My husband and I have come to terms with the fact that all three of our boys are Autistic. Rashawn, our four year old, was verified on the 21st of December and we're certain that Rayden, our 3 year old, is also. Rayden had some problems when he was around 7 months old and started having seizures. The disorder he had is called Infantile Spasms, also known as West Syndrome. We were very fortunate that the first treatment we attempted worked wonderfully and he hasn't had a seizure in over two years. Because of the Infantile Spasms we had Rayden receive services from the school district we're in. The program is called Early Intervention and it provides in-home physical, speech, and occupational therapy free of any cost to the family. It also provides a services coordinator who is available to the family for anything they may need help with, from finding an apartment or home to accessing government financial aid. There's a teacher who is also on this team available for consultation if needed. The program is absolutely wonderful.

Because Rayden was in the program already and I started to see some speech delay in Rashawn we had him tested and he began to receive services also. He started preschool to help him develop social and speech skills. At parent teacher conferences his teacher told me she had some concerns that he may be Autistic. I was shocked, but calm. I had worked with Autism every summer from the age of 14 to 19 and was very very familiar with it. I only stopped because I had babies :) I listened to the teacher's concerns and it all began to make complete sense. I finally had a reason why my child was so much harder to keep up with than all the other children I knew. It explained the constant getting into things he knew he shouldn't. I can't tell you how many eggs I've had to shampoo out of my carpet. It's funny now, but when it happens, it can almost break you, because you're already exhausted.

So after I had time to contemplate all this a bit and watch Rashawn with this in mind, I realized it was true and almost beat myself up for having worked with Autism so closely and not recognized it in my own child. In watching Rashawn, I began looking at Rayden too. It didn't take long to figure out he was. He starts his testing in Jan when he starts preschool also. It's a 60 day test period so we should be able to verify him by the end of February.

And now the third kiddo. Rion, our 16 month old. Up until now he's seemed right on target for development, but I have been worried about his speech because he hasn't said a single word yet. Yes, I know he's still young but even Rashawn and Rayden had said at least one word by now. The other night Mike, my husband, and I were talking and he said he'd pretty much come to terms with the fact that all three of our kids had Autism. This may seem pessimistic and rash but we've both realized that we have some pretty profound Autistic tendencies that perhaps were not recognized because we were high functionaing enough that it didn't affect our school work or social lives severely. It can be hereditary so it adds to the risk for the kids. I was still clinging to the hope that Rion was going to be the exception though. This morning changed my mind.
Rion kept climbing on top of a chair and every time he'd end up falling off and getting hurt. Then he would just get up and do it again. (One sign of Autism is a tendency to do things without regard for their own safety.) Then when my husband started to get stern with him he would throw a fit (not too uncommon for an almost two year old) and ended up hitting his head on the bar to the one-point net swing we have. He got up and started climbing on the chair again so my husband got on to him again. He did the same thing, except this time I realized he was hitting his head on the bar on purpose, not by accident.Then it occurred to me that Rion is also always opening and closing his hands and staring at them. Yes it's normal for a baby to do this, but Rion does this constantly, which could be another sign.

So now I'm in the process of accepting all of this. I do not feel defeated, because I know that God has given me this because I have a heart for Autistic children. He gives strength in everything and he will in this. He's blessed me with a wonderful husband who is just awesome about all of this. A lot of men don't handle it quite as well but my husband is already using techniques he's learned when disciplining Rashawn. I'm extremely thankful for this because I've seen personally parents that can't handle it. It's going to be a tough road but there are so many blessings in it. I have the sweetest little boys ever. Everyone just falls in love with them. They're wonderful kids. Not too mention they're beautiful! Yeah, I know, I'm pretty biased but I have others who will testify too it :P

Rashawn



Rayden



Rion




Today I spent some time setting up a picture schedule for the two older boys. I'm kind of excited about it. Here's a picture, it's only half done. I need to pick up some more velcro.



I just put contact paper on our bedroom door and used velcro to attach the pictures and times.Each picture represents a part of their day: playing with blocks, music, tv time, trucks, train set, coloring. Everything is scheduled to help them feel more secure, it does wonders I promise. They're much calmer when their day is ordered and predictable. Who doesn't feel better when they have that!

In the knitting scheme of things, I'm still work on the same old same old. Probably getting a little burned out now. I'm probably going to work on the leg and arm warmers I've been drooling over for a few weeks. At least it'll be a quicker project. A finished project would be nice. Anyway, here's a picture of the Bruce Lee throw. I have up to the knuckles of the lower fist done so far. It's going pretty fast I think.



Check out the bamboos, nice eh? And the cord length is a big upgrade from this. Sorry the picture is so big, I got lazy ;P

And last but definitely not least, I got this super cute purse.



Yes, yes, I know, it's sacrilege because I could totally make this. But it comes down to the fact that I got it for $10 and you just can't beat that. The supplies alone would cost more than that and I have way too many on the needle projects to be messing around with something I could get for just $10!!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

~DK

Labels: autism, knitting

I mentioned in a prior note that I was working on a double knitted blanket. It's going pretty well so far. no hang-ups yet but then again I haven't even gotten to the part where I knit the words into it yet. Soon though, I have about 4 inches til the real fun begins :) So anyway, here's my progress so far-








I used Lion Brand Jiffy in White and Light Pink.





I love Jiffy because it's soft and only about $2 a skein. Perfect for baby blankets since it seems like one always needs to be made!


Oh and on another note, I had been planning on maybe using our tax return to get a laptop in January for my writing but my husband, Mike, found something even better!



It's one of the newer PDAs (palm pilots). Mike said you can use Microsoft Word on it and when you connect it to your computer it automatically updates your work. If I get an idea in the middle of no where I can pull it out and just jot it down, no more trying to remember all my thoughts or writing on napkins. I'm so excited. It's perfect for my writing, plus no more carrying around a daily planner and address book. And you can get a keyboard that it docks into so I can type my writing just like on a laptop. I'm so excited. Wait, said that already huh? Well it just shows you how excited I really am! It is a little expensive but I'm looking at it like an investment towards my writing. Plus it's way less expensive then the laptops I was looking at. Besides, it has fingerprint identification! Who can resist that?? :) Technology is astounding.

~DK

Labels: knitting, PDA

Let's embark on the things that are going on in my life in more detail...

In the marriage area- My husband and I are very close, even though we have different hobbies, we invest in eachother's time. I always try to play the card games he likes with him and he has even attended my knitting group and learned to knit, which he caught onto quite quickly! We both enjoy watching professional wrestling together. I really enjoy having our friends over for the pay-per-views. That is one of the things I pride myself on; the fact that I can hang out with him and his(our) friends and just be one of the guys. I don't give myself the credit though, I know full well that we're just lucky to have such awesome friends.
There are some complications in our marriage though. My husband works part-time and goes to college full time so our time together (with three boys) is few and far between. In addition we currently live in the basement of my parents home until Mike graduates. It causes some bumps, you could say. I'm fortunate in having such a wonderful husband that I can talk to. We are luckily on the same side when it comes to my family and the things we need to discuss. But even then, living with your parents when you're an adult with three children is obviously not an ideal situation. It is definitely quite frustrating. Finally, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Mike should be graduating in either May or August, depending on availability of classes. There is a slight chance it will go one more semester in August but we are hoping that we can get a waiver so he can take one class and its prerequisite at the same time. I very much am looking forward to getting a house and being out on our own finally, as you can probably imagine.
I must also say, though, that we are deeply appreciative of the sacrifices my parents have made for us by letting us stay here. We will have a much better situation when Mike has a degree and doing it this way will save us a great amount of stress.

Moving on...the children area- My children are wonderful. I enjoy being a stay-at-home mom so much! My life had an emptiness until Mike and the boys came into it. As everyone knows motherhood is pure joy but comes with some stresses. Currently, we're having our two oldest children, Rashawn and Rayden, tested for Autism. I've worked with Autism in Special Ed classrooms every summer since I was 13 or 14 so I'm quite familiar with it. Basically, for me, the testing is just proceedural. I already know they have it, now it's just the question of where on the spectrum they are and how to deal with it to maximise their educational and social development.
Both boys are extremely high functional, they make brief eye contact regularly and are very affectionate. But the signs are there, even if I didn't recognize them right away. I was at a parent-teacher conference for Rashawn when the teacher said she had some concerns and wanted to pursue the testing. I was in a little bit of shock of course but I handled it as calmly as I could, carefully considering all of her examples of signs he showed. Then I went home, and started to observe him. It didn't take long to realize she was right. I think I was already convinced on the way home from the conference, but watching him just made it that much more convincing.
It was in watching Rashawn that I started to observe Rayden also. He has much more obvious signs and possibly has a little more profound case than Rashawn, while still being high functioning. He is very delayed in his speech and reacts to any stress such as noise in a more dramatic way. Although I'm very lucky that neither of them scream, because I think that is one of the greater stresses that comes with autism. Rayden will throw himself on the floor and we're having trouble with him hitting. Although it never hurts it's still something we need to take care of now. He's very cuddly and each time he reacts in these ways it's obvious that he's very stressed and doesn't know how to communicate it, which is a major part of autism.
Rayden was a bit harder to accept because of his history. When he was 7 mos. old he started having seizures and was diagnosed with Infantile Spasms, a rare form of epilepsy in infants. God blessed us unimaginally. The first medication we tried worked and even after we weened him off of it the seizures didn't return. Shortly after I went to a support group meeting and it was a very difficult experience. I saw all the children around me and not one had been completely cured with the medication. Some it worked for but not long term and others it had no affect at all. Each child had severe mental and /or physical development difficiencies. It was probably one of the hardest things, sitting in a room thinking how lucky I am when the ones around me are still struggling. An older sister of one of the kids asked her mother why it had worked for my son and not her brother. I couldn't bring myself to keep going to the meetings, it was much too heartwrenching. But even harder than that was the fear that began to grip me again of the seizures returning (it can happen anytime, even years and years from now). It eventually lessened more and more. My faith in God and my trust in him kept me from obsessing over it. But still, any rigid movment Rayden would make I would stop everything and just watch him to make sure he wasn't having a seizure. It was a difficult thing but we were blessed in it.
I am excited right now about Rayden starting school. He's going to be in Rashawn's class which gives me a two and a half hour break 3 days a week because Rion takes his nap at the same time. Ahhhhhh, sigh of relief.

On a happier note...knitting!- My knitting group that meets once a month is doing great. I just love sitting and hanging out with friends while we knit. it's slowly adding members, and I'm in no huge hurry, I know God will do what he wants with the group and I'll be happy with whatever happens with it. Eventually I would really like to start a knitting charity that knits and prays for people going through a tough time, but like I said, whatever God does with it will be just fine with me because I know his will is best.
Currently I'm working on a baby blanket for a friend. It's a technique that's really nice called double knitting. I can't wait to get to the more difficult part where I knit the baby's name, birthdate, and measurements into the blanket. My next project will be another baby blanket for a family member and then I plan on doing a more complicated sweater that has me really excited!Here's a picture-












Okay, enough with knitting...how about the writing?- I'm really excited about what I'm doing with writing also. I'm working on a fantasy book series. I won't be able to give any details but I'm surprising even myself with how well it's coming together and I haven't even started the first page! I've just been writing notes because I want to have everything worked out so things connect throughout the series. I can't take credit for it though, because God has made it very clear that he's the one giving me ideas. I'll write something down that pops into my head and then I'll realize later on that it connects to something I wrote a long time ago. It's trully amazing. I'm so honored to have God working through me in such a way!

And the book of the day?? Well week or month, depending on time :)- I just finished The Lost Boy by Dave Pelzer and I'm running to the library today to pick up the third book in the trilogy, A Man Named Dave. Then it's on to Eragon by Christopher Paolini because fantasy is the best. And after that is a reread of Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns because I LOVED the book in high school and want to get even more out of it. You can also check out my current reads through the book club a friend and I created on facebook.

Link to Book Club

Another area at the moment...my weight- I'm in the process of losing all the weight I gained through 3 pregnancies. I'm happy so far with the results. I've lost 40 lbs and have 20 more until I reach my goal weight. I may lose a bit more after that but we'll just have to see how I feel.

One more thing...singing- I'm currently singing with the Symphonic Chorus in my city. We sing with the symphony probably 3 or 4 times a year at least. It's really been a great experience. We had 40 people selected from the chorus to join a few other university choirs and perform Carmina Burana with the symphony in the brand new concert hall in our city. It was amazing! I've wanted to do Carmina for years so it was a dream come true for sure. And it didn't disappoint one bit, the performance was absolutely incredible. I won't ever forget that experience. Right now we're about to hit rush week before our Christmas concert so life will be quite busy but after that we'll have a few weeks break for Christmas and New Year's. So that's the chorus end of singing. I have also been working with a wonderful man I've gotten very close to over the six or so years we've worked together. Mr. Price my vocal coach has become like a grandfather and mentor to me. I love him dearly. So it was hard when recent finances made me quit my lessons with him. I'm determined to go back though. I miss him so much! I"m realizing how much I trully cherish him both as a vocal coach and friend.



I suppose I should wrap it up. Thanks for reading!!

~DK

Labels: kids, knitting, marriage, singing, weight loss