Money??!!

Jacob had all of a sudden learned the concept of money.  Whenever he can't get a toy to do what he wants he says, "oh no broken need go store buy new one, need money"  or "need screwdriver, go store buy need money."  Not sure how he has come up with this concept really because I don't talk much about money or involve him in money, such as getting him to pay at a store or even say about needing money.  Lately it has become so much that I told him the other day "you need a job to get money."  To which he said "no".  Well today I asked him to throw something in the laundry and he went to do it.  I gave him money.  He now has a little money jar.  I don't know if he's too young for this but he seems to understand the concept of needing money to buy things so from now on he will need to bring his money to the store if he wants something.  It's weird though because I don't even buy him something every time we go to the store.  I rarely do actually, so I'm not sure how he learned this concept.  I wonder if paying him for going pee on his own will work??

We're "normal"

A few months ago Jacob began to self-stim.  For people that don't know what I'm talking about self-stim is when a person does something to comfort themselves.  It is sometimes a child sucking their thumb.  Jacob's case was a bit different.  He would chuckle to himself and make body movements as well as vocalizations.  The issue with self-stim is that sometimes the person is escaping into their own little world and it is hard to get them to join into the rest of the world.  He would do it non-stop if allowed.  I was frustrated at the time and did what I knew and spent time in his face playing with him so that he couldn't escape into his own little world. Eventually it pretty much disappeared.  However I realized that what brought it on was my going back to work and then I realized that when he did it when I first met him he was coping with all the change going on, not that it was part of who he was, like how I thought.
So to help me to help him cope with change better I had made a self referral to a program called CASA, they deal with infants and children under the age of 4.  You meet with counsellors and psychologists and they do an in depth assessment of the child and situation.
Today was our day to go.  It was a 2 hour assessment filled with questions and observation.  The end result is that Jacob has had trauma in his life with all the changes but that now his adjusted to the current situation.  He may for years to come have anxiety about situations that he doesn't know everything about.  He is delayed in his speech but is making leaps and bounds with it and is catching up.  He likes to chew on hard toys which I need to replace with gum, and either than that he is a normal little boy and all of these things are normal things in other kids as well.
So why did I feel the need to go through this process??  Because we do go to speech and one of the aides that we deal with, the minute she heard self-stim, assumed he had autistic traits.  Now the drawback of small town supports is that they see a limited number of children and don't really see the worst case scenario kids.  So my opinion is that they are looking for what is wrong with the kid and assuming more than it really is.  Versus the city where they see those kids that are really really high needs, so seeing a kid like Jacob to them is just a normal developing little tyke, no issues.  So I can now take the report that they will send me to speech and say, no autism, no issues, only speech so lets do what we're supposed to be here to do, work on speech, not diagnosing my son, who is PERFECT!!!!!

My dog.

This is my dog Gracie.  I've had her since she was a puppy, almost 11  years.  I have always had the attitude that a dog is a dog is a dog is a dog.  They are animals, not family.  That is until you have to make a tough decision.  Gracie has always been a dominant dog.  She's territorial.  She perceives that all space is hers.  She always has, for as much as I think I'm the dominant in the house, and I am, she thinks she is 2nd in command.  I knew that she and any child would be a challenge.  Jacob doesn't really engage with her, he likes Gertie and will play with her but Gracie he pretty much leaves alone.  So over the past 11 months there have been 3 incidents.  Once Jacob did go in her space; she was hiding under the picnic table and he crawled under, she snapped didn't bite.  Then another time she snapped again, this time though she was on the couch, totally not her space, and he crawled up, she perceived it as her own and snapped, this time though she got the tip of his ear.  I consoled him made sure that he was fine then when he wasn't in the area dealt with her.  She's been outside ever since.  She comes in at night to eat and sleep but either than that she's out.  She does have a thick coat and shelter so she's fine out there.  I am at a loss of what to do though.  Does she become an outside dog now and that is how I deal with it, do I put her down, do I try to find someone who will take her?  I've emailed two trainers to ask them for suggestions or see if they would think she can be rehabilitated.  My dream is that we buy an acreage and then she can be an outside dog all the time with a doggy door to the garage.  This way she has warm shelter whenever she wants and all the open space she would like.  She doesn't go after Jacob, for the most part she ignores him as much as he ignores her, we only run into an issue when she thinks its her space and he's in it.  Ugh, I hate this decision.