Well poop!

I mentioned about Silas interviewing for a promotion. It basically was between him and another guy in the office. He called a little bit ago from work to tell me that he didn't get the job. The guy that did get it is very nice, I have met him. However, Silas trained him for the position he is in right now. He is known for calling because he is hesitant about doing things and it is a known fact that he does not have as much experience building wires and such. He also carpools with the boss. To me, that was a huge conflict of interest and given that my understanding is that he and Silas both missed the same questions....well, I will stop there. Silas couldn't go into details about what the supposed reasons were for not getting the promotion, but you could tell he was disappointed. Once he gets home, I am sure that he will let me know what he was told the reasons were. I think he feels a little like me that maybe a little bit of friendship was the final decision maker.

So, back to square one. Hopefully this just means there is something bigger and better waiting for Silas right around the corner.

*UPDATE*
The boss brought both of the guys into the office and said they were extremely close. He decided to go and ask a few of the other employees their opinions, and with the way he worded the question, that is how he decided which applicant he would choose. He knew when he asked the question what the answer would be. The question he asked was which of the two applicants was the most methodical. Silas, knowing more than the other guy, tends to skip some unnecessary steps, so naturally, the three people asked had no choice but to answer that the other guy is. Never mind that he still calls Silas for help and nevermind the fact that Silas was the one that trained him. You would think that some of that would have come into play, but that would have been basing it on a "personal decision".

On the other hand, the boss claims to be trying to get Silas' current job inflated to the same position that Silas just was rejected from. Supposedly the pay would be increased to that amount as well. However, knowing how no business likes to spend more money than they absolutely have to, I doubt it will happen even remotely soon, if ever. We'll just have to hope he pulls through somehow.

Help my friend out!

A friend of mine (also named Melissa) would like to attend a concert in Vegas. Tickets are pretty expensive, and they currently have a contest going. All she has to do is be the person with the most clicks on her website. Let's help out Melissa and get her the tickets she's wanting! Just click on the link below:

http://www.bandbuilder.com/vegoose/index.php?ref_code=F66783

Thanks! I know she'll appreciate it. :)

Library Trip

Joshua now has his very own library card. He is so proud! I finally got brave enough to try bringing him to the library. I have mentioned before about his booming voice. His sensory issues cause him not to realize just how loud he speaks most of the time.

I spent the day preparing him for the trip. I explained to him that we have to be quiet when we go into a library and use our library voice, which I demonstrated several times. I then promised him that if he was good and let me get the books I was going after, I would let him pick a book and then get his very own library card, just like Jacob has. His eyes sort of lit up when I told him this, and he said ok.

So, when Silas arrived home, we got ready to leave and piled into the van. Everytime I would turn a corner he would ask, "Is that the Library?" So, when Jacob finally told him "Yes, Josh" he was extremely happy.

Both boys were patient and helped me gather the books I was looking for. Then I let them each pick a book they wanted to read. Jacob chose a book about dinosaurs and Josh found one with a bulldozer on it. We then went through the videos and they each chose one they wanted to see.

We then filled out Joshua's library card application and checked out. When he got the card, he was beaming. He was even excited to put it away in my wallet. LOL The funniest part was when we were leaving. He looked at the woman who had just checked our books out and said "I love you, I lovin' you too, bye!" She simply told him bye. LOL

Can I talk to your mom?

Ok, I am 29 years old, 30 next month. Is it wrong to be annoyed when the phone rings and I answer only to hear an older gentleman ask if he can speak to my mother? I mean, how hard is it to respond to a "Hello?" with "Hi, May I speak to the woman of the house?" Or how about, "Hi, may I speak to the homeowner?" Nope. Instead we have the conversation go something like this:

Me: "Hello?"
Caller: "Hi, can I talk to your mom?"
Me: "Umm, this is the lady of the house."
Caller: "No way! You sound so young! (insert laughter here)"

This has been going on a LOT the past few years and it is ALWAYS the same two groups that do it - the firefighter's association and the police association. Grr. Do they really think they are going to get my money this way?

It was humoorous the first few times it happened. I laughed right along with them when I'd respond that I am the lady of the house and they would chuckle at how young I sound. Hey, I didn't choose my soprano voice, it was a gift. LOL After several years of this though, I am getting annoyed by it.

I was on complete bedrest during my pregnancy with Jacob (my oldest) and my mother came over to take care of me everyday while my husband went to work. One of the guys called and when I answered he asked to speak to my mother. I had a few too many of those calls in the weeks prior to that, so that time I handed the phone to my mother who politely told the guy that he had just spoken to the lady of the house. I could hear her say "Yes, I'm her mother, but she is on bedrest and I'm here taking care of her". LOL

There have been a couple of others that I have responded to them by saying, "Yes, you can speak to her if you hang up and call HER home instead of mine" or "Well, I'm sorry, but she is in her own home 15 minutes away from mine."

Today was a little different. The firefighter's association was who the call was from. This guy made no assumptions - he simply asked if he could talk to the lady of the house. Finally, someone wanting money with a little common sense! No, this man ruined the successful request by turning around and saying, "Wow! I thought maybe I was talking to one of the teenagers or something because you sound so young!" Oh well, better luck next time, sir. :)

I guess I should be grateful that they are all local. Otherwise I guess I'd get a lot of comments about my supposed accent (which I still don't notice) as well.

Wanna hear a secret or two?

First secret is that Silas has an interview on Thursday. The guy in the position above his left the end of July and they are needing to fill it now. Silas applied. It would mean more money, which would be a tremendous help with all this therapy that Joshua is going through, because frankly, it is going to suck us dry at this rate. I haven't really said anything to anyone other than my parents about the interview for fear of jinxing the whole thing, but now that I can no longer keep my mouth shut, prayers would be greatly appreciated. He has also applied to a local hospital as well, and one of the employees put in a good word for him, so maybe something will come of that if this one doesn't work out.

Second secret is only going to be partially given here. heehee You'll have to wait a while for more info because it is in the planning stages still. I have been racking my brain trying to come up with some way of making a little extra money for us to help go towards the cost of the therapy. So, about a month ago, I had come up with the idea of making toothfairy pillows and tossed the idea to my mother who gave me lots of other cute ideas that I could branch out to. Well, my cousin Lacey (who's blog is linked to the right - McInnish Bend) happened to start a new business soon after that called "Tiny Touches" and is making things along the same lines as what I was planning to do - not the same, but similar enough that I don't want to intrude on her business and ideas. (Sometimes I think our brains are molded together or something because we always seem to come up with the same ideas at the same time, which isn't always a bad thing! LOL)

So, I decided to go ahead and try and find something else that I could do, that no one else has cornered the market on. Each time I would come up with something, the idea was everywhere and there was no way in the world I could compete with the people who have been at this for longer than me and are making much fancier versions of what I would be making. Like the swing dresses - yes, I can make them no problem, but there is another mom on the cloth board who makes them with embroidered pockets as well as the embroidered matching diaper. How the heck could I ever compete with that?!

Fast forward to last night - a product suddenly came to me! I have no idea what triggered it exactly, but my mind started racing with it. It is based on an idea I got from playing with Elena. I went online to see if I could find anything else like it and I couldn't! There were other things that were more advanced in style, but not the same at all! I wish I could explain a little bit better, but it would ruin the surprise. ;) I drew out some designs and then emailed my mother with some descriptions to see what she thought about it. She actually liked it and gave me a few other ideas to go along with it! Now, the trick is going to be actually producing a few of the product and see if it looks anything at all like I am envisioning. That may put all of this on hold if I can't get it to look right, which has happened a few times before (such as with my original idea for Brenna's Christmas gift that I am still hoping to eventually figure out how to make!). :)

When you finally see what I have come up with in my head, you are probably going to wonder what the heck all of the fuss is about. LOL It is a really simple thing, and if it turns out the way I see it in my head, it is really simple looking as well. But to me, for some silly reason, it is exciting!

In addition to my little idea, I have also been thinking of making cards. I used to make Pergamano cards, and my mother thinks I could easily make money that way, but I'm not so sure. I'll have to go purchase some new tinta and see what I can come up with. Who knows, maybe there is hope for me yet. ;)

My final idea was to have a holiday shop. I LOVE the holidays - I always think of family. :) I'm still toying with the idea a bit, and I think I could fit the new product into that type of business easily. I say that, but who knows? I may not even be able to produce the thing! ROFL!!! I made my grandparents a wreath for Christmas last year. They didn't want one, but mom insisted, so we went to some craft stores. She told me she wanted us to make them one, but she had no idea how to do it. I told her I'd be happy to make it, so she bought a bunch of things for me to decorate a plain wreath with. I took it home, played around with it, and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. They loved it and I don't think they even realized I had made it at the time. So, that is where that idea came from.

Where am I going to sell whatever I decide to go with? That I am not sure on either. My cousins are renting booths at flea markets, so that is an option I suppose. There is always the internet. Or maybe even a combination? We'll see. So much planning is needing to be done, that it just may be something that stays in my little head and the drawing board. Who knows? I don't want to jump in feet first without having a plan though!

Enough ramling from me. I have to go and catch up on some school prep for tomorrow. :)

Another day, more therapy

What a day. Once again, one therapy session went well, and the other not so well. To be honest, I was surprised to see the one I expected to be a problem go smoothly.

We started with Speech today and met our brand new ST, Jessica. She is AWESOME! Joshua immediately took to her. When we got into the therapy room, he spotted a new toy - a train. Jessica let him build the tracks the way he wanted and then they played with it for a while. Eventually he grabbed a car and she grabbed a bus and she pretended to get the bus stuck on the track. He told her that the red car would help her bus and then he drove it over and told the bus he'd help. LOL They played like this for about 20 minutes.

During this time, she asked me about how long we had been coming to therapy and what we had been working on. I told her we haven't really worked on much other than offering choices and trying to get him to give us more than a one word answer when doing it. She said she read in the chart about them having worked on the WH questions (who, what, where, when, when, why, how). Here's the funny thing though - they have NEVER worked on this in therapy and I have NEVER been told to work on it at home! I then explained that we were told he needs to do 4-5 word sentences and yet he does 7-8 word sentences at home all of the time. I also told her that during the therapy sessions the past few weeks they had only really been working on 3 word sentences. She looked at me a little funny and changed the subject a bit, so I got the feeling that she thought I was trying to badmouth Roni.

A little later something came up that brought up the fact that I was homeschooling. She did the typical asking of whether or not Josh has any brothers or sisters. When I explained that he has an older brother and two younger sisters, she was fine with it...she said that a lot of times they see kids that are homeschooled and have never been a part of a playgroup or see other kids very often. I explained that we not only have the siblings but we have our first meeting this month with a special needs homeschooling group and we also have him take socialization classes across the hall. So, she was happy to hear this. (Wouldn't you have thought Roni would have put this in the chart?)

At the end of the session, Jessica told me that he is doing great with his sentences. Have I not said all along that he was being taught well below his ability and level? It was good getting the affirmation! I KNEW that I was not imagining any of this. She said again that his sentences were fine, he knows a lot, and you can tell he knows the answers - it is just trying to get him to verbalize it that is the issue - EXACTLY! So, I asked what we should work on this week and she said to work on the WH questions. Yay!!! FINALLY! A real assignment. :)

OT did not go as well today as it has in the past. Joshua gets so excited about going in there that it is hard for him to settle into doing what he needs to do. Today was especially bad.

He took off straight for the steps. Why he loves climbing them, I have no idea. Maybe it is because we only have 1 step to get into our house and so it isn't an everyday thing for him, I don't know. Point being that is ALL he wanted to do today. Mindy had him take off shoes AND socks today. He has trouble getting socks on and off, but he did pay attention to her teaching him today and was successful. Yay! After that, she let him try and get some of the energy out. He climbed into the ball pit on his own for the first time, and once he was done he climbed out on his own - also a first.

This is when things started getting a little crazy. He suddenly had something in his brain snap and he could not stop moving. The more Mindy pleaded with him to come and do the chosen activity, the more he resisted and did his own thing. She asked if we had been introduced to the weighted vest or not and I told her we used it last week and it seemed to help. She never brought it out, but instead brought out a cushion for him to sit on. She also had 4 activities for him. After about 3 minutes of trying to get him to come to her, she finally managed to get him to come. But boy, he did NOT want to do anything she wanted him to do.

We are going to now implement the sensory diet that was mentioned at the first session. I have read "The Out-of-Sync Child" now, so it will help me out a lot I am sure. My assignment this week is to write out a schedule and try to fit in vestibular and proprioceptive activities in particular times of the day. Then if we need to add more we can figure out where to stick them. We have been doing activities each day, just not at the same time every day. Maybe this will be all he needs.

I will say, he was so active today that she mentioned that if doing all of these different types of things do not seem to help, it may very well be asomething chemical going on in his brain and he may need medication. I seriously don't think that is it at all though. We have just started a new schedule two weeks ago and I think that he is having a little trouble adjusting to it for some reason. She said that could very well be all it is. I think once we get into a groove, things will settle down.

So, that's really all the excitement we had today. I sent Jacob's schoolwork over to my mom's for him to do while I was gone. He went to the neighbor's house and helped her pick pears off of her tree and then went back and completed his assignments. He was all too thrilled to find out I left handwriting for him. LOL He did eventually get it done though without too many complaints. :)

Fun with friends

We went and saw my best friend and her family this weekend. We had to get the girls together for some playtime because it had been a while. All of the kids had a good time. We definitely have to do it again soon. :) Silly me forgot the camera, but luckily April and her husband had theirs out and clicked away. LOL They sent us some of the pics, so of course I had to play with one of them.

Elizabeth is just under 6 weeks younger than Elena, so she was very interested in playing. Elena had just woken up from a nap when we got to the house, so it took her a while to get into a playful mood.

Here are a couple of the pics from our outing:

New Elena Sig

The good, the awesome, the bad, and the ugly

THE GOOD: OT went so well. Mindy had an obstacle course set up that Josh just about tripped over as he went into the large OT area. He was a total ball of energy and for 9am on a Monday - whew! Both Mindy and I agreed it would be nice to have that much ourselves. LOL She put him in the b all pit again and after a couple of minutes she threw some colored beanbag animals into the pit for him to try and find. She would name a color, he'd find it, and then he would have to throw it into a barrel that she was holding a little distance away. He has pretty good aim, if I do say so myself. :)

After this, she put him into the barrel and rolled him back and forth a few times, which he LOVED! However, nothing she did seemed to be able to get him to calm down and focus. So, we had our first experience with the weighted vest. After putting it on him (which he did not fight in the least!), she brought him over to the beginning of her obstacle course and gave him the instructions. It was pretty long, and I thought for sure it was going to take several times of him going through before he got it, but he actually surprised me! Here's how it worked:

*Climb up the squishy steps (don't know the technical name, so this will do until I find out! LOL)
*Grab a puzzle piece
*Slide down a slide
*Walk up the next slide
*step down to a bench
*walk across a balance beam
*step onto another bench
*jump down into the alternating feet maze - this was similar to the tires the football players use in practice, but it was flat and further apart
*step up onto a stool
*climb onto a table
*put the puzzle piece into the correct place
*reverse all steps and go back to the beginning

Wow! He had only one problem the first time through, and that was that he did not want to step onto the stool to the table. Mindy simply brought him back to where he left off and told him the crocodiles would get him if he did that, and he stayed on task the rest of the time! She even threw in a few little things like telling him to pick two pieces that were cars for the puzzle, and he did it! I was very proud to see him following the directions like that. I asked her if she thought he would have been able to do that without the vest on, and she said it probably would have been a little harder for him. Very interesting!

Next, she took him to the swing. I was ready for the panic to set in, but he got on it. At first he was a bit nervous, but he settled down extremely quickly. Eventually Mindy let him choose a toy, and surprisingly he took a piano keyboard. He sat on the swing and played it while she continued to swing him and we talked. She asked if we had a keyboard for him, and I laughed. I explained that Silas and I were both music majors, so not only did we have a keyboard, but we also had a full sized piano and kid guitars, etc. She was excited to hear about the music ed and she suggested that when we know he is going to have a meltdown ahead of time (like at a store) we could try bringing a set of headphones for him to wear and have him listen to music. He may get so into the music he is hearing that the things that upset him may not bother him so much...I may try this.

THE AWESOME: After the OT was over, Josh and I had an hour and a half to wait for ST, so we went to the School Board office and I got the homeschooling packet to officially register Jacob. I knew Joshua was stilll a good year away from having to be registered, but I went ahead and asked my questions about registering him next year. He had been talking to the woman behind the desk about his car and asking if she was Ms. Jessica (his soon-to-be new ST - more on that in a minute) and all sorts of misc info he was telling her. LOL So, once he finished, I explained that he is Autistic, is there anything special I will need to do when it comes time to register. She looked at me with a shocked look on her face, looked down at Joshua, and then told me she never would have guessed he was Autistic, and then added a "wow!" to it. I told her good, then it means we are doing something right then! :) That was a wonderful moment! In the end, I think she gave me some wrong info, so I am going to have to check into things a bit more. I have hooked up with a Special Needs Homeschooling group that I was told has a lot of families with Autistic children, so I am sure they will be able to give me more info when the time comes. Our first meeting is this month! Yay!!!

THE BAD: Ok, so back on track. We then went back to the therapy waiting area and signed back in. We were 20 minutes early for our 11am appointment, which is a struggle with Joshua! He wants to run around and be wild since he is so familiar with the floor - remember, it is the same waiting area as the psychology area, so we are there 2 days a week most weeks. Luckily, there was a lot going on out the window yesterday. There were some men taking down 2 tents from something that had gone on during the weekend. Another man had a large lawnmower. On the river was a barge that was carrying some larg equipment and they were trying to maneuver to the correct place under the bridge that is directly next to the children's clinic. So, we were able to pass the time. Next thing I know, Roni comes out and calls for a cute little red-headed boy that came about 5 minutes before 11. I hear her say something to the effect that Joshua isn't here so come on in. I looked directly at her as they were walking in and she saw me and asked if that was Joshua with me. Ummm, yes, he hasn't really changed anything but his clothes since last week! So, her smile somewhat goes away and she looks at the little red-headed boy and tells him he will have to wait until later because it is Joshua's turn. She seemed almost disappointed that she had to work with Josh, and I was a bit disgusted given our experiences with her so far.

So, we go into the speech room and lo and behold, we do the same exact things we have done so far. He has to give his three word reply to make her happy: "I want man." "I want pig". "I want girl". Oh, but we did mix it up a bit this time and added in a "please" every now and then! Woohoo. (note the sarcasm here). So, now our three word sentences are 4 word, incomplete sentences - "I want man, please". "I want pig, please". Oh, but wait, that was coming too easily, so we went back to just the plain, "I want man". grrrr

Hmmm. Still wonder why I am homeschooling? This is exactly what he'd be getting in the public schools.

Later in the session he chose bubbles as his reward toy. She let him blow the bubbles if he answered the question, and on top of the fact that he was yelling, he also was blowing them extremely hard - too hard in fact to get them to work. This is also related to sensory issues. Very interesting (and the ONLY thing I have learned so far from her working with him!)

I must say, I had gotten a copy of our scheduled appointments and saw that starting next week we will be having a new therapist. As I mentioned before, they are getting three new therapists, and Roni was simply filling in the gaps until they start. I truly believe that the reason she has not really worked with him on what HE needs is because she knew he was one that wouldn't remain as her patient, and therefore she could care less - she just filled in the time until they got here! So, I am looking forward to having a younger and hopefully more patient person working with him.

My point of saying this was that I wanted to also say that I found it amusing that Joshua was very bored wiht the repeated activities this week. He didn't even attempt to work well with her because he was BORED! So, at one point at the end, he wouldn't give her the answer and after prodding too much IMO, he yelled out the answer to her and then began spinning his arms. I had to work hard to stiffle my laugh, because it was so funny to see him do that. He was irritated with her, and she looked shocked. I'm glad she saw it though! LOL

THE UGLY: So, it is time to leave and he gets his sticker. As we are going to walk out the door, I asked what I needed to work on with him this week (which she never really gives me anything other than "give him choices"), and she said she had made photocopies of the book that she was using with him and she ran to get it for me. When she came back, she told me we needed to work on him learning verbs. He knows verbs...that isn't a problem at all...he could have answered any of the questions she asked him. The book has Ernie pushing a wagon and Bert pulling it. She asks him "What is Ernie doing with the wagon?" He knows the answer, but in typical Autistic form, he repeats what she says : "Ernie is doing it with the wagon". That's what we are trying to fix...she doesn't seem to get that this is the problem. Instead, she thinks he doesn't know what it is. I mentioned that I noticed he did tend to repeat what she said a lot in the session instead of answering the question. You know what her reply was? "That's just his strategy". What?!?!?! So, I ignored it, we left, and as we walked out we hear her greeting the little red-headed boy with a huge smile and welcome.

I'm glad we are getting a new therapist. LOL I plan on setting the record straight from the beginning and I may even decide to request this new girl do a re-evaluation herself. At this point, I'm ticked. What a waste the past month and the almost $200 has been.

Thank goodness OT is going well...otherwise we may have been pulling out of everything except the socialization classes!

Kids say the funniest things

Jacob (playing with a space ship) : "10, 1, blast-off!"

Me: "You do realize that there are some other numbers in between 10 and 1, right?"

Jacob: "I know, but they were so excited about going to space they decided to skip them!"

What a hoot he is!

"You're the best"

School is going well so far. Today was a bit hectic. No matter what I tried, Joshua would not sit to do his work. No coloring sheets, no listening, no ANYTHING! So, we did some extra activities that the OT gave us. We played "Knock down the wall" and "Wheelbarrow" for a bit. He loves those, so that was a success. I even tried using the weighted blanket I made for him - no go. After that he strictly wanted to look at the pencil lead right next to his eye and follow it, so needless to say, we had to put away the pencils for a while or risk a trip to the ER. So, I made a tent using their comforters and beds, and he played in there for a bit while I worked with Jacob on his work.

I worked with Jacob on his handwriting, day 5 of the Creation, and the then gave him some space themed worksheets to do. We also talked today about the equator, longitude lines and the hemispheres. He understood it pretty well. We had rain this morning, and it just started pouring again, so we have had to postpone today's science experiment. We were going to make our own compass out of wood and some rocks. With the way the experiments have been going so far though, I am perfectly fine with it. I hate science, and this is probably the reason why. LOL None of the experiments so far have worked correctlydespite how accurately I have followed the instructions. How annoying is that? LOL

I had to come on here to share what happened last night. Each night before bed, after the baths and drinks, and before the stories and prayers, the kids clean up the toys that have taken over the living room. Usually we get a bunch of groans from the boys when we announce it is clean-up time. Last night there were no complaints. They quietly did it without a single complaint! And then, to top it all off, Joshua came up to me out of the blue, looked me staright in the eyes and said, "Mommy, you're the best mommy". He had the sweetest look on his face and was smiling. I grabbed him up and gave him the biggest hug and kiss. Not only was it spontaneous conversation, it also was so sweet, and is a moment I will treasure forever. If I say "I love you", he always answers "I lovin you too". But this was so different. :)

So, either tonight or after the girls are in bed for their naps, I will work more with Joshua on his schoolwork...hopefully he'll be ready to work by then.

Happy First Birthday, Elena!

Some pics to share...then an update

Ok, I promised pics of yesterday's lesson, so I am now delivering. :)

Kids hard at work:


Jacob's interpretation of the first day of the Creation: (ok, I have to cut in here and explain some things. LOL Keep in mind this is only his first day of the first grade. ;) He was told to write that God made the Earth and then on the bottom write "And God saw that it was good." His handwriting was way too big and he ran out of room, so he decided rather than re-write anything, he'd just stick the words wherever he could fit them. LOL Can you tell he HATES handwriting? And nevermind the misspelling of the words Earth and Made - he thought my letter a looked like an O. I guess I need to work on my own handwriting. LOL)



Joshua's:


Cassidy's:


Today I let them all do coloring sheets that I found HERE, and Jacob will be drawing a picture of his own this evening. We also briefly discussed comets, asteroids, the Milky Way, stars, and planets. Tonight we will finish with a science experiment that helps show the importance of oxygen. I have to wait until Silas gets home and can keep the baby away from the open flame that we will be using. Scary!

Today also was our evaluation with Ms. G. to find out how Josh did with his second session of socialization classes. They worked this session on greetings while making eye contact and making it a habit each time they see someone for the first time in a day, noticing things about other people (which I have a funny story about in a minute), and being able to discuss the immediate past.

The last one is something Joshua needs a LOT of help with. Like she said, it is not only a socialization matter, but a matter of being a safety issue as well. That is something that has always concerned me a bit. Right now we work on trying to get him to tell us things that happened during the session or an activity right after it happened.

Greetings aren't really too much of an issue lately. He walks up to people on the elevator now and tells them hello. Until the other mom mentioned her son never really having a problem with saying hi to an adult, I was thinking along the same lines...I haven't really given much thought to whether or not he does it with other kids, so I will be paying more attention. Ms. G. said it is not as scary for them to talk to the adults because they aren't as unpredictable with movements and such as compared to a child...makes perfect sense! Anyhow, since we have been doing pretty well with the greetings, she said to start working on ending some playtime activities by saying something to the effect of "It was nice playing with you today". We also can work on getting him to not have a fit if someone says they can't play right now...we should work on getting him to say something to the effect of "That's ok, we'll play again later". It is so hard sometimes to try and remember he isn't going to figure these things out on his own like my other kids.

We then had individual evals given seperately. Ms. G. and Ms. N. both said he does really well with the structured activities. The sessions that he broke down crying usually he got over it really quickly once they began their established routine. We will be adopting the color coding system they used to help keep him organized with school work as well. :) Both of the ladies mentioned that food is a great motivator for Joshua and that when he knew he would get a treat after doing a task, he really tended to focus better. So, we will be having snacktime as well used as our motivation technique. LOL

Our other thing to continue working on is playing with other kids and getting away form the parallel play. He has actually been doing really well with this at home. I'm proud to see the progress in this area. So, hopefully he will keep it up. :)

Ok, now my funny story. Ms. G. had told me early on that one of the things they worked on in class this time was noticing things about people - what they are wearing, how many people were wearing stripes or a certain color, etc. It is apparently working very well with Joshua. LOL About 5 minutes into our talk, he came around and asked her something and she wrinkled her forehead a little bit. All of a sudden he blurted out "You have stripes!". LOL I about died! He pointed at her head and said it again and we realized that he was talking about her wrinkles on her forehead! LOL She was really funny and did it a few more times for him. How embarrasing! LOL

I am glad that he is learning to be more observant now, and I had noticed it a few times lately when he would yell something that he shouldn't. Last week he was playing with a little girl while waiting for therapy. All of a sudden I heard him say something about her bleeding on her face and then I heard her get a bit upset and yell that it was a birthmark. He didn't understand and said it again that she was hurt and she got so upset about it...he didn't know what the problem was and thought she was hurt, and she thought he was making fun of him and got her feelings hurt over it. I felt horrible and tried to explain it to her older sister who had come over to protect her from him. I didn't get into any details, but I did mention to Ms. G. that I had noticed that sometimes he is a little too observant. She said when he does blurt things out like that, just redirect him to talk about something else, like the person's striped shirt. Thank goodness he catches on quickly to things!

First day of school!

Today was the first day of our 2005-2006 school year. We started the day with Joshua's OT and ST. His OT went wonderfully. He spent the first part playing in a ball pit and then we went into a room where he played in buckets of rice looking for puzzle pieces, putting coins into a bank, stringing beads, and then putting on his shoes using his hands. He knows how to put on his shoes by manuevering his feet into the shoes and fighting with them to do so, but she made him actually watch what he was doing and use his hands. He was quite unhappy about it, but got over it quickly. :) Mindy also gave us a nice packet of vestibular and proprioceptive activities we can do at home. I really like her a lot, and Joshua LOVES her! LOL

ST went ok. I am not sure who we are going to have next week. The therapist we have seen for the eval and the past two sessions, Roni, is not listed on our schedule as who we will be with. Instead, they put in the name of a woman that isn't even there anymore! I asked what was going on, and it turns out they are getting three new therapists and we may be split into one of their groups. We can't get Terri, who was recommended to us, because she is now administrator of the STR dept and she had to give up several of her patients to fulfil her new responsibility. Kind if stinks since Mrs, G said she is really great with Autistic children.

The session itself went ok. We went in and Josh immediately wanted the "magnets". We had no idea whta he was talking about for a good minute and finally he showed us a shape sorted that plays music when you put the shape in the correct hole. At the end of the session, I mentioned to Roni that I noticed that last time, and then occasionally this time, she would leave out the word "the" in sentences like "I want man", and I asked if we were supposed to do that or if it was some type of technique they use. She said she is just used to working with a lot of kids on making 3 word sentences and didn't really realize she was doing it...it isn't necessary. She mentioned several times that he has a lot of good knowledge and skills. They worked on opposites and getting him to answer her questions. He is defintiely smart, I know that! It is simply a matter of not being able to pull the knowledge from him when needed. I guess it is just me, but I feel like we haven't really gotten much so far from the two sessions...maybe it is that she knows she isn't going to have him after today, and she isn't worried...or maybe it really is just me! LOL

After we returned home, we started school. As I mentioned before, we are starting the year with a unit study on Space since the boys are so interested in it. We started the day with them getting their school boxes and misc supplies. They were so excited! Then I showed them where each of them were to keep those supplies when we aren't using them. Our first part of the lesson involved reading Psalm 8 and then discussing how amazing it was that God could make such a marvelous thing as outer space and how it is so big that we can't even see all of it...and yet we can still praise Him for all of it. We then moved to Genesis and read the first chapter and discussed the Creation. Each day this week, they will be drawing a picture coresponding to one of the days. Jacob's picture wasn't exactly correct, but he did say he knew that. I went ahead and made him redo it. He had a picture of the Earth and the Sun and the water and land were seperated. All of that comes later. Once I re-explained that, he understood a little better. I'll have to scan his completed project later and post it here. :)

If you were to look at Joshua's picture (and Cassie's too), you'd think I had told them about the Big Bang theory or something. LOL I think tomorrow I am going to print out some coloring pages to help them out a bit. I mainly hadn't given thought to Joshua doing the coloring since he usually has a major aversion to crayons. Seeing him actually take interest though, I definitely want to be sure to encourage it, and I will make it more interesting and a little easier for him now that I know. Don't get me wrong, he will definitely be getting his fair share of coloring and writing this year, but I wanted to be sure the first day went smoothly. :)

Tonight, we will finish the lesson, provided the skies are clear. We are supposed to go out and look at the sky and they are to draw what they see. So, day 1 went pretty well. Pics to be posted soon!

I can't believe it!

Wow! Time sure does fly! My sweet Elena is going to be one year old in just a few days. I looked through pictures from the day she was born and found myself a little teary-eyed. It is so hard to believe how much she has changed from the little newborn to the toddler (well, almost!) she is now. So different!

She received her first birthday present yesterday, and it is so cute! Brenna, Sunshine's daughter, sent her an embroidered diaper, a matching dyed prefold, and a sweet card that she signed herself. ;) Elena loves it, as you will see below. This is one diaper that we will be keeping forever! Here is a pic:



Thank you so much Brenna and Sunshine! We love it!!!

And since we are on the topic of my youngest daughter today, I have to tell about her latest little episodes. She has decided that she enjoys gagging herself after meals now to the point that the entire meal comes back up. You would think she would learn that it doesn't feel too good coming back up, and when mommy says "No" she really means it. But not my daughter! No, she thinks it is funny to gag herself. One of my fellow mommies said she sounds like a supermodel in training. LOL I keep telling her she is WAY too young to be having a complex yet. Hopefully she will get past this little stage soon. None of my other kids did this, so it should be interesting to see how long it goes on.

Anyway, today I will leave you with Elena's tips for other babies who may be celebrating a birthday soon. Enjoy!

It's official!

My current mood:

Therapy has begun! Yay! What a relief to finally have started all of the recommended therapies. :) Since last writing, Joshua has completed his second series of 6 socialization classes. We get the official feedback on Tuesday. She has said that he has done well, but two out of the past three sessions he has been a little out of sorts when first getting there. One of those times was the parking garage incident. This week was because when we came out of the bathroom, Ms. G. was standing outside waiting for us. He fell to the floor when he saw her because we weren't expecting her to be there. (She is usually running a little behind schedule ;) ) He got over it quickly though once he went into the office and she showed him the schedule. It's amazing to me how colors can completely turn things around for him. :)

Yesterday was his first speech and OT appointments. I'll start with the speech, since that is what we did first. Ms. R is a really sweet, older lady. As I stated previously, she said he needs to work on 4-5 word sentences. He does this all of the time with no trouble, so I am still a little confused about this one. He makes sentences that are 7-10 words at times! Anyway, we go in and Josh sits at a table in front of a mirror. There was a shelf behind him, VERY visible in the mirror, and it was stacked with toys galore, all of which were new to him. Immediately he spotted a bus. It had a lot of those Little People characters in it, so she emptied it out and moved them into a pile next to her. She let him play with the bus while she rummaged for the book she chose to use with him. While doing that, she also asked me if he had started doing anything new since she saw him last. I don't know if she forgot it was just an eval that she did with him, or if she thought he actually had a therapy session, but I found it funny she would ask me that. LOL

The book she pulled out had Ernie and Bert doing different tasks such as writing, swimming, washing and drying dishes, throwing and catching a ball, etc. She would cover up one page, show him the other and ask what the character was doing on the page. About 40% of the time he wouldn't even look at the page and would say "I don't know", so she would take his hand and touch the page with it. He'd look at it and she'd ask him "What's he doing?" and he would simply reply "He is doing it". She would then say, "He is {enter the appropriate action}" and he'd say "Yes!" or he would repeat what she said. Almost every one of those actions he had to repeat were 3 word sentences. His reward for repeating or answering on his own using "He is..." was to choose which person or animal he wanted to put on the bus. He had to choose by saying "I want man". Not "I want the man", or "I want that one", or "I want the green one"..."I want man"...that's what she expected of him. To me, it seemed a bit babyish compared to what he does already.

I noticed my printout of the schedule for his ST has a different therapist listed after next week. I am going to check and see if that indeed is the case, and if so, I am going to ask Ms. K if we can possibly check into getting the therapist that the psych recommended. She said she KNOWS that woman is good, and I think if we are going to uproot him from someone he knows three sessions inot this, why not go to the one we KNOW will work wonders? :) We'll see how her schedule fits with ours.

Next was OT. Ms. Mindy was great! She let him explore the room a bit at first. He went straight to a corner where they have some wooden steps set up. She let him go up and down while she set up a fun obstacle course for him. He had to choose a puzzle piece off a table, crawl through a tunnel, go up a slide, climb up some steps, put the puzzle piece in the correct place, slide down a slide, lay on his tummy on a scooterboard and pull himself across the room using his arms and then start over. LOL He had a blast doing it!! Then when he finished the entire puzzle we went into a room to talk about what to do wiht him at home. I have to try a bunch of activities with him this week and report back what helped and then we will set up a sensory diet for him next time. :) I'm going to be trying a weighted blanket (after I figure out how to make a good one LOL), jumping on the couch cushions, beanbag chairs, pillows, lots of deep pressure activities, etc. My understanding is that anytime he seems to be getting out of control or he needs to really focus on something (like school) I'm to try some deep pressure activities and see if it makes a difference. I'm really glad we are starting this now because I am starting school next week. :) She also mentioned some sort of cushion that will help in school, and she said she'd give me more info on it next week.

Overall, I think the day went well. I am a little confused on the Speech still. I personally feel she is trying to get him to do things on a much lower level than he is at right now. Sure the eval may have shown differently, but after being in there for a half an hour,I feel she should have seen that he is beyond those activities and she should have tailored the games a bit more to his level. Of course, I'm not a speech therapist, so maybe there is some sort of underlying reason for her doing it this way. I think we'll get to talk a bit more next week and I can try to figure out what the heck is going on with that. As Ms. G. told me, I can always switch to the other therapist if I want to. ;)

Charity Auction

I haven't really had the opportunity to mention the charity auction that has been set up for onoe of the mamas on the cloth diapering board I post on. When her baby was born, she had to stay in the NICU for 28 days. The lovely insurance company would only cover the highest level of care, which was what she received for only 3 days of the stay before being downgraded. The parents are left with finding a way to cover the huge expense left after that. Many of you know the issues we have had with our own insurance company and their lack of covering services we have needed (Josh's OT is not covered unless he were in Hospice care, ST is only covered if he had a cleft lip or pallette, my gestational diabetes supplies and services were not covered, etc), so this is something that definitely hit close to home. I have always wanted to do something, anything to help with previous charity auctions that have been organized, but have never had a talent I could share over the internet (hard to pass on bell or clarinet playing that way. ;) ) However, now that I am able to sew, I have a 24 month dress I made that I donated for the auction. The auctions go through Friday, the 22nd, so if you are interested in being entered into a drawing for one of many cool prizes, all while helping out a family, be sure to check out the link: http://hyenacart.com/Charity_raffles/ :)

Socialization class #5 and speech therapy eval. Whew!

My current mood:

Joshua had a busy day yesterday...the first of many it sounds. I didn't get to go to his class and eval yesterday because our little Elena has been fighting a horrible stomach bug that almost landed her in the hospital. Yuck! I was waiting for some lab results and unfortunately, I had to choose what info to get straight from the horse's mouth and who to let my husband talk to. LOL
Anyway, Josh started with his socialization class. My husband took him and things started out pretty well. The elevators we normally use appeared to have some issues and no one seemed to know where the stairs were. So, a nice security guard took Josh and N (one of his classmates) to the staff elevator. Instead of having a meltdown from the change in routine, Josh actually thought it was pretty cool. They went to class and Mrs. G. said he did really well. We are supposed to work on reading emotions and facial expressions this week. I happened upon a neat little internet feelings game I am going to try with him tonight, found here.

After the socialization class, they went across the hall to meet the speech therapist who would be doing his evaluation. Silas described how it went, and honestly, I was expecting to hear a dreadfully awful score. She promised to call me today and let me know how it went.

Well, the results are in and not nearly as bad as I thought they may turn out. I now remember why I never send Silas to the doctor with the kids. LOL He came home and told me that it is an older woman therapist and I didn't think it is who we were originally scheduled to be with. He said that she didn't lose her temper or anything, but she did have to try redirecting a lot and also appeared to be getting a little flustered with him. That kind of worried me. I *thought* we were getting someone who was good with Autistic kids and was the therapist recommended by the psychologist. In the end, she told Silas exactly what our pshychologist's report (which they have a copy of but did not look at) said...he needs help with expressive language. I feel like we are going in circles sometimes.

Silas told me that she said his comprehension skills are fine but she has trouble getting him to respond so it makes it difficult. She claims he doesn't say 4 word sentences - if I had been there I would have made sure I let her know that is far from the case! She asked him things like "An apple is red, a banana is what?" and he answered yellow. However, he didn't answer three questions in a set so it counts as a problem. She asked him hypothetical questions like "Your hands are dirty, what do you need to do?" Silas said he looked at his hands and then said "My hands aren't dirty". LOL (BTW, notice that right there is a 4 word sentence!) There were some other things in there as well. Really, we learned nothing we didn't already know, which is plain annoying at this point. Nothing like paying $82 to hear what we already were told back in February!

So, after reading that, imagine my surprise when the therapist called and sounded very nice. LOL She said she is really looking forward to working with Joshua, he's a really neat kid, really cute, has very interesting comments, and he has a lot of positive things going for him. :)

Joshua is 4 years, 8 months old. For understanding skills she has him as scoring 81 which is in the 10th percentile for his age. She said she feels he probably knows a lot more than she could get though. Anyway, that has his understanding at an age of 3 years, 9 months, or about a year behind. She also evaluated his expressive language (which we have known he was behind in). He scored a 70 which means he is in the 2nd percentile and significantly behind. So those skills are at a 3 year, 3 month level. His overall score was a 73 and put him at 3 years, 5 months for his total speech. Not great, but a whole lot better than I was thinking it may be at given Silas' report.

I asked her if Silas had mentioned he is Autistic, and she said yes, and she reassured me that this is indeed nothing I did wrong but something that is very common with Autistic children. The she made me laugh...she said he has a lot of Autistic traits that were very noticable, but he was great with initiating conversations and made really good eye contact. This is amazing to me! He has had 11 socialization classes, and in that short amount of time, he has started to improve, even with strangers, in both those areas! You have no idea how exciting this is to me!!! True, it still isn't consistant, but goodness, it is a major improvement since just February!

Anyhow, she went over all of the goals with me that she had gone over with Silas yesterday and then she had me choose which ones I wanted her to work on first and what would be most beneficial for us in our home and in our working with him. After he meets one, they'll add another. :) She also mentioned that she wanted to see him twice a week. I told her I wished we could do that, and even though we are part of their assistance program which allows us to make a $25 co-pay each time, there is no way we can afford ST twice a week on top of the OT fully out of pocket and $25 each socialization class. She said she understood and that once a week would be fine and she would give him lots of homework. I told her she could load us with tons of homework if she wanted because I was homeschooling him and would easily be able to make it a part of his schoolwork. She seemed very happy to hear that.

So, we start next week on the same day we start OT. :) Ms. K, the receptionist for the therapy office is awesome, and she even managed to get all of our scheduled OT and ST appointments scheduled for the same days and with very little gaps of time in between, if any at all! Should be interesting to say the least! I am really looking forward to seeing the progress he will make once all of this starts!

Homeschooling Convention

My current mood is:

This weekend was the annual homeschool Convention in town. I had a blast yesterday! I took several informational classes and came home ready to start! I think I have finally narrowed down exactly what type of homeschooling we will do this year. With my children being so close in age, it looks like unit studies will work great for them! So, I bought one thing to get us started this year - a Space Unit Study. My boys are very interested in the space shuttle and the planets, and since I have been getting a lot of questions about it the past couple of months (since the last school year ended) I thought it might be a good idea to start with that this year. Cassidy is pretty much into whatever the boys like at the time, so I'm sure we can involve her very easily as well.

Before the convention, I was beginning to get very nervous about teaching Joshua at home. Scratch that. I haven't been nervous about the teaching - it is the end of the year evaluation that has had me concerned. Because of our laws and his age, we don't even have to worry about this until next year, so it is probably really crazy of me to be so uptight about this right now. Anyhow, because of the classes that I took yesterday, I am much more at ease now. The law states that the child must perform to the best of his ability, not that he has to be at grade level in every subject. So, if we choose to our method of evaluation to be that his portfolio is evaluated by a certified teacher, so long as I state in there that he has been diagnosed with High-functioning Autism, they will take that into consideration when looking at his work for the year. He has to show improvement and that is basically it. Thank goodness! That made me feel so much better. So, now we can progress at the speed he is comfortable and able to go at, and not what the school system feels he should be doing.

I wanted to mention some of the classes I took yesterday...

The first class was on processing disorders. The speaker is a local speech pathologist and her speech was very interesting. She believes that we have eye gates, ear gates, and motor gates and these all work together to help us with the learning. A great deal of what she explained made total sense and I was able to relate some of it to Joshua. She mentioned about the eyes and the visual processing disorder. The way she explained it, we have two types of muscles in our bodies - smooth and striped. Smooth muscles are unable to be controlled by us (involuntary) such as the stomach muscles. Striped muscles are those we can control (voluntary) such as the muscles we find in our hands. The eyes have six muscles and are the one part of our body that has BOTH types of muscles that it uses. She believes that since the eyes are formed in such a way that the shape can be changed, that children who squint and blink a lot may in fact be trying to change the shape of their eyes and get the smooth muscles working properly, and if they can't in causes visual processing disorders. It also could cause them to change focus quickly, Does Joshua have this? I have no idea. He does do an odd blinking and squinting thing with his eyes, so he could very well have it...or it could be something else or nothing at all...or it could just be the Autism. But, it does give me more to look into and research. LOL Anyway, this is the therapists site, and she probably explains it a whole lot better than I can! www.MerrittSpeech.com

Let's see...the second class was Homeschooling 101. This was a two hour long class and full of info! There was a brief intro to our state's laws, a discussion of the pros and cons of each type of homeschooling, dealing with the "S" word (socialization), and testing. It was by far the most informative class I could have taken.

I then took a class about one of the curriculums. I kind of got tricked into that one. LOL The title of the class was "Teaching without Textbooks", and it turned out to be about a curriculum that is not textbook based, but literature based. It was pretty interesting, and if I was loaded with cash I probably would have grabbed it! However, seeing as how the speaker has three kids and had to buy 2 curriculums for them at $1000, I figured that it may be neat to just listen and get some ideas. LOL I did get one really helpful bit of info! She listed her daily schedule and it would totally work for our day! And it involves 4 hours of teaching for the day - ours would be a little less seeing as my kids are all younger than hers are.

I then took a class called "Learning In Spite of Labels". This was based on the book of the same name by Joyce Herzog. The speaker went through the book and gave us the 25 teaching techniques we need to remember. The first and last were the most important and they were "Thank God and PRAY". This was one of those classes that in many ways the info given was common sense, but very good reminders as well.

I know there were more classes and I met a lot of people...these were just the main ones that stuck out. I feel totally inspired after yesterday and can hardly wait to get started with the school year. :)

OT Eval

Today was Joshua's occupational therapy evaluation. It went as well as I expected I suppose. Our therapist is named Ms. Mindy. She seems nice for the most part. We arrived early and I filled out the necessary paperwork as well as gave them copies of the hearing test and psychological eval. Not long after Ms. Mindy came out to get us.

We went through the large therapy room and into a smaller room that had a view of the traffic crossing the bridge outside at high speeds. Not the best choice for a child that is easily distracted. LOL After going through the paperwork I had filled out and taking notes from what I described, she asked about whether he has been in day care or school. I told her no and that I was homeschooling him this year. She decided to tell me that sometimes for these kids it is better to have them in a social environment and that we will talk more about it at the end and to think about it. At this point, she had to go and get her eval kit in another room, and I looked at Silas and said, "Sure, I'm going to send my autistic child to school to be social where he will likely be told NOT to socialize for the majority of the day. Makes perfect sense to me!" Ms. G. has told me numerous times that because of the number and ages of my kids, we in sense have a peer group that allows us plenty of social interaction. We also are doing the socialization classes. At the very end of the therapy eval, I did let Mindy know this, and she made a note and suddenly thought that homeschooling wasn't a totally off the wall idea now.

Anyhow, I missed a good deal of the actual evaluation because I was having to fill out yet more paperwork, this time on his sensory issues. Silas was there though, so he kept watch for me. She had Joshua perform many tasks. He had to string beads onto a string, lace something up, stack blocks, arrange blocks into patterns, do a wooden puzzle, cut paper using scissors and draw pictures (neither of those went well), drop small beads into a small container and then screw the lid on the bottle (couldn't screw on the lid), and a couple of other tasks that are slipping my mind right now.

After this, Joshua was rewarded by being allowed to choose a truck to play with. Mindy brought him to the area where they are kept. They were gone very briefl, maybe 45 seconds tops going to the area to the truck area and then back again, and he took the first one he could get to. He came back smiling and had a ball playing. About 10 minutes later, he turned to Mindy and asked her if she wanted to play with the Elmo truck. I had no idea what he was talking about because his truck was green. Then he asked about 4 other various trucks. Turns out, in that extremely brief amount of time he was in the area where the trucks were, he had eyed and memorized what each one of the trucks looked like. LOL It was neat to see how he took that in so quickly.

Mindy then went through the sensory issue paperwork and told us that he appears to have issues with all of the sensory processing areas they test for. She said he will never completely get over all of these, but he will learn how to adapt and hopefully it will eventually allow him to not have so many meltdowns when there is a slight change in schedule. She is going to put him on what they call a "complete sensory diet". We will be given certain times of the day to do certain sensory activities and the object is to try and not have him have so many ups and downs with the activity and behaviors. One example of the activities she gave was after breakfast he might jump on the bed! He's gonna love that! LOL

He will go in once a week for a 30 minute session and it is set to begin week after next. Next Tuesday will be his socialization class followed immediately by his speech eval. Say some prayers that it will go smoothly!

Yay Joshua!

Today was another socialization class. Like the class two weeks ago, things did not get off to the best start. We got to the children's clinic parking garage. There are two entrances to this place and I always go through the first one. Our car and van both have no AC right now, and by going through that first entrance I am able to park in the lowest level of the garage where it is nice and shady, and therefore a little bit cooler than the above levels. Today however, that particular entrance was taken over by one of those lovely trucks that are jacked up on oversized tires which causes them to be three times higher than my minivan. The driver was actually having to peer out their window to see if they could fit the thing under the height restriction bar. ~ Note to drivers of large vehicles: If you have to question whether your vehicle can fit, don't try!

So, rather than wait for that driver to decide whether or not they wanted to chance getting stuck, I went to the alternat entrance. Sweet Josh went into a total meltdown. I parked the van and looked back and he was in tears. I couldn't understand a thing he was trying to tell me because he was crying so hard. I undid the latch on his booster seat and told him we were there to see Ms. G and he dropped down in between the two middle seats where he knew I couldn't reach him and them proceeded to tell me he wasn't going to go in to see her. LOL What a session they were going to have today - it was already starting out great.

I finally coaxed him out of the vehicle. He cried all of the way to the building entrance and then was upset that we didn't have to take an elevator in the parking garage like we usually do. This is when it finally clicked with me what had set him off - I totally screwed up the routine that I didn't even notice I had set! I won't do that again!

We finally made it inside, checked in, and went upstairs to wait for the class. josh immediately headed for the house I previously mentioned. He did not want to share it. He at some point wound up tripping and hitting his head on a little fold down table that is inside of the house, which set his crying into motion once again. Poor guy was having such a rough afternoon. :(

After about 5 minutes, Mrs. G. came out with the basket. Joshua stuck his snack and cup into the basket and then immediately threw himself to the floor crying. I explained really quickly to Mrs. G. that I apparently messed up the routine I didn't realize I had even set by entering the garage on the wrong level and then parking in the wrong spot. She is so sweet...she never even flinched. She smiled and said I could walk him in. He cried for a good 5 minutes in her office and she finally got him settled down. Whew!

In the meantime, the other two moms and I were given handouts about what they have been learning in the past 4 classes as well as a mini-evaluation of our child. Joshua got a lot of praise! I was so happy to read it! According to Mrs. G., Joshua has shown little distraction compared to the last set of classes. He is very observant and makes spontaneous comments on the activities they are participating in. He seems to enjoy the social interaction and seems motivated to participate. She stated that "his play is slowly becoming less dysfunctional". She also stated that "when he is motivated to get something, like food, he can really put everything together: making great eye contact, asking in a clear voice and using the person's name." I had to laugh at the comment about food. I am part Cajun and Part Italian, and I guess that part is really coming out in him. LOL

So, overall he is really doing great. We have his OT eval tomorrow morning. I'm a little nervous to hear what they have to say. Sya some prayers that he doesn't have to go in too often since all of this is going to be paid out of our pockets because insurance does not cover it (that's a rant for another day). The OT office is right across the hall from Ms. G's office, so I'll have to remember to take the correct parking garage entrance. ;)

New Template in progress

We'll see how it turns out when I am done. heehee

"Our best session yet!"

My current mood:

Today was socialization class # 3 in this session for Joshua. After last week, I was really wondering how it would go. We got upstairs about 15 minutes early and he went directly to the giant playhouse as he always does. Joshua seems to think the clinic put this house there for him. His ability to share "his house" pretty much seems to reflect how the class will go on that particular day.

Today was a good day. He was playing in the house when another boy came over from the therapy area. Joshua looked right at him and asked him if he wanted to play in the house with him. The little boy did not answer, but smiled and walked in. Joshua asked him if he wanted to share the house. They played together until the other child was called into his appointment. Success! At this point, P, one of Josh's classmates, came upstairs. They said hi to one another, but then sort of weent to do their own things.

Ms. G. came out with the basket for their snacks to be placed in. Joshua ran over and put his snacks in and headed to the door. This time P was the one who needed to be talked into going to class. LOL After a few minutes, they both made it into the office. Their other classmate never showed up today.

So, the other mom and I were able to talk a lot throughout the 45 minute wait. It was nice. She was telling me about the gluten-free diet she is trying P on. She said it is a pain, but she is hoping she will eventually go bananas about it like some of the other parents she has met have done. He's been on it a month...she said though that she's been told it can take 6 months to a year before she may see an improvement.

So, finally 45 minutes passed. Ms. G. came out of her office with two very happy and grinning boys. They ran up to us and gave us huge hugs. Ms. G. exclaimed that today was the best session they had ever had! They had wonderful eye contact almost the entire time. The interaction between the two boys was amazing. She said at snack time they worked on sharing. They each had to ask if they could please have a bit of the other's snack. Joshua got right up to P's face and asked "Can I have one of your cookies, P?" LOL Ms. G. said she could tell he really wanted it, and P was not paying atention. Josh had to really hold himself back, but he did wait for P to give the cookie to him. LOL Silly boy. Then P did really well asking too. :)

They also played with trucks today. Mrs. G. said Joshua and P both did really well with sharing, pretend play and interaction with one another, and sound effects (which Josh has always been a pro at doing). To top off all the success, Joshua did not spin any of the wheels for the first time! I was so proud of him. Now, once he got out of the session, he did go to a table and find something to spin just at the same time she was telling me this. She laughed and said that he did so well keeping himself from doing it in there, that he must have been on overload and now needed to get all the spinning out. LOL She was really excited with how well both boys did, and emphasized how great it was seeing the two of them in there today. :)

I am so happy that there is obvious progress that she has now noticed. I can hardly wait to see what happens at the evals that start next week. I am feeling more encouraged now than ever before.

11 months old

Today Elena turned 11 months old. I can hardly believe how fast these past months have flown by. It is so much fun watching her grow and learn new things each day, but I find myself a little sad as well since I know she is my last. Don't get me wrong, I would NEVER want to go through pregnancy again if at all possible, but I will miss having a little baby in the house. I'll miss the bright smiles and wonderment that goes along with having an infant living with you. I know that all too soon the hugs and cuddles will be done, so I am taking as many as I can get for now. :)

Here are some pics I took of my baby girl this morning:

Class #2

My current mood:

Joshua's second socialization class was on Tuesday. We got there about 5 minutes early. We have had tons of rain lately, and he was fascinated by it. Ms. G. came out and told me and the other mom that Ms. Amy, her assistant, had her baby 6 weeks early so she wouldn't be finishing out the sessions with the kids. She then introduced her new assistant, Ms. N.

I went to the window and told Josh it was time to put his snack in the snack basket and go see Ms. G. He loves that woman to death, but instead of running to her office, he fell to the gound crying and saying he didn't want to go see Ms. G. He had a total meltdown, and nothing I did could calm him down. He finally agreed to go into the office, but he screamed all the way there. Ms. G. shut the main office door and her door, and you could still hear him crying. Patrick, another boy in the class, has sensory issues involving hearing, so I felt horrible that he was probably about ready to have his own meltdown because of Josh's noise. It was so embarrasing, but Mrs. G. handled it like the pro she is. Turns out, the reason he was so upset was because of last week's talking stick! She thinks he remembered the change in routine from last week because he mentioned it during his crying, and that is what caused the whole thing.

When they came out after the session, she told us all that the kids did really well. She said they all three come in looking at the floor and ceiling and eye contact isn't so hot, but by the end of the 45 minutes they all do great. LOL I mentioned to her about how he has improved noticably at home and how he acted in the elevator last week. She thought that was great and said he is improving and to just keep encouraging him at home. :)

She was laughing when telling me about the next part of the session. Each week they have snack time. We each bring a snack and drink for our child, and apparently she munches on something as well. This week, Joshua had 3 chocolate chip cookies for his snack. She said he gulped those suckers down and then looked at her cereal that she was eating and said "I can help you eat your snack". Silly boy! LOL

So, overall, I guess she is finally seeing some improvements. Yay! I know I am, so that's the important thing, right? :)

A Milestone for Joshua

My current mood is:

Joshua put together his very first puzzle today! It was a Thomas puzzle with 12 pieces, and he acted as though he had been doing them for years. It boggles my mind still. There were no questions, no frustrations....he simply matched the colors and put them together! I am so proud of him. Now I am going to have to go puzzle shopping for some new puzzles that he will enjoy. :)

Went to the gym tonight. I am really enjoying it. Afterwards we went to the hospital to visit my cousin, Lacey. She had a tubal pregnancy and is having an extremely difficult recovery. Hopefully things will improve with ehr recovery and she will be able to return home soon. I know her little girls miss her. :) So, get better Lacey, and if you are reading, know I'm here whenever you want to talk....I mean it!

Return to Socialization Classes

My current mood:

Yesterday began series 2 of Joshua's socialization classes. Ms. G. didn't say a whole lot about how they did. She said Josh did good, he got a sticker for each activity, so I guess that should be enough. *shrug* She mentioned that they were introduced to the talking stick....whoever is holding it gets to take a turn talking, then they pass it to another person and it is then their turn to talk. That's all she said about it. We left, and as we were walking onto the elevator, there was an older gentelman standing in there. We walked on and out of nowhere, Joshua looked him stright in the eyes and said "Hi! My name is Joshua!" And he never shut up. LOL For those who have never heard Joshua speak, he has a VERY booming voice. So, for three floors he spoke. As we were getting off, the gentleman laughed and said he has two volumes - on and off. LOL We had to giggle about it.

We checked out and headed to the van. I asked questions, trying to find out anything I could about their 45 minute session. I got no real answers. I continued my questioning on the way to pick up the other kids. I finally asked him what color the stick was. He told me it was grey. That surprised me because most grey things he labels as silver. Then, out of the blue, he told me, "I don't like the talking stick". LOL Silly boy doesn't like having to be quiet and listen. ;)

So, I see progress again. Unfortunately, Ms. G made no mention of the excellent eye contact he has been displaying for me and others lately. She also made no mention of spontaneous conversation, and of course she missed him in the elevator. I don't know if she didn't think to mention it or if he doesn't show any progress when in her office or what.

I also found out yesterday that I will be babysitting again. This time it will be for one of Silas' co-workers. She has a 7 year old boy and has asked me to watch him during the month of July. I figure it will be nice for the boys to have someone new to play with, especially Jacob. And maybe it will help Joshua a bit as well. :) I hope he gets along with my kids. Keeping my fingers crossed on that! I think it will be a little easier than having another baby to watch. I say this, but I am sure that the boys together will find ways to be a handful. ;)

Therapy Evaluations

My current mood:

We finally have Joshua's OT and Speech therapy evaluations set up. I have been trying to get these things set up since we got his diagnosis in February. Unfortunately, due to the peds office being in complete shambles since that time, the referral was faxed to the wrong phone number and was a difficult thing to get accomplished. However, now it is done! Woohoo! I feel a sense of relief. :) Both are set for mid-July. I'm hoping they will go well and that his progress will really take off from that point on.

Here's the dress!

Yay! Well, it is a little too big, but that's ok. ;)

Not much to report

My current mood:

There hasn't been a whole lot going on here. Cassidy had her 2 year check-up yesterday. She is 26.5 lbs (50th%) , possibly 35 1/2 inches (60th%), and her head circumference is in the 25th% - which is also probably wrong. Her growth has been amazingly consistent and she has been in the same percentiles every time she has gone in. The head circumference most likely is actually in the 50th%. I have yet to figure out why they can't get a good reading on her. We had to bring her to a neurologist when she was younger and they would always schedule her for a week after her ped appts. They always had her in the 50th% while the peds had her in the 25th%. Regardless, it's consistent and that is all that matters. :)

Joshua is sick. He has been having a fever on and off and he now is having tummy issues. He also has started sounding hoarse and is coughing. I am hoping it is just a virus that will run its course soon, but we may be making a trip to the peds in the next day or so.

I managed to sew my first outfit tonight. I'll have to try it on one of the girls tomorrow to see if it actually fits. I'm excited! If it does fit and they happen to cooperate for the camera, I will be sure to post some pictures. :)

Jacob's 6 year appointment

My current mood:

My little Jacob is growing up. He has always been terrified of doctors since his hospital stay and spinal tap at about 18 months old. Even regualr check-ups terrify him - last year he freaked out when the nurse took out a thermometer because he thought she was giving him a shot. That woman literally fell on the ground because she was laughing so hard at the dramatics he pulled. We haven't had an appointment since October for him, so I was nervous about how he would react there this time. He was an angel! Not a single tear! Such a big boy! I guess it helps that he knew he didn't need any shots. Dr. V. was so happy with how the appointment went that she hugged him three times, gave him a lollipop AND a sticker. :D She said he is the hardest patient she has ever had to try to crack. Leave it to one of my munchkins to be difficult. *lol*

Everything checked out fine. Dr. V. is a little concerned about his growth. He is in the 25th percentile just like last year, so he is growing height wise. Weight however is a different issue. He eats well (except for fruits - he still refuses to eat them even when disguised), butyet he has only gained one pound in the past 12 months. So, we now are supplementing his diet with Carnation Instant Breakfast once a day to see if it helps him to gain a little bit. We will go back in around November to see how it is working. I did ask if it could simply be genetics because Jacob is built exactly like his father....skinny as can be! She said that could very well be all it is, but she still thinks one pound in a year is too little. If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what the next step would be. I'm not going to worry extensively about it. Hopefully the supplement to his diet will be enough.

We will be going down to the lake tomorrow and the kids are really looking forward to it. My parents rented a cabin and we will spend the day with them. Should be fun! That's all for now...I'll update again soon!

Elena update

My current mood:

Elena finally had her 9 month check-up yesterday. We met the newest ped in the practice. She is extremely nice and very thorough. You can definitely tell she's new though. *lol* Anyway, my "little" baby is now 24 lbs, 4 oz and in the 95th%. Her head circumference has gone from the 75th% to the 85th%. Height we are unsure about...either they measured her wrong this time or the last because they have her as shrinking. She's doing great! She's right on track on most things and a little ahead of the game in others. She didn't cry at all during the exam. She did cry a little bit halfway through her one shot, but she immediately stopped once I picked her up. She's such a big girl. :)

In other news, my cousin's husband, Emmett, passed away unexpectedly last night. We just saw him at Meemaw's funeral, and it is so hard to believe he is gone. We weren't overly close, but he always was extremely nice and welcoming anytime we saw him. He came up to my two brothers after Meemaw's burial and told them he knew how hard it was for them to be pall bearers, but he was proud of them and knew what an honor it was regardless of the difficulty. His oldest son and my brother went to high school together and got to be good friends. It's been a rough couple of months for my mom's side of the family.

Happy Birthday, Cassidy!

Cassidy is 2 years old today! It sure doesn't seem like that much time has passed since she came into the world. We had a joint birthday party for her and Jacob yesterday. They played in the kiddie pool while Silas grilled and I cooked indoors. Everyone ate and had a nice time. The kids opened presents next and the living room is now a mess of new toys and clothes. We ended the day with cake and ice cream. My MIL actually made the cake, and she did an excellent job! I'll post party pics later, but until then, here's a little something I put together in honor of Cassie's big day. :)

Time sure is flying!

Well, tomorrow my oldest will be 6 years old. Unbelievable! It doesn't seem all that long ago that we could have his head in my hand and his tiny body fitting the length of my arm. He was such a tiny little thing. He was about 4 weeks early and only 5 lbs, 2 oz at birth. He wasn't breathing when he was born, but after three breaths of life he was fine. :) Here's a little something I put together in honor of his day:


In other news, Elena received a dipe in the mail from her birthday exchange buddy, Kaylee. :) It is embroidered with Elmo and Grover on the bum and was made by Mary at Sweet Baby Boutique and it is sooooo cute! These embroidered dipes are spoiling me. LOL How can I buy a plain dipe again? I wish now that I would have known how easy they are to use back when the boys were little. Here's a pic of Elena's new dipe:


Funny, I always change the words in the "Elmo's World" theme song when I sing to Elena. She loves it!

"Lalalala, lalala Lena's World.
Lalalala, lalala Lena's World.
Lena loves her brothers, her sister too.
That's Lena's world!"

Someone tell these kids to stop growing up! LOL

Cassidy got mail!

Believe it or not, Cassidy will be two years old on the 31st! Unbelievable! She received her first birthday gift in the mail this week, and I just have to show it off. It is too cute for words! This is from her friend, Brenna. :) Her mama, Sunshine, owns Flutterbybaby (you can see the link in my list of favorite sites!) and has been a dear friend to me for quite some time.

Here is Cassie wearing her new Very Baby dipe....(please ignore the just woken up look)


And here is a close-up of the embroidery....


Isn't it adorable?!?! This is our first embroidered diaper and Cassidy LOVES it! She hugged it (yes, she frequently hugs her favorite dipes *lol*) and said "Pincess". And she thinks it is neat that it has her name on it. She points at the name and says "Chi-chi Melia", which translates into "Cassidy Amelia". LOL

We recently made the discovery that "Chi-chi" is how Cassie says her name. Our favorite thing to do is ask her to point out different parts of her body and ask her about her cheek. It is darling to hear her say "Chi-chi's cheek". What a fun age this is. :)

Playground observations

On Friday I decided to take all of the kids, pick up my mother, and all head out shopping. We have a new upscale shopping center in town that we all were interested in, so we figured that would be as good a time as any to check it out. We had heard rumors that there was going to be a Macy's built there, but we were unable to find it if it was there. So, after a disappointing run-through, we headed over to one of the larger malls.

We ate lunch there and then headed down to the children's play area. When we first arrived Jacob took right off to where the other kids were playing, Joshua went to an area that was pretty much away from crowds, Cassidy stood there begging me to take off her socks and not just her shoes, and Elena was content to hang out in the stroller taking it all in.

I made sure to take a seat that made it easy to watch all four of them without much trouble. There were a few kids in the area that were above the height limit and one in particular was a bit of a bully, pushing the smaller kids out of her way. Lucky for us, her parents decided to take off soon after we arrived.

Jacob made a new little friend while he was there. The little boy was wearing an Incredibles T-shirt, so it automatically caught his eye. The little boy even somewhat resembled the character, Dash, who is his favorite character in the movie. They got along great! LOL

Cassidy was hesitant for a long time and I was baffled as to why until I saw her slip because of the socks she was wearing. I guess I forgot about that happening the last time we were there, but she didn't! Once they were removed she took off. She always has been one to kind of watch the other kids and take everything in before actually doing anything, so she sat for a long time. Other kids came up to play with her and she just sat and stared them down. LOL Eventually I told Jacob to go and get her hand and ask her if she wanted to play. He did, and from that point on she seemed ok.

Elena in the meantime decided she was done watching and was ready to practice her new crawling skills and go exploring. She had a ball crawling to the dolphins that were on the floor. She'd get excited and start bouncing and dancing. It was pretty cute.

Joshua was the one I watched the most. At first, he was pretty much where there were no other kids. He was having a grand time on his own. After a little bit, I sort of encouraged him to go to where some of the other kids were playing. He did, and he appeared to have a good time. Some of the other kids were drawn to him and were copying him, and he did notice. However, he didn't really initiate anything. He soon went to a different section and some of the kids followed him over. He did sort of get upset at one little boy who was wanting to play with a wheel Joshua was spinning. Josh moved the little boy's hand off and told him "No, it's Joshua's turn", so I explained to Josh he needed to share. I told him one more time of spinning it and then it would be the other boy's turn, and there were no more problems after that.

I do see some improvements. Before, if other children had followed him, he probably would have had a cow. Firday, he was fine with them following him around and giggled a bit about it. He didn't converse with any of them, but he did acknowledge them.

Social Skills Class Eval

We met with Mrs. G this morning to discuss Joshua's participation in his socialization classes. This was series one for him, and she seemed very impressed with him. Mrs. G said that she is happy that he was in the class, because she was able to see him in a group atmosphere and it reiterated the fact that the skills tests he was given intially were indeed an underestimation of his abilities. She went over his strong points, of which he has many. He is very good at remembering names and is extremely good at connecting them with people. He has the sing-song voice that is very typical of autistic kids, but she said the way his sounds is inviting to other kids. He has a very positive sound to him and therefore other children and many parents would feel comfortable around him and not think of him as out of place because of it. He has a positive attitude and seems very happy (though not so much this morning lol) and that helps tremendously. He also tends to want to learn socialzation skills, where some autistic children want nothing to do with it. He also is really cute and both Mrs. G and her assistant love his cheeks. LOL

Overall, his disabilities are subtle, and she feels that having his sibling group has been a big help to him. We need to work more on eye contact. He has improved quite a bit in this area in the past 6 weeks of classes, but he still needs a lot of verbal reminders to do so. We also are needing to work more on his initiating play. He has improved at home in this area, but we will be working on trying to do it at the park and beach this summer with other children.

We again talked about schooling, and she still is ok with my homeschooling. I was planning to wait and really dive into it this fall with him, but she feels maybe I should go ahead and start now. So, I think I will start prepping this week and get started full force with him next week and really focus on school a lot with him while Jacob is on summer break. That should be fun. I have heard that homeschooling kids like Josh at times can be more fun than with other children because of how visual they are. I guess I shall soon find out. :) I think I am going to learn a lot from teaching him. It will definitely take creativity on my part, but I think he will do well.

9 months old

Little Elena is now 9 months old as of yesterday. I can not get over how quickly time is flying by. She now is crawling, can get to a sitting position on her own, gets to a kneeling position and is desperately trying to pull up to standing, says mama and baba, and has 2 teeth. Her favorite games are peekaboo and rolling the ball. She is about 23 lbs and is wearing 12 -18 month clothes. I am hoping to get her appointment made for sometime next week so I can get the official measurements. :)

I talked to Ms. G today and we have an appointment for next Wednesday. She will give us an overview of Joshua's progress with the group sessions and her recommendations for the summer. I hope it goes well.

New template!

Yay! I finally got around to setting up a new template I found at http://homepage.mac.com/ravasthi/blog_templates. I had to tweak a few things, but I *think* it is functioning properly now. :) If not, please be sure to let me know!

Joshua

I watched Joshua's interaction with others a lot this weekend. I noticed that he has improved tremendously with making eye contact, not only with us, but with strangers as well. He also has come up several times this weekend and asked me to help him do something. People with "normal" kids don't know how amazing it is when they have a child like Josh start to do things other kids his age have been doing for some time. He just started drinking out of a straw about 2 or 3 months ago - something his little sister Cassie has been doing for many months. We got a Moolatte from DQ today, and I shared it with all of the kids. In January, he would have never gotten anything to come through the straw...today though, he beamed when he sipped it and then he asked for more. :)

He still needs to work on playing with other kids. He starts to, but is quickly in his own little world. I did notice this quite a bit at the reception after the funeral. He was perfectly content to play with the stroller wheels. He did play for a few minutes with my best friend's baby. I think it will improve with a little more time.

I'm so proud of him and all of the progress he has made already! I can not wait to get him into the occupational and speech therapy. I think he will blossom so much once they start!

Silly me

I forgot to mention, my husband dedicated the "Scene of the Week" on his website to Meemaw. You can see it here.

An emotional weekend

Wow. This weekend has been hard. Friday was the family viewing and visitation and Saturday was the funeral for Meemaw. Her obituary can be found here. She was an amazingly strong woman, and as my uncle told me later, I come from very strong genes. Meemaw will be sorely missed by so many people.

These pictures were taken about 2 weeks ago at the nursing home. Meemaw had asked that we get everyone together for pictures. I had been up until 1am that morning, crying, because the last pictures I had were from October 31st. It broke my heart that we had not gotten anything more recent, so you can imagine how surprised and grateful I was to hear she asked for us to do this. It was a wonderful gift.

This is my grandparents with their four children:


...and with a few of the grandkids:


...and with less than half of their great-grandchildren.