An Artifical Coloring Free Birthday

Well, so far we've survived the holidays, the start of no artificial colors, Waylon's birthday, and back to school for everyone. Although it sort of feels like I'm doggy paddling with my head barely above the water, we are still afloat!
Of course, in usual Lindy-style, I piled way too much into the day of Waylon's birthday, which left Travis home with the kids to clean house while I was getting groceries and a hair cut. By the time I rushed through the frosting isle at Price Chopper I realized there is artificial coloring in every single brand and color of frosting (even white!). So I made a phone call to Mom for the homemade frosting recipe on the way to the ice cream isle, where after a hunt of most of the freezer section I found three flavors of ice cream without artificial flavors for his party. Do you really think they need to add caramel color to the ice cream? No. I don't think so.
Anyways, of course Waylon was asleep by the time I got home, (but Trav did get the house pretty clean!) and he was in no mood to wake up. When we got out the presents, he had absolutely no interest in finding out what he got, so after a couple tries we decided to wait until after cake and ice cream.
Mom helped me whip together the frosting real quick and we threw together a pretty cute little birthday cake. Of course Waylon wouldn't open his eyes to look at it.

Trying to get Waylon to blow out his candles

We sang Happy Birthday and tried for about 5 minutes to get him to blow out his candles, but finally gave up and decided to try again the next day.
The next morning we got up and headed to Monkey Bizness. He LOVED it. He just went crazy with all of the sensory input there; man did he go to town! We saw one of his friends from ABCnD Autism Center there with his parents, and he was in sensory overload with all of the kids and noise and was not interested in playing at all. Monkey Bizness was definitely a good choice for Waylon though!

Waylon climbing high at Monkey Bizness

When we got home, we sang Happy Birthday and he blew out the candle like a champ! He ripped open the rest of his presents and played with the ones he (actually I) opened the day before. It was like a whole different kid!

Waylon's birthday party, Take 2

Waylon found a bag of Doritos after the Chiefs game Sunday, and had an artificial coloring fix. But other than that, he has done really well. I've talked with his teachers, and the schools are on-board with it, but I sent extra snacks just in case the rest of the kids are having a snack with artificial colors. I've called the bus barn to let them know of our new schedule (because of nursing school.) Talked with both daycares, and got the extra days lined out there. Thanks to my awesome sister Amy, we are still going to be able to get him to ABCnD while I am in nursing school crunch time. Mom's helping out with Caden after school, and Travis is pulling a huge extra load of picking up all the kids when he gets off work. (They're in three different places!) We have also restarted the fish oil and beefed up the gummy vites, and I'll be searching health food stores this week for the other few vitamins that aren't in his gummies. And I've found some great therapy ideas online that I am excited to try at home in the evenings. I'm hoping they'll be fun for all of us to do together. I'll let you know!
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Here's to a stressful, but fun, successful, and happy, artificial coloring-free 2011!