randomly chaotic and frequently mundane

In honor of that, I’d like to post about about my son.

He was diagnosed on Feb 15, 2007.  He was almost 5 years old at the time.  What lead us to have him evaluated?  I actually get that question a lot.  He hadn’t started to speak yet, for starters.  He also lacked social skills — though he hadn’t had much social interaction with his peers prior to starting pre-school that year.  He didn’t make eye contact and wasn’t affectionate and he had a hard time focusing on a single task (more so than your average 4 yr old, that is).

What was it like?  Well, it was difficult.  I’ll admit, I cried.  In that moment, I realized all the things that my son might never experience as a result.  He may never fall in love.  May never attend college.  Might never have a career that he loves… there are so many “might nevers.”  It hurt me to know that my son might not experience those things.  But the next morning, I woke up with a renewed resolve — the might nots are still there, but what can and will happen is that I will do everything in my power to make sure that my son has the opportunity for those things to happen.  In essence, I woke with a new attitude and determination.  Now my son is on the Ritalin patch, which helps him to focus on things in school and at home.  He interacts with other children more frequently than just school.  He’s encouraged and praised when he uses new words correctly.  His progress has been tremendous the past couple of years and he’s going into a class next year that relies less on “one on one” lessons and more on group lessons.

Yes, there are still tantrums from time to time.  And even rarer than that, there are still meltdowns.  They’re terrible and heart breaking and occasionally frightening.  But that’s part of who my son is, but don’t get me wrong… if and when it goes away, I won’t miss it.  It’s still a part of life and we deal with it.  ‘Nuff said.

Do you ever wonder about the things you’re missing out on by not having a normal child?  What’s normal?  My son is normal to me.  He’s the only child I’ve ever had, his diagnosis didn’t change anything.  He was the same kid the day before we got the piece of paper that said “Diagnosis: Autism” as he was the day after we got that piece of paper.  And just what am I missing out on?  I have a loving son who is affectionate, loves to laugh and play outside.  Loves a lot of the movies I grew up watching, likes playing with the dog… a child for whom blowing bubbles or a bowl of mac and cheese will cure any sour mood or boo-boo.  Sound a lot like some “normal” kids you know?  I’m not missing out on anything, I’m just experiencing it in a different way than you.

On May 22, my family and I (including my son) will be participating in the Autism walk in our community. Please feel free to click the link and contribute to our team. Your support would be greatly appreciated.

Click Here to Donate

We’ve been searching the sites of the local animal shelters a lot lately, looking at the dogs they have available and contemplating what kind of dog we might want to open our hearts to and give all the love that Lucky’s not around to receive anymore.  I’ve notice a HUGE number of American Staffordshire Terriers and AmStaff mixes on all the shelter sites I’ve looked at.  Not just here, but all over the place.  It’s heart breaking.  These are beautiful dogs with such wonderful dispositions and yet they’re overlooked by a lot of people.  They’re loyal, playful and very protective of their humans.  They’re also great with children.  If you’re out looking for a dog to adopt, don’t overlook them because they look tough or mean.  Open your hearts and minds to them, you may find yourself a very special dog in an AmStaff.  My Tiger was an AmStaff mix.  He was an amazing dog and I miss him tremendously.  But he’s in a happy home with lots of room to run and children to play with, for which I’m glad.

*The picture is my son sharing a bit of spaghetti with Tiger a la Lady and the Tramp.

in October of 1995, a wonderful soul came into our lives.  He had brown hair, beautiful eyes and a funny little tail.  Our dog Lucky.  He was named Lucky before we got him, but we thought it was a good name.  An appropriate name.  He was brought to us by a woman my mom worked with at the time.  She was at a flea market and the people who owned his mother were trying to sell her pups.  Lucky was the runt of the litter and failed to sell.  She overheard them saying they were going to just let him loose in the woods and told them that she would take him home.  Her son named him Lucky, because when she came along it was his lucky day.  It was ours too.  Pets are wonderful, they make great companions and they help make wonderful memories.  They’re as much a part of the family as your siblings, children, grand children, etc.

In October of 2009, it came time to let Lucky move on.  He’s gone to the bridge.  He had lost a good deal of the control of his hind legs and was starting to lose control of his bowel and bladder.  While he wasn’t in any pain, his quality of life had diminished, so we decided that it was time.  It was a tremendously sad day for us, and he is sorely missed.

Halloween was nice.  I bought Gage a Superman costume, and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.  So I took him to Walmart and showed him the costumes.  He took a fireman costume off the wall and said “may I have red?”  So he was a fireman for Halloween.  He had a blast trick or treating.  And this was the first time ever that he picked out his own Halloween costume.  I was so excited.

Thanksgiving, was the same as usual.  He avoided all of the usual dinner items and ate mac and cheese.  But he did play with his cousins a little, which was nice.

Christmas was an interesting time this year.  We went to pick out the tree with mom, and Gage walked right up to one tree and said “Christmas tree.”  Well after searching through all the other trees it turned out that the tree Gage picked was indeed the one we were going home with.  Even better, it was the most perfect tree we’ve ever had.  The right size, the perfect shape, no holes except for the kind that you hang large ornaments in anyway… it was PERFECT.  After we set it up, we had to give it a couple of days to fall,  before we decorated it.  Gage wasn’t having that, apparently.  He got out a basket of jingle bells mom uses for decoration and hung them all over the tree (where he could reach, anyway).  We had to distract him so that we could get the bells off to put the lights and stuff on.  Then he helped put the ornaments on the tree.  It was the first time he’s ever helped decorate the tree.  It was really special.  He had a blast Christmas eve and day, got lots of presents.  He got something really special from his grandparents… a train and a donkey kong game that belonged to his daddy when he was a kid.  It was awesome.  The train especially.  When he unwrapped that, he grabbed the box and ran like he thought we were going to take it away.  It was so cute.

I got a book called the Kid Friendly ADHD & Autism cookbook.  It has a lot of GFCF recipes in it as well as tips on slipping more veggeis and proteins into your kids food.  Some I’ll never try (like putting pureed meat into muffins — sorry, that’s just wrong), but some ideas are pretty interesting.  Actually, I’ve tried one already.  I put pureed cauliflower in his mac and cheese last night and tonight.  I’ve been reducing the amount of gluten in his diet a bit lately, and it’s made a bit of a difference in his behavior.  So I’m going to try going a little further.  Tonights mac and cheese was actually gluten free.  He’s going to start getting only gluten free mac and cheese and spaghetti.  Bread I think I’ll keep as is for now.  But I might start making gluten free muffins for his breakfast, something I can slip some grated veggies into.  He’s also started eating eggs.  A 1 egg omelet with a slice of bacon folded in.  Of course, currently he’ll only eat it if it’s been cooked using bacon drippings.  I’m working on gradually phasing that out. 

He’s doing great in school and being more social.  He’s always trying to play with his youngest cousin.  He likes to run around holding her hand and laughing.  He likes to spin around with her and they have a good time when they’re getting along.  It’s so cute.

Apparently Hasbro has a sub-company (or whatever it is they call it) called Noodleboro.  Noodleboro has 3 board games that I know of.  1 to help teach the importance of listening, 1 on sharing and 1 on manners.  Go Noodleboro.  They were actually brought to my attention the other day when I stopped at Walmart with a friend to pick up some stuff he needed to build new cages for his pet rats.  After we acquired the supplies he needed, I wanted to check out the toys and games to start getting some ideas for Christmas.  I was actually looking at the Memory and Candyland options they had when he pointed out the Noodleboro games.  I’m thinking that Gage will be getting at least one of those board games.  The listening one — not just because listening is part of communication, which is still a big priority for me as far as Gage’s progress (even though he’s making such huge strides), but also because it’s centered around pizza, which never fails to get his attention.  Heck if I can find a deal, he might get all 3.

It was not a perfect New Year’s eve, that’s for sure.  Sisser was at the hospital with her daughter.  It was scary, to say the least.  She had an infection on top of an infection, which resulted in something called Ataxia.  It was a frightening experience, to say the least.  One minute she was perfectly normal.  The next minute, she was stumbling all around.  Within an hour, she couldn’t stand or sit up on her own.  So she spent a few days in the hospital.  It took a neurologist (believe me, just the WORD scared the hell out of all of us) to tell Sisser what it was.  She’s pretty much back to normal now, still a little off balance sometimes, and she needs constant supervision for a few more days.  She can go back to day care next week.  There are bruises all over her face from stumbling and falling.  I think what scared me the most was how fast it hit.  It’s not contagious though, which is a good thing.

Trying to decide what I’m gonna make for dinner tonight.  I’m thinking maybe spaghetti.  Haven’t decided, though.  Meatloaf is also a possibility.  I have Saw 2 to watch tonight.  I think it’ll go better with meatloaf, actually.  I’ve seen bits and pieces of it so I look forward to being able to see the rest.  After it goes back, I’ll get Saw 3 and finally see that.  I currently have Secretary and 28 Days Later on the way.

Gage keeps building a tower of “cylindrical things” and everytime something falls he yells “whoops.”  Sometimes he just yells.  Earlier, Tiger backed into it and Gage started yelling “no-no-no-no-no-no!”  It was kind of cute, but kind of not.  He’s gotten more obsessed with that whole grouping together cylindrical things, thing.  I’m hoping that it passes soon.  Usually he does it for a week or so I put everything away every night and at the end of the week he forgets about it.  This has been going on for 2 weeks now.  I wonder if there are any cylindrical blocks that you can buy… Maybe that would change his focus.

I talked to Woody’s mom the other day.  She wanted to thank me for the photo album I made for her.  I used some of the fabric Gage painted to cover it.  It came out pretty cool, actually.  It was really nice talking to her.  I miss Woody’s parents, they’re awesome.

it makes me a little sad that gage doesn’t get to see his daddy on father’s day, but he’ll get to see him later this week so that’s good. i had wanted to do something special, to be honest. i was gonna try and make a plaque or something with woody’s handprint on it and gage’s handprint inside woody’s. i guess it’s just as well that i wasn’t able to do that, i don’t know that gage would have been very cooperative. still, it would have been a cool thing to do.

i sent my dad a card. and by my dad i mean the man who raised me. the man who donated raw materials is a non-entity in my life. i’m fine with that. because joe (my dad) was a kind and caring individual, who took care of me and my sisters when it wasn’t his job to do so. he didn’t have to be a father to us. he could have chosen to just be a guy who happened to be living in the same house. joe has had more effect on the person i have become than my biological father. and while i may not call him dad, he is my dad.

that stephen king’s IT is on abc family at the moment.

why not… when i was a kid horror films were quality family entertainment. many a night did my family gather around the tv or at the drive in movies to have the crap scared out of us as a family. of course nowadawys people get so pissed off if you show a horror film to a child. ok, i admit that since gage has had night terrors after we watched a horror flick while he was awake, we wait till he’s asleep now… but if your kid can handle it, like my sisters and i could, by all means, take your kid to that horror triple feature at the drive in. scare the bejesus out of them! have a good time with your kids!

some of the best memories of my life are spending time at the drive in movies with my family watching horror flicks. my love of horror movies, and horror novels comes from my mom.