We went to OT today and I find myself being surprised that AJ has delays in motor planning, for example, she has a hard time drawing diagonal lines. I find myself thinking that it is just baffling that she would have a hard time with this. She is so smart and I see where she has problems when she is tired and makes funny squinting faces and stumbles around. You can tell she has autism then. She does use route phrases and speaks as though reciting lines from a movie. But these phrasees make sense and are in context and I am used to them. The way she speaks is "cute" and sometimes her memorized sentences sound very smart. So when I see a little handwriting test and see how far behind she is with some very seemingly obvious things, I am surprised and it makes me a bit worried. I think about her amazing drawings, yet, she is years behind in drawing a diagonal line. It doesn't make much sense since she draws houses with diagonal roofs on them. I don't know. So we are going to do, "handwriting without tears" and she started some worksheets today. She had a hard time doing the letters in the right order or things, such as, when she writes letters, usually it is like she is drawing them as a picture and she does the sequencing out of order and odly, but the letter ends up looking how it is supposed to, but more interesting in my opinion. So with this program she is learning the right sequencing and not just creating her own alphabet letters. That will help her in Kindergarten.
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Although this pregnancy was not planned or in the plans, there is still something wonderful about being pregnant again. And now that I know how to do it I am excited at the changes happening, and this time, I completely understand them...well, not completely. I am not sick yet and not horribly tired, which is weird because I was exhausted early on with the first two and already sick with A.J. by now. I am sure that by 8 weeks I will be puking. In fact, that is how I am viewing this pregnancy. It is going to be rough, like my other two. It is going to be hard and painful and tiresome. But I am going to tough it out. This time I will not be surprised, I hope. I am just going to take things as they come and work through them.

I have difficult babies too, and once again, I will take things as they come. I am totally fine with this...a little scared but I have to smile when I think of the little life in my belly. Although yesterday she wanted this baby to be a girl, today A.J. says it is a boy and his name is Adan. I say, what if it is a girl an she says, "No, it is a boy, it is Adan." So she may have just named our 6 week old embryo.

I am excited to have our brood in our new house.

 I have never owned a house and so I am very much looking forwards to nesting. I am going to do lots of gardening and I am planning all sorts of projects for the back yard. Our new house is so little that we will most likely be spending lots of time in the large front and back yards. I am looking forwards to being able to nurse this baby with only DH and the kids around. I will probably be shirtless for the first couple of weeks. We lived with my parents through the first two pregnancies and babies. That was wonderful for us and the help was huge, and so appreciated that it would take many posts to truly express it. But this time, I will enjoy the privacy and I will enjoy not having stairs to have to transport children and babies up and down through out the day. We will just have our tiny little space of 850 square feet to navigate around. It sounds small for a family of 5, but we are not very tall people and we don't have much stuff. We ordered some beautiful appliances for our small kitchen that has been completely redone. And today I just ordered a book: The Creative Family - How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections

I also ordered some BPA-free homemade popsicle holders and some soy crayon rocks.

I need some ideas for the summer that don't take much money. Occasionally, "creative" also means low cost because you do a lot of the work yourself. So, we will see if this book, "The Creative Family" pays for itself. I need some creative storage ideas and I read a review that said this book has some.

So I need to get back to my editing that I have been avoiding although this wedding is pretty fun to edit overall. The first dance comes complete with one of those sudden transitions from slow sappy country (insert record scrape noise here) to grinding boodie rap. Many of us internet junkies have seen these types of dances on youtube, so many younger guests attending this wedding were not surprised. But the older guests were, and their  expressions in the background are priceless. 

So tonight I am happy that I have a little one growing in my belly. I have no expectations, no false hopes and I do understand that there are no guarantees. So I will take it as it comes and enjoy it and yes, I will be heartbroken if things go wrong. So, here goes the next 8 months




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#3 on the way

So I am 6 weeks pregnant. We used a condom with spermacide, but I guess you have to use it right from the beginning because we are living proof that if you wait a little first, you're gonna get pregnant! I've been a little stunned. The first two were not planned but they were in the plans and it was actually perfect timing. But we were done and I had my head wrapped around that. We were ready for the vacations to begin, maybe camping soon. We were ready for both kids to be in school so I could work during the day more and we could make some more money. But here I am with number 3 growing rapidly in there as I type. Of course I am happy. It is like nature makes you happy. What else are you going to be? Of course I am worried about autism and I am doing things differently this time. I am not going to eat a ton of chocolate for one...no tuna fish at all. I am eating organic healthy food but I will allow the occasional pizza binge. Today, to get myself excited or to drive home the reality, I bought two glass baby bottles online and a stainless steel sippy cup. And I think that I am somehow going to try and not have an epidural. I don't know. I won't commit to that because I got to 9 cm with Owen before I got the epidural and I can still feel the pain. But I think I am going to try.

Also a couple of weeks before my due date and after the baby is born I am not going to eat or consume anything with casein in it as I have read lots of articles that say it helps to calm colic, to cut out dairy. After having one child with autism and the other with first, dysphasia as an infant and asthma now. I am going to do my best to keep the environmental toxins as far away as I can. I also will not be doing any shots until this one is 4 years old. I hope it helps keep my new little one protected. It is so strange because you get the shots to protect your children, and it is so weird that I will not be getting the shots...to protect my children. I have learned that doctors don't know anything and the people who taught the doctors, don't know anything. What else is a doctor going to do though than tell you confidently that what they have learned is fact. How can you be a skeptical doctor? Well, I guess it is possible, in fact we have one for AJ.

So I am early on in the pregnancy but I am giving my little clump of multiplying cells lots of good energy and thoughts and early love. I have been lucky enough that my anxiety has not been popping up and I hope it stays that way. I am wondering if it going to be a boy or girl. AJ wants a sister and Owen wants a brother. I don't care, either way it will be amazing. I hope things work out. I hope I hope and I hope and I don't worry because worry doesn't help. But I am terrified in the most calm way possible. Hm,
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No Autism Today

Yesterday AJ had a tummy bug. She vomited about 10 times but then she recovered overnight and this morning was amazing. She played with Owen all morning, only coming up for air to tattle on him a few times, once for suggesting they play baseball in the house. It was such a remarkable morning that I called Cathy Z from CARD and asked her to come over and observe AJ. She came over with her video camera and said that she noticed right from walking in the door that AJ's "processing time" was immediate and we did not have the usual, "Look its Cathy, say hi to Cathy...can you say hi to Cathy, AJ?" Instead AJ ran up and waved and said, "Hi Cathy!" She answered questions and smiled and when I talked to her she gave me some sly little smiles like when she was a baby and gave me good eye contact. Her eye contact wasn't that great with Cathy but she was totally "with us" in a way that was really exciting. She was more alert in the morning before Cathy came over, but she was still doing well for Cathy. I think that Cathy got some good stuff on tape. It is weird how the heightened awareness and "normal" energy seems to kind of fade away as the bug goes away. AJ does very well now with the b12 shots, but she is always on a completely different, amazing level after a stomach bug. It is so great to know that she is in there. I think all our kids are "in there" and that if this were studied we would be so close to getting to meet them eye to eye.

Cathy and I talked for a while about why on earth a stomach bug and a fever could be so good for her brain. We talked about how maybe it was the heightened immune system was leaving alone attacking itself and was concentrating on attacking the bug. Whatever it is, it is highly under-studied, under-reported and if it was studied seriously and hugely... I think that it could open the doors to treatment in an incredible way. All AJ has had to drink all day is gatorade and she did not eat anything all day until this evening when she had two rice cakes. She is still doing well. I hear her out there watching a movie with her grandpa yelling about how there is ice in the video and how Owen is wrong that it is not a rock it is an iceberg.I have capitalized on lots of hugs and kisses today and lots of smiles. It fills up my heart, which is especially wonderful when this is such a difficult week as it is one year tomorrow since my sister and her baby were killed in a car accident. She would have been so proud of AJ. I wish I could be telling her all about this. Anyway, I feel like she is also somehow a part of AJ's progress. I know that sounds crazy but I just feel it in my heart.

me.

Back to Pacifier

After I took away the pacifier AJ started making some weird faces with her mouth and nose. It is pretty much a tick. So I gave her back her paci at night and the tick is gone. Does this mean she has torrets too? or is that an autism thing? I don't even feel like looking it up.
me.

Mother's Day Grief and a Stint in the ER

So I booked a wedding a while ago that we will film in Philadelphia. They are going to fly us out there and pay for a hotel for 2 nights. We are leaving in two weeks. I knew that we would be flying out the day after my sister's birthday but I didn't realize that the pain leading up to that day would be so shocking. How am I going to film a wedding two days after her birthday? They better not play Dancing Queen at the reception.

The sister I"m talking about is my older sister. The sister that is I don't know where she is now because she died in a car accident and I don't understand or have a fixed idea about where you go after you die, after she died, or her baby, because she was 7 months pregnant. Today is mothers day. We just acted like everything was normal today. But through it all, even though I didn't cry or see my mom cry, today was the most painful most awful most...wrong mothers day because it was supposed to be her first. And I could write about autism, I could write about being a mom to a little one with autism, but my sister didn't get to see what it was like to be a mom at all, none of the joy or the pain. She is just gone and I don't know where she is or perhaps there is a slim chance she is holding her baby somewhere in some kind of heaven. I don't know. Maybe it will make more sense someday but not right now.

So happy mothers day to me to my mom and to my sister wherever you are. I miss you.

I read her card from last mothers day and it was amazing and she thanked me for being an amazing mom and a wonderful sister. Her handwriting is so bubbly. I guess I will look at it every year as long as I am alive I suppose.

That is my autism blog. Sorry it is not more about autism. Perhaps I could end the blog like this. The sudden and unwanted understanding of the fragility of life, puts things into perspective. How lucky we are to be able to love and hold our children. And yes, I do only think it is luck, because how could there possibly be a reason that my loyal, intelligent and amazing sister who was so excited to be a mom...how could there be a reason for her life to be taken so violently? There isn't one. There isn't one.
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So right after I finished writing that last night I head O coughing a croupy cough and ended up having to call an ambulance because he couldn't breathe. It was really really scary.

Today though, everything is better. They took him in and fixed him up at the hospital and now my baby is just fine. I keep getting slammed from one emotional roller coaster to the next. But I sit here just fine too somehow. I guess this is just life.
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short one

We are done with the pacifier. When I read about plastic and BPA's and all of that fun stuff I took away the pacifier. She was fine for the first week but was asking for it a bit this weekend. I have just rubbed her legs at night to help her go to sleep since she doesn't have the pacifier to help her. It seems to be working fine and I hope to be able to phase it out after a while. I think this will be better for her teeth.
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