[Deleted User]

Lots of laughs over all of the toilet stories!

An update on our predicament: My husband took the toilet off a THIRD time. Couldn't figure out what was blocking it after hours of poking with the auger… and so he took it into our backyard and smashed it with a sledgehammer. Told me it felt good however he was a bit disappointed that it instantly smashed into smithereens because he had been hoping to whale on it for a few minutes.

and do you know what my little turkey stuffed in there? A hairspray bottle. Full size hair spray bottle! who knew such an item could fit?!

WE ended up with eye hook type locks up high on the door and the children have to ask us to open the door when they need to go.

On aside, we know have eye hook locks on every single door in our house. You've got to wonder what visitors think?!

Michelle

p.s. thanks for all the ideas everyone!

[Deleted User]

Hello everyone,

We are Alex and Sasha from Vancouver, Canada. Our two-years old son, Andrew, has recently been diagnosed with autism. Although we have put his name on the waitlist for a few ABA providers in BC, we can't afford their service at the moment.

We know that ABA services are paid by the government in other provinces, so we are considering to move to Ontario or Alberta in order to get a treatment for our son. We would appreciate contact information of families who had an experience of moving to another province and getting ABA service there, or simply any information that could be helpful in our case.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards,

Alex and Sasha

alexashv@yahoo.com

[Deleted User]

My son has a problem with humming. He is 27 months and does not speak, however he hums constantly in a monotone all day. He will stop when I tell him "no hummimg" and I praise him profusely, but then he starts up again right away. I have tried distracting him to other activities but he still hums through his favourite things, even when eating.
He has started babbling, so I try and get him to babble, but he reverts to humming. This has been going on for 3 months. Does anyone have any ideas that may help?
Thank you
Allison (Matthews mom)

[Deleted User]

Hello,
I am looking for a GOOD neurologist who can do a long (several hours) EEG with my 7 year old daughter, Tessa. I live in Victoria, but I can travel ANYWHERE to get an accurate test.
I appreciate your replies.

Franca

[Deleted User]

I'm looking for a woman from Cowichan Lake that I talked to via e-mail a month or so ago about an at home ABA program. We talked about the binders for the information package called "Help us Learn". Please give me a call at 1-250-923-5672

Thanks, Lisa Luoma

[Deleted User]

So what does my son start doing this weekend?? Flushing things down the toilet!! I may go with the poker/lock door system, but he is newly potty trained and goes on his own initiative. Maybe I will put bells on the doors so that we can hear whenever he goes into the bathrooms. Thanks for the good ideas.

By the way, on our garage we have an old door knob with a turn lock on it (need thumb and finger to lock it) and we put one of those plastic (supposedly child proof) knob covers on it. We can stick one finger in to lock and unlock the door and he hasn't figured out how to do this yet.

The story about the autistic child killed in a group home in Ontario is also in the weekend Globe and Mail (full page story).

Nancy (Casey's mom)

[Deleted User]

Okay, this message may seem a bit bizarre but I am looking for some wisdom from those of you who may have experienced this before.

My son who is three has come to greatly enjoy stuffing and then flushing rather large objects down the toilet. He has been sneaking into our downstairs washroom and has sent all sorts of wonderful objects down the pipes. We only discovered this new passion because the toilet stopped working and no matter how much we plunged, we couldn't get it going again. My dear husband had to take the thing out of the floor and use a snake thingy. He discovered all sorts of gems…

Anyway, despite my vigilant eagle eye on the boy since then, he has done it AGAIN. Tonight the toilet is not working so my conclusion is that some prized object is stuck.

My question is has anyone faced this before and do you have any wonderful preventative ideas? I do not mean program wise, that I will call my consultant for.

Short of locking the bathroom with a deadbolt so he can't get in, I'm at a loss.

Michelle
(mother of Breanna and Griffen the terrible)

[Deleted User]

I wanted to respond to the posting by anonymous about "bridging money", and I suppose respond to some of the other Kindergarten transition funding questions out there.

I have not heard the term bridging money but I suspect it is the kindergarten transition money as I've been told that individuatized funding via EIBI is coming our way sometime between june and september (by our I mean parents not me in particular ). THerefore I would imagine the bridging lingo is due to the fact that the Mcfd people think this money is temporary.

My daughter receives kindergarten transtion money. I am somewhat vocal but nobody asked me to be hush hush about it. They (as in social workers) called me about it back in august. She was in the first groups of kids to get the money.

Recently I began to hear little stories about other children in my area receiving funding who were not of the kindergarten transition age bracket. Some of these families were those who were vigilant about calling/letter writing etc. What I was told was that there was money left over in the budget and mcfd wanted to offload it before year end.

I called, spoke with a social worker and several days later was informed that I will be receiving money to reimburse my costs towards my son's ABA program. (We run two ABA programs for our two children with autism just in case anyone is confused as to why I am receiving money 2x).

I have not received this money yet, however I will be brave and post this message with my name attached anyways.

I was never told not to pass on this information and so I am quite happy to do so. I understand that each area/district whatever is operating quite differently but here in Maple Ridge, it appears that children under the age of the kindergarten transition funding program are able to receive reimbursement for costs up to the end of march.

I strongly urge every parent to be in contact with their social worker or their social worker's boss to inquire about funding for their child.

In many ways anonymous is right. As I have stated a few times I was never asked not to spread the word, I was never told that this money was for a select few, but many other parents are fearful about sharing with others as it might damage their funding.

In regards to issues of supported childcare, to my knowledge supported childcare is completely frozen right now. In our area, those children who are applying for scc for september are being told they will likely not be able to attend preschool/daycare etc because of this freeze. The transition money however appears to be in excess and it is often the same parents applying for both so hence the statements that scc is coming out of transition money. Apply for what you need for scc as well as your aba program. The worst that can be said is that is more than our monthly maximum.

Hope this helps,

Michelle
(mother of Breanna and Griffen)

[Deleted User]

Hi Lise

There is something that we do that helps out with costs of ABA and other therapies. It is called an "At Cost" Insurance Plan. The basic premise is that you can make at source (pre tax) deductions as premiums for the plan. Say you do $1000 per month (it can vary as dramatically as you want, of course no more than you make!). This $1000 goes to the insurance company. You then make an expense claim to them with receipts, including payroll, consultant costs, materials, diapers (if that is an issue) etc. The insurance company takes a percentage of your claim, usually 10%. So you can claim back about $900 of that $1000 that you gave them. So you are getting more than 90% of your pre-tax dollar to spend on your program. This is much better than only getting 60% of your pre-tax dollar, which it would be if you are in a 40% tax bracket.

The catch is that it needs to be done in a small company. I've run this successfully for about four years in a company of about 35 people…

Its important you weigh this off against your personal tax and employment situation. It is not right for everyone.

That's all I know (I'm just a parent, not an accountant)! Feel free to call Frank Malinka, my Financial Planner, at 604 688-0300. He can work the details with you to see if it is right for your situation. Please mention me to him if you call (note I do not make any money or other incentive on this – just building goodwill!).

Rob

[Deleted User]

I have been reading with interest the postings
from families re. Kindergarten Transition
Funding. In November of 2001, after several
months of hounding the "supervisor" of Social
Workers for the Surrey regional district (or
whatever it's called now), I received a call
asking for a proposal of what I wanted in
terms of funding for my son's ABA program.
Thinking that there must be some written
criteria to which she was referring I soon
discovered that I was telling her the terms and
she was listening! She intimated that if I faxed
MY proposal that something would happen to
help us. She was unable to tell me why she
could now divert Supported Childcare money
to support our ABA program as the new KTF.
Within 6 weeks we received paperwork, in the
guise of Supported Childcare, that gave us a
six month contract worth approximately
$8,000. She back-dated the money to our
son's fifth birthday! She also said that she
could not guarantee that the funding would be
extended a further six months to last until he
turns six – which, of course, is the magic
birthdate when he will no longer receive
funding. The social workers that I have dealt
with appear to be truly caught in the middle
and are desperately looking for a way to get
funding to us. It appears that each health
region is doing something totally arbitrary so it
is no wonder that parents don't know what the
true story actually is! I suggest that you keep
phoning and leaving messages until they can
no longer ignore us! My apologies for posting
this in anonymity but since we still have a
chance to maybe receive six months more of
funding I will not risk offending the powers that
be. Tragic isn't it.

[Author]

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