I am so lucky to have been given such a sweet Little Girl. I knew it the moment that I set eyes on her. She screamed, as if protesting being taken from her Holy Place. God gave me the ability to nurse her. Something, I hadn’t been able to do with Little Man. I tried to cherish every moment, but they passed too quickly.
Soon after, something about her changed. She “lost” words. She stopped walking. She would no longer look you in the eyes, or look at you when you called her name. We knew something was wrong, something was very wrong with our little one.
We suspected Autism at 21 months, talked to the doctor, who thought it was more of a developmental delay, but sent us toward’s Children’s Hospital anyways. We had our referral, now we waited for an appointment. And waited. And Waited.
She was 30 months before we saw a specialist, who diagnosed Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), and sent us to autism testing. At 37 months, we FINALLY got the diagnosis of Autism, and thus she could get the therapies she needed all along.
Learn the signs of Autism – Early intervention can make a difference
- No big smiles, or other warm, joyful expressions by 6 months or thereafter
- No back and forth sharing of sounds, smiles, or other facial expressions by 9 months or thereafter
- No babbling by 12 months
- No back and forth gestures, such as pointing, reaching, waving,
- No words by 16 months
- No two-word meaningful phrases (without imitating or repeating)
- Any loss of speech, or babbling, or social skills at any age
Life with my Princess.
I go through days, trying to help her make sense of this world.
She has to have some sort of schedule. You can’t change it. Unless you say “McDonald’s”
She wants to do whatever we are doing, so be prepared for every board game to be upset, every folded laundry pile to bed toppled, and every block tower knocked over.
Her favorite thing to do is watch movies in our bedroom. I haven’t figured out why yet, but apparently, she can’t comfortably watch movies with the sheets on the bed.
When we go to a friend’s house, if she feels comfortable there, she will run around without her pants on. So grateful for understanding friends on this one!
We forget sometimes how capable she really is. Don’t worry, she always reminds us.
All her life, she’s been teaching me things.
Her birth taught me that birth can be wonderful.
Her first year, where she developed normally, has taught me in retrospect to not take for granted the health or well-being of a child.
Her third year, as we began to look into a Autism diagnosis, taught me to be grateful for modern medicine and psychology. Once upon a time, Scientists thought that autism was the result of bad mothering.
Her fourth year, as we did get the diagnosis, I learned that while it was ok to grieve for “what might have been”, you have to focus on the here and now.
And now at the beginning of her fifth year, I’m learning love. Unconditional love.
Whenever things are hard, because we have to do things differently, or slower for her, sometimes I get frustrated. But today, I am telling myself to stop all that and remember.
she is a child of God who choose YOU to be her parent.
Christmas Maxwell Style
Sorry for the absence, but we have been busy! Thanksgiving in Virginia with my family, and just a few days ago, Christmas with Ben’s family in Pennsylvania.
Christmas was lovely, and I think 3 days was the perfect number of days to stay there. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a White Christmas like we hoped, but we were happy and we were together. What more could we ask for?
On the 24th, we spent the day with the Marinaccios, Ben’s mom’s side of the family. First with opening presents from Grandma, and watching her open the presents from us, just tickled the kids. Then the whole family moved over to a cousin’s house, where we ate a buffet style feast! That was followed by a gift exchange. all the presents had to be under $1 and wrapped. they were all put on a table, and names were called and people could take a gift from the table or take a gift from someone who already had one (who would then get to pick again). It’s really nifty. We closed out the night with a swim in the hotel pool, which was a bit too cold for my taste, but the kids begged to stay in, even though Little Girl was shivering to death it seemed.
On Christmas morning, we woke up early to head to Ben’s Aunt’s house, who served the traditional “Goldenrod Eggs”. I don’t exactly know how to describe it, but it is made with hard boiled eggs, and is creamed, I think, then poured over shredded toast. It looks like barf. I finally gave up my fears, and eat some this year, and it is DELICIOUS! Then the whole family (and I mean WHOLE) moved into the living room to kick off the presents opening time. We went in order of youngest to oldest, one present at a time. Little Girl and Little Man got to go first which(to them) was better than the cat’s pajama’s. When the presents were all passed out, we skyped (which is video chatting) with Ben’s uncle, who is serving the Army in Germany. Then we all separated into groups to play games, talk, or whatever until dinner. Dinner was the perfect crown for this day. Ben’s Aunt even had some things Little Girl could eat (mashed potatoes without milk or butter, for example) It was all so DELICIOUS! We went back to our hotel after dinner, and spent the rest of the night relaxing and watching “A Christmas Story”.
Sorry, folks. No Christmas pictures, but I do have this.
Fall leaves
There is something magical about fall leaves and children of about 5-7 years old. It’s like insta-fun. All you do is rake leaves in as big a pile as you can manage, add kids, and viola!
Events in an uneventful life
We went to Virginia to visit my family for Thanksgiving. My kids got to know their great grandma all over again, and their uncle johnnie, great uncle Robert, great great uncle Gordon, grandms sue, aunt melody, and many others. I wish I had more pics. But I wanted to update anyways.
a lovely night with the ADD kid
I’m talking about Little Man. He’s not been officially dianosed, but it’s coming (We’re in the process). And please know that I don’t mean it in a derogatory way at all. Just stating the facts.
Last night, we played a three person game of I-spy. For an hour (!) Only mainly, it took an hour because Little Man kept getting distracted, and I had to bring him back to focus on the game at hand. Still and yet, it was very fun.
I don’t find ADD or ADHD limiting, only a different way to move through the world. It takes skills to cope with ADD/ADHD, and it’s not easy. Sometimes you can’t figure it out, and medicine is the way. Sometimes you figure it out, and medicine is still the way. And for a lucky few, you figure it out, figure out what makes them tick, what makes them do this, and how that effects this later on, and so forth, and medicine is not needed. I hope Little Man to be one of the lucky few that will not need medicine. I am trying to figure out all that there is to figured. I can say with certainty that were he in public school, he would be on medicine already. He cannot sit still while learning (though I don’t think this is a bad thing). And he has a hard time listening to a lesson that is longer than a few minutes. We’re still working on that one. I honestly don’t know what the answer is. I’m not opposed to medicine, but it’s not my first choice.
If you like me, have ADD/ADHD child/ren, you may want to check out a website of Dr. Thomas Armstrong (here). That link goes directly to his “50 ways to Improve your child’s behavior without drugs, lables or coercion”. I really liked it, I think he has some good things to say. Check him out.
Homeschool day at the Aquarium
The aquarium near our house held a half price day for homeschool families (which you had to reserve the tickets a month in advance). For about a week and a half before aquarium day, we watched all kinds of movies and documentaries about oceans, sea animals, etc. We did artic animal bingo, sea animal math, whale word searches, etc. On aquarium day, Little Man was so excited to see the fish, and turtles. Little Girl was really only interested in the fish that looked like Nemo and Dory from ‘Finding Nemo’. The night before we went, we watched ‘The March of the Penguins” and the kids were really excited to see penguins up close. Little Man was disappointed that the Papa penguins didn’t currently have any eggs.
Here is Little Man laying in a concave window in the shark tank. There were glass tunnels where you could see the sharks going over head, and glass floors to see fish and sharks going underneath. Little Girl was leary of walking on those.
All in all, it was fun, and Little Man learned a few things.
This Moment
{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Just another day
Things We Are Learning This Week:
That Little Girl can help put away the groceries if we but have time and patience. And stop ourselves from the urge to hurry her, to stop ourselves from doing it ourselves.
That kids are more likely to do the chore they are expected to do, if they are written up, and we are more likely to reward the children if we can visually see that they’ve done their chores.
That drawing is fun!
That making up a Captain Underpants story is fun!
That making up a whole new story, that no one ever thought of before, is AWESOME!
