Pumpkin patch, Halloween, Lynsey's b-day, etc

I was so sure I had posted up to Halloween night, and then I log on and see my last post was October 21st! So here is a huge catch up post! I should have probably done a few different posts but I'll do my best to make sense of our last several weeks.

Saturday the 22nd - we did family pictures in the morning (will post those separately after I finish this one). I am actually pretty happy with the pictures we got, but it was not an easy session! Lynsey had a problem for the last bit, Adam had some trouble at the beginning but actually ended well, there was a few minutes in the middle where we didn't have any big issues:-/. The joys of family pictures! Right after that, we went to Stocker Farms to get pumpkins and enjoy some of the activities. It was ridiculously busy! It had been raining every weekend for so long, so the first beautiful fall day and EVERYONE decided it was a good pumpkin patch day! It went okay, although probably a bit much on picture day. The corn maze was super muddy which was a bummer. It was still worth doing but I did not enjoy it as much as I have other years!

Adam started taking the bus to school the following Thursday. This little thing has made my life so much easier, I am very thankful for it! He loves taking it, and I don't have to drive to Horace Mann in the mornings now (poor Lynsey has to walk! She's usually quite good about it). He is starting to settle into school there. He doesn't ask about RSA anymore. They are currently doing assessments on him to see what services he will qualify for (and I would be surprised if he qualified for anything but the maximum amount, but we will see). We are also still working with ORL to get him started on a home program. I will meet with them at their office Wednesday morning and we'll get that ball rolling. A bit nervous about a home program, but it really does seem like the best way forward. He is lightening up a BIT with his rants about going places, some days are really good, some days are as bad as ever. The difference is he IS having good days, which for a while there was all we could hope for. I am looking on the bright side!

We did some pumpkin carving and got ready for Halloween the next weekend! Trick or treating on Monday went pretty well - we even got Adam out to a few houses in his Policeman costume! His understanding has been increasing which is encouraging. Lynsey had a lot of fun trick or treating with the neighbor kids!

What else has been happening . . . oh of course, Lynsey's 9th birthday! Brian was actually gone in Menlo Park on the day of her birthday (Thursday the 3rd) so we just had some Dilly bars to celebrate at home. On Saturday was the big party! A lot of her friends came out to the Redmond Pool to swim and celebrate with her! We finished the party at our house with cake and gifts, it was a lot of fun for everyone! A bit stressful for me as always, but not too bad:). We went to Red Robin on Sunday for her family birthday dinner, and she got her birthday song and dessert, thus completing her birthday festivities! She really loves her birthday:).

What else . . . Brian's parents are here right now actually! They gave Brian and I a night away Friday night, so we went to a bed and breakfast on Camano Island which was really nice! Today Frances and I are going shopping which is always fun (except that she is a bad influence on me, I always end up buying something expensive when I shop with her! I guess I can't give her ALL the blame for that;-)). That about catches us up! Life is busy this fall, the next few weekends are full and I know December will be no different, but of course we wouldn't have it any other way:).

New school, new routine

I feel like the last three weeks have been a bit of a blur. Adam started school at Horace Mann on Tuesday, October 4th. We did just a half day that day to see how it would go. He was a bit upset when I left him there, but after about half an hour he had settled down, so they told me. It was a hard day for me, too. We knew this change had to come some time, and it really felt like the circumstances were right, but I couldn't help but feel a little bit of, "What have we done!" He did half days at RSA until the end of last week, and the 14th was his last day there. THAT was a hard day for me, too, even harder than his first day at Horace Mann. It felt very final, the end of an era. The end of his protected, safe environment that was just a steady part of his life, and a solid part of our routine. Change is so hard because you never really know if you're doing the right thing. There doesn't seem to be any illuminated signs that go up to tell you "Take this path for best results!", so all you can do is make the best decisions with the info that you have. He has been doing okay at Horace Mann. He has had some stress episodes there, but they told me on Tuesday at his Guidance Team meeting that they haven't even seen him do any stimming at all - no shaking of any sticks or anything else. This makes me wonder if he is still in coping mode, just waiting until his time there is done. It hasn't sunk in for him that this is going to be his school now! He has been asking to go to his "regular school", which is quite hard for us to hear. With time he will get used to his new routine I know, and I just hope and pray that this change will spark some new growth in him.

We also met with Ann Sturtz, the intake coordinator for ORL (an in-home ABA therapy program) on Thursday. We feel pretty certain at this point that we want to supplement his school experience with some continued ABA therapy, and we are hoping that home therapy will be the right path for him right now. Home therapy did not work when he was 3, but he is almost 7 now and much more used to therapists working with him. We want someone at home with us to help us deal with some of the behaviors that seem to come out the most when we are at home (the whole interrupting us every time we talk to stress about going somewhere would be pretty high on that list at the moment, as that has not really improved much since my last post). It will take some time before that will get started, so hopefully he can get a bit more settled into his new school before we throw another change at him. I am not sure how this will look for our family, he will probably only do a half day at school and then a half day of therapy at home, but the good thing about this kind of therapy is that the parent doesn't always have to be there. I can actually leave the house if I want. They do involve parents as is appropriate, and do parent coaching, but it's nice to know that I'm not going to be completely tied up with this for 3 hours every day - that wouldn't even work with my school pickups. I am so hopeful that a fresh set of eyes on Adam will give us some new insight into some of his anxiety and stress - we really need help with this. Hopefully this is it!

What else have we been doing the last few weeks, I feel like we have been very consumed with Adam's situation. I went on a field trip with Nathan's class to a small farm which was a lot of fun! We had a Canadian Thanksgiving celebration with the Daveys and Vanees on Saturday the 8th, everything turned out really well and it was a really nice evening. Brian was gone at the end of last week for a few days to Menlo Park, the kids and I did fine. There was supposed to be a big storm on Thursday night which turned out to be a non-event thankfully. Saturday night was also supposed to be very stormy, but it was just a bit rainy with a bit of wind. We unfortunately had to post pone our family pictures to this Saturday, but it looks like tomorrow will be nice so hopefully they turn out okay! Scheduling fall pictures is such a gamble, but hopefully it will all be worth it (will probably go back to summer pictures for next year, not such a big weather question mark).