed. THis milestone was one that I didn't see happening for a long time since up until this point, we didn't think she would mind us and stay in her bed. But, she has done been sleeping in her big girl bed since December!!!!!
As of now, she's still taking the digestive enzyme before every meal, she's taking 500-1000 mg of vitamin C per day, and when I remember to give it to her, probiotics once a day to help her with yeast. She's also still on the GFCF diet. Her eye contact has gotten SOOOOO much better. I know we still have a long ways to go, but I recently started reading a book called "Healing the New Childhood Epidemics Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies by DR. Kenneth Bock and these recovery stories I'm reading are soo very encouraging. They made me realize that this is going to take time and patience but when I put it down in writing, I can see that Claire has already improved so much!!
We have had a couple of setbacks in that we learned we have been giving her milk and toothpaste containing a thickening ingredient called carrageenan, which can cause the digestive tract to be inflamed and damage the immune system by not allowing the stomach to properly absorb nutrients. We immediately cut everything out that contained this and we are hoping this will help her too. I'm learning in the books i'm reading of new therapies and supplementation that can help too. The information I'm taking in has been a blessing and a bit overwhelming. A lot of people don't agree with what I'm doing here and think that Claire was simply born this way and the only thing that can be done for her is to accept her the way she is and love her the best we can, and that the stuff I'm doing won't help. But obviously from the amazing improvements she has made in such a short period of time with nothing but diet change is PROOF and NOT coincidence that she is getting better and I have all the faith in the world in her and the things that I'm learning and applying that she will come out of the fog and one day be unrecognizable as having autism. This is my vow to her that I will do everything in my power to help her out of the fog in her mind and help restore the good things in her mind and body that will help her to feel better.
And on that note, here's a short video of Claire speaking a couple of words after she brought me her shoes and told me "outside"
