Saying good-bye to May

Here I am writing on the last day of May - can there really only be one month left in the school year?? I am excited for school to be done, but also terrified to have the kids home all day with me again. What if they drive me nuts? Hopefully we can get out lots and break up the days a lot. I did enjoy Spring Break with them home all week, but that was only one week.

Adam's home program has been a bit difficult lately. The first month was great. The last month, he has been very clingy to me. He won't let the therapists do anything with him, and gets very easily agitated if he feels at all forced into anything at all. It's been a very frustrating experience. I mentioned my frustrations at our goals meeting this past Monday, and they said they would make it one of his goals to be able to do things with therapists independent from me. I am curious as to how they will help him reach this goal. I tried to tell them how wonderful he's doing in preschool, and that when I'm not around, Brian can put him to bed without a problem. I actually feel like I am standing in the way of him making progress sometimes. However, FSCD programs are all about parent involvement and I did not get the feeling that therapy without me present was an option. I did say we would try a few times to have Brian be home for the therapy and me be completely gone from the house, so we'll see how that goes. His aide is actually away all next week, so a break might be nice. Maybe it will help him to appreciate a bit more structure in the mornings once it's gone for a little while. I need a break, too. I thought having an aide would make my life easier, but lately, it has added more stress to my life. I am not ready to give up on it, I just am really hoping and praying that Adam will be less anxious and more receptive to other people working with him when I'm around.

The other day, I sat and played trains with Nathan for a good 20 minutes. It was then that I realized that I had probably never played any one thing with Adam for that long at that age, or even now for that matter. It is very interesting to see the contrast between how Nathan is and how Adam was. I didn't realize it so much at the time, although if I had had Nathan first, I think it would have been more obvious. The contrast between girls and boys is one thing, but when you have two boys that are so different, well, I'm just thinking it may have raised some more questions. I do love how interactive Nathan is - so much fun:). He's still not saying a lot of words, but I feel like he's close to saying a bunch more soon. I guess we'll see!

Fun times with family in Edmonton!

We had a good long weekend! We went to Edmonton and were able to see Brian's family AND a LOT of my family! Martin and Angie opened up their home to all the Fehr family that was going to be in the Edmonton area and it was great to see so many of them! The weekend before I did my run in Canmore. It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed the drive out to Canmore. It was a really hard race (as I knew it would be) but I was happy with my time - I don't know I could have pushed myself much harder than I did. I stopped my watch at 5K and my time was 29:24 - not too bad. The race was probably about 5.3K and my total time was 31:29, 48th out of 726 runners. Best finish yet!

Adam is still having a lot of trouble at bedtime these days. I am sitting outside their bedroom door as I write this. He seems to be okay with me just being outside his door for now, which is already an improvement over how he's been (I am hoping it will get back to the point where I can just say good night and leave, but we're working back to that!). He looks under the door so if you ever try to sneak away, it's bad news. We are really working on turn taking with him, and he is getting better and saying, "my turn" with certain games. Today, his aide Samantha was taking turns with him on the slide and by the end when she was at the top and asked him whose turn it was, he said, "Samantha's turn" so that was great to hear! I so long to have a back and forth conversation with him that isn't at all prompted, just spontaneous conversation. Praying for it every day, it's only a matter of time:). Starting to look ahead to potty training this summer - petrified, but determined! I am trying to have a plan in place as a starting point, but I really just have no idea how it will go. Oh please let me be shocked at how easy it is! Wouldn't that be the nicest surprise ever!

Nathan is saying some more words now:). You can now say, "ready, set . . . " and then he says, "go!". Also he is starting to say "mo" for more a bit more consistently. His "that" is becoming very specific - he seems to know what he wants now! He will point and something and say "that" and it's pretty hard to distract him with something else! Such a smiley, cute little boy! His napping is getting better, too. He still has morning naps sometimes, but he can make it through most mornings now and has had several 2 hour plus naps lately. He cut his first eye tooth last week, too! There is another one almost through, so we are soo close to being done with teething! I can't tell you how exciting that is for me.

Lynsey is becoming a better reader every day! It's great to hear her try and sound words out, and every home reading book she brings home, she does better than the day before (and some of them are pretty hard books, too!). She's just getting so grown up! We've still had some issues with her emotional outbursts, but I feel like it's simmering down a bit, like the time of testing is coming to a close. Thank goodness, because that was ridiculous.

My baby's first haircut!

I don't usually wait this long to post - apparently it has been a busy couple of weeks! We've had a lot of therapists here in the mornings which is good, but it makes the mornings feel more full. The weather has been great! I love that the kids can go outside so much, and that we've been able to have some trips to the park after school. We had a big get together at our house last weekend, the weekend before that we had a marriage conference at the church (which was wonderful!) - yep, it's been a busy couple of weeks:).

Nathan is such a character. He has started trying to make us laugh. When he notices that we laugh at something he does, this little grin spreads over his face and he does it again, and again, and again! He now often wants to walk when I drop off or pick up Lynsey, which is fine, but sometimes time does not permit this! Also, he has a mind of his own and tends to wander onto people's lawns and driveways and gets pretty upset when I set him on the right course. He finally cut his last molar, but now I'm afraid the eye teeth are coming! Please not yet! He is sort of down to one nap, but I find that if I put him down around 9:15, he will still fall asleep quite quickly and sleep for up to an hour and a half! I feel like he should be down to one nap already since he is over 14 months, but he is hanging on to that extra sleep. I'd rather he have it at night and stop waking up before 7, but you can't have everything! We also had a bit of a momentous occasion for him this past Tuesday - his very first haircut! I've been putting this off, even though it's been needed for some time now. I didn't want him to lose his baby look! I'm not that sentimental with most things, but apparently this one bothered me a bit! We got it done, and he did really well, actually. A bit of crying, but not bad! Brian thinks his haircut looks a bit goofy (I didn't want to go totally short so it's a bit like a modified bowl haircut!) but I think it's cute:). Next time we might go shorter, but I'm happy he still has some baby hair on him:).

Lynsey started soccer last week! She absolutely loves it. She claims she wants to go every day! It's nice to see her having so much fun. She also wants to stay after school and run around with other kids every day, which I don't mind, but a lot of days there are no kids sticking around. I feel a bit bad for her because I think she might be a bit ahead socially compared to other kids in her class (I've felt like this since preschool when I noticed she was greeting all the kids by name and most of them just stared back at her). Interesting the contrast between her and Adam in this area:). We are still having some trouble with her emotional outbursts, but it does seem to be slowing down which is nice. I can see a lot of myself in her, so I am trying to be really empathetic, but it is hard some days!

Adam is loving the weather - he can now add going outside to her repertoire of things he does every day! He's usually out there in his pajamas first thing in the morning, but I've long given up on imagining what the neighbours might think of us (our friends' little boy running around outside with no underwear sort of cures that illusion that they aren't already judging us haha!). I don't feel like he's making rapid progress, but slowly but surely we do see improvements in a lot of areas. He is so brave at the park these days! The things he is climbing all on his own compared to last year is amazing. He now goes to the fridge for every meal and gets the ketchup and brings it to the table (he has started eating ketchup on everything!). The other day, we were having mushroom soup for lunch but he went to get the ketchup as always. I told him we were having soup and we didn't put ketchup in the soup, thinking he would definitely argue, but he just walked back to the fridge and put the ketchup back. Again I say it's hard to predict when he will understand exactly what you're saying! We've started giving him and Lynsey "blanket swing" rides (Brian and I swing them on a blanket and plop them onto the couch) and Adam just loves this! It's been a great way get him to start some back and forth communication with us. We can now ask him, "Are you ready?" and he says without us prompting him, "I'm ready". Also when we ask him whose turn it is, he is slowly starting to consistently pat his chest and say, "my turn". We've had trouble finding activities that motivate him enough to work on some of these communication skills, but Blanket Swing seems to be one that is working! Thanks to his Speech Therapist for suggesting that one:).

I have to talk about the marriage conference weekend a little bit. First of all, Greg Speck is a wonderful speaker and I really enjoyed his teaching all weekend. So worth going to! The most amazing part of the whole weekend was that we dropped Adam off in the church daycamp Saturday morning at 9:30. We did not go get him until 3pm. They did not call us once! Our wonderful babysitter Madi was there, taking him under her wing which was helpful, but she said she didn't even have to do that much! Truly a miracle, as he doesn't even make it through Sunday School without me there. I guess God really wanted us to hear the message of the weekend:).

Spring is (kind of) here!

The last week and a half have been good, nothing really "out there" has happened. We had parent/teacher interviews with Adam's teachers last Wednesday! It was encouraging! They are very optimistic about his progress and he is doing well with the goals they have set out for him. I feel like he has been a bit clingy to me lately, like he'll come find me and ask me to come with him to another room (not in so many words, but I know what he means! "Want to come too" is generally what he says:)). He actually told me to get off the computer the other day to play with him! That was unusual to say the least. I don't know - sometimes I think we are at the cusp of an exponential improvement, and other times it doesn't seem like that at all. He had another hearing assessment on Monday. He did well during the booth part (although his responses weren't consistent so she couldn't say for sure if he was hearing them or not), but the second she brought out the thing that goes in his ear, game over. I do wonder how many Autistic children (or typical children for that matter) do tolerate stuff being stuck in their ears for several seconds . . . and they have to be quiet and sit still for it, too. Seems like a long shot for most kids, utterly impossible with Adam. Our only option at this point is to have him sedated so they can do the test, and we just aren't that concerned about his hearing that we would do that at this point.

Nathan continues to wander around, sticking his hand (books, my pj shirt, etc.) into the toilet from time to time. I love his curiosity, but it is a bit of a pain! He is really attached to blankies now, which just sort of happened almost overnight. Not much else to report with him, except that I THINK we might finally be switching over to one nap more officially . . . will confirm next post:).

We are still having some behavioural issues with Lynsey. She is still exploding with emotion very easily, but I continue to feel confident that our strategy of empathizing but not giving in will work in the end. I can't even tell you how many deep breaths I take in one day. It has become a bit less over the last few weeks, so perhaps there is light at the end of this tunnel! Such a great little girl she is, and so packed full of emotions! No, I have absolutely no idea where that would have come from, it's not like I'm an emotional person that reacts inappropriately at times.

Soooo that brings me to a bit of a fiasco that I was dealing with this morning! We found out last week that Lynsey is not playing soccer on the field that is a minute away from our house, but at the field in Coventry. I was absolutely gutted, like I nearly cried. So, in typical "Sarah" fashion, I emailed the coach and the soccer coordinator about my disappointment, asking what the criteria was for team placement. This was Thursday or Friday, and I sort of just got over it after a few days of stewing over it. Lynsey gets her uniform on Sunday, it's pink, she loves it, and by this time I have accepted where we'll be playing (and Lynsey and her friend Alyssa are on the same team, which Lynsey is over the moon about). Well, the coordinator gets back to me yesterday, saying that team placement is random, that they don't group according to addresses. Instead of just leaving it there like most people would have (and I SHOULD have), I said maybe Brian should make a program for them for next year, because really, there should be a way to do this. I left it at that, thinking I had merely given feedback for next year. Well, this morning, I see an email from the coordinator saying that she had switched Lynsey to a team on the close field! They had yellow uniforms and it was just Lynsey switched, so no more being on the same team as Alyssa! Crisis! I felt awful - I can't remember a time when I wished more that I had just kept my mouth shut in the first place (well, except for later today, but I will blog about that in a few days:)). What a mess I had made! I reread the emails I wrote and could totally see how she would have thought I was implying that I would like a team switch. And don't get me wrong - I definitely would have liked the closer field! This stress was because of how disappointed Lynsey was to hear that not only would she not be on Alyssa's team, but she would have a yellow uniform instead of pink! Thankfully, the coordinator called me (after about an hour of me being completely stressed out!) and we got it all sorted out - she is staying on the pink team. The coordinator was actually really nice about it, saying she was just trying to be nice and thought this whole thing was kind of funny:). Not going to lie - when she told me it didn't matter either way, I was a bit tempted to keep the switch for our own convenience. . . walking to soccer . . . so convenient . . . sigh, the things we do for our kids! Lynsey was very happy to hear it, so it was all worth it:). But seriously - note to self - stop venting in emails to other people! I might just start using this blog more as a means to vent instead of emailing people!