Everyone has Facebook account these days, and everyone share the photos they took with their family, friends; things they eat, whom they hang out, where they went to, etc. Some of my friends have children about William’s age; and they posted photos of their children went hiking, shopping, eating, birthday partying with other children; look like they had so much fun. Looking at those smiley faces and thinking about William: he has no friends at all, not a single one!
So I asked her if William could join if they have any gatherings next time. She said she had no plan this week. Few weeks later I asked again, she said No in a nice way. I felt really sad, why is it so hard for letting a little boy to join her friends? It’s not like I asked her to babysit William. Everyday I looked at William playing inside the house by himself, I ask myself how can I find friends for him. I don’t want him to be lonely: having at least 1 close friend would be good for him because we’re getting old and we will not be there for him forever.
How do I find friends for William? – It’s the question that I still don’t have the answer yet.
Vy (Eliza and Bruce’s daughter) wanted to invite some friends for her birthday and she wanted to have the party at Chuck E. Cheese in Huntington Beach (15511 Edwards St, Huntington Beach, CA 92647).
William & I arrived a bit early; we waited at the table because he refused to go play: he wanted to wait until everyone got here. 10 minutes later everybody showed up, now William was willing to go play! But …
Sophia (his 3 years old niece ) also came. He kept following her everywhere she went. I asked why, he said “Little children is not supposed to play in here!”. I told him this place is for everyone, but he did not listen: some times he would sit on the table next to the game that Sophia was playing and watched. There was 1 time Sophia got in the little school bus, he got inside also and sat on the back! Sophia’s mom (Hang) did not like that, I could tell.
William stopped following Sophia when everyone went to the table and had lunch; we sat on the next table which was a bit far from Sophia; and I distracted him by giving him the iPad. That worked because he enjoyed watching the videos and eating pizza in our booth. Some times I wanted to take pictures of Vy and her friends so I went to the main table, he went to look for me 2 times, but the rest of the time he’d sit at our table watching his movies; did not care much about the going on birthday party.
Weird behaviors like this make me feel sad, this is exactly the reason we can’t take him to any friends events, with family is ok because everyone is more tolerance, but other people would not understand. I felt sad thinking about how lonely he’d be without having any friends.
Nov 24, 2013: William was born at Fountain Valley hospital.
Jan 2014 – Jan 2015: William was sent to Babysitter at Mrs. Loan’s House (Westminster) when he was 2 months old because Mom had to go back to work.
Apr 13, 2014: William was baptized when he was 4 months old at La Vang Church, Santa Ana, California by Father Bảo Thai. William’s Holy name is Paul.
Jan 2015 – Nov 16, 2015: Stayed home with Dad because Dad was laid off from work.
Nov 16, 2015 – Aug 16, 2019: Day care at Children’s World Preschool in Westminster, CA. He started at the daycare two weeks before he turned 2 years old (because Dad came back to work). He goes 5 days a week from 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM. Mom drops him off and Dad picks him up.
When he started school on 11/28/2016, Mom picked him up from school then drove him to the day care and then went back to work. For those days that are no school, he’d spend the whole day at the day care.
From 8/20/2019, his aunt Lily picks him up from school then babysit him at our home until we get home from work.
Nov 28, 2016 – May 31, 2018: Mitchell Child Development Center in Santa Ana, CA because he’s diagnosed with Autistic. He’s 4 years old as of May 31, 2018. This is a special education school for children with Speed Delay. The school principle is Mr. Bello . His first school teacher is Mrs. Hana Suh at room 309. School schedule is from 8:15 AM – 1:10 PM. Hot breakfast and lunch is provided. At 8:30 AM, there will be DTT (discreet training trile) session for 30 minutes. And there’s 15 minutes a week for Speech therapy. So in the morning he goes to Mitchell school; Mom picks up at 1:10 and then drops him off at Children World Preschool; Around 5:30 Dad comes and picks him up at the day care.
Graduation From Mitchell – with Mrs. Hana
Mrs. Hana
May 2017 – Feb 2018: ABA sessions with ABEST.
Feb 13, 2018 – Sept 2021: Started Speech therapy at Providence Hearing and Speech Center, Fountain Valley branch; every Monday for 30 minutes.
Apr 2018 – Now: ABA sessions with TasKids.
Supervisor: Huy Nguyen (4/2018-3/2019), Elizabeth (4/2019-now)
PC: Jody Nguyen (4/2018-now)
BT: Alex, Anthony, Brenda (5/2019-9/7/2019), Thomas (4/2018-now), Maria (9/5-now)
8/2021: Thomas became ABA supervisor, Mari is the BCBA, and BT is Marilou.
Aug 2018 – Apr 2020: Australian Swim School, once a week, 30 minutes per session.
Aug 2018 – Oct 2020: Abraham Lincoln Elementary school (Santa Ana) in Special Ed class.
Transition Kindergarten (2018-2019) : 8:00 AM – 1:00 PM. Room 54. Teachers: Mrs. Newman Heather, Ms. Birdie, Ms. Sandy. The class has about 7 children, all boys. Breakfast, Lunch is provided. The school is right by our house so we walk to school every morning. Then pick him up by car and take him to Children’s World Preschool so that I can go back to work.
Kindergarten 2019-2020: 8:00 AM – 2:00 PM. Room 54. Teachers: Mrs. Newman Heather, Ms. Birdie, Ms. Sandy. The class has about 7 children, all boys. Breakfast, Lunch is provided. The school is right by our house so we walk to school every morning. Then pick him up by car and take him to Children’s World Preschool so that I can go back to work. Starting 8/20/2019 Aunt Lily picks him up and then takes him home and babysit him until we get home. This arrangement is really great for William because he can sleep on his own bed until 4 PM or 5 PM. Aunt Lily loves him; she always brings something for him to eat after school (pizza, mac & Cheese, noodle soup) before let him go to bed.
Sept 2019 – Mar 2020: kindergarten, in person class
Mar 2020 – May 2020: kindergarten , online class due to Covid-19 pandemic. William did not get to have the Kindergarten Graduation, not even a picture! :(.
Jun 2020 – July 2020: Summer school, kindergarten, online class due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Sept 2020 – Oct 2020: 1st grade, online class due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Mrs. Newman said William is much more advance in math and reading than his classmates so she transferred him to Thomas Jefferson elementary school which has “moderate” level.
Ms. Newman and Ms. Sandy
Nov 24, 2020: William is 7 years old. Because of Covid-19, no gathering is allowed inside so William did not have a birthday party.
Happy 7th Birthday!
Nov 2020 – Nov 2021: Thomas Jefferson Elementary School (Santa Ana) in Special Ed class
Mr. Castaneda, Ms. Crystal & Ms. Dora
Nov 2020 – May 2021: on line class due to Covid-19 pandemic; first grade.
It’s time for William’s IEP (Individualized Education Program); it has been 1 year since William moved to Mr. Castaneda class at Thomas Jefferson elementary school. I still remember how shocked I was when Mrs. Newman proposed that William should be transferred to this school because he was doing so good in class). How time flies! William is gonna turn 8 years old next month and is in 2nd grade.
With the Covid-19 pandemic is still going on, the IEP this time hosted by Mr. C was thru the zoom meeting just like last year (which was hosted by Mrs. Newman at Lincoln elementary school). This time we have Mr. Catenada (Special Ed teacher), Ms. Linday (OT), Ms. Karen (speech), Mrs. Karen (General Education 2nd grade), Mr. Eric Merrit (vice principal) andThomas (ABA supervisor from TasKids).
Yesterday Mr. C and Ms. Lindsay (Occupational Therapist) called to briefly tell me how William’s doing. Mr. C made my day by telling me that William is doing so good with math so he’s gonna send William to a general education class, 2nd grade with Ms. Maureen for 1 hour math session; and Ms. Crystal will go with William to support him. He also said William is good at reading too, but he wants him to try Math in normal class setting first to see how he’s doing there. It’s such a great news to me; and I’m so proud of William.
Ms. Lindsay (OT) said that William is making so much progress on holding the pencil, he prefers to write in upper case but she noticed that if she gave him the adapted paper with visual cues, he’d write correctly with lowercase letters. So she thinks William no longer needs OT every weeks any more; she proposed once a month for this coming year.
Ms. Karen (speech) said that William still has issue with the L letter, especially if it stands in the middle; he says it correctly if L is at the beginning of the words; so she’ll continue to work with him on that.
One other thing Mr. C mentioned that in the class he’d sit still for 30 minutes without standing up and wandering around the house like he did when we had online class. I was so surprised to hear that cuz William I know can never stay still for few minutes, unless he’s watching iPad.
The meeting concluded in half an hour later, then I drove William to school. We got the tardy yellow slip for being late with the “Excused” mark from the school office. It’s Costume Day at school but he refused to wear any costume; we brought some candies for him to share with his classmates.
After 3 months, we met with Ms. Elyse (the Nurse Practitioner) again using their online meeting tool. She asked how’s William is doing and if we have any questions or concerns.
For the last few days he’s been scratching his eyes, especially the left one, that they look so bad. I apply Aquafor on his eyes at night while he’s asleep. It gets a bit better but he still scratching them.
Friday around 9:30 AM William’s school gave me a call asking me to pick him up because he had running nose. It turned out the nurse for this session is not the same nurse in the summer so she did not know that William has allergies. But since I was there so I picked him up anyway. It’s the Covid-19 pandemic, I understand that everyone is so sensitive with Covid-19 symptoms like running nose, cough, fever, etc.
William asked “Did you go to the office?” – I said Yes, then he started to throw tantrums. He pulled me toward the parking lot while I was talking to the nurse. I told him to wait but he was so angry that he ran to the car; I had to say sorry to the nurse to run after him. Once in the car he kept continue to cry and kick. I asked him what was wrong. He said, “I don’t want you to go to the office without me!” – “But I have to go to the office to tell them that I’m here to pickup you” – I said and tried to calm him down. But that did not work, he was upset on the way home.
Anyway, next Monday is Labor holiday so counting today that he was off early, that’s total of 4 days off school for him.
Being a 2nd grader at Thomas Jefferson school, his class will be ended at 2:00 PM, which will conflict with his speech therapy at Providence Speech and Hearing center at 1:00 PM every Mondays with Ms. Gina so we decided to cancel the therapy.
We’ve been using tele-health for the speech sessions but because today is the last day, we wanted to see Ms. Gina for the last time in person and gave her some appreciation gift. William was so excited to go. Actually he had been asking to go to the office because he said it was boring to have the on-line meeting.
State of Hawaii demands that everyone is traveling to Hawaii that did not get the Covid-19 vaccine will need to take a Covid-19 test within 72 hours of the departure time; and they only allow travelers to enter the state with negative test result.
Thus we made a 2nd Covid-19 test for William on Monday 8/9/2021 at 9:45 AM (our flight was 8/12 at 8:30 AM so we could take any appointment on 8/9 after 8:30 AM to meet the 72 hours requirement). Out of 12 family members were going to Hawaii, only William and Victoria are under 12 years old and don’t have the Covid-19 vaccine yet. So today I drove both of them to Walgreens for the test.
I reminded William the procedure again, he was not scared at all.
This time the result came back quickly, the next day. I guess because it was not weekend.
It was negative for both kids. I was so relieved because I was afraid that the result would not come before the departure date: we have to log in to the Hawaii state website to upload the report before departure.
With Dr. Mark H. Ellis, Pediatric Allergy and Immunology.
Address:
725 West La Veta Ave, Suite 100
Orange, CA
A skin prick test was done (They drew numbers on William’s back and and used little pricks to punch the skin on those numbers).
Did not know how it was done, William was so ready but the first prick hurt him so he refused to continue. The nurse came in to help, she held him tightly so the he could not run. Right way after 5 minutes we could see the marks turned red, and he started to scratch his eyes a lot. After 20 minutes, the nurse came in to check and wrote down the results. Then Dr. came to look at the results and gave him Benadryl to help with the allergy.
