Adaptive Bike

A few months back, I entered Brendon in the Great Bike Giveaway Contest for an adaptive bike.  Many friends and family were nice enough to vote for him and when he didn't win a bike, several said they wanted to help get him one.  Several people sent money, either by mail or online, and with grandma and grandpa pitching in what we were short, WE GOT HIS BIKE!  :)  We are so thankful to everyone who helped purchase it.  He loves it.  After he learns to balance and hold himself up on the bike we can start teaching him to hold onto the handlebars and how to do the pedals.  All of the seat supports are removable and the pedals have straps for his feet.  We're on our way!

Memorial Day

Today has been a good day in our autism world.  Brendon "helped" Daddy grill out by standing close to the grill and shouting "HOT" every time John opened the lid.  And he repeated "Don't touch that!" Every time he heard us say it.  You have to understand that this time last year he stuck his hand into the hot coals of an open grill last year and so we spent the rest of that afternoon in an icy pool trying to get Tylenol down him without making him throw up too much.  It was awful. 
Today, we talked him into tasting the watermelon, and even though he called it "apple" we were thrilled! 
John and I both agree that he finally WANTS to talk to us, something that he hasn't been interested in before.  He has a few words that he's been taught to say and he uses them to request what he wants to eat or do, but lately, when he doesn't know what to say, he just starts repeating everything we say.  He even repeats laughs, coughs, and sneezes!  It's sad and funny at the same time.
He's been more interested in what we're doing, lately.  For the first time, I can see he's actually interested in repeating the words for the actions of what we are showing him.  It gives me hope.  Hope that he will continue to make progress and that next Memorial Day he'll be talking to us and interacting with us even more. 

If only...

He can't talk my leg off or ask a thousand questions like a typical five year old can.  If I could just know what he's thinking...

Circle of Water

Two of my sons favorite things: circles and water, and when you combine the two he's in heaven!  He kept motioning for me to help him climb in, and saying "watau" over and over.  I think he might have said "SWIM" a couple of times.

Mysteries of Autism

I love mysteries, and it's a good thing, because I've been handed one of the all time greatest mysteries of the universe, the mind of a son with autism.  He intrigues me, frustrates me, amuses me, and drives me nuts all in the same day. 

He can read phone numbers perfectly, but is always stumped when he comes to a zero.  Does his mind confuse the zero with the letter O and a circle?  I don't know.  He knows all of his letters, but only in uppercase.  He can read some sight words, but only if and when he wants to.  He can be hilarious, but there are so many things I see and hear him do that he won't do at school or therapy.  This is so frustrating! 

I see all the time that we love and accept him exactly how he is.  We adore him.  But it's a fine line we have to walk between accepting his limitations and pushing him to do the things he can do, but doesn't want to try on his own.  Most of his life, from about 20 months until now at the age of 5, he has been in therapy of one kind or another to push him a little farther ahead than he naturally wants to go.  Has it been worth it?  It depends on how you look at it.  It hasn't cured him of autism.  He hasn't made any huge strides in therapy.  I think he learns much more at home than he does in therapy, but we have to be a team.  I can't do it all at home, school can't do it all, and neither can his therapists.  If we're all teaching him the same things, though, it eventually starts to stick.  A little.  Sometimes.  :)

Motherhood

The second John and I married, he wanted kids.  I wanted to be a mother, but not immediately.  As time went on, we began to realize it would be complicated.

When we had been married for about two years, we went to see an infertility specialist.  We underwent lots of tests and I was put on Clomid.  I did the temperature charts and received progesterone shots month after month.  No results.  Eventually we were told that IVF would be our next step.  It was at this point that we began to consider adoption. 
We found an adoption agency in Memphis and attended orientation.  Here we learned that the waiting list for each baby was 1-2 years.  On the way home from the meeting, we noticed a billboard advertising fostering to adopt and it seemed to make sense.  After all, didn't these kids need us more than the ones with the long waiting lists?

Within six weeks we had attended foster/adoption classes and were matched with a beautiful four year old girl.  A few weeks after that, we were asked if we also wanted to adopt her little sister who was thirteen months old.  We said yes.  Both girls birth mother agreed to sign them directly to us for adoption since her parental rights were going to be terminated.  Six months later their adoptions were finalized and we were officially parents!

For me, adopting our girls had completely fulfilled that hole I'd had in my heart, but we always planned to someday adopt a boy.  We told the girls that someday they would have a brother.  At one point we fostered a nine month old little boy with special needs, but he was eventually returned to his family.  Now and then, we fostered other children, but never any with the goal of adoption. 

John was gone for a year on active duty and when he returned he wanted to go ahead with IVF and try just once more to have a baby.  I agreed, and we began the long process.  I traveled back and forth to Nashville for my doctor appointments, learned to give myself shots, and literally put a while box of hormones and medications in myself in about six weeks time.  I became very ill at the end and we learned I had hyperstimulated.  Instead of making the expected 8 or 9 eggs, my ovaries had made 42.  I was hospitalized for about two weeks in Nashville.  By the time I returned to the clinic for a pregnancy test, my hopes were not high.  I was so sick.  The medications had poisoned my body.  I felt barely alive, and I didn't see how the three embryos could have possibly survived.  I was correct.  The invitro had failed. 

John was depressed.  I was grieving something I never even had.  It was a rough time.  John and I eventually separated for a few months and the girls and I lived close to my parents.

A few months later, we decided to start putting the pieces of our family back together.  It wasn't easy.  Slowly we started to heal and life seemed to be returning to normal.  My cousin called me from Arkansas and announced she was finally pregnant!  She described how she had been sick and had finally decided to take a pregnancy test.  Everything she said sounded weirdly familiar, so I decided to give it a try.  Why not?  It was POSITIVE!  I called John, but he didn't believe me.  Not after 12 years.  I took another and he started to hope it was for real.  The doctor's office confirmed it and scheduled our first sonogram.  My mom drove all the way from Illinois down to Tennessee to be at the first sonogram.  We were so excited, but I was still uneasy.  It just couldn't be, could it?  Not this easy. 

I remember being afraid to be happy.  And the look on the face of the sonographer confirmed my feelings.  She told us that the baby measured at 11 weeks, but that there was no heartbeat.  I wasn't surprised.  Sad, but not surprised.  
A tornado hit Newbern and Dyersburg Tennessee at the same time I was scheduled for a D&C.  Our house had a lot of damage that wasn't covered by insurance and we were heartbroken.  We decided to move to Illinois and start over. 
Shortly after moving to Illinois, I suspected I might be pregnant again.  I was right.  I left John a card on the table to find when he came home from work.  We were both cautiously happy.  Throughout an uneventful pregnancy I never completely relaxed or let myself believe it was really going to happen.  At every sonogram I secretly expected bad news.  When Dr. Gates finally laid my daughter on my breast I cried.  He never understood why I kept saying, "She's really REAL!" over and over.  But I didn't care.  God knew it was the first time I allowed myself to believe in her.  To believe she could actually exist.

Eighteen months later, our next miracle was born.  We finally had our son.  God has been good.  He knew my journey into motherhood would be long and difficult, so he made it more rewarding.  He allowed me to appreciate it more than some people might, because I never take one second of it for granted.  I feel like every second of motherhood is a gift and an unexpected bonus.  Sometimes I'm completely exhausted raising children who have so many special needs, but I am still in awe that God thought enough of me to entrust me with their care. 

Baby Steps!

There are teeny tiny steps Brendon takes forward that eventually do add up, but it takes looking back quite far sometimes for me to see that there is progress.  Also, Brendon has always had periods of regression that don't seem to correlate with anything.  When you mix the super slow progress and the regression it gets quite discouraging. 

Sometimes, however, he just does something new.  Period.  No regression.  Those are the times that keep me going.  Tonight, he did something new.  We celebrated my oldest daughter's nineteenth birthday with cupcakes and just for kicks I had her to blow out a candle on one as we sang the birthday song.  Now you have to understand that Brendon has never shown the slightest interest in any of his birthday cakes (he doesn't even eat cake) and he has never blown out a candle.  Tonight I caught him with the old discarded candle trying to stick it in the top of one of the leftover cupcakes.  I told him to stop and so he motioned that he wanted it in the cake and then he pretended to blow on it.  I of course spent the next hour lighting it over and over again so he could blow it out. Then, he showed us that he wanted us to clap our hands and cheer for him every time he did it. 

Next birthday he can blow out the candles on his cake!  Woo hoo!  Better late than never!

Out of the cart!

We stopped at the grocery store this evening and for the second trip in a row Brendon walked beside the cart for the entire trip.  This is BIG!  Before now, I've had to put him in a cart with his IPad on every trip.  With my six year old daughter's help we made it through the checkout without him getting too far away. 
An elderly man behind us noticed Brendon dancing around and flapping his hands happily.  He spoke directly to Brendon and said, "Oh, so you're a karate kid?"  I smiled.  Of course Brendon showed no indication of hearing or understanding him and continued his happy flappy noises, so I said, "No, he's a kid with autism."  The gentleman grinned and said, "So YOU don't get any sleep, huh?"  Maybe he had a family member with ASD, but hurray for autism awareness!  :)
We made it home and the kids are enjoying playing in the backyard.  Lauren is spinning her brother on the swing, something she knows he loves.  He's laughing and saying, "Go!" every time the swing stops.  It's a good day.  A really good day.

Our Dog

About two years ago, a starved, hairless, beaten down dog who had obviously recently had puppies was dumped out in the country around where we live.  She was so afraid of humans she ran off if she saw one of us even look out the window at her.  We began leaving food out for her and slowly moved it closer and closer to our house.  When we finally got to see her she was covered with old and new wounds and was infested with fleas and ticks. You could see every bone, but her attitude was even sadder.  She was so afraid of us that she would cower and shake.  Today, that poor dog is my son's guardian angel.  She seems to know he needs extra watching over.  If he's out playing in the rocks or swinging you can bet she's crawled under the fence and is laying close to him to watch his every move.  She's a pit/shar pei mix and a sweet and loyal member of our family who does her part to watch out for our autism angel.