All About Eyeballs

 We've got some good news on the household's eyeball front! We headed up to Atlanta last month and had a follow up with Gemma's eye doctor. We were pleased to hear that her eye has had no change. That might sound weird at first, but it's a good thing because it means it's not getting worse! Her eyelid won't get better on it's own, so staying the same is what we want to hear! As long as we can keep that astigmatism from getting worse, we can move forward with our plan of surgery to correct the eyelid at 3. She's even doing well enough that her doctor moved us from appointments every 3 months, so 6 months! Yeah!

Onto other eyeballs... Sabe went to Fort Stuart for an evaluation to see if he was a good candidate for lasik eye surgery. He's got some weird thing in his one eye (that of course I can't remember the name of) that is causing some complications, but he got the green light. He's got a team of doctors looking over his file to figure out what the best way to do it is and then we'll have surgery date. Sabe is excited to not need glasses anymore!

Gemma is growing like a weed! She's already crawling and I to my astonishment last night, communicating as well! She's mimicking the sounds I make! I've never had a baby do that before so it was really exciting and makes me hopeful that we won't have speech issues with her. Her hair is starting to come in and is looking like it might stay brown.

Jamesen will be having his IEP meeting with the school system in just  short little bit. He doesn't qualify for much except the social stuff which is exciting. He wants to go to school really bad, so hopefully he won't scream his head off when I leave him like he always does with everything else!

Marcus is doing great and understanding a lot more of what I'm saying. I've noticed that with certain phrases, I've not had to repeat myself a number of times before he understands me anymore. Progress is great! Speech therapy and going to school are really helping! His sentences are a lot more accurate now days and he's just overall doing great. He does have a hard time with transitions at school, but he's doing ok other than that.

Thanks for your love and support!

Moving On

I've found myself in a weird place. My PPD is trying it's hardest to hold on to me while the rest of me is trying so hard to break away. There are days where I feel normal and amazing and love my children and love my life and all of that and then there's the opposite side of the coin. My dark days. I'm having them less and less often but they're becoming worse as they get further between. I become enraged at the slightest things, I don't want to do anything or have anything to do with these beautiful children of mine and I certainly don't want anything to do with Sabin who, on those days, I see as a grown man who can take care of himself and doesn't need me to hold his hand.

The reality is, I've been yelling far too much, especially on the dark days. Today was a dark day. I yelled at Marcus and he started crying saying I was scary. I don't want to be scary. I don't  want him to remember scary. Growing up, I don't remember a single time my mother yelled at me. I remember days she was irritated, disappointed, mad whatever, but I don't remember a single time she yelled at me. I remember so many moments of her smiling and laughing though. I want my kids to remember me that same way.

So here's my pact, written for the world to see to hold me to it; I will not yell, not even once, for a week (minimum). On September the 25th, I will be back here to write down my accomplishment or I'll either avoid it or delete this due to failure. Or you never know, I might admit I failed and then turn around and try it the next week. My point is, my children are growing before my eyes and Marcus is an elephant. He's 5 now so he'll have memories from this age when he's grown. If he has a single memory of me yelling, I want it to be so long ago in his past that he can't remember it well. I don't want it to be clear as day or not too long ago.

I'm going to kick this PPD in the butt, now, while my children still think I'm the best thing since sliced bread. I don't want to be scary.

Random thoughts and updates

I've decided to write a book.  I've had a few people over the last few months say some pretty harsh things about my boys and myself and I decided to write a book. I'm taking a month and writing about the random happenings of every day so people can see a small glimpse into our lives and maybe, just maybe, understand a bit of what we go through.

I'm also writing another book that has nothing to do with that sort of thing. I had a dream and just started mapping out this idea and have talked to a few people about it who think it sounds really cool. I doubt either book will get published, but you will always fail if you never try, right? Doesn't hurt to try. If nothing happens, I'll just have amazon publish it and mail some copies to a few select people, bahhahahaa! Not really, but that would be funny if I did.

We took a huge plunge and purchased 200 roaches from an online store for our 6 froggies. The difference in my frogs is actually really amazing already! I couldn't be happier! The roaches freak me out though and the day we got them in the mail, I was hyperventilating saying I couldn't do it. The roaches are a lot better for my frogs though and the two of them that I've been really worried about are turning around already! Boo to the nasty crickets!

Marcus is doing really well in class. He has a little girl friend that he hugs every day and they get so happy when they each other. She says hi to Gemma every time we come to class too. He's also always talking about a boy named Johnathon. I asked the teacher about it and she says they're friends and play together a lot. It makes me feel a lot better that he's making friends. I was worried that he wouldn't since he speaks differently than all the others.

Also, Marcus had a great birthday. I'd been feeling immensely guilty since Jamesen's first birthday was huge and extravagant and Marcus hadn't had a huge party before ever. His party this year wasn't as big as Jamesen's first, but it was bigger than any party he'd ever had and all the kids were having a blast so that's what counts. He loved it!

Jamesen started doing really bad in therapy. He went from going and being happy to be there and being able to leave me and do the therapy without me perfectly fine to screaming when we got into the parkinglot, clinging to me for the first 15 minutes and barely cooperating for the rest. He's getting better as we continue to go thank goodness. School starting really threw him for a loop, poor kid!

Today though, he insisted on bringing marcus' old backpack to school and wearing it in. He was sooo cute in it! He qualifies for the STEPS program because of his asperger's and we've got an appointment for his eval to find out where he is and what he needs and how many hours he qualifies for. I figure he'll probably qualify for about the same amount of time Marcus did when he was in the STEPS program, 6 hours a week. I don't really know how it's going to go down with his separation anxiety, but we'll see I guess. We're making him a calendar with the faces of his therapists and a picture of the school to velcro on the days he has to go somewhere so he hopefully doesn't have as hard of a time transitioning through everything.

Gemma's doing great. She's rolling around like a mad woman, chatting up a storm and is starting to sit. She's in that stage where she can hold herself up for about 30 seconds as long as her feet are placed right and she doesn't move around too much. She'll be sitting in no time! It's pretty exciting and sad at the same time since she's our last. She just turned 5 months on Sept 9. That FLEW. she's almost half a year already.

She's been grabbing at our food and drinks like crazy lately so we tried her on a bit of home made peas.  It didn't really go over well. Her facial expressions were hilarious. We put that idea on ice (literally, there's home made baby food in the freezer, har har) and will revisit it later.

Pictures for this month can be found HERE


Anyways, that's what's been going on! We're doing fab :)

Just a small moment

First let me say, please pardon any missing I's as my key has fallen off and I can't get it back on.

Anyways.

I went to Kmart today, to buy Christmas presents actually, lol. I went to escape the craziness that has become my house with 2 little boys who are energizer bunnies and a sweet little girl who insists she needs constant stimulation from mom only. Oh my sweet children, how I love them.  Anyways.... again..


I went to Kmart today, just me and Gem. As I walked from my car, through the parking lot, I noticed a woman and a boy in front of me. As we got closer to the store, I caught up with them a bit and I could tell something was off with the boy. As I walked through the store, I kept running into them, like I was inadvertently following them. I'm a people watcher. I love to just sit and watch people. When I get caught it's all very awkward, but... I dunno, there's something so serene about watching people go about their life.

Anyway, as I was walking behind this mother and her son a few times,  the love of that mother just permeated off of her, it was amazing actually. She loved her son so much, you could feel it just being next to her.

I got caught up in my shopping at this point and then suddenly I turned to find this little boy staring intently at Gemma with a slight smile on his face, his fingers twitching like Jamesen's do when he's excited. He never once looked at me, but he was positively giddy while looking at her. He asked me her age, asked to see her face (she was facing in and looking the other direction) and it was just so cute to spend this one little moment with this autistic boy, knowing that he was autistic (I dunno, I could just tell...) and having him interact with me. He asked me a few more questions and then said "She's very beautiful. Thank you for sharing her with me." and then went off and got excited about the toys surrounding him.

I turned after that to go check out because I was finished shopping and don't you know who should come up behind me in line? Of course it was them. I had wanted to ask his mother if he was autistic, but I didn't want to ask in front of him. I didn't want him to feel like it was that obvious that he was different. When they got in line behind me, he walked past to go look at something that had caught his eye and so I asked her if he was. She said yes and of course we sat there for a moment talking about our special little boys and how sweet and loving they are.

I felt very privileged to have that boy interact with me. If he's normally like Jamesen, he hates people and refuses to speak to strangers. I didn't start the conversation at all, it was all Gemma. Gemma's sweet little spirit that drew him in and let me have that one little moment in time with such a special little boy.

I've been sad and worried about my children lately. Sad of everything they'll have to do to get passed what's set in front of them. Having this little moment lifted my spirits and reminded me what beautiful children I have. What amazing children I have. And even if they never fully overcome their setbacks, they're still perfect. It won't be the end of the world. I cherish them so much. It's hard, but I'm so blessed to have them. They're so precious to me.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that little moment with you. No matter what setbacks you're facing, no matter what you're going through and how hard it is, life is beautiful. Just remember to stop and smell the roses. Count your blessings. Take a picture with your family, just how they are right now because they won't be like that for long. Life is so beautiful. Don't lose it. Cherish everything in it. It may be hard now, but tomorrow is another day. The sun will continue to shine and life will go on.

Another eye appointment and an awesome vacation!

We had Gemma's eye appointment with the pediatric ophthalmologist today.  It was a LONG day! We had to leave early because it takes 2 hours to get there and the appointment was at 850 in the morning. We get there and check in and the receptionist told us that our referral for them wasn't in and without it we would be charged $300. This was really annoying because I didn't even make the appointment! It was made for me and I got 3 days notice. While we were in North Carolina (more on that further down), our phones weren't working properly (we didn't have very good reception) and there was a packet I was supposed to pick up and bring with me but didn't get the message.

Anyways, we finally got all fixed after what felt like a million back and forth phone calls and about an hour. Poor boys. They were woken up early, forced to sit in their carseats for 2 hours and then cooped up in a waiting room for another before we finally got back. They were being CRAZY! We ended up being there for almost 5 hours. Oi! Add on the 2 hours drive home... those boys were nuts by the end! I must remember to not forget to change out the batteries in the leapsters again!

Sorry, tangent. Her eyes are doing well. They dilate well and the pupils are the same size, but she's favoring her right eye (the non ptosis eye) so her left eye is starting to drift slightly a bit. The pressure of her eyelid on her eye is also causing the shape to change which is an astigmatism. We also went over the surgery stuff. when they do the surgery, they hook the top of the lid to the eyebrow since the muscle is under developed and can't lift her lid on it's own. At this age, they would insert a metal rod which the body tends to reject and it would typically need to be redone a few more times before she as three. If we can wait until three the procedure is different...they can take a certain tissue (can't remember what the doc specifically said) from her thigh and insert that instead which usually isn't rejected, lasts longer and usually doesn't need to be redone. What they said is if they can keep her vision good, then we'll wait until three. We'll be going back every 3 months to check on the astigmatism to see if it's getting worse. 


For now, we're putting a patch on her right eye half an hour each day to force her to use her left eye and try to catch it back up and keep it from drifting. We'll go back in October to see how things are going. If the patching isn't helping, it will be bumped up to an entire hour a day and she'll possibly need glasses.

That's all for now... now on to the good stuff!!

We went on a week vacation to North carolina  to visit a dear friend of mine and Sabe's brother's family.  We left early in the morning on Thursday with a 6.5 hour drive ahead of us. We were expecting Gemma to not do well in the car and need a lot of stops, but were pleasantly surprised when she actually did really well. We got to my friend Candace's house 3 hours earlier than we were expecting! The boys absolutely loved  Candace and her family. We went to the pool and got the North Carolina zoo under our belts while we were with them. We had so much fun! 


We then left early Sunday with a 4.5 hour drive ahead of us to make it to Sabe's brother's house. They have a new baby that is only 2 weeks older than Gemma. It was fun having two babies in the house. It actually really worked out since Dorothy and I were both in sync with the baby stuff. Everybody understood when it was time for them to eat and everybody was on beat with it. It was great! 


The boys absolutely loved playing with their cousin Kahlan. She was so cute with the boys. I was worried she wouldn't want to play with them since they were so much younger, but she had a lot of fun with them as well! It was great to see cousins getting a long so well and to have my boys loved by family members since they've not gotten the same love from some of my siblings. The boys are still asking to go see them and keep begging to see the pics of our trip. 


We went to the beach while we were with them. Oh man did the boys love it. I wish we lived by the beach so we could go more often. The joy on their face was amazing and the speech coming from both of them about it has been even more so. 


It ended all too quickly and Thursday was upon us once again. We left early with a 10 hour drive ahead of us. Our trip home took us right through Columbia, South Carolina where there is a zoo and we just couldn't resist getting another zoo under our belts. Our plan was to drive the 5 hours to the zoo, spend a few hours at the zoo and then drive the other 5 hours home. The drive to the zoo went smoothly and while the zoo was little (and hot) it had some great animals and we had a lot of fun! We got there 2 hours ahead of schedule and ended up getting finished with the zoo earlier than expected because it was small. Gemma and Jamesen fell asleep so we hit the road and made a mad dash towards home, trying to get as far as we could before she woke up. 

We made it about 2.5 hours in before we had to stop for dinner.  We got back in the car and it was all down hill from there. "Instamad" from Gemma occurred. Her screaming upset Jamesen and so he was crying too. It was pretty crazy! And then the rain started. I had to slow way down because there wasn't much visibility. It was such a relief when we made it back home, let me tell you! Gary greeted us with tons of loves. She was so happy we were back! 


If you want to see pics from our trip, here's the album on facebook.

 

We had lots of fun! We've also found that our front yard is FULL of tiny itty bitty baby frogs! The boys love hunting them out!

 

Anyways, that's all for now. 

Eye appointments and evals

So we had Gemma's eye appointment this morning. It is in fact ptosis. Ptosis is a blanket term for anything that's not otherwise named that makes the eyelid droop. He said that her eye was swelling from excess "stuff" inbetween the two pieces of skin that make the eyelid (the one on the outside and the one that touches our eye). She's got too much stuff in there so it swells and when she gets upset or hot, it swells more because that "stuff" gets bigger. She'll need some corrective surgery, though it's supposed to be a small incision surgery that's pretty quick and easy.

Because she's so little, he's sending us to the children's hospital up in Atlanta. He wants us to wait a few months before we do the surgery because it's not "necessary" and  he doesn't like to put small babies under when it's not life threatening stuff. So I'm just waiting to hear back from them and we'll go from there.

We were supposed to have Jamesen's evaluation for occupational therapy today but... let's just say... it didn't go well. The lady we saw today works at  a place that helps a lot of different special needs and I'm actually quite surprised she didn't know how to approach  someone with Autism. Jamesen was really excited to go into the room. He jumped on the swing and she did 2 things that ruined everything. She picked him up off the swing and said "Hang on, let's do this really quick." not only that, she kept trying to talk to him and he just kept freaking out and it was all a lost cause. There was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

We've made a plan to approach it differently on Monday. Hopefully it works!! I hope he gets use to her quickly because she's supposed to be the one helping him with the therapy. I'm sure he'll get use to her eventually but for now he's not too thrilled with a new person.

I've been talking to a few teens with CAPD. I found their blogs and have emailed back and forth with two of them. They described hearing with APD as going to France and speaking to someone who's native language is French, but knows some English so they're trying to listen to broken English with a French accent. To understand, they have to pay a lot of attention to listening. At Marcus' age, that's like.. impossible, haha! It's really nice to hear from some kids that actually have this disorder to help me figure out ways that I can help him. I'm greatly encouraged by them! They're both amazing kids.

Also can I get a few prayers for me? I feel a bit foolish asking for it but I've been having a lot of spine pain recently. It started when I got pregnant with Gemma and has gotten pretty bad since having her. I found a lump on my spine at the base of my neck. I'm going to see a chiropractor tomorrow. Hopefully it's just my back being out and he can fix it with a snap (pun intended) but I'm sure he'll clue me in if something else is wrong. I've got so much on my plate with the kids, I really can't have something be wrong with me. Please give me some prayers that it's something easily fixed and not something that will make it hard to take care of my kids :(

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD)

I'm finding myself crushed. I've thought Marcus has this for a few weeks now, but I'm more convinced than ever. I took a video of Marcus answering questions I was asking him and he had no idea what I was saying. It crushed me. I've been digging through CAPD stuff  and I found this:

Ladle Rat Rotten Hut: Little Red Riding Hood

This basically simulates how a person with CAPD hears.  I listened to the entire story 4 times. The first time, I just bawled. How can he live like this?? By the 4th time, I was understanding most of the story, as my brain got use to hearing it, knowing what the story is supposed to say. No freaking wonder he "doesn't listen" when I ask him to do something. Unless I physically show him what I mean, he has no idea what I'm saying!!

I'm so heartbroken right now but I'm even more determined to get him in to see an audiologist. I will fight tooth and nail if I have to. Please send some good thoughts and prayers our way that I can find a way to help Marcus.