Thought Filled Thursday

I've been thinking a lot lately about this guy I know.

He's a sweet guy.

A caring guy.

A loving guy.

He's smart.

He's a great dad.

He's a funny guy.

He makes great pancakes

He plays a great guitar

He thinks I'm sexy

He loves me and it doesn't get any better than that

Thought Filled Thursday

Here is the new Thought Filled Thursday!  


First off, a giveaway!  Not mine, but one that I've come across!  This game sounds SO COOL!!!  I know that James would love to play it, possibly for hours!  She's talking about Time Engineers.  This is the facebook page for the software developer company, Software Kids.  Go to Notes From A Homeschooling Mom  to find out how you can enter.  She's only doing it for another couple of hours, so get in under the wire!  


I have been cleaning the office a lot lately.  It's amazing how calming and comfortable it is in here now!  The craft table is great in here!  Once I have it all of the way clean, I'll take pics to share!  


While I've been cleaning, I've been streaming How I Met Your Mother on Netflix.  I know there are some people who are dissatisfied with Netflix, but I love the service.  I pay just under $24 a month to get 3 dvd's at a time and unlimited streaming. The kids love it, I love it, Jason loves it, we all love it!  Considering that we don't have satellite or cable, it's a great way to watch t.v. and movies.  I love how I can control what the kids are watching.  


Sewing.  I really need to be doing more sewing.  The MERCS are going to be at the Detroit Institute of Arts on January 20, 21, and 22 performing!  If you are in the area, come check us out!  Jason and I are trying to make arrangements for the kids so he and I can go out for the weekend with them!  Back to the sewing, I'm working on the gambesons for the fighters.  


So I am hoping that this post will work for you guys for the Thought Filled Thursday!  I know there are a lot of links to follow, but they are worth it, I swear!  Have a great weekend everyone! 

Thought Filled Thursday

Now I'm not saying these will be deep and amazing thoughts, but I'm hoping that by starting a weekly post I'll get back into the habit of posting and maybe do even more of it.  I know many bloggers that have a random thought day post.  I think Thursdays fit for me.

The Beatles. They're great. The group itself is no longer. The music lives on for an eternity. Yellow Submarine is a fav around here. Jason has the action figures that were made based on the cartoon. One of Izzy's most favorite movies is Yellow Submarine. All of the kids love the album.

Abbey Road in LEGOs. Now that's cool. Almost as cool as my kid named Abbey after this very album.

More Beatles in LEGO. Still can't get much cooler than that. This looks a lot like the sets from "Help" and "Ed Sullivan Show".
My man Johnny, looking suave and relaxed and oh so sexy. Yummy. And all kinds of other adjectives, most of them related to food or eating.

Almost nothing sexier than a man laughing. Have a pic of him laughing with his kids, that'll trump it. When it's Johnny, all bets are off.

Miss Piggy. Loved her as a kid. She has a new movie out, along with all the other Muppets. Took the kids to see it on Thanksgiving. It's just as good as it sounds. 


There's my thoughts for this Thursday. If you don't hear from me before then, I'll see you all at the same bat time on the same bat channel next Thursday. Have a great weekend and beginning of next week.

Win a Kindle!

I'm not giving it away, sorry I just don't have those kind of resources. However, Freely Educate is! Head on over to their page at http://freelyeducate.com and enter to win! I really don't think I'll win, but it's worth a try, right? I love this site, they always offer some amazing resources and ideas. Check them out, it's free to browse and they try to find free or low cost materials for homeschoolers, or those who supplement their kids' educations. What more could you ask for?

In Need of a New Title Photo

Yeah, that one is a bit dated, don't you think?  I am thinking a new layout too.  I wonder if I can remember how to adjust the width of the text box to allow for my photos.  I want something brighter, maybe a little easier to read.  


Jason has been blogging a lot lately and it got me to thinking, why the hell don't I?  I used to do it all the time but now it seems like I can't be bothered with the effort of it.  


My brother set it up so the laptop and the tower can "talk" to each other.  I wonder if I could use photoshop on my laptop without needing to install it by simply accessing it on the tower and opening it that way?  That would be kick ass if that were the case.  


This summer has been crazy weird and fun.  I joined up with a bunch of rennie sword fighting odd balls and it has been a great time.  I've done a bit of photography with them and I started another blog for some of those photos.  Unfortunately, the tower died before I could edit the photos and do the first post!  Now it's back up and running so I'm hoping that in this next week I'll get them up there for everyone to take a look at.  Sadly the laptop is in the shop, the hard drive took a nose dive.  Thankfully, it's covered by my kick ass warranty!  I have to order the reboot discs from Dell, but that shouldn't cost more than $50 (I'm hoping it's less than that) and Best Buy will do all of the reinstalling.  I'm going to give them the disc for the printer and have them do that as well just so I don't have to go through all of that again.  Jack tells me he can set it up so I can I can use the laptop to tell the tower to print something for me.  When I have him come set the network back up I'm going to ask him to set that up too.


We bought our house!  We've lived here 4 years and I am SOOOO happy we are never going to have to move again!  Jason's parents helped us out with the financing part, and we are VERY grateful for that!  We couldn't have become homeowners if it wasn't for them.  I wanted to mail Jason's mom some scones when we signed the papers, but Jason told me that they probably wouldn't ship well and to just wait to make them until we see them again.


Izzy is back in school for the year.  His IEP went pretty well.  Stacey, our family case worker, rocks the fucking kazbah!  She was there for the IEP, along with Mary Beth, who is another person who works closely with our family.  It made me feel better to not walk into the room by myself.  It always feels so overwhelming when doing that.  Thankfully his teachers are familiar with me and they know that I know my kid and I don't back down when it comes to doing what I feel is best for him, what living with him for the past 5 years has taught me is best for him.


James is doing pretty well.  His medications have helped him find some stability, and he has a great therapist.  Jayda - we are in the beginning process for her.  She sees the psych on the 26th.  I have a really good idea of what is going on with her, and thankfully, this guy (the same guy James sees) knows me and listens to me and honestly and actually considers what I'm saying and recognizes the value that my words and input have.  It can be hard to find a professional, especially a psychiatric one, that does that.


The twins are 2.  Yeah, that drives home the point of the title picture being outdated, doesn't it?  I have some photos from this past spring when Kati was here visiting.  I could use those I think.  


Well, I suppose that is all for right now.  I'll try to get back and blog some more within the week.  Maybe even post some recent-ish pictures.  Prayers and blessings everyone.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend.


Oh, as an afterthought, I've just started using this new blogger interface, so if things get a little wonky, that's why!

You Ever Look Around

and realize that what your child has accomplished is HUGE even though other children his/her age accomplished that YEARS ago? Yeah? Then you have a special needs child and you know exactly where I'm coming from. No? Then you have no clue as to what the hell I'm talking about.

Being that I am raising SN and NT (neurotypical) kids, I see the differences every day. The twins are doing things that Izzy never did (and honestly STILL doesn't do).

Today was one of those accomplishment kind of days. Well, for one thing at least. Izzy let me cut his hair. Yep, that's it. Cut his hair. Well, more accurately, trimmed it. He didn't scream. He didn't shove me away. Admittedly, it didn't take very long, all of 2 minutes. I made sure of that. And I talked to him, asked him if I could do it. He had his iPad to help distract himself. He brushed at the fallen hair, probably because it itched.

This is HUGE. Now I will be able to trim his hair as it gets longer and keep him from getting a mullet as the top grows out. And for all of you that think "What's so big about a hair cut?" You have NT kids and have NO idea. That's what's so big about it.

I belong to this board, it's one of those message boards. It's private. We share, a lot. All of us have kids that were born around the same time as Izzy. There are many days where I don't share a thing. Most of them just don't get it. They have children who are going into a regular kindergarten class next year. Their kids can talk. Their kids are toilet trained. Their kids don't need special services or receive disability payments. None of them are learning sign language just they can hope to be able to talk and understand their child. Honestly, there are many days where I feel like I should leave the board. I feel like the outsider, looking in on all of these "perfect" children and it reminds me daily of where Izzy "should" be, where he "could" be.

I joke about how he'll end up with a really talkative wife because he won't try to get a word in. Or what kind of job he'll get as an adult. The true reality of it is that those things may not happen, in fact it is far more likely that they won't instead of thinking they'll be part of his life process.

I see this bright good looking kid who is burried in his own head. Where his 2 year old siblings can speak more than he can, where they can make themselves understood better than he can. Where they'll be toilet trained and on to learning "typical" stuff long before he seems to.

Izzy loves his puzzles. He's learning to count with them. He has one that requires him to put the pieces in by numerical order and he can do it through 10. He has another that requires him to do it alphabetically, and it doesn't always start with A, and he can do that too. He knows quite a few more signs than any of us do. I find I have to look up what he's doing just so I know what he's talking about.

All of this to simply say, today is a haircut. Tomorrow is...well I don't know, I'll have to wait and see. However I'm sure it's going to be HUGE, even if someone else's kid did it years ago.

It's April...

That means that it's now World Autism Awareness month. Obviously this means a lot to me. These boys make life interesting and chaotic and worth living every day. Watching them grow and learn and change, and being there to help them do that, is, well, honestly indescribable.

I know a lot of mom bloggers with Autistic children are starting the month off with posts about what Autism looks like. After all, it doesn't have a look. It's not like some disorders where you look at a child and say "That child is Autistic" or "That child has Asperger's".

On a side note, why is it a child IS autistic and a child HAS Asperger's. Why isn't it one or the other? They are both on the same spectrum, have some of the same things going for them. Afterall, if Asperger's weren't called that, these Aspie kids would be considered high functioning autistic. Then they'd go from HAVING to BEING.

Anyway.....what does Autism look like to us? A whole mix of things, that's for sure. You have all of those "classic" autism things with Izzy. You get all of those social oddities and speech repetitions and "little genius" speak from James. But that's not how it looks, that's how they ARE.

I took Izzy to the store with me this afternoon. I needed to pick up some basics for the week and to get some specific stuff for dinner tonight. I don't usually take Izzy with me, he can be hard to manage, but he's getting better. He loves to sit in the cart, but he's too big to do that now, so I made sure to get a cart he couldn't sit in, that removed the issue right there. I put his hands on the handle, which was low enough for him (thankfully he's a bit big for his age) and I guided the cart, while staying close by him.

We walked through the store to where the dairy is. We've been learning signs, thanks to our extensive collection of Signing Time videos. Izzy doesn't speak. Well, that's not quite true. He speaks very little, and what he does say comes across as though he has a mouth full of marbles. Cheese is one of his favorite foods, so we signed cheese as we were picking out shredded mozerella for home made pizza later this week. A little further down, we needed some cottage cheese. Again the cheese sign, and he put the containers in the cart. We needed a gallon of milk (we go through at least 2 a week) so I signed milk and held the door open to the cooler by our kind. Izzy grabbed the gallon and put it in the cart.

Next on the list was chips (Pringles) and Chicago style popcorn. Down the snack aisle we went. I signed chips, and handed Izzy the containers to put in the cart. We found our popcorn, signing it of coarse, and put that in. Next was Daddy's soda. I don't know the sign for soda, so I used juice. I put that in because it's heavy.

We needed hamburger buns for the pulled pork and a loaf of bread (something else we go through quite a bit of each week). I signed bread for both because I don't know the sign for buns. And apples, everyone loves apples (we easily go through 2 3lb bags of them a week).

All through the store Izzy kept his hands on the handle of the cart, only letting go to put food in the cart and to try to sign what we were getting. Looking at him, you couldn't tell that he was autistic. Maybe deaf because of the signs and the fact that he was speaking. While in the check out lane, he let go of the cart to put the groceries on the belt. Then he did his jumping/arm flapping/squealing thing. THEN you *might* have seen him as autistic, if you were familiar with autism.

My point is that the entire trip to the store was a simple task to pretty much anyone, but to Izzy it's not. It's a time full of extreme stimulation where any one thing *could* be the final thing that adds up to being too much for him to handle any more.

Admittedly, Izzy is pretty adaptable. He was upset to begin with when he couldn't ride IN the cart, but he was content with holding onto it. While we walked by the other customers (and it was BUSY because it's Sunday) no one would have seen the autism, they would have seen a mommy and a little boy at the store on a Sunday buying groceries.

That's very true, that's what we were. A mommy and a boy at the store on a Sunday buying groceries. But we were SO much more. My autistic child was able to walk through the store and was learning and not overwhelemed to the point he couldn't handle it. This little boy was trying to communicate with me, and he was watching everyone else too. He was OK with walking down the different aisles and looking at all the foods.

I will say that I made sure to avoid foods that he would REALLY want (like candy, cookies, and cereal). I kept the trip as short as possible. I talked to/with him the entire time. Telling him what I was looking for, what we were getting next. In my way, I was trying to keep him informed so he wouldn't get to feeling lost or overwhelmed with all that was going on. I wanted him to stay focused on what we were doing, why we were there. By doing that, I was hoping that it help him feel secure, even with so much going on around us. I'm happy to report that this time it worked. Maybe next time it won't, but that's just the way it goes sometimes.

Autism doesn't look like anything, unless you are familiar with it. Another mom of an autie may have recognized what I was doing. I know I do. I was in Barnes and Noble one evening with Jenn. There was a mom who was working with her teenage/adult autistic son about picking out the item he wanted. He was having a very hard time narrowing it down, he kept telling her he wanted to get his thing and also that he wanted to go home. She was in line in front of us and ended up stepping out of line so her son could, once again, go back and look at what he had in mind. Some people may have seen a mentally challenged boy. The way he spoke sounded vaguely familiar to Forrest Gump. However, I KNEW. I saw more than the way he spoke. I saw the arm flapping. The frustration that was so clear on his face. I smiled at the woman. I wanted to say something else, but I wasn't sure what. I've had those same evenings with James. Taking him to pick something out and sitting there for 20 minutes while he made up his mind and changed it and made it up again and all the time getting more and more frustrated because it's HARD to take it all in. James is better able to speak than this young man was, but that doesn't make it any easier for him.

I often wonder what autism will look like as these boys get older. How will puberty go for them? What about dating? College? Jobs? These are all so unknown. I know more and more people are dx'd as autistic (or on the spectrum somewhere) every day. It seems like it's almost an epidemic.

I think part of it has to do with how many different things are classified as autism. I think it also has to do with how people are more willing to ask for help with their children and figuring out what is going on with them. I also think it has to do with how our society has moved from being a hard physcial labor all day to one of leisure and sitting and wasted energy. A child like James, about 100 years ago, growing up on a farm would have worked hard from sun up to sun down. He would have been too tired to get too worked up over much of anything. And if he had gotten worked up, more work would have been given to him. As for Izzy, he would have been placed in an institution as being a dumb mute and left to rot. He wouldn't have been given a dx and therapies and help. Neither would have James.

As I sit and look at our society and how it is now, I see the improvments for those with any kind of difficulty. And I see how so many people are still ignorant and unwilling to accept those that are different in any way. I know every person that drives by my house at night wonders why I have blue lights out front instead of the white ones like everyone else on the block. I know that people wonder why I homeschool my kids instead of putting them in the one size fits all institution that's "normal".

My family is different. In more ways than can be seen. I'm OK with this (usually, even I have my days, as does everyone) and I feel like everyone else should be too. Sadly, they often aren't.

We are told that we should accept everyone for all of their differences. The focus of years past has been skin color. In more recent years it's been sexual orientation and even more recently it's been religion. I want to see people get up in arms about acceptance of people are different mentally. Who are challenged by every day things in some way or another. I want to see the parades for their rights. I want to see the issues talked about on daytime shows and on the evening news. I want to see headlines about the fight to ensure that my children have the same rights, the same chances that everyone else gets.

Sadly, they are pushed to the back, beause it makes so many uncomfortable that it's "easier" to do it that way. Sure, we have laws that say we have to do it, but so many people just DON'T do it. Why is that? Why should I have to explain when my child has a tantrum (or runs away as James did once) in the middle of the store that he's autistic. Why shouldn't it be assumed that something MORE than just bad parenting is going on there?

Stop and ask yourself that. Do you hear a child screaming/crying/carrying on in the store/restaraunt/library and automatically think "If that were my kid he wouldn't behave like that"? Did you ever stop to think that no matter what I have done has NOT helped this child calm down and they are now throwing themselves on the floor/running away beause it's just too much for them to handle? Next time, alter what you think. Put yourself in that person's place (admittedly it's usually a woman, a very tired frustrated sad looking woman) and think how YOU would feel if everyone were staring at you and thinking EXACTLY what you are even though there is NOTHING that can be done.

Today was a success with Izzy at the store. Next time might not be or it might be James, who is "too old" to be throwing a tantrum like that. I don't feel that I should have to wear a sign or explain to everyone that he is autistic and can't handle what is going on that day.

All of this to say this....Autism doesn't look like what you think it should. Autism looks like what it is and for every child who is on that spectrum, it looks different. Don't close your mind, or your heart, to what autism is. It affects so many more than you know, the numbers should prove it if nothing else does.